Burton Manor

Story from Janus 18.

Burton Manor
by R.T. Mason

Is Burton Manor a pipe-dream? Or a look into the future? Or does it perhaps exist now – tucked anonymously away in some remote corner of the country and quietly going about its business behind those impressive iron gates? Well, can anyone say – for sure?

* * *

THE SLEEK BLACK CAR comes to a halt, its way barred by the heavy ornate iron gates marking the end of this quiet tree-shrouded private road which a mile back turned off from the minor country road. The chauffeur gets out and goes to unlock the gates. Inside the car the lone passenger, a pretty young woman, looks out and sees on the left hand brick pillar of the gates a small unobtrusive sign: 'Burton Manor Training Institute. Strictly No Admittance.'

The gates are unlocked and opened; the chauffeur drives through, locks them after him, then continues along what is now a gravel drive closely enclosed by thick high shrubs: laurels, rhododendrons. The drive winds its way for perhaps a quarter of a mile and then abruptly opens out into the bright sunlight of this warm July afternoon. The car's passenger looks out with keen interest... and apprehension. In the open clearing standing silent in the sun is a large Victorian mansion, its windows staring blankly. It is Burton Manor.

For the car's passenger it is of course seen for the first time. Because one stay at Burton Manor is reckoned to be quite enough for any young woman. Enough, that is, to put her properly back on the straight and narrow path. And the shortcomings, the failings, whatever they may have been, which have resulted in her coming here, will then be very much things of the past.

This particular young woman? Her name is Jane Randall, a young married lady of 24 with an attractive figure, whose short blonde hair frames a pretty face: big grey eyes, pert nose, full-lipped mouth. And could this last feature be a clue to her presence here – a sign of possible sensual weakness, a propensity to say Yes when a married lady should say No? It is of course easy to see signs when one knows. Because Jane is here for the reason which most commonly brings young wives to Burton Manor. The indulgence in a little casual adultery.

It was a month ago that she was unfortunately found out. At a party when husband Bob inopportunely went into one of the bedrooms looking for his coat and discovered Jane being enthusiastically pleasured by another of the guests. Back at home there was the usual scene of marital aggro, during which a tearful Jane admitted having additionally done it a couple of times before with this character; and for good measure had also been serviced a few times by two others in the last two months as well.

Bob, after hitting the roof – not to mention sweeping to the floor, and tramping on, all the trinkets and knick-knacks on the top of Jane's dressing table – spoke angrily of divorce. Finally when the heat had dissipated somewhat they agreed to see a Marriage Counsellor. He interviewed them together, then saw Bob alone. 'She's got a certain weakness here but a short sharp shock can usually work wonders. A short stay at a Training Institute and she would come back with no desire at all for that kind of thing. If you're interested I could probably fit her in at Burton Manor....'

Bob, on further being told that Jane would not enjoy it one little bit, agreed. And Jane agreed when Bob informed her it was either that or he was going ahead with divorce proceedings.

And so the arrangements were made. Jane told her friends she was going on a Health and Beauty Farm for three weeks. And No she couldn't be visited there. Then the rather awkward farewell to Bob at the station; the train journey; and being collected by that sleek black car at that remote station. The drive, deep into the countryside, and finally... here she undoubtedly is.

* * *

The chauffeur parks the car and tells Jane she will be taken to sec the Principal. Shall we then, like a fly on the wall, follow her? Yes?

He rings the bell at the side of the large front door which almost immediately is opened by a man wearing a white jacket rather like a hospital doctor's. The chauffeur says, 'Mrs Randall', the other man says, 'Right: this way.' Jane enters – and the first thing she sees is a completely nude woman.

A pretty young woman in her early twenties with short curling auburn hair, standing pushing a vacuum cleaner over the white hall carpet... in the nude. Or at least that is what it first looks like to Jane. Then she sees that the girl is actually wearing a skin-tight transparent one-piece trouser-suit, buttoning up the front and quite obviously with nothing underneath. Her large pink nipples are effectively bare and so is the thick reddish-brown bush lower down. On her feet she has soft white slippers.

