An Educational Purpose

Story from Blushes 15.

An Educational Purpose

'You said nothing about this aspect before, Mark', Anthea said to me with a tinge of primness in her voice such as I had not heard hitherto.

Dammit, the trap of female illogicality had sprung on me again. For several mouths I/we had been planning a series of seminars for girls which we intended to hold in the house. It was big enough for it, after all. Apart from anything else we had three bedrooms going spare. I had retired from the Headship of a school to enter with considerable enthusiasm into the project, and almost everything was by then decided, right down to the curricula.

Almost everything, that is, except apparently the subject I had just brought up. Privately I thought of it as 'advanced education'. Publically there was virtually only the term 'discipline' to fall back on. Not only had I just used the latter in conversation with Anthea but had made the evidently major error of showing her my oldest and favourite cane. It had a thirty-degree bend to it just over halfway up. Some thirty young, bare bottoms before that, it had been straight, but I preferred the slight bend now. It offered up a better angle of approach.

'Discipline has no less an educational purpose than anything else we have been discussing, Anthea', I said patiently. She had always seemed to me to have an open mind on most subjects, but on this one she was closing up.

'And you imagine that I would collaborate in that?' she asked. Her voice didn't exactly rise to a squeak, but it did sharpen itself rather in its passage across her tongue.

There's no answer to that, of course, but I ventured a mild one by saying, 'Frankly, dear, it never occurred to me that you would object. In that sense I mentioned it only as an afterthought, and thought to show that...' - '...That thing, as well?' she sneered. A flush rose in her cheeks. I didn't know why. It seemed to me a very odd reaction from one I had lived with these past five years, though we had - for tax and other purposes - never entered into formal marriage.

My ire rose as quickly as a certain part of my anatomy had sometimes done when I was employing the very instrument that lay across my lap. Did that occur to her, and was she jealous of it? We had long agreed, I thought, that jealousy was a dire waste of emotion. Besides, Anthea was good in bed. My mistake was to equate that with the idea (quite imaginary on my part) that certain extra-mural activities of the kind I had in mind would eventually tingle-up a possibly latent interest in her.

Her sneer sharpened up my defences. 'It is not a thing, Anthea, but a cane. It's purpose...'

'I don't want to hear about it! If you intend that sort of thing, Mark, then you can count me out. I simply don't want to be involved in it, you understand? It's an outrage to a girl's modesty. It's...' But I cut in on her then. I don't mind lecturing, but damned if I'll be lectured to. There was no more enforced 'exhibiting', I said, than there was in the voluntary showing off of half naked bottoms on a beach in summer. That sort of thing, I said, but it got me nowhere. The altercation merged into a proper row. The row became a blazing one, and finally Anthea grabbed her car keys and went. Just went. And so quickly, I noticed, that she left her front door key lying on one of the side units in the kitchen where she usually dropped it on coming in.

It was then that Susan came down, light-footed as ever. I judged that she'd heard the beginnings of a row and tactfully stayed out of sight in her room until the front door slammed.

'Daddy...' she began. 'Don't call me that', I said, 'you don't have to, and I'm not.' There was too much of an edge in my voice, but that was Anthea's fault. The term was one that Susan had grown into, on and off. She had only been twelve when I moved in. In part it had got to be a habit with her. It didn't matter anyway, I said then apologetically, but then the obvious struck me.

'You heard what we were rowing about, I suppose', I said. 'Yes', she said and her voice was in the millimetre bracket rather than the centimetre one. I ventured then my next remark which I swear I never intended to make. 'And you agree with your mother, I suppose?'

Susan turned away from me then and fiddled with the leaves of a plant on the windowsill. 'She won't be helping you much, then, will she?' she said without looking at me.

'I guess not', I replied, but then a small door opened in my mind and all of a sudden I got a different image of her. In a way, you get so used to seeing someone that finally you practically don't. Not in any detail, anyway. But with that details began to emerge, and I suppose I began with her ankles and then meandered up to her calves, all of which I could see as well as the engaging dipping of the backs of her knees. Her skirt was grey and it isn't a skirt I am ever likely to forget. It hugged her bottom closely, sweeping under her cheeks slightly before it assumed its relatively brief hang again and dipped its hem down to just above her knees.

Susan's hips were good already then. If I were to say 'graspable' it will probably sound greedy, but that is certainly, what they were. And if I had taken a tape measure to her waist I doubt if I could have tracked out more than twenty-one inches.

My next sentence came as unrehearsed as any that day, but certainly the intervening silence appeared to invite it. 'And you wouldn't be able to help', I said. The question mark I inserted was so faint that it practically curled up on the carpet and died instantly. 'Because I don't know anything about it - that's what you mean', she said, and dug a smallish tapered finger quite unnecessarily into the earth from which the plant stemmed.

