TSB

“A noise the deaf could not ignore!”
“Pardon?”
“Exactly. Stop all the banging.”
“Sorry.”

But not half as sorry as I will be, thought Elle as she rummaged through the desk drawer in the corridor. Once again she had misplaced an account, then the yellow letter and finally the pink letter had come. Elle had always managed to get around this by finding the original account and taking it in to the bank: white paper always arouses less suspicion, and the less pink seen the better.

“Elle? Elle all has gone quiet. Is it okay with you?”
“Yes, yes you asked for quiet. I am an obedient girlfriend.”
“Ha! Not likely.”

Actually I am obedient, but negligent. Is negligence disobedience? When it comes to matters of the purse, and of the interest upon interest accrued by late fees. How did it go? Spending leads to bending. Elle knew she was certainly banking on a spanking if she couldn’t find the account to take with her.

“Elle?”
“It is good. Go back to your croquet.”
“Cricket! Twenty-twenty cricket.”
“Whatever it is; bats and pyjamas.”
“It’s being telecast from Brisbane, it is evening there.”

Elle smiled to herself. Bats and pyjamas, that sounds like something you’d find at a high school slumber party.

“Elle! Late.”

Elle was shaken from the beginnings of a fantasy by the reminder. She was late, for work and for the bank, or at least she would be if she didn’t leave immediately. That evening would see the bats but not so much of the pyjamas if she didn’t get a wriggle on.

---

Elle worked in the city, and the regional headquarters of the bank she banked with was directly across the road. The account had been set up with the branch on the ground floor by her employer, so this was the account that her bills came out of and her pay went in to. She hadn’t time to bank before having to be at her desk, so went across in her lunch hour.

The queue reached to Spain.

Lucky queuing is our national pastime, she thought to herself with a smile. America has baseball, the Commonwealth countries have bats and pyjamas, but we could queue for gold.

Elle had hoped to write up the deposit form while standing in the queue, but as with most banks that we trust with our money but they don’t trust with their stationery, the pens were chained to the counters. She missed five places while quickly scribbling in the necessary digits, the third place taken by an old woman with what looked like a bag of doubloons.

“Pieces of eight I shouldn’t say”, joked the man who joined the queue behind her.
“I’d rather they were pieces of sixteen, and then they’d count in half the time.”
“So, do you think TSB stands for ‘The Sailors’ Bank’?”
“No it’s ‘Trusts, Savings and Bonds’...oh, I see. Yes. Yes, perhaps you get better service if you are a scurvy dog. High rates for pirates.”

The queue moved forward and the woman with the bag moved to a window to be served.

“She’s at the window now. Oh good, they’ve put her loot into one of those counting machines. Your money or your life old woman?”
“Take my life; I might need the money when I’m older.”
“Arr!”

Elle had to be flagged twice before she saw she was to move across to a window, she had been too busy wiping the giggling from her eyes.

The teller greeted Elle, then took the form from her and began to type in the numbers. She looked up, looked at Elle, looked back at the screen, and then excused herself. She returned with a man who introduced himself with some posh sort of banker’s name, and was invited to join him in a side office.

---

“Okay. Okay Miss...”
“Just call me Elle.”
“Elle. Elle there seems to be an issue with your account. You are overdrawn and also late with two payments.”

The posh banker turned a computer screen around to show Elle. She wasn’t sure what she was seeing, but the fact that the last set of digits was suffixed with “DR” told her all she needed to know.

“That’s correct, but that is why I have come in this afternoon. I wish to pay the outstanding late payments.”
“Right. And the penalty rates?”
“Oh, if there are any. I had presumed there would be some sort of fee.”
“There are no fees Elle, but there are rates.”
“So, what, a percentage? Balance plus 1%, something like that?”

Posh banker sat back in his chair.

“Do you know what sets TSB apart from the other banks Elle?”
“Not really. I bank here because I work at Jamieson’s across the road; they set the account up for me.
“But you’ve read our terms and guidelines? Every new client gets sent a booklet of terms and guidelines.”

'As if I’ve read it. No-one reads that!'

“I...glanced?”
“You should have read.”
“So what sets TSB apart from all the other banks? Is it your snazzy red uniforms?”
“No.”
“An almost fanatical devotion to the Pope?”
“We are a bank, Elle, not the Spanish Inquisition.”
“But you do have comfy chairs.”
“But our founders were Jewish.”
“Ah. No pope then.”

Just pirates. Arr!

“Quite simply Elle we know that clients of a bank can get themselves into difficulties at times. Adding fees and charges onto an overdue account helps no-one. We don’t get our money any faster, and you begin to dislike us. So we don’t do that. Once the fees get to a certain level we freeze them. Your fees have been frozen.”
“Thank you, but you spoke of rates before.”
“Correct. The simple situation is we want you to be able to repay your overdraft. You seem unable to do so, despite our financial counselling service and our free budgeting workshops. Therefore we have provided a compulsory fee-buy-back service on all of our products, and have done so since 1798.”
“The year?”
“1798, the day we opened the doors of our Cheapside trading house for the first time.”
“Okay.”
“So, as I have said this is a compulsory fee buy-back. You will pay me today the full amount of your outstanding payments, minus all fees and charges on your account. We negotiate a loan to transfer your overdraft to a lower rate of interest repayment, and restore your everyday account to a zero balance, which will be the fixed floor. You will not be able to access credit or debt.”
“And this is compulsory?”
“It will stop you getting into further trouble.”

'Into further trouble? Or further into trouble?'

