Real life spanking is not as rare as you might think, but photographic evidence usually is.

However, here is a recent real life picture from a college barbecue. The evidence of a serious spanking can be seen on the girl’s bottom and one wonders at her bravado in wearing so skimpy a bathing costume.

Given the context of where it was found it may be a sorority girl following an initiation, although this is unconfirmed, but that might explain her public humiliation and choice of outfit.

Angel watched the perfect creature cross the quad. Her gothic hair cut with an angled fringe in a shock of black that matched her heavy eye shadow. Her fierce dark brown eyes defied the world to challenge her and drew a picture of a girl that Angel wanted to be.

Like Angel, Domino was 18 and in her last year at school. She was a new girl and had started quite a stir when she had first arrived. Her name alone, apparently her genuine given name, had raised eyebrows. The rumour was that she had been taken out of her liberal arts school by her father, although one might suspect that Domino did not approve.

How did she get away with it? Angel wondered longingly, she would never have dared to have been so rebellious.

“You still mooning over Domino,” Miranda asked seeing where her friend’s gaze had settled. “You know old Bentley will clip her wings soon enough, he’s just biding his time like he does with all the new girls.”

Miranda was used to Angel’s crushes, she went through two per term and always it was the most unsuitable girls that she fixated upon. Everyone but her, Miranda thought wistfully.

“Oh I am not,” Angel blushed. “I am too old for crushes,” she lied.

Miranda liked the way that Angel blushed; it suited her round face surrounded as it was by her strawberry blonde hair. Angel was a study in roundness and in the nicest way. Little circles of her small breasts pressed against her school jumper and her bottom was two perfect bubbles enclosed within another beneath her regulation skirt.

*

John Bentley stood at the window of his study that overlooked much of the inner part of the school. Looking out, the housemaster watched Domino as she crossed the quad and he let out a long slow tired breath through his nose.

“Testing time for the new girl is coming to an end I fear,” Bentley sighed. “I had rather hoped that she would have settled down by now.”

“Who’s that?” Kat Hayley said with sudden interest looking up from her tea. Following John Bentley’s eyes she saw the new girl, the Goth with the stupid name. “She’s crossing the quad,” Kat exclaimed. “Are you going to let her get away with that?”

Kat tried to suppress her excitement. The prospect of girls in trouble had always held a strange fascination for Kat, and from where she was standing, Domino was heading for lots of it.

“No,” Bentley said tartly and began to stir his own tea.

Kat shivered with some unnamed pleasure. Despite being well into his 40s, John Bentley was the kind of man that Kat had always been drawn too. Tall and athletic with short thick greying hair, just the right side of white at the temples. She looked at his hands where he gripped the teacup. Hands better suited to a cricket bat, shotgun or… she licked her lips, his cane.

At 28 Kat Hayley had come to the school in search of a new life. That had been a year before. One of the reasons she had chosen Chadsworth was that even in the 1990s it still had the cane. She had told herself that the order and discipline of the school would be less stressful, but in her heart she knew there were other reasons.

*

Domino stood lazily in front of her housemaster threatening the world with her pout. Her top button was undone revealing a forbidden silver skull medallion at her neck, the dead face of which looked more attentive at that moment than the 18-year-old Goth did. Even with her head tilted sideways to favour the short side of her radical hairstyle, the longer edge of black was well onto her shoulder.

“Are you listening to me?” John Bentley said with a sharpened tone. “Your hair has to be up or cut even and well off the shoulder on both sides. As for that… jewellery, if I can call it that, it is not an acceptable alternative to a crucifix. Not by a damn sight. In fact it is downright offensive.”

“I bought it in this really cool shop in Chelsea,” Domino said sniffily, “My hair too.”

“Do you imagine I care,” Bentley said rubbing the bridge of his nose.

Domino shrugged.

“Stand up straight,” Bentley barked suddenly, shaking Domino from her complacency. “After we are finished here you will go to matron and have her do something with… this.” The housemaster batted the air with the back of his hand, indicating Domino’s coiffeur. “Now give me that… that pirate bauble is it?”

“You can’t it’s mine…” Domino said sullenly, but with uncertainty creeping into her voice.

Bentley cut her off, “you will give me that now.” His eyes flashed demonically.

Domino’s hands went involuntarily to her throat and to her surprise began to fiddle with the clasp.

“As I was saying,” Bentley continued as he turned away to fetch something, not even looking to see if he would be obeyed, “after we have finished here you will see matron about your hair etcetera and then you will return here and we will talk about the quad and the rules pertaining to it.”

Domino blanched a little, she didn’t know he knew about crossing the quad. What did he mean finished and what did he mean about coming back? Normally she would have spoken this aloud, why wouldn’t she? But today some primeval sense of self-preservation closed her mouth.

Bentley extended one hand towards her to take the forbidden medallion; his other, Domino noticed held a cane.

“What’s that? I mean what are you… you going to do with that?” Domino had heard about this. It had been part of the induction. It had been in the notes her father had made her sign.

“This, my girl, is a cane,” Bentley cut the air with it. “And I am going to place it across your bare bottom several times. With some vigour I might add.”

Domino gaped, her eyes wide as for the first time in her life she listened to a teacher.

*

“Don’t do it Angel,” Miranda hissed.

But too late; Angel steeled herself and with one last look round she stepped onto the quad floor as if it were a pit of snakes. Domino has to notice me now, she thought gleefully. She felt like a hunted rabbit as she walked across the quad as quickly as she could without actually running.

She almost made it when she saw Domino. The object of her affections was walking slowly on the side path, carefully almost painfully putting one foot in front of the other. The Goth girl was staring miserably at her feet and if Angel didn’t know any better, she could have sworn that she had been crying.

That was not all. Her hair had been cut short into a crude short bob, the lopsided fringe that had obscured her right eye now level. Her face had a scrubbed look to it without a hint of her trademark heavy eye make-up.

Angel stopped and gaped in horror. What could have happened?

“Angel Webster,” came an imperious voice, “You girl.”

Angel started and looked up. Like a king on a palace balcony, Mr Bentley stood glaring down at her.

“Me Sir,” Angel said with a gulp. Then she realised she was still standing in the quad.

“I think you had better come up and see me, don’t you?”

“Yes Sir,” Angel groaned.

*

Angel felt a bit shaky and not a little sick. The quad was out of bounds, what had she been thinking?

“Do I take it that you wish to follow in young Domino’s footsteps?” Bentley said wearily.

“Sir?” Angel said quizzically, her voice barely a whisper.

“The quad, you were crossing the quad. I mean, I presume you have not joined the teaching staff since breakfast this morning?”

“No Sir I…”

“So you thought you would take a leaf out of Domino’s handbook on how not to survive Chadsworth?”

“No Sir, I mean well Sir… I mean…”

“I have not had cause to cane you before,” Bentley said taking up the stick from his desk.

The scratch-rattle of wood on wood set Angel’s teeth on edge.

“Copycat actions call for a reciprocal response,” Bentley continued, “You might not have been caned before, but you know the drill.”

“Yes Sir,” Angel said miserably.

She slowly unbuttoned her blazer while the housemaster turned an old tattered armchair away from the wall so that its back faced the middle of the room. There was no unbleached patch on the carpet underneath as might be found under other furniture in the room; this chair was moved too often for that. Indeed this was the second time today he had turned it to face the wall. Bentley tapped the seat of the chair with the cane tip as Angel reluctantly stepped forward so that the front of her thighs pressed against the back of the chair. Tucking her school tie into her blouse she flopped forward so that her elbows touched the seat of the chair and her skirt-clad bottom was elevated.

Glancing down, Bentley sighed and flipped Angel’s skirt up for her, extracting a small gasp from the nervous 18-year-old as he did so. Then an age passed as she waited on the rest. Debagging wasn’t inevitable, certainly not for a first taste of the stick, but a bare-bender was the traditional sanction for a quad invasion.

Bentley let out a long slow breath and then said in an efficient tone, “don’t dawdle there lets have those down.”

Tears pricked at Angel’s eyes and she remembered he had said ‘reciprocal response.’ Domino had been caned on the bare then, she realised and took a strange comfort from that as she rocked her hips to work the last veil of modesty over her hips.

It wouldn’t have been so bad if Bentley had shown the least pleasure at her exposure, but the old disciplinarian was too business-like for that.

The cane sliced with a thwack that cut deep and Angel announced it with a wet wail. You cry-baby, she cursed herself, but a quick succession of strokes stole her thoughts.

There were eight strokes in all. Each one searingly placed below the last and none of which were allowed to stop singing before the next arrived. In all the caning took less than a minute, by which time Angel was blubbing like a sprog.

“Alright pull them up,” Bentley growled.

Angel got unsteadily to her feet and hastened to obey. She stopped to wipe her eyes with her sleeve, cursing the fact that her nose was running.

Bentley dropped the cane onto the desk with a clatter and the turned expectantly to face her.

Angel sniffed and managed to remember to extend her hand out to the housemaster. “Thank you Sir,” she said, her voice slightly strained.

“Alright, get out,” Bentley said with a sigh, adding, “You silly girl.”

Angel stumbled for the door and not waiting for it to fully open, squeezed through the narrow gap like a fleeing cat. Immediately on the other side she clamped her hands to her bottom and burst into tears again. She might have given her tears full voice, but there by the window was a very sorry looking Domino.

“You can’t be serious,” Angel gasped.

Domino just ducked her head, her face at least as red as her bottom must have been. Two canings in one day, Angel marvelled, I think I’ll pass on that.

“You okay?” Domino mumbled. It was probably the first two words she had ever spoken to Angel. It was almost worth a caning.

Then remembering herself Angel could only nod before she managed, “you?”

“He… I already got… I…” Domino looked far from the cool kid today. In fact she sounded downright childish as she added, “How many did you get for the quad?”

“Eight,” Angel said ruefully. “On the… with my…”

“Down? Yes I know.”

*

Kat kept her distance as she watched first Angel and then Domino come from the direction of John Bentley’s study. Both looked in a sorry state compared with how they went in; although only marginally so in Domino’s case.

She couldn’t explain it, but she needed to get close to the action; to drink it all in. Taking a deep breath she walked with determined strides towards the housemaster’s study and knocked on the door.

“Come in,” Bentley said from within. He sounded like God.

Kat crept into the room like a student and then stood staring at the great man with a stupid expression on her face.

“And what do I owe this pleasure?” Bentley said as he put another teacup on the tray. “Oh I presume…?”

“Yes… eh thanks.” Kat worked her mouth and struggled for something else to say.

“It is funny you know,” Bentley said without looking up. “You come here at least twice a day for tea, but you never do seem to have a reason.”

“I… that is you…” Kat blushed and looked at her feet. My God, she thought, is this how the girls behave when they are in here?

“Yes?” Bentley handed Kat a cup of tea.

“You just caned,” Kat cleared her throat, “Angel and… eh that new girl…”

“Domino, yes I did. What of it?”

“I was just… I mean I was never… I…” Kat put the cup down. She felt completely stupid.

“I see.” Bentley smiled and put his own cup down. “If you come here one more time without a good reason, I think I will satisfy your curiosity,” he said with a wink.

“Oh,” Kat blanched, “Oh I…” She bolted for the door.

*

Twenty minutes later there was a knock at Bentley’s door.

“Come in Kat,” he said easily.

After a long pause a shamefaced teacher crept and cringed into the room.

“Are you here for tea or do you actually have a good reason this time?”

“Neither I think,” Kat whispered.

Bentley drew himself up and tried to hold her gaze. Neither of them spoke until the room became so still the cries from the far off sports field could be heard. Finally Kat lifted her gaze and met his eyes.

“You know how this is done?” Bentley smiled sympathetically.

Kat shook her head a little and blushed.

“Then I will explain,” Bentley said taking up the cane.

Five minutes later a girlish squeak could be heard at the end of the passage leading to Bentley’s study, followed by a definite wail that only a sprog would make at her first caning. Except that these wails had a decidedly more mature edge to them. Three sixth formers in a day had to be some kind of record, Miranda thought as she hurried on. If Bentley was in a caning mood she would make herself very scarce. Besides Angel was finally very amenable to some very intimate TLC and she had much better things to do.

Inside Bentley’s study Kat lay folded over the back of his tatty armchair panting for England. Eight vivid red ridges stood up on her ample bare bottom and the Victoria plum staining was beginning to merge into a single bar.

“Do you usually… I mean this many?” Kat didn’t know what she was asking. A tear rolled down the crease between her nose and her cheek.

“It won’t be over until I decide it is,” Bentley said firmly.

“Yes Sir,” Kat panted.

“Seven more right where you sit,” he said evilly, and why not he thought, she had asked for it.

Helpless, Kat steeled herself. Much more than she could handle, she thought. Just as she had always thought it would be.

The next stroke drew a scream.

*

Kat didn’t bother to dress after the handshake and instead leaned against the mantle trying to catch her breath as Bentley poured some more tea.

“I’ll take mine standing up,” Kat smiled through her still copious tears. “It will probably be my last cup for a while,” she added as she took the cup and saucer in an unsteady hand.

“Thursday, you can take tea with me again then. Standing up of course,” Bentley said firmly.

“Thursday,” Kat gaped, “that’s three days.”

“Do you good,” Bentley said with a grin.

“Yes Sir,” Kat said reluctantly, but something thrilled inside her; her curiosity still not satisfied.

Ends.

One was having a little chat the other day with one who knows. She said that the cane is one of the things that she fears most.

That got us talking about personal histories of the cane and why it has such a hold on some people’s collective psyches.

One has to suspect that the image of the cane will be rather different for the English than it is for anyone else. That is because for anyone over 40 the cane was an integral part of their schooldays and for some, those educated privately, still a personal memory for those as young as 30.

Initially it was suggested that the cane was much more of a masculine correction. Certainly a friend from those days recently rather cheerfully recalled how he was often caned as if it were of no account.

However, it was pointed out that girls didn’t and often don’t talk about these things. One was informed that girls at one particular school, were cane and often on the bare. And that this happened to them at 18 almost as much and perhaps more often that it happened to the boys at her school, but they just didn’t talk about it. This was as recently as 1991 and furthermore, the school in question was still caning girls up until 1999.

Thinking back to one’s own schooldays, the two or three incidents of girl-caning were all too unlikely to be isolated incidents. In fact the older girls got, the more likely it was to happen in secret.

Two 18-year-olds in the sixth both admitted being embarrassed when signing the permission slips. Why bother if they weren’t caned?

There was one notorious teacher, Miss G, who took every opportunity to deliver a light spanking to older girls in her class. It was something of a standing joke. But thinking back Miss G was a deputy head and empowered to cane. Just what were all those girls doing going to see her on a Friday afternoon? Teenage boys can be so dim.

So perhaps the cane holds more fear for a woman these days (an English woman anyway, in Scotland and elsewhere in the UK the strap was used), because it was never a subject of banter for them, just a secret and painful embarassment.

He had made her stand on the half stair above the entrance hall. To be sure she was out of sight of the door for now, but that could always change. Her nose was to the corner, exactly touching the point at which the two walls met at the foot of the second set of stairs going up. It was a popular place for him to leave her. However, today it was much, much worse.

For one thing, his housekeeper was around. He had always promised her that to be truly tamed she needed witnesses for her discipline. Today it seemed it would come to pass. To make matters even worse, she had been made to stand at half-squat with her knees touching the wall as well as her nose. This had the effect of thrusting her bare bottom out obscenely behind.

Perhaps from the cold, Anne shivered, although familiar butterflies assailed her lower belly and despite being dressed in just a corset with stockings, there was no real chill. Her outfit was expensive; a hair-matching black-brown chocolate silk with delicate cream details, like the tiny bows at her hips. He had chosen it for her, just as he selected everything she wore.

Her hands were clasped into the small of her back just above her jutting behind and she dared not move them, so she had to shake her thick helmet-bobbed hair to pull a stray strand from her perfect natural pout.

Somewhere the dull thump of the housekeeper going about her business made Anne cringe. What does she think of me? The thought flooded her face with a blush as delicate and red as the one that would soon grace her bottom. Why do I put myself through this?

It had all begun years ago while she was still at school. Then it had been another master who had dwelt in her thoughts. An English master called Mr Grey. She had been 18 and in her last days at Chad’s, an old fashioned school with traditional standards of discipline. The type of establishment whose time-honoured methods had been swept away by progressive human rights legislation brought in during the dying days of the millennium.

Mr Grey had summoned her after a veritable cascade of failings and two previous warnings. Her previous essay had more than just rattled his cage and when he had found her sitting cigarette in hand in the linen cupboard, his invitation had been grim.

The creaky wooden stairs up to his study were oaken and dark with age; a black-brown that matched both her hair and her mood. Each step on the venerable planks was too loud and seemed to announce her passage to the whole school, causing her to stop after every step and listen. As she did so she was overwhelmed by the dank odour. The wooden stairwell and the wide parquet floor reeked of polish, a smell that would linger in her mind for ever afterwards.

Then from somewhere below was the clank of a door slamming. A moment later the draft of its impact rushed passed her as if to urge her on. Perhaps another master was coming; it didn’t do to dawdle, so she hurried on.

The door to Mr Grey’s study was of the same dark oak as the stairs, but it was dressed with subtle panels that had seen much better days. There was a patch of worn varnish above the door knob where eons of students had knocked at the end of the self same journey as hers.

She paused.

Did she hear a creak within? Did he know she was there waiting? She knocked. Her knuckles made little impression, so after another short wait she wrapped again, only harder. Too loud.

She half expected leering boys to emerge from hidey holes to mock her, but the only sound was her own breathing and far-off youthful shouts from the distant games field. Today she could have been an avid sports fan.

Still there was no reply. She hated this. Should she knock again?

“Come,” his muffled dark voice came from within.

Although she had been expecting it, nevertheless she started and anxiously rubbed her thighs beneath her blue pleated skirt.

Anne had read in a book once of how time had hung on end. She hadn’t known what that had meant then, but now as she reached for the door knob her arm became lost in intention. The reach in her mind was faster than the actual motion so that she seemed to forever extend an arm to grasp the hard shiny sphere of greasy oak. It was paler in colour than the door. As if someone had replaced it at some time in the door’s life; another pointless detail to be remembered.

Then suddenly the door rattled open and for a moment Anne was outside herself and watching her own entrance.

Mr Grey sniffed sharply at the sight of her as if only now remembering the unpleasant association to come. He was old, she thought, at least near 40. With a rugged dark complexion and grizzled short grey hair that matched his eyes.

The boys liked him, she remembered. He was fair they said and he knew about rugger and the more fashionable football that was rarely played at Chad’s. Anne hated sport almost as much as she disliked English. Who had made Shakespeare God anyway? As for Chaucer; what was that all about? The word ‘mastery’ popped into her head for some reason.

“Miss Auten,” Mr Grey said pleasantly.

The use of the title spelled trouble. Mostly she was just Anne. ‘Ought Auten to, or oughtn’t she not?” It was a childish tease she hadn’t heard since she was a sprog. It played around her head now and she thought of prefects.

“You know why you are here,” he continued.

“No Sir,” she said instinctively. Keep him talking, words couldn’t hurt her.

He put his pleasant manner down and regarded her with his hard grey eyes.

“Oh that,” she amended averting her own.

“That,” he agreed. “Or rather shall we say that ‘those,’ as I believe we have quite an assembly of deficiencies to address.”

Anne rolled her eyes. She hated bloody English and bloody English teachers. Oh you have deficiencies as well do you sir, she almost quipped. Was suicide catching? If she survived maybe he would jump out of the window after she had left.

Instead she said, “Yes Sir.”

“Your essay was…” His voice tailed off into a disappointed growl as he picked up a piece of paper. “Yes well… warned for tardiness, imposition for…”

He cast the foolscap aside and moved behind his desk.

“Miss Auten,” he said scratching his ear in irritation.

“Yes Sir,” Anne said brightly, which sounded a little cheeky even to her.

“Let us keep this very simple. Today we will deal with the smoking, by way of a marker as it were,” he said. “As for the rest… no more warnings. This is your very last.”

“Yes Sir,” Anne said. She couldn’t help but show some relief.

Then he reached for something on his desk and there was unmistakeable sound of the scratch-clack of wood upon wood.

The cane was finger-thick and dark to the point of black. At regular intervals were pale ‘knuckles’ marking the slow growth of the Malacca it had been cut from.

Anne’s eyes seized upon it and she swallowed.

“You know the drill,” Mr Grey sounded bored now.

She did.

“I…” Anne had never been caned. Her hands strayed to her sides and she gripped at her skirt.

“Miss Auten please, if you will.” It was not a request.

“How…?” She felt sick and she managed to blanche and blush both at once; a sudden raspberry colour melting on her face right up to her ears on otherwise stark white skin.

“I see no reason to grant you any particular favour, do you?”

A standard caning then. She worked her mouth and found it dry.

Mr Grey held the cane up level with his face and flexed it between two hands. “Well?” His voice was a sharp rasp.

Anne turned slowly to face the back of an old worn-out stuffed chair. It had only one purpose. Stepping forward she felt the frayed back of the seat press against the front of her thighs. Then grabbing her skirt from the sides she began to work it up like a curtain. Once it was clear of her bottom so that her pale cream knickers and blue stocking-tops were revealed, she flopped forward so that she dangled like a fish on a hook into the seat of the chair.

A hope, a small hope, hung in the air and she held her breath. Then she felt fingers at the waist of her underwear. With no drama or ceremony the cotton briefs slid with a shuck against her bare thighs to expose her round wide bottom to his gaze. She gasped.

The slight chill gathered at her exposed bottom tickling it and she felt the skin tighten into goosepimples.

Her heart and mind raced in unison with the hot hard pulsing of her ears as she blushed ready to die.

Perhaps he admired the shading between her thighs and the curve of her bottom, but he didn’t linger.

The cane stroke was a biting line of fire before she had even heard it; a throbbing line that cut and continued to saw even as the next joined it a cane’s-breadth beneath it.

Surprise had stilled her tongue for the first, but the second made her yelp girlishly. Would a boy have been braver? Such considerations were lost with the next stroke and by five the cane was at the fold and beyond all silence.

In all he placed eight across her bottom and by the end she was left bent over and breathing like a saw mill. She didn’t move until he said so. Then she got unsteadily to her feet and eased her knickers over her stripes.

She wanted to hate him, but just then he seemed like God, his authority tickling at her neck and elsewhere to join in one all over fuzzy feeling. It was the same one she got when a boy smiled at her.

She wanted to cry for him, to show that him that he had won, but the dam wouldn’t break.

“I trust I won’t see you again Anne,” Mr Grey said sadly.

Anne sounded like forgiveness and she smiled shyly as she shook his hand.

“No Sir,” she gushed.

Never had she wanted to please anyone so much. At that moment she would have given anything to try her hardest for him and… and… still fail.

The walk to the bathroom was a dream, although with every step the cane throbbed in her seat. Even when she saw the damage and finally begun to cry, she could not help stare at the plum ridges in the mirror for the better part of an hour. Lost in narcissism, she fingered the raised lines, hissing at the touch of her hands and then pressing her scolding cane scratches again and again.

It had been her last caning at school and she had been 20 before she had found a new master to serve.

Now she served him.

