Once Upon A Time

Story from Janus 39.

Once Upon A Time
by Gerald Sinclair

Long ago, in the days of legend and magic, there was a King who had three beautiful daughters. Crystal was the eldest at 21, then came Miranda who was 18, and finally 16-year-old Lisette.

*   *   *

King Fedor's realm was a happy place on the whole, but problems did arise from time to time. There came a day when a panting messenger fell to one knee before the King and gasped out, 'Sire, a ferocious dragon is ravaging the western provinces!'

'Damn it!' frowned the King, irritably thumping the arm of his throne. 'They'll probably want a reduction of taxes as they did after the Ogre Invasion three years ago. The dragon's going through the usual routine, I take it?'

'Yes, Sire,' said the messenger. 'Killing all the men it can catch, reducing the crops and cottages to ashes with its fiery breath, carrying off beautiful maidens to meet a fate so bizarre –'

'Yes, yes, you needn't go into that,' said the King, uneasily aware of Queen Marguerite's formidable presence at his side. 'What are the local people doing about it, though? There were supposed to be some good dragon-slaying teams in the west. Gramarye United were near the top of the first division last year.'

'Alas, great king,' said the messenger. 'Gramarye United went forth to do battle against the monster a week ago. All we could find of them afterwards was a couple of broken spears and a scorched jockstrap. This dragon is really something special.'

'It's the enchanted variety I suppose,' said Queen Marguerite, impatiently. 'Protected by magic spells, immune to ordinary weapons. You'll have to consult the Court Magician, Fedor. It's time he did something to earn his keep apart from performing dubious conjuring tricks at the men-at-arms' stag parties.'

'Just what I was thinking, my dear,' said the King. 'Someone go and tell Master Erasmus he's wanted immediately.'

Shortly afterwards Master Erasmus stood before them clad in his bright and gaudy official robes; a plump, curly-haired fellow with dimpled cheeks and shifty eyes. The problem was explained to him and he went through the motions of his craft. He consulted ancient cobwebbed volumes, peered into a crystal ball, read teacups and burned peculiar-smelling herbs.

'The answer is not altogether clear,' he said, 'but it seems that the dragon can only be overthrown by a brave knight who has a lady's handkerchief tied to his spear. The handkerchief must be stained with the tears of a royal princess who has been soundly whipped.'

'What?' It was a simultaneous shriek from the King's three lovely daughters.

Queen Marguerite turned to look at the quaking, blushing princesses. 'Fortunately,' she said with a grim smile, 'that can easily be arranged.'

She pointed to Crystal, a long-legged, delightfully curved young lady with big blue eyes and long, gleaming golden hair. 'As the eldest, Crystal, you always take precedence over your sisters. We will now go to your bedroom and –'

'Oh, but Mother!' blurted out Crystal in dismay. 'I don't want – I'd rather not – isn't there some other way?'

'Your bedroom, Crystal!' was the Queen's only response as she arose and took a firm grip on her reluctant daughter's wrist. She led Crystal through the astonished and amused courtiers, out of the Throne Room and up the stairs. By which time, Crystal's cheeks were crimson with embarrassment.

'You can't be serious, Mother!' protested Crystal as they entered her bedroom. 'I – I haven't done anything to be punished for.'

'That has nothing to do with it,' said the Queen, opening a drawer and producing a formidable three-tailed leather tawse. 'Being a member of a Royal family means one must sometimes make sacrifices for the good of the people. Bend over!'

Taking up an all-too-familiar position over the end of the bed, Crystal grumbled, 'That's all very well – but it's my bum that's going to be sacrificed!'

'Don't whine, Crystal,' said her mother, briskly turning up the princess' skirts waist-high to reveal very shapely legs clad in the sheerest silk, and charmingly dainty white lace-trimmed knickers. 'You haven't had a real leathering for nearly six months, so you're overdue for one anyway.'

She deftly drew the knickers down to the stocking tops, feeling a maternal satisfaction at the sight of Crystal's plump, bare, cream-skinned bottom. 'I'm afraid I've been neglecting you, Crystal,' she said, giving an affectionate pat to those tempting curves. 'I'll try to make up for that.'

She stepped back, raised the tawse and brought it down hard.

'Ow!' yelled Crystal, with a convulsive jerk, as she felt the agonising sting of tough leather across her sensitive buttocks.

The tawse swung down again. 'Ooooh!' And again. And again.

'The handkerchief!' wailed Crystal, squirming wildly as her tender bottom burned. 'Let me wipe my eyes and then you can stop!'

'Master Erasmus did say soundly whipped,' said her mother somewhat breathlessly. 'I think another six should do it.'

'Oh no, Mother, please!'

'Oh yes, Crystal!' said the Queen.

Whack! 'Aaahoww!'

Below, in the Throne Room, the courtiers waited in attentive silence. Although the bedroom was some distance away the sound of Crystal's tearful lamentations reached them quite distinctly. Cautious glances of satisfaction were exchanged between those who had often found the Princess over-haughty and inclined to insist on the dignity of her exalted rank. Much tingling excitement was felt all round at the sounds of the tawse striking her bottom.

Eventually the Queen reappeared, holding a handkerchief which was not merely stained but saturated with Crystal's heartfelt tears. She handed it to her husband.

'Give this to Sir Bevis,' she suggested. 'He's supposed to be rather good with dragons and I'm tired of having him hanging round the palace and seducing the serving wenches.'

After Sir Bevis had ridden off on his big white charger with the handkerchief tied to his lance the courtiers, with a slight sense of anti-climax, settled down to wait for news. Princess Crystal emerged from her bedroom, very red about the eyes and unusually subdued, and sent a smirking page to hunt out the plumpest, softest cushion in the palace.

The messenger, breathless and wild-eyed, arrived the following evening. 'Sir Bevis –' he gasped.

'Has slain the dragon?' beamed the King.

The messenger shook his head sadly and held out a helmet everyone recognised. It contained a few charred bones and a scorched fragment of a lace-trimmed handkerchief.

'I think,' said the Queen, 'that Master Erasmus has some explaining to do.'

'A slight miscalculation,' said the magician, unruffled, when he made his appearance. 'An oversight which I sincerely regret.'

'Not as sincerely as I do!' muttered Crystal, wriggling on her cushion.

'Further research,' said Master Erasmus, 'shows that the spell only works if the tears are shed by a virgin.'

There was a tense, awe-struck silence in the Throne Room. Crystal blushed vividly. So did a tall, handsome squire who could be seen furtively glancing round for the nearest exit.

'C-r-r-r-ystal!' said Queen Marguerite.

'But Mother – I – I –'

'Upstairs!'

Five minutes later the tall squire was on his way to the dungeons with an armed guard, while the courtiers were once more listening in fascinated silence to the sound of Crystal's howls and entreaties mingled with the steady thwack! thwack! thwack! of a leather tawse across a royal rump.

'I suppose it's lucky,' said the King next day, 'that we have two more princesses.'

Miranda and Lisette looked at each other in dismay. Lucky?

'Miranda,' said the Queen, ominously. 'I hope there's no doubt about –'

'Of course not!'

'In that case,' said the Queen, 'we'd better go to your bedroom.'

The slim, tawny-haired, soft-spoken Miranda was regarded as the intellectual one among the princesses. Since she had received much of her education across her mother's knee she knew better than to argue when she was ordered into that ignominious position. In a matter of moments her skirts were around her waist and her blue silk briefs were halfway down her thighs.

'Now, Miranda,' said the Queen, with a large ebony-backed hairbrush poised above her daughter's shapely seat. 'Tears are what we need, so let's make sure there are plenty.'

And indeed, Miranda's tears were soon flowing abundantly as that lovely young lady blubbered and pleaded and wriggled through the soundest spanking she had received for years. The scorching impact of hard wood on tender curves was no novelty to Miranda, but on this occasion she had the added misery of knowing she hadn't even done anything to deserve the stinging anguish in her scarlet, quivering behind.

'And who,' asked the Queen a little later, 'is the gallant knight who will ride out with Miranda's handkerchief to face the dragon?'

'I thought of Sir Godfrey,' said King Fedor. 'His remarkable luck at cards has been quite expensive to me lately. Let's see how lucky he is with dragons.'

Shortly afterwards, a very disgruntled Sir Godfrey, swearing under his breath and shedding extra aces from every chink in his armour, went forth to do battle.

The same weary messenger limped into court the following day.

'Well?' demanded the King. 'Did Sir Godfrey give the dragon the coup de grace?

'No,' said the man, glumly. 'But with any luck he may have given the dragon indigestion.'

Queen Marguerite's baleful glare settled upon Miranda. Miranda gulped.

'But Mother, there must be some mistake! I haven't –! I mean I am –! you mustn't think –!'

'Upstairs!' thundered the Queen.

Halfway through the exemplary spanking which followed, Master Erasmus appeared at the bedroom door.

'Your Majesty, stop! There has been an unfortunate error. I'll never trust a Hong Kong crystal ball again!'

'Eh?' said the Queen, hairbrush raised aloft.

'I'm sure Princess Miranda is a virgin,' said the magician. 'Regrettably, that isn't enough. To make the spell truly effective, the chastisement should have been carried out in public.'

Queen Marguerite pondered for a moment, thoughtfully considering the blazing crimson bottom of the innocent young beauty sobbing bitterly across her lap.

'Pity,' said the Queen. 'Still, I've started, so I'll finish.' She brought the brush down sharply to resume the interrupted spanking. Master Erasmus retreated down the corridor, his ears filled with Miranda's tearful entreaties mingled with the juicy splat! of hard wood landing of tender teenage buttocks.

'Now, Master Erasmus,' said the King severely next day. 'Are you quite sure this time? We've plenty of knights left but we're running out of princesses.'

'I've checked and re-checked,' said the anxious magician. 'This time it's a hundred per cent certain. If a virgin princess is publicly whipped, her tears will mean death for the dragon.'

'Very well,' said Queen Marguerite. 'Lisette – where's Lisette?'

The plump, mischievous honey-blonde had certainly been in the Throne Room a few minutes earlier. Now, her chair was empty.

'I wish I'd had the sense to disappear in time yesterday,' murmured Miranda to Crystal.

'The Lord Chamberlain will organise a search party,' said the Queen. 'I take it everyone is volunteering to help?'

Everybody was. It took them an hour and three-quarters to track Lisette down to a remote garret in a disused wing of the palace. Before they got her back to the Throne Room she had bitten two ladies in waiting and kicked a Gentleman Usher of the Black Rod in an acutely sensitive area.

'I'm surprised at you, Lisette,' said King Fedor. 'After all, this is for the benefit of our beloved people. Just think of the poor peasants cowering in their scorched fields.'

'Sod the poor peasants!' said Lisette. 'I'd rather have their fields scorched than my arse!'

'I've always said she spent too much time in the sergeant's mess of the Household Cavalry,' remarked Queen Marguerite.

'My dear,' said King Fedor, 'you've dealt admirably with Crystal and Miranda. Now it's time for me to do my share.'

He paused, noting the rebellious eye of his tousled and defiant daughter, and glanced at the nearest courtiers. 'Perhaps some of you would like to help?'

Eager hands placed a sturdy, richly-upholstered stool in the centre of the floor. Others hauled Lisette willy-nilly across it to lie face downwards, kicking, cursing and helpless. It was the King himself who turned up her skirt and lowered her lacy black panties to reveal a plump, pearly, dimpled bottom so inviting that a sigh of anticipatory pleasure arose from the spectators.

