The Witnesses - photo story

Excellent photo story from Janus 47.

The Witnesses




A SUBURBAN STREET. An ordinary suburban street in a quiet and ordinary district in the outskirts of London. A Saturday afternoon. Quiet orderly suburban England. Nothing much happening – a man walking his dog, further down a woman pushing a pram. Just the ordinary typical English things. And inside the neat and tidy semis, behind those smartly painted front doors, the curtained windows? More ordinary unexciting English behaviour no doubt. Tea being drunk, the English are great ones for that as well. Tea with little biscuits, of course.

Yes, no doubt if we could peep into all these neat and tidy front rooms we would see quiet family groups with their tea and telly. Or at least we assume that. But we don't really know, do we? Because probably no one has ever done a proper survey. And even if they have, the English are notoriously secretive and they might not wish to truthfully say what they are doing on a quiet, ordinary Saturday afternoon. Such as this one. One would really need to be a fly on the wall, watching unobserved. Then we would know, wouldn't we? What would we see? Here at Number 27, shall we say?

It is very similar to all the others – they are all very much like peas in a pod. It has a nice, newly painted blue front door. And there are net curtains discreetly concealing the interior in that typical English manner. And inside?


Ah, inside it is a good choice. Because TV is not being watched nor tea being drunk. It is coffee. And the coffee drinkers are not one of those relaxed family groups that one would expect behind these anonymous doors and windows. No, these people, four adults, are standing. With an air of tension about them. So it would seem that right away we have found something unexpected. What have we here then, in this apparently typical English suburban street?

One man, Philip Allinson, is the owner-occupier of Number 27 and the other three are his guests this afternoon. All are ordinary suburban-looking, middle-class English, all probably in their thirties. The men in ties and jackets, the woman, a rather pretty blonde, in a smartish but unexciting blouse and suit.

'I've kept her in her room since I spoke to her this morning. I'll call her down when we're ready.'


Philip Allinson, as he speaks, offers a plate of biscuits. The eyes of the others, holding their coffee cups, are alert, expectant. The person referred to is Philip Allinson's stepdaughter, Sharon. Ann and Stephen Morley have met Sharon before but are not well acquainted with her. Like many young girls of 19 Sharon leads a largely separate social life from her parents, and on most previous occasions when the Morleys have visited she has been out. They have been aware, though, that her behaviour has caused some concern to her parents.

'Gillian's gone off for the weekend, has she?' inquires Ann Morley. Gillian is Philip's wife and mother of Sharon.

'Yes; I thought she'd rather not be present. So I chose this time.'

Philip Allinson gives a brink link laugh, a nervous laugh. What is to take place this afternoon has never taken place before, not in this house at least. Hopefully it will be a sufficient shock that it won't be necessary in repeat it.

The other guest, Roger Storing, shakes his head. 'It's difficult to know what to do with them nowadays. Too much money and no responsibility is the problem, I suppose.'

Rosier is a colleague of Philip from work. He has never met Sharon, never seen her, but he knows that her father, or more correctly her stepfather, has been getting more and more exasperated at her behaviour. And Roger knows, in general terms at least, what is shortly to take place. He is here to witness the event, as are Ann and Stephen Morley. Having it done in front of witnesses, a stranger and two near strangers, will clearly add greatly to the girl's embarrassment and humiliation and really drive the message home.

The guests sit, and attempt small talk. But conversation does not come easy in the circumstances. They all know what will very soon occur, presumably in this pleasantly furnished room. Sharon... and her stepfather...

'I don't suppose we need all these lights on,' Philip Allinson says.

He switches on a wall spotlight, then turns off the main lights. The atmosphere is at once more intimate, though not more easy. They are to be witnesses at a private and intimate rite. That aura of intimacy is heightened as their host goes to the window and draws the heavy curtains. We are now completely isolated from that very ordinary suburban street. Stephen Morley squirms slightly, his wife nervously crosses her legs. Somewhere upstairs the young woman is waiting.