Her back ached now, just a little; a dull twinge that let her know she had been in the corner for a good while. Once upon a time she would have said too long, but he had trained her away from such notions. She would stand in the corner until he released her.

Just then she heard a sound on the stair and she sensed the housekeeper behind her. The woman said nothing but continued to lug the vacuum cleaner upstairs, which was confirmed a few moments later by the irritating shush-wail on the upper landing.

Anne’s face burned in shame, she wasn’t even worth a cutting remark; she was just a naughty girl in the corner; her bottom still jutting out in an obscene display as she awaited the cane. In her mind he was watching her; he was always watching, for he was always with her.

Ends.

“This is crazy,” Rachel yelled, beyond rage. “I paid my fees, I have a double first…”

Her case tumbled through her brain as a list too long to recount.

“I am the best student on the damn course,” the English woman spluttered as she continued, “No drugs, no drink, no…”

“This is a private university with very definite rules, you knew this when you came here,” the Dean silenced her using a reasonable tone, his New England accent suddenly sounding alien and hostile to her. “In this country we respect the rules and in any case, this school was built on British traditions going back to 18…”

“1886, yes I know,” Rachel sighed. Why did everyone keep saying that as if it was old or something, half the state-run primary schools in London were at least that age?

The Dean frowned. He disliked her tone.

“Miss Parker, you fell below the minimum expected grade average on two successive papers,” he said sharply. “It matters not that you have an overall grade average that is adequate or that in your arrogance you assume you can just recover your position, the rules quite clearly state…”

“But I am 26; a self-funded postgraduate, you can’t just… cane me out of some hokey back woods notions…”

“Back woods notions? Hokey? This is a Christian establishment going back to…”

“Yes, yes, 1886, it’s practically biblical,” she sneered sarcastically.

“Miss Parker, you are not doing yourself any favours here. You knew the rules when you signed up at the little induction we held at my house you said they were… how did you put it? Quaint.”

Rachel bit her tongue. She also remembered the conversation with Jackson, her tutor, who had practically head-hunted her.

“Spanking? The cane? What kind of place is this?” She had been incredulous.

“Oh that’s for undergraduates mostly,” Jackson had said dismissively, “a lot spoilt brats whose parents pay us to take care of. The graduate students are under the same discipline but… well usually their tutor’s sign off on it and things can get… handled.”

Rachel had subsequently learned that Jackson was much more centrally involved in the whole spanking thing than he had let on. In fact she had had some amusing times observing his methods first hand when students had accepted informally being ‘handled’ by him in place of the Dean.

As if reading her mind, the Dean said, “I’ll tell you what, I’ll put a note on your record and refer you to Professor Jackson and let you two work it out together.”

At last, Rachel thought, somewhat relieved. The bastard knew he was going to do that all along and was just making her squirm.

“Take this discipline slip to Dr Winter and make a formal appointment,” the Dean said officiously as he dashed off a note.

“A formal appointment? What to see Jackson?” It was all Rachel could do not throw the paper in his face. And why the hell do I have to go through that bitch Dr Winter, she thought angrily.

“I assume you do not want me to handle this anymore than I do?” The Dean glared at her over the rims of his spectacles.

“No,” Rachel sighed, rolling her eyes up.

“Then do me the courtesy of observing school procedure,” the Dean growled. “What happens between you and Professor Jackson is entirely between you.”

Rachel stared back at him sullenly for a long moment and then took the note with a toss of her dark hair.

“Fine,” she spat.

*

Dr Winter viewed the paper with a smirk.

“Someone has been a very naughty girl,” she said.

Rachel glared at the woman who was not much older than her and waited for Jackson’s graduate assistant to say something constructive. But when she just sat there rereading the note over and over to savour it Rachel finally lost patience.

“Okay, so you have the damn note, I don’t care if you ‘make an appointment or not’ I’m heading over there,” Rachel said impatiently.

“Just a moment,” Dr Winter said, suddenly sounding serious, “That’s for me to decide.”

“Fine,” Rachel said wearily, “Decide.”

“Don’t use that tone with me,” Dr Winter snapped her blue eyes flashing. “It’s time Jackson’s favourite student was taken down a peg or two. Talk to me like that again and I’ll refer you to a student honour court. Then it will be out of Professor Jackson’s hands altogether.”

Rachel blanched. So far she had had nothing to do with the crazy bitches over at the student union and their infinitely convoluted traditions. As a graduate student she had the privilege of opting out. Except, she know realised, if she was under formal discipline from the Dean. Until she saw Jackson so that he could sign off on it she was walking on very thin ice.

She had heard of student courts and hours of tedious po-faced pompous lecturing followed by fines, latrine cleaning, curfews and more than once private and public paddlings.

On her first day there she had witnessed a woe-faced girl crossing the quad with very small careful steps. The 30 swats on the bare she had received at the hands of the honour court was the talk of the campus.

“Okay, okay, I’m sorry,” Rachel said as placatingly as she could. “What do I have to do?”

Dr Winter grinned and leaned forward.

“If I sign you into my custody and you, as a graduate student countersign, then Professor Jackson will have the last word and you can stand on privilege as far as the honour court or the dean is concerned.”

“Fine, where do I sign?”

“Miss Parker, I haven’t finished speaking,” Dr Winter said sharply.

Rachel put up her hands and fell silent.

“You will accompany me over to Professor Jackson’s office building where, if he is able to see you today, you will be subject to standard disciplinary protocol until your appointment. If not, I will bring to your room in hall where you remain under curfew until sent for. Do you understand?”

“Yes,” Rachel said with a sigh.

“Right then, sign here and here.”

*

Rachel couldn’t believe it, that bitch, that… bitch, she seethed.

All the way across the campus to the office she had had a growing feeling of foreboding. The word ‘protocol’ rattled around her brain and dim memories of Winter’s peripheral role in Jackson’s spanking activities came back to haunt her.

Then on reaching the office block where Jackson had his study Dr Winter hadn’t waited to see if Rachel would comply with the protocols, she had merely pulled a Greek-style paddle from a closet and asked two of the secretaries to join them.

“Miss Jackson is under disciplinary protocols,” Dr Winter intoned. “I think Professor Jackson will want to see her and I think she should wait in the required manner.”

The two women smirked and Dr Winter hefted the paddle menacingly.

“I do hope you try to back out,” she said patting the smooth surface of the paddle’s blade.

“I said I’d wait didn’t I?” Rachel said nervously.

“Then remove everything below the waist and wait in the hall with your nose to the wall.”

“What?” But…”

“These ladies will assist and then you’ll get four or five swats if I get any arguments.”

That was how Rachel came to be standing in the lower hall facing the wall like high school kid in just her blouse, bra and ankle socks, her bare bottom ready to moon anyone who entered the building.

The internal office door where she had been made to undress was now locked, as was the door up to Jackson’s study. The only way out was the front door which led onto the campus. That was just not an option.

Bitch, she thought bitterly, careful not to speak aloud.

The wait was hell. Every few minutes the office door would open and Dr Winter would make sure she was still facing the wall like a ‘good girl.’ Worse still was the prospect that someone would enter the campus through the front door.

Finally when Jackson arrived, she took one look at his greying sandy hair and easy smile and was ready to run to his arm and cry. This is so embarrassing, she thought.

“I had heard that the dean had sent for you,” he said evenly, barely hiding his appreciation of her predicament. “I told you your grades were slipping and I warned you the dean got all the marks automatically. Hell, he saw yours before I did.”

“But you marked them…” For a moment Rachel forgot she was half-naked in semi-public and rounded on him.

“I suggest you turn and face the wall before I have you marched back to your room just as you are.” Jackson voice was sharp with authority and Rachel ducked her head around to face the wall without a thought.

“But… Jackson please, this is…”

“Just you…” he said wagging his finger sternly.

“Ooh,” Rachel wailed and stamped her foot.

“I’ll see you in a minute; you have some explaining to do young lady,” Jackson growled as he turned to the door to the stairs up to his office.

Rachel held her position for a moment until the office door opened and she heard open sniggering from Dr Winter.

“Jackson you bastard,” she yelled and managed to get to the closing door upstairs before it closed.

She was not so lucky at the top and had to bang impotently on the door to his study.

“Jackson, open this door.”

Behind the door at the foot of the stairs opened and Dr Winter stood there grinning, paddle in hand.

“Oh dear, oh dear,” she said.

*

It was an hour before she was finally called into see Jackson. Her still bared bottom carried a healthy red stain from half a dozen paddle swats from Dr Winter, which had left her with a somewhat more humble demeanour.

“I was going to let you stew for a bit and then send for you,” Jackson said, flexing the cane between his fingers. “But now I think I am going to put you in your place.”

“But…” Rachel’s eyes were wide and she took half a step backwards.

“Come now you were on hand often enough to witness others get caned,” he said sombrely. “You had your fun and now it’s time to pay the piper.”

“But Jackson please,” she wailed.

“Poor marks gets you cane marks I am afraid.”

Rachel looked at her feet. Al of this would have not been so bad if it hadn’t gone through the Dean and Dr Winter.

“Can’t I?”

“Bend over the desk,” Jackson said sternly and watched while he was obeyed.

He waited until her bottom was jutting back and up the way he liked it, before tapping her smooth spheres with his cane.

“Jackson,” she whispered.

Then the cane cut like fire and her face was suddenly gripped with an expression of awe. He waited as the plum line developed against the white of her bottom and then struck again.

Jackson lay on 12 in all as his student panted and groaned across the desk.

“No more,” she wailed.

“Are you asking or telling?” He said sharply, caning her once more.

“Jackson, please,” she wept.

“Okay, we’re done,” he tossed the cane down beside her.

“May I get up?”

He nodded and then realising she was still facing forward he said, “Yes.”

“Oh Jackson,” she exploded and ran to his arms.

They hugged and kissed for several long minutes until her head found his shoulder.

“I said… I said… you didn’t have to…” Her voice was that of a lost girl.

“Engineer a caning? I didn’t,” he said, “But when I saw that joke of a paper you turned in I knew you were.”

She pulled away, just a little, so that he could see her small smile.

“Maybe,” she lisped.

Ends.

(Picture lifted from Pink)

Not to be too presumptuous, judging from feedback I know that most of you out there like relationship punishment spankings and romantic spankings. This is pretty much where we are all at these days to a greater or lesser extent. But one of the things that first got many people’s attention when it came to spanking was hearing rumours around the neighbourhood about who still got ‘good hidings.’ Not those of childhood, which for some were an occupational hazard, but those of otherwise confident young women that you heard about just as you were stepping into adulthood.

The phrase ‘good hidings’ sounds extreme, but was about as graphic as it got. No one said spanking, it was too girly and the girls rarely spoke and as one got older, into sixth form, college, work etc, of course the frequency of such talk faded still further. I only heard of one 18-21-year-old still scared of his Dad’s belt by this time. Nonetheless, every scrap or hint that the confident young women around you may still be getting spanked was gold to a budding spanko.

The guys never seemed to have any reluctance to talk about this stuff compared to the girls, which is perhaps understandable. Yet stories from the UK and the US suggest that some women were spanked and seemed to accept that they would be.

One young woman, 17-20 when I knew her, was scared to go home even 10 minutes late because her Dad would spank her, or so she said. She might have exaggerated as she did later admit to a kink. She did on one occasion when she was 18, crash her father’s car during a driving lesson with him. Her boyfriend reported that he couldn’t see her for two weeks as she was grounded (kept-in we called it then) and added words to the effect ‘she won’t want to even think about sitting in a car until then anyway,’ or so the story went by the time she told us about it.

Around this time one of the Sunday newspapers carried an excerpt from some woman’s autobiography. The exact details fade now, but she did casually mention that she and her sister used to get ‘good hidings’ (that phrase again) right up until they left home. Again, this is not an anecdote of a childhood spanking, but one about two young working women who still lived at home.

Apparently her father would summon them to the utility room where they had to bare their bottoms and bend over the washing machine for licks of his belt. She told the story fondly, perhaps because according to her, her sister was mostly on the receiving end. She expanded on this by saying that one day her sister had gone out against her father’s wishes. She told of how sister had worn a tight sweater and a beret and was well in with the sophisticated jazz crowd. It amused her that on this night sister returned home stinking of fags at two in the morning and had gone straight to the utility room without being asked to bend bare-bottomed over the washing machine.

Another journalist wrote about seeing his sisters sent to the woodshed in the American Mid-West. He said he was immune from such treatment from the age of 16, but that his older sisters, by then adults, still had to submit while they lived at home.

He told of college-aged women, a teacher and his elder sister who worked on the local newspaper all having at some time or another having been ‘sent out back.’

Dad was an old-fashioned guy who would leave them to it for a while and then fetch a strop from the kitchen wall and then go and find them. He expected them to have removed any necessary clothing to receive the leather on their bare bottoms.

Again from memory, he said, “As a kid in my teens I would sneak out to watch. It was an early education on the anatomy of women. But by the time I was 19 or so I had a better sense of propriety and anyway they knew I peeked and were less prepared to tolerate it as I grew to manhood.”

He goes on to say his sisters were quite vocal during in their punishments and you could hear the fall of the strap throughout the house.

At the time none of this struck me as particularly sexist (which with hindsight it is of course) and at the time I certainly wasn’t interested in the social-politics of it, assuming that any of it was true of course. But assuming it happened at all then one wondered about the level of acceptance required for these arrangements. Did it fulfil a need? Was accepting paternal authority a kind of permission for themselves to explore something without the world knowing? Or was it out of habit? Why did they put up with it?

Most of us have probably moved on from such things and explore spanking more knowingly in our sex lives, but such things were the fuel for the seeds that we have within us.

Our story started here.

Chelsea could feel the flare of the strap in her bottom with every step and realised that she wouldn’t be sitting down for a day or two. She couldn’t complain about that, she had had far worse spankings. Such things were part of the ebb and flow of her life. The shame and embarrassment of being chastised so before Stephan and his sister would last far longer, she thought ruefully.

These thoughts assailed her as she made her way to breakfast that she forgot how hungry she was until she got there and the smell of bacon and fresh toast took her attention.

“Good morning Chelsea,” Aunt Sarah said stiffly, “I trust you slept well.”

“Not really,” Chelsea replied, completely unable to meet her aunt’s eyes. “The sheets chafed and besides I couldn’t get facing everyone today out of my head.”

Reaching for the coffee pot Aunt Sarah was about to reply, but then she paused to wince and shifted uneasily in her chair. It was difficulty for her to appear comfortable while balancing the edge of the seat against her thigh tops. For a moment she pondered fetching a pillow like the one that graced Chelsea’s chair, but that would be far too embarrassing in front of the girls.

Chelsea eyed the pillow and blushed; the truth was even that concession would not suffice that morning.

“I think I’ll stand,” she said ruefully.

“Oh yes… eh stand here at my place, it’s easier for you I think,” Aunt Sarah said smoothly as she slid across to the place that had been set out for Chelsea.

She hoped that no one noticed that she didn’t move the pillow.

“Thanks,” Chelsea said, lost in thought.

Then she took a bite of toast, but despite her hunger, the delicate slice tasted like cardboard in her mouth.

“Can I stay home today?” She asked miserably.

“Oh come on, it won’t be so bad,” Aunt Sarah said kindly, “Stephan Gates is a discreet young man. I’ll warrant he won’t say a word to the other young men.”

“I am sure he won’t, but Cecilia will tell everyone,” Chelsea wailed.

“I dare say she will and there will be a bit of joshing for a day or two. But none of these girls is immune from a sound spanking now and then. I happen to know that Cecilia has been spanked many times. For one thing she spent a good deal of time in the corner after being spanked at her cousin’s wedding a few years back,” Aunt Sarah said cheerfully.

“Yes when she was a kid,” an un-mollified Chelsea said grumpily.

“She was well past 18 and fully embraced by the church as a sister,” Aunt Sarah retorted, “Else it would hardly be appropriate, as well you know.”

“But it always seems to happen to me,” Chelsea said with a pout.

“You are spanked no more than you require,” Aunt Sarah said dismissively, “And don’t tell me that you don’t test Uncle Sedge on purpose.”

“Yes but that’s… well not when the Reverend is here, that’s not what I wanted,” Chelsea moaned.

“It’s not about what you want,” Aunt Sarah said calmly.

Chelsea knew it was true and ducked her head into her plate.

“You know when I was your age, I too was sent to live with an elder for instruction while I attended college. Uncle Garth was an old-school lay preacher, a strict observer like Reverend Gates, but with your Uncle Sedge’s resolve,” Aunt Sarah said kindly.

Aunt Sarah’s eyes glazed over as if remembering something fondly.

Chelsea had heard much of this before, but she never tired of it.

“Many books were still banned back then, but of course no education was complete without some grounding in them. But because I could not read them openly as you do now, I had to go to see illegals and other dubious sources,” Aunt Sarah explained. “One day I was caught and there was hell to pay. I am sure you can imagine my punishments at the hands of the college authorities and as you know I was excluded for a year. I think I did not sit down for a month and every meal was taken standing up in the corner wearing a penitent dress; visitors or not.”

Chelsea was rapt now, this was better than a dime novel or a melodrama at the theatre.

“After that Uncle Garth had a zero tolerance for me. If I was not in by the time the clock stopped striking the hour I went to the corner without supper and was soundly spanked after much as you were last night.” Aunt Sarah smiled.

“You still visit with Uncle Garth don’t you Aunt Sarah,” Alice put in as she entered the room.

“Yes dear and I am eternally grateful to him for all he did for me,” her aunt replied.

“And the spankings too,” Chelsea said softly.

“And the spankings too,” Aunt Sarah winked, “Especially the spankings.”

*

The red-roofed college buildings had matching red bricks with white-washed masonry framing the door and windows. It was a largely two-storey affair apart from the administration building and the dome covering the main hall. Mature trees ran right up to the college walls, leaving only an open area in front where pale gravel paths criss-crossed before leading the walkers into the depths of the undergrowth.

Chelsea paused, drawing in a long careful breath before allowing it to escape. To her chest were clutched a bundle of books borne like a shield before her. If only I could wear a veil, like the strict observers sometimes do, she thought idly, conscious now that despite her posture of nonchalance, her face was a beacon of red.

Worse still, several women passing her on her way to class were beginning to stare; perhaps wondering why she was loitering there, as if her blushes were explanation enough. After all most of them had had days like these.

“Oh well, here goes nothing,” Chelsea said ruefully, taking two great strides towards the main steps in front.

It was a bold action that she immediately regretted as her bottom flared under skirts and a bout of wincing grimaces played out on her face. A slightly younger woman seeing this chuckled out loud and hurried on past.

Okay then, slow careful steps, but not too slow, just take it easy, Chelsea thought. God I wish Candida was here.

“You alright there?” The voice came from left-field.

Chelsea threw a look in its direction and saw Mandy Mead with two or three others hovering by the bottom of the steps. Among them was Cecilia.

“I’m fine,” Chelsea said in a tight voice.

“Sure? You look a little… stiff. I mean that is an awfully strange gait you have.” Mandy sounded all light and sympathy, but the tittering of the other girls revealed the lie.

Chelsea glowered at her and began to ascend the steps.

“Cecilia tells me you had a paddy-whacking yesterday,” Mandy persisted. “Corner time in a penitent dress can be such a bitch. And in front of the Reverend Gates and the dreamy Stephan too.”

“Oh not a paddy-whacking, that makes it sound… too dignified,” Cecilia drawled. “It was a spanking.”

Not strictly true, Chelsea cursed, she had been spared going over Uncle Sedge’s knee, but she knew the untruth was designed to engage her in denials. Dignity Chelsea, Chelsea tried to calm herself.

“A spanking on the bare botty over the knee; what in front of everyone?” Mandy said in mock-surprise. Her voice was too loud and several other students glanced over, openly amused now.

“No,” Chelsea hissed without turning around as she reached the door.

“Well actually she had to kneel on a divan with her bare bottom sticking up for the strap,” Cecilia oh-so kindly explained. “It was obscene in front of the men like that. No wonder she bawled like a kid.”

The raucous laughter was silenced only by the door closing behind her. Happy days, Chelsea thought with bitter irony.

*

An assembly had been called over at the main hall and given that the room was not quite larger enough to accommodate everyone it was rather crowded. It gave Chelsea the excuse to slip in a little late and lean against a wall at the back where she didn’t have to sit down. In front of her she could see women swinging their heads from side to side, constantly shifting to get a better view of the stage. At least Chelsea didn’t have that handicap.

Usually at these general assemblies the best seats were at the back where a girl could doze in relative comfort or catch-up on homework while the Dean or one of his assistants droned on. Today, however, the hall had definitely filled up from the front. And this before the proceedings had even started.

The reason was clear at once, on stage, three young women in penitent dresses were facing the back wall in a re-run of Chelsea’s fate of the day before. All three had their hands firmly on their heads and even from the back it was obvious that they were mortified. Chelsea had never seen such red ears and necks before. That was not the only redness in evidence. All three had bared bottoms, as was inevitable in a penitent dress and it was obvious that two of the three had already been spanked. One quite soundly if the purple rash covering both bottom cheeks was anything to go by. The girl in the middle, by contrast, had only light mottling to the under curves of her bottom as if she had got the slipper or similar at some time in the last 12 hours.

Evidently these were the three skinny-dippers the whole town had been whispering about and at least two of the girls had already been at least partially dealt with by their guardians. Chelsea might have speculated more but just then the dean entered followed by four of the church elders lead by Reverend Gates. The low hum of broken whispers immediately ceased and apart from the odd drag of a chair and some coughing, the room fell silent.

“Ladies, if I may have your attention,” the Dean began.

From where Chelsea stood the Dean already had the full attention of the room, but perhaps he could still see a handful of girls chatting or perhaps he wanted to pause for affect, but a long silence followed his words.

He was a tall imposing man with short red wire-like hair. His tailored dark grey suit served to emphasise the power of his shoulders which gave him an air of authority. Now stood, as he was, in a row of men whom everyone knew were elders, he was all but elevated to a godlike status.

“As you know during college time we fully expect our ladies to be fully engaged in their studies,” the Dean began, his booming voice carrying easily to where Chelsea stood, “We do not expect young ladies of this institution to wander off in pursuit of some mischief of their own. And when that mischief includes displays of public nudity, designed it seems, to attract the inappropriate attention of our returning young men, then this is totally unacceptable.”

The reverend and the assembled elders nodded somberly in agreement with this.

Chelsea noticed that one of the bare-bottomed girls stood behind him shuffled a little. She was the so far unspanked girl, with a small tight well-defined bottom that looked far too tanned for this to have been her first offence.

“The penalty for going out of bounds is a sound paddling from either the girls’ tutor or from me,” the Dean continued. “And if this had been the extent of their transgressions then no doubt you would not have been troubled by what is sadly an almost daily occurrence here on campus. However, when such behaviour is coupled not only with such… such lude displays, but also most unseemly… well behaviour more suitable to a jezebel, then nothing less than a school punishment is called for.”

Again the elders nodded somberly and some of the assembled women began muttering.

“You may well be shocked,” the Dean intoned, patting his hands down in the air to get the room back under control, “But this is not the first time such events have happened.”