'I've had a birch-rod soaking overnight,' said Queen Marguerite, and produced it from behind the throne to hand to the King.

'For the good of the country!' said King Fedor, solemnly, as he took careful aim at Lisette's beautifully-rounded rump.

The courtiers watched spellbound as the stinging twigs hissed down to scorch Lisette's squirming, smarting buttocks, rose and descended again, rose and... Some of the court ladies, flushed and bright-eyed, were visibly wriggling, either in sympathy with the frantic contortions of Lisette's suffering bottom or with some other emotion.

'Wa-a-a-a-h!' wailed Lisette, tears streaming down her pretty face. 'Don't, Daddy, please, not in front of everyone! Aaaaah! Oooooh! Please, I'll be a good girl, I'll take my bedtime spankings without any fuss. Yowch! Aaoww! Please, Daddy, you know how you love to have me across your knee with my pyjama pants down. You can slipper my bare bum every night for a month, but no more birch, please!'

Later, as he tied a tear-drenched handkerchief to a lance, Master Erasmus enquired, 'Who are you going to send against the dragon this time, your majesty!'

'You're sure this will work?' said the King.

'Convinced!' said the magician.

'In that case,' said King Fedor, 'you go!'

When Master Erasmus had recovered from his hysterics a couple of grinning men-at-arms hoisted him onto a horse, handed him the lance and pointed him in the direction of the western provinces.

The following evening, the weary messenger staggered into the palace, muttering bitterly that if some people thought he was going to spend his life running bloody marathons to bring news it was time that someone invented the bloody telephone. He handed the King a roll of parchment.

King Fedor unrolled it and read, 'Illustrious Majesty. The dragon is no more. It burst like a soap bubble at the first touch of the lance. However, I shall not be returning to claim any reward you see fit to offer, as I find the post of Court Magician too hard on the nerves. By the time you receive this I shall be over the border and on my way to a lucrative engagement at the London Palladium. Respectfully yours, Erasmus.'

'I'm sure we'll all be glad to be rid of the dragon,' beamed the King, 'and some of us will be almost as glad to be rid of Master Erasmus. All the same, someone should be rewarded, and who better than my three lovely daughters who have suffered so nobly in the cause of sauricide.'

'Eh?' said the Lord Chamberlain.

'Dragon-killing, you fool!' snapped the Queen.

'What would you like, girls?' asked King Fedor.

'Your Majesty,' said Lisette, 'Crystal and Miranda and I have been hoping you'd ask, because we know exactly what we'd like.'

'Yes?' said the King.

'We want a free hand with the court ladies,' said Lisette. 'Every cute little countess who sniggered at Crystal having her bum strapped. Every blue-blooded beauty who found Miranda's spanking so amusing. And especially, every demure, delicately-nurtured damsel who enjoyed the sight of my birched, burning bottom! Let them find out what it's like to be on the receiving end.'

'What do you think, my dear?' The King turned to Queen Marguerite.

'An excellent idea!' said the Queen. 'As I look around this Throne Room – guard the doors, men-at-arms! – I can see at least three dozen young ladies who would benefit from having their aristocratic bottoms soundly whipped. Start whenever you like, my dears.'

She rummaged behind the throne and produced the tawse, birch-rod and hairbrush. 'I thought it might be as well to have these handy in case they were needed.'

'Thank you, Mother!' said Crystal, seizing the tawse and beckoning to a wide-eyed, auburn-haired young beauty. 'You, Lady Penelope, can be first. Take your knickers down and bend over!'

The Schooling of Lady Caroline

Story from Janus 11.

The Schooling of Lady Caroline

PART ONE

The Victorians took their spanking seriously. How seriously can be appreciated from this sequence of letters discovered recently, which recount the strange events that led to a proud heiress receiving a vigorous bare-bottom birching at the hands of an indomitable suitor who simply wouldn't take no for an answer...

* * *

Cheyne Walk,
Chelsea, London.
p.m. 24th January, 1894

My Dear Cousin Rodney,

Knowing full well how desirous you are of pressing your suit with the beautiful heiress Lady Caroline D'Arblay (despite her having rejected your every advance) I hasten to avert you at the earliest opportunity that on Friday 2nd February Lady Caroline, together with her maid, will be taking the morning train from Paddington to Birmingham, arriving at the Snow Hill terminus of the Great Western Railway at twenty-five minutes past eleven. On arrival at Snow Hill she will procure a hansom cab to carry her to the village of Tanworth-in-Arden, lying at the western extremity of the city, where she will spend several days at the country seat of her husband-presumptive, the Hon. Eustace Bateman, that effete though wealthy tea-broker. Her father, too, will be making a special journey down from Carlisle to be present for the occasion. For this precious piece of information I am indebted to that notorious gossip, Baroness Heyhoe! I doubt not but that you will make the fullest use of it, if your celebrated resourcefulness, initiative and audacity are anything to go by!

Your friend and cousin,
Edgar.

* * *

Oakfield Road,
Tunbridge Wells,
Kent.
a.m. 27th January, 1894

My Dear Edgar,

Your timely intelligence gratefully received! Accordingly, an elderly widow of my acquaintance has placed at my disposal a modest secluded villa residence in a northern suburb of Birmingham.

In a hired conveyance, with my man Higgs capped, mufflered and greatcoated – looking every inch the part of a Brummagem hackney-carriage driver, and yours truly similarly attired, we shall make every endeavour to intercept Lady Caroline and her maid as they emerge from the Snow Hill terminus at the time and dale you specified.

Believe me, Edgar, I am in no mood to be trifled with! This is to be a 'do-or-die' venture. Lady Caroline has spurned my devoted attentions and thwarted my desires too long now for her to gaily exit from my life scot-free! She must and shall be brought to heel! Her entire life thus far has been lived in spoilt, pampered luxury – hence her deplorable tendency to play fast-and-loose with the affections of half the eligible bachelors in the kingdom! I tell you, Edgar, she shall be taught a lesson, even if it means taking my belt off to that precious, aristocratic rump of hers! Stern words and a firm hand may succeed where sweet blandishments and terms of endearment have so far signally failed.

I solemnly stake my life, my reputation, and above all, my honour as an officer, on the successful outcome of this desperate business. I mean to make her love me, Edgar, and to that end have procured birch-rod and cane – in fact all the accoutrements of school-room discipline to assist me in my Grand Design! I shall emerge from this affair, dear cousin, either a broken man facing ruin, gaol, or worse – or else the proud possessor of a loving, devoted fiancée.

Yours ever,
Rodney

* * *

Cheyne Walk,
Chelsea, London.
p.m. 30th January, 1894

My Dear Cousin Rodney,

Intrigued yet alarmed by your plans. They are indeed desperate. I fear for the outcome. I hasten to add, however, that you may rest assured of my every assistance, should it be required. I expect – nay demand – a full and detailed account.

God be with you in your hour of hazard!

E.

* * *

Grosvenor Road,
Edgbaston,
Birmingham.
1st February, 1894.

My Dear Edgar,

Here we are safely billeted in Birmingham – a vast, teeming metropolis wholly devoted, it seems, to the noisy bangings and clatterings of the manufacturing trades that have helped to make our country great. The populace are coarse-tongued, drunken and dirty: the streets gloomy and inhospitable. To make matters worse, a swirling 'pea-souper' of a fog envelopes the city and shows no sign of abating – although this very same fog may yet prove our greatest ally in tomorrow's business!

A cab is at our disposal; the house is well suited to our purpose – small and at some remove from the main thoroughfare. There are no servants apart from the housekeeper, whom we have liberally paid to stay away. The ground floor consists of a drawing room, dining room, breakfast room and kitchen – all with lockable doors. Upstairs there are three capacious bedrooms, similarly securable.

The birch rods are soaking in the kitchen pail. My man Higgs informs me that he has met Lady Caroline's personal maid, Eliza Bradstock and, though buxom and well-informed, she is every bit as audacious a minx as her mistress! Accordingly I have counselled Higgs to follow my excellent example, spare her not, and lash the impudent baggage into a state of true contritionl

Tomorrow, Edgar, is the day when the proud, haughty Lady Caroline D'Arblay and her maid Eliza will disappear from the face of the earth. How soon they re-appear will depend on how long it takes to break their intractable spirits!

I am, dear Edgar, ever sensible of your goodwill and anxious solicitude!

Yours as always,
Rodney

* * *

Grosvenor Road,
Edgbaston,
Birmingham.
midnight, 4th February

My Dear Edgar,

All has gone according to plan, fulfilling my wildest expectations! At the appointed hour Higgs and I, disguised as cabbies, sat anxiously outside the rail terminus, awaiting the arrival of the London train. By an amazing stroke of good fortune the fog was at its thickest and there were only a handful of other cabs plying their trade. As the time grew near I despatched Higgs to sally forth into the main concourse of the terminus to secure the ladies' custom before another cabby was able to lay prior claim to our precious burden.

Those minutes waiting alone in the fog, tending our cab, were the longest in my life! What if they slipped through our nets? What if they had missed the train, or decided to come by the other railway – the London Midland and Scotland, and thus arrive at New Street Station instead?

But my fears were allayed when three figures materialised out of the swirling mist. The two ladies looked pale and fatigued after their journey – so much the better. Higgs installed them in the cab, secured their baggage, climbed aboard next to me, winked conspiratorially and urged the horse into a trot. Twenty minutes later we reached our destination. We escorted the ladies from the carriage; they seemed surprised that we had arrived so soon, since they had been told that Tanworth was a good hour's drive away. Lady Caroline looked about in growing bewilderment as she realized, despite the blanketing mist, that we had not left the environs of the city.

'But this cannot be Tanworth!' she declared in annoyance. At that moment the muffler slipped from around my face. She recognised me and cried out in alarm: 'Sir Rodney! What on earth...?' but I seized her and carried her bodily up the steps to the front door, impervious to her shrill protests. Higgs dealt likewise with the indignantly squawking Eliza. Before the whole neighbourhood was roused, we were safely indoors.

While Higgs bundled the vociferous Eliza up the thickly-carpeted stairs to the servants' floor, I removed Lady Caroline's cloak and hat and led her into the drawing room where a log fire was burning merrily. Without a word I lit the gas lamps and drew the velvet curtains, while my lady, pale but defiant, eyed me with suspicion and distrust. I motioned her to be seated, which she did with ill grace.

'Lady Caroline,' I began firmly, 'there is much we have to discuss. I make no apologies for the manner in which I have brought you here – necessity compels it.' She listened with a kind of sulky attentiveness, a constrained expression on her face and her hands clasped nervously together in her lap. I could not help but feast my eyes on the splendour of her proud beauty – the exquisitely curled blonde tresses, the clear, deep blue eyes, the aristocratic nose and the firmly resolute yet undeniably sensual mouth. From her neck down to her ankles she was a shimmering study in blue – a lavender organdie gown that rustled when she walked, betraying the presence of several layers of frilled, starched petticoats beneath.

'You have led me a merry dance!' I continued. 'You have thrise cruelly rejected my proposals of matrimony – wrung from the heart of your truest, most besotted admirer. Worse, you have frivolously – nay maliciously – broadcast the humiliating details of my scorned offers throughout every salon and drawing room in Society! I am not the kind of man to suffer the mortification of defeat lightly! Therefore I have brought you here – albeit against your wishes – to tender my proposals once more: Lady Caroline, will you make me the happiest of my sex and consent to be mine?'