Jane can only blink. The girl glances up at her, then quickly down again and continues with her work. The man with Jane simply ignores the girl vacuuming and leads Jane along the hall and round the corner. Where just ahead of them, walking in the same direction as Jane and her companion, are two more women with another white-jacketed attendant. The two women are dressed exactly as the other girl. Tight transparent trouser-suits which Jane now has a rear view of: the full checks of their two bottoms jouncing rhythmically in the skin-tight transparent material as they walk briskly along.

Jane suddenly feels her skin tingling. Because across each bottom she can clearly see a series of parallel red stripes: quite evidently the marks of recent canings.

Halfway along the corridor there is a flight of stairs. The two girls and the man with them continue along, but Jane and her guide go up the stairs to the first floor. There, a little way off the landing, he opens a door for her and they go in. A large high-ceilinged room with a number of leather armchairs and a couple of coffee tables on a wide expanse of thick white carpet. The room is empty.

The man tells Jane to sit down and that the Principal will call her shortly. He goes out, closing the door. Then she sees to one side two doors with signs: Secretary and Principal. She must be in the waiting room.

Her head still in a bit of a daze, she goes to look out of one of the large windows... and very rapidly has another shock. Immediately outside is some sort of kitchen garden, with vegetables and fruit, and there are two young women working in it. The two are not dressed like the girls she has seen in the house; instead they are wearing sleeveless tee-tops (one of them is dark red and the other pink), knee-length white socks and tennis shoes. And that seems to be all – they are both bare-bottomed. On closer scrutiny that isn't quite all: they are certainly bare-bottomed but each is wearing a brief thong between her legs. They are matching colours: a red thong with the red tee-top, a pink one with the pink top.

And then, as Jane watches, a man approaches. Another of those white-coated men – but this one has a cane in his hand. He goes up to one of the women, says something and refers to a notebook which he has taken out of his pocket. The woman is obviously unhappy and shakes her head... but then goes with him over to a garden seat. And bends herself over the arm of the seat, presenting her bare bottom.

It is obvious what is going to happen now, and it does. The man proceeds to cane that full inviting rump, bringing the cane smartly down across the fullest part of those two ripe-looking cheeks.

He has given her four, and Jane is standing watching, transfixed, when behind her she hears her name being called. Startled, she turns round to see the door labelled Secretary open and a pleasant-faced middle-aged lady standing there. She at least is dressed in a conventional – even old-fashioned – manner, in a grey skirt and jumper.

'The Principal will see you now, Mrs Randall,' she says.

He is seated behind his desk and Jane's first thought is, at least he's not wearing one of those doctor's coats: he has on a tweed jacket and tie. A middle-aged thin-lipped man with hard alert eyes behind gold-rimmed spectacles. Eyes which seem to look right into Jane.

He gets up, takes her hand in a firm dry grip.

'Mrs Randall. Yes. Allow me to welcome you to Burton Manor. You are coming to us for a little training, of course. Well, I'm sure we can do something for you. We pride ourselves here on being able to deal with even the most intractable cases.'

He leads her over to the window. The view is the same as that from the room next door. The first girl has gone back to her weeding. The white-coated man is getting ready to cane the second girl.

'Yes, a lovely afternoon,' observes the Principal. 'As you can see a couple of our ladies are busy in the garden. And one would seem to be about to receive a little correction. Ah yes...'

As he and Jane watch, the cane rises, then lands with a Thwack! which can be clearly heard from where they are, inside the room. There is now a distinct red stripe across the woman's bare upthrust rump. The cane rises again....

The Principal walks Jane back to his desk. 'Busy bodies and regular correction, you see, Mrs Randall. Those are the two priorities here at Burton Manor. Yes, two essentials for an individual who has, shall we say, strayed from the straight and narrow path. Would you agree?'

Jane makes a non-committal, not very happy, response.

'Anyway, you will shortly be given all the details when you have your interview with Matron. She will also issue you with the two sets of regulation uniform: the one you saw those girls wearing which is for work outside; and the indoor uniform which you may have seen girls in the house wearing. Both outfits are designed to be deliberately revealing of the wearer's body, and thus emphasise to her the fact that she is completely in our hands and can hide nothing from the staff here.'

His hand comes round behind Jane and, through her summer dress, takes hold of one cheek of her backside. She gives an involuntary gasp as his fingers reach deep into the cleft of her bottom and the hand then tightens on the enclosed flesh like a mechanical vice.