Chelsea smirked and remembered the previous year’s end of season celebration when half the school graduates had run naked into the sea. Having made the error of technically still being under the Dean’s jurisdiction, a great many bottoms had paid for their fun. It had taken weeks for all the girls to meet the Dean at separate appointments. But one by one they had all been summoned back over the summer for a private paddling and the ringleaders had received a school punishment at the start of the new semester. The elders and guardians had insisted upon it.

“In future, not only will any such infractions be severely dealt with, but parents and guardians will be informed and guilty parties will be dealt with by the elders as well as this college.” The Dean let the words sink in to an almost silent assembly of shocked heads.

Paddled in school, paddled at home, was an old mantra and almost all the girls here would expect nothing less. Chelsea had learned this to her cost over the years. But a punishment at the hands of the elders was a grim prospect indeed.

“Now, after I have paddled these three miscreants here on stage, they will remain facing the refractory wall for the remainder of this day. Then for the rest of this semester they will wear their penitent dresses while on campus. I know that the elders will be speaking to guardians and this penalty may well be extended to other areas of their lives, but that is not my concern today. In additional, while these girls are in disgrace, all privileges are rescinded and they will be put on PC.

Chelsea gasped at this. PC or punishment chores were bad enough, but for a whole semester in a penitent dress, the girls would have nowhere to hide. A week of such punishment would have been a fun distraction, but this was scary.

She guessed that most of her fellow students thought the same, because no one reacted when the first girl was taken from the wall by a tutor and led to a punishment stool to bend over.

Chelsea recognised her vaguely; it was the girl who had been recently spanked with a slipper or something like, probably a reactionary punishment by an irate guardian. This was going to be worse.

From her expression Chelsea could see that the girl was mortified and was in an indecent haste to bend over the stool. Chelsea suspected that she wanted to hide her face and get things over with.

The Dean wasted no time. Picking up the paddle he moved behind the girl’s proffered behind and patted it with the flat striking face. It was a standard model, long and thin so that it flexed. Chelsea knew that some tutors used a short drilled short thick paddle that could really get a girl’s attention. This standard one was for prolonged use and could really sting.

Something caught in Chelsea’s throat and her chest swelled as her head became light. Around the hall there was a collective holding of breath as the Dean raised his arm and lined up the paddle to the girl’s exposed bottom.

When the swat came, it was with a movement of his shoulder that caused it to be swept down in a blur. From where she stood at the back Chelsea saw the girls’ head jerk before she heard the thwack of impact and four hundred girls blinked in unison.

The white oval embossed on the girl’s bottom was stark for a moment and then it flooded first with pink and then deep red. Like a reverse traffic light, this was signal for the next swat.

This time the girl grunted and even from the back, Chelsea could hear her panting.

Unlike the punishment she had received from Uncle Sedge, this was fast an efficient. The paddle fell at five or six beat intervals and in short order the bare bottom under the paddle became dark red. At the seventh or eighth crack of the paddle the girl’s grunt became a wail. After that she loudly announced each paddle fall until by the twelfth and final swat she had broken to sobs.

Ooh, that’s got to hurt, Chelsea said silently as the girl got unsteadily to her feet. Her bottom was a beacon and drew a few gasps from the room. But even before she had taken her place facing the wall the next girl, the already spanked girl with a purple bottom had stepped forward and flopped belligerently over the stool.

The paddle rose and fell much as for the first punishment, but this time the girl took it in silence. It was Maddy Talent, Chelsea realised, class president and all-round sporty girl. Damn, Chelsea thought, she would have savoured Maddy’s paddling from the first if she had realised. But already the moist-eyed but silent Maddy was returning stiffly to the wall.

The third girl didn’t move when she was told and the Dean had to give the order twice.

“Please I…” The girl sounded strained.

It was then that Chelsea realised it was Tammy, the girl that Candida’s father mentored and served as guardian to. She was a cute timid creature who never got into trouble. Given the paucity of spanking in Candida’s house, she was probably rarely spanked.

“Tammy, step forward and take your punishment or you will see me after school in addition to this,” the Dean sounded impatient.

Tammy swallowed and cast a glance at the audience. She looked like a bunny heading for the pot. Then as if coming to a decision, she walked forward and bent over the stool so that her pert bottom formed a cute little dome. Her bottom was fuller and rounder than the first girl’s, but not as large and heroic as Maddy’s. It shook a little as she presented it.

The first swat wasn’t as hard as Maddy had got, or so it seemed to Chelsea, but Tammy yelped and her arms fluttered in front of her like an injured bird. The second yelp came almost before the paddle struck a second time, as if she had anticipated and a few girls in the audience laughed.

You need more spankings girl, Candida’s dad has done you no favours, Chelsea thought as the third swat extracted an extended pained wail from Tammy.

Nevertheless, she did well enough and made it to seven swats before she broke down and began to cry openly. Although she might have begged a little from the 10^th swat, Chelsea couldn’t quite hear.

Finally all three girls were back facing in the wall, two of them sobbing hard. Only Maddy seemed to remain stoical. Then Chelsea saw the class president turn a little and whispered something to Tammy. Even from the back, despite all of Maddy’s bravery, Chelsea could see that there were copious tears rolling down her cheeks.

To be continued…

This is another of the pictures sent in by Sam. I have obscured the faces in case it is the real life picture of a college spanking that is claimed.

The back-story is (or is claimed to be) a 20-year-old woman is being spanked at her Christian community college witnessed by a friend (the photographer) and a female member of staff. The picture was later published by the girl herself (on Facebook it was suggested) in either a spirit of bravado or as a protest.

It may equally be a set-up, an elaborate birthday spanking or a scene from a movie. As ever, you decide.

It seems that LSF are determined to publisher a sizeable proportion of my back catalogue. (Is that a double entendre or a pun?) Anyway, hot on the heels of the novella, Lizzie Baines, comes the re-publishing of The Academy (originally published as The Academy: the future of spanking).

There are two original works in the pipeline, but before then there are plans afoot to publish other works, including a collection of short stories to be sold on Amazon.

Getting back to the Academy; it is largely a dystopian sci-fi story that centres on a secret government project to save the world in the guise of some intrigue. Oh and there is quite a bit of spanking.

I had no hand in writing the publishers blurb but I kind of like it. It runs thus:

Founded after ‘The Fall’ when the world was changed forever and women outnumber men three to one, the Academy is a place of training for young women between 19 and 25. In this school, teachers are punished as well as the students! Having escaped prison, five new girls are sent to The Academy as an alternative.

All are nervous and horrified by the idea of corporal punishment. Kate is particularly brash and insolent, and quite determined that no-one will lay a hand on her, let alone a cane or a paddle. But deep down, she is as scared as the rest. It is not long before the girls plus new arrivals experience the disciplinary regime of The Academy.

But who are The Sacred Sisters of Revenge? And is Callie all she appears to be? Deceptions and punishments abound in this erotic tale of adult discipline.

For those who want a copy it is available here.

LSF have published another story of mine. This time it is the novella first published in five parts as the Bannerman Saga and includes the stories The Life and Times of Rachel Kent, The Wise Fools and The Last Days of Eden.

It is an eclectic western adventure about a spoilt girl from ‘back east’ tamed by the strong-willed cowboy and of frontier life at home and at school spanning two generations of cousins.

For those who want it for their kindle or just to keep it is available from Amazon or LSF direct.

Our story began here.

War Child
“I don’t care what that woman’s argument with me is, she has no right involving Katrin,” Fear raged as he swept into Amber’s cave. “What I want to know, is she the demonic traitor or not?”

Amber swallowed hard, since his encounter with the demon the Black magus had been acting emotionally, erratic even.

“Well if she has been… seduced by Praelium or Inlecebra for that matter, then she is not strictly speaking herself,” Amber countered.

“You think Tugaal could be at work here too,” Fear’s heart skipped at the mention of his arch-nemesis other name.

“No,” Amber said hesitantly, “I don’t think so. This has all the hallmarks of the Worm not the Raven. You see… oh the gods.”

Amber hated taking a lead in such matters and so far her research had been inconclusive. She had hoped that Lucy Greystoke would have got back to her with more of her own findings, but to date Amber had been on her own.

“Speak,” Fear said, as he struggled to rein in his anger.

“Praelium,” she lowered her voice as if speaking its name would summon it, “Can I just call it or more correctly her, for this creature described using the feminine in both the arcane and classic tongues, or better yet can I call her the Worm?”

“You speak of Praelium?” Fear said boldly as if daring the creature to appear, “Call it what you will.”

“It seems that Worm burrows into the soul of the corrupted and utterly enslaves them. As with the snakes and worms of legend, this creature has many heads, all aspects of the same demon,” Amber explained.

“You are saying that there may be more than one traitor?” Fear pressed her.

“In essence yes, although not necessarily more than one here at Pandoria. The Worm, or so the old stories tell us, finds a victim close to the ones or places it wishes to corrupt and then having done so moves on,” Amber continued.

“So if we follow Demdike’s prophecy… then this worm-woman creature may have first manifested itself in Challis and then spread to other courts and key positions like Pandoria?” Fear said thoughtfully.

“That would be my guess,” Amber agreed.

“So if it has taken Maxine… well we can kiss goodbye to the fleet… but others too maybe infected,” Fear sighed.

“I am afraid so,” Amber said through gritted teeth.

“You say the creature is female? Does it target women then?” Fear asked. “That would certainly explain Maxine.”

“To be honest, I know only that the feminine form in the old tongues is used when describing it. But given that the demon is born of Wild Magic, the area of magic most associated with women, then…” Amber shrugged.

“I see, then why not witches? I mean why doesn’t it target witches?” Fear asked.

Amber frowned and thought for a minute.

“Perhaps it has… although maybe witches and other Wild magic practitioners are in fact less vulnerable because they recognise the danger,” Amber suggested, “In any case, how many witches do you know are close to positions of power and influence?”

“This is getting us nowhere,” Fear groaned. “Isn’t there anything we can do?”

“To identify compromised persons you mean?” Amber asked him seriously.

“Yes,” Fear said urgently.

Amber ran her fingers through her hair and gave a heavy sigh. There was a way that just might render some results, she thought, but Fear was not going to like it.

*

Rachel Dvanjester stood nervously outside the Scroll Keeper’s office. The fact that the Grand Magus had denied a request from the Magister to convene a full hearing to assess her case was at least encouraging. Nevertheless, Sejanus Jacelon was a mean old bastard of the old school and taking up the slack he had referred her situation to lesser court of her peers.

Rachel, having made a full confession, had laid herself open to charges relating to failing to report her suspicions about Maxine sooner and eavesdropping on a meeting in the Grand Magus’ office, which in the heat of the moments she had confessed to. Frankly, she thought, it was only this that was unambiguously wrong, the rest was rather circumstantial. How was she to know there was a serious traitor in their midst until Tabitha told her about the rumours?

In fact it wasn’t until Maestro William Tulore had pointed out collaboration with a traitor in wartime was a serious matter, that Rachel had realised the extent of the trouble she was in.

“Come now,” Lucy had spoken up, “That is going too far.”

“She is a student for the god’s sake and as an apprentice she was in an impossible position,” Dr Fear had interjected. “It is Maxine who deserves our ire.”

“Technically we are not at war anyway and in this case Arlon has a point,” Davidus had said.

The debate had lost its force quickly after that and that was how she came to be outside the Scroll Keeper’s office waiting to be seen by… she heaved a sigh. She didn’t even know that.

The worst part was the waiting. Minute by minute her confidence deserted her and a speech rehearsed and polished in her head quickly sounded feeble and irrelevant until she had scrapped it and reviewed the matter over and over in her mind.

Then as with all such things the door suddenly opened unexpectedly.

“You are Dvanjester.” The young man at the door was dressed all in black and carried himself like a senior journeyman. “Your presence is required.”

The knot in Rachel’s tummy made her feel sick and she had feeling as if she was out of time and place and that it was someone else going to the gallows. She felt like a passenger in her own body.

She followed the man into the room and saw that the Scroll Keeper was already there sitting off to one side of the room. Her eyes were drawn to a row of faces sitting behind a long table.

There were four men and a woman all journeymen except for the man in the centre who Rachel recognised as one of William Tulore’s adepts. No doubt he was the chair of this disciplinary panel.

He was somewhat older than all but one of the others and he wore dark burgundy robes that signified he was a fire adept.

The woman wore white a robe that matched her pale blonder hair. It made her look noble somehow, like the personification of justice. Rachel offered her a small smile, but the woman was stony faced.

Also on the panel was a ruddy-faced youth with bad ache in a brown robe, a boy about Rachel’s age in blue like hers and a rather serious looking much older man with salt and pepper hair dressed in mustard robes. He looked far too old to be a student, but many such people populated Pandoria as teaching assistants. Also he may have received his calling late Rachel pondered.

The young man who had fetched her in moved off to sit next to the Scroll Keeper.

“You are Rachel Dvanjester?” the adept intoned.

“Yes, yes Sir,” Rachel said in a strained voice.

“We have been convened as a disciplinary board,” he said, “As you can see Sejanus Jacelon is present but he is merely an adviser and an observer here. It is we who will decide your… punishment.”

The white-blonde woman on the panel coughed.

“If punishment is warranted,” the adept quickly amended.

“Yes Sir,” Rachel said nervously.

“You need not know our names at this point,” the adept told her, “Know only that we have been chosen to hear your case.”

*

Katrin looked like a flour-drenched shadow as she sat in the corner. Her hair was tied back to reveal her face, which although still beautiful, looked drained and haunted.

“Are you sure… I mean if you are not ready for…” Fear said anxiously.

“No, I want to do it,” Katrin said urgently, although her voice sounded strained and husky.

“Are you sure?” Amber asked, concern was etched on her face, “These rituals are quite… challenging.”

Katrin’s eyes darted around the room as if she was expecting something to leap out of the shadows at her. Only Fear’s presence gave her any comfort, and that was scant enough.

“Oh, I’m sure,” she croaked.

“You have to understand that our only real connection to the demon is you. You may be able to give us an insight into the beast that attacked you or… well since it is also connected to the other one…” Amber sighed, “I really don’t know what will happen, but anything we can learn about that Triptych is…”

Useful, helpful, damning… any of these could apply or none. Amber was beginning to wish that she had not started this.

“What do we need to do?” Fear asked, seeing her doubt.

“I would like to involve Meredith and perhaps Erin and Tabitha,” Amber said lightly as if she expected Fear to object.

But the Black Mage only nodded.

“Where do we start?” Fear asked.

“Given our last encounter, I would like to start outside and well away from the buildings or anyone else,” Amber suggested.

“That makes sense,” Fear agreed, “Gather who and what you need. I will talk to Davidus and get his permission. He may want to put additional… arrangements in place.”

“There is a mountain clearing well beyond High Point,” Amber said.

“I know it, is that where we will meet?” Fear nodded.

Amber let out a long sigh and said, “Yes.”

*

Rachel had put up no defence and had thrown herself on the board’s mercy. What had followed had been a terrifying round of hard glances and muttered huddles. The words detention, suspension, demotion and expulsion had been bandied around in excited whispers.

“Expulsion is beyond your remit,” Sejanus had interjected at one point.

It had been the only bright spot in the proceedings.

A short while later Rachel noticed the woman in white and the adept-chair with their heads together whispering.

“I think given Rachel Dvanjester’s obvious contrition and the prevailing situation, suspension and other such sanctions will only serve to distract resources and see this affair drawn out. In any case, no charges have been brought against Maxine Du Jared as yet and it would not serve justice shift too much blame here,” the adept said bringing the panel to some order. “The only clear transgression is being out of bounds and spying on the Magister in conference. A relatively minor offence I would opine. So letting all other matters fall… after being noted of course, I suggest we proceed to a traditional Dovecote solution to resolve this quickly.”

The female journeyman on the panel sat back and chewed thoughtfully on the inside of her cheek. She knew what was coming although from the small eruption of muttering from the men, they did not.

“What have you decided?” Sejanus asked in a matter-of-fact tone.

Next to him the black-robed journeyman who had first admitted Rachel sat scribbling furiously as he took minutes.

“I suggest that here and now, Rachel Dvanjester receive a corporal sanction on her person,” the adept-chair announced.

Rachel swallowed. Part of her had feared as much and she had harboured visions of being sent to Dniester. This might turn out being worse she thought.

“You mean…?” the spotty youth put in.

“How would we do it?” said the older journeyman.

“We should fetch a whipping stool and then have her disrobe,” the woman told them. “I suggest we use a senior grade paddle.”

“I don’t know where we can get such a thing or a stool for that matter,” the young man in the blue robes said.

“Oh I do,” the woman told him.

*
Rachel stood facing the wall dressed only in her shift. She had been ordered to place her hands on her head, an act that serve to raise the short hem of her linen undershirt and expose the lower curves of her bare bottom to the people in the room.

Luckily Sejanus had absented himself before she had been required to disrobe, but as she had complied with that instruction she had exchanged a mortified glance with the spotty youth who was wide-eyed and gaping at the slowly denuded beauty before him.

With her back turned Rachel felt exposed and very definitely on view. From the conversation that ran back and forth between the members of the panel Rachel learned that the woman in white had until recently been a monitor in another part of the Dovecote. If Rachel was right, then this must be Sarah Sojourn, the talented air magic student who had a reputation as being a harsh disciplinarian with the novices and initiates in her charge. They had never met as such, but they had been contemporary monitor’s together Rachel realised.

After a while she heard two men puffing and panting as they dragged something into the room. The whipping stool, Rachel surmised. A guess confirmed by the final scrape on the floor and someone muttering, “Put the paddle on top for now.”

“Who is going to do this exactly?” one of the men asked.

“We could take it in turns,” another said rather too eagerly. She knew from the voice that it was the spotty youth.

“I am not sure I want to… well beat a girl,” the first voice said.

Rachel decided it was the fellow water adept of around her own age. She found herself liking him a bit.

“It’s not a beating, it is a well-deserved spanking. She’s a Dovecote girl, she has had as much before I assure you,” the woman said.

“This almost never happens among the men…” the water journeyman put in, “Are you sure…?”

“You should do it Sarah, you have the experience,” the adept said with some authority.

“No… I think it would serve us all better and especially Rachel if… John does it. He is the oldest,” Sarah said.

“Agreed,” the adept said decisively and not without a little relief.

It sounded as if he was washing his hands.

The entire conversation was carried out behind Rachel’s exposed bare bottom and she had never felt so small.

“Alright, it won’t be the first time I have paid out a naughty wench,” John said with a sigh.

“Dvanjester, get over here and bend over the stool,” Sarah ordered.

Rachel blushed and could not help keep her eyes on the floor as she turned around. At least she could lower her hands now, which served to cover her naked front.

John looked like a man pushing 40 and standing up he looked even larger than when Rachel had first seen him and she could see now he was broad-shouldered with a barrel chest. His greying hair made him look stern, but nonetheless he had something of a kindly face. From the way he was holding the paddle, she could see he had experience as he had told them.

“Bend over here with your head down there and your… eh… sticking up here,” John instructed her.

Rachel swallowed and lowered herself to her knees facing the stool.

“I’m John Lassiter,” John whispered, and then in a reassuring voice he added, “It won’t be so bad.”

Rachel nodded at this, but she didn’t believe him. This was already quite bad enough. Still she had been well-trained to this, first at Shula’s hands and then Maxine’s. She had also suffered mightily under Gort as well as Dniester’s on occasion. Apart from the acute embarrassment of public exposure, she doubted that this would be any worse.

As Rachel bent forward she blushed as her bare bottom stuck out behind and everyone could see. The adept and the other four journeymen including the young man who had acted as scribe stood in a formal line watching.

“Do we have a count?” John asked.

“We’ll call it,” the adept replied.

He looked at Sarah who gave a curt nod in agreement.

“Present yourself a little more Miss Dvanjester,” John said in stern voice.

Rachel already felt as if her bottom was the centre of everyone’s attention and another surge of blood went to her head as she prayed to the gods to open up a hole in the floor.

“Miss Dvanjester, I will not ask you twice,” John growled at her.

Rachel steeled herself and shifted her knees further under the stool so that her bare bottom curved up a little more.

“Whatever else she has done, Maxine Du Jared taught the girl well,” Susan observed from somewhere behind.

The paddle landed with a firm splat that robbed Rachel of her breath. She was still contending with the growing pain when another blast of the paddle landed across both cheeks of her bottom. Maxine had taught her that undue fuss was unladylike but not acknowledge the pain was rude to one’s punisher.

But Rachel was five swats I before she could find the breath to yell.

“Oh the gods,” someone whispered.

“Now that is one red bottom,” Susan said cheerfully.

None of them spoke and the spotty youth shifted a little and adjusted the front of his robes.

John brought the paddle down fast even strokes, spacing them at four or five second intervals that left Rachel gasping for breath and healthy tears pooling at her eyes.

Once he reached around 20 strokes he paused to look at the adept.

“What do you think?” the senior asked Susan.

Susan pondered for a moment and then crossed the room to study Rachel’s plum-coloured bottom and then bent down close to the punished girl’s tear-raked face.

“Tell me, as monitor you handed out much more for much less didn’t you?” Susan whispered.

Rachel could scarce think as she contended with the intense throb in her bottom.

“Miss Dvanjester, can you hear me?”

“Yes ma’am,” Rachel sobbed.

“Do you agree?”

Rachel nodded.

“I think we can continue,” Susan said to the adept.

He looked surprised but he didn’t argue.

John moved behind the raw-bottomed Rachel and renewed his assault.

This time Rachel howled out at each impact until another dozen or so had been delivered.

This time John did not seek guidance but dropped the paddle beside the stool and turned to face his fellow panel members.

Susan looked ready to suggest another round, but the adept only nodded.

“I guess she is cooked,” he said. “I pronounce your punishment is complete.”

Rachel got unsteadily to her feet and tried to pull herself together.

“I would have preferred to meet you under different circumstances,” John said as he handed Rachel her underwear and robe.

“That makes two of us,” Rachel said through some heavy tears, “Oh… I should…”

Rachel extended her hand and John shook it.

“Thank you Sir,” she said.

“You’re welcome,” the older man chuckled.

To be continued.

In the recent article on Steampunk Spanking I mentioned the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, the movie starring Sean Connery. What you may not know is that the movie was based on Volume One of a graphic novel of the same name published by America’s Best Comics and created by Alan Moore, Kevin O’Neil, Ben Dimagmaliw and Bill Oakley.

As you can see from the second of the drawings above, the scope and imagery very much suggests a Steampunk setting.

What was omitted from the film were the early scenes where our heroine captures the Invisible Man at Rosa Coote’s school for young ladies. The cad was there playing mischief and spying on the girls and the headmistress, Miss Coote, has called on the League for help.

Rosa Coote was a figure in several Victorian spanking novels including the Pearl and The Convent School. These were lurid harsh tales of the type that are now probably out of print, but were still available up until the 1980s.

In the scene above Katy Carr (of What Katy Did Next) is shown caning Olive Chancellor, a suffragist from the Bostonians, another Victorian novel. This is very much the vibe behind the novel and the films where a host of literary figures are drafted into the League from a variety of sources, hence Mina Harker (who in the film replaced Miss Murry as the heroine), Dorian Grey and Tom Sawyer all featuring in the film.