She drew herself up to her fullest height and, eyeing me with the utmost disdain, replied indignantly:

'Surely, Sir Rodney, you cannot but be aware of the fact that I am now betrothed to the Hon. Eustace Bateman, a better man, in every respect, than you will ever be: where you are proud and cruel he is modest and kind; where you are rash and impetuous he is far-sighted and cautious. But were I unfortunate enough not to be betrothed to him, my answer, Sir Rodney, would still be the same. A thousand times no! Whatever respect I may have once held you in has been forfeited forever by the criminal way in which you have abducted me! I demand you release me here and now, and set me on the road to my friends and father!

'Very well, Miss Caroline,' I continued, my patience sorely taxed, 'since you do not consent of your own free will, then it is up to me to make you! You must know that you are entirely at my mercy. To all intents and purposes you have vanished from the face of the earth – not a soul knows where you are! It is my intention to detain you here until such a time as you change your mind and consent to be my wife!'

Her beautiful blue eyes blazed in fury and she tossed her pretty head in brave defiance.

'Sir Rodney, I care not a fig for you, nor for your wicked, wicked designs!' She stamped her dainty foot in angry petulance. 'You may keep me here for as long as you wish. I swear I shall go to my grave a grey-haired old maid before I submit to...' But she broke off in amazement and horror as she heard the unmistakable sounds, coming from upstairs, of a loud and painful whipping in progress! Fleshy 'THWACKS', closely followed by shrill female cries of distress. Higgs had begun work on Eliza – he could not have timed it better had he tried!

'Oh my God!' Lady Caroline exclaimed, half rising from the ottoman, 'what in heaven's name is that?' I simply smiled and made artful reference to 'the maid doubtless proving as recalcitrant as the mistress!' The veiled threat in this remark was not lost on my lady, and she sank back into the cushions, pale and agitated – obliged to bear oral witness to the lusty birching that Higgs was enthusiastically inflicting on the nether regions of her maid.

The swishing, thwacking sounds proceeded at a steady interval, as did the fervent cries of the victim. My man was certainly going to it with a will! Eliza's gabbled protests and pleadings for mercy assailed our ears: Lady Caroline bit her lip and a deep crimson blush suffused her checks.

'First he stripped her, then he whipped her!' I rejoiced facetiously, and commenced humming a popular air, while birch-blows and accompanying cries attained a frenzied pitch. I glanced at my lady. She had placed her hands over her delicate ears in an effort to obliterate the unseemly noises emanating from above: the disciplining of Eliza was evidently unsettling her lady-like sensibilities.

The whipping and the cries ceased. This seemed an opportune moment to re-open negotiations with my now somewhat cowed captive. I approached her, gently but firmly took her hands away from her aristocratic ears, and repeated my demands.

'My dear Lady Caroline, before a similar fate overtakes you,' (here she shuddered palpably) 'will you, or will you not, consent to be mine?'

Steadfastly she returned my gaze and, her spirits rallying, murmured: 'Never! Never in a million years! Do your worst – I defy you!'

'Very well,' I sighed solicitously, 'but first let me enlighten you as to where your stubborn wilfulness is leading you.' I went over to the open door and called up:

'Higgs! Bring down the girl!'

A moment later, footfalls could be heard descending the stairs, together with girlish snivellings and whimpers. Lady Caroline looked up from the ottoman as Higgs led in a weeping Eliza, clad only in chemise and black stockings gartered above the knees.

'Oh please, oh please don't let them see me like this!' Eliza burbled amid her tears, vainly trying to conceal with her hands the black, bushy outcrop between her thighs.

'Well now, Eliza!' I greeted her cordially. 'It pains me to see that you've been a naughty, disobedient girl! Tell your mistress what you have had to suffer at the hands of my servant in order to curb you of your waywardness.'

'Oh ma'am! It were awful, ma'am! He b-birched me on my... my posterior!' she wailed, rubbing the afflicted parts. I asked Higgs whether the girl had shown true contrition. A broad grin creased my burly manservant's weather-beaten face. He spun Eliza round by the shoulders so that her rear view was shamelessly displayed, her chemise tucked up at the back and the broad amplitude of her naked, well-birched posterior on full show. It was indeed a sorry sight!

Lady Caroline gasped in horror at the thin tracery of weals criss-crossing practically every inch of her maid's saucily plump buttocks and upper thighs.

'Oh you brutes! You brutes! What have you done to her?' my lady cried in outrage. Her outburst prompted fresh floods of tears and lamentations from her maid. Clutching her emblazoned seat in both hands, in a vain endeavour to ease the throbbing smart, Eliza sobbed out a warning through her tears: 'Oh m'lady have a care! Don't provoke them, else they will treat you likewise!' I studied Lady Caroline's face in order to gauge the effect of these salutary words on her... but I saw imprinted on her fair features only obduracy and smouldering rebellion. The birching of Eliza had undoubtedly at first shaken and alarmed her; but the end result had only been to stiffen her resolve. I could not help but applaud her courage! I warmed to the ensuing battle of wills; she was in every respect a worthy adversary.

Higgs, still flushed and perspiring from his exertions, enquired of me whether that would be all. The conspicuous bulge in the front of his breeches signified that, having delivered his attack on the rear of the enemy, he was now more than eager to force an entry via another quarter. His rough, calloused hand explored the dark, shadowy cleft between Eliza's haunches. He licked his lips in anticipatory pleasure and delivered a hearty smack to her bruised, burning rump, as he would to a prize filly. Eliza winced and trembled at the fresh onslaught. His hand resumed its former exploratory operation, and the excellent lubricity he encountered down there convinced him that she was indeed now ready for a rod of a different nature.

'The bitch is in heat, milord!' he observed with a ribald chuckle, 'and the stud is eager to service her!'

'Very well, Higgs,' I relented. 'Take her and fall to't! They do say a woman well whipped is at her hottest!' Higgs propelled the weeping, red-bottomed maid from the room with sharp swipes of encouragement to her blushing derriere.

Once more I confronted my lady alone.

'Lady Caroline, the choice is yours, and yours alone! Accede to my wishes and we'll be the happiest couple in Christendom – I swear to it: or else prepare yourself to be schooled by me! I warn you in advance that I am a stern, exacting tutor. Whatever prowess with a birch possesses, he acquired from me, by emulation, in the flogging academies of Albion Street!' (Albion Street was notorious in the late nineteenth century for its whipping brothels, possibly frequented by Swinburne – Ed.)

'Do thy worst,' she whispered through clenched teeth, 'I defy you for the blackguard and scoundrel you are!'

Deeds, not words, were the order of the day.... Dear Cousin, it is past four in the morning and I faint for want of sleep. Fatigue and an ever-increasing drowsiness decree that I conclude herewith this already over-long epistle. I shall despatch Higgs with it to ensure it catches the morning post, and resume my narrative at the earliest opportunity.

Your ever-loving cousin and friend,
R.

* * *

PART TWO

Grosvenor Road,
Edgbaston,
Birmingham.
p.m. 6th February, 1894

My Dear Edgar,

A night at the music hall has only served but to confirm my worst suspicions of this provincial capital! For utter coarseness and vulgarity it is unsurpassed! Footpads abound and it is more dangerous to walk the streets here than it is in London. 'But pass the port and proceed with your tale!' do I hear you impatiently cry? Now, where was I? Ah yes...

Without further ado I ordered her to remove her gown. 'And if I refuse, Sir Rodney?' she rejoined icily. There is no creature in this world, dear Edgar, more beautiful than a disdainful, obdurate young woman – of that I am convinced. Her brave words fanned my already enflamed passions – I burned to take her there and then! As for her refusal to disrobe, I merely warned her that if her flounced and be-ribboned, exquisitely cut Paris gown was not off her back within the minute – I would summon Higgs and together we would strip her forcibly! The threat was enough. Reluctantly she rose to her feet and commenced loosening the catches and buttons. With a silken hiss the organdie gown cascaded to the floor and Lady Caroline, growing paler by the second, stepped out of it, retrieved it, laid it out neatly over the ottoman, and then turned back to face me, clad only in her white layered outer petticoat, black stockings and gold-buckled, calf-leather shoes.

'Now your petticoat please, my lady,' I instructed her. 'No place for false school-room modesty here! I am resolved to birch your impudent, bare backside until you beg for mercy!' and to demonstrate my intent I moved over to a brass ewer from whence I withdrew a sturdy bundle of birch rods that had been left conveniently soaking in brine. I swished them about vigorously to clear the drops of water that still clung to the buds. There were six switches, neatly peeled, with a black cloth tied around the handle end. It was evident to me that Lady Caroline had never viewed such an implement before in her life, let alone felt its admonishing kiss across the magnificent swell of her seat of learning, for she drew in breath sharply and gazed at it in wide-eyed alarm. 'Surely, Sir Rodney, you can't be intending to beat me with that cruel device? And with me in such a shameful state of dishabillee too? Is there no limit to your villainy... to take advantage, in such an utterly caddish manner, of a helpless, defenceless lady?'

Ah Edgar, should you ever be blessed with the opportunity of whipping such a woman as she, then you will savour the full import of those immortal words of that illustrious Scot, Robert Louis Stevenson: 'To travel hopefully is a better thing than to arrive, and the true success is labour', because even before I had as much as laid a finger on her, the haughty, imperious Lady Caroline was beginning to quail perceptively at the mere idea of being visited by the birch! She had now doffed both her under-petticoats and stood before me, shyly vulnerable in her silken chemise and very pretty white batiste drawers that tightly hugged her proud womanly curves and finished at her knees, where they were lovingly secured with blue ribbons. A tempting morsel indeed with which to delight the jaded palate of even such an inveterate roué as I! The winsome garment clung to the upper reaches of her sturdy thighs and intimately delineated the swelling proturberance of her mound of venus. No gourmet had ever been served such an appetising dish as this! Impatiently I swished the birch against my thigh. A rich, deep-hued blush suffused her cheeks. In desperation she bartered for the retention of her drawers. She swore she would gladly suffer the severest discipline I could administer, if only she might be allowed to keep that one vestigial veil of modesty.

'But Lady Caroline!' I bantered, 'as any little school-age minx will gladly tell you, all remedial treatment in the classroom is delivered to the naked seat! Now, do I have to call Higgs? Doubtless he'll not take kindly to being interrupted in the midst of his labours!' and my hand strayed towards the bell.

Having perceived the futility of barter, my lady changed her tune to begging and pleading:

'But... but in front of a man – it's not decent! It's shameful and immodest, and unbecoming to a lady!' Now real tears were glistening in her eyes. 'No man before has ever seen me in this state of disarray' (alluding to her undergarments) 'let alone the even more indecorous condition which you are proposing. That was to be a sight reserved for my husband alone!'

'All the more reason, Lady Caroline, for you to gratefully accept my proposal of matrimony! That way, your honour will be safeguarded and mine wholly satisfied. Just say the word and I'll spare the rod, and your drawers into the bargain!'

So fully aroused was I by the sight of my lady reduced to her chemise and drawers, and so fully resolved to soundly birch her into abject submission that, even had she recanted at this eleventh hour, I doubt I would have granted her the reprieve she so earnestly sought! But none was called for. Instead, my beautiful hostage tearfully reminded me that as she was already pledged to another, her only honourable course lay in the direction of preserving that pledge. (Did I detect a discernible weakening in her fortitude? The haughty contempt had certainly evaporated. But then, dear cousin, what maiden facing for the first time in her life the rigours of a bare-bottom birching can afford the luxury of disdain?)

