Fiona Lewison brings us up to date as she looks to re-introduce spanking into her life…
When I started writing A Woman’s Awakening a few months back, I believed that my days of being punished were over, that it was something that belonged to my life with my husband and was best left in the past. I felt that being spanked by another man would be somehow pointless, wrong, unfaithful even, but since writing my disciplinary history, and getting more involved with Janus, my feelings have changed. It seemed the right time to move on, to exorcise some ghosts and, perhaps more importantly, to feel that sense of chastisement once again. I had, if I’m being honest, missed it terribly.
It was not an easy decision to make. Being spanked is a horribly undignified procedure at the best of times. It involves a potentially uncomfortable subjugation to another’s will, it requires a degree of bodily exposure that I wouldn’t normally consider outside a strong and well-grounded relationship and, last but not least, I find it very painful. But it is perhaps all these things that make it work, for me at least.
My first thought was to ask a lovely man I’ve got to know recently by email. I trust him completely even though we haven’t met, I felt that he would know what to do, and do it well, and I hoped that it would be a way to repay him for his kindness to me and his unfailing support. And the fact that I still haven’t summoned the courage to accept his offer to take me to lunch. But he declined for reasons that I know must be noble and to his credit. It was disappointing, but I had to look elsewhere.
I spent a couple of hours browsing spanking contact websites, and decided that I couldn’t face the process of getting to know a man in this way sufficiently to trust him with such an intimate task. It could take weeks, even months, before I felt confident. I’d have had to send a photo too, and I really didn’t want to do that.
Then, quite out of the blue, a close female friend, to whom I have confided everything, told me that she knew a man who would certainly be interested, and might well be suitable. Lucy and I go back more than 40 years, and I rely on her judgement and good sense unquestioningly, so I agreed to meet him. At his suggestion we all met in the bar of a very smart restaurant in Soho, and to say I was apprehensive is a gross understatement. I was about to meet a man with a self-confessed passion for smacking women’s bottoms, a man who was there for no other reason, or so I thought, than an expectation of adding my name to his list of female conquests. I felt quite strongly that I didn’t want to be ticked off as another ‘conquest’, but I also knew that, without an interest in the subject, he would be useless to me. If I wanted to achieve anything, it would have to be with a man who enjoyed spanking women. Why else would he do it? It was going to be a compromise; we would both get what we wanted, even if our respective needs were completely different. His motivation would be sexual and acceptably male-dominant, mine would be disciplinary and acceptably female-submissive, or ‘un-feminist’ as Lucy put it. It could work – but only if I liked him. Fortunately, I need not have worried about that in the slightest.
Maurice is 62, well-to-do and irresistibly charming, and it took only a few minutes to realise that I was attracted to him. I liked his maturity and his old-fashioned approach, his courtesy and his obvious love and respect for women. There was also a vigour and command about everything he did, and it was very sexy. He treated Linda and I to a wonderful meal, and I had already decided that, if he was still interested, I would be too. I had known him for less than two hours, and we hadn’t discussed anything to do with a punishment, but I was convinced that he could help me, and that I would surrender to him willingly if he would let me.
When we all got back to my place in a taxi, Lucy said her goodbyes and went upstairs. I saw no point in prevaricating, and asked Maurice if he would like to come round to the flat the next day (a Saturday) to have another chat and perhaps take things a step further. I was suddenly struck by the madness of what I was saying, but he agreed immediately and the decision was made. I still felt I could back out if I got too scared, but also that I could go ahead if I wanted to. Lucy would be in the flat the whole time, so I would feel safe too. It was a reassuring feeling, and I don’t think the circumstances could have been any more favourable.
I woke early the next morning in a frenzied panic and shot out of bed like a madwoman. For a moment or two I really did question my sanity, in that hopeless ‘morning after the night before’ way, but I knew I had to go through with it, and that thought sustained me. I wasn’t afraid, but I was frantically concerned about a hundred other details. I opened my wardrobe and decided I hadn’t a thing to wear. I opened my underwear drawer and dismissed it all as dowdy, unsuitable or frankly threadbare. I resigned myself to the fact that shops must be visited, money must be spent. I stood naked in front of the mirror and examined myself from every conceivable angle. Had I put on weight around my tummy and bottom? I didn’t think so. In any case, there wasn’t much I could do about it in the space of twelve hours. Then I realised that I had no idea what my bottom looked like over someone’s lap. I tried bending over some plumped up pillows and craning round to see the reflection in the mirror. It hurt my neck, but it gave me some idea. I tried to slap my own bottom to see if it wobbled too much. It didn’t, but was I hitting it hard enough? Or in the right place? I pressed my thighs tightly together to see just how much of my nakedness would be on display. I felt this was quite a useful exercise, until Lucy waltzed into the room with a cup of tea. She laughed, not in that casual, knowing chuckle sort of way, but out loud, unfairly, horribly. But she was right, of course. I must have looked ridiculous. My vanity was getting the better of me.
By 10 o’clock we were in Peter Jones on Sloane Square choosing something for me to wear. This, as some of you will remember, is where I bought my school uniform all those years ago, and here I was again for very similar reasons. I had a strange feeling of déjà vu. I picked up a nice, quite tight pair of black trousers and showed them to Lucy. Amazingly (and I still don’t understand how she knows these things), she said they were “unsuitable”.
“Why?” I asked.
“He won’t want to be bothered with trousers. It’s too much effort. Make it easy for him.”
“Easy?”
“Yes. You don’t want to exasperate or embarrass him with the fuss of buttons and zips and hooks and all that nonsense.”
“Right. A skirt then?”
“Yes. Think about ease of access.”
“Ease of access to what?”
“For God’s sake, Fiona.”
And she walked off.
Of course, access to my bottom. I was being stupid. A dress and some new knickers. I chose a simple black thing, tight but not too tight, short but not too short, and we made for the lingerie department. I picked up a pair of lacy black Chantelle briefs and headed for the Pay Here sign.
“Fiona.”
“Mm?”
“They’re fine, but be more creative. He’s a bloke. Show him you’ve made an effort. Try to distract him, maybe?”
I understood Lucy’s implication. I could wear stockings and suspenders in an attempt to please him and perhaps divert his attention from the task at hand. It was, I realised immediately, a dilemma. Yes, Maurice is a man. Yes, he is statistically likely to be attracted to ‘a glimpse of stocking’, or, in this case, an explicit full-frontal gawp. But did I want to distract him? It seemed counterproductive somehow. I wanted him to spank me, not to sit there enjoying the view and forgetting the real reason I was over his lap. But I bought them anyway, reasoning that I could make that decision later.
We had some lunch, and got back to the flat at about 2pm. Four hours to go. Four hours in which to dither, and fret, and get changed eight times, and pick up the phone to cancel, and generally turn myself into a screaming idiot. With Lucy’s help, I tried to rationalise my concerns, despite knowing myself to be a woman particularly gifted in the art of irrationality.
A man I barely knew was going to see my bottom, and almost certainly a lot more besides. OK, I had been through that trauma with boyfriends in the past and survived. I had spent a glorious two weeks in Mykonos in my 20s on nudist beaches and been stared at by countless men, and countless women for that matter. Obviously my body had aged in 30 years, but I was still slim and presentable and not too bad for a woman of my years. Maurice, even though he might have some ideal in his mind, could not be too disappointed.
Someone other than my husband was going to spank me. John died more than five years ago, but he was the first man to do such a thing as a genuine punishment, and that meant something more personal and more loving than I could expect from a relative stranger. Did it matter? Yes, in some ways it did. It wouldn’t be the same, and I shouldn’t expect it to be. But would it be as useful? Would it help me in the same way? Lucy agreed that it would be very different, but that it could provide an even more salutary experience. A punishment from a man with whom I had no emotional ties could, in fact, work on a higher, and perhaps even more useful, plane. It could feel even more real. And that was essentially what I was hoping to achieve.
It could hurt more than I needed it to. I still couldn’t really gauge whether my husband smacked me gently, firmly or severely because I had no way of measuring it against other experiences with other men. I knew only that it shocked me to begin with, and was as painful as I thought it should be in the circumstances. What if Maurice felt differently? What if his idea of a gentle spanking hurt so much that I couldn’t go through with it? Lucy pointed out that it was my bottom, that I was ‘in charge’, and that I could always ask him to do it less vigorously. But I didn’t want to do that. In fact, I realised there were a whole host of things I didn’t want to do, all centred around the subject of control. It also occurred to me that if it did hurt too much, it wouldn’t be for long. I could bear it if I had to.
Maurice could overstep the mark and behave selfishly and brutishly. I would be half-naked across his lap, exposed and vulnerable. I dismissed this as soon as I thought of it. I just couldn’t believe he would behave in such a way, and a cry for help would bring Lucy bursting into the room wielding a rolled-up copy of the Radio Times in a very threatening manner. I was as safe as it was possible to be in the circumstances.
So, all things considered, I had nothing to seriously worry me. I felt a fluttery nervousness, which was to be expected, but I wasn’t scared. I got changed calmly and methodically, choosing the old-fashioned sexiness of the stockings and suspenders, and settled back on the sofa with the largest gin and tonic I’ve ever poured in my life. It worked a treat, as it always does.
Maurice arrived at 6pm bearing flowers and wine, and I was immediately impressed with his ease and charm. He complimented everything he saw, the flat, the furnishings, the paintings. He liked my dress. Was it muslin? I said it was. You’ll need to wash it in cold water, he warned. I didn’t know that. I was reminded of a scene in Northanger Abbey when the young man is deemed suitable: “He understands muslin, my dear!” It was all a bit surreal, but I was coping. That was the main thing.
I felt strangely eager to begin (or to get it over with – I couldn’t quite decide), but Maurice was in no hurry. I got the feeling not that he was prevaricating, but asserting his authority in deciding when to act. I was in his hands already, and I liked it very much indeed. We chatted inconsequentially for perhaps 20 minutes, then Maurice made his move by suggesting that he and I should have a private conversation. I had already decided that we would use a spare bedroom that I’ve converted into an office, and within a few seconds we were in there alone.
Maurice began by asking me whether I was still sure I wanted to go ahead and, when I said yes, he began very politely and respectfully to go through the exact details of what I wanted to happen. Did I want to be told off? Did I want to go over his lap, or bend over a chair? Did I want to be spanked over my skirt, over my knickers, on the bare bottom? Would I take my own knickers down or leave that to him? Did I want my legs smacked? Did I want it gentle, quite hard or hard? Would I object to a little stroking if it helped me to calm down?
I listened in a sort of daze while he spoke, nodding occasionally, but my overwhelming feeling was that I didn’t want to make any of these decisions myself. I wanted him to make them for me. I felt that it wouldn’t be a punishment if I had any say over what happened. I understood that he couldn’t possibly make any assumptions on this first occasion because he risked doing something that I didn’t want to happen and upsetting me. But I wanted to be upset. I wanted to be very upset. I wanted to be embarrassed and a little scared. That was the whole point. It wasn’t going to be the loving punishment I’d received from my husband, it was going to be an ‘unloving’ act of discipline designed not to strengthen the bond between two people, but to make me sit up and take notice. So I tried to be honest and open with him. I said, first of all, that ‘needed’ was a better word than ‘wanted’. That I didn’t really know what that would entail until it happened. That my husband had always taken my knickers down, but that I didn’t know whether it was necessary or not. That it hurt a lot. That it made me very emotional. That I felt better afterwards. Basically, I told him that I hadn’t a clue what I was talking about. Then he said the magic words.
“You need me to make those decisions for you.”
I said “yes” with all my heart, feeling much happier and much closer to my goal.
Then he asked why I felt I needed to be punished, saying that it would help him to make the right decisions. I couldn’t argue with that, so I told him. I know you’ll understand if I don’t go into the details here, but I explained some personal difficulties, some aspects of my behaviour that let me down, a dreadful error of judgement I’d made recently, and the fact that I’d missed having someone on hand to help me behave in a more positive and less destructive way. This sounds as though I’m a lost cause. I’m not. I just know I can improve, but I can’t always get myself together to get there. A perfect candidate for the ‘short, sharp, shock’ so favoured of our beloved magazines. And, I pointed out, I needed a man to do it. Not a friend, not the very sensible Lucy, not a wishy-washy counsellor, but a man.
Maurice listened attentively while I spoke, then told me what he thought was the best plan. The only thing I’d actually agreed to before this was a spanking, but Maurice politely pointed out that he didn’t believe a one-off punishment like that would be enough to make a real difference to my behaviour. (Yes, I know. It’s very much in his interests to say that, but bear with me.) He would do nothing more than spank me on this occasion but, if I was comfortable with him and felt that he’d done a good job, I could visit him at his house for what he described as a “course of treatment”. The idea appealed to me deeply, and I agreed immediately.
True to his word, Maurice started making decisions. I would be spanked over his lap “quite hard” until he was satisfied that I was showing the required obedience and contrition. He couldn’t say how long that might take. I was to be spanked on the bare bottom to maximise the embarrassment and usefulness of the punishment. He would take my knickers down. I would be smacked on the legs if I kicked about, or put my hands in the way or didn’t keep still. He would put his hand on my bottom only if I was having difficulty calming down.