'It isn't hard to learn', I said. I heard myself say it. It was that sort of statement - not one I would have signed in Anthea's presence. That cane lying still across my lap did it. It occurred to me then that Susan hadn't even blinked at the sight of it, but then I explained that to myself by thinking that she had overheard the whole conversation. 'Making them take their knickers off, indeed!' Anthea had exploded.

'I dunno', Susan said. I can't remember having felt breathless before, but I did then. 'I'd pay you, out of the fees, as if you were a teacher', I replied. I was telling her that she could learn, and she knew I was, and she knew to the very bend in that cane what I was talking about. There was a stillness in the room then. It broke only when I got up. It felt like a century had passed when I got up, but it was probably no more than fifteen seconds.

Susan stood very still as I moved towards her. Whether it was a stillness of waiting or of apprehension I didn't know. I was behind her and I put my hands on her hips. I'd never done that before. But then I'd never thought of caning her before, nor even spanking her. 'Pay, me?' she asked and then added ultra-quick, 'I mean, what do you want me to do?'

'Susan, I'm going to have to cane you to teach you', I said. The world stopped then. I could hear the clock on the mantelpiece ticking. 'No', she said and dropped her head. I put my hands on her shoulders. Girls are curiously manoeuvrable that way. Sixth formers in their last term certainly were. They had begun to lean by then what they came into my study for, and why their knickers were coming down. 'I don't think l want to do that', Susan said. She didn't look up. 'I didn't think I wanted to learn to swim once', I replied. It was the sort of remark that drops straight into the Silly Statements file, but when they're like that it often works.

'Didn't you?' she asked. It was a ten-out-of-ten perfect answer. When I began to move her slowly towards the chair her feet were laggard but not over resistant. They scraped, but that was all. I was used to that.

'I won't do it hard - not the first time, Susan. No, not there. Bend over. Just gently the first time, just gently'.

She said 'No', of course. Is there a girl born who hasn't said no? There had been times in the past when I had got the Gym Mistress, Miss Roberts, to assist me with some new girls. Her fingers were pretty deft, were Miss Roberts'. I pretended mostly not to see the subtle forays they made between pairs of twinkly thighs when she was authoritatively drawing down a pair of regulation blue knicks. Once a girl had had her 'tester', though - the first two sixers, one mild, one medium - Miss Roberts wasn't needed in the room. Whether she listened at the door and heard the pantings that occasionally ensued afterwards was neither here nor there. She got her benefits from those girls who also got a crush on her. At least that way they gained a dual experience in life.

Susan's bottom was sublime. I can find no better adjective for it. At a guess, she had already been tutored a little, and this to my surprise. As my hands first began rolling down her knickers, her right arm swept back - not fiercely, but querulously - but I thrust it firmly back and it offered no return. The half-moon creases beneath each of her youthfully-rearing cheeks were particularly marked, conferring upon them their full aspect of roundness. Her furrow had that particular depth that one becomes pleasurably conscious of when viewing slowly. Slung over the rolled arm as she was, her toes touched the floor some three inches apart. Not enough, but it would do.

An oddity was that, from that first moment on, I never expected the usual spillings of words from Susan. Not a single 'Don't!' escaped her. She was passive, though I will not say that she was not alert. Indeed she twisted her neck twice to try and peer at me as I stepped back and bent the cane. The angle of her view wouldn't allow her to see below my waist, I thought - which was perhaps fortunate. This was our first time, but I was already hard for her. I felt no conscience about that. She was showing it, after all.

I have read some ludicrous accounts of canings that 'go on for minutes'. Six strokes take about eighty seconds. The most difficult thing is to give a light-to-medium caning. It requires considerable control. In Susan's case each brought a sound rather like 'Mooo-eeee!' from her, but never did her voice rise to a screech. Almost irritatingly it sounded like a cry of victory on her part, and I knew then that she needed a harder caning, much harder, but not yet.

I knew, too, that it would have been easy to rip her blouse open - scatter the buttons and cup her hard young tits - as I raised her up afterwards. Her bottom burned into me, against the uprisen rod of me, in the moment before I bent and drew her knicks back up again. In its ascent, my thumb nosed into her furrow. My other hand, slipping around to the front of her, felt a nicety of curls.

A first sob escaped her as I turned her then, leaving her skirt still waist-high, but it was rather a breath-releasing one than a plaintive one.

'You can teach', I said, and I heard her swallow. Her eyes were hidden way below my own. 'I'm not sure', she replied quietly - very quietly. I only just caught the words. It was a strange moment - almost as if I had not caned her. 'You can', I said. We broke away then, for Anthea was knocking. She must have driven around - not really gone anyplace.

'Don't...' I began. 'No. I won't say anything', Susan murmured. We had moved into another compartment - neither of us perhaps the leader, but it had begun. It was the beginning of a love affair with the cane for Susan, and a different kind of one for me. It was two weeks before we had another opportunity, and I was careful not to caress her bottom, en passant, as it were. I had a feeling that she wasn't to be handled that way - or not yet.

