For Ursula's birthday. 

The Tao Of Spanking
By Xanthe

“Ow! Fuck…what the…? ALEX! FOX!” Skinner roared, from where he lay amid the cushions that had fallen from the upturned couch. Around him, the air was filled with the merrily tinkling sounds of…Skinner didn’t know what they were but they were annoying the hell out of him. Two men appeared in the living room, and surveyed their prone top anxiously.

“Walter…you’re on the floor,” Fox said helpfully.

Skinner rolled his eyes. “Your deductive skills, as ever, never cease to amaze me,” he growled. “I knew there was a reason why the FBI employed you.”

“Did you fall over?” Alex’s green eyes were wide with worry as he rushed forward and offered Skinner his hand.

Skinner rolled his eyes again. “No, I like sitting amid the remains of my couch with these damn…whatever they are bells clanging together like that giving me a headache. Of course I fell over, you idiot!” 

“Wind chimes,” Alex told him.

“I beg your pardon?” Skinner submitted, with very poor grace, to being hauled to his feet by his two subs. 

“They’re wind chimes,” Alex informed him, righting the couch and then helping Fox to seat their irate top on it before checking him for injury.

“I don’t care what they are, what I want to know is why are they in my apartment – and who the hell moved my couch!” Skinner bellowed. He knew he was shouting but he didn’t care. It had been a long hard week and he had been looking forward to a weekend with his two attentive if sometimes slightly wayward subs, and instead found himself tripping over his couch which mysteriously seemed to have moved from its usual position over by window to right in front of the door – just beneath the clanging bells which were still pealing away merrily to themselves.

“Feng Shui,” Alex told him, kneeling in front of him and removing his top’s shoes while Mulder fussed around behind Skinner, undoing his tie and opening the top button of his shirt.

“Those had better not be some new swear words or your mouth will taste of soap, boy,” Skinner said with less menace than his words implied as he was actually feeling a little better for all the attention that was being lavished on him. Alex giggled – which was always a nice sound, Skinner thought to himself. Much better than the damn racket those wind chimes had made when he walked into them prior to falling over the mysteriously translocating couch.

“They’re not swear words, Walter – Feng Shui is what Alex has been studying. You did tell us both to get a hobby, Walter,” Fox reminded him helpfully, patting his top’s bald head lovingly. “You said that as part of our sub’s training we should study something so we had some homework to keep us quiet in the evenings instead of always pestering you and squabbling with each other. Remember?”

Skinner had to grudgingly concede that he did remember. 

“Well, Alex took up Feng Shui,” Fox explained, coming to kneel next to Skinner’s other sub at their top’s feet.

“And what, pray tell, is Feng Shui?” Skinner frowned, glancing at Alex sharply. Alex knelt up straight, a serene glow in his green eyes.

“Feng Shui is the ancient Oriental art of living harmoniously with the energy of the surrounding environment which naturally leads to the art of placement, not only of buildings, but of everything within them,” Alex intoned without a hint of mischief in his definitely artless expression. Skinner frowned even more deeply. Somehow, and he wasn’t sure how, he had the feeling that he was being taken for a ride.

“And that means in plain English?” He prompted.

“Everything has a chi, which is the Chinese word for energy, and how a room is decorated and furnished can impede the chi of our living environment, making us unhappy,” Alex told him, in that same deeply respectful tone. 

“That’s why you moved the couch?” Skinner growled, thinking he’d never heard such a lot of nonsense in his entire life. Alex gave him a decidedly Oriental bow of his head, combined with an equally Oriental inscrutable smile.

“That’s right,” Alex said and Skinner got the feeling that his sub was itching to address his top as ‘grasshopper’ but only a sound common sense and concern for the whiteness of his own bottom was preventing him from doing so. “The couch was facing the door you see, Walter, and thus we sat with our feet to the door while watching TV.”

“And this is bad because…?” Skinner asked, although he wasn’t entirely sure that he wanted to know the answer.

“Because one is carried feet first through the door when in one’s coffin,” Alex told him. “Thus we were inviting death into our abode.” There was something about the way Alex’s green eyes were sparkling that made Skinner wonder whether this was something his naughty sub was making up as he went along, but he wasn’t sure, and he didn’t want to discourage the younger man if he really was taking all this mumbo jumbo seriously.

“Hmmm,” was all he said.

Mulder smiled and got to his feet. “I think, Walter, that it’s time for me to show you what I’ve learned in my new hobby.” Somehow Mulder’s smile wasn’t very reassuring. Skinner eyed him suspiciously. “I’ve been studying Shiatsu,” Mulder told him angelically.