At this point I felt a real sense of fear, but it was undoubtedly mingled with a strong desire to demonstrate the obedience he demanded. I was never particularly obedient over my husband’s lap, but with Maurice I wanted to be. I really had no idea whether I could do it, but it seemed the best course of action. If I behaved well and took my punishment with good grace, it wouldn’t last too long or be too painful. There was a logic in it that appealed to the scaredy-cat in me. All I had to do was be a good girl. Simple, right? No. It was the most difficult thing I’ve ever had to do in my life.
From this point on, my every move was dictated for me. Maurice sat down on the kitchen chair that I’d brought into the room earlier (my swivel chair with wheels would not have been practical) and ordered me across his lap. I was shocked at the sudden command – that moment when dream becomes reality is always a shock – but I knew it was the right thing to do, so I did it. The instant I was back in that childish position after so many years, I felt liberated and happy. It felt as though it was the right place to be, and at the right time. I felt comfortable and trusting, obedient and willing. The sensation was so pleasing that I let out a long sigh of satisfaction. I had come home. Someone was looking after me. For the next half an hour I didn’t have to make any choices or decisions. All I had to do was lie there under someone else’s control. It was beautiful.
Then Maurice patted my bottom. Under any other circumstances I would have considered it so outrageous, so against my every instinct as a woman, that I would have been instantly furious. I mean red-faced, sputtering furious. No man had ever done that to me before, not even my husband. In all those years that I worked in male-dominated offices, where that sort of thing was supposed to be common, it had never happened to me. And he kept patting my bottom as he talked to me and reminded me of the reason I was over his lap. It was condescending, humiliating and unbearably sexist. I should have felt uncomfortable with it, helplessly offended. Somehow, being smacked on the bottom by a man should have been preferable to being toyed with like this. But it was, of course, part of the whole process. A hugely important part, in fact. And I didn’t mind one bit. The subjugation to another’s will, the understanding that being treated as a person who might need, and has indeed asked for, moulding and cajoling into something more productive, and in a very old-fashioned way, was exactly why I was here, and exactly why it was so effective. I could do nothing but suffer in silence and try to understand that it was ‘good for me’.
Then my dress was raised over my bottom and I could feel Maurice staring at my underwear. Somehow I knew that he liked what he saw, and I was very pleased. I had wanted to impress him, and I felt sure that I had. But it offered no distraction, no respite from what was to happen. My knickers were pulled down to mid-thigh in a swift and assertive way, and there I was prepared for the bare bottom spanking I had been promised. It felt alarming in some ways, but it also felt free from any constraints. I suppose, above all, it felt right. It felt ‘proper’. It felt as though this was the only way to do it. The familiar feeling of an arm sliding round my waist was strong and manful, as it had been with my husband, and I welcomed it even though I had no intention of struggling. I felt confident that it was unnecessary for Maurice to hold me down with his elbow pinioned between my shoulder blades. I could not have been more wrong.
The first smack, when it arrived, shocked me so much that I screamed. This was “quite hard”, according to Maurice’s statement earlier, but it was much harder than my husband had done it and I was immediately in difficulty. From revelling in not having to make any decisions, I suddenly had to make a very important one: to bear it, or to refuse it. By now the smacks were falling with an appalling weight and rapidity, and I was in a lot of pain. I had never been spanked like this before, and I very nearly panicked. It was dreadful. Each smack sent a convulsion through me that I couldn’t control. I couldn’t even draw breath between each one to make some sort of noise or protest because they came so fast. On several occasions I nearly choked.
And still there was Maurice’s grip around my waist. I couldn’t move, I couldn’t defend myself in any way. I felt that I couldn’t scramble off his lap even if I wanted to. And still it went on, relentlessly. I have never known such pain, such agonising helplessness, such resentment and anger. I hated Maurice with all my heart. Surely I didn’t deserve this? Surely my failings didn’t merit such harsh treatment? I am the fair sex. I am physically weaker than the male. It is wrong for a man to do this to a woman. I was stupidly indignant, and felt I had every right to make a fuss. So I struggled. I tried to put my hand back, and I kicked my legs in what I knew was a ridiculous, petulant female act of resistance. He stopped spanking me. It had worked. He had seen reason. He understood that he was doing it too hard. The relief flooded through me. Then he said plainly that he had warned me about this very thing. I sank back on his lap, and began to cry when I realised my mistake. I had been told this would happen, and had only myself to blame. He had to act, in the same way that my husband had had to act in our kitchen all those years ago. My legs stiffened in anticipation, and I felt more stupid than I have ever felt. Two desperately hard smacks landed on my thighs and I froze solid. It was so painful that I was stunned into silence. But, in a beautiful way, it settled everything in my mind. I knew from that moment on that I would never, ever misbehave over Maurice’s lap again. It was an extraordinary feeling of understanding and resignation, and was undoubtedly the most influential and useful thing I have learned about being punished properly. Don’t disobey. Don’t misbehave. Don’t question. It’s the only way it works. Accept what’s happening, and you will benefit from it. Resist, and it will be useless. It’s simple really, but it takes a lesson like this to bring it home.
From that point on, I settled down and took my punishment. Maurice said later that it had lasted almost exactly five minutes. It doesn’t sound like a long time, but then moments of heightened experience never seem to fit in with our usual perception of time. Things can seem to fly by, things can seem to drag. I had imagined that I was spanked for at least half an hour. My bottom was sore, I was crying uncontrollably and Maurice was comforting me. I had hated him, and now I loved and admired him. He had taken charge, and he had given me what I needed regardless, and in spite of, my absurd, teenaged protestations. Through my tears, I was very, very happy.
Eventually, Maurice said he would ask Lucy to fix me drink, and left me alone to compose myself. I was outwardly flustered and confused, but I felt a comforting inner warmth that was very nice indeed. There was a knock on the door, and Lucy came in with another huge gin and tonic. She asked if I was OK, but I couldn’t speak. I just fell into her arms and cried on her shoulder like a little girl. It was a great comfort, and in a few moments I was smiling.
Being spanked by Maurice was an enormous first step in a new direction, but I had taken it and I had survived. I felt better about everything, and I was proud of myself. I also realised that I needed, and indeed wanted, more. I didn’t know what exactly, but I felt confident that Maurice would know. He had behaved impeccably, he hadn’t taken advantage of me in any way, he hadn’t touched me inappropriately. He had simply done what was necessary, and no more. I trusted him to make increasingly important decisions, and the next day we spoke on the phone and arranged that I would travel down to his house in two weeks’ time for a weekend of “continuing therapy”. I was about to spend two days undergoing something straight from the pages of a spanking magazine. An old house in the country with creaking stairs, draughty corridors and a menacing figure of authority watching my every move. I could not have been more excited, or more terrified, at the thought.
Fiona has kept a detailed diary of her experiences at Maurice’s house – you can read the first part of her ‘Janus Weekend’ by clicking on the highlighted link.
This caning story by Pat Greenham was inspired by a readers’ letter ‘Get With The Programme’ which first appeared in Janus 156. The letter details the experiences of a young air hostess working for a Far East airline who received corporal punishment on a number of occasions from her Station Manager. Our thanks to Pat for creating this wonderful sequel.
Ever since she was a little girl, Linda had always wanted to be an airhostess. She thought it was a very glamorous job and during her final school years she started applying for jobs. Initially she worked for a UK based airline, but at the age of twenty-one she applied to work for an Asian based carrier. She was invited to an interview in London and two weeks later she received a letter offering her a position and outlining that she would have to move to the Far East and that she would be accommodated by the airline. There was also a substantial increase in her salary and her contract was to be for two years, and if she were successful during that time it was very likely she would be offered a further contract.
In no time at all, Linda was on her way to the Far East to start a new adventure. Following two weeks of training, Linda started flying as a fully-fledged airhostess from the airlines main hub. Two weeks before the start of the month she received her roster and Linda was surprised to find out she was only flying three or four times a month. However each trip was longer than she had been used to – often being away for six or seven days at a time. This meant she had plenty of time to enjoy the sunshine in between trips. It was extraordinary how fast the two years went and with less than two months left on her contract she received a letter asking her to attend an interview to discuss her future.
At the interview Linda was congratulated and they asked her if she was interested in moving to one of the airlines other bases and working for their regional carrier. She was also told that if she accepted she would be promoted to the next grade as well as having a salary increase. Linda accepted immediately, and six weeks later was packing up her belongings to move home.
The new base was close to a smaller city compared to the metropolis where she had been living, but there was a very smart new accommodation block and as about twenty airhostesses had also been moved at the same there was a good camaraderie from day one.
The job was also different as all flights were short-haul and it was rare to have night-stops. Indeed a typical day would be an early start with two round trips and home late afternoon or early evening. On their first day they all attending a meeting held by the Station Manager who gave them a presentation about the regional airline. Philip Smith seemed very pleasant, but he did say in no uncertain terms that good performance would be rewarded – but any slacking or behavior that did not meet his standards would be firmly dealt with. After the meeting Linda and some of the other girls hit the town, but were back in their accommodation block relatively early, knowing, they all had early flights.
Short haul flying was very different to what Linda had become used to, but she enjoyed the relative intensity of having to provide a full service on flights that were often a little over one hour. Two round trips in day was a lot of work and Linda was pretty tired when she returned to her room.
Despite best intentions, Linda fell into a group that liked to party and the four o’clock alarm calls were getting to be very difficult – so much so that in her third week she overslept and was late for the crew bus which almost made the flight itself late. This was seen as a serious matter and that evening she received a message from Philip Smith summoning her to a meeting later in the week.
Linda was naturally worried about the meeting and wondered what would happen. At the time set, she found herself waiting outside his office having reported to his secretary. He did not keep her long as Philip Smith opened the door and invited her in.
The Station Manager asked her for an explanation for her lateness – to which she simply said she had overslept and was very sorry. He asked if she had been out late and Linda, not wanting to lie, said she had indeed and again apologized. Smith told her about the consequences of delaying a flight, which could have resulted in the aircraft missing its slot. He added that unfortunately he had no alternative but take some disciplinary measures and added that there was two options.
First he could place an Official Warning on her employment file, and then to either reduce her leave by four days or fine her four days pay. Linda was horrified, as this seemed very severe. But there was a bigger shock to come as Philip Smith explained the second alternative which involved her being put on report for six months as part of an Unofficial Programme which also involved being subjected to Corporal Punishment. He told her that he was a strong believer in old-fashioned discipline and that those that had opted for the Programme had benefitted from it, and avoided other measures. Linda could not believe what she was hearing and asked what exactly did he mean.
He explained that if she wanted to join the Programme she would be watched very carefully and any more incidents would result in further punishment. He went on to tell her that she had already earned a ‘Level One’ punishment which if she opted for the Programme would be administered on the first day that she was not flying. Linda asked what exactly was a ‘Level One’ punishment to be told that it would be six strokes of the cane administered to her bottom over her skirt. He then explained how the six months Programme worked and that there are five punishment levels. If after her Level One punishment she kept her nose clean for six months that would be the end of it. If however she transgressed again she would receive a ‘Level Two’ punishment, which was six strokes administered to your bottom with your uniform skirt removed. A further incident would result in six strokes to your bare bottom as a Level Three. Further, he told her that if she was so unwise to transgress again, Level Four and Five were simply an increase in the number of strokes to twelve and eighteen respectively, and that in his five years as Station Manager, only one air hostess had graduated to Level Five. Smith added that she would be interviewed after four months to discuss the Programme and to what level she had graduated. After that meeting she would have to keep her nose clear for two months – and if she succeeded the Programme would be at an end. If however there were a transgression during those final two months, she would receive the next level caning and then have a further two months to try and complete the Programme.
Smith went onto to tell her that for many it was an effective way of creating the discipline required to be an effective member of the team, and that quite a few that had opted for the Programme were now flying as Number Ones back in the parent long-haul airline. He added that about a third never go beyond Level One, a further third don’t go beyond Level two leaving a third to get to Level Three. Very few go beyond that level but that as he mentioned the only girl to have received a Level Five punishment is now a Cabin Service Director on the 747 fleet.
To say Linda was shocked was an understatement, but Philip Smith was being very pleasant despite what he had to say. He added that, of course she could be dealt with Officially if that was what she preferred.
Linda’s mind was in turmoil. She did not want to lose any leave or pay and she certainly did not was an Official Warning. She told herself that the cane across her skirt wouldn’t be too bad and that all she had to do afterwards was to make sure there were no further incidents. She told him she would go for ‘The Programme’.
Philip Smith told her he felt she had made the right choice and asked if she had been subjected to any similar punishments during her school life. Linda had never been caned, but she told him about two incidents, one when she was sent to her Headmistress for smoking and received six whacks with a slipper that was actually a plimsoll bending over touching her toes with her skirt removed. The second incident was when she had attended a school in Texas after her father had been posted to the USA when she had been paddled by the Principle. Smith asked her how that punishment was carried out as she told him that had been caught smoking for a second time and had to bend over the back of a chair in the Principles Room to be whacked with a wooden paddle over her thin cotton trousers which had been really painful – adding that the Principle had told her he would normally award five swats, but as she was English he would follow tradition and give her six-of-the-best.
He told Linda that she would have some idea what lay ahead, but she would find the cane more intense. He asked her when was her next day off, to which Linda replied that she was off for two days and could come tomorrow. Smith told her to return at 8.45, as there would be some paperwork to complete so that they could both be over at the Security Block by 9 for her punishment to be carried out.