Philip Allinson moves from the window and turns his attention to the ottoman which is large and in a striped fabric matching the settee. 'Out in the centre, I think; under the spotlight. We want everything to be dearly seen, that's the object of the exercise.'

The guests watch in tense silence as the ottoman is pushed out, close in front of them.

'Good: you can all see that?'

'Yes,' breathes Ann Morley. They will certainly all be able to see. She can picture that poor girl Sharon, waiting upstairs. Of course Ann doesn't know exactly what Philip Allinson is going to do; but whatever it is is bound to be a horrible experience for the poor girl. It would be for anyone. Fleetingly Ann imagines herself...

'Good; we'll make a start then.'

Their host's voice is brusque, with an edge of nervous tension. Sharon's behaviour has forced him into this; it is a last resort. Bui it is going to be effective. Oh yes, she won't want a second dose of this. He calls sharply up the stairs.

Suddenly she is there, a pretty blonde with a curvaceous figure shown off to good advantage in a tight, short-skirted dress of shocking pink. Her long shapely legs are bare, her feet in grey high-heeled pumps. She stands looking apprehensively from her stepfather to the guests and back again.

'I've told you what you're getting, Sharon.'

Philip Allinson's voice again has that edge of nervous excitement. Yes, he has told her, though not the details, only that her caning will be witnessed. He has caned her before but that was in the privacy of Sharon's own room. It was very unpleasant but it was not enough to prevent his stepdaughter running around and, as far as Philip Allinson and his wife were concerned, dragging their good name in the dirt.

From somewhere Philip has produced a cane. It is the same slim, crook-handled cane that Sharon has had those two times before. Upstairs in her bedroom lying across her bed, but not down here.

'Please...' she begs. The reality of this, being in here in front of these people, to be caned in front of them, now seems much, much worse even than she has incessantly imagined it. 'Please, don't...' she begs.

Gripping the cane, Sharon's stepfather begins a torrid recounting of her past misdeeds: being rude to him, staying out late at night, carrying on with the most undesirable characters, and the fact that she has been warned time and again – and she has been punished as well as warned – all to no avail. The torrent of angry words sweeps over Sharon as she stands with head bowed and cheeks pink.

'Have you anything to say, you wretched creature?' he snaps at her as he finishes.

Sharon, eyes downcast, miserably shakes her head. All she has to say is another pleading, 'Please...'


'Well, Sharon, this time I'm going to give you something that I don't think you'll want repeated. I'm going to cane you in front of these people and I'm going to do it with all your clothes off. Six across your bare bottom.'

There is a gasped 'No!' from Sharon, and shocked intakes of breath from the others. None of them had imagined Philip Allinson had that in mind. A caning yes, but not with all her clothes off.

'You don't say no to me, my girl,' Philip barks sharply. 'Get that dress off; and then whatever's underneath.'

Sharon desperately pleads – she will change her ways, do exactly as her parents wish – but Please... Philip Allinson turns a deaf ear to all this. He has heard something of the sort before, when he had Sharon in her room for a caning. In fact the promises meant nothing. They were all lies, compounding the other lies she has told him. So he has learnt his lesson with this young lady and there is no way he is going to be deflected from what he has in mind.

'Shut up,' he growls. 'And get it off. Or I'll do it.'

The three visitors, the witnesses, are on tenterhooks. All three, including Roger Storing who is by nature a somewhat placid, unemotional character. The Morleys are absolutely rapt with excitement as this archetypal but scarcely credible family drama is played out before their eyes. Ann Morley especially can feel her blood surging. She is a woman; she can put herself precisely in the position of this unhappy girl.


Sharon has now it seems accepted the inevitable. Her hands have gone to the hem of that short pink skirl and, with a look of abject misery, she slowly lifts it. For a moment there is the shocking thought to those sitting watching that Sharon has no knickers on; then as the skirt rises higher it is seen that she does but they are micro ones, a miniscule strip of white nylon. In any case hasn't Philip Allinson said that Sharon is to be nude? So that little scrap is coming off anyway.