I have had the novel on my bookshelf since 2006 and have long thought about featuring it. Then a search of the web only reveals a cursory mention of the scene so here it is, possibly for the first time and scanned in by my own fair hand.

The country was rugged and wild; the last great wilderness south of the Thames some called it. Bagshot Heath was just a small corner of the English county of Surrey and as such lay hard on the south-western edge of London. But despite its proximity to the Capital, few suspected it existed.

There were few great trees here; the sandy soil did not support them. But the scrub was thick enough and tended to gather in harsh copses in the hollows between low sandy hills. And for mile after mile the only structure she had seen had been a gibbet set atop a rise to the left of the road.

In former years, not so long ago they said, highwaymen had plied their trade here and looking from the carriage window Amy could certainly believe it. She shuddered; the dangerous landscape suited her mood as she leaned out and scanned the road ahead.

The road itself wound on towards Reading and the more hospital parts of Berkshire, but it would not be long before they made the turn south and into rich lush land that more typified the county and on to their destination.

Amy Richmond was 21 and free. She was pretty enough, but no great beauty, which in her view was a blessing. Her family had set aside just enough money to provide for her independence, but not so much that she would be over troubled by the marriage market. In fact as her age of majority had approached she had pleaded poverty to all who would listen so that few would question her choice to seek employment at the Surrey and Hampshire Finishing Academy for Young Ladies. After all, pursuing a career in teaching was the path followed by many distressed gentlewomen.

She looked down at her plain grey dress and tugged on the respectable bonnet that struggled to contain her wild red hair. She would do, she decided.

“Whatever are you thinking?” her former governess had asked on hearing of Amy’s intent. “That school has no academic value and is merely a dumping ground for failed noblewoman and hapless girls regarded as a social embarrassment to their families.”

Exactly, thought Amy, I have no desire to trouble myself with sums or geography.

“You do realise that most of the girls will be your age or a little younger and that you will only be a teacher-in-training for at least a year and very probably two or three,” Charlotte had continued.

“Surely I must be polished before I can shine,” Amy countered.

“I have a good mind to polish your bottom for you, you foolish girl,” Charlotte snapped, “I remember well how it used to shine in that very corner following a good spanking.”

Amy had flushed peony and clutched at her throat. But inside she had thrilled at the memory as she thrilled now.

The carriage lurched and the hard leather seat slapped her hard on the rump. That would have been unsupportable at times, she smiled, and not so very long ago. Amy remembered how she had sometimes been accustomed to kneeling on the floor following ‘a good spanking’ as Charlotte had put it. Sitting down for a visit to Grand-Mama had been quite impossible at such times. She had spent many an afternoon at her grandmother’s taking tea off the mantle to a chorus of tsk-tsk.

Only what Charlotte cared to call a spanking, had oft consisted of a full session of the birch rod applied to her naked bottom in the hearing and sometimes full view of the maid. Amy blushed and squirmed on the seat.

Charlotte had never understood why she had so often had to punish the girl and why a spanking had never seemed to take. Amy allowed a little smile to dance on her lips. She had been mortified of course and at the time her begging for forgiveness had been in earnest. But that only added to the quiet fulfilment she had later felt.

Cousin Constance had understood.

Constance was half a decade the elder and had married at 24. Before that she had briefly and dramatically been subject to Charlotte’s vigorous ministrations. She too had never seemed to learn until her father had sent her to a Ladies College in Prussia for some harsher lessons.

On Constance’s return she had regaled her with tales of such cruelty and painful purgatory that Amy had been enthralled. Constance had spared her none of the lurid details.

Amy squirmed again on her seat as she recalled the tales.

“One is put in the charge of an older girl who may spank you for the merest thing,” a wide-eyed Constance had informed her, “On the bare bottom in the most dreadful way.”

Amy had licked her lips.

“And that is not the worst of it,” Constance had continued, “The tutoresses cane the girls in class right there in front of everyone. It happened daily I tell you. Then there was the Directress and her birch rods…”

Amy had hung on every word.

“You don’t think I will get sent there too do you?” she had asked.

Constance had smiled knowingly.

It had been Constance who had heard about the finishing school in Surrey.

“It is run on something like Prussian lines I hear, so if you did take up a post you would be required to thrash some tails I am afraid,” she had said.

Girl beatings by proxy, Amy had mused, not ideal but…

“And I hear they cane the student teachers too and one cannot teach there until one is at least 21,” Constance had continued, “Imagine that.”

Amy had. The letter of introduction from Lady Constance had gone a long way to securing her the post.

*

The carriage arrived a little before sunset, which at this time of year was just after six. Already the warm orange glow complimented the brickwork buildings and seemed to welcome her. Looking around she could see a small manicured lawn to the side of the main building and on it stood a white marble sun dial next to a good sized monkey puzzle tree.

Not that she had time to take it all in as the coachman had no sooner set down her bags when he again mounted the carriage and set off down the drive. It was left to a diminutive woman Amy took to be the maid to gather up the luggage and lead her into the house.

“The master will see you at once Miss,” were her only words as she struggled on with the bags.

Amy gaped after her quizzically, hovering harrier style on the chessboard tiles of the hall.

“In there Miss, just knock and wait,” the departing maid said nodding at a heavy oaken door set amid dark panels.

As it turned out the man within must have heard her expected arrival for even as the maid went from sight a clear baritone voice called out “Come,” and Amy availed herself of the door and entered.

George Faversham was of an indeterminate age between 30 and 40. His thick hair was curly to a point, but styled with some gravitas; an effect aided by the merest hint of silver among the dark chestnut brown. Although he was tall and slender, his shoulders had a heavy set with a suggestion of one used to pugilism, Amy thought.

Mr Faversham was styled the Dean of College and it was explained that he acted as business manager to the school and mentor to the junior staff during their training. The sign at the gates had lead on Dr Margaret Winchester as headmistress, but Faversham’s name had figured prominently alongside hers with the letters MA emblazoned in its train.

“Academia is of no concern to us here Miss Richmond,” George Faversham explained, “We address ourselves to etiquette and decorum through unrelenting and uncompromising discipline.”

“I am much encouraged by that Sir,” Amy replied, “In truth it is all I hoped for.”

“So I understand from Lady Constance’s letter,” Faversham agreed and letting his eye scan the paper on his desk he added, “Your cousin I believe.”

“Yes, it was she who…”

“There is no need to explain, Lady Constance was most informative as to your… interests,” he said with a light stern touch.

“I had no idea you were acquainted, Constance was rather vague I am afraid,” Amy put in.

“Discretion is an important aspect to our society here,” Faversham said significantly.

“Ah, quite so,” Amy replied.

She suspected that there was very much more to the Academy here, but trusted that Constance did indeed know the truth of it and had her interests at heart.

“A maid will see you to your room where you will find some books, including the rules,” he said, extending an arm towards the door. “You will be required to have an examinable grasp of them all before we let you assist in teaching a class and tomorrow you will return here at 10 o’clock sharp for the start of your induction. Meanwhile, I suggest you read the rules.”

“Very good Sir,” Amy smiled.

*

Amy never knew why, she certainly hadn’t consciously set out to test the man, but it was almost 10 minutes past the hour when she knocked upon George Faversham’s door.

“Come in Miss Richmond,” came his rather weary and somewhat exasperated voice from within.

Amy breezed in cheerfully eager to learn more about her new home and employment.

“May I…” Amy said indicating a chair.

“No Miss, you may not.” Faversham sounded cross.

Amy stood up straight and tried to cover her consternation. She was not accustomed to rude men, but then she had never met one in her small social circle.

“Tell me Miss Richmond, did you read the small and very concise rule book that was supplied to you?” he asked her pointedly.

“I am afraid after my cold supper and long journey I did not find the time,” Amy told him.

“I see,” Faversham said sharply. “If you had done so you would know that tardiness is a grave sin here at our school.”

Amy shot a glance at the clock on the mantle and flushed.

“My apologies Sir, I…”

“That is two sins to your name on your very first morning,” Faversham scolded her.

“Sorry Sir,” Amy mumbled, affecting a modern style of truncated speech for brevity.

“Pardon,” Faversham growled at her.

“I said I am sorry Sir,” Amy offered meekly.

“Well that is as maybe, but as a member of the teaching staff, albeit a junior one, you are expected to set an example,” he said with a hint of kindness. A hint, but he did not go overboard and his manner remained stern.

“Yes Sir,” Amy agreed.

“That makes what is to come all the more difficult for you,” Faversham told her.

Amy frowned.

“Tell me Miss Richmond, until you reached your majority you were often soundly thrashed were you not?”

Amy blushed for the Empire and did not know where to put herself.

“You must answer me Miss,” Faversham scolded.

Amy dipped her head and returned the merest of nods.

“You will speak your answer Miss Richmond,” Faversham barked.

Amy swallowed and offered a small “Yes Sir.”

“Yes Sir, what?” Faversham pressed her.

“Yes Sir, I was thrashed Sir,” Amy managed.

“You see here at the Academy young ladies are thrashed and on occasion you will thrash them. By this I mean, and to be clear, you will spank them, cane them, birch them as and when required,” Faversham told her. “But before you can do such duty you must accept such treatment.”

Amy nodded. That seemed fair, if embarrassing to admit.

“Tell me then, how were you punished?”

“I was sp-spanked quite harshly on my… my behind and sometimes I have been… b-birched,” Amy whispered.

“On your bare bottom?”

Amy forced down a breath and mumbled, “Yes Sir.”

“Good, for all such punishments are always on the bare here,” he said, “Shame is an important part of discipline.”

Amy thought of Prussia and thrilled; oh to hear a man speak so openly about her own personal obsessions.

“And so and to that end on every day of your induction you will experience a punishment as you are expected to give it,” Faversham explained, studying her carefully for a reaction.

Many a prospective student teacher had quailed at this point and tendered their resignation. That was why he had no interest in those desperate women who had no other recourse. Women like Amy had choices and if she was to choose this life then it would be all to the good for all concerned.

“I see…” Amy blushed.

“You must understand that here at this school we train young ladies for marriage and all that entails. If you accept this proposition then it is I who will discipline you,” Faversham told her.

Amy’s blush melted her down to the floor.

“Further, with two sins to your name already, I will augment this to the utmost extent with such in mind,” he continued.

“Wh-what will you do Sir?” Amy asked shyly.

“With most young ladies in this day and age I would begin with a smack-bottom and go from there,” he said sharply, “It is most instructive. But since you are in error and have previous… history, I will attend to you firmly, very firmly.”

“Yes Sir,” Amy agreed.

Her heart punched at the inside of her chest and she felt quite giddy.

“I will leave you for 15 minutes,” Faversham explained, “You may ring for the maid if you require assistance, but when I return I will find your skirts and so-forth pinned to the small of your back and your bloomers left off.”

Amy gulped, her pale complexion lost in a shade her hair had never known. She could only nod now as no word would breech her throat.

“When I return I will find you in that corner,” Faversham said, pointing to a vacant space beside an aspidistra towards the French windows, “Facing the wall.”

Amy dipped her head and wondered if she could accomplish such a thing without the maids help.

“Occasionally such ladies as you absent themselves at this point and I return to find them gone. If that is your intent then I understand and I bid you farewell.” Then with a curt nod he left.

Amy’s mind raced with thoughts drawn from the penny-dreadfuls and other such stories. This was an adventure beyond scandal and her heart continued to hammer at her chest. The bloomers would be easy enough to remove, but how to pin her skirts and underskirts to her waist was a challenge. She would have been mortified to call on the maid and yet what was she to do?

Just then the door opened and the woman she had seen with her bags on the previous day appeared.

“It is alright Miss,” she said cheerfully, “I know how it is the first time, leave it to me.”

The woman was homely with sharp features and Amy would have put her at around 30 years of age. In a small way she reminded her of Constance and despite her violent shame she nodded gratefully for the assistance.

*

Amy had never felt as exposed as she did standing in the corner of Faversham’s study with her bare bottom revealed to the room. The fact that she was otherwise fully clothed only served to emphasise her vulnerability. It was an entirely new experience for her though. Charlotte had often had her stand so, but on those occasions she had been at once stripped to her shift only and that within the confines of her own room or the schoolroom and never with the prospect of being seen thus by a man.

Nor had she any idea what to expect from this man on his return. What she hadn’t counted on was his brusque matter-of-factness at her shame.

“I see you have decided to accept our customs here,” he said as he came through the door. “Very well since we have much to get through I want you to bend across the desk please.”

Amy froze, unable to pull away from the wall where she would have to confront him.

“Miss Richmond, please, if you will,” he said in a commanding voice.

She nodded tersely and with her chin pressed hard into her chest she meekly turned and tentatively crossed the room.

“Bend over so that your behind is presented up and backwards,” he said somewhat casually, but she fancied she could hear a tight edge to his voice.

Nevertheless she obeyed reluctantly, but not before noting the short leather strap he held in his hands.  As she did so it seemed to her that she had taken up a somewhat extreme and obscene posture, but she realised it was only regarded by her as such on account of being under a man’s eyes.

“Legs together please,” he intoned, tapping the leather against his thigh as he spoke.

Amy pressed her heels in tight, which served to elevate her bottom still further.

“Now keep position,” he said firmly.

“Yes Sir,” she managed; her voice thick in her throat.

Her bottom, now that he studied it, was a firm round dome of astonishing whiteness. She was certainly a healthy girl and he couldn’t help noting the tinge of red hair peeking through her thighs that told of a heavy growth in front.

His strap fell with a sharp crack that made her bob at the knees before setting her legs straight.

“Ah,” she gasped.

He nodded; she had indeed taken punishment before. Then he watched as the red band of his strap’s passing grew and developed on her fine pale skin.

For Amy the bar across her bottom stung like a lemon on a tender spot in the mouth, but unlike the sweetness that usually followed, this had bite.

The second swipe robbed her of thought and she dipped a solitary knee as she rode out a wave of pain. This time Faversham did not wait, but struck her hard again across the bottom so that she squealed a little.

It took some moments for Amy to draw a breath and then she could do nothing but gasp like a drowning fish. Across her dark pink bottom now were deeper mottles of true red that even burned purplish at the edges of burning doughnut welts.

“I generally take a girl to between eight and 12 on this first test and so as you have much more to come I will do the same for you,” Faversham told Amy.

Amy, who was breathing vocally now, took a moment and then gasped, “Thank you Sir.”

He nodded in acknowledgement, noting her acceptance without protest. Then true to his word he added the last few strokes while she grunted in discomfort.

“Now Miss Richmond, if you would kindly take up a pose in the corner while I summon Alice to escort you to where you will acquire the necessary,” he said.

Amy’s bottom blazed as she stood up and it was all she could do not to indulge in unseemly rubbing of her behind. So she was back in the corner before she began to wonder who Alice was.

“Sir…? Mr Faversham… who is Alice?” Amy asked meekly, her voice muffled by the walls of corner that held her nose.

“She is a colleague, another new girl who will show you the ropes,” Faversham replied.

It was sometime before Alice arrived, by which time the realisation that Faversham could see her bare bottom and that it was really happening took hold of Amy’s imagination.

*

Alice was a girl not more than a year or two Amy’s senior. A pretty blonde, she was on the petite side and in George Faversham’s presence, was as meek as you like.

“Isn’t he just a brick,” Alice gushed once they had left his study.

Amy, who felt decidedly uncomfortable at her still exposed state, did not know how to reply.

“Oh… yes,” Alice offered sympathetically as she eyed Amy’s bare bottom. “It is rather trying isn’t it? We all go through it you know. Or going through it I should say. I expect I’ll join you ‘ere long.”

“Join me in what exactly?” Amy asked as she eyed the door to the outside nervously.

“We have to go and get the makings I am afraid,” Alice told her.

“The makings for what?” Amy held back as Alice held open the door. “Not out there surely, not like this… I’m, I’m…”

“Only girls on the grounds and I doubt we’ll see any of those at this time of day. Mr Faversham is the only man here and he has already seen you hasn’t he?” Alice giggled. “Oh the makings… eh… well for a birch rod of course. You’re ever so silly.”

“A birch? But I have already been…”

“You are to be birched and then caned I think,” Alice shrugged, “It can’t be helped. Like I said, I expect I’ll be in on the bill within a day or two. I don’t mind so much,” she was tentative as she said ‘so much,’ “Not with Mr Faversham dishing it out. Quite an adventure eh?”

Amy realised it was. Not that it made her feel any better about standing in the grounds with no bloomers and her skirts pinned up in the small of her back. To cover her embarrassment she asked, “Is he really going to birch me?”

Alice offered a tight smile and nodded.

*

It took over half an hour to reach a spot in the woods near the edge of the estate. The place Alice brought them too was right under the wall.

“Sometimes the local boys climb up and look over the wall,” Alice giggled.

Amy gaped.

“The danger is more fun don’t you think? Anyway, this is the place,” Alice shrugged.

Amy regarded the wall in horror and kept her back turned to the woods.

“You’re supposed to trim them yourself,” Alice told her as she extended some secateurs.

Amy nodded. All a part of the adventure, she told herself. Then somewhere inside she thrilled again. So with a final glance at the wall she turned and reached for the first length of birch twig.

“Not too long, not too short,” Alice muttered, “You have it. Done it before eh?”

Amy blushed. She had, and fully clothed it had been embarrassing enough.

*

Shamefully Alice was not dismissed for Amy’s birching. Instead the older girl looked on with awed pleasure as Amy again bent over the desk and pushed out her bare bottom. The birch was not the one which Amy had made. That one had been steeped in brine to replace the rod that Faversham now held. It was a sound enough procedure, but Amy realised that all her efforts under the threat of exposure to choose lighter withes for her rod had been in vain and some other girl would reap the benefit.

Amy shot a glance at Alice who was smirking. You might have told me that part, she thought. But then strangely she felt an odd thrill at the justice of her position. She deserved a good thrashing for attempted cheating. She rocked her still red mottled behind back and forth in expectation.

“Just a quick two dozen I think,” Faversham told her, “That should make you tender enough for the cane.”

“Yes Sir,” Amy replied meekly.

Two dozen was the most she had ever felt and this birch looked enormous.

“The cane hurts in small doses doesn’t it Sir,” Alice piped up eagerly, “The birch is worse though, over the distance. You wait until you get three or even four dozen juicy swipes, I couldn’t sit down for a week.”

“It will do you good Miss Richmond,” Faversham soothed, now addressing Amy, “I am afraid Alice gets carried away, don’t you Alice?”

“Yes Sir,” Alice said shyly.

Amy swallowed hard then tucked her head down. Then after a pause she shot a glance back and said, “Sir, under the circumstances, can’t you call me Amy?”

“Not while I chastise you, no, but afterwards no doubt Miss Richmond, afterwards,” Faversham said as he sliced in the first cut.

The biting burn felt like nothing she had ever felt. And this is better than the cane, she thought incredulously. But then as the sting overwhelmed her Faversham birched her again and all thought was lost in a sea of wet wailing.

*

Amy had stood sobbing in the corner for the best part of an hour. She was infinitely grateful that Alice had been dismissed, but it was with some apprehension that she considered her bottom under the cane. She already doubted her ability to sit down and the cane sounded horrendous.

“Coming back to us eh?” Faversham asked as Amy finally got her crying under control.

“Yes Sir,” Amy said miserably.

“Don’t worry, you are a sport and I shall hold at six of the best today,” he chuckled, “But I do advise you to read the rules and don’t be late tomorrow.”

Amy gulped and stealing a glance over her shoulder she contemplated the nilgiri in Faversham’s hands.

“Will I… will you… I mean to say… will I be punished again tomorrow?” Amy asked nervously.

“Not punished, not if you are good, but we must continue with your induction must we not? But tomorrow a good sound spanking over my knee should suffice,” Faversham told her.

Amy gulped as he summoned her from the wall and had bend over to touch her toes.

“This is going to hurt,” he said.

And it did. A deep sawing pain that went on and on until she felt her bottom was cut in half. It took all she had not to stand up and grab her behind and tears sprang afresh from her eyes. But Constance was right, this was where she needed to be. Here she would be fulfilled.

Part 1 here.

Spanked college girls was a common enough sight on campus for it not to draw too much attention, but the woman in the faculty office looked up as Hilary took her first slow painful steps through the fire doors that led into the open area. Hilary could feel every loving stripe of each switch with every step and she guessed the flare in her bottom was reflected in her sorry face.

There were two women behind the reception desk. The older woman was standing up filing and taking no notice of Hilary as she entered. The younger seated woman winced sympathetically as she watched the recently switched college girl’s painful progress.

“It beats me why these girls never learn,” the elder woman said without looking around.

The seated woman rolled her eyes. As a graduate of Clyburn she knew all too well and sometimes wished her older colleague had had some of the past benefits the school had to offer. It certainly might hush her mouth. Even so, she shot a firm glance at the usual corner.

Hilary nodded and made an awkward 90 degree turn like a robot and with renewed pigeon steps made for the penitent haven on the other side of the room. It was only then that the young woman could see her switched ravaged bottom and gasped.

Even the older woman stopped talking and paused to study Hilary’s stripes over the rim of her spectacles.

“I guess she learned,” she said quietly.

“Ouch,” the younger woman mouthed, “Honey what did you do?”

“I voted Democrat at my first election,” Hilary quipped out of bravado as she reached the corner.

The younger woman laughed and wished they could do that for real for the Republican brats on campus. But the older woman only remarked, “See, they never learn. Just got a whooping and she is already smarting off.”

The younger woman rolled her eyes again.

“Hey cherry-tail,” the older woman called over sharply, “Hands on your head or I’ll send you back up for another go round.”

Hilary instantly clamped her hands to her head and felt the shaming blood rush to her cheeks.

“Oh come one,” the younger woman muttered as she rolled her eyes yet again.

Her elder leaned down and whispered, “I have a hairbrush in my purse if you want some of the same.”

Her junior felt the heat rise in her face and she dipped her head demurely.

“I was only saying,” she whispered.

“You were only saying was it? But I hear too what you were thinking,” the older woman said loudly. “I had plenty of bottom blisterings growing-up and in college; did me the world of good. I figure you’re not too old to go over my knee. Like I said, you girls never learn.”

“Yes Ma’am,” the junior said hastily.

Hilary might have enjoyed the exchange but her bottom was too bare and switch-marked to hades for her to have any other concerns just now. Then the other door opened and someone breezed in and she shrunk into the wall.

“Shit,” a girl’s voice gasped, “I was going to ask… I mean…”

The young student seemed flustered and distracted. Oh I wonder why, Hilary thought ruefully.

“Something up?” the older of the two women asked her, then she added suspiciously, “is that an extension request form?”

“I was gonna… I mean my paper was going to be late and I… you know I think I might get it in on time if I work overnight…. Yeah… excuse me, gotta go,” the young woman squeaked and Hilary heard the door swing open.

“They never learn,” someone said.

Hilary rather thought it was the younger woman being sarcastic, but all the same she miserably thought, I guess we don’t.

She wasn’t dismissed for a good long while and by the time she was, about 50 people must have come and gone to and from the faculty office. Her dismissal came as welcome news not just because of her embarrassment, but also on account of the ache in her arms that had been plated on her head.

Although she managed to get out of the building and onto a quiet stretch of path without being seen, a girl she didn’t know came from nowhere and accosted her.

“Have you heard?” she said excitedly, “Some poor shmuck has been debagged.”