Linda was told to leave and strangely he shook her hand saying, “see you tomorrow morning”. Linda spent the rest of day thinking about what lay ahead, and had a fairly restless night. But it was soon morning and taking care to dress smartly, she made her way back to the Station Managers office arriving promptly at 8.45. Smith gave her an agreement to sign outlining the Programme and another letter that was effectively a resignation letter.
Linda did not understand why she was signing a resignation letter, but he explained that it is vital that details of the Unofficial Punishment never become public knowledge – and she should talk to nobody about the Programme – but if she did he would use the letter. However if she kept her nose clean for six months after today, this letter will be destroyed.
With everything signed, Linda was told to follow the Station Manager to the Security Block where she was taken to a room that had a trestle with a padded top in the middle, the purpose of which was obvious. There were also some unpleasant looking canes on the side table. There was a knock on the door and the Head of Security, Mike Dawson entered. The Station Manager explained that Mike would be administering the caning, adding that he used to be a public schoolmaster in the UK and had plenty of experience.
Smith asked Linda if she was wearing tights or stockings as only two layers of clothing were allowed for a Level One caning. Linda said she was wearing tights (she had secretly chosen a pair that were quite thick to get some extra protection). Mike Dawson said that is mistake number one and told Linda she had the choice of taking the caning with either her skirt or her tights removed – to which Linda said that she would remove her tights and was told to get on with it. Her skirt was too tight to pull up, so she had no choice but to slip it off before carefully removing her tights ensuring that she did allow her knickers to slip down in the process. All of this was dreadfully embarrassing as for a brief moment she stood in front of them with just knickers on below the waist before she quickly replaced her skirt.
Mike Dawson selected a cane that looked to Linda to be at least three foot long and whippy as he cut the air a couple of times. She was told to remove her jacket and get into position across the trestle. Putting the jacket on the table with the other canes, Linda went to the trestle and bent over it, being instructed to reach down and hold the bar near the floor and keep her legs straight out behind her. Her hair fell forward and almost touched the floor as her skirt stretched across her bottom, which was now perfectly positioned for Dawson’s cane. Both men stood back and appreciated the sight of her slim round bottom and Mike Dawson knew he was going to enjoy the next few minutes.
Lining up the cane across Linda’s bottom, he told her to expect a stroke every thirty seconds. She was wondering how this was going to compare with her paddling in Texas – and she was soon to find out as Dawson took the cane slowly back over his shoulder and gave her a tremendous whack to the lower part of her bottom. For a split second Linda felt nothing following by the searing pain that only the cane can give. As she gave out an involuntary gasp, she could not believe how painful just one stroke had been. Before she had much of a chance to get used to it, Dawson delivered the second stroke half an inch above the first and causing another gasp. Linda held onto the bar as her caning continued, and Dawson was simply working his way up her bottom with deadly accuracy. The third and fourth were to the center of Linda’s bottom and it was just possible to see the lines across her dark blue skirt. Smith had told her that the cane would be more intense that the wooden paddle and he was right as Linda waited for the fifth stroke which struck toward the top of her bottom. With just one more stroke to go, Dawson stepped back deciding where to put the sixth stroke. There was a slight gap near the middle of her bottom, which was exactly where he hit her for the last time causing a loud gasp as he delivered the hardest stroke of all.
Linda was told to stand and her hands went straight to her bottom. Phillip Smith told her that she had done well and that all she needed to do was keep her nose clean for six months and she would complete the Programme, but that she knew what the next stage was if there were any further incidents.
It was perhaps inevitable now that she was being watched that it would be not possible to go a full six months, and eight weeks after her caning Linda was back in front of the Station Manager having been part of a crew that had received four separate customer complaints. For the rest of the crew this resulted in a reprimand – but for Linda it meant a Level Two punishment, and for clarity Smith said that meant another six stokes of the cane, but with your skirt removed.
Two days after her interview she was again back at 8.45 in the morning to be taken to the security block to be caned by Mike Dawson. Linda wondered how much more painful a caning would be with just a pair of knickers between her bottom and the cane. She had chosen a reasonably full pair of pants, which were more ‘boy-shorts’. She was instructed to remove her jacket, skirt and tights and then to get into position across the trestle. If Dawson and Smith had thought her bottom was fantastic before, they were treated to a great sight as her tight knickers stretched across her round and pert backside.
Linda had a better idea of what to expect, but was still taken back by the ferocity of the first stroke and gave out a loud gasp. It was difficult for Linda to say how much more painful it was without her skirt – only to say it was absolutely dreadful. As Philip Smith stood to one side behind Linda getting a perfect view, Dawson caned her exactly as he before, starting low down and working his way up her bottom. Both men could make out the marks through Linda’s semi see-through knickers and with strokes at thirty second intervals, exactly two and half minutes after the first stroke, Linda received the last whack right across the middle of her bottom, which as normal was the hardest of all causing a very loud screech. After the caning had been completed and Linda had replaced her skirt, Smith told her that she had nearly four months to go and that she should make sure she behaved because she knew what happened next if she strayed again. Later that night as Linda lay in bed, she thought about the caning and had some strange feelings. The caning itself had been awful, but the thought of lying over the trestle with the two men focusing on her bottom and the now distant glow was giving her some strange pleasure.
Linda vowed to stop going out on nights before she was flying and did well for quite a while, but two weeks before her four-month interview, the Station Manager received a complaint from one of the Number Ones that she had found Linda to be late for a particular flight.
Inevitably Linda received a message to once more report to the Station Manager. She knew what this meant and was horrified by the prospect of another caning and could not even admit to herself that it was likely to be given to her bare bottom.
This time she did not even have the pre punishment interview, simply being told to report at 9 the following morning. Philip Smith was his normal charming self as he calmly told her that she was very soon to receive a Level Three punishment. Moments later Linda was following him to the Security Block and the now familiar punishment room. Mike Dawson was already waiting for her and after a short lecture from Smith, Linda was reminded that this level was a further six strokes of the cane but this time given to her bare bottom.
Linda was told to take off her jacket and remove all clothing below the waist. For Linda the prospect was horrific – being caned across her pants had been bad, but now having to strip in front of the two men brought another level of humiliation. Apart from the airline doctor who conducted very comprehensive medicals that included internal examinations every year and a few boyfriends, no man had seen her naked below the waist and she was dreadfully embarrassed as she complied with the instruction.
Her jacket was easy enough – and taking off her pencil uniform skirt and tights was a repeat of last time – but when standing in front of them with just her knickers on below the waist knowing she was seconds away from being half naked was very embarrassing. Putting her fingers in the waistband, Linda pushed her knickers down and stepped out of them giving both men a sight they could fully appreciate – a very attractive women with sporty legs flaring up to shapely hips and a slim waist and a trimmed auburn triangle. They both knew from earlier canings that she was attractive, but now standing in front of them half naked with almost no secrets left was a sight they would not forget in a hurry.
But there was a job to be done and Linda was told to get into position. Standing facing them was one thing, but bending right over the trestle with her bare bottom perfectly presented gave the men a superb picture of her round and very nice bottom. Linda knew what the cane felt like but not given across her bare bottom. They left her in position as Dawson was watching the clock on the wall until the second hand hit twelve before delivering the first stroke to the middle of her bottom. Linda gave out a very long screech as she absorbed the first very hard cane stroke. Thirty seconds later came the second stroke, given with severity from over Mike Dawson’s shoulder and striking low down. Again Linda gasped not believing that such a simple instrument could cause so much pain. She previously wondered how much more painful a bare bottom caning would be, and now she knew – another big step up. Exactly 60 seconds after the first stroke came the third – delivered toward the top of Linda’s wonderful bottom causing another loud screech. Linda knew she only had three to go and hung onto the bar with her fingers trying not to move too much. Without consciously knowing she had parted her legs giving Dawson a view of her secret charms. Another thirty seconds passed before Dawson gave her the fourth stroke hitting perfectly in the middle of the gap low down on her bottom and causing another screech. Linda had completely forgotten about her nudity and was just concentrating on the pain and getting through this caning.
With two strokes left, Mike Dawson slightly slowed the caning leaving almost a minute before whacking her bottom for the fifth time in the gap toward the top of Linda’s bottom resulting in another screech. Philip Smith was watching and enjoying the spectacle. The Programme was certainly one that worked but it was also one that gave him the great pleasure of witnessing attractive young women getting caned across their bottoms – and every so often their bare bottoms.
It was soon time for the last stroke, and Mike Dawson tapped Linda’s bottom a few times just above the center before giving her as tradition dictates the hardest stoke of all in the middle of the remaining gap. Linda was told to stay in position as the two men took in the vision of her bottom now with six perfect red stripes.
Eventually Linda was told to rise and immediately went to rub her damaged bottom not caring about the frontal nudity she was displaying. Smith told her that he hoped that she would learn from the experience and suggested that she get dressed. He added that it was not many weeks until the four-month review and that he would send a message re the time of the meeting.
Linda’s bottom was on fire as she walked away and it took at least an hour before the pain started to mitigate – but later that day as the pain reduced to a glow she again had strange feelings about the experience. It was almost as if whilst she hated the caning and the humiliation at the time but enjoyed the after effects and thinking about being made to strip and get into such a revealing position.
As expected a few weeks later she received a message to report to Philip Smith’s office at a time when she was not flying. Two days later she sat in front of the Station Manger who had her file on his desk. He told her that she been caned three times during the first four months of the six month period and asked her if she thought it was an effective Programme. Linda told him that she did feel it had been effective and that since her last caning she had actively been getting to the crew bus at least fifteen minutes early and was even getting irritated by other girls that cut it fine – just as she had done twice and had deserved to be punished. He asked her about what she thought about being caned and the three levels she had so far received. Linda told him that make no mistake a caning is an awful experience but in reality it lasts only two and half minutes – additionally there is a definite step up with pain from getting the cane over your skirt to the receiving it to your bare bottom, which was additionally very embarrassing. He reminded her that she now had two months to keep her nose clean and he would hopefully not see her in the meantime.
On the six-month anniversary she was again told to report to the Station Manager who asked her to sit down as he reviewed her employment file. He told her he was pleased that she had successfully stayed out of trouble for two months and added that he had started to see some very positive reports about her performance.
He again asked her again if she thought the Programme had been a good thing and as an alternative to more official sanctions. She told him that it had been preferable, and that in reality being caned had worked in a way that losing pay or leave would not have. She said that official sanctions would have caused resentment and may have led to her wanting to leave the airline – but being put through the Programme had in many ways brought her closer to him as Station Manager and the Head of Security – adding that she felt that she absolutely deserved both of the punishments for being late, although being caned for the passenger complaints was hard as she felt on the flight in question she was the only hostess trying to sort out an absolute shambles.
Linda went onto to tell Smith that the Programme had made her think about what she wanted from her career and she had decided to work hard to progress as an excellent member of the team – and as such her objective was to be promoted to a Number One on the Regional Fleet. She added that in some ways she regretted reaching the end of the Programme as it had provided a kind of framework and goals to work toward – also that it had made her accountable in a way she had never been held before. She asked if it were possible for him to keep some kind of focus on her performance and that would be very grateful if she could meet more often for an assessment, adding that she wanted to know anything less positive as well as good reports. She also said that she had ideas about how the airline could provide a better service particularly on the very short sectors, which she would like to share with him at some stage.
Philip Smith asked her if she had an ultimate ambition to which Linda instantly responded with “yes, to be a Cabin Service Director on the 747 fleet back at the main base.”
She then astounded Philip Smith that by saying “you may think me mad, but that for completeness I am prepared to take the next level punishment as a way of signing off the six-month Programme and to underline how committed I am to the airline.” He replied that he was extremely surprised but at the same time impressed with her new attitude and asked, “do you want to make an appointment for tomorrow or did you want me to find out if Mike Dawson is available right now”.
Linda told him “lets go for it”. Smith picked up the phone and called Mike Dawson to see if he had fifteen minutes to spare – to which he said he’d be free in ten minutes. Smith decided to spend the ten minutes talking about her previous punishments – in truth he was interested in her paddling in the US, and she told him about the experience in more detail and how the wooden paddle differed from the cane.
He also told her that she was certainly different and that requesting a caning having done nothing wrong was unusual to say the least, especially as the next level was twelve strokes. In reality Linda thought she had gone mad, but there was a part of her that was looking forward to being caned again and having the focus of the two men completely to herself. She also knew that a caning had some strange and pleasurable after effects. The phone went and it was Dawson telling Smith that he was now free.
A couple of minutes later Linda was again undressing before the two men – but this time feeling strangely empowered. Kicking her shoes off, the skirt came down her legs as she stepped out of it before slowly removing her tights and lastly her skimpy knickers making no attempt to hide her nudity. She even asked if they would like her to take off her shirt which Dawson told her there was nothing to stop her. Moments later she was standing before them in just a bra – they had previously been treated to the sight of her naked below the waist, but now they could take in her whole figure with her shapely legs flaring up to her hips with a nicely trimmed pubic triangle and slim waist plus getting more than a hint of her extremely well proportioned breasts. Far from the humiliation she had suffered at her last caning, Linda was actually enjoying being almost naked and showing off her body to the two men – almost as if she was being a bit of an exhibitionist.
Without being told Linda stepped toward the trestle and bent right over it reaching down the far side with her legs stretched out behind her. She was turned on thinking and hoping that they would again be admiring her bottom, a part of her anatomy that she was particularly proud of. She had no reason to worry as Smith and Dawson were taking in the most perfect bottom before them once more.
