Lisa's Lesson

Story from Privilege Plus 14.

Lisa's Lesson
by Lia Anderssen

THE AIR WAS NOT COLD, but still Lisa shivered. It might have been a shiver of fear, or one of anticipation, she wasn't sure, but as she stood in the middle of the bare, white room, it was as if an icy shroud was enveloping her.

How long had she been here? An hour? Two hours? It was impossible to judge. Here, in this empty, anonymous place, there was no sense of time, simply of expectancy, the knowledge that something was going to happen. Something at once terrible and exciting. Something that made the hairs on the back of her neck stand up as she contemplated her situation.

The mirrors didn't help. There were two, one in front of her, one behind, so that she could see every inch of herself. She had tried to avoid looking into them, but standing as she was in the centre of the floor, she had little choice and, with nothing else to occupy her, she found herself eyeing her body critically.

There was no doubt that the twenty-year-old girl was a beautiful sight, with her plump, firm breasts and slim waist, her long, tapering legs made to look even more shapely by the tall high heels she wore.

Her clothing, or lack of it, simply served to underline her beauty. She had on only the briefest of underwear. Her bra was cut low, so that the two half-moons of her areolae showed above its lacy fringe, drawing attention to the swell of her breasts and the deep cleavage between. Her panties too were scarcely able to preserve her modesty, the transparent panel in the front quite inadequate to cover her dark pubic bush, the rear not much more than a cord that ran up the crack of her lovely, pert behind.

She found her eyes lingering on the image of her bottom reflected from the mirror behind her. It had an exquisite shape, the round globes firm, the skin pale and tight. As she stared at it, she recalled the way Doug had taken his leave of her, his strong hand stroking her there. What was it he had said?

"This will benefit from some stripes across it."

Could he possibly have meant what she thought he meant? No, surely not. It was true that he had threatened her with a thrashing often enough, especially when he caught her chatting up other men. He had even told her of a place of correction where recalcitrant wives could be taken to stem their wayward tendencies, but she had always assumed he was joking.

Now, though, she wasn't so sure.

She shifted restlessly. Her stance was, to say the least, uncomfortable. She was standing just as he had told her to, with her legs spread apart and her hands placed behind her head. Her arms and legs ached from their prolonged immobility. Dare she relax for a moment, maybe lean against the wall?

As if in reply, there came an almost inaudible whirr from above her, and she glanced up to see that the light on top of the small surveillance camera was on, indicating that someone was watching her. A tremor shook her lovely young body as she thought of a stranger's eyes upon her. If she were to relax her stance now, they would know at once. Best to stay where she was, she concluded. After all, Doug had warned her against disobedience with these people.

These people! She knew there were people here, yet she had seen nobody since her arrival. What was this place, and who worked here? More to the point, how was it that they could exercise such power over her? Once again a shiver ran through her as she contemplated her situation, abandoned here in this strange room by her husband, and ordered to obey.

She wished now that she'd paid more heed when he had remonstrated with her, and had curbed her flirtatious ways. Lisa had always had a propensity towards chatting up men, one which she had successfully suppressed during the first year of her marriage to Doug. But recently she had begun to slip back into her old ways, happily accepting the attentions of any male she found attractive. She would play little games with them, swapping double entendres and allowing them to place their arms about her, whispering in their ears and giggling. She knew that this behaviour annoyed her husband, but she simply laughed off his complaints, accusing him of being unnecessarily jealous.

The last straw had come at the party the night before. Doug had found her in a dark bedroom necking with a young man, half the buttons of her blouse undone. He had made no comment at the time, simply ordering her to get her coat, then driving her home. He had been silent in the car, and she had sensed she had gone too far. On arriving he had gone straight to the telephone and had made a call. Then he had come up to their bedroom.

"You're going away," he had said.

"Where? What do you mean?"

"Don't ask any questions. What you did tonight was just too much. I'm sending you somewhere where you'll be shown the error of your ways."

"I don't understand."

"You're going to a place where you will be taught to act as a wife should. You'll be there for a week."

"What if I don't want to go?"

"You don't get a choice. Be ready tomorrow night. Wear your silk underwear."

With that he had gone out of the room, leaving her to ponder his words.

That evening he had returned home early, much to her surprise. She had been feeling contrite, and had intended to cook him his favourite meal then take him to bed. She had managed to convince herself that the exchange the previous night had been simply to scare her, and that things would soon return to normal. It was a shock, therefore, when he ordered her straight up to the bedroom and stood over her whilst she donned the scanty underwear.

"Right," he said. "Get in the car."

"I can't go like this," she complained, shocked at the very suggestion.

"You can and will, now get a move on."

"But I..."

"Right now, Lisa."

Lisa stared at him. She had never seen him so forceful. Normally he was a placid, forgiving man, but tonight his commands brooked no disobedience. A sudden, unexpected thrill of excitement ran through her as she looked into his eyes.

At the front door she had paused, glancing at herself in the hall mirror. She couldn't believe he was making her go out so scantily dressed, and at any moment she expected him to call her back and admit that the whole thing was a joke. But he remained grim-faced as he pushed open the door and indicated she was to go out.

She had scuttled to the car, climbing in at once and shutting herself in. Doug had followed more slowly. As he sat down he had reached under the dashboard and pulled out a black, velvet cloth.

"Put this on. Over your eyes."

"What is it?"

"A blindfold. Put it on, now."

With shaking hands, Lisa had pulled the band of cloth over her head, and had been immediately plunged into darkness. Then she heard Doug slip the car into gear, and they were off.

All that had been some hours earlier. She had no idea where she had been taken, but the drive had seemed to go on for ages. Eventually, though, the car had drawn to a halt and Doug had climbed out. Then she had found herself being taken from her seat and led across a gravel driveway into a building. Only after the door had clanged shut behind her had he removed her blindfold. And now she was here, in this bare, anonymous room, waiting fearfully to discover her fate.

All at once she heard the sound of footsteps approaching. She stiffened, holding her body erect and thrusting her breasts forward, just as Doug had told her to do. A key turned in the lock and the door swung open. A man stood there, tall and dark-haired, a grim expression on his face. He was in his late forties, his hair flecked with grey. He wore a sort of uniform, consisting of black trousers and a black sweatshirt. He took in Lisa's barely-clad form in a single glance, and the hapless young girl felt the blood rush to her face as she contemplated the sight she must make.

"They're ready for you," he said.

"Who are?"

"Be quiet. You are not permitted to speak unless spoken to. Follow me, and keep your hands where they are."

"But I..."

"Move!"

It seemed she had no choice. Her heart thumping, Lisa followed the man out of the room and down a long, featureless corridor, her high heels sounding unnaturally loud on the bare floor-boards. He unlocked another door and led her through. She found herself in a large entrance hall, on the far side of which was a desk. The man behind it wore the same black uniform as her guard. He looked up as they approached.

"One for registration," said the first man.

"Name?"

"L-Lisa."

"Age?"

"Twenty."

"Give me your clothes."

"But I've only got these..."

"Do as you're told!" barked her escort.

Lisa stared at the two men, barely able to believe what they were asking of her. No man but Doug had ever seen her naked, and the idea of stripping off here brought a tight knot to her stomach. Surely they couldn't be serious? But one look at their faces told her they were.

"Get your clothes off. Hurry up!"

Slowly, her hands shaking, she reached behind herself, fumbling with the catch on her bra. When she had unfastened it, she slid her arms out of the straps and stood, hugging the cups to her chest.

"Give it to me."

Slowly, reluctantly, Lisa let the bra fall away from her breasts, revealing their pink firmness to the two men. She blushed hotly as they took in her dark brown nipples, set high on the orbs of her breasts, the teats standing out deliriously.

"The panties."

Lisa let her hands drop to her waistband. She stared imploringly at the men.

"Couldn't I just keep them on?" she begged.

"Hurry up, or it'll be the worse for you."

Lisa gave a despairing sigh. Then she hooked her thumbs in the elastic and dragged her pants down in a single movement, stepping out of them and quickly hugging her hands to her private parts.

"Put them on the desk. Then spread your legs and put your hands behind your head."

Once again his tone was such that she dare not disobey. Lisa hesitated for a second before reaching out her trembling hand and placing the skimpy garment on the desk. Then, her cheeks glowing, she moved her legs apart and put her hands behind her head. On the wall behind the desk was another mirror, clearly placed there for her own benefit, and she stared at her reflection, taking in the firm swell of her bare breasts, the darkness of her nipples contrasting sharply with the creaminess of her young flesh. Her eyes drifted lower, to her flat belly with its neat little navel, and down to the dark triangle of her pubic curls, beneath which the cleft of her vagina was clearly visible.

The man at the desk sat back, his eyes taking in every inch of the embarrassed youngster standing before him, her charms on open display.

"She'll do," he said at last. "Take her through."

"Take me where? I can't go anywhere in this state. I'm completely nude!"

"Quiet!"

The first man crossed to another door, which he opened and gestured to Lisa to go through. The naked girl stepped past him hesitantly, and found herself in another corridor.

The sound of her heels seemed louder than ever as she made her way along behind her escort. The corridor was as white and impersonal as the rest of the building, with strip lighting in the ceiling. On either side were numbered doors, each one firmly shut.

They rounded a bend and Lisa saw ahead of her a group of men. They were plumbers, working on a radiator that stood against the wall. At once the young beauty's footsteps faltered as their eyes fell on her.

"Move on!" barked her escort.

"But there are..."

Whack! He brought a hand down hard across the cheeks of her buttocks, making her cry out with the sudden pain.

"Move on, I said."

Lisa's pretty young face glowed scarlet as she passed the men and saw them nudging one another and grinning at her. How could Doug possibly have sent her to such a place? It was incredible that he should allow her to be exhibited in such a shameless manner to total strangers. Yet he must be aware of what was happening to her.

Ahead of her was another door, outside which stood a man in the same kind of uniform as the one who accompanied her.

"Stop there."

Lisa came to a halt in front of him.

"New arrival, Mr Peters," said her escort.

"Cell twenty-seven," replied the other. "Want to take her now?"

"No. First her backside needs a little decoration."

The man grinned. "First time?"

"Yes."

"Better bring her in, then."

Lisa listened to the conversation in silence. A cell? This place was some kind of prison then. But what could he have meant by decorating her backside?

The man called Mr Peters opened the door and Lisa entered. It was a bare, high-ceilinged room, the only furnishing a series of wooden cabinets about the walls. In the centre was what looked like an athlete's hurdle, and it was to this that she was led whilst her escort went to one of the cabinets and opened it.

"Stand there," said the man.

Lisa stopped before the bar. Mr Peters undid two screws and adjusted the height of the cross-beam until it was level with her pubis.

"Bend over the bar, hands flat on the floor."

Lisa stared at him for a second, unsure whether she had heard him correctly.

"Bend over, I said."