'It strikes me, Lady Caroline,' I opined helpfully, 'that you are well and truly impaled on the horns of a dilemma: either you forsake your pledge but retain your drawers, or else you retain your pledge but forsake your drawers! The former course of action will pain you morally, the latter physically. Am I right?'

She nodded tearfully – a very different, chastised, Lady Caroline to the one who had defiantly entered the room an hour ago.

'Am I also right in supposing that you elect to suffer the stings of the birch, rather than endure the stings of your conscience?' Again she nodded lachrymosely.

'Then, my lady, what in heaven's name are we waiting for? Take down your drawers immediately and prepare yourself for the whipping you so thoroughly deserve!'

The once-proud heiress, who had poured scorn on my name in every London salon, burst into choking sobs and desperately fumbled with the offending drawers. But even then she halted in her tracks, crying out in despair: 'I cannot! I just cannot! It's too shameful!'

'Very well then,' I retorted implacably, 'since you refuse, I'll prepare you myself. Of course, that will mean extra strokes!' and I approached her with the intention of yanking down her drawers to below her knees.

But with a cry of alarm, Caroline D'Arblay performed the shameful duty herself, pulling them down to her ankles and stepping out of them – heedless of the highly indecent spectacle she was making of herself. I feasted my eyes on the sturdy growth of blonde pubic bush, and on the unravished, virginal slit coyly hiding beneath. I bade her turn around, for I was eager to inspect the target area. She guessed my purpose and bit her lower lip in anguish, but nevertheless did as she was told.

Her chemise ended where her back ended: her black silk stockings were gartered just above the knee. My lustful gaze lingered on her naked behind. Broad-cheeked and womanly, it jutted out in the most enticing manner, wobbling slightly whenever she moved. I measured the birch experimentally across the full width of her naked seat. She flinched to feel the sharp prickle of the buds. I turned it on its end and rubbed it teasingly up and down between the broad division of her cheeks. She shuddered and squirmed to feel it probe her cherished maidenhood. Then I rubbed and kneaded her trembling buttocks with my other hand. They felt deliciously warm and birch-worthy! I laughed out loud to think of that nincompoop, Bateman, fondly feeding on air: fantasising about the joys that I was palpably tasting! Joys he would never now know – for she was mine, all mine! A might of blazing birchings and furious fuckings would see to that! No woman is proof against such drastic medicine.

With one hand still clutching the birch, and the other firmly grasping her round the middle, I guided her to the door and up the stairs to the master bedroom. I had taken pains to procure a small step-ladder, over which I made her bend. Her long blonde tresses fell in delicious disarray almost to the floor, concealing her face and the deep blush thereon. Her bottom was raised up at an almost grotesquely indecent angle. It struck me as being a comic parody of a schoolroom chastisement. The twenty-four year-old heiress's bottom was a trifle too well-fleshed and generously proportioned for a stripling schoolgirl's!

During the preparations Lady Caroline had been mute to the point of sullenness, but when I measured the birch judicially across the width of her plump seat, she broke into fresh lamentations and tightened the muscles of her bottom, tensing her cheeks in agonised anticipation of the pain to follow.

I brandished the birch high above my head, took careful aim, and delivered a whistling cut to the base of her saucy big behind. Lady Caroline uttered a stifled gasp as if she had just been doused with scalding water, squeezed her bare buttocks together even tighter to try to conceal her virgin charms, and emitted a strangled sob as she struggled against her bonds and endeavoured frantically to glance up at me. Her bottom writhed and convulsed as the sharp needle-like little buds did their work of leaving a pattern of tiny weals which soon merged into an all-over sanguine stain, incarnadining the whole surface of her well-endowed posterior. Before she had time to recover what little composure she possessed, I swished her again, hard, aiming for the plump rotundity of her right buttock cheek – causing it to redden up more fiercely than its neighbour. She flinched at the hissing, sibilant impact and gave a loud groan of despair. While she was yet struggling to regain her self control, I landed another stroke on the same spot with such force that she cried out:

'Oh PLEASE no more! I beg you! No more! No more!' And she contorted her roseate backside in a series of vulgarly suggestive – though I hasten to add, totally involuntary – muscular spasms.

'Keep still, Lady Caroline!' I warned her, obliged to raise my voice above the swelling tide of her sobs and wails, 'or else I shall aim for your legs!'

'Oh you brute! You brute!' she shrieked hysterically. 'How can you go to such lengths to degrade a lady so?'

'Lady Caroline,' I retorted wryly, 'from where I am standing I see no lady – only a wanton, shameless, bare-arsed trollop!' And with that I delivered two whooshing cuts, one after the other, to the smooth coppery crown of her left buttock so that it too, crimsoned and broke out in a rash of goose-pimples.

Its pretty owner was now mewing and blubbering in abject submission. Try as she might, she was unable to keep her bottom still – it seemed to have taken on a life of its own. The pain of the birching was as nothing compared to the bitter mortification she felt at being made to appear to deliberately flaunt her well-birched bottom at her oppressor.

Towards the end Lady Caroline abandoned all efforts at hiding her private parts from view. Her crimson, welted derriere danced hither and thither in a desperate attempt to evade the stinging torment of the flailing birch rods, and I was rewarded with uninterrupted vistas of her blonde pubic hairs, and of her unmistakably damp, fully engorged little fortress of love that I was soon to lay siege to. The helpless rudery of her frantic bottom-rolling; her once-proud, disdainful features now wet with tears, nostrils flaring (a sign, Edgar, of true contrition! ); the agonised biting of her lower lip, and, above all, the heaving sobs that shook her entire body and filled the room – all eloquently testified that the schooling of Lady Caroline had indeed been accomplished.

No rebellious schoolgirl had ever suffered such a birching! Although I had taken care not to break the skin, there were angry purple blood-blisters forming in several places, notably on the sauciest prominence of both out-thrust cheeks. The over-all hue of her behind was that of pillar-box red – as though she had sat down on a hornets' nest; the criss-cross streaks and striations caused by the birch buds resembled an intricate cartographical design – a map of India, or maybe one of our lesser colonies in Africa!

I then led the weeping girl, over to the bed (she went like a lamb, without protest), freed my erect, swollen member from its bursting confines and, with one bold thrust, breached her precious maidenhead. It proved to be an easy task since she was swollen and abundantly lubricated – the birch had seen to that. Her tender, enflamed buttocks made her agonisingly sensitive to every thrust I delivered, but though she flinched and grimaced several times during the early stages, she made no complaint and even returned my embraces with reciprocal fervour, as we bucked and cavorted our way to mutual bliss. We entered the gates of paradise many times that night before our spent bodies dissolved into the arms of sleep.

Next morning over breakfast, with our servants as witness, a sore, chastened, yet thoroughly contented Lady Caroline gave verbal expression to what her body had so eagerly demonstrated the night before: she gave her consent, freely and unforced, to be mine forever!

'Could I do but otherwise, Rodney dear!' she laughed teasingly, 'with the marks of your ownership so plainly, so embarrassingly, imprinted upon my private person!'

I turned to our grinning, nudging servants, who seemed every whit as jovial as their master and mistress.

'And have Higgs's disciplinary measures effected a cure in you, too?' I demanded of Eliza. But she blushed and hid her head coyly in remembrance of her well-whipped bottom on full display the night before. Proudly my manservant announced that I was in fact looking at the future Mrs Higgs!

'You've made a good catch there, Higgs!' I congratulated him heartily. 'She's a comely, buxom wench – broad in the beam and thus excellently built for bearing you a dozen or more little Higgs! Treat her well – but never fail to whip her when she's contrary!' Eliza blushed and giggled as she and he respectfully left us to our own devices – he slapping her bottom all the way to the scullery, she laughing and shrieking encouragement.

In deep contentment I regarded my radiant bride-to-be across the breakfast table. Our hands met over the marmalade.

'Promise me, dearest one,' she appealed coyly, 'that you'll whip me too, whenever I am wicked?' She held her breath, waiting for my answer.

'On one point, dear lady, you may rest assured!' came my merry reply. 'Ours shall be a household where the man is truly master – above, as well as below stairs!'

Dear cousin — my cup runneth over! My pen leaps for joy! We are to be married secretly here in vulgar old Brummagem within the month... My lady assures me that her father will, given time, bless and approve our union – for she is the apple of his eye, his spoilt darling, and can do no wrong...

My heartfelt thanks to you, dear, dear Edgar! Without your timely intelligence all this might never have come to pass. Hasten to join us! Your services are required as Best Man!

Your loving cousin,
Rodney

A Madcap At Benningdean

Story from Privilege Plus 01.

A Madcap At Benningdean
by Glen Fairlight

'ARE you nervous?'

'Nervous?' The second girl in line, Rosamund Clarkson, giggled – but the laughter failed to reach her sparkling green eyes. 'Did you say ner-ner-ner...?'

A brief shriek, then a gulp, from Lisa Fenchurch, last of the three still waiting in the corridor outside the closed door. She too had large lustrous eyes, more blue than green, though like the two girls to her left she had long thick hair the colour of dark honey, held back from her forehead by a plain white braid.

'Shut up, you two,' she pleaded, 'or I'll wet my knickers.'

'What, your regulation navy-blues?' said the first girl, Gilly Sands, whose eyes were brown. 'Shame on you!'

'I'd commit murder for a fag,' moaned Rosamund. 'How many's been in so far?'

'Six. We're the last.'

Rosamund frowned a little worriedly. 'D'you think it'll hurt?'

'Of course it'll bloody hurt,' Gilly snorted. 'That's the whole bloody point of all this, isn't it? Believe me, if I didn't need the money...'

Rosamund put a hand behind herself, leaned forward and slapped her own bottom over the old-fashioned tartan school skirt. 'Hmm, hardly felt that.' She fumbled under the folds and slapped again. The muffled clap was surprisingly loud.

'Owp!' she owped. 'That hurt.' She grinned uneasily. 'At least I now know how a Scotsman feels inside his kilt.'

'Let me assure you,' said Gilly, 'that no way does a Scotsman feel anything like that inside his kilt.'

'Speaking from hard experience, are we?' Lisa smiled. 'If you think a little tap like that hurt, Rosie, they'll be scraping you off the ceiling before they've even got the punishment book out.'

In the preparation mirror on the wall opposite they saw again how similar each looked to the other. The school uniforms helped, of course – tartan pleated skirts of the 1920s hung to below their knees, a fawn sash tied around each slender waist, shapely calves respectably clad in grey hose. Gleaming black shoes completed the picture.

'Just look at us – we could be triplets,' said Gilly. 'Hate the tie, don't you?'

'I feel like a flippin' flapper!' This from Rosamund, trying to hide her nervousness and failing.

Only Lisa seemed relatively serene at the prospect ahead. 'You will be flapping in a minute,' she grinned. 'When I knew we were up for this I read the book.'

'A Madcap At Benningdean?' said Rosamund. 'Stupid title.'

'It's a right bodice-ripper. You should read it. Had me reaching into my knickers more than once. What we're up for today is what happens to the heroine after she's caught breaking into the headmistress's study to nick the exam results. Cor!'

'Sounds like a real yawn,' said Gilly.