Smith asked her as this caning was on her terms was she happy to stay with the thirty-second interval between strokes. Linda replied that was fine – and Mike Dawson lined up the cane across the very center of her bottom before delivering a terrific first stroke just as hard as anything she had experienced so far. Now she knew she had gone mad and whilst it had only ten weeks since her last caning, she realised in horror that she had allowed the whole experience to overshadow the actuality of being caned as the tremendous pain sank into her bottom. The second stroke was just as bad and struck lower down, but Linda knew that as she had asked for it, she had no choice but to stay in position and just ‘take it’. Dawson proceeded at thirty second intervals getting louder and louder gasps from Linda and after she had taken her sixth stroke, Dawson stood back and told her that he was going to give her a longer pause before the final six. Smith went directly behind Linda to study her bottom, which now had six perfectly spaced cane marks and complimented Dawson on his accuracy.
Linda was grateful for the pause, but knew that when the next stroke came she would have exactly two and a half minutes of pure pain until the final stroke. Dawson picked up the cane again and whipped in the seventh. Then something strange happened – after the pause, Linda was better able to cope and take the pain. As she lay there she even started to ‘want’ the next stroke. She was in a ‘zone’ that she had not previously experienced – each cane stroke was still unbelievably painful, but she was enduring the caning more easily. It was almost as if the pain was layered and the first six had created a base of pain that wasn’t getting dramatically worse.
Mike Dawson was doing a great job and was filling in the white gaps in an attempt not to have two strokes in exactly the same place. As Linda endured the eighth, ninth and tenth strokes she stayed still and was completely silent for the first time during any of her canings. With only two to go Dawson left slightly longer gaps, but delivered two absolute corkers to finish her caning after which Linda just stayed in position and absorbed the red-hot pain in her bottom.
After a minute she was asked to stand and facing the two men naked save for her bra was asked if she was satisfied with her Level Four Caning. She told them that she was and thanked Mike Dawson for a first class caning and added she was glad it was over adding that the first six were even more painful than she anticipated – and also saying that it would take some time for her bottom to stop feeling as if it was on fire. Smith told her that he would continue to keep an eye on her performance and hoped she achieved her ambitions. Linda then surprised them again by telling Philip Smith that if she achieved her ultimate goal of going back to HQ as a long haul Cabin Service Director, maybe she would return and become only the second hostess to take a Level Five Caning. Smith simply smiled and said they would be delighted to congratulate her in a rather strange way!
In less than ten minutes Linda had experienced a roller-coaster ride of experiences. She had enjoyed being an exhibitionist in undressing before the men, had felt turned on by the thought of them looking at her bare bottom bent-over, had been horrified by the sheer pain of the initial cane strokes, had started to ‘want’ the latter cane strokes and now had a red-hot bottom that she knew was going to give her some pleasure later.
They suggested that she might put her clothes back on – which she did slowly before shaking both their hands and returning to the accommodation block. She immediately undressed and looked at her damaged bottom in the mirror – which now a mass of redness although she could make out most of the strokes. Laying on her bed it did not take long for the inevitable climax as she thought about the whole six months – in truth she did not know it at the time, but she was on her way to becoming a real life submissive.
END
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A caning story by Christopher James from Janus 64. More free spanking stories from Janus and Februs can be found here.
For the Colonel’s Lady an’ Judie O’Grady
Are sisters under their skins!
Rudyard Kipling
* * *
LADY ANGELA was bored. Very bored. All of the customary occupations available to a Lady had become tedious. At 30, slim with long, red-brown hair and green-blue eyes, she was considered very handsome. Her husband having been killed while hunting, early Victorian society decreed that she should not do much entertaining whilst in semi-mourning. But she had to face the fact that she needed a man; indeed — and this was an appalling thought, which she was compelled to admit — that what she really needed could be spelt in three unutterable letters: s-e-x… To this end her late husband had sometimes indulged them both by laying his riding-crop across the seat of her riding-breeches… or a stout, lithe and supple rattan cane without those breeches.
Her boredom was about to be broken. There was a knock upon the parlour door and her butler entered, followed by a young maidservant. ‘What is it, Heathley?’ she asked, smothering a yawn.
‘I am extremely sorry to trouble your ladyship,’ said the portly gentleman who ruled her establishment below stairs, ‘but really something should be done about this — er, this young person.’
‘Should it, Heathley? Cannot you do whatever should be done?’
‘With respect, I am wondering whether this young person is fit to remain in your ladyship’s service. Not for the first time she has badly upset Cook — indeed, Cook went into hysterics, because Emma, here, ruined dinner by dropping a dish containing smoked trout —’
‘Not part of the Royal Doulton dinner-service?’
‘I am afraid so, my lady.’
‘Really, that is too bad! Who… what… is this, so difficult girl?’
‘She is Emma, the kitchen-maid, my lady. You engaged her six months ago. I am sorry to say that as a kitchen-maid her services have not been very satisfactory.’
Her ladyship had a feeling of anger. She was fond of that Doulton service. ‘Come here, girl,’ she said.
The girl gave a little bob of a curtsey, approached Lady Angela, gave another little bob, and awaited the awful pronouncement of her fate. Indeed, tears were already trickling over her grubby cheeks. My lady saw before her a girl at the end of her teens, a dirty-faced girl wearing a sadly soiled apron over a cheap, greasy, black alpaca frock. Emma hung her head, flushing beneath her employer’s critical gaze.
‘Come, girl, what are you crying for? Nothing has happened to you, yet.’
‘Oh, me lady! You’re goin’ to turn me orf.’
‘Certainly there is no place in my kitchens for a girl who drops valuable china and ruins dinner. And I will not have Cook upset.’
‘I’m that sorry, me lady. If you turns me orf I mightn’t get no other place, an’ if I got nowhere to go I’ll get sent back to the ‘ouse.’
‘The house? Do you mean your home?’
‘N-no, me lady, ain’t go no ‘ome. I means the wuck’ouse.’
‘The workhouse. I see.’ Her ladyship pondered. She was not an unkind woman and she realised that for Emma to be sent back to the workhouse would be cruel. But if she upgraded the girl to the post of under parlour-maid she would probably break one of the valuable Wedgwood pieces. Lady Angela also realised that beneath the kitchen grime was an elfin, rather pretty, little face. Likewise, it occurred to her perceptive mind that the girl’s blue-grey eyes were sharp and her features not unintelligent.
‘You may go, Heathley,’ Angela said. ‘I wish to speak with this girl.’
‘Very good, my lady.’ With the slightest bow the butler withdrew, closing the door silently behind him.
‘I collect that you are not happy, working in the kitchen, Emma?’
With another little bob, Emma replied, ‘Well, me lady, I knows I’m lucky to be ‘ere. But I knows I’m that clumsy, an’ Cook’s always shoutin’ at me that I’m under ‘er feet. She’s always on at me. “Do this, Emma, do that, Emma, you ain’t black-leaded the range proper, Emma!” It was Cook makin’ me nervous as made me drop that dish, me lady. I does me best, but… Please, me lady, I will try, please don’t send me away.’
‘I suppose you could get another place, if I gave you a character… of some sort?’
Emma, a workhouse orphan, knowledgeable about the heartless competition of the hard, cruel world with no job, mumbled — with another little curtsey — that she might, but that she would prefer to stay in her present position, even in the kitchen. Meanwhile, her ladyship was thinking. Cook, whatever her moods, was the second most important person in her establishment. ‘How old are you, Emma?’
‘Nineteen, me lady.’
‘There is no necessity to curtsey every time you speak, child.’
‘No, me lady, thank you.’
‘And, if you can, it is “my lady”. Can you manage that?’
Emma set her mouth and replied, ‘Yes, moi lady.’
‘Try saying “kind”.’
‘Koind.’
‘No! You must open your mouth wider. Now. Kind.’
‘Koi — kind, me — moi — my lady.’
‘Come, now, that is very good.’ Angela’s eyes, sparkling with a hint of salacity, were roving over the girl’s form. The large, blue-grey eyes were very attractive, the hair, properly washed, would be flaxen; and the figure quite shapely, a little buxom; a distinct curve of bust and no corset.
‘Turn around, Emma. Let me see your back view.’
Obediently Emma turned, displaying a distinctive, even tempting, outward swell below the waist. My lady was comparing the shape of this commonplace girl with that of her stepdaughter, Honoria, at present away at finishing school, who was the same age and there was a well-defined advantage. And, inevitably, Lady Angela thought of the punishment she had been compelled to mete out to her stepdaughter when that wilful young lady had been home during the holiday… and, with wishful thinking, she thought of a certain room upstairs, which over several generations had become known as the punishment room. Angela, it may be said, had a penchant for the use of a supple cane.
‘Would you consent to be punished, instead of being discharged?’
‘Oh yes, my lady, anything.’
‘Have you ever been caned?’
Caned…! That was ominous. ‘Yes, my lady. I been caned by the wuck’ouse Master. The ba —, I means the Master, enjoyed it.’ Emma had learned to hate and fear the cane at the workhouse but she perceived that if she wished to remain in her ladyship’s household she could not refuse chastisement now. It would certainly be better than being discharged.
Her ladyship was an impulsive person. ‘Tell me, girl, would you like to be my personal maid?’
Emma gasped. She, a lady’s-maid? She knew that Betty, her ladyship’s abigail, had recently left to get married, but a lady’s-maid was almost as far above a kitchen-maid as was the butler himself, and he was a very grand personage indeed. ‘Oh, milady! Me — moi — my lady. I couldn’t. Never!’
‘Why not?’
Why not? The idea was fantastic. Abigail, a personal maid to Lady Angela! Although, as the widow of a mere baronet, Lady Angela knew herself to be upon the lowest stratum of the nobility, to Emma she rated somewhere between God and the Great queen.
‘I — I… I dunno, me lady. My lady. I ain’t trained. Nor I can’t read and write. And talk proper.’
‘You need not address me as “my lady” each time you speak to me, Emma. You may call me Ma’am when we are speaking together. I should train you in your duties. In addition I am willing to devote four hours each day to teaching you to speak properly, to read and write, and perhaps play upon the pianoforte. But it would mean hard work. And discipline.’
‘Discipline, moi lady — Ma’am?’
‘The cane or a leather strap across your bottom if you misbehave or do not work hard.’
‘Oh, Ma’am, I’ll work hard. Oh, gosh! I means moi lady — Ma’am, I can’t hardly believe you means it.’
‘This offer is not definite, you understand.’ Emma’s spirits dropped. ‘I shall think about it while I punish you for breaking a valuable dish.’
‘Ye-es, Ma’am.’ As my lady had perceived, Emma was by no means an unintelligent girl — she realised that there could well be some connection between her willingness to accept punishment and her ladyship’s ‘thinking about’ the glittering opportunity. To become a lady’s personal maid, to be taught to speak well and to read and write, that was the opportunity of a lifetime.
Nevertheless, she was afraid. ‘Please Ma’am, you goin’ to give me the cane now?’
‘That is my intention, Emma.’
‘Will you do it on me ‘ands or me bum?’
‘One does not use that word. It is coarse. You say “bottom”.’
‘Sorry, Ma’am.’
‘I shall administer punishment upon your bottom. Bare, naturally.’
That did shake Ernrna. ‘B-bare, Ma’am?’
‘Certainly.’
‘You means… without me drawers on?’
‘Come, now, do not be foolish. If you had your drawers on you would hardly be bare, would you?’
‘No, only… Please, Ma’am, I never bin bare. You’re never proper bare in the ‘ouse. Even when you’re caned.’
‘Have you never taken a bath?’
‘Please, Ma’am, I’ve bathed in the tin bath in the kitchen. But I’ve always kep’ me drawers on. An’ me camisole.’
Angela raised her eyebrows. But she did not enquire further. There was no accounting for the habits of the menials. But that would be changed.
‘I cane my stepdaughter upon her bare bottom and there is certainly no reason why I should not do the same to you.’
‘Your stepdaughter, Ma’am? Miss Honoria? But — but she’s real grown-up.’
‘She is the same age as yourself. If she is disobedient or if I am sent an unfavourable report, I give her a thrashing and I assure you that her buttocks are completely uncovered. When I was her age I was accustomed to being birched, uncovered, by my Papa and that hurts far more than the cane. So no more nonsense! Now, my girl, are you willing to submit to a thorough caning upon your bare bottom?’
‘Yes, Ma’am.’ What choice had she?
Lady Angela was elated. She had never anticipated having the opportunity of caning another girl as well as Honoria. She said, ‘You know the punishment room upstairs, Emma?’
Emma had never been inside it.
‘You will go there now. Take your drawers down. Take them right off. Also — I do not think you need be entirely naked, but take off everything except your chemise. You will find three punishment canes hanging upon hooks. You will select — take — the middle-sized one, then stand in the corner, holding the cane. Face the wall. And — understand this — you will not turn round until I give you permission. Now, do you understand what I have told you?’
‘Ye-es, Ma’am,’ Emma mumbled, with sinking heart.
The punishment room had been known, and feared, by generations of the baronet’s family. Its remote location in this rambling old house had been chosen so that no sounds emanating from it would be heard in the servants’ quarters. This room contained a couch, a high, padded stool, and a ‘horse’ of padded leather, adjustable in height. It also contained three rattan canes of varying thickness and length, a long, thick leather strap, and a split-tailed leather tawse. Time had been when half-a-dozen rueful boys and girls had awaited their turn for painful correction in that room.