Slowly she bent forward at the waist, leaning all the way over until her hands were on the floor.

"Open your legs."

Lisa obeyed, only too aware of how the stance must look, the skin on her backside pulled taut, her anus and sex blatantly displayed.

The man ran his hand over her backside and she shivered at the sensation of his fingers on her bare flesh. There was something undeniabiy erotic about the way he was touching her, something that kindled a quite unexpected excitement deep inside her.

Then she saw the cane.


Her escort must have taken it from one of the cabinets. It was long, no thicker than a pencil, and her stomach seemed to sink as he flexed it in his hands.

"Ready?" he asked.

"Ready," replied Mr Peters, standing back.

"A dozen strokes to start with, I think."

He stood back and tapped Lisa's behind with the cane, making her flinch slightly as he did so. He drew back his arm.

As she heard the swish of the first stroke descending, Lisa realised, too late, what he had meant by decorating her behind.

Then the first blow struck, and the pain began.

Good & Faithful Servant

Story from Janus 86.

Good & Faithful Servant
by Andrew Grantham

EMMA wanted for nothing. Nothing except her clothes!

It wasn't that she didn't have any to wear. Her wardrobes and drawers were full of designer items from the top couturiers and stores such as Liberty, Harrods and the like. The trouble was that they were all securely locked away — and Reeves had the key. Not having access to her clothes meant, of course, that she was unable to leave the penthouse suite; which was why Richard had done what he did and entrusted the key to his ever-faithful manservant.

Her friends in Stringfellows and Tramp had warned her that Richard was a man who treated his women as virtual slaves. She had scoffed at the very idea, being attracted to his looks, his masculinity, his power and his wealth. She saw now that her friends had been right about Richard, but the sublimely pretty, golden-haired daughter of a major considered that she was still on to a good thing, despite her lover's funny ways.

One of Richard's funny ways was to deprive his headstrong darling of clothing to ensure that she did not leave the penthouse during his absences. Emma hadn't minded too much at first, once she had become used to being totally nude in the presence of Reeves, for she had soon wearied of holding an arm in front of her beautifully full and rounded breasts and of shielding her heavy pelt of tightly-curled pubic hair from his seemingly incurious gaze.

Now, however, she was deriving some pleasure from flaunting herself before the good-looking, middle-aged manservant. It had been difficult not to laugh when she had earlier spilled a glass of wine over herself and he had dabbed, with his usual deadpan efficiency, at her breasts with a napkin. No doubt it was the crisp linen rubbing against her shell-pink nipples that had started her arousal.

Heavens! How she missed Richard and his sexual prowess. He'd said on the morning of his departure, after he had finally withdrawn from her body, that all the exhaustive, exhausting, exhilarating things they had just been getting up to would have to last her until he got back.

Now there were still a couple of days until his return and Emma was becoming randier by the minute.

Being in the company of Reeves for so long didn't help. She thought he was quite dishy for a man of his age, and the older men she had slept with before Richard had all been better lovers than the young bloods. Richard, of course, was an exception.

Deeply frustrated, she flopped nudely into an easy chair in front of the television and pressed the button to start whatever video had been left in the machine.

'Oh no,' she groaned as the images flickered into life. 'Not that one!'

Richard had recorded several of their steamy sex sessions and edited them all on to one tape — and it was this particular video that Emma found herself watching. Very soon, the sights and the sounds of their passion became too much and she switched off the set practically incandescent with frustration.

There was a knock on the door. It was Reeves. 'Is there anything you need before I go out, Miss Emma?' he enquired with maddening politeness.

Emma couldn't help herself. She was craving for sex and the only person capable of satiating her desire at that moment was the handsome, well-built retainer.

'Yes. There is, dammit, Reeves,' she croaked, heaving herself from the chair and walking towards his imposing figure. She stopped close up to him, a carnal smile on her extraordinarily pretty face. Her breasts were just touching the servant's crisp white shirt and she pushed them proudly out, holding her shoulders back so that her stiffened nipples pressed against his chest.

'I want you to fuck me, Reeves,' she breathed huskily. 'I'm expecting big things of you.' With that, she thrust a hand into his crotch and squeezed gently.

'I'm afraid I must decline your very tempting offer,' intoned Reeves, staring into Emma's eyes of bathing-pool blue and backing away slightly. 'But I am under strictest orders from Mr Richard...'

'Damn you, Reeves!' cried the frustrated Emma. 'Are you a fucking eunuch or something?'

'I can assure you I am not,' was the half-smiled reply.

'Richard will never know,' wailed the beautiful naked girl, running frenzied fingers through her honey-coloured tresses.

'Mr Richard has detailed me to do whatever is necessary for your comfort...' began the suddenly stern-faced servant.

'There you are then, Reeves,' laughed Emma. 'There's your get-out. I'll be much more comfortable after you've given me a good bonking!'

'I'm afraid that Mr Richard would interpret the situation rather differently,' replied Reeves with a patronising smile. 'Furthermore my master has foreseen such a request on your part in his absence, and has given me instructions accordingly.'

'Has he, indeed!' gasped Emma, a little taken aback. 'And just what are those instructions?' Her patience with the manservant was wearing very thin. In fact she felt insulted. Emma had never offered her lovely body to any man before and had the offer rejected. 'Are you going to see I take a cold shower or something?' she sneered.

'Ahem.' Reeves raised a hand to genteelly cover his mouth as he cleared his throat. 'No, Miss Emma,' was the intoned response. 'I am ordered to give you, on Mr Richard's behalf, six strokes of a cane he has deposited with me for just such an eventuality as has now occurred. Upon your, ahem, posterior, Miss. These were his instructions.'

Emma's mouth dropped open. She tried to speak, but no sounds came out. The naked beauty could not believe her ears.

'Pardon?' she croaked weakly at last.

Patiently, and authoratively, Reeves repeated his devastating statement.

'And I'm going to let you, aren't I?' scoffed Emma. 'On my "posterior" as you call it.'

'Yes, Miss,' she was firmly told. 'You will succumb. If not, I am instructed to pack your belongings and call a taxi to take you to Waterloo Station.'

Emma licked her suddenly dry lips. Reeves wasn't kidding. It was preposterous, but it was just the kind of thing Richard would order. Her mind was in a turmoil. Suddenly, everything was upside down.

'I suggest we get this over with as quickly as possible, Miss Emma,' remarked the servant with a discreet cough. 'I shall fetch the cane.'

Emma stood in a daze. She was actually going to be caned on her bare bottom. It would have to be on her bare bottom of course, because the bastard had locked all her clothes away! If she asked for them she would find herself in a taxi heading for Aldershot. But she was a grown-up woman! Surely she didn't have to suffer such an indignity?

But of course she did have to suffer it, for if Richard abandoned her the pampered, luxurious lifestyle to which she had become accustomed would vanish overnight. She could imagine the sniggered we told her sos in the night spots. She'd never dare show her face in Tramp or Stringfellows ever again.

Her body froze as Reeves reappeared carrying a thin, three-foot long cane with a curved handle. It looked awful. Emma had been playfully spanked by Richard prior to lovemaking. That had been quite enjoyable. This, however, was something else altogether. And in the altogether, too!

Reeves advanced solemnly on her, the cane held upright in the same way that her father carried his sword on ceremonial parades. Emma fought for saliva in her dry mouth. She simply could not quite believe that this was happening to her of all people. Just a few moments ago she had had the hots for the handsome, greying manservant. Now here she was about to have her arse hit by the selfsame person, with that dreadful, wicked-looking cane he was holding.

'Would you bend over and touch your toes please, Miss?'

His politely spoken request was actually an order — an order bearing the authority of Richard himself. Defiantly Emma squared her shoulders, causing her lovely breasts to rise up. For a split second she was going to tell Richard's confidant where to go and what to do when he got there. Then she thought better of it. More than her dignity was at stake.

'Damn you, Reeves!' she muttered. Then she drew a deep breath, turned her back on him and submissively jack-knifed her body.

Emma at once felt lewdly exposed with her bottom pushed up in the air like that, despite being by now well used to nudity in front of the servant. Daringly she parted her thighs, hoping that the sight of her intimate place might just detract Reeves from his duty. But when she saw him move to one side she groaned inwardly, knowing that her last little ploy had failed.

Emma could not see the servant staring dispassionately at what her lover had called a 'superb peardrop of a bum'. Her rear was truly delectable to contemplate, the apple-round cheeks neatly sliced in half by a long, deep crease.

There was fluttering feeling in the pit of Emma's tummy as she waited for her decreed punishment to begin. Then the fluttering stopped and she winced at the sensation of the cool wand chilling the taut warm flesh of her bent-over bottom. The natural pout of her lips disappeared as Reeves tapped the cane against the luscious moons a couple of times to get the range.

She turned her head slowly and fearfully to look around, glimpsed the shirt-sleeved arm in the air and quickly looked away again, gritting her teeth and squeezing her eyes shut.

CRACK!!

The sound of the rattan across her offered orbs filled the large room. It seemed to Emma that the cane had burrowed its way deep into the cushions of her rump, depositing a streak of fire before springing away. She gasped as her body was suddenly swamped with anguish. Her head flicked back and her eyes met those of the man who had, with just one stroke, caused her so much pain.

'I suggest you turn your head away, Miss Emma,' Reeves coolly commanded as he stared back at the expression of shock and disbelief on the girl's pretty features.

Emma did as she was told, shivering and cringing as she waited naked and tense, her long shapely legs parted, bottom bare and beckoning, for Richard's loyal retainer to cane her a second time. The pause seemed interminable. Under her breath, she silently urged Reeves to hurry things up and put a speedy end to her humiliation and misery.

The second stroke, when it came, arrived with lightning-bolt impact. Emma's hips jerked and she squealed. Her behind felt as if it had been seared by a narrow-beamed laser. Reeves stood impassively in position, the cane dangling at his side as he viewed the succulent target swaying above braced, trembling legs. A perfectionist in everything he did for his employer, it was only natural that he would perform this punishment duty to the fullest of his ability and he clearly had a great deal of ability!

Already he had printed two scorching stripes across the proud flesh of Emma's buttock-cheeks, and he would emboss her delightfully rounded seat with a further four before telling her that he had completed his obligations in the matter.

Emma had never felt so awful in her life. She did not know whether it was the sheer pain or the abject humiliation that hurt her the more. The pain would, of course, eventually vanish — but the unfamiliar sense of absolute shame never would.

Reeves slowly raised the thin cane, paused for nerve-stretching moments, then brought it arcing down. The girl heard the Swisshhh! of its descent and dug her long, elegant toes into the thick pile carpet as, a split second later, the hissing stick struck fire once more into the moon-halves of her bottom.

An unprintable word was screeched as a further spasm of scalding anguish tore through Emma's body; beginning, peaking and finishing in her red-striped bottom which oscillated in its torment. Her already moist eyes became wetter and two sparkling teardrops raced one another down her cheeks to fall off her face and be absorbed into the carpet.