'You won't be yawning soon. In the book they used a birch. Fifteen across the crown of her jacksie, knickers down.'

'What?' Rosamund stared, eyes saucering. 'I thought it was going to be a couple of quick ones with a cane over our skirts.'

'We'll find out for sure soon enough.'

They fell silent, lost in renewed contemplation. The mirror reflected three radiantly lovely young women, supposedly eighteen but each in their early twenties, bodies limber and gym-toned, each around the requisite five-foot-five and eight-stone-three, haltered breasts gently outswelling the starched cotton blouses under the grey school blazer, with the Benningdean School badge emblazoned on each top pocket, striped school ties neatly knotted at their throats.

The door beside them clicked open and a young woman in identical uniform to theirs tottered out, frantically clutching the seat of her skirt.

'Fuck me!' she gasped, turning a scarlet, tear-soaked face towards them. 'It's sodding murder! Audition? – this is for real!' She gave a choking wail and lurched off, fingers kneading her burning behind.

Rosamund gaped in horror after the sobbing figure as it disappeared towards the toilets. A thickset woman in her thirties peered round the door, greying hair trained down over her forehead to hide the lines.

'Gilly Sands?'

Gilly gulped. 'Er, suppose so.' The woman held the door wider and the girl walked past her into the room. A murmur of voices, an inner door opened and closed, then silence.

'And then there were two,' Lisa murmured.

'I'm surprised you can be so casual about it,' Rosamund said. 'I'm not worried about showing the goods – that's par for the course these days. But as for being actually whacked...' With a troubled frown she lifted her skirt again at the back and explored the springy flesh as if to test its resilience.

'Stop touching yourself up or you'll get me at it,' grinned Lisa.

'Just feeling out the territory, that's all! Virgin territory, as a matter of fact – so far as this sort of thing goes. How about yours?'

'My what?'

'What d'you think? Your arse! That thing you sit on!' Rosamund removed the hand from beneath her own skirt and slipped it boldly under Lisa's, feeling the other's knickered bottom with interested fingers. It seemed smaller and firmer than hers. 'Has this thing here ever known the kiss of anything other than a randy stud's tongue?'

Lisa slapped the hand away. 'Pack it in, you raving dyke!'

'Tell me, then!'

'If you must know, my boyfriend used to pull me over his knees a couple of times a week and spank me. Sometimes he'd use the back of a hairbrush. Other times he'd shove me over a chair and whack me with a cane. That really hurt. But we'd been doing it for ages before we packed it in.'

'Let's see!' Rosamund whipped up Lisa's school skirt, pulled back her knicker-elastic and stared at two silky-skinned buttocks of alabastrine paleness. 'Bollocks!' she said. 'There's not a mark on it.' She ran her fingers lightly over the soft mounds. They wobbled gently.

'That's 'cos we broke up a couple of weeks ago. I don't miss him much, but I do miss it. Now hands off the goods or I'll scream for a policeman.'

'But that's not fair!' blurted Rosamund, readjusting Lisa's knickers and skirt. 'Here's you with an arse that looks and feels like a nectarine peach, but has the resistance of rhinoceros hide...'

'You say such sweet things!'

Rosamund turned her back on Lisa, raised the skirt and pushed out her own bottom, tugging the knickers down. 'See that?' Lisa noted that it was larger than her own, voluptuous-looking and deeply cleft. 'Christ – don't fancy a swap, do you?' she said.

'Exactly! This is glam bum number one, right? Top of the botts. A real class ass. Men have been known to come in their pants simply looking at it. But it's never had so much as a slapping in all its life. Like I say, it just isn't fair!'

At that moment they heard something like a distant whisper and a ghostly splash – a sound already heard several times that afternoon – followed half a second later by a noise like the first wail of a bagpiper's lament. Moments later Gilly Sands exploded out into the corridor, glaring as if insane, the hem of her skirt pinned halfway up her back to expose two generous bottom-cheeks lividly marked with a network of red spindly lines.

'You poor bitches!' she managed to gasp, and then was off towards the changing rooms, hands wrenching at each wobbly mound as she dementedly danced from foot to foot.

The woman with the clipboard reappeared, shaking her head as she crossed another name off her list. 'Rosamund Clarkson,' she said, even more worriedly.

'Sorry,' Rosamund yelped. 'I just bottled out. Hang on, Gilly!' Then she was gone, sprinting off in the direction of the other's receding cries.

'Ok dear,' said the woman. 'I take it you're Lisa Fenchurch?'

Lisa nodded. 'And then there were none.' The girl braced herself and walked into an ante-office with a desk and piles of scripts on shelves. The woman offered her a hand, which Lisa shook. 'I'm Marina Pagett, the producer. I'm afraid quite a few of the others didn't seem entirely clear what would he required of them today.'

'We're auditioning as body doubles for Annabel Spearman, aren't we?'

Annabel Spearman was an international success following her performance in a low budget home-grown movie partly funded by Channel Four. The film had been a sensation, sweeping the board at Cannes and taking America by storm. Still only 22, Spearman's slender sexy body, clear green eyes, dark-honey hair and sensuous pout had earned her the apt if unoriginal tag of the 'British Bardot'. In appearance she was strikingly similar to the nine aspiring actresses who had turned up today.

And of whom the last now stood before the troubled producer.

'It's only the one scene we need a double for,' Marina explained. 'But it's of vital importance to the development of the central character.'

'Is it the one where Fiona McAllister gets birched for nicking the exam results at Benningdean Private School for Young Ladies, summer 1925?'

'My word, you have done your homework.' The producer felt a flicker of hope. 'Annabel refuses to perform the scene herself – and who can blame her?' Marina allowed herself a wan smile. 'And our director, Bryan Boone, insists on total authenticity.'

'Bryan Boone! I didn't realise...'

'It's Bryan's directorial debut. You'll know if you've read the book that the heroine is birched on the, um, bare behind in the presence of the headmistress, by one of the younger male school governors – played by Bryan, of course...'

'Who later becomes her lover.' Or, more explicitly, takes the young girl into a wonderland of sexual ecstasy previously unimagined by her!

'Why, yes.' Marina Pagett looked even more impressed. 'A full fifteen strokes, but so far no one's been able to take more than three. Bryan refuses to take it – and he's no weakling.'

Bryan Boone! Mister rugged Aussie heart-throb, strong and sensitive, pale and interesting! Lisa experienced a cascade of thrillings in the pit of her stomach. The guy was no Adonis, yet the mere thought of him made her wet. And he was the one doing the whacking!

'I will of course understand if you'd rather not go through with it...' Marina went on unhappily.

'Lead on,' Lisa said.

She was ushered through an inner door into a soundproofed room got up like an old-style headmistress's study and lit by bright lamps. The handsome male movie star-cum-director Bryan Boone, in period duds with fake moustache, watched his eighth and final victim enter. She looked, of course, remarkably similar to the other seven beauties who had already bent and bared their butts for him today. Frankly, he very much doubted whether this one would be any more stoic than the rest – and that in the end he was going to have to fake the scene and screw up the movie, all because British girls had no guts. An Aussie chick would've done it on her head, but it was too late for that now.

'This is Lisa,' Marina announced.

Boone nodded brusquely where he stood beside the waist-high stool, around which was scattered a litter of broken birch-twigs from their brief but explosive succession of whacks across seven pairs of naked buttocks. Nearby stood a bucket in which more bundles of twigs were soaking. Camera and sound stood by, alert to start filming on a nod from him. So far today they'd done bugger all except admire the scenery. Unconventional, that was Bryan Boone.

With a frown he didn't have to fake, Boone rolled up his right sleeve for the eighth time. He didn't have to work hard at being in character – a grim-visaged, black-moustached disciplinarian of the 1920s intent on flogging the buttocks of a wickedly pretty thief with far too much courage than was good for her. His suit-jacket was already off, braces hidden beneath a dark waistcoat, the stiff collar and striped necktie feeling tighter than ever. He ran a finger around the starched rim to ease his neck.

'Stand over here, girl!' he growled. Deep-voiced, menacing.

Lisa Fenchurch, becoming a tremulous 18-year-old called Fiona McAllister, trod towards the stool, head meekly bowed. Boone blinked at her – this one had something. He blinked again, and knew. Hardly able to believe it had happened, he nodded sharply. Suddenly, magically, it was the month of June some seventy summers ago, in the book-lined study of the vinegary-faced headmistress who, with long black gown and short bobbed hair, was gliding forward to stand by the stool, unyieldingly stern, ready to position her trembling charge across it.

Fiona stopped in front of the punishment stool and Miss Staplehurst glared haughtily into her face through the pince-nez. 'You know why you are here, McAllister,' came the cultured cadences of yesteryear, 'so I will waste no time in reiterating your crime and further compounding your shame. You are to be soundly birched upon your unclothed rear. Our school governor and benefactor, Mister Frencham, has kindly consented to carry out the beating!'

'Yes, Ma'am,' said Fiona, tiny-voiced. She gazed down at the stool much as Lady Jane Grey might have stared at the executioner's block, weirdly noting the seasoned wood from which it was fashioned, the swirly pattern of the grain and how smooth was its top from the countless young bodies that had bent across it. In the charged silence there came through the open window the shouts of girls at play, borne on a breeze drenched with scents of flowers and new-mown grass.

Eleanor Staplehurst, MA (Oxon.), square of shoulder, gimlet-eyed, stepped up behind the errant girl. 'Unbutton your blazer, Fiona.' Her voice was not unkind.

Tremble-fingered, Fiona did so. Womanly hands, wide and warm, eased the garment from her. The whop of a racquet against a tennis ball sucked into the room like a gulp. 'Well played!' came a distant shout. The words, sheathed in sun-heat and the tang of open spaces, chased it.

The woman stooped to grip the hem of the miscreant's school skirt and slowly raised it. Fiona McAllister was far too beautiful for her own good: lithe and limber, perfectly proportioned, bright of eye and gay of smile. Miss Staplehurst could smell the heady aroma of girlness, of boundless energy and health. She wished – oh! how she wished – that she could dip her head and kiss the nape of that pretty neck, and enfold the child, in brief embrace to give her courage.

Instead, she raised the skirt up Fiona's back and pinned the hem to the fabric of the blouse between the girl's shoulder blades. Her fingers trembled a little more as they then gripped the waistband of the dark blue school knickers and peeled them down to the middle of the girl's thighs. For several treasured moments the woman's eyes dwelt on the bared, ripely rounded buttocks, compact as an athlete's, pale as cream-hued roses, the crevice between them deeping into secret places.

'You will bend forward over the stool, girl, and grip the lowest rung.'

Fiona McAllister did not understand the shiver in the stern voice as the injunction was intoned. With unconscious gracefulness the girl bent forward until the stool-top was thrusting up beneath her belly as her weight bore down upon it. She straightened her legs, and her toe-tips touched the floor while her dangling hands sought the rung referred to.

The whop-whop-whop of a fast rally from the tennis courts thumped into Fiona's mind. Girlish laughter shrilled like seagulls. The man who was to apply the birch had not been what she had expected: no grey-bearded corpulent with snuff-stained whiskers and blood-rimmed eyes this school governor! Rather he was tall and manly and hardly more than five-and-thirty. And handsome – Lord! This could surely be neither right nor decent, Fiona thought, squirming in acute embarrassment on the stool-top and not feeling the slightest bit of a madcap now!