“What the hell is that when it’s at home?” Skinner growled, feeling under siege.

“It’s an Ancient Oriental art of…” 

“I should have guessed,” Skinner sighed.

“…healing therapy,” Mulder finished.

“Healing therapy?”

Mulder looked as if butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth, and yet…there was something about the abnormally bright glow in his sub’s eyes that Skinner wasn’t so sure about. 

“Yes, Walter. Let me explain while I show you.” Mulder helped Skinner onto his back, and then took firm hold of his arm and began to press down on it. “The philosophy underlying Shiatsu is that vital energy known as Ki – that’s the Japanese name for the Chi that Alex was talking about, flows throughout the body in a series of channels called meridians. For many different reasons Ki can stop flowing freely and this then produces a symptom.” Mulder pressed down hard on Skinner’s right forearm and the older man gave a yelp of pain. Mulder shook his head sadly. “Your energy is blocked here, Walter,” he said. “Probably as the result of too much arm strain. You should keep your right arm still for…oh, at least a month,” he glanced at Alex with a gleam in his eyes, “and ensure that you don’t encounter too much stress. I don’t know if you’re familiar with the concept of ‘tao’, Walter, but it’s an ancient Oriental way of following a path to serenity, and achieving balance. You should just let go, be serene, allow things that would usually make you angry to just roll over you and not take any, uh, punitive action to redress them.”

“You know,” Skinner said slowly, seeing where this was going. “I think you’re right, Fox.”

“You do? I am? Uh, of course I am.” Mulder smiled and gave a low Oriental bow. “I’ve studied this very deeply, as you instructed, Walter.”

“I’ve done some studying of my own as a matter of fact, boys,” Skinner informed them, his brown eyes twinkling seraphically. “Let me show you what I’ve learned…” 

Half an hour later, Skinner surveyed his two naked subs with a satisfied smile. Mulder was tied on his back on the massage table in the Dungeon, his legs wide open and attached to a ceiling hook, thus keeping his bottom slightly off the table and available for correction. His arms were neatly bound by rope criss-crossed in a nicely uniform pattern that was thoroughly pleasing on the eye, Skinner thought to himself.  A definite work of art. 

Alex, meanwhile, was hanging from the ceiling in a harness, his alabaster legs and arms spread wide open in the shape of a starfish, his bottom neatly jutting out - and looking extremely inviting.

“Hang on…there’s just one thing missing,” Skinner said, surveying Alex critically. He ran out of the Dungeon and back to the living room before returning with the wind chimes, which he hung from Alex’s beautiful cock, tying them in place with a green velvet ribbon. “There. That sounds just right,” he said, tweaking Alex’s cock playfully so that the wind chimes pealed, their song chiming joyfully around the enclosed Dungeon. Alex fixed him with a mournful look.

“Walter, that’s not fair,” he said.

“Neither is it fair that you two naughty...” Skinner punctuated that word by slapping Alex’s white bottom firmly, delighting when that made Alex’s cock
move and the wind chimes pealed as a result, “...boys thought you could get me to change my mind about you taking up a hobby by making up all this new age crap.”

“Well it wasn’t fair!” Mulder complained, as Skinner began rolling up his shirt-sleeves with intent. “Why do *we* have to take up a hobby, and go to classes, and do homework when you don’t?”

“That’s where you’re wrong.” Skinner smiled maliciously. “I do have a hobby. Let me introduce you to the Tao of Spanking.” Skinner ignored Mulder and Alex’s groans – he was thoroughly enjoying himself. “This is an Ancient Oriental Art for chastising naughty boys,” he said, with a grin. “First of all, you tie your boys in interesting positions, then you add sound effects.” He pointed at Alex’s bound, wind chime-appendaged cock. “And then…” Skinner raised his arm. “You unblock your spanking chi by doing this!” And so saying he brought his hand down firmly on Alex’s bottom several time in succession until the wind chimes were making a cacophony of sound that was matched only by the yells emanating from Alex’s own throat as his bottom was transformed into a beautiful shade of deep pink. “And when that’s done…you turn your attention to your other naughty sub.” Skinner reached out his other arm and began spanking both men in unison, until the entire room was filled with the sound of spanks, sobs, and merrily pealing wind chimes. Skinner’s arms were like windmills as they delivered spank after spank on the two perfectly positioned, vulnerable and entirely
helpless backsides.

“You know, boys,” Skinner roared over the many other sounds in the room. “I’m feeling so much more energised, so much more relaxed.” Skinner laughed, surveying the two glowing asses in front of him. “In fact, I think I can safely say, my naughty grasshoppers, that the road to enlightenment begins with two very red bottoms!”

The End

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