Emma's bottom continued to cringe, clench and rotate long after the cane had rebounded from the tramlined cushions and hovered above them, ready for the next stroke. Reeves politely asked her to keep it still. The wretched girl bit her lip and forced herself to comply. She did, however, alternately contract and relax her buttock-muscles in anticipation of the next application of biting pain.

CRACK! Again the firmly-gripped cane sped to its voluptuous target. Emma emitted a screech. Her knees gave way and she fell on all fours. The smarting in her beleaguered bottom was almost unbearable.

Reeves, his face emotionless, watched the wriggling, writhing rumps where Emma did a frantic, stationary crawl on the carpet, and calmly made an adjustment to his stance.

'You may by all means stay in that position if you wish, Miss,' he told her, tapping the obscenely upthrust semi-spheres with the cane to obtain a new range.

Again the wand whooshed through the air. Now, however, it had further distance to travel and gained even more momentum on its pain-giving journey. Just before it landed, the thought flashed through Emma's mind that her bottom would carry the marks of this caning for several days. Certainly there would be no way she could hide her lividly-streaked bottom from Richard when he got back.

He would, of course, know exactly what she had asked Reeves to do! What on earth was going to happen to her then?

The cane struck for a fifth time. Again her bottom took flame, her feet and knees performed a dervish-dance on the carpet and she cried out like a soul in torment.

'Only one more to go, Miss Emma,' announced Reeves politely. 'If you would be good enough to stay completely still...'

Schoolgirl Remedy

Story from Justice 42.

Schoolgirl Remedy

A person did not have to study Trixie all that hard to realise that she was by far the most attractive and prettiest girl in the whole school. There were sufficient candidates for the title of the most attractive school-girl in France, but Trixie would have taken such a title with no problems whatsoever.

Tall, blonde and with the bluest eyes that set in a face that was artistic formed, but added to this her soft curvy torso with curvy limbs and decidedly rounded figure and the picture of Trixie is presented as one of those who are going to have no trouble in getting what she wants from the male population.

She was next in line to be the school captain and head prefect, and was only waiting for her predecessor to leave the school and she would then jump into the exalted position of Head Girl of the whole Boarding School.

At seventeen and a half she was well loved and equally hated because of the sheer personality of her natural attributes that marked her as a desirable young woman.

Her pet hate was the latest teacher who had been imported from England and this young man was a tutor of music. He had only just passed out from his university and when she saw him studying the girls in the gymnasium she saw that there was undoubtedly the leering look of interest in the nubile bodies disporting themselves in the Physical Education studies! She made no pretence that she was displeased with his gazing admiration of the females in a state of skimpy dress and she told him outright that she would have no hesitation in reporting him to the headmistress if he insisted in hanging around the area of the gymnasium whilst she and the older girls were practising gymnastics.

Her outburst had done the trick and he ensured that his presence was certainly nowhere near the gymnasium nor near the playing fields on the sports afternoons. He was a new boy to the profession and the last thing he wanted was to arrest his career before it had even got off the ground. But she had made an arch enemy and she could never envisage that he was to get his retribution in the most exacting of manners with her, and she would be helpless to prevent him taking over her body completely in every manner and any way he chose.

Trixie, like any healthy young lady had her secret desires and because she had always attended exclusive schools, her sexual drives were orientated towards her own sex. She knew no other manner in which to express her emotions as her knowledge of the male body was only gleaned from fantasy and mystery. She knew that she would one day meet a man and deep down, like any other healthy girl, she longed for the day when she would be able to express her sexual drive with a man, but in her present environment her interests centred around her own sex.

It is the same in all school of the type she attended and there had been examples to prove it. A girl caught in any lesbian attitude with another girl was dismissed without argument. There was no defence, no pleas no ifs and no buts; the remedy was swift and any girl caught in such a situation was expelled on the spot. There had been cases in the past but the occurrences had been hushed up and hopefully forgotten. But even the dismissal had had its pre-consequences because the headmistress would assemble the whole school and explain that the certain girl had been caught with another girl; both girls would be on the stage at the front of the Assembly hall, and in front of the whole school the two would be physically punished. This was an awesome and frightening scene to witness because two bare bottoms would be thrust towards the girls in the auditorium and the kneeling position would afford a full view not only of two bottoms but also the soft secret places between the thighs.

The French system of using a martinet was well employed and soon the whole place would be echoing to screeching girls as their bottoms changed from soft smooth white-cream to a whip-wealed pair of ballons. And in that terrible state, the girls would be despatched to their parents. But no word was ever spoken regarding the flogging and dismissal after that. It was true that a terrible silence would settle on the school for several days after such an exhibition of flogging bottoms, but it took only a little longer for the school to settle down to a routine curriculum.

The flogging was a distinct enactment to discourage the girls from getting emotionally involved with each other. Masturbation was one thing; lesbianism something of a completely different nature and headmistresses and teachers knew that they could not let the reputation of the school founder on the Islands of Sapphos.

Trixie thought that she and Sandie were well excluded from prying eyes when she and the auburn haired beauty settled in the corner of the disused pavilion. Sandie loved Trixie's body and soul and as her gentle teasing lips and tongue traced the love-caresses round the sharply benippled breasts, Trixie lay back, eyes closed letting the sweetness of Sandie's oral attentions sweep over and through her. Her shapely thighs were spread and although her knickers were still pulled up, Sandie had managed to push her hand into the waistband to titivate the soft lips of Trixie's sex vale... Trixie was stroking her friend's hair and she was grateful for the thrills that poured like hot oils through her veins.

She was urging in whispering sounds of endearment for Sandie to put her lips to the orifice area of the worshipped portal... Trixie thumbed her knickers down and lay back as she raised her knees and spread them wide. With something like wonderment on her face, Sandie studied the orifice and enjoyed the thrills of being able to see the soft furry hair with the excited puffy lips of Trixie's pussy flesh. Reverently almost, she dipped her head and her lips met those of Trixie's labia... delicious thrills filled both girls and when Sandie at last lapped the crevice with the tip of her tongue the clitoris throbbed in happy response.

Trixie knew that she would most certainly orgasm within a few moments and pressed her legs as wide as she could as her moaning instructions urged Sandie to deeper depths... when the room was suddenly flooded in light, it came too suddenly for either girl to comprehend or even stop their dallying with each other... as Trixie pulled her skirt down, Sandie realised that something was amiss, her head was ensnared beneath the tight skirt and she had to struggle to bring her head from beneath the cloth shield.

"And what lessons are we preparing for now?" he asked as he stood looking down at the confused and frightened faces of the two girls.

Trixie's mouth opened and closed several times without a word coming from it. She was suddenly filled with fear, shame and confusion. The only thought that came to her mind was the view of her own bared bottom together with that of Sandie's in front of the whole school and the ignominious dismissal afterwards. Gone would be the chance of head prefect, gone would be all sense of honour and she would be forever clouded in the shame of being expelled from the school. Her father was a dignitary in the Francaise Cabinet, and of all the people that the media would want to snipe at it would be him. They would have a field day if they ever discovered that the shapely daughter had been dismissed from the school for practising the lesbian art.

"Please... please," she managed to gasp out imploringly.

"Yes?" his tone was not one that expressed a readiness to forgive and forget.

It had to be him of all people. It had only been two weeks previous when she had humiliated him in front of the other girls by telling him that he should not be showing such interest in skimpily clad girls... here he was in a completely commanding attitude over her future.

"Please... please let us discuss this thing," she was lost for a common sense thing to say and she was shrinking rapidly inside herself. As she had spoken so she had managed to pull her knickers up beneath her skirt as she modestly tried to cover herself without having to display her lovely legs and she had managed quite well.

"You will both report to the Detention Room this evening," he said abruptly.

They were almost relieved when he turned on his heel and walked out.

"Detention," Sandie said in a surprised tone.

"I dare not believe it. I just do not believe that he will let us off with a few hours detention," Trixie whispered although her heart raced as the seed of an idea began to grow inside her mind.

The hours that remained before reporting to the Detention Room were fraught with despair for both girls and they were desperately worried and afraid. Neither of them dared look at the stage in the large Assembly Hall because they both had a vision of their bodies up there. It was awful to even think about and by the time that Trixie and Sandie reported to the Detention Room they were both ready to swear their souls away to prevent the horror of a public thrashing and shameful dismissal from the school.

He was waiting when they both sheepishly walked in and slowly approached the austere lectern on which he was leaning. He studied the two girls and felt that Trixie looked even more attractive in her distress. She had been nearer the truth than she had imagined when she had accused him of leering at them, and he was young enough to appreciate the rounded quality of the girls' bodies. But there was no doubt about it, Trixie was an aristocratic figure and she had the swelling shape of an aristocratic arse!! He may have been young in his age but he had very set ideas on how to treat erring young females and Simon was very aware of what the girls must be thinking.

In Trixie he had the perfect foil for his plans... she was due to be placed on the pinnacle of the Head Prefect... the Head Girl and the School Captain. It would bring her prestige and privileges and now in one unguarded act with Sandie she had placed herself very firmly under his control...

He had already formulated a plan whereby Trixie would soon be begging to show off her shapely torso in any posture that he might desire to see it, and furthermore, he knew that he was going to hear her begging to be allowed to do whatever he chose and that meant just anything.

His psychological studies had taught him that when a woman is in the trouble as deep as Trixie was right then, she was ready to take on the role of the lowest kind of tart.

Pride and dignity would be severely punctured but to save her face and precious character, Trixie would be prepared to suffer any indignity despite the natural abhorrence she might feel in executing the terrible penance.

"Lock the door, Sandie," he said quietly and authoritively.

Thankfully this room was a prime piece of architecture. It had no windows except for the high vents, and the door was a stout piece of oak. It clicked ominously when Sandie turned the key in the lock and shame-faced returned to the lectern. He kept a very stern face as he looked down on the frightened young girls.

"What am I going to do to you two?" he asked with an exaggerated sigh. "Do I report you to the headmistress and get you expelled or do I take the law into my own hands and make you prime examples of very naughty girls under corrective discipline?"

"We don't want to go to the headmistress," they answered as once.

"Are you under the impression then, that I shall merely punish you with the cane?"

"I... we thought you might punish us yourself," Trixie blushed furiously.

"And you think that punishment is simply having the cane on your bottom," he said.

They blinked up at him and both girls felt the foundation of their intended surrender to a caning by him getting decidedly uncertain.

"What.... what is corrective discipline?" Sandie asked awkwardly.

"Good question, Sandie... it involves absolute obedience. No protest. No argument. It is an enactment of the miscreant to obey submissively to any act that the teacher commands. The one thought in your minds must be that this is happening as punishment and for your own good and also it will be paramount in your minds. I have no doubt that whilst you are responding so obediently you will be aware that you are avoiding the ultimate disgrace of being discharged."