Lady Angela was a strong, capable woman, and she was excited by what she was doing. She always keenly enjoyed whipping her stepdaughter and fully intended to continue these treatments until the girl was married. Honoria took it for granted, just as she assumed that in the fullness of time she (or her husband) would similarly discipline their own offspring.
Emma did as she had been instructed. Quivering with apprehension, she removed the ubiquitous apron, her alpaca frock, two petticoats, and her calico pantalets, which were buttoned and covered part of her thighs. Laying her clothing upon a chair, she took the middle-sized cane from its hook and faced a corner of the room, oppressed by the feeling of disgrace, dreading the punishment that awaited her. It was the first time she had actually handled a cane. The jointed length of thin rattan was at least half as pliant as rubber — that suppleness which provides the fierce, indescribable sting.
But she made a mistake. When, after about ten minutes, her mistress entered the room she turned involuntarily. Without a word my lady strode across the room, raised the girl’s shift, and inflicted one heavy, resounding slap upon the top of each fat, wide thigh.
‘Ow!’ cried Emma.
‘I told you not to turn round until I bid you. That is what discipline means.’
‘Yes, me — my lady. Ma’am.’
‘Now I’ll have that cane.’ She took the thin, yellow, quivering rod. ‘Pull your shift up, right up above your waist, and bend forward.’
Emma obeyed, trembling with fear. Lady Angela grasped her, her arm around the back of the girl’s waist, bending her over more. Another time, she was thinking, she would have the girl kneeling upon the couch, but she was enjoying the personal contact. Emma felt very forlorn as she waited, her uncovered hindquarters feeling very vulnerable, her thighs still smarting. Angela gazed down at that nude posterior with a feeling of glowing gratification and erotic desire. She realised that this girl, being more plump, and with more fleshy contours than her stepdaughter, possessed a much more spankable — or caneable! — bottom. Emma’s skin was also more tender. My lady adored that close-up view of those very tempting, tender, voluptuously rounded globes with the bewitching cleft.
Honoria had been accustomed to take her hidings fairly stoically, for many similar punishments, not only from her fond stepmama, had toughened the skin of those rounded areas which were always the target of hand, cane or tawse. It took at least eight hefty whacks to make her protest too vehemently.
Not so Emma. The cane swished and cracked forcefully. Momentarily she felt nothing… then she uttered a shrill cry, and her body jerked in her mistress’s firm grip, as a very peculiar feeling, accompanied by an exceedingly sharp, burning sting tore through her proffered bottom. She received a further four hard, wickedly stinging strokes, and she did not pretend to be a heroine. She yelled lustily at every resounding thwack as the cane whipped down, a yellow streak of compressed agony, across that so enticing derriere.
The room resounded with pitiable noise. ‘I’Il’ — THWACK! — ‘Ooh!’ … ‘teach you’ — WHACK! — ‘Oh-ow!’ … ‘to drop’ — CRACK! — ‘Ooow-oh!’ … ‘dishes’ — WHACK! — ‘Ooooh-aagh!’ Emma continued to gasp loudly after her last cry. Upon each side of her squirming backside were five scarlet-hued, raised weals.
The servants were shattered by Emma’s news when that young lady, with reddened eyes, clutching at her anguished rear — but with a broad grin upon her pretty face — hobbled into the servants’ sitting-room. They were incredulous and outraged. The good-for-nothing kitchen-maid, a clumsy, uncouth, untaught workhouse brat, to become her ladyship’s personal maid…! Even the imperturbable Heathley lowered his Morning Post to ponder upon the unpredictable peculiarities of the Quality…
Emma found her new duties infinitely more pleasant than the kitchen. First, she herself had to have new clothes — which meant, incidentally, that for the first time in her deprived young life, she saw her body reflected in a full-length mirror. What she saw was worth looking at: a voluptuous form, rather more curvaceous than her ladyship’s slim figure, with delightful plump breasts with rosebud tips and large areolae; a femininely-rounded belly with a cupid’s kiss of a navel; an alluring, delightful triangle of crisp hair. She could only partially see her back view, but Lady Angela saw a creamy-skinned, well-fleshed back, the hips swelling from trim waist, the indentation of the spine culminating in the most adorable, tantalising, dimpled cleavage, terminating in ripely luscious chubby buttocks; and beneath these posterior glories, shapely long legs with broad, rounded calves.
Across the rear cheeks were those ignominious cane marks, now faded into pink lines, but nobody would have been surprised at such evidence of correction upon a 19-year-old girl’s rump; it was an age of severe corporal punishment.
She was overjoyed by her new clothes. Smooth cotton drawers with short legs and no button covered her from her waist down, which garment, for the first time, Emma heard called ‘knickers’, not drawers, knickerbockers, nor pantalets; a camisole, smooth cotton vest, two petticoats, the outer one, which at once became a treasure, of real cambric, and a very pretty floor-length cotton print dress. Angela did not begrudge money to give this girl — and herself — pleasure. She happily anticipated many occasions when she would have to uncover Emma’s behind for disciplinary purposes.
There was no boredom now for Lady Angela. She was a natural teacher, and was pleased to find that her estimate of Emma’s intelligence was not misplaced. She set herself to teach her new abigail elocution, to read and write, to learn her ‘tables’ and do elementary arithmetic, to embroider, and at least a grounding on the piano. It was inevitable that such tuition required a sound spanking, always upon the bare nates, or liberal use of a leather strap, hairbrush or cane. The girl picked up first reading from simple story books, then more advanced reading, and copperplate handwriting. But she was less clever and quick with arithmetic and elocution — which inevitably left her with a very sore rear.
Emma did not, at first, derive any pleasure from such discipline; yet, perhaps oddly, she did not mind it — at least, after it was over. She soon realised that beating her on the bottom, or even caning her on her hands, did give my lady pleasure; and such was her love for her employer, and her gratitude, that she was only too willing to suffer physical pain. But she did not suffer in stoic silence. She would find herself across her mistress’s lap, her skirts above her waist, her knickers pulled down, howling as she was vigorously belaboured either with Lady Angela’s hand or her hairbrush — that same oval-shaped brush with which Emma loved to brush my lady’s glorious mass of long, shining, auburn hair. A spanking could mean up to thirty hard smacks, well distributed over all parts of bottom and thighs.
Occasionally, if her ladyship was really exasperated or if Emma had been particularly obtuse it would mean a caning. Caning was more formal than a summary spanking.
Apprehensively, with that faint sickly feeling of fear in the pit of her stomach, Emma slowly, reluctantly, climbed the stairs to the punishment room. She removed her apron, her highly-prized dress and cambric petticoat, and the smooth cotton knickers; fearfully selected the middle-sized cane (about 3/8-inch thick), and stood in her customary corner, feeling the thudding of her heart and the queasy anxiety in her belly. The Cane… the true symbol of her relationship with her mistress. Emma’s cognition with the cane was, at first, sheer, utter fear; gradually that cognition changed to a sort of inevitable acceptance, and then again to another feeling which was a compound of her growing affection for her stern mistress and the so familiar sensation of lust. And then she began to derive a strange, ambivalent feeling of thrilling enjoyment, so that every intolerable sting was actually sensually blissful.
Waiting, in some dread, for Lady Angela, she wondered what she might expect. Four strokes if she were lucky, but it might be six. She had certainly been difficult and her mistress was angry with her. She stood in the corner, flexing the long, slender stick, which was so pliant she could bend it into a circle. The door opened, but she did not dare to turn until she was bid; that would earn her two or three painful smacks upon her thighs.
‘You may turn, Emma.’ Emma turned and proffered the cane; the handle was trembling perceptibly as the woman took it. She licked her dry lips. ‘I-I know I’m a naughty girl, Ma’am.’
‘Yes?’
‘I was very stupid over my sums, Ma’am. And I was impudent and disobedient. I know I deserve a severe caning, but I-I’m frightened.’
‘Eight strokes, Emma.’
Emma gulped. ‘Eight! Oh, oh, Ma’am…’
‘I have often given Miss Honoria a dozen strokes. You are a bright girl, Emma. You know you can do arithmetic if you will exert yourself. And how many times have I told you not to answer me back? You are just recalcitrant! I will not have impudence, Miss. Now, I want you over the horse.’
‘Ye-es, Ma’am.’ Her voice was so soft it could hardly be heard. The girl, her knees shaky, hoisted her underslip and vest and, curving her body over the leather-upholstered top of the ‘horse’, she lay over it, naked from the small of her back, and her hands took a firm grip upon the horizontal struts. In a low, unsteady voice, she said, ‘Please, Ma’am, I do love you.’
Her ladyship was touched, it was a cry from the heart of a girl who had never known love — but her punishment was to be none the less because of that. Deliberately, because she knew it was what her mistress liked, she parted her legs.
‘What a darling you are,’ Angela said, ‘but I have to thrash you severely.’
Emma no longer felt shame or embarrassment. Only fear. Indeed, she was glad that her bottom, and her so private charms, were exposed to her beloved lady. It excited her, for there was no doubt that such bare-bottomed punishment was a powerful aphrodisiac… for both of them.
This was always a wonderful moment for Angela. She visualised herself lying across that leather horse awaiting the biting strokes of her poor husband’s crop across her taut breeches. Now, with her whole body filled with concupiscent joy, she stared down at those superlative creamy-white spheres that awaited the cane as though in supplication, relishing the thrill aroused by their absolute nakedness and vulnerability. The skin was firm and satin-smooth as she ran her fingers over the silky surface… the girl’s thighs writhed as she sensuously caressed her bottom’s curves…
The cane fell with a clean, crisp snap, precisely as she had intended, across the soft flesh where the buttocks swelled outwards from the broad thighs. Emma took the first stroke of red-hot pain, an anguish that seemed almost to be a lustful pleasure, with nothing but contorted mouth and a little wince. But as the lithe stick continued to slash down, her stoicism broke.
THWACK! — ‘Ow!’ … THWACK! — ‘Ooh-owch!’ … CRACK! — ‘Oooh-aagh!’ Stretched as she was, on her toes, gripping the struts with whitened knuckles, the girl could scarcely move. Big tears oozed over her eyelids. ‘Oh, Ma’am, it hurts!’ she wailed.
‘My pool girl. I am sorry to have to punish you like this.’ Which, as they both knew, was something less than the truth. ‘It is only through pain that you will learn to be a good girl, isn’t it?’
‘Y-y-yes, Ma’am. I will try harder.’
Lady Angela stared down libidinously at the reddened weals swelling across the so delicious globes. Was she being cruel? Those strong, sturdy hips and buttocks could take plenty of punishment.
‘You have four strokes to come. Be a brave girl.’
‘You know I want it, Ma’am. I was a naughty girl.’
‘Yes, I know. I understand. It is good for you to have your bottom well caned.’
The slow, very deliberate thrashing continued. The culprit wept and sobbed, moaned and wailed. Her ladyship was breathing hard. The cane was raised high, back over my lady’s shoulder and came swishing down, adding stinging agony to the fire that already blazed in the pert, voluptuously-rounded buttocks. The girl shrieked and tears streamed down her face, dropping to the floor. The entire area was inflamed but none of the weals crossed.
That was all. But Emma simply could not help herself. She felt as though she had been sitting on a fire — yet she wanted more. Her desire was irresistible; it was ambivalent… all she knew was that, although each blow was hellish, agonising, it was also blissful. The sensual tension between girl and woman was electric, transcending all social differences. She was crying, with short, staccato sobs.
‘M-Miss Honoria t-t-takes a d-dozen strokes, Ma’am?’
‘If I consider that she merits it she certainly does.’
‘If — if she does, I c-can.’ Emma was burning as much with erotic craving as with pain.
Again the cane swished down with ruthless force. Emma yelled as intolerable agony tore like raging flame. She cried pitiably and howled at each of the four severe strokes.
With a clean handkerchief Lady Angela wiped the streaming tears. ‘Now,’ she said softly, ‘first a kiss.’ Her ardent lips were pressed against each buttock in turn, slobbering saliva over the stinging, aching flesh. Then from a shelf she took a pot of fragrant cold cream and gently, tenderly, anointed the red and swollen welts.
* * *
As Emma made progress in her lessons, her mistress introduced one or two new subjects less conventional than the others. Emma learned a little of the art of massage. This took place in her ladyship’s bedroom with the door locked. Lady Angela was taller and slimmer than her maid, with perky, rounded, but almost boyish buttocks. She lay naked, face-down upon her big bed, and explained to Emma how to knead and manipulate her shoulder muscles, and to massage her back with quick, chopping movements with the edges of her hands, which treatment she thoroughly enjoyed. Then, to Emma’s amazement, she said, ‘Now hit my lower parts. Below my waist. With your open hand.’
Emma stared down in some bewilderment at the intimacy of her mistress’s inviting rear. ‘With my open hand, Ma’am?’
‘Yes, Emma.’
‘But — but you mean, smack you, Ma’am?’
‘Yes.’
‘On your behind, Ma’am?’
‘Yes, yes, of course. Do it hard, don’t be afraid. Until it hurts too much, then I’ll tell you to stop. It is a sort of massage.’
The girl was puzzled. But those seductive curves were inordinately tempting. She brought her open hand down with a loud slap upon the soft, fleshy side of one lovely cheek. ‘Like that, Ma’am?’ she asked diffidently, still scarcely believing.