Then the girl was gone. A freshman, Hilary guessed. Oh well goodbye discretion and hello fame and misfortune, she rolled her eyes and sighed. At least the cool air on her behind felt soothing on her hot topic.

She thought of that evening’s visit to the refectory and how the conversation would die on everyone’s lips as all eyes turned to her. Maybe Anne could rustle me up something, she found herself hoping, or otherwise I am going to live off Twinkies for a few days.

Hilary reached the blockhouse without further incident and went to her room. Studying belly down on her bed reminded her of home and Clarice, wait until I tell her, she thought ruefully and opened a book on Charles II of Spain.

*

The next morning the welts on Hilary’s bottom had reduced to a rash of purple streaks across plum-coloured hind curves. But the previous evening when Anne had dropped by with a sandwich they had still stood up like a relief map of the Himalayas.

“Jesus and Mary that’s some bottom,” Anne gasped, “Even if you had have gone to dinner you would have eaten standing up.”

“Is everyone talking about me?” Hilary had said as she took the sandwich, “Oh… thanks.”

“Eh… not everyone,” Anne had said evasively.

“As bad as that?” Hilary winced.

“Not as bad as that certainly,” Anne replied with pursed lips and a significant glance at Hilary’s bottom.

“Oh, I’ll live,” Hilary replied.

“Sure you will kiddo,” Anne replied cheerfully.

Now the morning after, both her bottom and her dignity still ached. In the case of the former it was an all-over deep muscle ache coated in finger-repellent sore. Luckily it went without comment when she had to stand for coffee and toast at the kitchen table.

“Your lecture is not until after lunch,” Tammy stated the obvious, “Why would you want to go onto campus before then?”

“I have to see Professor Harmon again,” Hilary said ruefully.

Tammy shot a glance at Hilary’s bottom.

“You are not… he’s not going to spank you again is he?” she asked incredulously.

Hilary shrugged. She hadn’t got past the corner in the faculty office in her thinking.

*

Corner time lasted half an hour before John had phoned down to send for her. Being again displayed in the faculty office was a holiday compared to what she now felt. Every step towards Professor Harmon’s door echoed a thud off the hard wood floor and resonated in her mind.

Not the paddle again and please not the cane, she prayed for her bottom. But the fear that really seized her belly was being sent out into the woods for a bundle of switches again.

As she reached the door the Carmichael girl was standing there again. She had been crying and Hilary felt a small buzz of comfort to know she wasn’t the only one for the high jump two days running.

“That paddle stings, doesn’t it,” Miss Carmichael said in crisp English tones, although her voice was a little wan. “At school we only had the cane.”

Hilary noticed the girl was still holding her panties.

“I didn’t want to… I mean I couldn’t put then on,” the English girl whispered shyly, “You don’t think anyone will notice do you?”

A self-debagging, Hilary thought enviously. But she said, “Not unless there is a breeze. It could be worse. Believe me.”

Then the door opened and John was there.

“Don’t stand there all day, come in,” he snapped.

“Yes Sir.”

John went to his desk and made a note as Hilary closed the door behind her.

“How do you want me?” she said with a gulp, “Or do I… I have do something else?”

“What? Oh no, not today. We will get to that soon enough this week. At least once more anyway to finish you off; that is… if you behave yourself.”

“Yes Sir,” Hilary said with relief.

“There, I have made a note of your attendance,” he said in a bored voice, “Was there anything else? Either here or on campus?”

“No I…” Hilary began.

“Good. Then you can go back to the corner in faculty,” he smiled.

Hilary’s heart sank.

*

Hilary hadn’t felt much like lunch after she was released from the corner and in any case she only had 45 minutes before her lecture with Professor Martin. That was one event she wouldn’t have missed if war had broken out.

For once she had done her homework and had extensive notes on religion and the decline of Spain after 1661. She had gotten a few smirking glances as she he had made her way from the faculty building but by now it was something she seemed to be able to take in her stride. Well perhaps a stride was still a bit beyond her, she thought grudgingly as the sharpness of the air touched her sore bare bottom on the faculty steps. But a confident walk enabled her to pass several students without drawing a glance and she decided that she might even get through the day without the entire college forever linking her face with her switch-sore behind.

Vending machines under the stairs where the lecture was to take place provided her with a packet of nuts and a coke for sustenance and she was able to make some hasty purchases without joining a line of people all checking out her tail end and laughing.

So far so good, she thought, as she considered her next move. Sitting down for the lesson was out of the question, but Hilary decided that all she had to was slip into the lecture hall and stand at the back. There was only one challenge to this plan. Students attending most lectures, and certainly Professor Martin’s, had to go to a table by the door to collect and sign for the notes. This was how he had found out about her earlier two absences. But since he wouldn’t check the register until afterwards she could wait until everyone was in and then risk a few knowing glances as she grabbed hers and signed for them.

Hilary finished up her luncheon of nuts and cola and then ducked down the back corridor to the entrance furthest from the main doors. Then she was able to take the stairs and slip in the far entrance of the hall.

The room was already mostly full and what she took to be the last of the attendees were gathered in a small knot around the hand-outs table to sign the book. Hilary felt the butterflies poised for take-off in the pit of her stomach as she unconsciously tugged at the back of the bum-freezer. Then with a deep breath she strolled quickly along the back wall to a place near the table ready to grab the goodies and sign before anyone took any notice. This will work, she breathed and allowed herself some hope.

At the front of the class Jim Martin was almost ready to begin and his body language called for silence. He was a stout man in his middle-50s with short grey hair and a little rotund around the tummy, which was emphasised because he was not all that tall. But nevertheless he had an authoritative demeanour that brooked no argument.

“Now if everyone has the notes,” Professor Martin began, “Oh I see we have one late-comer.”

Something other than butterflies lurched inside and Hilary snapped around to face the voice from the front of the hall with her exposed bottom firmly towards the wall.

“Miss Cline,” Jim Martin said mockingly, “How very nice of you to join us, even if you are a little late.”

“Late? No I…” Hilary gulped; conscious now that all eyes in the room were upon her.

Damn, can’t everyone mind their own business? I am here aren’t I, she cursed inwardly.

“Late, Miss Cline,” Martin said sharply, “Which is almost as bad as being absent in my book.”

“No I…” Hilary wanted a great big pit to appear beneath her feet so that she could blamelessly escape.

“Yes Miss Cline, late I say,” Professor Martin bellowed, “Come down to the front here.”

“Oh no I…” Hilary protested. She considered running or making-up a faint. Maybe the professor would respond to begging.

“If you please,” he said firmly, making an inviting gesture with his hand as he bowed a little out of mock respect.

Hilary took a deep breath and hastily sighed next to her name in the book. Then gathering up the notes she held them behind her back as she walked like a character in a Film Noir down the gentle steps to the front.

“I understand that you are undergoing discipline Miss Cline,” Martin said drily before she reached the bottom.

All ears in the room pricked up and all eyes swivelled to watch Hilary’s discomfort. Someone whispered in a loud voice, “She’s been debagged.”

Suddenly there was babble in the room until Professor Martin silenced it with a glare.

“Miss Cline?” he asked, letting her know that he expected an answer.

“Eh… yes Sir,” Hilary said meekly, as she well know, she cursed him.

“Under the circumstances I will tolerate no tardiness from you.” His voice was like a gathering storm.

Hilary was about to reply when he reached under the lectern and picked up a short hand-paddle. There was a gasp and a short burst of girlish babble and then the room fell silent again. The air was thick enough to get itself parted with a paper cut and Hilary felt sick. He wouldn’t, not here, she quailed inwardly.

“I am going to set you a test on this lecture, just you,” Martin growled, “So I strongly suggest you listen carefully and read all the notes.”

“Yes Sir,” Hilary squeaked.

Then Professor Martin kicked his chair from behind his desk and sat down on it. He beckoned her with a crook of his finger.

“Professor Martin, please…” Hilary blustered and made to back away.

“Young ladies too immature to come to lectures on time after not one, but two warnings deserve to be spanked over my knee like the brats that they are,” he told her.

There was some tittering in the room but Martin let it pass.

“From now on unless you are already here and sitting nice and attentively in the front row when I arrive I am going to start every one of this course of lectures with you bare-bottomed over my knee getting a spanking in front of everyone,” he said.

Hilary gaped, her eyes springing open wide.

“Then starting today, you will go and stand in that corner where you can listen intently until after the lecture.”

Hilary drew a breath to speak but Jim Martin took her by the wrist and pulled her across his knee. A squeal went up around the room and the babble of excited students was impossible to quieten. Hilary focused on the papers that dropped from her hand as they went clack on the cold hard floor. The exposure of her bare bottom to the class was too surreal for her so she ignored it, choosing instead to read the headings on one of the hand-outs just inches from her nose.

“That’s a very sore bottom you have there Miss Cline,” Martin observed, “This is going to be quite a challenge for you isn’t it?”

The first splat on her bottom pulled her from her detachment and she squealed.

“You can’t do this, not here,” Hilary wailed, but Martin spanked her again.

“I think you’ll find that I can Miss Cline.”

The spanking was a sound one that lasted five minutes or so. Long enough on a switch-sore bottom when 50 or 60 students are watching. It took all of her efforts not to cry like the brat Professor Martin said she was and for all of that time by turns she looked fondly on John’s paddle and hated early modern Spaniards.

“Now Miss Cline, go and stand in the corner over there,” he said dismissively, “We have wasted enough time on you.”

Hilary was set on her feet and promptly ignored. The entire room had a clear view of her red bottom, which certainly was a striking hue after Martin’s expert efforts but just then Hilary couldn’t have faced them on pain of another spanking. She found that she was a little grateful that he had angled her away from the class even if his intention was to strip her of the modesty and dignity she had strived so hard to preserve.

She clenched her buttocks in lieu of rubbing them, which would have been the final humiliation and sniffed back a tear as she pulled lemon faces of distress. Then daring no further telling or worse, she walked to the corner as she had been told.

Please, please, please let this day end she prayed to any deity who would listen; if the river gods of the Ancient Britain were the only ones listening at that moment she would take it. This had to be the worse day of her life, she decided miserably. But strangely she thought of Aunt Clarice and more than 80 years of Clyburn tradition and wondered if her name would go on a plaque somewhere after today.

*

The afternoon had been hellish. After the spanking she had had to stand in the corner for the entire duration of Professor Martin’s lecture while everyone in the room pretended to ignore her. She had no idea how much of Martin’s wisdom was absorbed by the others, but Hilary hadn’t heard a word of it. Nothing so far in her whole life had been this embarrassing.

The following English lecture had not been as bad, but lessons learned she had just quickly signed the book, taken the notes and had taken a position at the back. This time no one said a word and she doubted more than a half dozen had noticed a thing anyway. She could have kicked herself.

Only once did a girl cast a glance back at her and Hilary had blushed to her ears just knowing that the girl must be a fellow joint history English major who had been at the lecture. But that was enough for Hilary to keep a quiet as a mouse. Then the day finally over Hilary had run all the way home completely careless of who might have seen her, which at that time of day must have been many; she no longer cared.

Surprisingly she had not been crushed into tears on arriving at the blockhouse and far from bottling up her experience would have welcomed venting with a friend. But her flight from campus had got her home first for once. And so the study posture experimenting had begun.

Hilary’s over-the-knee spanking had reignited the deep throb from John Harmon’s switching and now the thought of sitting down even with the aid of a pillow was totally out of the question. She had tried several other different positions for working on her paper and so far standing at the kitchen table had been the best. But even though no one said anything as they got home and passed on through the room, it was way too embarrassing for her to concentrate. On the other hand the desk in her room was too low to stand at, so she had opted for kneeling on a pillow on the floor and using her bed as a writing surface.

Professor Martin’s notes were excellent and she only wished now that she had found the presence of mind to listen to his lecture. Shoot, she thought as she remembered the threat of a test and waded through a discourse on Spanish society. But nevertheless, she had found it interesting. By the outset of the 18^th century in Spain a quarter of the men were unemployed nobles and another quarter were priests, she gaped at the implication. With most women locked up out of sight; that left a good part of the population as totally unproductive. No wonder Spain was eclipsed by France, Britain and the Netherlands at this time. This was absolutely fascinating. She began to wonder if the whole Hapsburg Empire had suffered the same fate. She hastily made a note and wondered what books the library had on it.

Hilary knew now why she had so much wanted to be on Jim Martin’s course and regretted her lack of attendance. The only trouble was now, that she would have the devil of a job scraping a good grade on her next two papers and a spanking loomed for each of them. For she was in no doubt now that Professor Martin would gleeful dust off his paddle or cane to put her in her place. Then she remembered her conversation with John. Oh God, she groaned, she faced two spankings apiece for each sub-standard paper and she hadn’t even considered the English essay yet. This really could turn out to be the semester of standing for supper she sighed ruefully. Even when her debagging was over she was still going to be well and truly up to her neck in deep do-do.

Sometime later there was a knock at the door and Hilary looked up. It was only then that she noticed that the ache in her knees had eclipsed the soreness in her bottom and she pulled a face and got stiffly to her feet.

“Hills, you there?” said a tentative voice outside. It was Anne. “Are you okay?”

“Come in Anne,” Hilary called back absently.

Anne came in as if she were entering a porcelain shop after an earthquake; first peering around the door and the creeping in one foot carefully placed before the other as a precaution that the floor would not collapse under her.

“I heard about…” Anne began.

“Hey, did you know that Spain’s GDP fell by… what was it?” Hilary started to mumble as she again consulted Jim Martin’s notes.

“Jim Martin’s lecture,” Anne finished carefully.

“Yeah, he’s totally brilliant, these notes are a blast,” Hilary gushed.

Anne relaxed and now completely non-plused she drew upon her most incredulous face.

“But I thought…” Anne leaned forward and examined Hilary’s still red sore bottom, still exposed through the curtain of Anne’s own bum-freezer, although strictly speaking it didn’t have to be while she was in her won room.

Hilary looked up and seeing the direction of Anne’s gaze remembered.

“Oh that…” Hilary winced, “That was… omigod, you should have seen what… no really you shouldn’t… I thought I’d die.”

Hilary was blushing again. “I’ll never live it down, never, how dare he…?”

“It kind of sounds as if you already have.” Anne’s smile competed with the puzzlement for command of her face.

Hilary was still blushing but she shrugged.

“Is everyone talking about it?” she asked shyly.

“I think they must be,” Anne chuckled.

“I kind of hoped that it would just be a few geeks in the history department who would… well no one in English took much notice and…” Hilary averted her gaze and tried to recapture her interest in Spain.

“Oh sure, yeah, that will be it… a few geeks, a couple of lesbian jocks and oh the college rag,” Anne said in brittle-amusement.

“What?” Hilary baulked.

“There is a girl downstairs from the Clyburn Clarion,” Anne told her. “It seems she caught Professor Martin’s performance and is here with a photographer. I tried to send her away but she is a friend of Tammy’s and she says she is going to do a write up if you talk to her or not.”

“Oh God,” Hilary groaned and dropped her behind onto the bed. “Yeowch,” she squealed, immediately launching herself upright again.

“Tammy or no Tammy I would throw them out but they only have to wait outside tomorrow morning and follow you all day,” Anne sighed.

“I know, I get it and it is kind of funny. I guess I’ll come down and see them,” Hilary winced.

As Hilary followed Anne down the squared-off wrap-around stairs past the orange drapes, she wondered who had chosen such an awful colour. Institutional cream or almost anything else would have been better. Not that it was what really concerned her just then, for at the back of her mind was the headline: Hilary Cline, 21, debagged and publically spanked on the bare bottom like a kid. Not that snappy she knew but in reality it would be worse.

‘Hilary Cline, do come in. Aren’t you the girl who was spanked at Clyburn?’ they would ask at job interviews. All the way to the kitchen she pictured a poised woman doing a postgrad in journalism with cold hard appraising eyes and already rehearsing her Pulitzer acceptance speech in her head.

Carey Yates was a small bespectacled ash-blonde wrapped up in a large green coat. It was way too big for her so that she peered out from between the edges of a rucked up collar like small cute tortoise. Even the mug of coffee gripped in her hands seemed like a bucket and if that frailty hadn’t had disarmed Hilary then the fog of moisture on her big owl specs from the steaming drink totally would have.

The other girl, the photographer, looked like a wide-eyed freshman. She didn’t look up when Hilary and Anne walked into the kitchen, but stood on the far side of the room fiddling with her camera like a rookie on the battlefield who couldn’t remember if her gun was loaded. This second girl had a close-cropped neat afro that might have looked too boyish if the brown-eyed pale-skinned black girl hadn’t been cute.

“Miss Cline,” Carey said pompously after the introductions. She extended a tiny hand lost in the sleeve of her coat which she had to tug up to reveal the fingers.

Hilary looked at the photographer who had been introduced as Lola Warwick. She was still fiddling with her camera and at one point looked as if she might drop it.

“If you try and take a single photo without our say-so I am going to…” Anne threatened.

Lola suddenly looked scared and threw a worried glance at Carey.

“My dear friend, we won’t,” Carey assured them in tones that would have made the most officious faculty clerk proud.

“You want coffee, Hills?” Tammy gushed from the other side of the room.

Hilary nodded and finally took Carey’s hand.

“If she isn’t taking pictures yet, then why is she standing like she is about to reel off a shot?” Anne asked suspiciously still watching Lola.

Lola blushed and soundlessly began to stammer.

“Oh,” Carey said dismissively with a wave of her hand, “Lola’s a freshman, she’s new at this and besides she has had a run in with Professor Lindsay today, haven’t you?”

Lola looked like a floor collapse might have been welcome and blushed some more. Hilary knew the feeling.

“We have all been there,” Carey said magnanimously, “Even I got spanked by… oh John Harmon is your supervisory tutor too isn’t he? Of course he is. Debagging is not his usual… eh… well bag is it? What did you do to piss him off? Anyway, he paddled me two weeks ago, and me a senior…”

“Is all this on the record?” Anne asked suspiciously.

“God no. I mean I did ask John but he was reluctant to talk. In fact he made it quite clear that if I went overboard with my story…” Carey blushed and coughed, “Anyway since my editor too is acquainted with John Harmon we let his intervention in the freedom of the press slide for now.”

“I see,” Hilary said.

“First off, face or eh… other end?” Carey asked breezily.

“Pardon?” Hilary shook her head.

“Top or bottom? For the photograph,” Carey explained. “I think John wouldn’t approve of having both next to the story. Such a bummer, my editor won’t even run it as a front page. Not after John spoke up for you. I think she has a rather sensitive seat.”

Hilary exchanged glances with Anne.

“Of course people can look you up in the year book to match your face with your eh… bottom, but that is up to them,” Carey continued. “Personally I would love to do a behind shot with campus buildings in the background; first debagging of the season, you know the kind of thing?”

“Not really,” Hilary answered.

“Hey kiddo,” Carey winked, “This is a snow job, a picture story; just the facts from the public notice and a tasteful picture on page seven. I only need a quote and a picture pose and we are out of here.”

*

The rest of the week was as grim as Hilary expected, although the worst part was corner time in the faculty office where she was always going to be the centre of attention, albeit for a small audience.

But with Anne and Charlotte’s help she avoided the refectory line for food and most days she could slip across campus to her lectures without drawing undue attention. She realised then that it would have been so much worse in the summer with students out in force.

Then the Clyburn Clarion went to press. There were neat piles of the free campus newspaper outside every lecture hall and faculty office. Hilary felt her tummy tingling. She had to wait for the rush to die down, but she was able to sidle up to a stack in the history faculty and swipe a copy before ducking into a cubicle in the student bathroom.

As promised there was no story on the front page or the next. But Hilary’s picture dominated page nine with maybe 150 words outlining the details. The photograph was tastefully shot from behind with Hilary on the path in the trees. She was half obscured by shadows with the moon of her shaded bottom contrasting with the distant soft-focussed buildings of the campus.

The headline ran as ‘Student suffers debagging for a week.’ There was no mention of the lecture hall spanking and although it did mention Hilary’s name, you had to read to the end not to be given the impression that this was a past event.

In any case Hilary only had one more active visit to John’s study and although she suspected that this would be more active than usual, she could at least console herself that it was the last day before the weekend. At sunrise on Monday she would be off the hook.

As she left the cubical she was still celebrating that fact she had no more lectures to go to in a debagged state when she bumped into another girl by the sinks. She was a tall redhead Hilary had seen around and to Hilary’s horror she had her nose buried in page nine.

“Oh my God the poor girl,” the woman gasped, “Have you seen this?”

The girl looked right at Hilary and then back at the shot of her bottom.

“Yeah,” Hilary held her breath.

“Just like that other girl last semester, what was her name?” the woman continued.

“I forget,” Hilary said woodenly.

“Me too, I bet that she is the only one who hasn’t,” the redhead shrugged and made to leave. “I have to report for swats,” she sighed, “I guess I’ll be standing for dinner tonight.”

Then she was gone.

“Me too,” Hilary said to the space where the woman had been standing.

*

Hilary knocked on John Harmon’s door without looking around. Today because of the Clarion there had been a knot of whispering people in the faculty office standing behind her. She couldn’t make out all that they said; just random phrases.

“Is that her?”

“Her butt is hardly marked.”

“Cute.”

“I bet her face is redder than her behind right now.”

“Not for long.”

“Oh God is that how I look in the corner.”

“I’d just die.”

“You can go up now Miss Cline.”

It had taken a moment for Hilary to realise that the last comment add been to and not about her. With her chin on her chest she had mouthed ‘thank you’ and scurried for the stairs.

Now she stood in the hall waiting, careless who might pass by; after all the damage had been done. But even as she thought that she remembered John’s paddle, cane and… she gulped. Nearly over, she steeled herself.

“Come in.”

Hilary took a breath and went through the door.

John was standing at the window looking out, but Hilary could see the large paddle and the cane on his desk. At least that probably meant that she wouldn’t have to fetch any more switches.

“Hello John,” she said meekly.

“Hello Hilary,” he replied, turning to look at her with a tight smile.

It was virtually the first time he had used her name since the nightmare had begun.

“Am I forgiven?” she said quietly.

He shrugged. “We have a tutorial Monday and we can review your progress. Your paper for Jim Martin will be back by then, and the one for me.”

Hilary gulped. It was even money that she would be paddled and or caned for one or the other. But at least she would not arrive sans culottes. Then she remembered that as far as any failure with Professor Martin was concerned then it was ‘paddled at school then paddled at school’ for her as per the ‘bet’ with John. Ouch, she thought grimly and felt her buttocks clench.

“Now Miss Cline if you will kindly bend over and grab your ankles then we can begin,” he said pointedly.

“Yes Sir,” she whispered. This is where we came in, she thought as she obeyed.

Her still tender bottom thrust out towards him as she took a firm hold of her shins to offer him the ‘professor’s perk.’ As ever, she blushed. ‘Don’t you ever get used to it?’ she had once asked her aunt.

“Thankfully not,” was Clarice’s reply, “For that way lies danger.”

That was about the size of it, Hilary agreed, complacency led to more bottom blisters and it was most definitely red for danger around here. She might have laughed at her own pun but the paddle struck.