His last words glued themselves to their minds. No public flogging. No expulsion.... they needed no further explanation... both girls knew secretly that they would rather suffer a thousand times over than to have the rest of the school using their names as gossip... and Trixie had a lot more to lose than Sandie.

"I would rather accept your corrective discipline," Trixie said without even having to think about it.

"Me too, please," Sandie blushed deeper as she squirmed on the spot.

"Then I shall administer to you, your punishment one at a time... you may go Trixie and leave Sandie with me... I shall see you tomorrow night. It will give you time to contemplate your immediate future... your naughtiness and the retribution I intend to introduce... now leave me with Sandie," he directed.

Trixie was surprised and mystified. She had no doubt that he intended to enjoy himself with Sandie and he did not want any witnesses. She was fully contrite as she left the room to walk back to her own small room.

Trixie had not realised that Simon was able to impose such stringent conditions on Sandie so that neither of them met the following day and she was itching to find out exactly what had occured. She did see her friend once but the auburn coloured hair seemed to vanished in a sea of heads before Trixie could reach her.

The whole of that day was a time of misery for Trixie and when at last the evening came round she was not sure whether she was glad or sorry. The long hall that led to the Detention room seemed longer and more deserted than ever.

She felt as though she had committed the most hideous crime in the annals of the school as she stood projected in her solitude when she had locked the door and waited, inwardly trembling under scrutiny of his stern eyes. After a short while, sufficiently long enough to enhance her feeling of helplessness, he extricated himself from the tall legged seat and slowly, with deliberation walked to where the helpless girl waited.

"What did you mean when you suggested that I might be taking a perverse interest in the girls when they were at gymnastics?" he reminded her of her threat.

"It was a mistake, Sir," she managed to respond immediately.

"Wasn't it just," he smiled malevolently.

She blushed profusely when she felt his hand holding her blouse where her ripe breast thrust against the material. She nearly made the cardinal error of withdrawing but choked down her natural shame and stood there feeling his fingers stroking the throbbing globe as the nipple thrust against the white cotton. Thankfully, he discovered she wore no brassiere... it surprised him that perfection could be portrayed like this without the bra, but he marvelled at the firm soft quality of her breasts as he squeezed leisurely.

"You do not mind me doing this do you?" he asked craftily.

"No sir... not one little bit," she lied.

"In fact, young Trixie I think you enjoy having your tits played with," he told her.

"I... I do sir," she managed to choke as she felt the firmness in her breasts making the globes seem to expand.

"Then it is my wish that you exhibit them," he smiled.

Her fingers were like unfeeling digits as she fidgeted with her buttons but soon her upper smooth creamy skinned torso with the pinky aureolled breasts were nakedly on view. He gently lifted them in the palms of his hands and felt the full sexy weight of her bosom. They were perfect in every detail. Even Trixie was feeling little thrilling shock waves that had never been known to her before. As his thumbs lightly stroked over the nipple, so Trixie felt the knobs becoming harder and harder... he played with the nipples to help her attitude of mind towards the sexual aspect.

She was looking down at the hardening breasts as confused thrills and shame throbbed through her. It was all so strange and when he told her to pull her shoulders back she did so without even thinking why he wanted her like that. The response on her breasts was truly remarkable. They thrusted out in symmetric orbs, and even Trixie felt the additional thrills start to rise inside her body.

"Oooooh," the sound came from her lips like a soft gasp of discovery.

"You will remove all you clothes except your knickers," he told her.

As she shakily obeyed him, he walked to a nearby seat and watched the disrobing of the statuesque beauty. She stood erect even though she did not feel proud, but in her present state of near nudity, Trixie was one of nature's most delightful nymphs. Her limbs were a sight to behold and the dipped gusset of her knickers clung lovingly to the fleshy sex groove that the knickers covered. He told her to turn round and inwardly shamefilled, Trixie gave him a view of her deliciously rounded orbs with the knickers clinging to the nates lovingly. They accentuated the perfect roundness of her pert buttocks and he could see the lower curves of the swelling moons as they peeped from beneath the legs of her knickers.

"Take them off," he told her.

She certainly hesitated, but it was only for a moment. Simon's eyes feasted on the full rounded vision of her denuding bottom as Trixie reluctantly thumbed her knickers down her legs. When she stood upright again she was better than he imagined her. She had alabastrine quality skin and the flawless body stood like a dejected, shame-filled young lady. Trixie's face flushed scarlet as she felt his eyes studying the superb orbs of her bottom and she knew that he would soon be making her bum very sore.

"Now you will exercise some gymnastic movements for me," he smiled.

She went through the whole of her repertoire and displayed to him every movement that he had observed her doing in the gym... and there were one or two others in addition. Facing him and also facing the opposite direction... legs apart... reaching right down and pressing her palms to the floor so that the fully curvacious buttocks showed off at the very best... reaching up high towards the ceiling too when she was facing him so that her taut breasts were the centre of attraction. But when he sat her on the bench table to make her do backward presses with ankles firmly set apart, she knew that she had revealed to him the very inner depths of her secret sex orifice. It came to the time when he could hold back the moment of punishment no longer and under his eyes she placed two stools in front of the lectern.

When she stood on the stools she was made to bend over the front of the lectern itself with her upper torso stretching down the front of the furniture which ensured her bottom stayed the highest postured part of her body... it was almost up to the height of his shoulders so he was able at long last to place his hands on the gorgeous moons of her bottom as he stood behind her studying openly the view of her soft pinky sex lips and the complete area of her behind.

He moulded the cheeks of her backside in various shapes so that nothing was lost to his gaze... he saw more of Trixie than any other person alive... she could only remain stupefied at the differing digress of her emotions... she did not want to get any pleasure from all this but her breasts could still sense the fondling of his hands... her bottom now was adding fuel to her confusion as his hands eased the cheeks in various shapes... her shapely legs felt weak as her temperature see-sawed in different patterns of pleasure and shame... it was not until he actually ran a finger tip between her legs that she realised that the whole of her crotch was fully exposed to him and the soft lips of her pussy spread apart as he eased his ploughing finger through the furrow formed by her attractive cunt.

A further stab of shame went through her as she felt herself thrust her bottom backwards as though welcoming the soft caress of her sex, and further more she knew that she was truly thrusting back to expose herself as much as she could. Her knuckles showed white. She gripped the lower bar of the lectern and stifled sobs of helpless confusion mumbled from deep down inside her body.

Simon saw how the buttocks thrust back and the soft meat of the flesh lips themselves appeared to project purposefully towards his fondling hands... this was something he had not envisaged and her pronounced posture became more and more thrusting as he played softly with the cleft between the lips. Despite her shame and immodest pose, Trixie could only acknowledge the full thrilling eruption of her erotic senses... pure heat of delightful thrills throbbed like wavelets of deep heat through her... she was aware of the humiliating shape of her body and she accepted that he was trying only to bring her to her most immodest sense of shame, yet there was no denying the thrilling sweetness now flowing through her.

Her legs became stiffer as she pushed herself into an accessable bending roundness... she seemed to want to make her whole bottom and crotch very open and fully prepared for him to play with. He teased the tight skin seal of her orifice and as the dampened heat oiled the passage, so he pushed the tip of his finger into the hole itself... Trixie felt dizzy with hot sexuality... the whole of her randy state was alive now to being caressed and touched by his knowledgeable fingers... as he slipped the finger slowly into the tight tube of her sex sheath so he discovered that by some accident she had lost the prized virginity... there was no arresting his inward thrusting finger and soon he was fully embedded into her. He could never have imagined seeing this superb young woman like this... his own muscle was reacting to the acquiescent attitude of her... he knew he would have to start the "punishment" of her behind. It was a superb piece of sculptor and it begged for a spanking hand and a thrashing cane.

Trixie was deeply disappointed when he removed the caressing finger from her vagina... but when he changed his own position to stand next to her, his resting hand on the right cheeks of her bottom forewarned her that she was about to be spanked.

His hand came down hard and there was to be no preliminary warming up session. The imprint of his hand showed very red and forceful marks on the right cheek of her bum and then to match that imprint her left cheek received the same tenor of strength and resulting stinging pain.

She gritted her teeth hard and was determind not to cry out, but as the hard spanking palm struck each cheek alternatively so she knew that she would not be able to keep her stoic resolve. Gradually the once white, smooth creamy skin changed to a highly charged redness until the whole area of her buttocks was in deep contrast to the rest of her body. At last she broke down and yelped out as the blistering heat became too intense...

"Agggher... oooooow... no... ooouwerch... aaaaagher... noooo... my bottom... no... it hurts... it hurts... no more please... pleeeease... oooooooh noooo... aaagher... yaaaagher... no... o... no... no... please..." her vocal protests were accompanied by jiggling responses of her hips as she jerked them from side to side... the jiggling changed to writhing.

Trixie felt that the stinging, flashing pain on her bottom was something that she could not possibly bear... and then her bottom was jerking in sharp responsive movements... to Simon she presented a marvellous picture as her whole body seemed to respond to the fire building up on her buttocks. He left her for a short while and let her silently sob as the movements of her behind settled down... he was pleased that she had not attempted to stand up... it was as though her body ached to move away from the punishing position but because of her shame at the 'sin' she had committed, she knew that she could not move until he told her she could do so. Her eyes widened noticeable when she felt a cold thin sensation resting on her burning nates... she knew without being told that she was about to be caned!

"Get down from the stools," he told her.

Slowly and very miserably, the attractive young woman stepped down onto the floor.

"Now bend right over and touch your toes," he ordered her crisply.

"Please sir," she choked out in her sobbing imploring voice.

But even as she pleaded, Trixie slowly reached forward for her toes... her body bowed over fully and she blinked her tears of fear and horror so that they spilled freely down her cheeks.

She could never have imagined the fierceness of the cane until it struck the roundest part of her taut skinned bum... it whipped down viciously and the line of angry buzzing pain seemed to burn a brand of its own across her skin. The touch toes posture changed rapidly as she shot upright and clutched her burning cheeks whilst her feet danced up and down making her body dance wildly... he watched the gyrations in fascinated observations... her breasts jiggled as her hips and waist twisted about the room.

He pointed to a raised stool and directed her to get on it with her bottom raised high... reluctantly she placed her smooth tummy on the seat of the stool and slowly bent her body again... she kept her thighs tightly closed together and her head was almost down to the floor... standing next to her Simon took deliberate aim and thrashed the cane down to the target of her crimson-skinned buttocks... she squealed and yelled at the same time... she could not jump about now and her bottom did another writhing dance of agonised pain.

Six very hard strokes he gave her all across the meatiest part of her backside... "Please... pleeease... sir... I'll do anything... anything... please... no more... I beg you... pleeeeease... make me do anything else and I'll do it willingly... anything at all," she begged and pleaded.