An opportunity came when I had to make an overnight stay in Middlesborough, where I wouldn't exactly go for a holiday but I had a number of property deals to conclude. As it happened, Susan knew a girl there - one who had been to school with her and then moved - so she volunteered to come with me and, ostensibly, to stay with Marti, her friend.

I suppose it was by unspoken consent that I booked two single rooms at the hotel. A double one would have been blatant. 'Was Marti ever caned?' I asked on the way up to Middlesborough. I put the question in a casual 'by the way' tone, but Susan's antennae picked up the underlying message. 'A couple of times, yes', she said. We were driving to Middlesborough and her skirt was nice and short, the tops of her nylons showing, and sometimes a bit more.

'She could have dinner tonight with us', I said. - 'Or well, yes, or tomorrow', Susan said carefully. My hand brushed the sleek top of her thigh every time I changed gear. A call from the hotel arranged for Marti to come and see us the following afternoon. I fancied the afternoon - daylight through tall nylon curtains and a quiet room. 'You'll need another lesson first', I told Susan. It was a sort of open-code way of talking that we developed. She didn't answer; I didn't expect her to. There was a slight tenseness in her that I had to break.

'Shall we go up?' I asked her at nine that night after dinner in the hotel. There was a nod only and the lift received us. Leading her into my room was like the old days of escorting a girl into my study just after hours.

'You won't mind, with Marti?' I asked her. She shook her head, allowing me to lead her to the bed. She began to cry a little as I undressed her. It was in part an act and we both knew it. 'Some of the girls will be petulant', I said. I had her down to her stockings by then, lying on her tummy. And then I looped her waist suddenly, sharply, brought her ardent peach up and gave it a first smack! and 'Wow', she gasped.

I ran riot a little bit with words then. It was the sight of her - slim, curvy, suppliant. I wondered how many long months she had dreamed of a situation like this. 'I shall want you to spank some of the girls - just lightly - before you bring them into me', I said, and when her naked hips gave a little jerk (petulant or seeking, I wasn't sure), I said sharply, 'Lie still now while I get the cane'.

I took it from the wardrobe where I had hung a few things on arrival. When I turned she was still slumped on her tummy. 'Move back and push it up', I told her. The slow way she did it was pleasing enough. That merging of resilience and firmness in a girl's bottom is something one can never satisfactorily describe. It challenges, invites. 'This is going to be a harder one, Susan - you understand? I want you to learn', I said, but she didn't answer. A small, mutinous murmur came from her as I ran the tip of the cane up between those heavenly legs, forcing them to part more.

The frankness between us came so easily that it was hard to understand, and yet it happened. 'You're peeping it now, Susan; I want all the girls to learn to do that', I said, and she knew I was talking about her 'fig'. You will tell them to show their pouch, won't you?' I asked, and then swoo-isssh! and a short, sharp 'Nah!' came from her, followed by several wobbling sobs. It had bitten deep, that first one. I wanted it to. Her fingers curled in as she strove to contain it.

'Sometimes I talk to them, sometimes I don't. It depends on the girl', I said. Her back quivered, her face hidden in the duvet. I could hear her breathing - breathing and waiting. After a due interval I said quietly, 'Turn your toes in a little, Susan. Yes - good. When you cane a girl you will know what to say to her, won't you?' 'Yes - I... gwaar!'

The second was another whistler right across her furrow and almost overlaying the first. Her sobs came louder; her hips twisted more. A mournful 'Whoooo!' came from her and then, meritoriously, she was still - waiting and ready. Her black high heels lifted almost surreptitiously. Perhaps she was inviting me to sweep the next one in lower, and I did. Just under the bulge, and not the easiest stroke to place, but superb when it is performed properly.

Again her cry was as much one of victory as anguish, and for the first time a 'No-oooo!' came from her, but I ignored it. She meant me to in any case. 'Legs, Susan', I said implacably. Consciously or not she had drawn them closer together. 'You remember what I said about giving a peep', I told her, and she merited another for that which put a triple streak across the middle of her superb bum.

She began to break then, uttering a staccato 'No, no, no!' but I said 'Yes, Susan, yes', I said. She had to ride the course - I told her that, but I gave her a longer interval before the next two irradiated her cleft with seeking flames.

'All right', I soothed. I let the cane fall then and sat beside her, stroking her sleek back, down into the supple dip of it, and moving my palm over the pulsing heat of her apple just as one might stroke a filly. Her sobs went on for a while, of course, her nether cheeks tightening visibly until at last the greater surging of the flames died and she relaxed more, though still quivering, her orb ceasing to jerk as I fondled it.

'Get into bed now', I said. It was my bed, my room, but the bed was a double one. She crawled-clawed her way under the sheet as girls do then, the curl-fringed lips twinkling as first one leg and then the other was raised.

It was dark by then and I took my time, first putting the cane away, but then in the most deliberate way shaking my head and taking it out to lay it crosswise over the seat of an armchair. I needed her to know that it was immediately ready again. Cane-language, you might call it. I didn't hasten my undressing.