The pink dress rises higher and Ann Morley sees what she has already suspected – that Sharon is not wearing a bra. Sharon has firm, full breasts which clearly do not need support. Her not wearing a bra, and that ultra-brief shocking pink dress, are evidence of what Sharon's parents have complained so bitterly of. Showing herself off, flaunting her body, running around. Actually the complaints have always been far stronger from her stepfather than her mother, who is unaware of what is happening to her daughter at this minute.

But showing off her body in the centre of the family lounge under a spotlight in front of her stepfather and these three other older people is something else entirely. Short skirts and no bra are one thing – but being naked... The dress comes reluctantly off over Sharon's head. Trembling, with a suspicion of tears in her eyes, she glances at her stern-faced stepfather.

If she is hoping for a last moment reprieve there is none coming. 'Fold it up and put it on the couch,' she is told. 'And then take off the knickers.'

The dress is placed on the ottoman and now comes the ordeal of being fully nude. Shockingly conscious of her large bare breasts with their embarrassingly erect nipples, Sharon inches the brief bikini pants down, one hand covering her pubis as she does so. Ann Morley, on the edge of her seat and nervously biting a finger, watches with eyes like lasers. There are tears in Sharon's eyes now. One is rolling down her cheek.



The knickers join the dress on the ottoman. Sharon stands tremblingly erect but with head bowed, hands crossed in from of her, while her stepfather reaches down to pick up the removed garments. He turns and takes them out of the room. This removal of Sharon's clothing from the room serves powerfully to heighten and emphasise her nudity and defencelessness. Both to Sharon herself and to those three rapt and of course fully clothed witnesses. Tears are now unmistakably rolling down the pretty girl's cheeks.

Philip Allinson returns – without Sharon's clothes but with his cane. Sharon is still standing, shivering, although the room is not cold. All eyes are naturally still on her bare, womanly form. All thoughts are on what is now to take place.

'Up on the couch, then,' Philip Allinson's hard voice tells her. 'Kneel up on it, with your backside facing our guests.'

Sharon gives her stepfather a desperately unhappy look, praying for some sort of miracle that will suddenly cause her to disappear, or these people to do so, or anything. But there is no miracle.

'Come on – look sharp!' The cane whistles threateningly through the air.


Sharon moves to the ottoman and bends forward, to place her hands on it. She is all too well aware of the view she is presenting to the visitors and can really feel their three pairs of eyes riveted on her rounded rump as it is thrust up in front of them. The position is even worse of course as she climbs up to kneel on the ottoman and she could truly die of shame.

The visitors are sitting but they are as tense as athletes waiting for the gun. Their eyes drink in those ripe girlish buttocks – and also the cane being flexed in Philip Allinson's hand. It is difficult to believe this is actually happening – but then who knows what happens behind other people's drawn curtains? A family's private business is its own affair and an Englishman's home is his castle. English people don't go around advertising what they do in the privacy of their own homes. And there is no doubt that Philip and Gillian Allinson have been sorely tried by Sharon's behaviour.

'Right over; get your hands down on the floor the other side.'



This is even worse – far worse! Sharon's magnetically attractive bottom will be further elevated, and that is her stepfather's harsh purpose, to make this ordeal as unpleasant, and as humiliating, as possible. There is a snivelling, gasping sound from Sharon which indicates that she is properly crying now, as she nonetheless does as she is told.

Roger Storing retains at least some outward appearance of impassivity but Stephen Morley's eyes behind his glasses have a rapt, almost hypnotised look while his wife gnaws at her bottom lip, her hands white-knuckled with the tension.


Philip is now in position, his face stern and hard. He intends to hurt his stepdaughter as well as humiliate her. It is for her own good because she has shown that nothing less than a really sharp shock will have any effect. The cane whips back and then slices forward to meet Sharon's thrust-out bottom with a vicious, reverberating CRACK! Sharon's kneeling body shoots automatically forward, her high heels swinging up in the air, as she lets out a frantic yelp of anguish.