After she had dried her tears and her painful bottom had settled down, she was kneeling before him... her soft warm mouth courting his aching erect muscle... she would rather have done this all night than take any more strokes from the cane... she did not mind standing there with her hands towards the ceiling as he had stroked her soft pussy flesh and she did not mind this attitude of sexual servitude... before he came he sat her on his lap and she bounced up and down with his hardness inside her...

It all came out and he was dismissed on the spot. He had to leave the school but he never once disclosed the reason why he had beaten the girl... that was something he spared her.

He could never have taken up teaching again and he took a small apartment in Paris and gave private lessons in English. It was some nine or ten months later that he answered the door and saw Trixie standing there.

"I have wanted to see you ever since you left the school," she blushed.

"I have to thank you for not telling on me when you were caught out," she blushed deeper.

"What can I do for you," he asked softly.

"I wondered whether you would not like to give me private lessons in English," she told him as she took off her coat, "and of course I think that you ought to be allowed to discipline me if ever I am not trying hard enough."

He was surprised at her attitude. So out of all the trauma there had been something that she found appealing.

"You know my methods of discipline."

"I can hardly remember... I do think you ought to refresh my memory" she smiled blushingly as she started to remove her clothes.

Jackie Oh! Oh! Oh!

Story from Februs 31.

Jackie Oh! Oh! Oh!
A Short Story by Tim Starfield

IF I HAD KNOWN, WOULD I HAVE GONE TO THAT DINNER PARTY?

If I had known, would I have worn that white cotton blouse over the black wonderbra, and the leather jeans that I bought when I was still a size 10, and now, especially just after Christmas, seemed maybe a little bit too tight round the hips and the seat?

If I had known, would I have had at the very least one too many of Kate's lethal margaritas (equal parts lime juice, ice, and tequila)?

There were seven of us. Me, Kate and Jane, old school-friends who never lost touch, used to go on holidays together, and to the ballet once a month, until Kate married and Jane moved to Liverpool; Kate's husband, Mark; Jane's current bloke, Stefan, the latest in a long line of 'Jane's lost causes' – a bearded poet whom she met at a reading in a pub in Speke and took under her wing, my ex, Brian, with whom I had broken up five months back but still used to go around with when either of us needed a partner (neither of us had found anyone new, and although in my mind we were clearly past history, I always secretly suspected that Brian still carried a torch for me and would secretly love for us to get back together – or so I flattered myself). And an American guy, a historian from Boston who was teaching for a term at the L.S.E. and simultaneously working on a T.V. documentary about the American Civil War with Mark, who's a producer at the Beeb (which is how he met Kate, when she was an A.F.M., or Assistant Floor Manager, before she left to have Michael and the twins).

I suppose I was dressed a bit tartily. And I suppose I did allow myself to get drunk a bit too quickly. What the hell? Brian would be only too happy to drive me home. I suppose I was bored, or frustrated, call it what you like. Ready for excitement in the middle of a dull winter, after a particularly dull Christmas. We all agreed that it was a dull time of year. Stefan and Jane said they were seriously thinking of a spur of the moment fortnight in the Caribbean, although Stefan seemed to regard the idea as something of a class betrayal, and Jane wondered if her overdraft was up to it. Obviously Stefan wouldn't be paying.

The kids were in bed, the margaritas were drunk, and so was I, and then the food was on the table (something wonderful from Delia's latest oeuvre) and the red wine was flowing. In the glow from a wrought-iron Habitat candelabra, everyone relaxed and forgot the rain battering on the windows and the cold unforgiving January wind howling outside in Muswell Hill.

After we'd polished off the ginger and coconut sorbet, Kate made cappuccinos in the coffee machine Brian and I gave them for a wedding present. Stefan dragged Mark into the study to buttonhole him about a six part series he wanted him to do on Polish underground literature, and the rest of us settled back, tongues loosened, to gossip about anything under the sun.

Well, somehow we got onto sexual fantasies, I don't know why. I now have the impression that Richard Clements (the Professor or whatever from M.I.T.) was egging us on, in a quiet but insidious way, but at the time, he hardly seemed to be taking part in the discussion at all, just leaning back in his chair, tall and rangy, with a wry smile on his thin lips, and a twinkle in his grey eyes, or was that just the glow of candlelight on his spectacles? Anyway, Jane was going on and on about covering some hapless stud (probably one of the Gladiators, anyway, nothing like Stefan, who was thin and weedy) in molten Belgian chocolate and slowly, slowly, licking it off, and Kate was saying, yes, but that's so fattening! and we asked Brian if he had a special fantasy, and he said, no, not really, and we all shrieked, aha, just as we thought! and Brian looked hurt, and clammed up, and so, to cover an awkward gap, I said:

'My sexual fantasy has always been Nude Snooker.'

Everyone laughed, except Brian, and Richard said, what the hell is snooker? and Jane said it was like a British version of pool, but with more balls, and then she and Kate nearly had hysterics at the unintentional double-entendre, and meanwhile Brian had to be almost physically restrained from explaining virtually the whole history of the game and all the rules from scratch, and how many points you lose for going in off the blue, and...

'So why do you want to play this ridiculous game?' asked Richard. 'And why in the nude?' He pronounced it 'nood', which made the whole thing seem even sillier.

Face flushed, fuelled, as I say, by one drink too many, made reckless with a good meal inside me and an odd desire to really needle Brian, who could be a bit of a prude at times, I spilled out the whole idea. Maybe I embellished a bit for hopefully comic effect, but the backbone of this fantasy had been with me a long time, and had always turned me on when I was most desperate for something, anything, to do so. Like in bed with Brian, for example, on more than one occasion.

'Right, well, there's this rich Arab, or something, anyway he's tall, dark, and devilish, and he's captured me and this other girl, and we have to compete for our freedom. We have to play snooker. In the nude, well, wearing g-strings, stockings and high-heeled shoes, or maybe thigh-boots with spike heels, it doesn't matter, on a full-size table, like they have at the Crucible, shut up Brian, he doesn't care where Sheffield is, anyway, a full-size table, spotlit in the centre of a big room. The Arab stands there in just a pair of tight blue denim jeans, with a really thick leather belt with a silver buckle, and he fingers this belt and smiles a cruel smile as he explains the rules. We are to play one frame only. Whoever wins can go free and she will receive a cheque for on thousand pounds for every point she scores. Whoever loses will be his captive, and she will receive one stroke of his wicked belt across her bare arse for every point difference between the winning and losing scores. And we start playing, and this other girl is not brilliant at the game, O.K., but she's not bad, and I'm really crap at it...'

'She is, too.' Brian, unnecessarily pedantic as ever.

'Thank you Sir Galahad... anyway, I'm getting further and further behind, and my glasses are steaming up, and I'm almost crying with frustration because I can barely see the balls, let alone hit them, and my shots are all going wrong, and I'm missing the reds and fouling the pink and going in off the black all the time. And my tits keep wobbling about and getting in the way of the cue and I'm embarrassed to spend enough time lining up my shots properly because every time I bend over I can feel the Arab's dark eyes boring lustfully into my quivering rump thinking how much he's looking forward to lashing it to ribbons with his belt, and the other girl is coolly potting away, one ball here, one ball there, occasionally a little break of ten or fifteen points, and I'm going to pieces...'

Should I have noticed Brian, red-faced and thunderously silent? Or Kate, open-mouthed in seeming horror? I didn't. I was lost in my own private world.

'And?' said Richard Clements quietly.

'And I lose, by about sixty two points to twenty four, and he gives the other girl a cheque and a peck on the cheek, and she puts on her clothes and leaves, smiling scornfully. And then he unbuckles his belt, and makes me put down my cue, and bend over the table with my arms outstretched, face buried in the green baize, and then he rips off my g-string and lets me have it good and proper with the belt.

'And do you count all thirty eight strokes?' asked Jane.

'I don't think I even get as far as one,' I said. 'I'm so turned on I've usually come by then. Otherwise the fantasy isn't working properly.'

'It's not a fantasy, it's sick,' said Kate. 'Honestly, Jackie, you should see a therapist or someone. Being assaulted by nasty Arabs. It's deviant, is what it is. This is the nineties, for God's sake.'

'I think it's wonderful.' Jane again. 'Jackie, you make me feel happy that there's someone out there who's more kinky than I am.'

'Who's more kinky than who?' said Mark, as he and Stefan arrived back in the kitchen. 'What have we been missing?'

'Nothing. Just a lot of silly girl-talk,' said Kate, covering up, I thought.

'I hope they haven't been boring you?' said Mark to Richard Clements.

'On the contrary,' said the quiet American. 'It's been truly fascinating.'

A bit of a silence.

'Anyone for more coffee?' said Kate, breaking it.

'Or brandy, or port, if you prefer?' said Mark. 'I mustn't, because I've got an early start tomorrow at T.V. Centre, but anyone else is welcome.'

'Thanks but no. We'd better go,' said Brian, rising abruptly from his chair.

And he practically dragged me from the house without properly saying goodbye to anybody, and before I knew it we were in his Toyota Corolla and we were driving in grim silence around the rain-slicked North Circular. He dropped me at my door in Wembley, refused to kiss the proffered cheek, and still without saying a word, sped off with a furious squeal of tyres back towards his mother's house in Putney, before I'd even fished my keys from my handbag.

* * *

The next day I had a real humdinger of a hangover, a thumping headache and an uneasy feeling that I might be sick at any moment, so I made the easy and instant decision not to go into work. Dealing with the vague sense of shame, that I had in some ways gone beyond the bounds of normal decency on the previous evening, was harder, but with great reluctance I managed to make myself dial Kate's number in order to apologise. But instead of Kate, I got Jane's voice on the other end of the phone.

'Stefan and I ended up taking on board far too much of Mark's vintage port, so we crashed on the sofa,' she explained.

I told her why I was ringing.

'Hell no, you didn't embarrass anyone,' she laughed. 'Except maybe dear Brian. I shouldn't think you'll be seeing him for a while. Which is no bad thing. He doesn't deserve you, the little wimp. Way out of his depth. No, me and Stefan turned out to be the really embarrassing ones,' she went on. 'Or at least we will be if I can't work out how to get certain tell-tale stains off Kate's tapestry cushions before she gets back. She's gone out somewhere with the children, I think. I'll tell her you called. Boy, was I randy last night. God knows why.'

* * *

A week later. Back at work. A phone call.

'Jackie? Hi, this is Richard Clements, we met the other evening at the Hathaways?'

'Oh yes. Right. Um, hi Richard, er, what can I do for you?'

'I just wanted to thank you. You've given me a whole new perspective on the British psyche. I used to think there was nothing worth watching on T.V. in the small hours of the night, but now I've discovered that they show hours and hours of this ridiculous snooker game. I should be bored solid by it, but I'm not, I'm fascinated. I can't help thinking of you, you see. And now I think maybe I understand why my students spend all their free time chasing coloured balls round a table in the bar when they should be producing essays for me. You've opened my eyes.'