'Yes, young lady. Healthful work and exercise and a judicial use of the cane: those are the main components of our system here. And I think I can guarantee that when we've finished with you you will be a docile dutiful young wife whose only thought will be her husband's well-being. Yes, I think I can guarantee that.'

The hand still holding Jane's bottom renews its pressure. She shudders... and is already deeply regretting those moments of casual, illicit, physical pleasure.

Matron, in her office along the corridor, turns out to be an impressive-looking woman in a white knee-length tunic. Fortyish, she is close to six foot tall and well-built – she could be a Russian champion javelin thrower or something, thinks Jane, and definitely not the sort of woman to get on the wrong side of. Her face is quite attractive but has a stern expression, accentuated by her hair being pulled back in a no-nonsense manner. She greets Jane with a brusque 'Mrs Randall?', looks briefly in her record book, and then tells her to take her clothes off.

Not happy but equally not about to argue with this lady, Jane starts unbuttoning her pretty pink-and-blue flowered print dress. It comes off and so also does the pink slip underneath. A questioning look answered by Matron's curt 'everything!' Shoes, knickers, bra, nylons and suspender belt, all follow. Jane stands nude, acutely conscious of the other woman's unblinking gaze on that choice form which, as we know, has been enjoyed by a number of men besides Jane's husband.

Matron proceeds to take Jane's measurements – with a tape, and hands which seem to go just everywhere. And then Jane is told to lie on the couch which is over to one side of the room. 'On your back. And raise your knees with your legs open.'

A scarlet-faced Jane, her eyes concentrating frantically on the ceiling, feels hands intimately between her legs, checking, probing...

Afterwards, still nude, still flushing, Jane stands at the side of Matron's desk. She is looking through her record book... then looks up at Jane. 'Well, Mrs Randall, according to my notes men seem to be your problem.'

Jane doesn't answer. Matron reaches out her hand and once more, as she has just done when Jane was on the examination couch, takes hold of her between her legs. 'Can't control this, is that the trouble?'

Red-faced and cringing, Jane can't think of any suitable answer.

'Really I don't know why some of you girls are so keen on them. Nasty aggressive creatures usually. Tell me, have you ever had a woman make love to you?'

Jane shakes her head, trembling and perspiring. Weakly she pushes the Matron's hand away. 'Please...'

Matron removes her hand and once more adopts a businesslike tone. 'Well, I can tell you that there will be no fun and games with men here. The only males you will find at Burton Manor, apart from the Principal, are the Attendants. And they all have strict instructions not to touch any of the women. Apart from with a cane, of course.'

Matron puts her record book away.

'Now, your uniform. Normally you wear the uniform trouser-suit indoors. However yours will not be available until the morning. It has to be a very exact tight fit and slight alterations always have to be made to the stock sizes. But there's no problem with the outdoor wear and you can wear that for the rest of today. In any case you will be having a session outside until supper time.'

Matron takes various items of clothing out of a cupboard: a number of sleeveless tee-shirts (in various plain colours: white, pink, dark red, pale blue); nylon thongs of the same colours as the tee-shirts; white knee socks. Also footwear – tennis shoes, white slippers, and black patent leather high heels. 'You wear these for inspections and at meal times,' she says.

There is also a transparent plastic raincoat and a plain brown tweed overcoat, for outdoors in bad weather. Matron tells Jane to try one of the tops on to check the size.

Jane, looking at the pile of clothes, stammers: 'Isn't... isn't there a bra?'

'A bra!' snaps Matron. 'Dear me, NO! You don't wear a bra at this Institute, young woman. Just the tee-shirt, if you please; and look sharp and get it on. Oh, and remember, you always wear a matching top and thong.'

Biting her lip, Jane pulls on a dark red tee-top which fits tightly over her full breasts, then slips on a matching red nylon thong which goes between her legs and between her buttocks, leaving the latter free for... well, she knows by now what they are left free for. She puts on a pair of white socks, then the tennis shoes.

'Good!' says Matron, looking her up and down. 'Very good. Now just one more thing before I call the Attendant to take you to your room. I'm going to give you your first caning: to get your training started.'

She takes a thin whippy cane from her cupboard. 'Just bend over the edge of the couch, please. Upper body and head flat on the couch. And legs nice and straight, with your bottom up. Yes, that's it. Now keep nice and still. You're going to get six.'