The yelp becomes a blubbering, gasping wail as the stinging pain from that first cut spreads and throbs through Sharon's naked body. Philip Allinson remains grim-faced and determined. He knows he has hurt her but he feels no remorse. The cane is swung back and brought vigorously forward again. A second vicious CRACK!; a second frantic squeal as Susan's nude body snaps sharply forward again.


There are two red stripes on Sharon's pale bottom now. For the three witnesses the atmosphere, the tension, is electric. The two men are automatically identifying with Philip, the chastiser, but for Ann it is primarily the kneeling girl. To be in that position, naked except for a pair of high heels, naked and kneeling before witnesses, while the cane viciously slashes down...


The cane is drawn back for a third time. A third thwacking CRACK! and this time the effect is even more dramatic. For the weeping Sharon, with a high-pitched 'Owwwhhhh!!' jolts forward so desperately that she finishes up with head and forearms down on the carpet. Her hips, now in contact with the ottoman, writhe and twist in agony.

Sharon can't get up, not without crawling off the ottoman first, but in any case it seems to Philip Allinson that this new position is quite as humiliating as before, and perfectly suitable for continuing her caning. He curtly tells her to stay down there, but straighten herself up. Yes, it is an excellent position for caning, hips and thighs now lying flat on the striped couch.


He aims the cane and brings it whipping down once more. A further pistol-like CRACK! The sharp, piercing cry rises from what is now anguished sobbing Sharon's up-ended body writhes like a tortured snake. It is clear to all that her stepfather is caning very severely, she is being given a real thrashing.




Two more strokes follow, quite as hard as any of the others, to complete the six. The devastating caning is over. The three witnesses are sitting rapt and tense as they have been throughout the proceedings. But now Ann Morley, though her body is still tense like the others', has a smile on her face. A look of radiant pleasure. One can only guess at what thoughts are passing through her mind. Now that the cane is no longer slicing down the moaning girl reaches behind her with both hands to rub at that scorchingly burning bottom.


Philip Allinson's voice, still stern and hard, orders Sharon to get up. She struggles to her feet to stand shakily in front of him, tears streaming down her face and hands still desperately rubbing at her flaming backside. She is tersely told that at the next sign of any waywardness she will receive an exact repeat of what has just been meted out. Then Sharon is ordered to apologise to the witnesses for the trouble she has caused.


Clutching at her red-hot rear Sharon stutters out something that in her still weeping state is not too coherent. The witnesses' eyes drink her in. Ann Morley beams with enigmatic enjoyment as she partakes in receiving the girl's mortified apology. Philip, in a final demeaning order, sharply tapping her left wrist with his cane, makes Sharon take her hands away from her bottom and bow to the guests.


It is over at last. Sobbing with utter shame and in extreme pain, Sharon runs out of the room to take refuge from this hell in her bedroom. Her departure breaks the spell. It is as if throughout this fantastic family drama they have all been holding their breath and now can breathe again. Philip Allinson, in something approaching his normal voice, says he'll get some more coffee.

Roger Storing turns to his two companions. 'If that doesn't bring that young woman to her senses nothing will.'

Ann and her husband both start talking at the same time. Animatedly, with a great outburst of emotion. There is a dizzy sense of release, of euphoria even. Philip returns this time carrying drinks for his friends.

'I hope you didn't mind my asking you to watch that. Only I did want it to get properly through to her.'

Suddenly they are all talking at once. Assuring their host that they have been more than happy to take part, that he has done exactly the right thing, and Sharon will live to thank him for it. Bright, gleaming-eyed faces, full of excitement, emotional release. And none is more animated than Ann Morley whose face simply glows with apparent inner excitement and pleasure. It is something she couldn't define; a sexual pleasure almost. Her mind is still filled with those heady images: of that ripe bottom thrust up for all to see; of that cane viciously descending. And the sounds of the strokes, and the girl's cries.

They continue to enthusiastically converse over their drinks while somewhere upstairs the beaten, humiliated girl tries to console herself.

That is ordinary-looking Number 27 in this ordinary suburban street. And one can't help wondering what might be seen behind any of the other neat net curtains which extend along the street.