'Be still!' His voice was deep. It thrilled into Fiona's skin-pores like an itch and set off a storm in her brain. His footfalls sounded quick and soft as he stepped up behind her. She had not heard him reach into the bucket and withdraw a bundle of birch-twigs; yet now there came a faint plipping as the drops ran off them, and a rattling swish as he shook the weapon in his fist.

Oh woe, sweet maiden, so unconsciously beloved! As your heart fluttered in your breast like a trapped sparrow, in terror of the torrents of pain soon to explode across your petal-soft haunches, you could not in your innocence guess how your back-stretched legs, parted a little for balance, afforded your mentor breathcatching glimpses of your maidenhair and the pinky succulence nestling within. You could not hear how his heart hammered, nor how his breath ached to gasp aloud at so forbidden a sight you presented to him on that torrid afternoon, with the full-moon mounds of your bottom presented as a feast to his senses.

The exquisite offering to the gods of justice tensed, gripping the lowest stool-rung, and Eleanor Staplehurst gazed upon her own vision of perfection. Angus Frencham sighted on his enchanting target, drew back his arm and, with a groan more akin to ecstasy than effort, swept the birch-rod down. The twigs splatted against the rumpy curves of pallid flesh, sending up a spray of droplets as they struck and inspiring a loud gasp from the prostrated maiden.

Far from the wet wands cooling Fiona's nether-cheeks, they had felt like the abrupt arrival of a firestorm there! Standing at the girl's head, Miss Staplehurst felt the shock of the stroke vibrate through her body, and neither she nor Fiona had time to draw full breath before another stroke blasted down.

Swossshhh!

A tremor ran up Angus Frencham's arm as the birch struck those divine rumps again. A screech tore from the girl's throat, her body juddered and her right foot kicked involuntarily upwards, yet she stayed in place. For a moment he paused, gazing in awe at pearly peaches pinkening as a tracery of spidery lines claimed those sweet summits. In some errant part of his mind he wanted to sink to his knees and bury his face against the ferociously smarting globes, quenching the fires with kisses.

Instead, he concentrated on the task at hand. Six more times he swung the birch with studied firmness, noting how greedily the twigs lapped and spread across the tautly stretched skin of that beauteous bottom as though to possess every inch of their silken surfaces! Almost he forgot that these perfectly proportioned female buttocks were not some separate entity ordered up in a dream for his delights, but an integral part of the anatomy of an eighteen-year-old woman who had committed a grievous wrong and must perforce be punished. Her cries and tormented gasps came grudgingly as she struggled to contain them. It was this, he later realised, that so warmed his blood and drew his soul towards her; for valour under fire during those dreadsome weeks in the trenches on the Somme was something Lieutenant Angus Frencham had signally lacked.

Hwosn - hwosh - hwosh. Fiona McAllister wrenched so hard at the strut she was gripping, the surprise was that it did not snap. The harsh hisses of hurtling birch-twigs, the succession of blazing pains as they struck her naked buttocks again and again, the animal gruntings of the man, the strange little signs emanating from Miss Staplehurst, all coalesced in the girl's whirling mind into a single mad sound. The entire surface of Fiona's bottom had become a sea of ice and fire through which pain seethed and lapped, while the punishing arm continued to rise and fall with unremitting regularity and appalling severity.

Hwosh - hwosh - hwosh. The conflagration in Fiona's bottom has reached its white-hot zenith. Strange scents gradually overwhelmed those of ink and wood and carpet and dusty books and new-mown grass: the tang of Miss Staplehurst's second-rate perfume mixed with traces of something the girl could by no means as yet define; something base and animal which made her want to heave her hinder parts brazenly upwards to greet the cruel chastiser! As the fists of the punished pupil wrenched and her body juddered and writhed and she cried out again and again, she saw the carpet and the feet and sensible stockings of her headmistress through a blur of salty wetness as her bottom, prickling and burning, jerked lewdly about...

Hwoooshhh!

A scream – her scream – echoed and re-echoed in her ears. The birching had ceased and a man's voice was roaring in magnificent baritone:

'Oh, my beauty! Oh God, you're terrific! I'll love you forever!'

'Fifteen!' screeched Eleanor Staplehurst, MA (Oxon.). 'My word, that was absolutely fantastic, Lisa! Well done, well done!'

Who on earth was Lisa, and why was the headmistress hugging her? The noises of girls at play outside had been replaced by the click of a clapper-board ending the shot, and excited masculine voices close at hand.

'We've got it, got the lot in one!' The camera operator looked up, grinning hugely.

Strong hands were helping her up from the stool, and Bryan Boone was smiling into her sweat-damp, flushed and tear-streaked face.

'Christ, you were marvellous! We were soaring, really soaring – didn't you feel it?' There was no feigning his admiration. 'What was your name again?'

'Fiona McAllister.'

A roar of mirth. 'I love it, I love it! You be Fiona and I'll be Angus, eh? That lovely brave backside of yours'll get an Oscar as "Best Supporting Artist" for sure!'

'I'll have to walk up backwards to get the award, then,' she winced. Her bottom seethed and burned. Make-up were applying cooling douches and smearing cream over its crimsoned cheeks, while Wardrobe stood by with a robe to cover her modesty.

'Fancy a drink and a bite to eat when we've cleared up here?' the famous voice was murmuring in her ear. 'Just the two of us – Fiona and Angus, eh? There's something he's busting his old-fashioned balls to discuss with this sweet little flower of blossoming womanhood.'

'If you don't mind a "sweet little flower" who has to eat standing up,' Lisa said. She tried to get her mind around all the amazing things that were due to happen between the two of them in the chapters which followed the birching. Shaky with excitement, she reached for a towel and surreptitiously wiped.

'I must warn you,' she added when her voice had calmed a little, 'that I take very big bites...'

The Man With The Golden Rod - the story in two parts

Story from Janus 14.

The Man With The Golden Rod, part one
by Richard Manton

In January 1841, James Miles made headlines for the first time in the Morning Chronicle. When charged with excessive use of birch and cane upon the bare bottoms of girls in his care, the justices laughed the case out of court at Rochester sessions. Mr Miles went on from strength to strength, supported by disciplinarians, press, and the justices — traditionally allowed to come and watch girls under the birch. As late as 1897, his colleague, the Rev Marshall Vine, supported such disciplinary zeal. It was still customary to give 36-stroke birchings in reformatory institutions, Vine insisted. 'And I have done so,' he added proudly in his evidence to the Parliamentary Committee.

In our own time there is a groundswell of opinion, in the polls and in parliament, which favours the return of judicial chastisement. What would it be like? How would the system work? Is it quite as edifying as its supporters suggest? Perhaps before we give it our resolute support we should go back in time and recreate a day in the life of James Miles...

WOULD YOU change jobs with James Miles? Mr Miles was a real man with a real problem, a dedicated upholder of law and order in the England of our great-grand-fathers. Look on the bright side first of all. His job carried a reasonable salary of about £15,000 a year in modern terms. One of the perks was a fine house at Hoo near Rochester with servants and transport provided, not to mention a good kitchen and cellar.

Perhaps you might be put off by noticing that the pleasant house and grounds were surrounded by a high wall to keep snoopers out and to keep the delinquent young ladies inside. As the notice board by the porter's lodge would inform you, this was a very old-fashioned reformatory and James Miles was the master. All his care and trouble was expended on the 50 or 60 pretty miscreants in his charge. Nowadays some of them would have graced the upper forms of a comprehensive school but there were others whose ages ranged (in the case of Phyllis Blake) up to 29!

Before you refuse outright to have anything to do with such a post, rest assured that you will be supported by a willing staff of burly matrons, more than enough to deal with any rebellion among the girls. Look more carefully at the conditions of employment and at the girls. On any given day there will be several of them who will wince and draw breath sharply as they sit gingerly on those hard reformatory chairs. Do you wonder why? Perhaps you notice in the conditions of employment that there is a weekly retainer paid to you for inflicting chastisement. The going rate in the 19th century was ten shillings, which 150 years later would be over £20. Also, as Ronald Pearsall shows in Night's Black Angels, there was payment of half a crown — £6 or £7 in the 1980s — for many a whipping, birching, or caning given.

Are you worried at the cost of all the equipment needed in this new profession? Have no fear. As Mr Pearsall records, there were also 'out of pocket expenses' for such items as canes, birch-rods and whips which would get worn out by constant use.

Perhaps you might simply envy James Miles his prestige? His early achievements were reported in the Morning Chronicle and his powers of chastisement were the subject of an editorial in the Britannia newspaper. With lips pursed and birch raised over some recalcitrant reformatory beauty, he represented the might and majesty of the Law. His story found a place in fiction, as well as folklore, in Ron Rich's The First Victorian. Only the French — whom every decent Englishman of the day despised — suggested that the disciplinarians were having the time of their lives. Small wonder that books like Etudes sur la Flagellation, which blew the gaff on Miles and his kind, were rigorously banned in England. 'Le Vice Anglais' was how they described it in Paris.

The truth is that if James Miles fails to send you rushing out to join STOPP, then STOPP will probably have to manage without you.

Perhaps you would want to spend a day as James Miles before committing yourself either way. The morning's labours must begin after breakfast, for there are so many defaulters to be dealt with. You retire to your sunlit study overlooking the garden and await the first tap on the door.

Is it a coincidence that the first delinquent who comes in is also one of the most beautiful in your care? Why is it that the ugly ones never seem to incur so much retribution? In this case, Judith is quite a tall and graceful girl of 16. The light brown hair is worn in a sweep from her high crown to her shoulders framing the pale oval of her face with its clear fair-skinned features and hazel eyes.

You instruct her to lay her skirt on the chair and to present herself in stockings and tight cotton drawers. In this state you discover that she is not only quite tall but has long elegant legs which any glamour girl or beauty queen would envy. Pulling yourself together, you instruct her to lay her knickers on the same chair. Then Judith must face the chair and bend over it tightly with her hands on the seat.

Just before you attend to her there is some reformatory business to be done. You sit at your desk, quill pen in hand. Two or three feet in front of you is Judith's rear view. The long light brown hair has been braided into a pair of plaits to prevent it spilling forward as she stoops. From the rear you view the long graceful legs and seat. The black stocking-tops at mid-thigh, the elastic suspender arch at her waist and the suspender straps down each flank conveniently frame the area of interest. Perhaps you permit yourself a quiet smile of anticipation as you sit forward and familiarise yourself with the target.

Predictably, though you sit at your desk for half an hour, like the dedicated public servant that you are, you do not somehow get round to the paperwork.

'Bend over more tightly, Judith,' you say from time to time. 'Even more tightly still! No, don't keep looking round at the cane!'

Judith may be a demure and well-spoken young lady, the stuff of which pupil-teachers and governesses are made. But she has broken the rules and this time it is she who is on the receiving end. You rise and touch the bamboo across the pale oval cheeks of Judith's 16-year-old bottom. No smiles now, for your mouth is set firm and your eyes gleaming.

The sharp impacts of the cane ring out one after another across the nymph-cheeks of Judith's arse. Such a ladylike young backside undergoing so undignified a punishment! The silken whisper of stockings rises as her graceful legs squirm together. One knee jams frantically into the back of the other. The elegant ovals of Judith's bum-cheeks twist aside and there is a wild cry. Not surprising when you view the smarting willow-pattern of bamboo printed in fire on her behind. But you cannot permit such wriggling.