‘Yes, just like that. But hard.’
Emma understood at last. Her mistress wanted a smacked arse — and it was purely sexual. She obliged with hard, sharp slaps all over that enticing bum. The skin became first pink, then a deep rose colour, which turned into carmine and scarlet, and Angela was wincing and moaning, writhing and rubbing her thighs together, her whole body moving on the bed. She began to cry loudly. It was a noisy affair, the ringing cracks of flesh against flesh as Emma’s large, work-hardened hand fell with unmerciful force upon the heaving aristocratic backside, mingling with my lady’s cries, until the girl was breathless, her arm felt heavy and weary, her palm sore and smarting. It had been a severe spanking, the fiery-red patches were taking on a tinge of blue.
Now, Emma understood. She was intensely grateful to Lady Angela… and she was eager to please her in any way she could. They were both perfectly normal heterosexual females, and Emma hoped that one day she would have a husband; she understood that because of the temporary semi-mourning period, her mistress was precluded from seeking a new husband…
However, Emma had yet to discover what a glutton for punishment her strange mistress was. Lady Angela’s ravenous body yearned for a flogging. A horsewhip across her back and buttocks… she could imagine it so well, but in reality that would be too extreme. It would have to be the cane. But it would have to be very severe, something she really feared, or it would be useless.
Angela never knew for certain whether it was a pure accident or an accident-on-purpose, but while rearranging some of her expensive collection of Wedgwood, she dropped and smashed one. ‘Oh!’ she exclaimed, in vexation. ‘Oh, Emma. Just see what I have done.’ She looked at her maid with a strange, questioning expression. ‘I think we must go up to the punishment room.’
The girl was alarmed. She had done nothing wrong. With a little thrill of excitement she assumed that her mistress wanted another spanking for breaking that ornament. But to her surprise and some trepidation, she watched Lady Angela take the largest cane from its hook; this rather grim implement was nearly a half-inch thick and three feet in length. Emma knew it would be excruciating. Going to the couch, my lady raised the cane and brought it down with all her strength, indenting the firm upholstery with a loud Whap!
‘Now, my dear, try if you can do it as hard as I did.’
Emma obeyed, rather bemused, making the pliant stick swish and bend itself across the couch.
‘Now do you understand? I want you to give me a severe caning. Just as I do with you when you misbehave.’
‘But… But, my lady, I can’t cane you, your ladyship.’
‘Please, Emma. After all, you gave me a pretty severe spanking.’
‘Well, yes, Ma’am. But that was massage.’
‘It was a form of massage, certainly, but it was still a beating.’
In a flash of sudden discernment, Emma realised that the relationship between mistress and servant had changed. The ambience in this room of pain, the phantasmic influence of the room was redolent of chastisement; of cracks and cries, as cane, strap or whip descended upon her aristocratic posteriors; it was voluptuous, punitive, electric with sensuality. She took a more purposeful grip on the limber cane, flexing it. Watching Lady Angela’s eyes fixed upon it, more green than blue, Emma underwent a metamorphosis. Temporarily, while she held the rod of justice, she was mistress… She, Emma, was dominant.
The aristocratic lady was yearning to be dominated. This had been somehow, amorphously, in the back of her mind ever since this liaison; it was what she had missed since her husband had died. For just a few minutes, she was indeed the ‘culprit’, and she had to endure — wanted to endure — the sublime ecstacy of harsh anguish. Her body… her bottom… seemed to tingle with her longing.
Emma whipped the cane down across her hand with a pleasurable sting, and saw the eagerly watching woman lick her lips with the tip of a pink tongue. When she spoke she was amazed at her own words, at her sheer temerity.
‘Your ladyship has been a very naughty girl, ain’t — haven’t — you?’
‘Yes, Emma, I am afraid I have. My clumsiness was unforgivable.’
‘What do you think you deserve for your naughtiness?’
Angela uttered a little moan of sheer, avid craving. She said, ‘Not less than twelve strokes on my bare bottom. Perhaps more. And four across my thighs.’ Seeing the startled surprise flicker in her maid’s eyes at the harsh severity of her own sentence, she added, ‘Don’t worry, Emma. I am pretty hardened.’
‘Very well, Ma’am. Perhaps the cane will help to make you more careful. You must go across the horse, naked, for your whipping. You understand?’
Emma helped her mistress undress, as she did each night. First the buttons down the back of the long, very full red satin dress had to be unfastened, and the woman stepped out of it. A taffeta underskirt followed, then two cambric petticoats; beneath those was a stiff, waist-length horsehair crinoline, and beneath that the tight corset, which pinched in her ladyship’s already slender waist. Finally a long lawn chemise and the smooth lawn knickers that covered her body from waist to the upper parts of the thighs. And Angela stood, with eyes modestly cast down, blushing a little, in the proud glory of ravishing nudity. But Emma was now accustomed to seeing her mistress in the nude. She brought the long, thick cane hissing through the air — and had the pleasure of seeing her ladyship flinch.
Then, obediently, just like a naughty slip of a girl, the 30-year-old woman curved her tall form over the punishment horse, gripped the horizontal strut, and waited submissively, for the punishment for which she yearned… yet which she dreaded.
Emma gazed enraptured at the piquant, provocative hindquarters and her body was gripped by a passion of lascivious desire to administer chastisement. Positioning herself well to the side of the bending woman, she laid the cane gently across the apex of the erotically beautiful orbs… raised it… tapped it once, then lifted it high. She poised it above her shoulder before bringing it down with a swish and a resounding thwack, leaving two white marks perfectly across the middle of the buttocks, which turned immediately into pink. Her victim’s body gave a little jerk, but that was all.
THWACK! There was another little jerk of Lady Angela’s bending form, but nothing more. Emma put all of her powerful young body into the third smashing welt, but still with not a murmur from her mistress. She did not know how resilient Lady Angela’s lovely derriere had become over the years: a stern, disciplined upbringing at the hands of a mother and governess who both believed strongly in the efficacy of strict physical punishment; a husband who had enjoyed using cane or riding-whip; and all her life she had ridden horses.
The caning was inflicted with slow deliberation and salacious pleasure on the part of the punisher — indeed, of the pair of them — but, inexperienced as Emma was, the bamboo did not always land precisely where intended. The fifth blow crossed two swelling weals and, for the first time, elicited a loud wince.
Walloped my bare bum for smashin’ a bloody plate! thought Emma. I’ll teach you! Yet she still loved this woman, and would never, as long as she lived, cease to be grateful to her. Yet she was indulging in the most thrilling excitation as she brought the cane biting mercilessly into the white skin of her mistress’s jerking rear cheeks and thighs. She did not see how contorted the woman’s face became at every stroke.
At the eighth stroke Lady Angela started weeping and groaning. Emma’s arm was heavy and she was breathing loudly. For these few minutes maid was mistress — and with incredible boldness, she intended to demonstrate the fact. The whipping paused.
‘Remember why you are being punished, you bad girl?’
‘For — for being a very clumsy, naughty girl… ooh! My naughty bare bottom is burning! It needs this whipping, Emma. Thrash it hard.’
With the next hefty whack Angela uttered a loud cry. The impassioned Emma swished the rod down with her lusty young strength, imparting vicious slashes across those writhing nates. Angela shrieked as Emma counted ‘Twelve’. Thereafter the recipient howled just as Emma had done upon similar occasions. The cane continued to bite venomously, ruthlessly into those delightful buttocks and thighs, producing exquisite reactions to each infliction.
The erstwhile kitchen-maid was learning more than her schoolroom subjects. Maid and mistress, after all, were sisters under their skins.
A spanking and caning story by James Kenway from Janus 34. More free spanking stories can be found here.
SELINA turned the amber-coloured Volvo off the little side street and up the curving drive. Gravel scrunched under the tread of the new tyres. The spreading evergreen still stood at the back of the building, its branches shading the bay windows and the mellow old brickwork. She parked the car and turned off the purring engine and lit a long, expensive cigarette and gazed at the house and what she could see of the grounds and the pond. It had been, she reflected, more than a dozen years since she had last seen this view.
After a few moments she flung open the car door and stepped out, shaking out the skirt of her two-piece and dipping into the car for her elegant beige leather handbag. She flung her half-smoked cigarette onto the gravel without bothering to put it out and slammed the car door, walking away without locking it. The autumn breeze lifted the fringe of fine blonde hair from her brow.
When she stepped through the door and into the corridor, off which led the doors to most of the ground floor classrooms, she was at first struck by how small the place seemed. The ceilings had been higher, the polished boards wider and more glossy, the panelled walls endless, she thought.
‘Of course,’ she murmured to herself. ‘I wasn’t even quite 18 then. The place must have seemed a lot grander. After all, I’d seen little enough of the world. Now then, where’s the staircase?’
At this hour of the early evening – before classes had commenced – there were but a few people in the old priory which had been the scene of Selina’s schooldays. The one or two members of the administrative staff who passed her directed a curious glance or two at her, but her confident bearing and the cut of her clothes gave her an air of authority, as if she had every right to be there. No one challenged her. And she was making her way so directly to where she was going that nobody thought to ask if she needed directions. She ascended the oaken staircase. The paintings that had been on the walls in her day were no longer there. Kept by the trustees, she guessed, when they had sold the building to the local authority to be an annexe of the technical college and evening institute, and the small private school had moved out into rural Warwickshire.
Miss Felton’s form room was where she remembered it: at the head of the stairs, across the landing. The branches of the evergreen swung near the panes of the bay window. She fancied she could still scent the chalkdust in the air, although the old blackboard on its tripod had gone, replaced by a modern, greenish one on the end wall. The walls were bare except for a few timetables and the fire regulations. The heavy old desks and chairs, scored by innumerable compass points and penknives, had been superseded by insipid, modern furniture. Miss Felton’s desk, raised on a dais a foot so that she could stare down on her pupils in regal authority, was replaced by an ordinary table with a formica top.
Selina closed the door behind her and leaned back against it, her hands pressed flat between the wood and her bottom, and took a deep breath. The years fell away and it seemed as though she could hear the scratch of pens, the rustle of textbook pages, the measured tread of Miss Felton patrolling the ranks of desks as the class of a dozen girls laboured over their set task. It seemed she could hear the hissing whispers of the plump, fair girl with the pageboy hairdo, a rather florid girl who was an incessant chatterer – what had been her name? Gail! Gail Wethered.
‘Gail Wethered! Come here at once, girl! How many times do you think I am going to tell you?’
The hush that instantly fell upon the class was that of a dozen girls holding their breath. Gail’s round face had instantly constricted with something approaching panic as soon as she heard her name rapped out in that tone. Her china-blue eyes were as round as saucers and her jaw hung down. She gulped and shot a look at Selina before haltingly rising to her feet. Selina, perhaps disloyally, just felt enormously glad that she had merely been the slightly irritated target of Gail’s whispered chatter. She had not reciprocated nor had she, it seemed, been included in Gail’s crime. Miss Felton was standing, hands on her hips, in stern reproof, in front of the class. Her position made the severe cut of her tweeds look even more formidable and masculine. She tapped her foot, once. As if stung by this sign of increasing displeasure, Gail leapt to her feet and scampered out to the front of the class, the hem of her dark-grey pleated skirt bobbing. Miss Felton waited until she had stopped and then thrust her face forward into that of the trembling plump blonde.
‘Did you not hear me when I reprimanded you for talking not ten minutes ago?’ she asked, her voice low and even.
Gail seemed to shrink. ‘No, Miss. I mean yes, Miss.’
‘Are you trying to disturb the entire class, is that it? When I specifically tell you there is to be no talking do you set out deliberately to defy me?’
‘N-no, Miss.’
Turn around and face the class. Stand in front of that desk there.’ Miss Felton propelled the unlucky pupil about-face by one shoulder, shoving her against the edge of one of the empty desks which always somehow gathered in the front row.
‘Get across it.’
‘Oh no, Miss, please!’
‘Are you arguing with me?’ Miss Felton’s tone was icy.
‘No, Miss,’ Gail mumbled miserably, leaning forward over the desk so that her hair swung around her face. Miss Felton picked up the heavy wooden ruler from her own desk top.
‘Right down, Gail.’ The girl grimaced and leaned even further forward, flattening her ample breasts against the wood surface which sloped down and away from her. Her rear end was now higher than her head. Miss Felton seized the hem of the short pleated skirt and flung it up around the girl’s waist. Selina and the rest of the class drew a corporate breath of teenage horror. They were then treated to the sight of Miss Felton taking hold of what they rightly supposed to be the waistband of Gail’s panties. Poor Gail gave a wail and attempted to stand up, clapping her hands behind her in a vain effort to stem the tide of indignity being visited upon her. But Miss Felton simply and expertly crossed Gail’s wrists at the small of her back and, holding her thus down upon the desk, hauled the panties down with her indefatigable right hand before picking up the ruler once more.
The class could now be in little doubt as to what was about to follow. They could see Gail’s face, but not her bottom. Those at the sides of the classroom craned for a better view of the brief knickers now resident around her knees. Miss Felton lifted the ruler above her shoulder and brought it swooping down onto that ignominiously bared behind where it landed with a crack which echoed across the room. Gail’s yell was ear-splitting.
‘Arrgh!’ she howled, and all Serena’s nerves were thrilled by the sound. The ruler went up and down again with speed and regularity, its reports punctuating Gail’s squeals and Miss Felton’s remonstrances.