I ought to slam this phone down right now. But I don't. I don't say anything, however.

'I'm sorry.' He laughs. 'I'm embarrassing you. I have no right to intrude on your private life.'

'Hey, it's hardly your fault it's not very private. I'm the one who's to blame, blurting things out like that.'

'Listen, I don't mean to be forward, well I do, actually, but how about you having dinner with me tonight? Kate and Mark have another engagement, and they have the baby-sitter from Hell coming over with her boyfriend so I've no desire to spend the evening at home.'

'...I don't know...'

'Oh say you will. Terrific. I'll pick you up at your office, six o-clock, and then you're in charge. You can take me to a typical London restaurant, show me what the idiot tourists are missing. Your choice, but my treat. O.K.?'

'Yes, but...'

'Perfect. Six o-clock then. Got to go. Till later.'

'Bye...' But he's already hung up.

All afternoon I wrestled with my conscience, weighing up the pros and cons of going out to dinner with a man I hardly knew, but who knew a hell of a lot, maybe too much, about me.

Pro: Going out to dinner with a man I hardly knew, etc.

Con: Hardly dressed for it, only my boring business suit. Still he can't expect me to rush home and change, can he?

Pro: He seemed nice enough. Quite dishy, really, in a younger-version-of-Harrison-Ford kind of a way.

Con: He was scandalously privy to some of my most intimate and embarrassing thoughts.

Pro: What the hell? Better any kind of adventure than just another tedious night in with the telly.

Con: I'll miss 'E.R....' Wish I'd programmed the vid.

Somehow the pros seemed to outweigh the cons, and anyway, come six o-clock, there was Richard, clearly not about to brook any opposition to his plans.

The typical London restaurant of which I am most fond is, in a typical London way, Malaysian, but the food was excellent, and Richard turned out to be exhilarating company. Only about four years older than me, and astonishingly still single, but he'd travelled all over the world, was frighteningly well-read, and had wise and dryly expressed opinions on all topics of conversation. He was particularly adept at drawing me out while making me feel at home, leading me on to tell him more and more of my fears and secrets and to babble on uncontrollably about my frustrating childhood and non-existent love life, while all the time giving me a wondrously relaxed feeling of security and warmth.

The evening passed in a flash. Richard settled the bill with a gold card and a generous tip, and then drove me home in his surprisingly swanky and sporty hired car. As I was getting out, I suddenly felt emboldened, and leaned across to kiss him on the lips, and to my happy astonishment we indulged in a long and very satisfying session of what Jane would call 'tonsil hockey'. I hadn't necked as passionately as that since I was sixteen. I invited him in, for 'coffee' of course (God, I thought the days of doing that on a first date were long gone!), but to my disappointment he declined politely and drove off with a promise to ring me.

I couldn't sleep that night. What was it that made me so attracted to him? I came to the conclusion that it had to be his gentle sardonic smile – he had a way of looking right through you with a quizzical expression in his eyes, as though he understood your weaknesses, and simultaneously censured but forgave all your faults. I lay awake all night, with the memory of that wonderful smile burning itself into the back of my brain, trying to scheme up fool-proof ways to get him to share my bed, or my life, on a regular basis, and tormenting myself with the awful thought that the task might be beyond me.

* * *

To my amazement, he phoned the very next day. Even better, to my delight, he invited me to spend the weekend with him at a cottage he was planning to borrow from a fellow academic, in Oxfordshire somewhere.

'Need to get out of the city for a while,' he said. 'Spot of country air, what? Does that sound English to you? Do us both the world of good.'

I giggled and gushed and waffled about how much I'd love to spend the weekend with him.

'Listen.' There was a new sharpness in his voice. 'We can have a great time, you and I. I think I know a bit about what makes you tick, and if you're honest, I think you'll have a pretty good inkling about me. So there's only one condition to this jaunt. My rules, O.K.? Whatever I say, goes, whatever I tell you to do, you do it. Get that straight and you won't get hurt. Well, you won't go far wrong, in any case. I'll see you Friday.'

I couldn't sleep that night, either. My conscious mind told me I didn't know what on earth he meant by all that cryptic stuff. My subconscious obviously knew exactly what he was on about. I became wet and excited at the merest recollection of his strange tone of voice, and every time I ran over his words in my head I got randier and more turned on than ever. What on earth was I letting myself in for, I asked myself. And I sort of knew, and I sort of didn't, and I was a little bit afraid, but mostly horribly eager to find out what it was I was waiting for, and desperately keen for the weekend to come. And I thought, and thought, and dreamed, and dreamed, and I couldn't stop my fingers from seeking out my wet pussy again and again and again, and I came and came and came, until eventually I drifted into a fitful doze.

* * *

So that's how I wound up here.

I'm standing in the front room of a charming eighteenth century cottage near Woodstock, my skin and hair lustrous in the glow of a real fire. I can hear Richard busying himself in the kitchen, somewhere behind me. I can't turn my head to see him, though, and I can't speak to him either. I'm obeying my orders, like I was told. I'm a good girl, I am. I'm still wearing the bottom half of my swish suit, which I bought in a tearing hurry and a teeming throng of late-night sale shoppers on Thursday evening, from one of London's most exclusive, and expensive, designer shops. Had to have it, despite it not being reduced, and frighteningly dear, because it was perfect, for one thing, and because I managed to convince myself I had absolutely nothing else to wear, for another. Perfect for a sophisticated but romantic weekend, I thought. The shoes are also an emergency last-minute purchase, understated, practically flatties, which is rare for me, but then I wanted to ooze elegance, not look too predatory. Hold-up stockings, too, in one of the least aggressive patterns I've ever worn. Skirt full, just past the knee, very conservative for me, but very chic nonetheless, in a dark nondescript blue-black motif, which perfectly set off the blouse I wore with the classic and very flattering suit-top. Oh yes, the blouse and suit-top. No idea where they ended up. My unwonted elegance didn't seem to last long. As soon as we got in the door I was told to strip to the waist. I did put up a token resistance, credit me at least with that.

'Pity,' said Richard, climbing back into his raincoat. 'Such a long drive for nothing. Hey-ho, back to the big city then...'

And I was already tearing off my clothes, assuring him I wouldn't disobey again, pleading, practically begging him to let us stay.

'Very well. Last chance, though. I'm serious. One more peep out of you and it's London here we come. Now then. Stand here please. Hands on head, if you don't mind, and for God's sake shut up.'

* * *

So here I am. Shut up. Hands on head. Nude, or rather 'nood', to the waist. Apart from my best necklace, the antique silver one with the inset rubies ('matches your eyes', said Brian when I bought it), and of course my hair-grips. Well I always put my hair up when I want to appear sophisticated, don't you? Also gives you more opportunity to smother your neck in the most expensive and hopefully alluring perfume you've got. Although I fear I may just have overdone it a trifle today. At least my underarms are thoroughly shaved and deodorised, which is good news for me, if for no-one else, because when your hands are clasped tightly at the top of your head, your armpits start to play quite a central role in your perception of the world.

Thank God it's not cold, with the fire blazing merrily in the grate. Although you'd think it was minus ten if you saw my nipples. They're 'standing out like wheel-nuts' (one of Brian's less felicitous similes). They always do when I'm excited. And I'm perspiring gently. I'm desperately aroused. Curious, no, agog to know what'll happen next. Confused as to how I got here. I mean, how I let this happen. Let what happen? Well, this. Me standing here like a dumb statue. Me, the picture of obedience and submission. Submission! Christ, I only have to think the word and my knickers are sopping again. That's what it is, though, submission (tingle factor goes through the roof again), and I'm loving it. If I could wish for anything, it might be a cup of tea... no it wouldn't. I'm lying. It would be to stand here forever, if it will please Richard. To obey my instructions. To follow him wherever he may lead. To be the unthinking instrument of his will, whatever that may be.

Sssh... he's back.

'Here we are, Jackie. Sorry to have left you. I was just organising things so we can have a bite to eat later. Now, I have something to show you.'

From behind his back he brings out a belt, no it's not a belt, it's thicker and shorter than a belt, it's a strip of leather about eighteen inches long and three inches wide, split into two parallel ends. My God, it's a strap, designed with only one purpose in mind. A shiver runs right through me. I thought that only happened in books, but no, a shiver really does run right through me, an involuntary ripple of my whole body. Does my face betray horror, or eager, lustful anticipation? I'm feeling both, in about equal measure.

'It's called a tawse. It's for... well you know what it's for, don't you. I'm going to beat you with it. That's what you want, isn't it? It's what you've always wanted. Tell me, have you ever been beaten before?'

Dumbly, because I couldn't possibly speak, even if I hadn't been told not to, I shake my head.

'Then you're even more of a fool than I thought. You're a romantic fool, and I love and admire you for it. It hurts, you know, probably more than you can imagine. Though God alone knows what you've imagined, in that mixed-up mind of yours. Where did you get the idea from? Books, I suppose. Stupid stories.'

I nod.

'Yes. Well, it's even worse than they say it is. But better too, at the same time. It's one of the great unsolved mysteries. A strange paradox. But if you're sure it's what you want?'

What I want?! What I've dreamed of, feared, dreaded, but hoped for since before I can remember. My deepest secret, buried inside every erotic thought I ever had. Dumbly, I nod again.

'Good. It happens to be what I want, too. Now, skirt off, please.'

No sooner said than done.

'No, you can leave the stockings on. They won't get in the way. What an unusual design.'

And before I know it, he's got me kneeling on the long low wooden coffee table, nude except for stockings, shoes and knickers, knees apart, and I'm bending forward, arching my back, taking my weight on my hands which are buried to the wrist in the thick pile of the soft sheepskin rug in front of the fire. With a deft movement, he removes my glasses. Now I'm helpless, practically blind. I can barely see the rug, it's just an off-white blur.

There is the click of a disc entering the C.D. player. Music starts to throb through the room, wonderful mellow music, but dark and soul-searching underneath.

'This is Schubert. String Quintet in C,' he says. 'Greatest piece of all time. My favourite, anyway. I want you to love it too. It's in four movements. When they finish, we get down to the business in hand. Enjoy.'

Aware of nothing outside my own body, naked and vulnerable, alone as I am, the music seems to flood through me, the soft and ever-changing sonority of the strings penetrating the very depths of my being. It seems that I am part of some eternal moment, stretched out here, outside myself, strangely detached, yet scared and excited, more clearly inside my own feelings, my own skin, than ever before.