The force of it made her stagger and go cross-eyed and she took a moment to breath. By then the next swat had added to the fire and she had to clench her teeth. If she was very, very lucky, then she was in for the standard triple. That was twice paddled and then a good slice of caning.

The third and fourth made her grunt and her knuckles whitened at her ankles. Maybe it was the previous tenderness or just the end of a long weary week, but tears sprang to her eyes and she started in with the heavy breathing.

John paused at six swats and examined the two dark red ovals that described Hilary’s bottom cheeks. He remembered the puce-faced freshman he had paddled that first time. She had been bawling by now and he had let her off at eight. But her thanks afterwards had been in earnest and there had not been the least resentment in her eyes. Clarice had told him Hilary would take it like that.

He remembered the letter he had got some days before when he was considering how to handle Hilary.

Dear John,

I absolutely concur with your solution. I cannot believe you have any doubts. Hilary is a wilful complacent girl just as I was at her age. As you know I was debagged in my sophomore year, although not by you even though I deserved it many times over.

I have never told Hilary that, probably because before it might have put her off going to Clyburn and afterwards it might have seemed like bragging. If you go ahead with your plan, and I really hope that you do, perhaps she and I will compare notes on the matter.

One more thing, afterwards she may feel the worst is behind her, so to speak, and start to slack off again. Make sure you keep her up to the mark and paddle her hard. That trick you used to do making me collect switches, I gather you have never employed that one with Hilary or hadn’t last time I spoke to her. I can tell you a girl never forgets.

I can still feel your paddle… cane, switches, that rubber thing you used to have and that nasty, nasty prison strap. Hilary respects you and has never expressed anything but ruefully gratitude for your discipline. So do not stint.

I for one sometimes miss your firm hand and when I last called in for a visit I felt quite weak at the knees knocking on your door. Oh well happy days I suppose.

Keep up the good work.

Yours Clarice.

The paddle resumed its burning path and John could tell this time Hilary was struggling with its impact.

“Okay Miss Cline, you may go and stand in the corner for a while,” he said at last.

*

The corner smelt of old wood and polish and the prickly throb in her bare bottom felt hot where it met the cool of the room. She felt cosy and safe, like a bad girl forgiven. Then for the first time in over three years at Clyburn she burst into tears after just her warm-up paddling.

John cocked an eye and felt like saying something comforting but Hilary forestalled him by saying, “Sorry Sir, I’m alright, really I am. I have no idea where that came from.” Her voice was wet with tears.

“You’ll feel better afterwards,” he said.

“Yes Sir, I already do.”

He kept her there for half an hour before he had her bend over the back of the chair. Her bottom was still starkly red, which emphasised her tight domed curves. For once he hesitated and then he remembered Clarice’s letter and lined-up the paddle; the heavier one this time.

Hilary’s angry grunt sounded hoarse as the splat rocked the room. Not that she remained angry. After four more she was cowed again and surrendered to the tears. This was just as well for the second round with the paddle made the first warm seem like tickles.

“I’m sorry,” she hooted, “So sorry.” Her declarations were heartfelt, but in truth she had forgotten he was there. She was alone with purgatory and welcomed it.

Only the sharper assault of the cane brought her home again.

“Ooh,” she croaked huskily as she bucked and clawed in response to the stick.

“You can count these today,” he said.

“Yes Sir,” she rasped, “One.”

It was a tough discipline but kept her focussed.

“Two,” she grunted for the second, then sang out, “Three-ee.”

It was difficult for her to hold it together and in the end he had to break the punishment into two sets of 15. By then her bottom was like two pads of corrugated burgundy on a ruby sheen and she was bawling in great cleansing gulps.

“I think you can go back to the corner for a rest,” he said, “Your debagging may be over but unless it sticks your bottom is going to be getting a lot of this.”

“Yes Sir,” she groaned.

But this time the corner was twice as welcome and she would have happily stayed there until Monday. A fact reflected by a wash of tears that rolled down her cheeks and off her chin like summer ice cream. All this she reflected on as the cane stripes sawed in out in waves as they throbbed, and she welcomed them like old friends come to greet her.

*

The Saturday night campus barbecue was a riot of fun and although Hilary was still officially debagged she was glad that Anne had talked her into coming. Even though she had to stand in the shadows under the trees the cold night air felt good on her sore bottom and gave her some slight hope that she might be able to sit down before the end of the coming week.

It was a fiction of course, but a comforting one. The report slip in her purse held a C plus for Professor Martin’s course and he had asked to see her on Monday afternoon. Straight after seeing John, she ruefully thought. God I do hope I have a decent grade for that man because dear old Harmon will have my behind again for not getting above B plus.

And what did Martin want? C plus wasn’t that bad and he couldn’t know that John owned her tail for the grade. Maybe he saw some promise in her, she certainly hoped so for all-in-all his was the best course she had yet been on. Hilary certainly knew now what her dissertation would be on and if Clyburn would have her, she would be back next year for her master’s.

But she knew that if Jim Martin wanted to spank her for getting a C plus then he could and would. She shrugged. That was the Clyburn way.

“What are you thinking about?” Anne asked as she came over with a hamburger for the semi-reclusive Hilary.

Hilary smiled but her attention was on the flames of the fire as they scorched sausages, chicken and hamburgers. The barbecue couldn’t be as hot at her bottom right then and she was glad not to have to sit down.

“I am thinking that if I can sit down for Thanksgiving Dinner then I am one lucky girl,” Hilary chuckled.

Anne said nothing. In her own pocket was a discipline slip from her tutor. Move over Hills, we might both be standing for supper this semester.

The end for now.

Henry Vaughn heaved a deep sigh and turned the letter over in his hand. He reread it for the third time in the hope that it would tell him something different, a futile exercise, he knew. Now he had a big problem on his hands.

The heavy set man sat back in his chair and grabbed the bridge of his nose in frustration. His thick greying eyebrows came together now with a frown adding to his stern countenance. Perhaps if he wrote back for verification, he considered, at least that would give him more time to consider his actions.

The trouble with that idea was that he would be betraying a trust of sorts, not that the board would blame him. He felt sure that any appointment he made would be backed. But something had to be done; there was a principle at stake at the very least.

He had been the Cade County Commission and Chairman of the Board of Education for 15 years now; a respected position enhanced by the fact that the Vaughn’s had been in Cade County since its founding. He had an aunt who was even a Cade, for the Lord’s sake. Added to that he was a war hero and 30 years before he had been stalwart of the Southern cause.

Now there was this little parcel of trouble to sort out and at the heart of it was a damn Yankee, a pretty and likeable Yankee, but an outsider nonetheless. This definitely required some careful consideration.

*

It was long after school and a message had been sent home that Edith Caldwell would be kept behind for some considerable time.

Despite a fiery red hair to match her angry disposition, the girl was pretty. At 18 she was like many of her fellow students and compatriots, a young woman at war with the world. Not to mention heavily over invested in entitlement and a bully to boot.

At least that was the opinion of Eleanor Whitlow, the newly appointed Cade County school ma’am who had caught Edith not only cheating on her math paper, but coercing another student in aiding abetting her. Now the little madam was trying to test her.

The trouble was Eleanor was from Boston, a fact that many of her students were not inclined to let her forget. This made for few friends in town and a student rebellion was not to be tolerated.

“You ain’t gonna whoop me neither,” Edith spat on seeing Eleanor reach for the paddle that hung on the back wall of the one-room school.

“Oh I think that I am,” Eleanor said with a steely voice.

At 22 and less than a year out of the college, Eleanor Whitlow could ill afford to be soft. She was all too conscious that the slight age gap with her older students and her small statue both served to undermine authority. And so too for a reason that she could not fathom did the fact that she was blonde and fairly presentable.

“I’ll, I’ll… tell my Pa,” Edith said nervously as she shifted from foot to foot.

“Oh, your father will hear about this to be sure,” Eleanor told her charge.

Edith pulled a pained expression and opened her mouth to speak.

“Well you don’t have to,” Edith said quickly, now sounding a tad more conciliatory, “I mean, we could just forget the whole thing.”

“I am afraid that I cannot do that,” Eleanor sighed.

Edith clutched at her chest and eyed the paddle with expansive apprehension.

“My Pa will give me a licking,” she wailed.

“No doubt he will,” Eleanor shrugged.

Edith gulped and started to wring her hands.

“I suppose I could smooth over some of the details if you took your punishment bravely,” Eleanor suggested. “But I warn you I mean to take my time in advancing your education.”

Edith swallowed hard and then with a triumph of will gave a curt nod.

“You saw how I paddled Jane Metcalf last week,” Eleanor said sharply, “And don’t deny it; I know you were peeking from the window.”

“I never…” Edith began, but one warning look from the mistress stopped her. So seeing nothing for it she again nodded.

“Then please prepare,” Eleanor directed.

The petite school teacher then watched as a dread-crushed Edith took heavy steps to drag the heavy leather padded chair to the front of the class and push the back of it up against Eleanor’s desk.

Then with one final appeal with her eyes, she hiked up her voluminous skirts and reached under to let down her draws. It was a short hop then to clamber onto the seat to kneel facing backwards and support herself with her elbows on the desk.

“Raise your skirts a little more and then bend right over and grab the far side of the desk,” Eleanor instructed her.

Edith hesitated for a long moment and then with misery itself carved on her face she obeyed. This posture served to present her pale bare bottom upwards and out; a tight peach ripe for the polishing.

“I bet you can’t whop me for as long and hard as Pa does,” Edith said sullenly as she stared defiantly ahead at the blackboard two strands of red hair escaped her bun and fell across her forehead to frame her eyes. Her stubborn pride now exceeded her good sense.

Eleanor shook her head at the challenge, noting the hint of fiery fur peeking between the girls thighs and marvelling at just what a classic redhead this girl was. The girl was goading her, this was too much. Nonetheless, professional detachment was called for.

“Put your legs together girl,” Eleanor scolded.

Edith obliged just as the first swat landed with a heavy crack that startled even Eleanor.

*

The spanking had been underway for some minutes now and Edith was hunkered down with her face low to the desk top so that her poor belaboured behind was well thrust upwards. It was a posture of defiant exhaustion for which her bottom was paying a heavy price. The whole surface of hams and hinds was stained red and had even turned dark and purplish around the crowns and lower curves.

But still the girl had done no more than let out with the odd angry grunt, determined that Eleanor would not get the better of her.

By now both women’s hair was giving way to a tangled mess with strands of hair plastering to their foreheads in perspiration and it was a close call to which of the two was the most out of breath. Eleanor had to even pause for a moment to mop her brow. How could the girl be so stubborn?

She moved to Edith’s side and took in the firm set of her mouth and watery eyes.

“You know this doesn’t end when you decide to give up,” she told the girl.

Edith gave her head one quick shake of denial and Eleanor sighed.

She brought the paddle down in a hard two-handed swat and this time the girl grunted. But it was all that Eleanor could do. Even with a dozen more like it.

The diminutive teacher mopped her own brow and lined up the paddle for another go around.

*

School was out now and the last of the students had straggled down the lane to the town and the farms beyond and he guessed that the teacher would be alone for a talk. So Henry Vaughn had decided to confront Miss Whitlow with what he had discovered.

The light in the old school house announced that Eleanor had indeed not yet left, but for some reason Henry took a glance through the window before stepping inside.

He wasn’t entirely surprised to see a girl bottom up across the desk. The paddle was widely used in Cade County and the fact that the student concerned was none other than the troublesome Edith Caldwell gave him some grim satisfaction. Eleanor’s predecessor had been far too soft and it was good to see that someone had finally taken the Caldwell girl down a peg or two.

Then he remembered the problem in hand and winced. He knew that he had made the right appointment and yet… there had to be some way around it.

His pondering was interrupted by the conversation inside and suppressing a faint sense of unease he put his ear to the window to listen.

“Now Edith,” Eleanor was saying, “I hate bullies and I hate cheats. You are both. There is no excuse for it. Now you are trying to get the better of me and that too I will not have.”

Edith shifted over the desk, her bruised burgundy bottom bucking in slow motion. There were now two blistered welts on the crown and the lower curves; tender spots that would steal the girl’s sitting privileges for days to come, if not a full week. Eleanor, knew this from bitter, bitter experience, a certain knowledge that had not long faded from her mind. A lesson learned that she could put to good effect now. For one thing, she certainly knew how to paddle.

“I told you, this will not be over just because you end your defiance,” she scolded.

Edith groaned and then sniffed heavily. The surrendered tears came slowly, but come they did.

“No ma’am,” she finally wailed.

Eleanor looked relieved.

“You’re a silly girl, aren’t you?” the teacher sighed.

“I don’t mean to be ma’am, really I don’t,” Edith sobbed.

“You cheated, you were defiant and you tried to make others so,” Eleanor said sharply.

“Yes ma’am,” Edith replied miserably.

“So you know you deserve this don’t you?”

“Yes ma’am.”

“Alright then,” Eleanor sighed with finality. “Let us finish this then.”

“Ma’am?” Edith wailed in panic.

“A punishment is best served on a repentant bottom,” Eleanor said grimly, “And I warned you about your stubborn defiance.”

“Ooh, yes ma’am,” Eleanor cried as she sagged in her place.

Henry watched as the paddle landed with an earnest vigour a dozen more times.

“Now girl get your nose in the naughty corner where I put the little kids and you can have a good cry. Then we will finish where we should have started,” Eleanor ordered the girl.

Henry chuckled, not really knowing what poor Edith would suffer next, but he was quite sure she was in capable hands and he left.

*

The half an hour in the corner to cry herself out had been mortifying enough. But now Edith was required to write out on the blackboard: “Defiant girls are spanked; I will not bully and cheat my school fellows.”

Worse still she had to do it with her bloomers down and her skirts pinned into the small of her back. If her father sent her brother to find her… Edith quailed. And what if Thomas came with friends like Danny or even Michael Bingham?

Although her wrist ached she applied herself with the punitive task until the whole board was full up. So anxious was she to complete the humble task. Then with doe-eyed submission she looked longingly at her teacher.

“Wipe it up and start again,” Eleanor told her, “We have a long way to go yet.”

“Ooh, oh… oh yes ma’am,” Edith whimpered and shot an anxious look at the door. She just knew it wasn’t locked.

*

The following evening Eleanor had this time sat down at her desk without incident. The students had all been quiet as church mice without the ringleader stirring things up. And Edith, whose blush had not left her face all day, was as meek and humble as anyone could wish. Although judging by Thomas Caldwell and his friends whispered mutterings, they were fully party to what had happened the night before. No doubt the boys had crept back to peek through the windows to find out what had been keeping Edith so long.

Well it was none of her affair and at least Eleanor could settle down and mark some books. So it was then a surprise to hear the door open and see Henry Vaughn, the commissioner of education come in.

“Mr Vaughn,” she said with an enforced polite smile as she got to her feet.

“Miss Whitlow,” Henry sighed, readying himself for the confrontation to come.

“Is there something wrong?” Eleanor inquired apprehensively.

Henry sucked in air through his nose and let it out with a purpose. Then he strode the length of the schoolroom and deposited the letter he had received from Boston on her desk.

Eleanor eyed it suspiciously and then seeing the heading, her heart caved a little and she felt sick.

Although the missive confirmed her attendance at Boston Ladies College as she had claimed, it informed the Cade County Commissioner that any references he had received from them must have been forged. Furthermore, it read, far from being top of her class, Eleanor Whitlow had barely graduated, and with grades far lower than Henry Vaughn had suggested.

“I-I can explain,” Eleanor squeaked.

“Can you? Can you really Miss Whitlow?” he growled.

“I just, I only…”

“You overegged your pudding somewhat didn’t you?” he pressed her.

Eleanor dipped her head and nodded.

“And the letter of references?” he snapped.

“An old college friend, she… she eh… ‘borrowed’ some headed paper and copied out her own letter of recommendation,” Eleanor admitted.

“I see,” Henry sighed heavily, “Can you see any reason I should not dismiss you at once?”

Eleanor’s heart withered in her chest and the ground all but opened to drag to a deserved hell, which would have been preferable right then.

“No Sir,” she said miserably.

Henry sighed again. He had hoped for some simple explanation or at least a plausible denial.

“The trouble is, and by all accounts, you are the best teacher we have ever had here….” he groaned, “Damn you woman. Your predecessor was, well quite frankly hopeless and in just a few months our students have made great progress,” he explained regretfully. “Why in tar-nation couldn’t you have been honest?”

Eleanor swallowed and then looked down at her shoes.

“’I hate cheats. There is no excuse for it.’” I believe you said, “And you have played the people of this county for fools.”

Eleanor looked up and gaped at him. They had been her exact words to Edith the night before. He must have been listening.

“I ought to send you packing, but your treatment of Edith Caldwell yesterday suggested another possibility to see honour served,” he said in calm dark voice.

Eleanor’s eyes widened and she took an involuntary step backwards.

“Y-you wouldn’t,” she gasped.

“And why not?” he said with a stern rise of his brows.

“B-but…” Eleanor could scarcely get a breath and shot a worried glance at the paddle on the wall.

“I could give you a choice,” he growled, “But quite frankly I don’t want to lose you and you would be a fool to leave without references. So all that remains is you to look me in the eye and tell me you don’t have it coming Miss Whitlow.”

Eleanor gulped and he waited a moment longer before speaking.

“I saw most of how you handled Edith and I heard the rest from some boys who didn’t know I was there,” Henry told her. “Can you think of any reason that you shouldn’t get the same?”

She felt the blood drain from her face and her heart was set to pounding in her chest.

“Mr Vaughn, I-I am a grown woman, y-you cannot mean to… I mean, I’m too old to be spanked,” she spluttered.

“Are you? I think not. You are not much older than Edith and younger than my own daughter whom I would spank soundly if she had behaved half as badly as you,” he said in tones that did indeed remind Eleanor of a disappointed father.

“But you can’t,” she wailed.

“I can and I will,” he snapped, “Although I do not intend to force you. I have great faith in your integrity and repentance.”

Eleanor swallowed hard and regarded the paddle as if it had been suddenly imbued with a just inevitability.

“Please make the preparations Miss Whitlow,” he said a sharp calm clear voice. As he spoke he began to remove his jacket.

Then as she swayed close to a swoon he turned and walked to the door to lock it. The blinds were tattered and scarcely adequate but nonetheless he made a slow tour of the room closing each one at the windows. By the time he turned back Eleanor had removed her outer gown and draws and had bent over the chair at the desk where she had placed it.

Her bottom was womanish and fuller than Edith’s and he meant to make his mark.

“Mr Vaughn,” she croaked, “This is… is most unseemly.”

But her glowering red face was turned down in a kowtow to the wall. So he took the paddle form the wall and studied it closely. It had a sheen to it and he hefted it firmly as returned to stand behind his poorly behaved teacher.

“Ever been paddled before Miss Whitlow?” he asked.

She nodded and in a thick voice rasped, “Yes Sir, in Boston, in much this position.”

“More than once I’ll be bound,” he chuckled. “When was the last time?”

“Not long before I came here,” she admitted, “I… I was held back three semesters you see and then had to… well, I missed a year…”

Her broken story served to distract her.

“This paddle drill was borrowed from your old alma mater wasn’t it?”

Eleanor sucked in a breath and nodded.

The paddle stung her then. A crisp clean band of pain searing her bare bottom cheeks as she lurched forward and emitted a squeak.

Two dark pink pebble-dash patches rose up quickly, one for each curved cheek, and he spanked her again.

“Ah,” she lurched, her pretty face rolling to the ceiling before dipping again.

Then the swats came slow and steady. From outside if anyone were to pass it sounded like a spinning jenny was weaving away inside the school room; a rhythmic and relentless clack-clack over and over slowly marking time every two seconds.

*

Even though he had taken four long rest breaks, both of them were thoroughly out of breath by the time Henry put down the paddle. By then the night had a beard and Eleanor was sobbing gently under a purple-red leathery-welted bottom thrust uppermost from her prone body. She had blisters to rival any she had given Edith and not an ounce of strength for the least resentment. In fact despite her ordeal, or perhaps because of it, she felt better. The burden of her white lies had finally been lifted and she at last felt that she deserved her position in Cade County.

Henry now sensed her acceptance and finally putting the paddle down, he quoted her words at her, “A punishment is best served on a repentant bottom,” so we may return to this later. “Now you may stand and take up the chalk.”

Eleanor shot a horrified look at the naughty corner where she had set Edith. It was too shameful.

“Oh you will stand there later, much later, and by then you will be glad to do it. Accepting it as you will, the lesser of your shame. No doubt you’ll never look at it the same again,” he chuckled. “But for now I want you to write out, “Teachers who cheat the board, cheat their students and will be soundly spanked.”

It was a shameful truth and suddenly the fire in her bottom fell far short of redemption for her. She clutched at her seared rear and heaved a sob

“Yes Sir,” she said miserably as she picked up the familiar chalk.

“Don’t worry, I will remain while you do it,” he told her. “Oh and leave your skirts up and bloomers off won’t you? That is how it is done?”

Eleanor sobbed back a breath and nodded as she set about the given task.

“H-how many?” she meekly asked.

“Just keep going until I tell you to stop,” he said firmly.

Eleanor suspected that she would fill the board several times over before the night was over. But after just a line or two Eleanor stopped and muttered something.

“What was that?” he growled.

“I said, I am sorry,” she sniffed.

He nodded and replied, “I know.”

Then after another scratch-squeak of chalk she paused again and said, “Mr Vaughn.”

“Yes Miss Whitlow.”

“Thank you,” she said in a wan voice.

“You can thank me later after I finish your spanking.”

“Ooh,” she wailed and flashed a horrified glance at the still warm paddle on her desk.

It was just what she would have done in his place, she decided, and with a mortified sigh she returned to the chalk.

Eleanor Whitlow blew a stray strand of hair from her forehead. At least it was not plastered there with perspiration on account of the heat. The heat, it was barely March, as she remembered it Boston would only have just seen off the snow. But Eleanor was a long way from Boston and as strive as she did for it, she could not really mind.

For one thing in Boston she would be regarded as a slovenly woman for not taming every last brown hair piled upon her head. However, here in Cade County she cut quite a dash without such attention to detail. Most of the other women were farmers or helped husbands with various trades and had little time for flippity gibbets who fussed over much about their appearance.

It was an attitude that would have appalled her back in Boston, but by Northern standards she had already failed and would have been now unemployable. Here in Cade County their rough and ready ways had opened the door for a second chance and some forgiveness.

Eleanor dusted the chalk off her hands and turned back to the blackboard. There was still a faint ghost of that day’s geography lesson to be seen but it was the recent memory of long lines of repentance she had written there that were far from faded in her mind.

Her bottom still held mottled traces of brown and yellow from the paddle that hung on the wall and she blushed. For Eleanor, so far Cade County justice had been very rough indeed. But for the first time in her life she felt safe. There was nowhere to fall now and all she had to do was teach and tend her new garden.

Mr Vaughn had been so kind to her since her mortifying correction and even though she could not yet quite look him in the eye, strangely she trusted the man.

“Are you truly saying I can stay?” she had sobbed when finally he had finished with her that fateful evening almost two weeks ago.

“Yes Miss Whitlow, you can stay and this little matter will remain between us,” he had chuckled paternally. “But if you ever disappoint me again you and me will be having more conversations like this do you hear?”