Matron might not in fact be a champion javelin thrower but she is certainly able to use that cane. Six times she brings it whistling down jolting force across the full meat of Jane's rear.

It is Jane's first caning at Burton Manor. In fact it is the first caning she has had anywhere. The pain when that cane lands squarely across her bare rump is absolutely diabolical. She yelps... and before long is unashamedly, uncontrollably, weeping. Matron nonetheless continues unhurriedly until she has finished.

When it is finally over she runs her hand reflectively over the weeping young woman's quivering bottom. Then rings for the Attendant.

* * *

Jane's room proves to be small and simply furnished: a single divan bed along one wall, a wash cabinet, a desk and chair. There are white curtains at the window, a white cover on the bed, and the floor has that same thick white carpet which seems to be everywhere.

'Any mark on it,' says the Attendant who has brought Jane here, indicating the carpet, 'and you pay for it.'

He gives a sardonic laugh and reaches out to squeeze Jane's bare bottom. 'You know what I mean, I'm sure.'

She squirms miserably away. Her bottom still stings dreadfully from those six cuts from Matron's cane. And she is also still ultra-conscious of the way she is dressed – just the tee-top with no bra and barely reaching to her waist, and the narrow thong between her legs. She may have been a bit promiscuous, but being virtually bare in front of this stranger in a punishment context is deeply shameful to her.

'No need to be unfriendly,' he says. 'Just warning you. If you're careful you can get away with no more than the scheduled corrections. But if you're not – well, you can easily finish up getting twice as many. And also find yourself being kept here for an extra period.'

Standing with her bare bottom facing away from him and her hands self-consciously down in front of her crotch, she asks, 'What now?'

'Outside. Work in the garden until supper time. And like I say, make sure you don't bring dirty shoes back in the house.'

In the garden she is given a trowel and gardening gloves and told to help another girl who is weeding the strawberry patch. When the Attendant has left the girl says, 'Hi! You're new, I suppose. I'm Cindy.'

She tells Jane what to do, then says they mustn't stay together as someone will be watching from the house. 'And we'll both be caned for too much chatting or malingering.'

They start working a few yards apart – just within talking range. Cindy, a pretty brunette of about 25, is not one of the girls Jane saw out of the window getting caned, for she is wearing a pale blue top and thong – but she also has been caned recently. She bears the distinct red marks of the bamboo across her full ripe bottom. She says she has only two days to go at Burton Manor. 'Unless I slip up and they add another day or two on. That's why I don't want to be caught talking.'

She says she's in 'for the usual'. 'Having a bit on the side and my husband found out, and someone told him about this place. Well, after three weeks here you won't catch me even looking at another man. Three weeks of being caned morning, noon, and bloody night!'

'How... how often do we get it?' Jane gulps.

'Haven't you got your schedule yet? They'll probably give you it this evening. Well, it can vary. What are you here for? Adultery?'

Quietly, Jane says, 'Yes.'

'Well, the usual is four times a day for that. Four sessions of six strokes each time. They view it as the most extreme transgression of our marital responsibilities. That's the basic but they can give you extra ones for almost anything they can think of.'

They continue weeding. After half an hour an Attendant comes along. Not the one who brought Jane out here – he was youngish, whereas this one is in his fifties. Ominously, he has a cane in his hand. He checks a notebook, then asks Cindy if she is down for any extra correction. She says, 'No Sir,' while continuing her weeding.

He turns his attention to Jane who has stopped work on his arrival. He asks who she is. 'New, eh? Well, you won't be on the list for any extra, but that's no reason why you can't have any. I've been watching you and there's been more looking around and dreaming than work. Look, you've stopped now!'

Jane protests but it doesn't do her any good. She is made to go over to a nearby garden seat. And made to bend over its wooden arm just like those two girls she watched out of the window. She emits a desperate yelp as the cane cracks down across the fullest part of her bare bottom. Three more anguished yelps denote the fact that she is given a total of four strokes before she is sent back to her work.

When the Attendant has gone Cindy says, 'That rotten bastard! But that's the sort of thing that happens all the time. You gave him an excuse, though, by stopping work when he came. I'm sorry, I should have warned you.'

