Annabel looked around the small waiting room and exchanged cursory smiles with the five other young women here for the same purpose. She gritted her teeth and pretended to read her magazine. She hated these ten minute interviews where everyone came at the same time and they just processed you on a conveyor belt like so many sheep. OK it was only a week's sales promotion work but the money wasn't bad and with Dave on short time at work every little bit helped.

She glanced over the top of her magazine and appraised the competition. Damn, at least two girls were younger and prettier than her and one had truly fabulous legs. She'd done everything she could - hairdo, leg wax, even a push-up bra. She knew the score too.  She'd turned up well ahead of time and got the first number for interview.

Well she wasn't leaving anything to chance. If all that failed she had a strategy. She listened to the other girls discussing their impending interviews…'I've heard he likes straight answers..likes girls to be punctual…bit of a tartar' and she smiled to herself.  Just then the young female PA came in and called out 'Mrs Annabel Price, please' and she duly rose, straightened her skirt and followed the PA up the corridor.

Ten minutes later, Annabel stumbled back into the waiting room, sobbing violently as the other women looked up in shock. Her eyes were red and puffy, her cheeks streaming with tears and she was shaking from head to foot.  "Good grief, what on earth….?" one young woman began, then there were gasps of horror as Annabel turned her back, hoisted her skirt to her waist and displayed a shapely bare bottom etched with six purple lines.

"Yes, that's right," she shouted hysterically, "take a good look, ladies. That's the kind of obedience he wants. God , he even kept my knickers as a souvenir!" There were loud gasps of horror and five shocked young women left the room as hastily as they could.

It was not long before the PA returned for the next candidate and she stared around in bewilderment as the only person present was Annabel now restored to something like decorum. "I think they all had other interviews," she offered helpfully and the PA shrugged. "Looks like the job's yours then, Mrs Price" she said as Annabel grinned like a Cheshire cat. Shaking her fist in triumph, when alone in the corridor,  a grinning Annabel once again visited the ladies restroom before leaving the building. She took two items out of her handbag - the peeled English onion wrapped in cellophane which she flushed down the loo, and her knickers which she hastily put back on. She chortled with laughter. Dave had relished the opportunity that morning to be even more severe on her bare bottom than usual but it was all in a good cause.  It always paid to be prepared.