‘In future –’ Whack! ‘Owwch!’ ‘– you will keep quiet when you are told –’ Whack! ‘EEErgh!’ ‘– and if you ever dare –’ Whack! ‘Yeeeow!’ ‘– to disobey again –’ Whack! ‘Owwwww!’ ‘– then you will find that –’ Whack! ‘Ouch, oh, please –’ ‘– a taste of the cane will soon deter you from –’ Whack! ‘Ooooh –!’ ‘– ever doing so again!’ Whack! ‘EEEEEK!’ ‘Now get back to your seat!’
Miss Felton turned and strode back to her desk. Poor Gail scrambled her panties up beneath her skirt, wincing as the elastic scraped across her flaming cheeks, then hurried, head down, back to her place beside Selina. She sat down, and immediately rose again, with something which started out to be a screech, but which, at a glance from Miss Felton, was quickly cut off. She snuffled a little throughout the rest of the lesson but was more silent than Selina had ever known. Her cheeks were still wet when the bell rang.
* * *
Selina came to with a start. She looked around the classroom as if surprised that it no longer contained the hushed class, the cowed Gail and the imperious Miss Felton. Daydreaming again, she thought to herself, and giving a shrug, left the room and started down the stairs to the college office.
To her surprise, the room which had housed the school office was now a classroom, the original door from the hallway bricked up. A half-glassed door bearing the sign ‘College Administration’ was in front of what she remembered as the principal’s office. Selina entered without knocking, causing the single occupant of the room, a middle-aged woman seated before a typewriter, to look up.
‘Can I help you?’ she asked.
‘You may be able to,’ answered Selina briskly, striding so purposefully to the counter that her full skirt positively swished around her slender knees. She placed her handbag on the counter and paused for a moment to let her appearance have its customary effect. It usually got the desired results from people employed in menial positions.
She was tall for a woman, five-feet-eight without heels, and her model’s training showed in her walk. Her sheer hose, high heels and careful and exquisite make-up all combined with the obvious expense of her outfit to give the impression of privileged elegance; a woman who had no need to work and no worries over money. The fine fair hair framed her face and fell neatly around the collar of her jacket. The green eyes, set above a rather long, straight nose, were cool and aristocratic. They were the eyes of a woman who, at the age of 29, had grown used to getting her own way.
When she was convinced that the other was suitably impressed, Selina spoke.
‘You are aware, perhaps, that this building was formerly the Priory Academy for Young Ladies? A private school? Before it was sold to the local authority and turned into –’ Selina flapped her gloves around her in a gesture of distaste. ‘In those days it was presided over by a Miss Felton, MA (Oxon) I believe, who –’
‘Miss Felton, yes, that’s right.’
‘I beg your pardon?’ Selina, irritated by the interruption, looked hard at the woman behind the typewriter. ‘You know of her? I am trying to trace her.’
‘I don’t know of her,’ replied the woman archly. ‘I know her. She teaches English here on Tuesdays and Thursdays.’
‘She does?’ Selina was momentarily taken aback. ‘I had thought that she had retired. I expected to find her at an address in the country somewhere. Tuesdays and Thursdays, you say? Will she be in this evening?’
‘It’s a Thursday, isn’t it?’
Really, thought Selina, some people scarcely know their place.
She extracted a small gold propelling pencil and a leather-bound notebook from her handbag and wrote busily for some moments. ‘Would you give this to her?’ She passed over the folded slip of paper.
‘Why not wait for her?’ asked the woman. ‘Her class starts at six and she’s always well ahead of time.’
‘No thank you,’ said Selina, turning to go, firm in her determination to be in the driving seat when she finally did come face to face with Miss Felton again after all these years. The woman had always had such a powerful personality that Selina, like all her classmates, had been in awe of her. Going back to try to beard her in her den after all this time was an attempt to exorcise the power she had once wielded. She, Selina, was now in possession of both wealth and position. Miss Felton was stuck; apparently still teaching bored office girls and surly louts at night school. She did not seem to have prospered. With her acquired poise and experience Selina knew she ought to emerge victorious in any confrontation but she still felt some kind of disquiet which convinced her she ought to choose her ground. She moved towards the door briskly then suddenly halted, her attention arrested. Something about the way the light fell had shown her a glimpse of this room as it used to be: long and richly carpeted, with leather furniture. She had a sudden memory of Betty Trask, dark and curly-haired and 17 (just the same as Selina herself), face down over Miss Felton’s lap. She could see the dark grey gymslip crumpled around her waist, the dark blue knickers around the gyrating knees. The sound of the plimsoll was like a pistol shot each time it landed and Betty was squealing and promising, her hands firmly held in the small of her back, out of the way of that devilish plimsoll. Selina’s throat was dry and she had felt momentarily dizzy. The trepidation that she felt as she watched that scene, the only other person in the room, swept over her once more: she had known it was her turn next.
‘Er… I said, is there anything else?’
Selina jolted herself out of her reverie and went towards the door. ‘Just see the message is delivered,’ she said thickly. ‘That will be all.’ She left the office and then went out of the building and down the drive, past her Volvo.
* * *
The interior of the pub was quiet at that hour. Selina walked in with the newly-bought local evening paper and stood at the bar to order a vodka and tonic. The landlord, when he perceived that she was alone, looked her up and down suspiciously. Selina glared at him and he looked away, abashed. ‘Anyone of my class who was on the game wouldn’t pick this hole,’ thought Selina crossly and sat down and opened her paper.
Try as she might, she could not help but feel a creeping and gradually growing nervousness. It was foolish, she told herself. Even if she comes, which I doubt, she’s an old woman now. The school seemed so much smaller and so will she. She’ll be old and feeble now, and I’ll be able to get free of her lurking shadow.
She signalled to the landlord for another drink. After her glare and her action in sitting in one of the alcoves, disdainfully glancing at the decor and shaking out her skirts like a dowager duchess at a state function, he had come over, drywashing his hands and being very considerate. Could he get her anything? She was waiting for someone, perhaps? She agreed that she was and allowed him to fetch her next drink. This was her third, on an empty stomach. She began to feel mellow and her mind began to drift… Betty Trask had levered herself off Miss Felton’s knee and stumbled tearfully away, rubbing her blistered behind. Then, Miss Felton beckoned sternly, fixing Selina herself with a severe glare. Gulping, with eyes downcast, Selina went forward on dragging feet. She came to a halt within a couple of feet of the tailored tweed knees.
‘Bare your bottom,’ rapped the mistress. ‘And get across my lap this minute. Come along, girl!’
Swallowing hard, Selina hoicked up the back of her grey skirt and pulled the blue knickers down to her knees. Her face burned with embarrassment. Avoiding the piercing gaze, she left her knickers around her knees, then lifted up the folds of her skirt at the back and leaned forward. At the point when she could go over no further without toppling, she put her hands on Miss Felton’s left leg (the skirt stayed up by itself now) and lowered her weight across the woman’s lap. She felt the rough texture of the skirt, scratchy on her soft bare thighs. Her bottom felt huge and vulnerable and way up above and behind her. She felt it clench and twitch. Her hands moved down onto the floor and she balanced herself by placing her palms flat on the carpet. Far away, she could hear Betty Trask snivelling and Miss Felton seemed to be lecturing her but her head spun and the wisps of blonde hair which escaped her plaits tickled her chin. Then there was a pause and she caught her breath. All of a sudden she felt the impact of the plimsoll on her buttocks, numbing at first and then hot and stinging…
‘Oww!’ she heard herself squeal.
Whack! The plimsoll landed again.
‘OOOOh,’ howled Selina, her hands flying back behind her as she reared up. She heard Miss Felton’s voice raised in reproof and felt her hands seized in a firm grip.
Whack! The plimsoll seared across her soft curves, her hips churned and swivelled around on Miss Felton’s lap.
Whack!
‘Owww! Oh please, Miss –’
Whack!
‘Eeeek! Oh Miss, no more, please –’
Whack!
Would it never end? Would Miss Felton’s hand rise and fall until Selina lost all her composure?
Whack!
‘Oh, ow, ooh! I’ll –’
Whack!
‘Miss, I’ll be good, I will!’ –
……………………..
‘Well, well, so it is you! Little Selina Smith! After all this time.’
Selina looked up, totally flustered. A figure, weighed down with a satchel full of books, stood before her.
‘Uhh, actually, it’s Selina Parker, now. Um, Miss Felton, excuse me. I-I-I was miles away. S-s-s-sorry –’
Damn the woman, thought Selina, standing up, first waving to the landlord and then offering her hand, covered with confusion. She has me stammering like a schoolgirl already, she realised.
Miss Felton accepted the offer of a dry sherry and seated herself with the minimum of fuss. Selina was disconcerted to note that she had not aged at all and looked no less firm and determined than she ever had.
‘Well now, Selina, you’ve changed your name I see. Married, then? And what does your husband do? Where do you live? Have you children? I always enjoy meeting my former pupils. How long have you been married?’
Selina suddenly found herself pouring everything out. What on earth is the matter with me? she found herself thinking. Her mouth was running away with her. She could hear herself blurting out all the troubles of her marriage and how Derek had suggested that they had a trial separation and think about divorce. She even told Miss Felton how she had blocked Derek’s chance of promotion by refusing to live in Geneva – ‘too antiseptic a town’ she had said. All the dissatisfactions with her life poured out of her; all that she felt was wrong about the privileges and the ‘easy life’. I must be drunk, she thought.
Miss Felton listened to it all, sipping her sherry. Finally, when she put the glass down, it was empty. She allowed Selina to call for it to be refilled, and watched with lips primmed in self-evident disapproval as Selina ordered a double for herself. And then, when silence had fallen between them and Selina, if it were not for the effects of the alcohol, would have been feeling thoroughly silly, she spoke, her voice low and non-committal.
‘What happened to the Waterford glass?’ she asked.
Selina gaped. How on earth –? She gulped and stumbled and it was a long time before she found her voice. ‘I suppose you want the truth this time?’ she said, at about quarter volume.
‘That would be best, yes. I never was given it before, was I?’
‘I broke it. That is, er, someone else broke it and it was because of me that they did. I’m sorry, I don’t think I can give you the other name. It would be like snitching, even now.’
Miss Felton inclined her head. ‘I can understand that,’ she said.
Selina experienced the same warm glow which praise from this older woman had always caused her and marvelled that it should have the same effect all these years later.
‘Do you want to tell me how it came about?’ asked Miss Felton, lifting the sherry glass to her lips.
Selina shrugged. ‘We were in the staff room where it was laid out – where we had no business being, of course – and she said something I didn’t like so I pushed her and she pushed me back and I pushed her again, but a lot harder this time and she cannoned into the table where it was all set out and crash, over it all went. Funny, really, that’s what we’d sneaked in there for another look at. We thought it was a smashing leaving present and that particular mistress was so popular – even though I can’t remember her name. Then when you got up in assembly and said would the culprit please confess, well, we knew it was only two days to the end of term and we just had to keep our heads down for a little while to be in the clear. We knew you weren’t going to stop all of us – the whole school – going on our summer vac, just to find out.’
‘But I never needed to find out. I always knew. I just looked around at assembly and the guilt was written on your faces large as life. I just hoped that I had taught you enough self-respect to want to own up and take your punishment. I felt bitterly disappointed in you.’
Selina, who had gaped at the news, now shivered theatrically. ‘No fear,’ she said, tossing her fine blonde hair. ‘I had had quite enough experience of being walloped by you when you slippered Betty Trask and me that time for smoking. I didn’t want any more. Especially as it was a caning job this time, we were all sure of that. I’d heard quite enough about your skill at wielding a cane, Miss Felton, I was only too glad not to have to find out at first hand. Funnily, sometimes I find myself feeling almost wistful about that. Sort of wishing I’d had the moral fibre to own up and take what was coming to me and that you might have respected me for that. Now I learn you’ve known all along. How you must have despised the pair of us! You know who the other girl was, don’t you?’
‘Yes, I do: Betty Trask.’
Selina sighed. ‘That’s right. But tell me: if you knew, why didn’t you punish us anyway?’
Miss Felton shook her blued grey locks, and tutted. ‘Can’t you answer that question for yourself? After all I tried to teach you?’
Selina raised her glass and took a deep swallow to cover her confusion. She was definitely feeling a little tight. ‘Not unless,’ she said at last, ‘you wouldn’t punish us without proof. That you’d feel that wasn’t fair, according to what you always used to tell us? That if there was evidence or we got caught red-handed, then we’d been stupid and deserved a tanning? That owning up to something we could have got away with would be, I don’t know, sort of character building?’
Miss Felton looked at her with what Selina could swear was warmth and affection. ‘All these years,’ she said. ‘And I thought that I had failed with you. But it did sink in, didn’t it? You did, ah, as you young people say, “get the message”, didn’t you? A pity that you don’t seem to have put it into practice.’
Selina gasped; her hands, with their perfectly manicured and polished nails, flew to her face and her cheeks were suffused with a blush. ‘Why, what on earth do you mean?’
It was the older woman’s turn to shrug her shoulders, clad in their greenish tweeds. ‘Look at your life,’ she said softly. ‘You’ve made a mess of your marriage to the extent that your husband is thinking, quite rightly in my opinion, of turning you out. You’ve everything you want and yet you aren’t content. All because you lack the ability to take the more difficult option. You drift in whatever direction is easiest. No wonder you’re not happy.’