'Want me to take you back to the beginning and start again, Judith? No? Then bend properly. Up on tiptoe, forehead on the chair seat. No need to blush about it...'

So the caning continues. You no doubt pause from time to time to survey your handiwork. Then comes the dread utterance.

'Quite still, Judith! I'm not satisfied with your bottom yet!'

Naturally you are ready for your elevenses after such exertion. Fortified again, you turn to the problem of Sally or Sal. Here is a diminutive hooligan with a shock of henna-tinted hair, a high-boned impudent face with rouge on the cheeks, and dark defiant eyes. She and her two friends have been consigned to the reformatory for breaching the peace in no uncertain manner. Through the quiet middle-class street this pint-sized strumpet went bawling: 'I went out on Saturday night! I got into a fucking fight!' Sal was boasting, by the way, not complaining.

Do not imagine Sally in dress and petticoats. She was one for what Miles's contemporary Arthur Munby called 'working trousers' and what we should probably call jeans. Picture her in a black singlet, let us say, and a pair of tight faded blue jeans which show her sturdy thighs and bulging bottom rolling as she walks. The justices knew at a glance there was only one place for her.

As you escort her ahead of you to the study, you may well stare open-mouthed in anticipation at the swagger of Sally's fat young bottom in those tight jeans or 'working trousers.' In the study itself she has to undo the waist-belt and push her pants down below her knees.

'Lie bottom-upwards over the sofa-cushions, Sally!' you say humorously, exchanging a knowing look with her.

Clearly a fresh cane is called for, one with a vicious spring. And two more cushions under her belly to raise and swell the curve of Sal's seat. As you stand over her, you issue a warning.

'You'll be coming here every morning, Sally, until the matrons are satisfied with your improved conduct.' Then the bamboo whacks across the fat little cheeks of Sally's bottom with a report like a ringmaster's whip. You punish Sal with the cane across the crowns of her buttocks and curb her impudence by applying extremely hard strokes across her lower, softer rear-cheeks. Or so you think. When you dismiss her, she is hardly outside the door before you hear her mutter, 'Fucking old creep!'

It is the work of a moment to open the door and summon her back. The matrons will aid the removal of Sally's pants if required. Kneeling tightly forward over the chair-back this time. Now the banter is obviously on your side.

'Morning and evening, Sally! Until we're absolutely satisfied with you! We're very hard to satisfy here!'

If you have a moment to spare from your labours, you may just catch the shrill sounds of your matrons being very strict indeed with Sal's cronies — Tracey, Mandy and the rest of them — in the adjoining rooms.

What a busy morning it has been! Now there is a stern knock at the door. The chief constable! The magistrates! Ah, you thought it was too good to last! Your foul secret is revealed! You see visions of arrest, public disgrace, and a prison cell! Have no fear. These gentlemen are your very good friends and they have come to lunch.

Nowadays they might be eager to spend lunch discussing the latest right wing proposals for the restoration of birching in the grand manner. In default of this, why not entertain your guests, as James Miles, by showing them your scrap-book. First would come your conditions of appointment — all those extra perks for birching and bambooing recalcitrant young ladies — doing well by doing good.

Then you will want to show them the newspaper clippings of your trial. Your trial? Yes, alas, you were once tried before the justices of nearby Rochester. The courtroom was crowded by the national press. You were front-page news in the Morning Chronicle. A few sanctimonious busybodies decided that you were enjoying your public duties too much. They hauled you before the court for 'cruelty' and 'indecency' in your use of birch and bamboo. Can you imagine such absurdity?

To be quite honest, the case gave you a few nasty moments but you need not have worried. For example, Mr Elwes, the legal brain of the prosecution, condemned you for having teenage girls held down while you thrashed their bare bottoms. The judges dealt with this nonsense in no time at all. As one of the older women insisted, she had never known a girl 'that did not struggle' under the birch. 'Then, gentlemen, I must apologise for introducing the suggestion upon this court,' said Elwes the Legal Eagle in humbler tones. The Morning Chronicle of 7 January 1841 reported him without comment.

You see? You need not have worried after all. The court heard that you once caned the bare bottom of a young woman of 28 while she was lying on her bed. There were girls of more tender years whom you tanned in the Schoolroom. (Ironically the same word was used for the place where girls were whipped in brothels.) The court really did not care.

Rather nervously, the girls began to admit under cross-examination that you were a kindly master. Oh yes? Were they perhaps too scared of the retribution awaiting them if they sank out of tune? More probably they preferred regular meals and an occasional sore bottom to the prospect of starving in the streets. So it was that Sarah Barnes, Charlotte Burton and the rest sang your praises.

The prosecution struggled on gamely, doing its best. You had birched the bare bottoms of girls between the ages of 16 and 28! Yes, yes, thought the judges impatiently. Of course you had. That was what the government paid you to do. Some of the strokes, said the prosecutor solemnly, made the girl scream. Of course, they had, thought the justices. It wouldn't have been a very effective punishment otherwise, would it? But, shrilled the prosecutor, the girls had been held down for their bare bottom discipline! Naturally they had, said the court. If you don't hold them, they wriggle.

So the astonishing trial at Rochester continued with the entire country following the details eagerly over its toast and marmalade next day. How did it end? Well that was truly unforgettable — and you are going to have a lot of fun telling your cronies about it at lunch time. First there was an ill concealed snirt-snirt! chortle-chortle! from one of the well-fed Pickwickian justices. Then the others began to join in. Soon the entire bench of them was rolling about, hooting and roaring till the tears ran down their cheeks. Funny? You bet it was funny!

It really was priceless, you see, to prosecute you for skinning a score of schoolgirl bottoms every week. In modern terms, it was like a tax inspector sending out a final demand and being prosecuted for demanding money with menaces.

So the portly justices laughed the case out of court. Birch the young sluts soundly, Mr Miles! Have the skin off their arses, sir! Go to it, by gad! Not that they uttered these sentiments. Instead they began to shout jokes to one another. The entire case foundered in great farting peals of mirth.

You were acquitted. But what did the country at large think about you? Did they condemn you? Were they indignant that you were being paid to have the time of your life while they slaved away in factory or counting-house? For the benefit of your guests you show them what the Britannia newspaper said about you after your trial. 'Wholly up to him to decide what degree of punishment,' said the Britannia in its editorial upon you. Archibald Sinclair in his 1857 Reminiscences, put more power to your elbow. 'First rate disciplinarian,' wrote Sinclair approvingly, 'never gives less than three dozen.'

Three dozen? Small wonder that the witnesses at your trial and the other delinquent lasses. Charlotte Burton, Sarah Barnes, Elaine Cox, Lisa Screese, and the rest, have the reputation of being the best disciplined girls for miles around.

If any of your guests entertain lingering doubts as to the legality of such punishments — and supposing it is now 1904 and you are a spry 90-year-old — you pull down from the shelves the great legal authority of the day. It is the sixth edition of Sir James Stephen's Digest of the Criminal Law, published that year. There on page eight, under the heading 'Whipping', you will find the ruling that 'the number of strokes and the instrument used are at the discretion of the person by whom the whipping is inflicted.'

True, there are one or two subversive types around who make snide remarks about your conscientious performance of your duties. There is a young man called Havelock Ellit. The foul-minded little cad actually insinuates that you are getting secret sex fun by caning the bare bottoms of Jane, Sally, Susan, Maggie, Judith, Elaine, Jennifer, Helena, Ann, Noreen, Mandy, etc., etc. Have no fear, Ellis's books are being prosecuted by the authorities who denounce him as 'a thoroughly filthy fellow.'

Lunch has restored your energies and you decide on an inspection of the girls at work. How about a stroll down to the stables on this sunny afternoon? There you will find a girl of 19 polishing the display of harness and mopping over the tiles. Though she goes by the newly-fashionable name of Angela, she is known by the reformatory contraction of Ange.

For some time you have had doubts as to whether Ange is pulling her shapely weight. She is a girl with a plumpish figure, well shown off by her singlet and those pale faded blue working-trousers, best described as snug-fitting jeans. She has a soft face, though her nose is pert, blue eyes, and a short razor-trimmed crop of light brown hair.

As you arrive, she is on all fours, mopping over the tiled floor. Prudently she keeps her head lowered to her task, the brown fringe falling over her forehead. The soft outlines of her face, her ears and her smooth young neck are revealed by her short crop. In the warm afternoon the singlet clings to her pale back and breasts. From the waist down one must imagine her full thighs and plump hips sheathed by something like a pair of pale blue jeans. Nowadays, under the tightly strained jeans-seat you would see the elastic outline of Ange's knickers — a pair of stretch-briefs arching up high and tight over each of her bum-cheeks. In those far-off times, they were not worn.

Therefore, you will want to take a long and careful rear view of her as she works on all fours. A few years more and Miss Angela is going to be a decidedly plump-hipped young lady! Just now she suits Victorian taste. A slight weightiness in her thighs draws your attention to her seat. Under the drumskin-tight jeans, Ange's buttocks are robustly full and broad. You inspect the area closely as she toils away self-consciously under your feared gaze. The stout central seam of the jeans-set is drawn deep and taut between the lower fatness of Ange's bottom-cheeks.

Is she really working to your satisfaction? As you study Ange's broad young backside, you are not entirely convinced. Well out of earshot there is the 'apple shed' where windfalls are pressed for cider. The power is provided by a young woman bending over a barrel which stands on its side. She then runs like a sprinter on the spot, working the wooden treadle, under which lie the apples to be pulped. What better exercise for a 19-year-old idler like Ange?

She may not be easily persuaded, but you have your way. So you contemplate Ange, arse-upwards over the barrel. Her softly appealing face is lost from view over the wooden curve and you can scarcely see the razor-trimmed crop of her light brown hair. Yet Ange's plump bottom-cheeks are straining those jeans dangerously tight, and they obsess you. You must not risk them splitting as she runs. The only alternative is to undo the waist and ease them down until they slip off over her ankles. Yes, of course, you will want to pause and study the bare bottom so tantalisingly offered.

The girl obeys you, as of course she must. Her trousers are now off. Then, at your second command, she begins her run, her plump young thighs working energetically. The slight extra sheen of pale flesh on Ange's naked bum-cheeks quivers like smacked jelly as she runs on the spot.

Your own trousers feel uncomfortably tight as you remember the words of Sir James Stephen. Ange's fate is entirely at your discretion. You will not, of course, be barbaric. Yet there lies the birch (three yard-long switches bound at the handle) which came from the Reverend Mr Vine's prison-farm. As you watch Ange, those running thighs and fattened young bum-cheeks, you recall that she was due for a tanning anyway. How convenient! You are entitled to give Ange's young backside the severest birching that even a boys' prison-farm allows.

Ange, of course, twists her face round in blue-eyed alarm and her legs go like pistons.

'A full prison birching across your bare bottom, Angela!' you say, warning her to brace herself for it.

Her protests are gasped and breathless as you measure the birch across the rounding and writhing plumpness of Ange's pale mobile seat-cheeks. Thrash! goes the triple-switched rod across her quivering backside. Thrash! ... Thrash! ... Thrash! ... Thrash! ... THRASH! ... THRASH! ... SWISHHH-THRASH!


What an afternoon this promises to be! Ange's shrillness is making the rafters ring. Bottom upwards over the barrel she is going like a champion, legs pumping up and down at twice the speed. Ange's soft pale buttocks are dancing cheek-to-cheek, and it is as well for her that she cannot twist over on her hip. Thrash! ... Thrash! ... 'Push your behind right out now, Ange! Run faster!' ... Thrash! ... Thrash! ... Thrash! ... Lash! ... Thrash!