“Yes Sir,” she had gushed in earnest agreement as she blushed.

She was still blushing now at the memory of it, a warm glow that suffused her in a fuzzy magical way that trilled her with longing and excitement.

Eleanor might have wondered further at her emotions but from outside someone was calling her name. Looking up across the single room school she tried to peer through the door at the far end left open by the last of her students dismissed by the bell.

“Hello?” she inquired of the rectangle of afternoon sunlight.

“Miss Whitlow,” said a male voice a moment before a shadow filled the door.

“Mr Vaughn,” Eleanor twittered, now thrown into to turmoil that the man that was so close to her thoughts was suddenly made so real by his presence.

“I didn’t mean to startle you,” Henry Vaughn said gently.

Eleanor clasped at her throat and half turned away, “N-no, not at all Sir.”

“I trust you have no more trouble from the hellions of Cade County today?” His voice smiled as he strove to put her at her ease.

“Nothing I couldn’t handle,” she replied through an uneasy grin. Her gaze flicked to the paddle on the wall and he followed it.

“I am quite sure of that,” he chuckled, “From what I saw that night, I doubt that young Edith Caldwell can sit down yet.”

He might have added or you either, but his face held no trace of any such thought. All the same Eleanor blushed to her ears and ducked her gaze to her shoes.

“Edith is sitting just fine,” Eleanor replied carefully, “For the moment anyway.” And so am I Sir, she thought, although that had not been so some three or four days before. “H-how can I help you today?” she added to change the subject.

“Oh… I… well seeing as you are new to town I wondered if you might join us for supper tomorrow night,” Henry told her.

“Us?” Eleanor asked, cocking one eyebrow.

“My niece and I,” he smiled, “I am her guardian you know, or was, she turned 21 this winter. I thought you might want to meet someone of your own age.”

“I am 22,” Eleanor blurted. It was a detail that only a young person would think important.

“Well close enough,” he smiled. At 53 the distinction was moot to him.

“I… eh…” Eleanor was blushing again. How could she possibly sit down for supper with a man who had…

“I am not a complete monster Miss Whitlow,” he laughed, “And Carrie is quite charming.”

“Are you sure you consider me fit company for your niece? After all…” Eleanor knew her deception had been overlooked, after all the County was probably desperate for a teacher, but Mr Vaughn knew her true colours now.

“Miss Whitlow, that matter is behind us and not a soul knows about our… misunderstanding. Not even Carrie. Please come,” Henry pressed.

Eleanor sucked in a breath and nodded. “Very well Mr Vaughn, what time?”

*

Henry Vaughn lived in a large white clapboard house on a hill overlooking town. It had a white picket fence shading some flower varieties that Eleanor didn’t known and a winding cinder path to a thick pillared porch.

She had opted for a simple yellow dress with a yellow sash and bonnet, but despite the unseasonably warm weather the cool of the evening had reminded her it was not quite summer and she had donned a floral pattern shawl for the walk up the lane.

Before Eleanor had taken three steps up the path the front door opened and a beaming girl in a blue country dress bounded out girlishly to extend her arms.

“Oh Miss Whitlow, I have heard so much about you,” the girl gushed, “And Boston, you simply must tell me. I have never been further than Charlotte Virginia and… oh where are my manners?”

The young woman suddenly looked horrified as if she been cursed and seized her face in mortification. The sudden movement rustled her tight corn golden curls making her seem much younger in an instant.

“You must be Carrie… Vaughn is it?” Eleanor was totally disarmed.

“Carrie yes,” the girl frowned before another grin burst from her face. “But my father was called Thompson, not that I knew him. The late Mrs Vaughn and my mother were sisters. Oh but you don’t care about that.”

Carrie’s eyes danced as she stepped off the porch to take Eleanor’s arm to guide her into the house.

“We are having chicken for supper, isn’t that fine?” she continued, “I simply love chicken…”

Eleanor might have agreed but Carrie didn’t pause and by the time they reached the drawing room the young teacher learned that Carrie had lived with Henry Vaughn since shortly before she turned 18 and that she had been to a finishing school in Charlotte, but that her mother’s demise had ended that prematurely.

Carrie might have said much more but Henry gave her a withering look and the girl finally fell silent.

“So if you are not totally bored and wish to flee,” he chuckled, “May I offer you some lemonade?”

“Oh mercy,” Carrie squealed and hurried off to fetch some.

“She is quite…” Eleanor began.

“Oh yes,” Henry winked.

*

Supper went well and for the longest time Carrie kept wide-eyed and quiet as Eleanor told them all about Boston. But pretty soon they got onto teaching and how schools in Cade County compared.

“You have a paddle on your wall?” Carrie gushed, “Do you ever get to use it? I bet you do.”

Eleanor shifted uncomfortably wondering how to answer when Carrie warmed to her new theme.

“In Charlotte Miss Harrison had a nasty cane and paddle in her room, but she only got it out in private. Getting a spanking in front of everyone must be awful,” Carrie gasped, but her eyes had more wonder in them than horror. “I only felt it the paddle twice and the cane once, but I was younger then. I was pretty much still only a child when I came here.”

Carrie was blushing fully strawberry now but her face was lit up with a smile.

“I was such a brat,” she giggled, “But Uncle Henry soon taught me.”

“Indeed,” Eleanor replied in a strained voice. She risked a glance at Mr Vaughn but he was still smiling at Carrie indulgently.

“Oh yes, at 18 I thought I was too grown-up for a spanking.” Despite the embarrassing admission Carrie did not stint in her fulsome revelations and added in a loud whisper, “I wasn’t here a month before I went right over Uncle’s knee. Right there actually,” she added, pointing at an ottoman in the corner of the dining room. “On the bare,” she mouthed.

“Oh yes, I… I can well believe it,” Eleanor muttered. Then somewhat louder she asked, “Did this happen very often?”

“No, not so very much,” Carrie said in a slow considered voice, “Mostly I get taken to the woodshed out back where uncle keeps a strop. It is also handy for collecting hickory switches, which the beastly man made me fetch myself as often as not,” she added ruefully.

Eleanor might have been aghast at Carrie’s use of the present tense had it not been for her own experience, but now she was intrigued.

“You make me sound quite the wicked uncle,” Henry chuckled, “But when was the last time that was required?”

Carrie made a pout and blushed a little more before answering in a mock sullen voice, “About a week before my last birthday as you well know, but don’t pretend my poor bottom is safe from justice should I still deserve it uncle. For I know now that a girl is never too old. Don’t you agree Miss Whitlow?”

“Well I…” Eleanor shifted awkwardly in her chair and turned her gaze to the remains of the pie on her plate.

The room was silent now and two pairs of eyes were suddenly studying her with interest until the young teacher shot an accusatory look at Henry. Imperceptibly he shook his head, but allowed a small smile to play about his lips. Carrie was oblivious to the exchange and continued to stare so earnestly at Eleanor that the teacher finally cracked a smile and gave a small laugh.

“As a matter of fact I think you are right,” she said at last, “But I shouldn’t have said so before coming here.”

“Oh really,” Carrie said eagerly, “Whatever has happened to change your mind?”

Eleanor and Henry traded a knowing look and the older girl blushed.

“Good country air and the likes of Edith Caldwell, I shouldn’t be surprised,” Henry cut in to rescue his guest. “Now if you will get on with the dishes Carrie, I will escort Miss Whitlow to the drawing room.”

“Call me Eleanor please, both of you,” Eleanor said warmly.

“And you must call me Henry,” Henry said expansively.

“Oh no Mr Vaughn, I couldn’t possible do that,” Eleanor said as soon as Carrie had left them.

“Why, because I am your employer, surely…?” Henry protested.

“Because,” Eleanor said in a hushed voice, “Apparently young women in Cade County aren’t too old for a spanking and under the circumstances I could not possible accept such a thing from a social equal Sir.”

Henry smiled politely in acknowledgment and made a small exaggerated bow.

“Even if such a thing was never going to happen again,” Eleanor added tartly.

Henry bowed again and waved her into his front parlour, but behind her back he couldn’t help a stifled chuckle.

*

Three days later Edith Caldwell was bending over her desk in an empty classroom with her draws at her ankles and her skirts tucked into the small of her back. The carrot-haired 18-year-old was somewhat less defiant than she had been the last time she had been in that position. In fact as soon as Eleanor took up the paddle from the wall she at once became earnestly sorry.

“I didn’t mean to… I mean, please Ma’am…” Edith wailed.

“I know,” Eleanor sighed, “But somehow you did.”

“Yes Ma’am,” Edith agreed miserably.

“But you know better to cross me this time, don’t you?” Eleanor said as she patted the hard surface of the paddle against Edith’s proffered bare bottom.

“Oh yes Ma’am, I’m sorry Ma’am,” Edith said quickly, risking a backward glance as she nervously licked her lips.

“It has been barely two weeks,” Eleanor observed drily, “Do I have to paddle you twice a month between now and your graduation?”

Edith rolled down her bottom lip and shrugged.

“Probably Miss, I can’t seem to help myself,” she groaned.

“Well, let us see if I can dissuade you,” Eleanor sighed again and drew back her arm. “We will do this in two parts I think. I sound application of the paddle to get your attention and then you can write lines on the blackboard while your bottom cools.”

The paddle stung in hard and Edith gasped through clenched teeth.

“Yes Ma’am,” she squeaked.

“Then I will spank you in earnest until you are very, very sorry,” Eleanor said sharply and spanked the paddle down with almost full-force as she emitted a grunt usually reserved for competitive shuttlecocks.

“Ahh, uhg, yes Ma’am,” Edith groaned.

The paddle struck six times more before a moist-eyed Edith was allowed to stand up stiffly and take up the chalk. The red domes of her bottom emphasised her dishevelled state which she was not permitted to repair as she limped to the board to start her imposition.

“What must I… what do I write Ma’am?” Edith sniffed.

Eleanor looked wistfully to the side and for some reason thought of Henry Vaughn.

“Young ladies are never too old to be soundly spanked on their bare bottoms,” she said wistfully. “Write in your neatest handwriting won’t you? I might leave your efforts on the board for your friends to admire tomorrow.”

Edith’s expression of horror was not missed by the amused school ma’am.

This is a work of fiction suggested by real events.

At 18 I had two close encounters with the cane; both of them in my last term of Sixth Form College. I was generally a good girl and had for the most part escaped any run-ins with either Mrs B the head of year or the deputy head who handled discipline. But during my last days things were to go rather awry.

My first encounter was a close call. I had recently acquired a boyfriend, always a distraction at that age and as a result had overslept causing me to miss a mock exam. Mrs B who would usually have handled it was preoccupied with the rest of the exam preparations and I was referred to the Deputy Head.

Although I was certain I would get no more than a bollocking and perhaps a detention, my tummy did flip-flops all the way up the usually forbidden main staircase and all the way to the waiting area outside the DH’s office.

It was one of those early summer days when everything was fresh and the sun poured through big old windows setting the dark wooden floors to glow in a taunting way that served to emphasise that there was definitely somewhere you would rather be.

Outside I could even hear of kids calling out as they played football, or my game back then, netball. I was rather keen and not to mention good at it.

So I arrived at the DH’s room rather in a funk. Well-founded in my view as no sooner had I got there I saw another girl already waiting. About my age, she looked as white as a sheet and totally fixated on chewing her nails.

Just then the door opened and a furious looking DH strode out of his office to glare at us both. He was a big man with wild unkempt hair and given to wearing tweed. He looked terrifying.

“Who are you?” he barked at me.

I told him, adding that Mrs B had sent me.

“Ah yes, the skiver,” he drawled, “Skipped out on the mocks wasn’t it?”

“Just one sir,” I blurted, “And I only overslept, I didn’t mean to.” I probably sounded a bit whiney.

He grunted and turned to the other girl. I don’t remember her name now, but he seemed very familiar with it and judging from the reluctantly way she stood up and followed him into his room I guessed she was just as acquainted with him.

Now although he closed the door behind him as he followed her in, it swung open a bit and he didn’t seem to notice. So hoping for some clue to my fate I sat on the corner seat where from that position I could hear and see somewhat into the room.

“This is the third time this term,” he scolded the girl before launching into her complete verbal destruction.

I don’t exactly recall her crimes now, but there were a lot I think. He terrified the life out of me anyway, so you can image how she was feeling. Then he said something like, “Okay girl, you know the drill.”

As I watched she turned around and lifted up her skirt. Then he moved behind her and yanked her knickers up tight so that her bum was just about bare. I hadn’t seen the stick at that point and just gaped.

It all happened so fast. First there was swishing sound as he lined up the cane noisily and then he brought down across her bottom really hard. A white line appeared on her pale exposed bottom and she jerked, but that was all. Then he caned her several times more at about four second intervals. I forgot to count, but there may have been six or eight strokes. By the last two or three she made moaning grunt sounds and had trouble holding position.

Her bum was amazing. The white lines quickly turned pink and kind of stood up in little long bumps. Then it was over and she stood up and dropped her skirt.

She was crying when she came out and hurried past me without looking my way. Then it was my turn and I thought I was going to be sick.

As I entered the cane was still on the desk and the DH had a face like thunder. I barely heard a word he said as I got my bollocking and it wasn’t until he set me an imposition and told me to get out that I realised that my bottom was safe. For the rest of the day I felt as if I had fallen from a great height and was still falling.

*

Later the following term discipline all got a bit lax with the usual demob happy soon-to-be-ex-students getting into various unsavoury hi-jinks. I guess I got carried away.

A group of us girls dared each other to remove our kickers and tease the boys with them. Of course we had on long skirts, not like today and carried along with the mood was like being drunk. Some of the girls did a moony into a classroom, although I wasn’t up for that and if my knickers hadn’t of been snatched and thrown over a fence I would have put them back on.

To make up for cowardice and lack of adventure I took a dare to burst into a classroom and shout ‘you mugs are all slaves to the system.’

Unfortunately what I took to be a normal class of one of the lower years turned out to be an exam in progress.

As I sat outside the Deputy Head’s office my stomach was in knots and all I could think about was my last near-miss with the cane. Surely I reasoned I was beyond such things, but even I felt I had gone too far.

Worse still I had been apprehended straightway and had not had chance to sort out my underwear deficit. I mean what could I say that wasn’t going to make the situation worse? I had never been so self-conscious.

This time there was no one waiting and the DH came from up the hall as if called away from something important and breezed past me. At his door he yelled, “come along we haven’t all day,” my only signal that I should follow him into his office.

He smiled sternly over the rim of his glasses as he suggested I was too old for such pranks. Then he said he understood about it being the end of my school days and said that he remembered his. He even asked what I was going to do next and what college I was going on to.

I was more than a little self-conscious knowing I had no knickers on and was disproportionately embarrassed. But for a while it didn’t seem so bad. It wasn’t until I relaxed a bit that he got a little fierce and pointed out how thoughtless I had been. I wholeheartedly agreed and blushed to my ears. But nevertheless I thought I had dodged a bullet again. After all I was 18 now and about to leave.

Then he said, “You seem to have a bit of a track record around messing up exams don’t you?”

I was about to protest, but I remembered why I had been to see him before.

“Yes Sir,” I said in a miserable voice.

“As you recall I let you see the consequence of such behaviour last time. It seems that you didn’t take the hint,” he said in a casual semi-breezy semi-stern way.

It was then that I began to suspect my fate and wasn’t entirely surprised when he said, “I think you know the drill don’t you?”

I felt as if the floor had come up to meet me and I entertained the idea of faking a faint.

“Bend over girl and lift up your skirt,” he snapped.

I couldn’t get the words out and he was truly terrifying so when he barked out the order again I just jumped to it.

“Good God,” he gasped, “More bloody pranks.”

“Yes Sir, sorry Sir,” I squeaked and made to rise. I could have died.

Then he said, “Stay where you are. Don’t think I haven’t seen it all before.”

I heard him pick up the cane. I heard it rattle on his desk. But I was still mortified and more concerned about showing the man my bare bum than anything else.

“You will take three extras for this little display and any fuss and I’ll double it,” he barked.

The swishy crack seemed to come from a long way away but the line of fire across my bare bottom was indescribable. I jerked upright and grabbed at my bum. I remember thinking I shouldn’t let my skirt drop.

“Down,” he bellowed, caning me again hard as I obeyed.

I sucked air in and out as I made little blowing sounds, this as two lines of burning pain sawed into my backside. I felt hot tears brimming behind my eyes and it was almost impossible to stay bent over.

I think maybe the caning took less than a minute but to me each stroke was spaced out by an age. By five or six (one’s ability to count is compromised I promise you) I was crying openly and my bottom felt like I had sat on a grill.

At one point I thought it would never end and panicked as I remember what he had threatened about doubling it. But after what I later counted as nine the punishment was over.

He let me sob it out for a minute or two and then he offered me a hanky before shaking my hand.

“Thank you Sir, sorry Sir,” I said. It was the way in those days, but I don’t remember I how I knew that.

Later I inspected the nine hard dark reddish-purple lines that stood out in ridges on my bottom. I was absolute riveted by the sight and feel of them. It was three days before I could sit easy again and they took about 10 days to go completely. For the last five of those they were just yellow-brown streaks that ached when I prodded them.

I was actually disappointed when they finally faded and have been fascinated by corporal punishment and spankings ever since. I think if I hadn’t left that term I would have been back somehow.

Lady Constance stopped at the corner of the rose garden and the small Tudor-style maze at the south side of the house. Since her elder sister and cousin had got married, life at the Hall had been somewhat lacking. In fact her only diversion was her growing obsession with Mr Brandon who served as tutor to her young cousin Prudence.

Well obsession was too strong a word, perhaps interest was a better one. After all where was the harm? John Brandon was the only presentable young man in the county since Cousin Michael’s friends had all gone back to their regiments to fight the Boers.

Constance sighed and let her thoughts dwell on the man. True he was a rather dour sort and only a little above a middling height. But he was dark-haired broad in the shoulder, a build emphasised by the dark black frock coats he tended to wear. She also liked the way that he eschewed facial hair; apart that was for the heavy sideburns that framed the heavy features of his face and set off his steel grey eyes. She smiled dreamily as she blinked against the sun momentarily distracted.

Nevertheless, she still had the choice between a turn of the roses or a lonely stroll through the maze. Neither for the moment was that appealing and she sighed heavily. She wondered idly if Mr Brandon and Prudence had finished in the schoolroom for the day and whether they might be induced to join her.

Not for the first time she wondered that Prudence had a tutor at all. After all she was now 18 and if further studies had been required, then why hadn’t her uncle, Lord Somerset, engaged a governess? Prudence was not to be drawn on the subject and Mr Brandon tended to keep himself to himself when not teaching. It was such a bore. Well she supposed it was to do with her young cousin’s total inadequacy in her studies and the fact that her wilful ways had led to the departure of three governesses’ already that year.

The dichotomy of the maze versus the rose garden lay unresolved before her and Constance sighed again. She pursed her full lips and tossed a careless brown curl from her face. Perhaps she could go to the schoolroom and offer the scholars some tea? They could hardly refuse that could they? After all it was almost three o’clock.

She paused only to smooth down her ankle length white cotton and lace garden dress before absently twirling her parasol. Tea on the terrace was just the thing, she decided, and this time Mr Brandon would join her, she was quite determined about that.

*

As Constance made her way up the passage to the schoolroom and through the half open door she could hear the low tones of Mr Brandon’s voice. He sounded serious, stern even, the timbre of his voice resplendent with authority. By contrast Prudence sounded shrill and uncertain in her reply and despite the door being open she sounded somewhat muffled. Perhaps she was being scolded, Constance considered. She found the idea strangely thrilling. So in anticipation of eavesdropping Constance slowed to a creep and approached the door carefully to peep in.

The sight that greeted her stole away her breath and set her pulse racing. For just inside the door Prudence was bent double over the back of an easy chair with her skirts pinned up into the small of her back. Nor was this all, for her bloomers were unfastened and had been drawn down to well below her knees so that her big moon of a bottom was quite bare and exposed at the uppermost of her person.

Constance sucked in a breath and stifled it with a hand at her mouth as she drew back, but not so far that she could not continue to peer into the room. From the retreated vantage she troubled herself to take in every detail of the scene within.

Prudence was whimpering as well she might and as she lay prone her bottom twitched and squirmed under Mr Brandon’s indecent gaze. The bottom itself was a strawberry red and marred with little scrapes that here and there had risen to a criss-cross of small welts. These, Constance decided, must have been caused by the stout rod of birch in her teacher’s hand, a fearsome object as thick as a man’s wrist and almost a yard long.

Constance recognised the rod at once as a governess birch, such as the one she had been threatened with six or seven years before when she still yet had need of such guidance. In those days once the imminent threat of such a punishment had passed she had always thrilled at the idea of it and part of her had always regretted that she had never experienced it.

“Now Prudence,” Mr Brandon intoned as he moved behind his charge, “You were warned were you not?”

“Yes Sir,” Prudence squeaked, her voice indeed muffled on account of her head being half buried in the seat of the padded easy chair.

Constance idly wondered what Prudence had done, but at that moment she really didn’t care. As she watched Mr Brandon raised his arm and brought the birch rod down full force with a loud swish-crack that was only outdone by the yell issuing from Prudence’s throat.

Constance jumped at the sound and hugged herself. But she couldn’t tear her eyes from the rocking motion of Prudence’s bare bottom as she absorbed the stroke.

“I’m sorry Mr Brandon, so sorry,” Prudence wept, but her entreaties were to no avail as another harsh stroke landed and then another.

Constance marvelled at Prudence’s meekness, a trait that usually evaded the quite haughty young woman, and she smiled. Nor did she have any sympathy for the ragged rawness of her cousin’s bare bottom and how sore it looked. Indeed she silently hoped that the punishment was just beginning and that the miscreant would be flogged for an age.

In the event the birching lasted another 15 strokes or so, although no doubt to Prudence that was indeed an age. By then of course Prudence was lost in sobbing and her bottom looked as if she had ridden a porcupine over jumps at that the county fair. Constance doubted she would sit down for days to come.

“Let that be a lesson to you Prudence,” Mr Brandon said sharply.

Prudence didn’t answer, a situation tolerated for only a minute before Brandon said again, “I trust you have learned your lesson girl.”

“Yes Sir,” Prudence replied miserably.

“Then you may rise,” Brandon said sternly, before waiting as he was very slowly obeyed.

Constance was amazed at what a sorry little thing Prudence looked as she stood with her head bowed. Then to her astonishment her cousin again apologised and extended a tentative hand to her chastiser.

“Thank you Sir for correcting me so firmly,” Prudence whispered.

Brandon shook her firmly and nodded in satisfaction.

“You do know of course that you will forfeit your leisure time this afternoon?” he said.

Prudence nodded sadly and looked across the room at something.

“That’s right young lady, you will stand in the corner as you are until I send word to dismiss you,” he growled.

Constance stifled a giggled and hopped up and down a little with barely supressed glee while inside Prudence acknowledged his command.

“May I… might you…?” Prudence began her still tear-pooled eyes sweeping back and forth in her head in consternation. “Please Sir, the door…”

“The door will remain open wide and you will stand in the corner for all that pass to see,” Brandon announced in a commanding voice. Continuing, “And why is that?”