Selina’s eyes blurred with tears and she lowered her head. ‘That’s not fair,’ she said. ‘It’s not true!’ Deep in her heart, though, she knew she had heard the truth. She did lack the ability to take the harder option: it was a lesson she had never learned. ‘Besides,’ she said. ‘It wasn’t just me! I couldn’t confess without dropping Betty in it! She’s as guilty as I am! Why should I take all the blame?’
Miss Felton stroked her hand reassuringly. ‘You don’t, my dear,’ she said. ‘Betty has fully admitted her part in it all, a couple of years ago. She came to see me, just like you did. She was in a very similar situation. She, too, recognised her failing, all those years ago, but she faced up to it and she felt much better when she’d settled her account. She writes to me regularly. She’s blissfully happy with her husband now and wishes she had realised what she needed to do years earlier.’
Selina raised her eyes, now filled with tears. ‘What do you mean: “settled her account”?’ she asked.
Miss Felton primmed her lips. ‘What do you think?’ she asked. ‘She just took her medicine – the way she should have done when she was a schoolgirl. Got it all off her chest. The relief, she said, was enormous.’
‘D-d-do you mean –’ stammered Selina. ‘B-b-but how? I mean, wh-wh-what?’
‘My dear I still keep a locker over at the old school, even though there is little that I do there now. Sentiment, if you like. There are still a few souvenirs of my days as a Headmistress. I was able to ferret out a cane without a lot of difficulty and Betty gritted her teeth and took her medicine.’
‘B-b-but she’s a grown woman! She must have been! I mean she couldn’t just bend over for a caning, could she?’
‘Of course she could: and did. It did her the world of good. And on the bare backside, too, madam!’
‘B-b-but where? How?’ Selina could scarcely take it in. No-one who knew her now had ever seen her like this.
‘Why, across at the college, of course! I have always had keys. After nine o’clock the place is completely empty. We had absolute privacy. A half-an-hour and it was all over. Like a weight lifted from her shoulders, she said. Now, my dear, I think I will have one last sherry. I think you have had quite enough. Why don’t you go and powder your nose? Your mascara is a little streaked.’ So saying, she rose and went to the bar.
Dizzily, Selina clambered to her feet and wended her way to the ladies. A few minutes later, when she emerged, Miss Felton was sitting, engrossed in the evening paper. Selina stood at the bar, ordered a double and drank it at a gulp. Then she walked with a determined stride across to her old Headmistress’ table, stopping beside it but not sitting down.
‘Miss Felton,’ she said. ‘Do you still have keys to the college? It’s gone nine o’clock, hasn’t it?’
* * *
The lights flashed on and filled the oblong classroom with illumination. Miss Felton held the door open and closed it behind Selina, who looked around the room and gave a slight shiver as she heard the key grind in the lock. Miss Felton crossed to the formica table and placed upon it her bag, a long garment of black cloth and a slender beige-coloured object nearly three feet in length and slightly curved, with a complete semicircle twist at one end. Selina hugged her shoulders, looking around the room, her breath coming faster now. Her gaze came to rest on the black windows with the branches of the evergreen waving outside.
‘Please,’ she said. ‘Could we have the blinds drawn?’
Miss Felton obligingly complied then went to the table and shook out the long black academic gown and shrugged her way into it.
‘I’m glad you had that here,’ murmured Selina. ‘It makes it seem more – more sort of official, somehow.’
‘Quite so, my dear,’ replied Miss Felton smoothly. She took a chair from behind one of the desks and placed it in the clear space in front of the rows and facing them. She then picked up the rattan cane and flexed its springy length between both hands.
Selina spoke, her voice coming out at first in a nervous squeak. Her knees had turned to jelly.
‘Uhh, Miss Felton, umm, er…’
‘Yes, my dear?’
‘Um, I was wondering, so I can prepare myself, er: how many?’
Miss Felton pursed her lips. ‘Well now. I should have given you six at the time, so what do you think would be fair?’
Selina gulped. ‘Well, I was thinking: suppose six for the original thing and, er, six more for dodging. And so I’ll remember. What do you think? Would that be alright?’ She glanced anxiously at the older woman, sensing that it would be unacceptable to propose less. And she had to find a sufficient antidote to her own cloud of guilt.
‘Yes my dear, I think that that would be fair. Now, shall we get on? If you’ll just come here and position yourself over this chair. I’m sure I don’t need to tell you how.’
Selina’s high heels tapped hesitantly on the floorboards as she approached. She gestured down at her full swinging skirts. ‘Er, shall I, er…?’
‘If you’ll just bend over, my dear. I’ll arrange you how I want you.’
Selina stood behind the chair and leaned forward, grasping the seat of the chair with both hands, bending straight from the waist.
‘Right down, please Selina, head well down now, bottom up.’ Selina complied and suddenly felt the hem of her skirt and slip lifted and laid across the small of her back. A slight chill seemed to waft across her bare thighs.
‘Ah good, my dear, I’m glad to see that you eschew tights: unhygenic as well as unsightly things. Now, let’s have these down and then we can get to work.’
Selina was wearing skimpy nylon lace briefs in a shade of coffee. Her suspender belt matched and was also trimmed with lace and held up sheer tan stockings with stretched, glossy welts. As her bottom was revealed, perfect and flawless and fully rounded, complete with matching dimples, a tremor went through it. The panties ended in a scrap of tangled cloth just below her stocking tops. She took a deep breath. Her bottom felt fragile and vulnerable.
‘Place your ankles together. Now lower your tummy onto the chair, that’s right. Now stretch your legs out straight. Now, I’m sure I don’t have to tell you not to put your hands in the way, do I? Or not to attempt to stand up before I have finished? If we are going to do this, after all this time, let us do it right. Now, I want you to count each stroke after it lands. After that, I will deliver the next. After twelve, you may stand. Are you ready?’
‘Yes, Miss.’ Oh, the comfort of falling back into that former diction.
Miss Felton tapped the very centre of Selina’s pale and perfect bottom with the cane, just to show where the stroke was aimed, and then drew the rattan back. There was a pause, then Selina heard the cane hiss through the air.
Swish!
‘Owwww! Uhh, I’m sorry Miss. One.’ A thin red stripe now bisected Selina’s twin cheeks.
‘That is alright, Selina. I don’t expect you to hold completely still, nor to keep silent. Next one coming up.’
Swish! It was really loud.
‘Oww! Two.’ Selina shifted her feet and clenched her hands on the seat. A second stripe had appeared below the first, where her bottom was slightly fuller.
Swish! No holding back at all!
‘Eeeek! Oooh! Oh, sorry, Miss: three,’ Selina moaned. Ducking her head, which had involuntarily bobbed up, down again, Selina awaited the next stroke.
Swish! It cut the air.
‘Ahhhh! Oh, um, four.’ Selina gritted her teeth. The blonde hair hung over her eyes and her skirts were awry. The panties had worked their way down to mid-thigh. There were three double-edged stroke marks visible below the original one. This time the cane tapped above.
Swish! The sound seemed to rip the very fibre of the air.
‘Eeeeeow! Oh Miss! It stings!… Five,’ she quaked.
Swish!
‘Six! Owww! Oooh, halfway, Miss!’
Swish!
‘Ooooooh! Oooh Miss, please! A moment! Uhhh, seven. Sorry, Miss.’
Miss Felton shifted her stance and the cane rose once more, aiming higher.
Swish!
‘OWWWW! Oh Miss, please, lower! Where I’m plumper, please, Miss Felton! Eight.’
Swish!
‘AAARGH!’ For the first time, a stroke half crossed an existing one. Selina half rose, her knuckles white, before controlling herself. Her panties slipped further down her legs as her feet rattled on the floorboards. She gave an audible sob and it was moments before she could give the count. Relentlessly, the cane rose and fell once more.
Swish! Similarly ear-splitting.
‘Oooooh! Ten, Miss!’ This time the stroke again struck the lower slopes of Selina’s striped behind. There was now just enough space to skillfully fit two strokes onto the unmarked space which was the very lowest curving underside of her bottom. Miss Felton raised the cane.
Swish!
‘Uhhh!’ It was a strangled sound, and Selina jerked and tossed her head. Her panties now slipped entirely down and entangled around her twitching ankles and the straps of her shoes. Her hips wriggled and jerked on the chair back. Miss Felton waited.
‘Oh! Ooh! Ahh! Sorry, Miss. Eleven.’
‘Last one Selina. Well done, you’ve taken this well. You may stand after this one.’ The cane went aloft for the last time, paused, and then flashed down.
Swish!
‘Arrrrgh! Oh Miss! Oh, that was so extra hard! Oh… twelve!’ Selina croaked. She sprang to her feet, her hands flying to her caned rear, massaging the tender stripes that adorned it. She stood, her knees pumping, her skirt still up and her panties in a puddle around her feet. The older woman gave her an admiring glance, put down her cane and shrugged out of her gown. She then sat down for the few minutes required for Selina to get her breath and her composure back, craning over her shoulder to see the damage the cane had wrought. At length, Miss Felton took out a mirror and showed her. Selina gasped when she saw the stripes.
‘Oh Miss! You did lay it on, didn’t you!’
‘Well, I think you’ll agree you deserved it, didn’t you? And you feel better, don’t you, for having faced up to things?’
Shyly, Selina agreed that she did.
‘The only trouble is, I’m afraid you’ll have those marks for at least a week. I know you’re staying in town tonight, but what will your husband think when you get home? What will you tell him?’
Selina stood, her skirt and slip still hoicked around her waist, her long legs sheer in nylon, her bottom red-lined and sore and a proud expression on her face and an uplift in her heart.
‘I shall tell him the truth,’ she said proudly, with a fresh and direct enthusiasm. ‘I’m through with fibs and evasion and soft options. And I shall ask him if we can try all over again. And I shall tell him, if he’s got any reservations about taking up my offer, that I shan’t mind in the least if he decides to buy a cane!’
Selina tossed her head proudly in a new-found freedom, and Miss Felton smiled privately to herself: after all these years, she had completed the job.
Fiona Lewison concludes her exploration of the different roles women play in spanking magazine fantasies and their enduring appeal. You can read part one and part two by clicking on the highlighted link.
Guilty girlfriends
Let me say straight away that I don’t believe boyfriends have sufficient authority to administer a punishment to a woman. They are incapable of mustering the necessary gravitas, they have no idea what they’re doing, and they are acting entirely out of self-interest. If a boyfriend is into spanking his girl, it’s because it turns him on and will enhance the act of lovemaking for him. Nothing wrong with that; there are plenty of women who will join in for exactly the same reason. But it’s foreplay, not punishment. It’s a game, and you could see representations of it in magazines like Swish! in which soppy blokes with beards laughed their way through ludicrous slap and tickle routines. If you think I disapprove, you’d be absolutely correct.
Ironically, my first spanking, apart from a few tentative smacks as a teenager, was at the hands of an enthusiastic boyfriend. If you’ve read A Woman’s Awakening you’ll know that it was, for me at least, a disaster. Years of hopeful anticipation were crushed in seconds. The post-spanking sex was riotous and uncharacteristically prolonged, but my real needs hadn’t been addressed. The spanking was for him, not me.
So it’s not really a surprise that I can’t think of a single boyfriend/girlfriend photo-story in the proper spanking magazines of the 1980s and 1990s. If you can correct me on this, I’d be glad to hear from you, but I think the editors knew that it wasn’t a serious enough story line; it couldn’t convey the vital sense of menace and exploitation. More simply, it just wasn’t important enough for the upper tier to which we all belonged. Someone (male or female) has to be ‘in charge’, and that just doesn’t apply to two people co-habiting in a relationship that is likely to be short lived. There is no authority, and therefore no justification. Rant over.
Wilful wives
When I got married in 1985 I promised, among other things, to obey my husband. I said the words with pleasure, knowing that at last I was with a man who had what I believed was the authority to chastise me if I needed it. I admit that I didn’t obey him in all things, but I did when it came to punishment and it made me very happy. The nice thing about wives is that regular discipline goes with the territory. They spend too much on the credit card, they get drunk at parties and flirt with other men, they screw up in the kitchen when hubby’s boss is round for dinner, and they are always a little bit stroppy and argumentative. And we all know that it’s a husband’s duty to take matters into his own hands, and show her the error of her ways. It’s cosy and believable, and we can imagine it happening behind a thousand front doors.
What we seem to find quite often in spanking photo-stories is a wife who is appalled to find herself being spanked or caned by her brute of a husband. She yelps and kicks throughout her ordeal, and can’t believe the man she loves could be so cruel and uncaring. But when it’s over, she undergoes a strange catharsis and realises that it’s what she wanted him to do all along. It’s a miracle. Hugs and kisses all round. The problem for me is that, when it comes to spanking literature, I don’t like happy endings. Give me simmering resentment any day. Give me a woman who is furious about being humiliated and belittled, but who has promised to obey and has no choice but to accept. Because that’s the point about punishment: there’s no choice. This is probably a bit controversial, but that’s the way I like it. I don’t want to see a woman enjoying a punishment, I want to see her hating it. I want to look at a picture and feel the terror of a roller-coaster ride from the safety of my sofa.
Janus, in particular, managed to achieve this with a peculiar finesse and sophistication, often with dark and moody photos that really gripped my imagination. This black and white shot is one of my favourites.