“Sounds good.”
“This was detailed in our terms and guidelines pamphlet.”
“I must have missed that part.”
“You must.”
“Incidentally, I was having a discussion with a man in the queue while I was waiting for you. What does TSB actually stand for?”

Posh banker smiled.

“This is the next part of our conversation Elle. TSB is Tintangel Spanking Bank. Tintangel was the surname taken by our founder, a huge fan of the Arthuriad legends. You will be aware of the other two words.”

Click! It all fell into place for Elle.

“Rates. You have run out of patience getting your money out of me, so now you are going to beat it out of me?”
“When we were bankers for the agrarian poor, and those who followed the industrial revolution to the cities in the eighteenth century, a beating was not uncommon for defaulters. At least TSB offered this service in a safe and civilised environment, and not at the end of a thug’s club in the dead of night.”
“And I have to do this?”
“Yes, it was...”
“...mentioned in the terms and conditions.”
Elle was left in the little office while the posh banker went to find the necessary people to assist her with her transaction. He had already handled the financial side, stamping her account remittance and receiving a matching set of banknotes.

Elle was introduced to two people in smart uniforms. Brendon looked like he could scrum for the Springboks, although his accent was definitely European. The sleeveless red jumper over a pale grey long-sleeved shirt seemed to highlight the potential energy throbbing in his biceps. Melissa, the teller from before, was smaller, but still looked like she was up to the job of smacking a naughty girl's bottom with intent. Elle was sure that the red cardigan hid a set of guns that could provide shock and awe to any target, and if the pale grey nylon encased calves were anything to go by Elle was sure that Melissa had the thighs to chase down and tackle any prey foolish enough to run. Even in a skirt and ¾ inch heels the teller looked game.

“Elle, here is where you do have a choice. Historically the option available to you because of your debt is limited to the whip. In our age we employ a leather paddle which will be wielded with you across the knee of your caseworker.”

Caseworker?

“Allowing for your being female you may chose to have Brendon spank you upon your underwear, with Melissa acting as chaperone. You may otherwise choose for Melissa to spank you in private, but that would be upon bare flesh. The number of lashes is the same, as that is proportional to your balance owed. This is a ‘rate’ after all.”

Elle considered her options. The man would surely hit harder, but the woman would ask her to be naked. Even if it was just the two of them Elle didn’t think she could show her naked bottom to a stranger, even another female.

“Umm. Are we doing this now?”
“Yes.”
“Umm, then I choose the gentleman please.”

Melissa scoffed. “He’s not so gentle, ma’am. But I’d have picked him too.” She moved across to the door of the office, closing it behind the back of the departing posh banker, and then stood with her own back to it. Elle noticed a small ladder forming on Melissa’s left foot where a peep of toe cleavage showed a healthy tan through the grey nylon.

“Thank you Elle”, began Brendon, “let’s get this done then and allow you to get back to work.”

Elle shot a glance toward the clock and saw that she had seventeen minutes of her hour left. She’d not even had lunch.

Brendon sat in posh banker’s chair and indicated that Elle should approach him. As she arrived he lifted a long leather paddle off the desk and showed it to her.

“It’s more of a strap than a paddle, but it has a handle.” He glanced across at the posh banker’s computer screen and clicked the mouse twice. “According to our calculations, and considering your repayment of monies this afternoon, you are due twenty-four lashes. Are you ready?”

Elle was unable to speak. Twenty-four, (24), spanks with a leather paddle, across this man’s knees. She managed to nod.

“Then please unbuckle your trousers and lower them to your knees. Your rate shall be applied to the underwear, but outerwear must be removed. We want you to be able to restore yourself to a clothed state with your outerwear undamaged when you leave.”

Elle considered this news, and wondered whether it was worth the extra layers of clothing. Bare with the woman or barely-there with the man? No, nakedness is still nakedness; Brendon would have to do it. She glanced across to Melissa and saw her nod. Melissa had guessed what Elle had been thinking.

“All the girls think that Elle; about half change their mind at this point,” Melissa offered.

“Brendon.” Elle declared her choice and began to unbuckle her belt.

The belt and button were easy to do, but the zip was not. Not that the functioning of the zip was impaired, but the final act of unzipping to then lower her trousers, or pull your pants down young lady as she heard in her head, brought her into a realisation of what was about to occur.

“Is there no other way?”
“Only if you choose Melissa.”

Elle unzipped her trousers and dropped them to her knees, she straightened her tights and lay herself across Brendon’s lap before she could think to back out. As if in solidarity with her Brendon began the flogging immediately.

Melissa winced as the beating continued. She had been on the receiving end of one of Brendon’s spankings the previous morning when she had failed a Professional Development task. Skirt up, tights down, and nine pelvis shattering smacks with a wooden paddle across the seat of her panties had convinced her that attentiveness was a better option than the mini-bar when she spent a weekend in the capital.

CRACK! Twelve!
CRACK! Thirteen
CRACK! Fourteeeeeeeeeeen!

Elle remembered that she had a late night coming tonight. There was to be a subcommittee meeting until seven o’clock and she had offered to remain and take minutes. Two extra hours of sitting on swollen buttocks.

CRACK! Twenty-two oooo hooo hooo hoooooooooooo!

---
Elle winced as she stepped from her car and onto the driveway outside her house. A solid trousers-down spanking and a long afternoon of sitting at her desk had left her feeling rather tender. She heard the front door open and looked up with a smile, happy to be home.

“Elle? Just after you left this morning I found a letter from the bank under the breakfast table.” He waved the letter at her with his left hand.

In his right hand he was holding her hairbrush.