A shattering Adagio is followed by a searing Scherzo, and then a finale of such profound gentleness and yet sorrow, that it seems it will never end. And as the music progresses on its inexorable way, there is a rough warm hand gently easing down my knickers, baring my bum, gently but insistently stroking my exposed cheeks, while another handful of sensitive, sensitising fingers are kneading my freely swinging breasts, tweaking and flicking and pinching at my nipples, and then smoothing the downy hair of my belly. My whole body has become a conduit for his electric charge, his current, tense and relaxed, taut yet secure, breathing, existing in time with the marvellous music that flows through me. Suspended in time in the magical glow of the fire and the music. Until the fire and the music are one, conducted, like me, by the electrical charge of his magical fingertips. And suddenly, one long finger is probing the moist and willing channel of my most intimate honeypot, rubbing and chafing, teasing the secret treasure of my clitoris, using my own wetness and the atomic power of my love button to turn me on, on, on...

And as the music climaxes, so do I, strung out like a taut viola string under the expert bow of a virtuoso, gasping for breath, blood pounding in my ears, all the outside world blocked out as I indulge in the shattering luxury of orgasm.

It comes as desperate shock when the music suddenly stops. The silence is as deafening as the explosion of a thousand guns. He barely gives me a split second to wallow in my pleasure. The fabulous fingers depart, the cosmic warmth forsakes me, and I am alone, alone with myself, alone with my body, stretched out here in the silence for his pleasure, my buttocks arching upwards to meet his lash.

The lash!

The first stroke doesn't so much knock me for six as for six hundred and sixty six. It hurts! I never knew anything could be so intensely painful. My whole body starts to shake in an effort to dispel the searing agony of that first stroke. Suddenly, the perfect communion of that wonderful orgasm seems years ago. Suddenly, I am very alone, I am very hurt, and I am very frightened. Tears prick into the corner of my eyes, and trickle down my nose towards the sheepskin rug. I want to shout out 'Stop! This isn't what I wanted! This isn't what I imagined!' but my throat will make no sound other than a sort of involuntary gurgle. I am a snivelling wretch, and I feel ashamed, I feel stupid. I want to go home. I want my clothes. I want my Mum. Stop now, before you damage me beyond repair, both physically and mentally. No, don't stop, I don't want you to stop. I don't know what I want. I don't know anything.

Even if Richard were privy to the turmoil of my innermost thoughts, which he may very well be, wouldn't surprise me if he was psychic, he shows no intention of stopping. Stroke upon relentless stroke thuds into my poor quivering rump, my poor defenceless bottom must be glowing hotter than the fire by now, but stroke after stroke lands, one after the other, and I find that although my knees won't stop sliding about on the table, and my elbows soon give up supporting me, so that I end up with my torso sprawled inelegantly into the rug, hands cradling my head, and although I can't seem to stop myself from crying, quietly on the whole, but often out loud at some particularly outrageous assault with the tawse, my buttocks seem to be getting better at absorbing the awful searing pain, and my whole body seems to relax, well, not relax, exactly, but accept, yes that's the word, to accept what is happening to it, and after all there is a kind of rhythm to it, in some ways it's like a different sort of music, more personal, more intimate, more violent, for sure, but wonderful in its own way, yes this is a new rhythm, a new music, this is a wonderful song and I'm learning to sing it, to breathe with it, to flow with the music, to dance and sing along with the singing and dancing tawse, and my dancing bottom is now dancing in time with the dancing lash, rising to meet it, and relishing each stroke, and the fire is now within me, I am on fire, I am the fire, I am the fire, and the fire and the music are becoming one again...


And the tawse rises and falls, and I squirm and dance the age-old dance, and cry, and snivel, but I begin to love it. Yes, I know you'll say I'm mad, but I really do start to love the feeling, this wonderful, dancing, fire and music feeling. And the fire and the music become so intense, so searing, so wonderful the pain and the fire and the tawse and the dance, that I think I can bear it no longer, and I start to make a low growling sound in my throat, and I am lifting my head, and arching my back even further, and straining against every lash of the strap, willing it to end, yet not to end, pushing myself to endure to the last stroke, taut and perfectly in tune again, like a live string beneath a dancing bow, an instrument of ecstasy.

* * *

And the tawse is thrown aside, and the onslaught has ceased, and my eyes are wet with my tears, but bright with my pride, bright with the fear that I have conquered, with the freedom I have won... and the fingers are back, more urgent than ever, and Richard's strong hands are easing me down onto the rug, and simultaneously rubbing my boiling bottom, and tearing off his own clothes, and he is naked beside me, stroking me, holding me, kissing me, caressing me. And now he is entering me. It is time for the last movement, Allegro Apassionata, and now we are in perfect synch, perfect harmony, his every thrust is mirrored by my taut and urgent need for him.

If I had known, would I have gone to that dinner party?

Jesus, what a bloody stupid question.

Girl In The Frame

Story from Janus 94.

Girl In The Frame
by John Undermeyer

I WONDER if you know the magazine Artlife? It's a monthly effort, mostly about painting and sculpture and often reviews exhibitions at London's private art galleries. I'm the editor and not long ago I was looking rather urgently for a piece to lead my next issue.

As editor I frequently receive calls from gallery owners, so I was not surprised to hear from Fiona-Jane McCullum. Fiona is a Scot d'un certain age who owns a well-known gallery in the vicinity of Berkeley Square. She is careful about the work she shows, so when she rings I pay attention to what she says and usually attend her previews.

This time the invitation was especially intriguing. She was showing work from a school led by her elder brother. You will understand that by school I do not mean a place of education. I mean, rather, a group of artists who have joined together, in this case in one place, because they share a similar outlook and philosophy. They are conducting — as they like to put it — a search for some artistic truth.

'So you want to introduce me to the McCullum School?' I chuckled down the phone.

Fiona explained that her brother was the head of a group of young artists who lived in a large house in Cornwall. I would subsequently discover that Douglas McCullum was a middle-aged man, very well-built, with a huge head of hair, a full-set beard, rosy face, black cheery eyes and a disposition for good claret. He was rarely out of his smock which was besmeared with paint from his brushes, palette and hands. His companions were a group of young men and women who were experimenting with certain painting techniques. Every summer they spent a fortnight in London exhibiting their work and naturally they used Fiona's gallery.

'The preview is next Monday and I believe you ought to be there...' Fiona told me.

'All very well,' I said, relieved at the prospect of hopefully being able to fill a looming hole in my next issue. 'I've certainly had some good copy and pictures from your past exhibitions. But I must say...' I paused because I had to put this delicately, '...the McCullum school is not one I am familiar with. And — as you know — I'm not one who enjoys strange or outlandish experiments in oils...'

'No more am I!' Was Fiona's tart riposte. Then, more pleasantly: 'You'll see some very good work, I promise. It's impossible to describe it on the telephone, but it's stimulating work. I'll say no more now... just come. OK?'

The phone went down. I knew Fiona never hung rubbish so I went along, although I had not the least idea what to expect.

The viewing had a most unusual effect on me which I shall describe as best I can. Fiona met me at the reception table with a grateful smile, a slim catalogue and a glass of well-chilled champagne. After the usual kisses and how-are-yous she said, 'Take your time. Enjoy what you see; you may even give your readers a surprise or two in next month's issue. But don't leave without speaking to me again.'

She urged this last sentence on me in a way that convinced me that I would be missing something if I slipped away without saying goodbye. But I was not ready for what I finally saw.

You will know, if you know Artlife, that most small galleries in Mayfair, Chelsea and Soho rarely show work that depicts the human form in all its natural realism. Blobs, anomalous patches, large indecipherable shapes and other oddities often litter the walls. But far from distorting and rearranging its figures, this school depicted them with skill, grace and beauty. I began to be impressed. I was looking at really gifted life-drawing and painting and there was an overall feeling of passion about the work. It evoked incense and could have been thought of — in a certain sense — as worshipful.

Most of the paintings were of young women, or young couples. There were a few landscapes; one in particular caught my eye. It was a huge house, perched about 500 yards from the edge of a sheer cliff, the walls of which plunged some 500 feet into what I later learned was the Atlantic. I was to discover many strange facts about this house, not the least of which that it had been built 'back to front'. You approached it through a long drive of close-planted pine trees only to be confronted by the rear. The front aspect gazed (as in this picture) out over the sea.

The paintings were accomplished in a palate that moved from pale greys to indigo, via all the shades of blue. The predominant colour was that of incense smoke when burned from a stick. The figures (as I say, mostly girls) were willowy and mysterious. There were sprites, wood-nymphs, huntresses, dancers, tall, slim, arms and legs stretched to fine points, bodies poised to throw a javelin, reach for a plant, catch a bird in flight or pull a star out of heaven. There were girls in pirouette holding a wand or torch or standing on tip-toe preparing to dive into a lake. Mostly they had bird-like necks from which bent pale, bashful heads sprayed about with long shanks of flowing hair.

All the images were naked. Breasts were the shape of saucers or shallow wine bowls, arms and legs were taut and trim, waists dissolved into a boyish narrowness and tummies were hard and flat. The beautiful slender legs had (so it seemed to me) been elongated slightly and melded into feminine thighs then into firm, tight buttocks. And here was the strange part. The buttocks appeared to be sucked in at the cleft, their muscles clenched tight, utterly closed — indeed squeezed together almost vehemently. The cheeks were like two parts of a glass marble which had been split, melted, then when molten, pressed together again. Strength, fitness, vitality and vibrant youth were all present but so also was pain. You may feel it strange for me to say that these fairy figures conveyed vibrant pain. I too found the sensation rare. I can only assure you that after long and careful appraisal I became convinced it was so.

You are, I am sure, familiar with Rodin's The Kiss. A similar erotic rapture suffused virtually all the paintings from this strange school. Young women lay naked, their heads in the laps of young men, their sinuous arms wrapped adoringly around the legs of their seated masters. Figures twined sensuously with a quality which reminded me of the old love-carvings in the Tantric temples of India. Some poises carried the hint of yoga. There were echoes of Degas's ballet girls, though without their pumps and tutus. There was certainly the discipline and spirit of the ballet exercise class. One naked girl was poised high on a tightrope, a paper umbrella in her hand. Another danced on a high wooden bar. All the work left me — and I will confess it unashamedly — with a feeling of spirited, singing sexuality.


I began to wonder how much of this exhibition I dared illustrate in Artlife for many of my readers are fastidious and all believe in art with the utmost good taste. This work was tasteful enough but it was also seductive. The beautiful people in these scenes were sexual beings. Men had the faces of Creek gods. The girls possessed an allure, a startling preternaturalness unsullied by the trendy hairstyles and knowing glances of big-city life. Their faces were open and smiling, their eyes innocent and happy, their poses inviting inspection and admiration. At first I was impressed; then, falling more and more under their influence, beguiled; finally, although I would never admit it in my own publication, I was aroused.

One canvas, showing a young woman reaching to pluck an apple from a high branch, her body stretched so that every curve and crevice could be seen in its ultimate definition, reminded me of Enobarbus's description of Cleopatra: 'She makes hungry where most she satisfies.'