They work for another hour and then it is time to go in and get ready for supper. Cindy has to change into the indoor outfit – the transparent trouser-suit. Jane, who doesn't have hers yet, will have to wear what she has on. They both carefully clean their shoes before going back in the house.

In the dining room Jane and seven other women inmates sit at one table. All except Jane are wearing their skin-tight, transparent trouser-suits and Jane notices that they are also now all wearing those black stiletto heels and not slippers. At another table there are eight Attendants seated.

At the end of the room there is a third, smaller, table also laid for a meal; and after the girls and the Attendants are seated the Principal and Matron come in and go to this. Their entrance is the cue for all the girls to stand, and at the same time the two girls at the end of the table go out and return with food on a hostess trolley.

'We all have to take turns serving,' Cindy whispers to Jane.

While the other girls remain standing the two with the trolley serve first the Principal and Matron, then the Attendants. Finally they go to the girls' table which is the cue for them to finally sit down. Afterwards the two serving girls have their meal.

After supper there are household chores – cleaning and tidying for an hour. Then an exercise session in the gym under the direction of Matron and two Attendants. All eight girls, wearing only thongs, are put through a schedule of running, vaulting, and general gymnastics which very soon has them all sweating and panting. Jane especially, doing it for the first time, finds it difficult to keep up but she and any other defaulters are kept firmly up to the mark with a sharp cut of the cane from one or other of the Attendants. Finally, exhausted, they are allowed to stop. A shower, and then it is time for bed.

The day is not quite over yet, though. Jane, in her room, is just about to pull back the bed cover when the door opens. It is an Attendant carrying in one hand a cup... and in the other a cane. It is a supper drink and it is also Jane's late night caning session. She has been given her correction schedule by Matron earlier, after gym, and as Cindy guessed it is to be four times a day: morning, after lunch, tea time, and late night. And the Attendant has come to give Jane the first of the late night ones.

Feeling close to tears again she does as he says: lies over the edge of the bed with her legs stretched out. The cane on her bottom is excruciating and well before the sixth and last has been delivered she is not just close to tears: tears are there, in abundance.

In bed and the relief of sinking into oblivion. But seemingly in no time at all the alarm is ringing. It is 6am. And ten minutes later an Attendant comes in to check that she is out of bed.

An early morning exercise session; a shower; then back to her room where her trouser-suit is now waiting. She puts it on (it is a skin-tight fit) with the 'help' of an Attendant; then the stiletto heels. Then breakfast. Followed by early morning inspection...

All eight girls are taken to that room outside the Principal's office. One by one they are ushered in for a five minute session with him. Jane has to wait till last; then goes in and stands unhappily in front of him. 'Stand up straight and stick your boobs out,' Cindy has told her. 'If he thinks you're slouching he'll give you an extra caning there and then.' Jane does her best but is desperately conscious of the skin-tight transparent suit which she is wearing for the first time. In a few days she will be somewhat more used to it but now...

The Principal's eyes run up and down the choice form which the tight trouser-suit reveals... the pink jutting nipples... the brown bush down below and then the cleft. While all the time he delivers a homily on proper wifely behaviour, the sanctity of family, and self-discipline.

Finally: 'Are you learning from your stay here, Mrs Randall?'

Cindy has told Jane that he always says this and the safest answer is simply 'Yes Sir'.

So Jane says 'Yes Sir'. The Principal says 'Good. That will be all then.' She gets a sharp dismissive slap across her bottom...

Outside, in the large room, an Attendant is waiting to take her back to her quarters. To administer her morning caning. She is made to lie over the edge of her bed as she did last night. She now has her trouser-suit on but the thin skin-tight material gives no protection whatever as the six flesh-juddering strokes crack down across her rump. And then... and then...

But surely we have now seen enough of Burton Manor to accept that three weeks of its regime will bring any errant wife to heel. She will go back home submissive and dutiful, and concerned only to please her husband; in fact desperate to do anything for him just so long as she does not have to return to Burton Manor.

And so three weeks from now (if she has not had a day or two added for some shortcoming) the sleek black car will again emerge through those ornate iron gates. And Jane Randall will be conducted back to that remote railway station, and from there back to home and husband. There will be tears of relief that it is over, tears of happiness to be back, and tearful promises that she will never, ever, again....