“Because I… because I… ooh, I’m sorry, I won’t do it again. I will stay there all week if you tell me. Just please let me close the door,” Prudence wailed.

“No my fine young miss; you disobeyed me and tried to cheat your punishment. Now you will have to suffer the added shame of exposure on these occasions. Do I make myself clear?” Brandon spoke in a lecturing tone that quailed even Constance.

“Yes Sir,” Prudence replied miserably as she turned her bottom back for Constance to gaze upon and limped over to the corner.

Once there she raised both arms and placed them on her head in a penitent posture that truly belied her 18-years. Not that her prominent sore bottom spoke of anything else but full-grown womanhood.

Constance was still staring at her cousin’s predicament when Brandon stepped into the hall.

“Lady Constance,” he said in surprise.

“Mr Brandon,” she gulped down some embarrassment, “I… I wonder if you might like to take… tea,” she finished uncertainly.

Brandon almost smiled, almost but not quite.

“I trust our… discussion did not disturb you,” Brandon said with nod over his shoulder.

“Not at all,” Constance brightened, “I am delighted to have the chance to see you at work. You are very good… expert I mean.”

Brandon frowned and then his expression softened as he caught something of her mood and shrugged.

“Tea then,” Constance said firmly.

*

“Tell me Mr Brandon, do you thrash Prudence often?” Constance asked conversationally as she stirred her tea.

“Thrash…?” Brandon answered still weighing her attitude to what she had witnessed.

“Well… punish? Punish so… effectively?” Constance amended.

“I have had cause to spank her soundly often for childish misdemeanours. That usually entails some time in the corner,” he explained, “But as we have grown to an understanding she has also been caned for major infractions.”

“Caned? On the bare…?” Constance blushed.

“Only way I am afraid. Lord Somerset is of much the same opinion. Your cousin was barely literate when I came to be responsible for her studies you see. Refused the rod from her governess and most of them could not handle her anyway,” Brandon continued.

“And the… um… birch?” Constance licked her lips.

“Always bare too of course and needful in latter days I am afraid,” Brandon said dismissively, “You see Prudence almost seems to… well… let us say that sometimes I need to be more severe.”

“Of course, of course,” Constance said airily as if it were of no import to her. “Tell me how long will she be in that corner?”

“Until she is dismissed if she knows what is good for her,” Brandon replied as he took a sip of tea. His demeanour suggested that he would explain nothing further.

Constance demurred and averted her eyes with a blush. “Anyway, anything I can do to help,” she added hopefully.

“Oh… yes well… useful to know, but haven’t you heard? Prudence is sufficiently improved in her studies to be sent on. My services are no longer required,” Brandon told her.

Constance dropped her spoon and gaped for a moment before recovering herself. She began a reply but the words choked her and she had to sip tea.

Finally she swallowed hard and managed, “Sent on?”

“Pardon?” Brandon finally smiled, not understanding.

“You said Prudence was being sent on,” Constance pressed him. Although the real thrust of her inquiry was the part about him leaving the family’s service.

“Oh Lord Somerset is packing her off to a finishing school in North Wales, quite Spartan I hear; an establishment that will both polish her for society while it polishes her behind for her. His Lordship feels that she would benefit from mixing with other young women hence my services being dispensed with,” Brandon said with a note of resignation.

“But surely…” Constance began desperate to think of a reason for his continued employment, “Prudence will need a firm hand in the summer and during…” she wafted her hand, “Whatever holidays these places have.”

“Perhaps,” Brandon shrugged, “What am I to do in the meantime?”

Constance licked her lips and cast her gaze into the middle distance.

“I might have an idea about that,” she said carefully, scarcely believing what she was about to propose.

*

Constance was blushing from her ears down to her neck. She was beginning to think that her idea had not been such a good one after all. Lord Somerset had been keen enough when she had first raised it, but had given his permission on the proviso that once beginning the arrangement she would have to see it through to the end.

The arrangement was that Mr Brandon would be retained for the teaching of Constance who had strictly speaking never been to school, which she decided would be rather fun. But Mr Brandon had a few conditions of his own.

Now the 24-year-old Lady Constance found herself standing in the school room dressed in a cotton blue sailor suit of the kind her grandmother might have worn to school as a child. To make matters worse the skirt of the ridiculous costume was rather short at the back and barely covered the rather tight knee-length breeches she had to wear with them, or she should say, unusually had to wear with them.

The day before she had protested vigorously about Mr Brandon’s dress requirements saying, “But I don’t see why? Prudence never had to wear such clothes.”

“Prudence had not got accustomed to getting her own way and was after a fashion used to accepting authority. But you, Miss Spoiled, you need to be taken down a peg,” he had scolded her.

“I won’t do it, I simply won’t put that ridiculous…” she had begun.

Mr Brandon had silenced her and quite without warning he had spanked her. He had put her across his knee and lowered her draws and spanked her bare bottom cherry red until she had submitted.

“Mr Brandon, please,” she had wailed, but entirely in vain.

“You will do as you are told and if you don’t that spanking will be the least of what you will get,” he growled, “Do you understand me?”

“Yes Sir,” Constance had said hastily as she stood meekly rubbing her bottom.

“Tomorrow you will report to the schoolroom in this very outfit, this time without the benefit of the under breeches. After a week of going without you will soon learn to appreciate them I’ll wager,” he had pronounced firmly.

“But… I can’t…” she had gasped.

“You will or else I will take further measures.” That had been all he had had to say.

That morning Constance had considered defying him, first by not donning the outfit at all and then by putting on the breeches anyway. But at the last minute she had funked it and despite the embarrassment had quickly taken them off again. As a consequence she had been late.

“I will not tolerate defiance or tardiness,” Mr Brandon had told when she finally turned up. “You will go to the corner and put your hands on your head.”

Constance had gaped in horror but after the spanking at his hands the day before she thought better of arguing. But it wasn’t until she started to obey that she realised the act of putting her hands on her head would raise the short hem of her sailor tunic and expose her bottom to his gaze.

“I see you are going to be quite as troublesome as Prudence,” Brandon sighed.

“I won’t I promise,” she had wailed, her voice muffled by the proximity of the wall in front of her face. “I’ll be a good girl.” The tearful submission made her tummy tingle and she bit her lip.

“We will see,” Brandon mused aloud. “As it is you have already earned a taste of my cane. Any further difficulties and you will not only graduate to the birch but you will be required to wear your school clothes in the afternoons as well as the morning.”

Constance gasped at this news and almost whirled around to face the man and protest. But he was already moving on.

“Now as for your studies,” he said, “I will concentrate on your music, French and other more advanced subjects. But unless your basic written work and arithmetic improves rapidly I may engage a nursery maid to school you in the basics.”

Constance shot a glance over her shoulder and gave him a withering look.

“Are you challenging me?” he growled.

“I rather think Lord Somerset did not mean for you to…” she began in surly tone.

“Lord Somerset has given me carte blanche to do as I see fit and if think you need a nanny to spank you, school you and the like, then I know a good one who has lots of humiliating little rituals for a big girl like you who needs a firm hand,” Brandon informed her.

“You… you wouldn’t,” Constance wailed. “I don’t mind if you are strict with me, I probably deserve it, but a nanny is going much too far.”

“That is for me to decide,” Brandon said sharply. “You, young lady, will get what you need and not what you demand. Do you hear me?”

“Yes Sir,” Constance whispered. In her darker thoughts he had been like this.

“That’s better,” Brandon sighed.

Constance heard him reach for the cane and swallowed down a lump in her throat.

“Can’t you just spank me again?” she asked pleadingly.

“Come here and bend over the desk,” Brandon said ignoring her.

Constance eyed the desk like it was poison before reluctantly moving towards it.

“H-how many?” she asked nervously.

“I never give less than eight but for very naughty girls I might award 36,” Brandon said firmly.

Constance paused and with wide eyes she stepped backwards in horror.

“I will give you what I think you deserve and can manage,” Brandon warned her. “We’ll start with eight as it is your first time and see how we get on. But I warn you, any fuss and I’ll add penalties.”

“Penalties?” Constance gulped.

“Extra strokes.”

Constance moved quickly forward and bent over the small hinge-top desk almost eagerly. She wasn’t about to give him an excuse.

“Bottom out,” Brandon said sharply as he lined up the thin dark rattan.

Constance blushed some more but obeyed. It was a shameful pose.

Wasting no time Brandon raised is arm and let it drop. The cane landed with a sharp efficient stroke putting a hard white line across rosy flesh and drawing a hiss from Constance. It wasn’t as bad as she feared and she managed to stay silent for the next.

Then as the third stroke was delivered the first stroke began to really hurt.

“Oh lord,” she groaned.

“Indeed,” Brandon agreed as he caned her again.

At five Constance gave a shout and wagged her bottom shamelessly. Then at each further cut she gave a little cry and clawed at the tattered wood on the underside of the desk. By the time the eighth stroke landed she was red in the face and panting like a dog.

Across her exposed bottom were eight neat lines beginning at just below the dimpled small of her back and extending down under the lower curves just above her thighs.

“You took that well,” Brandon said. “I think you could handle another eight.”

“Oh please Sir,” Constance pleaded but the ninth cut drew a shriek.

Then as seven more efficient strokes fell between their fellows she danced and yelped until small tears sprang to her eyes.

“I think the cane is no challenge to you,” Brandon said with some satisfaction. I think you can take 18 as basic punishment from now on. “Much as Prudence learnt to take. But she wasn’t half so brave as you.”

Despite the sting in her bottom Constance simpered at the comparison and offered him a shy smile as she got unsteadily to her feet.

“Now shake my hand and say thank you,” he told her, extending his own.

She took it meekly and whispered, “Thank you Sir.”

“Now you may go back to stand in the corner while I take some refreshment,” Brandon told her.

As he spoke he rang for the maid and reached for a newspaper. But seeing that she was still gawping at him he pointed a stern finger at the corner.

“But…” she was horrified that the maid would come, but if he carried out his other threats then she had better get used that. “Yes Sir,” she replied dejectedly.

The corner was just one of the bitter sweet elements that she would also have to get used to.

Ends

Yvonne practiced her pout, making little sucking noises and clicking with her tongue. It was a habit she had when she was bored or as in this case nervous. The pixie-haired blonde had been sitting outside the headmaster’s office for 20 minutes now and as break was nearly over Yvonne was getting rather concerned that someone might come by and see her there. She certainly didn’t need any questions right then.

To distract herself she looked around at the dark dingy corridor that led to the Headmaster’s study. Even here there was no carpet, just a dark-stained parquet wooden floor that went right to the edge of the wall and the hideous extra high skirting. On top of that the whole building stank of waxy polish with an undertone of stale sweat and creosote. It smelled like school.

Yvonne clasped her hands on her tummy to supress the nervous ache there, bending double so that she was folded over her knees and could see up the corridor for any embarrassing witnesses. The noises from break were getting louder if anything and maybe they were all coming back.

“Come on, come on Parkie, you said break time,” she muttered and then flushed with a start and sat-up with a glance to the door.

Mr Parks had very big ears and missed nothing. Yvonne gulped and haled her breath for an age before she relaxed again.

That morning two girls in her class had been discussing the cane and why only boys got it. They shouldn’t have been talking at all but had kept their voices low. But Yvonne had listened in all the same.

“It isn’t only boys,” Mary Mulligan hissed, “Pamela Dolby got it and that tall redhead in the upper sixth, it is just that girls don’t talk about it.”

Tell me about it, Yvonne had thought bitterly. Then there had been a kerfuffle about Slade and if they were better than the Who and a fight had broken out.

Yvonne always thought that boys in high-waisters and brass shoe caps looked silly, but the plucked parrot-headed mullets, if anything, were even worse. They were all short spikey hair on top and long straggly bits down the back; on girls as well as boys yet. What happened to the 60s cool, she sighed. Why did all the boys have long hair and dress like pansies? Then she considered the Slade fan and his skinhead. At least he looked manly, or would do if he wasn’t such a boy.

Yvonne ran a slow hand through her own short hair. She would have loved long hair but hers was way too thin and anyway long hair was getting to be big hair and it wasn’t a look that suited her.

So it happened that when the headmaster’s door suddenly opened Yvonne was taken by surprise.

“Yvonne,” he said darkly. The word on his lips as good as a summons.

His face carried a scowl and he moved with the deliberation of a busy man in a hurry. He was a large powerful man who always wore suits and at the best of times he had a permanent look of anger on his face. Today he looked positively apoplectic.

Yvonne drew upon a long slow breath as if savouring a ciggie and then let it go in a deliberate exhale. Then dragging herself to her feet she rolled her eyes like a sullen teen and stomped into the room.

Parks was looking at her disapprovingly as she entered and without prompting she straightened up with her hands at her sides.

“You know why you are here,” he said sharply.

Yvonne looked off to her right and blushed even as she tried to look bored.

“Sss-er,” she mumbled.

“What was that?” Parks barked out.

“Yes… Sir,” she said belligerently.

“Still have an attitude haven’t you Yvonne?” Parks sighed.

“It’s not fair Sir and anyway you said…” Yvonne tried to sound sneering but it came out with a slight whine.

Her accent sounded as if she was a college girl in the making with a pseudo London East End veneer. Most of the girls spoke even more City Street than that these days, he quietly observed; why did so many middle class girls ape their working class inferiors? And, he thought, what was wrong with the county accent? These days it seemed to be driven out by TV and he missed it.

“Yvonne,” he said sharply, “Do shut up. I am not interested.”

Yvonne rolled up her eyes and let herself slouch.

“Stand up straight when I am talking to you,” Parks snapped.

“You weren’t saying anything Sir,” Yvonne said in a superior voice, but she straightened up all the same.

Parks fixed her with a stare until she averted her gaze.

“That will cost you,” he said at last and this time Yvonne bit her lip.

As she watched her crossed the room and opened a tall cupboard next to the window. From inside there was a familiar scraping of wood and Yvonne felt her tummy tingle. She didn’t need to look to know that the headmaster had removed a cane from a hook inside.

“Please Sir… I…” Yvonne tried to supress the panicked begging that threatened to burst from her mouth and took half a step backwards as she bounced at the knees in a gesture of supplication.

Parks sighed and levelled the cane over his right shoulder like a guard outside Buckingham Palace.

“You know the drill Yvonne,” he said wearily as he advanced on now cowed girl. “Bend over the desk.”

Yvonne nodded and half turned to face the heavy wooden furniture with its green leather top. This time it was harder to obey and she leaned over it awkwardly as she stuck her bum out behind her. It was a stupid and embarrassing posture but she knew from previous experience that she had to do what he expected.

“Yvonne,” Parks said in a tone of significant impatience.

Yvonne swallowed and then with a blush she reached back and raised her skirt. Her small white knickers did nothing to hide the small tight domes of her bottom and for a moment Parks marvelled at the prominence of such a backside on so slight a girl.

“You are already going to get three extra for your impertinence on top of the six you already had coming,” Parks said wearily. “Any more dumb insolence from you and I’ll make it a dozen.”

“Sir I wasn’t…” Yvonne wailed.

“We’ll make that a baker’s dozen, shall we?” Parks snapped, “Care for any more?”

Yvonne gasped but her hands were already tugging at the waist of her knickers and she slid them readily enough down to her knees. Now two pools of heat boiled under her eyes and threatened to spread to her ears.

Behind her Parks viewed her hasty compliance and bottom up stance with approval but he was suddenly disconcerted by the tight lightly plumed purse that peeked out at him from between the top of her thighs.

“Legs together,” he coughed and in some discomfort averted his eyes.

Yvonne shot back a look with some horror and snapped her heels closed at once. This more or less covered her personal area but served to push her bottom up and out a bit more; now a fitting target for the cane.

Now satisfied Parks stepped forward and stretched his neck as he worked his shoulders in tight circles by way of preparation. The target was well-presented and it was easy to tap the long narrow stick across the firm tight flesh.

Yvonne let out a faint gasp as the cane touched her across the behind and she flinched as it tapped her twice. After a beat the third touch came down hard full across the crowns of her bottom. In response she inhaled sharply, lifting one foot from the floor as her grip tightened on the desktop.

Parks waited for a moment and then struck her again hard just below the first dark pink line that crossed her skin.

“Mmm,” Yvonne grunted as she squeezed her eyes shut.

As she did so her bottom arched up a little more and Parks took the opportunity to cane her again with a stroke that crossed below the first two so that she wagged her behind back and forth like a wagging dog.

There were now three sharp lines of pain crossing her bottom and Yvonne reached back and traced the first with her fingers. She could feel where the flesh had risen in a long ridge and her finger recoiled as it stung with the contact that hung across the dull biting ache where it throbbed.

“Get your hands away,” Parks barked at her.

She hastily obeyed.

Parks lay another stroke and then two more, each descending below the others until there were six risen weals marking out a plum-coloured bar pattern across her pale white flesh. By now Yvonne made a crawling motion over the desk as if swimming away from the assault on her bottom; even panting as if she had swum a race. These short ragged breaths moved her shoulders and even Parks could see she was close to tears.

The cane strokes had reached to just above the sitting area on her bottom now and although the points of impact had swollen into long bumps, the redness had begun to ‘bleed out’ into the spaces between the welts.

Yvonne’s breathing suddenly became shorter and the movement of her shoulders faster so that she trembled to into herself. Parks realised that she was already crying and paused to let her recover somewhat.

“Are you ready?” he asked gently.

After a pause Yvonne nodded and seemed to steel herself. Her ankles pressing together as she straightened her legs to once more elevate her bottom to the utmost.

“It would be over now had you not come here with an attitude young lady,” Parks remarked.

Yvonne nodded. It was a tiny movement of her head and she whispered, “Yes Sir, I’m sorry Sir.”

Her words were moist and as she stole a glance over her shoulder Parks could see pearls of tears gathered at her eyes and rolling down her cheek. Still there was a task to do and he was ready.

Three slow strokes cut into the under curves of her bottom in slow measured swipes. Each one landing like a blade at four or five second intervals and each continuing to saw into her where her bottom turned under to meet her thighs; a prime siting area before her punishment. Now sitting would be a privilege denied her for a few hours at least.

At each cracking stroke she screamed now, all pride and resistance scattered as recklessly as her cries. Yvonne was so lost in her pain that she didn’t register the wrapping sound until the door suddenly opened.

“Ah… headmaster… you’re… eh… busy with eh… a student…” the male voice said uneasily.

“A student… yes… Yvonne,” Parks hated being interrupted and for a moment he wondered if Yvonne had opened her legs again but was too self-conscious to glance in that direction.

“I’ll come back,” and the man was gone.

Yvonne’s eyes were wide in horror over the desk and she strained to remember who it might be. The headmaster didn’t have to name her did he?

Parks was thinking much the same, but he hadn’t expected anyone to enter unannounced. Well there was nothing for it now. So with a renewed resolve he turned back to Yvonne’s bottom.

He placed three more strokes down hard. Returning once again to the top part of her bottom he casually filled in the spaces he had left until he reached lower curves.

“One more,” he said firmly.

Yvonne went ridgid and pushed her bottom right to brace herself. The stroke fell hard and she screamed.

*

“Did you see the headmaster?” Janice Merry, the school secretary asked as David Stanmore came back down the corridor.

“Eh… no, he was busy with a student,” Stanmore said uncomfortably.

As he spoke Yvonne’s last scream echoed down the passage and Janice rolled her eyes and shrugged as she smiled lightly at the punitive drama.

“So I hear,” she chuckled.

“Yes well quite,” Stanmore said tartly. “Some girl called Yvonne, one of the six formers by the look of it.”

He blushed as he realised the implication of what he was saying and hid his discomfort with a mutter. “Don’t remember a student called Yvonne, not a sixth former anyway.”

Janice gaped for a moment and shot a quizzical glance back up the corridor.

“Yvonne you say? Oh she is definitely a student,” Janice said quickly, “A very naughty girl by the sound of it. Anyway I’ll make an appointment for you.”

Stanmore didn’t care that she seemed to be hurrying him away. He was only too happy to leave.

“Yes thank you,” he replied with a wave.

Yvonne reached the corner at the end of the corridor where the general office was and stopped. She had made heroic efforts to pull herself together, but any fool could see she had been crying. And from the slow careful steps she took, her hand clamped firmly to her bottom, any fool could have seen why.

Break was long over and now Yvonne was confronted with the admin staff coming back from tea. Although at the moment all she could see was Janice and she was studiously studying some papers and not looking up.

Yvonne took a deep breath and supressing a wince tried to walk casually past the desk.

She almost made it to the outer door when Janice must have looked up.

“Oh Miss Baker,” she called.

Yvonne froze, not daring to turn around.

“Miss Baker your training assignments are ready,” Janice pressed. “How is it all going anyway? Must be strange being the teacher so soon after completing your own studies?” There was no hint of mockery or edge to the secretary’s voice, although anyone watching her face might have seen a hint of tongue tickling the inside of her cheek.

Yvonne took a deep breath and carefully turned around, her best smile forced onto her lips.

“Oh thank you Mrs Merry… eh… can I… can I pick them up later?” Yvonne said in a strained voice.

“Of course,” Janice smiled encouragingly. “I’ll put them in your pigeonhole. Oh, did you just see the head? Only I thought he was with a student.”

“N-noo,” Yvonne squeaked, hoping her blush wasn’t too obvious. Nor was it clear if she were denying seeing the head or not.

“But then you are a student teacher aren’t you? Much the same thing isn’t Yvonne?” Janice smiled pleasantly.

Yvonne’s blush couldn’t be contained now.

“Ah… did… did Mr…? Did he say anything?” Yvonne could barely supress her panic and unconsciously her hands had strayed to her bottom again.

It was a motion that Janice didn’t miss.

“Mr Stanmore? He was just here yes. He told me the head was with a student as a matter of fact. A six former he thought. Must have been I expect… don’t you think… Yvonne?” Janice didn’t actually wink but the set of her face suggested it.

“I expect,” Yvonne squeaked and hastily turned away to flee as fast as her ‘wounds’ would allow.

It seems that LSF are determined to publisher a sizeable proportion of my back catalogue. (Is that a double entendre or a pun?) Anyway, hot on the heels of the novella, Lizzie Baines, comes the re-publishing of The Academy (originally published as The Academy: the future of spanking).

There are two original works in the pipeline, but before then there are plans afoot to publish other works, including a collection of short stories to be sold on Amazon.

Getting back to the Academy; it is largely a dystopian sci-fi story that centres on a secret government project to save the world in the guise of some intrigue. Oh and there is quite a bit of spanking.

I had no hand in writing the publishers blurb but I kind of like it. It runs thus:

Founded after ‘The Fall’ when the world was changed forever and women outnumber men three to one, the Academy is a place of training for young women between 19 and 25. In this school, teachers are punished as well as the students! Having escaped prison, five new girls are sent to The Academy as an alternative.

All are nervous and horrified by the idea of corporal punishment. Kate is particularly brash and insolent, and quite determined that no-one will lay a hand on her, let alone a cane or a paddle. But deep down, she is as scared as the rest. It is not long before the girls plus new arrivals experience the disciplinary regime of The Academy.

But who are The Sacred Sisters of Revenge? And is Callie all she appears to be? Deceptions and punishments abound in this erotic tale of adult discipline.

For those who want a copy it is available here.