When I found Fiona again I was ravenous to know more about the McCullum school of art. The gallery-owner looked at me teasingly over the top of her half-rim spectacles. When I raised an eyebrow to encourage her to explain, she broke into a taunting grin and drew her tongue along her teeth as if to say 'Think what you'd have missed if you hadn't come'.

'You'd have to be nerveless not to catch the scent,' was what she actually said. 'Evocative, isn't it? I'm glad my brother has been willing to put his more successful efforts on show.'

We were walking towards the back of the gallery where a roped-off staircase led to the floor above. On the scarlet cord across the first step hung a notice: PRIVATE. Viewing only when accompanied by a representative of the gallery.

'Since you are clearly enjoying yourself I think perhaps I can take you upstairs. There is a second exhibition which I show only to those I am sure will genuinely appreciate it.' It was clear as she re-clipped the red rope behind us that I was to be shown something the general visitor would never see. When we reached the upper gallery it was poorly lit but Fiona turned up a series of dimmer-wheels to full brightness and I caught my first inkling of why this room was for trusted patrons only.

The canvases were much larger than those below and the figures on them fully lifesize. These pictures could most certainly not under any circumstances be reproduced in Artlife, although no doubt the majority of my subscribers would have been fascinated.

The first showed a giant room which might once have been the dining hall of a stately home but was now quite unfurnished, with whitewashed walls, uncurtained windows and uncarpeted floor. The windows gazed towards that familiar clifftop, then out into the sea. Two figures formed the centrepiece. One was a girl in her twenties, fully naked and bent like a hairpin. She was high on the points of her toes. Her legs, shut so tightly they seemed to form a single stem, streamed upwards in a smoothly curving line taking in her calves and thighs. At the top of her legs, pushed proudly in the air, was the most perfect bottom. It stuck upwards almost defiantly, tight, round, tantalising in its invitation, smooth, curvaceous and beseeching attention.

This gorgeous dome of dimpled flesh swelled outwards then curved into a complete 'U' turn, stretching downwards now, the outline of the totally bent spine melding into long slender arms which flowed sleekly towards hands and fingers that strained to her toes. The longest finger of either hand just touched the tips of her tilted feet. It was the 'bend-and-touch-your-toes' position par excellence.

By this time Fiona had left me alone and was signing some papers at a large desk at the end of the room. I had not noticed her going, so closely was I studying the picture. The girl's head was tucked hard into her knees. Her inverted breasts pressed firmly against the front of her thighs. Her long, smoky hair fell across part of her face, touched the floor and spread outwards from her feet like spilled wine.

Toes and fingers were stretched to the limit. I peered to study what could be seen of her features. She was serenely pretty; her eyes, painted sapphire, were wide open and sparkling, her small mouth pouting in what could have been — in a different kind of picture — a softly blown kiss.

The second figure was a young man of about the same age as the delightful girl. He was dressed as if for the ballet, but planted firmly on the soles of both feet. He wore a haughty, imperious look, and his head was held straight and stiff as he stood to one side of the tip-toed enchantress looking at her with a mixture of mastery and worship. One hand was fully outstretched and then I noticed a third hand entering the picture from the side of the canvas. This hand was passing our ballet dancer a crook-handled cane.

You may legitimately ask if there were weals on the bottom of this upturned girl and I must report there were not. But studying the face of the dancer, and the eagerness with which his fingers stretched to reach for that whippy, offered wand, I could not doubt that had this picture represented the same scene but thirty seconds into the future, there would most certainly have been four, perhaps five, finely-ridged tramlines on that unblemished skin.


I moved to the next large frame which was a portrait picture showing head, shoulders and part of the upper torso, trimmed just below the breasts. It was a girl, and as I looked I saw that she was the same maiden who stood bent doubled over on the previous canvas.

Light caught the top of her head and the long silky hair which was strewn in glory all about the sides of her sweet face, framing the high-boned cheeks, covering completely both her ears, falling in wanton abandon across part of one eye, then down over both shoulders. Most of her hair vanished behind her back, but another lock led the viewer's eye to the most delicate, up-tipped and brazenly erect nipple.

This, I realised, was the painting of the same girl, some five or ten minutes after the ballet dancer had accomplished his task. I was looking at a portrait of sorrow and grief, of misery and distress, of shame and self-pity, of irredeemable remorse and very vibrant pain.

Down each youthful, downy cheek there still trickled a wet channel of tears. The eyes had clearly been streaming only minutes before but now they shed their brine slowly and irregularly as a melting icicle drips in a bleak and wintry sun. Yes, this was the winter of her discontent. A storm had burst between the moments depicted in the last canvas and this. In the unshown interval the cane had been utilised and laid aside, and the girl allowed to rise and stand upright.

The artist had captured the baleful and humbled look in her almost shuttered eyes. He had not missed the way her tears had glued together her erstwhile separated eyelashes. A bulging pearl of brine was balanced on the lower rim of one eye whilst her other gazed wistfully, having just blinked away — or so it seemed — the droplet that was now coursing towards one side of her pert and pretty nose.

Her nostrils, I noticed, shone at their openings with glittering albumen and I asked myself whether it was right to show a perfect portrait with a runny nose. Yes, I counselled my critical mind. When a woman weeps as copiously as this there can be no doubt that the nose must shed its liquid too: this was only a post-punishment truth. The painter had conveyed this passion so eloquently that in my transport I was moved to feel for my kerchief, so that the penitent might wipe away the offending evidence of distress. Even had her face been dry, one could still clearly have seen the girl's preoccupation with sensations that possessed her whole consciousness.

Those lips, which (as I told you) in the last picture might have suggested a softly blown kiss, were now turned down bitterly at both comers. They parted slightly in the centre and I could tell, so acutely was the scene depicted, that the girl was breathing through her mouth. No doubt the nostrils were partly unable to take the air. Tears had run across her mouth and left a shimmering and wanton track of dampness on both lips. There were even one or two now hanging perilously on her heart-shaped chin, just waiting for the next heave of her breath to shake them on to those glowing breasts or into her dishevelled and dampened hair.

My mind went back to the pictures I had seen downstairs. I remembered how I had been convinced that the buttocks of so many figures had been clamped fiercely tight. How the cheeks of so many bottoms had been held so hard, tension shrieking in each half of the glass marble. Here was the explanation. Expectation. Expectation of corrective pain. Immediate expectation of the bite of the cane. Fear of that searing bamboo sting.

I retraced my steps a few paces to look at the first picture again. Here was the impish mistress, bent double and stretched tight, on the point of receiving her punishment. I hurried to the second canvas. Here was the penitent after the deed had been done. I could only surmise how many strokes of that proffered wand it had taken to reduce the girl to the tearful state in the portrait. But I could not doubt that the cane had been laid on with a will. I looked once more at the downcast eyes which seeped soft salty water.

I lowered my gaze to the breasts, one of which was partly covered by her hair, the other quite naked. They were so beautifully firm, I thought it unlikely they needed support from even the daintiest bra, and I imagined how adorable those breasts would be to caress. How telling, too, that the secret caning of that peach of a naked bottom had brought both nipples to a state of rigid wakefulness. Surely, even when she made love her nipples could not attain that length and hardness. And they had been painted with such realism that I was almost tempted to lick the canvas and make a complete fool of myself.

Both of these adorable mounds showed traces of how the young lady had wept, for there were glittering beads on her breasts and their tracks ran down from her eyes, across her cheeks, to pause at the chin then topple over and bedeck her upper body. The streaks showed how they had fallen. Yet there was the purest and most moving poetry in the face from which tears were still slipping. Not a trace of resentment could be seen on it. There could be no doubt, I concluded, that the ballet dancer had mastered the skills of whippy rattan and given this forlorn young upstart such a sizzling bottom that simple words could not express all the nuances of her feelings.

I was on the point of moving to the next canvas when I heard the sound of people mounting the stairs. These, too, must be special guests, I thought, for Fiona had stressed that only a chosen few were invited to this first floor, and could even then only come if accompanied by a member of the gallery staff. But no member of staff was present. Instead there was a giant, rust-bearded merry-eyed Father Christmas of a man, and beside him a slim, long-haired and very attractive young woman.

Fiona-Jane was on her feet and hurrying forward to greet the newcomers. 'Douglas!' she whooped. 'How good to see you. And you too, Clarissa.' She flung her arms round the bearded man's neck and dotted him with kisses. Then she drew back and shook hands with the girl. 'I wasn't expecting you till next week. You said you couldn't come to the preview.'

The big man was clearly Douglas McCullum, head of the school whose paintings had so captivated me. But it was Clarissa I was studying. Surely I knew this girl? The face was so familiar; the sapphire eyes, the flowing locks of hair, the mouth that pouted slightly as though she were blowing a kiss. I looked at the portrait of the weeping woman again. Of course. They were one and the same. It was Clarissa who had touched her toes, been caned, and was painted again with the unfakeable proof of her tears.

She walked towards me with a delicate outstretched hand and a truly lovely smile. 'How do you do?' she asked. And without waiting for my reply (which may have taken a few seconds, I was so surprised at this meeting) she went on, 'I see you have been studying me on canvas. Don't I make a wretched spectacle?' With a most affecting little giggle.

'You must have been hurting terribly...' I began in an attempt to show sympathy but she brushed my embarrassment and condolences aside. 'Yes, my bottom was burning, and I did cry hard as you can see. But isn't the finished result a superb painting? It was my friend Dominic who painted it. We had the canvas and everything else ready. Then Dominic gave me the cane and we hurried on to get the results into paint. What do you think?'


Her voice was girlish and cultured, and her face was so cheerful, and she was obviously so pleased that Dominic had captured her tears and shame, that I simply could feel anything but pure wonder. 'I tell you what I think. I think this work is so good I am going to buy the picture.'

Weeping Clarissa now has pride of place on my living-room wall. Whenever I look at her the frisson starts inside me and images of her under the cane run riot through my mind. She would not stay silent, I am sure of that, for her expressive nature would not allow her to suppress her cries and gasps. Nor, I feel, would she wish to deny her witness the delicious satisfaction of seeing her full response to discipline. I gaze at her watery eyes, her downturned lids, her tear-streaked face and naughty, uptilted, elongated nipples and remember her smile when we met. And there is another chapter to her story.

Douglas McCullum has invited me to the big house in Cornwall, overlooking the cliffs which plunge into the Atlantic. As editor of Artlife I am potentially his most influential advocate. I am to be allowed full freedom of the house and to watch the artists at work in their various studios. Clarissa is to be painted again, this time by another artist. I have commissioned the picture especially. The subject? The same as before, of course, because I cannot see too much of this beautiful girl.

Douglas has made me a promise which I look forward to in great anticipation. Clarissa will be painted with the tears once more coursing down her cheeks. And I will be allowed to watch. Not just while the portrait is being done. But during her trial and preparation when she is to be awarded a full dozen strokes of the cane.