Perhaps you feel that all this is too much for 19-year-old Angela. And yet it seems you are wrong. You turn away for a moment to lay down your coat, for you are feeling immensely hot. While your back is turned, Ange's mouth delivers a loud and vulgar raspberry as she runs — surely a deliberate defiance of you? As you turn, she gives a cry as if suddenly terrified by her own brazenness.

'Very well, Angela! You know the rules! We shall commence the discipline again! From the beginning!'

Let us draw a curtain of decorum, as the Victorians themselves might say, over the remaining events of the afternoon in that apple-shed. It will be some while before you emerge and, as for Ange, she may prefer to remain there a time and even shed a tear or two of repentance before she emerges to face the world again.

But you are forgetting something, are you not? All that energy put into birching Ange, as well as caning Judith and Sally, is not merely a disciplinary exercise. It also earns you money. In addition to your £15,000 a year and your £40 a week as chastiser, today's three punishments have earned you some £21 at about £7 a time! It may not be as good as first prize on the premium bonds but it surely is more interesting.

Ah, you are wondering how the authorities know the amount due to you. After all, there are some dishonest fellows about who would claim to have birched half a dozen girls a day when they had done nothing of the sort. Naturally, you could be trusted to do your duty but there are some people, you know...

What could be easier than to tell whether the books are cooked or not? The justices' clerk arrives to pay you the day's dues. He does not need books at all. You call Ange, Sally and Judith.

'Slip your knickers off, Ange, and bend over the back of the chair... Judith, lie bottom-upwards on the sofa... Bend over the desk, Sally! Push your jeans right down!'


The justices' clerk, with eyes laughing and mouth rounded in admiration, can read the accounts exactly where you printed them with willow and bamboo. He cannot draw himself away. There is a favour he would ask. He has some apples for pressing. May be bring them? Is the shed free tomorrow afternoon? Might he borrow Ange? How can you refuse a man who is offering to do your job free?

A sceptical modern reader might begin to wonder about the motives of some Victorian upholders of law and order. The justices laughed prosecutions like that of Mr Miles out of court. But they did better than that. They actually supplied James Miles and his kind with the pretty girls whom he 'reformed' with such loving care. Indeed, the justices were eager to see chastisement enforced. They were even, it seems, prepared to bend the law so that a pretty girl with a shapely bottom might bare it regularly for the rod.

Impossible? Take a look at the tip of the iceberg in Richard Whitmire's Victorian and Edwardian Crime and Punishment. Among the records of Huntingdon gaol, for example, are details of girls sent to the reformatory by justices, sometimes with specified birchings. Julia Ogolthorpe is a pretty dark haired schoolgirl in the photograph on her record-sheet. For stealing a loaf at Grantham, they gave her five years in reformatory where, as they say, she might spend more time bending than sitting.

But surely these worthy gentlemen were only doing their job, weren't they? Take another look at her record. It is made out, announcing her summary conviction, on 5 January 1871. It also gives the date of her trial — which did not take place until 27 January, more than three weeks later. Whoops! The greedy justices wore thus able to choose girls for reformatory discipline for the next five years without waiting for such boring details as the trial, the evidence, and the possibility that Julia Ogolthorpe or Sarah Barnes or Sally Fenton might not be guilty. Of course, when the hearing took place, the justices were both judge and jury so there was no danger of getting the wrong verdict.

Before James Miles was born, Edward Ward in his periodical The London Spy had revealed the eagerness of justices and their cronies to see a good display of birching and whipping upon the bare rears of young women. Some of the girls were in their 20s, others in their early teens, according to Ward. The chairman of the justices sat in the 'judgment seat' with a hammer in his hand. 'A woman was under the lash in the next room, where folding doors were opened so that the whole court might see the punishment inflicted.' Ward watched for a while and then went about his business leaving his judicial friends 'to flog on till the accusers had satisfied their revenge and the spectators their curiosity.' In our own time there are many voices urging the return of such punishments. What did Ward think, after watching them? 'I only conceive it makes many whores,' he said, 'but that it can in no measure reclaim them.'

Next time that the advocates of flogging in our own century hold forth, we might do well to remember Ward's remarks. To strip a girl for whipping, he observed, was the first step in making her a whore. When it was over, she regarded herself as one.

As James Miles, of course, you will not wish to hear such arguments. Your day is too busy. As you may recall, you have already tanned Judith, Sal, and Ange, as well as entertaining the local magistracy to lunch. Now the justices' clerk leaves, making Ange wince by an injudicious slap on her light jeans-cheek. You might almost think your day's labours are at an end. Would it surprise you to know that, for a dedicated public servant like Mr Miles, they have hardly begun?

Story from Janus 15.

The Man With The Golden Rod, part two
by Richard Manton

Writer Richard Manton (the pseudonym of a well-known novellist) continues his recreation of just one day in the life of James Miles, the factual Master of the Hoo Union Workhouse at Rochester, Kent during the 19th century. This compelling, obsessive yet authentic account, closely based on records of the time, takes one deep into the world of workhouse discipline for girls and raises many topical questions relating to right-wing moves to get corporal punishment put back on the statute books. Part one of The Man With The Golden Rod appeared in Janus 14.

WHEN, AS James Miles, you were acquitted at your trial, the justices were clearly on your side. Off you go, they said. Birch those young reformatory trollops long, hard, and often. Did you suspect that the justices had a vested interest in the verdict? No? What a trusting sort of chap you are.

The French revealed the truth in such Edwardian hooks as Etudes sur la Flagellation. England's rulers endeavoured to ban such books by prosecution and persecution. Not surprisingly, since the truth revealed applied to those rulers themselves.

Mr Miles was acquitted, we learn, so that the justices might continue to enjoy the sight of girls birched or caned on the so-called 'justices' nights'. Under a veil of Victorian prudery it was possible to attend an evening of tannings which combined striptease, moral self-righteousness, and sex as a blood-sport.

Nowadays, if the polls are to be believed, a substantial majority in the country would support judicial thrashings. Press reports in the Sun and the Liverpool Daily Post on 13 February 1976 revealed Tory MPs proposal to have girl delinquents judicially whipped 'with a birch, cane or strap'. On 10 November 1977 the Daily Telegraph reported how girls in care in Nottinghamshire were to be dealt with until the age of 17. Misconduct was to be punished by bamboo. 'Canings should be on the bottom,' read the instructions, 'always in front of witnesses.'

Papers like the Telegraph are rightly quick to report such stories prominently, thus warning us of the severities which a return to old-fashioned 'discipline' might involve. Yet, for all their enlightened and humane attitude which this careful concern for the subject doubtless shows, they can scarcely conjure up the scenes which a return to 'the good old days' would involve.

As James Miles you would welcome your guests to an excellent dinner, food and wine on expenses. Afterwards you would all retire to the punishment room — the Red Room as they called it at Hoo — prudently out of earshot of the rest of the buildings.

Picture a long stone-flagged room, gaslight glaring harshly on white-washed walls. The windows are high up and barred. At the centre of the floor stands the fixed square block over which each culprit kneels. Several feet to the rear are leather chairs for the witnesses. They take their places, Mr Miles removes his jacket and rolls up his sleeves. He tests a slender three-foot bamboo. It has a rapier's spring. Like a golfer practising his swing, he cuts the air a few times with a trial swish.

The first delinquent is led in. She is just the rebellious tomboy to make a disciplinarian's fingers itch. Elaine is best described as a shouting, striding youngster. Lank fair hair combed from a central parting lies loose upon her shoulders. Narrow eyes and thin mouth give the broad oval of her face a look of snub-nosed insolence. This sturdy young rebel boasts robust young hips and thighs.

The witnesses catch her defiant gaze with quiet smiles of anticipation, their eyes taking in her strong young legs, grey pleated skirt and white blouse. In modern terms it would be the kind of grey pleated uniform skirt worn short enough to bare Elaine's sturdy young thighs.

Her crime, it seems, was breaking the finger of one of your matrons. Just the offence for which the Tory proposal of 1976 advocates birching or caning girls 'guilty of inflicting bodily harm'. Yet Elaine returns the gaze of the portly middle-aged justices with a look of contempt.

It seems she cares nothing for the impending punishment. Hardly waiting for the order, she sheds her skirt and kneels on all fours over the block. The tight white cotton web of Elaine's knickers show her to be 'quite a big-bottomed girl in this posture'.

Despite more lurid suggestions of Mr Miles's involvement, it will probably be a matron who stoops over the block. Elaine's knickers are pushed down, and then she is positioned with meticulous exactitude. The pro-flogging brigade of our own day — MPs and public — would surely approve of such exhaustive precautions. It is, of course, left to you as James Miles to tuck up the tail of her blouse, well clear of the full pale cheeks of Elaine's bottom. Are you startled as she tosses back her fair hair, cranes round, and treats you to a burst of snub-nosed defiance?


Such girls as this were a puzzle to men like the author of Etudes sur la Flagellation — Jean de Villot. Elaine was facing — or perhaps about-facing — a full judicial thrashing with all the trimmings. Yet by her continued defiance and insolence she seemed determined to do everything in her power to make it worse. Later on we shall have to consider why — but put out of your head any mischievous old-wives' tales about the youngster 'enjoying it'. Next day she would scarcely walk without some discomfort or sit without a wince and a sharp intake of breath. What is so enjoyable about that? A blister on the foot could be more fun.

As James Miles, however, you introduce one more refinement. Elaine must call out the number of each stroke before receiving it. Would our present-day advocates of the birch approve the idea? If the girl fails or refuses to do so, she will get the stroke anyway. But it will not count towards the total of her punishment. By defiance she will merely earn herself more lashes of the cane.

So, as James Miles, you must now take the bamboo in your hand. You announce her sentence formally to the girl and the justices, assuring her in the manner of a bawdy sergeant-major that it will be with the bamboo across bare bum-checks. Then you order her to call out the number of the first stroke.

Now comes the biggest shock of all. The rebellious youngster, in a burst of foul-mouthed, four-lettered defiance, refuses to call out the numbers of the strokes. In case you have not got the message, she yells to the world that you are a bastard, and an effing bastard at that.

Tossing back her fair hair, Elaine cranes round at the witnesses. The broad oval of her snub-nosed face is still suffused with defiance in her narrow eyes and thin mouth. How she curses the well-fed justices. In the privacy of the punishment-room they smile back at her knowingly, showing her their amusement and delight in her predicament. They let her see them sitting forward in their chairs for a close-up of the subject. Mouths pursed and eyes bright, they survey the sturdily broadened cheeks of Elaine's backside in its present posture. Whatever the explanation of her vulgar impudence, she must have known better than to hope for a reprieve later on. When the justices have such a bare-bottomed tomboy over the block, all leniency is forbidden.

So Mr Miles gently and almost teasingly measures the bamboo across the full pale checks of Elaine's young bottom. For all her defiance, the youngster is gnawing at her lower lip apprehensively. Her hands are clenched desperately and her fifth-former's buttocks are tensing and shifting under the menace of the bamboo touch.

With all the time in the world, Mr Miles takes aim. Then, raising the cane, he brings it down with 'an ear-splitting smack' across the full pale cheeks of Elaine's bottom. She gasps at the smart and her bum-cheeks begin to arch and squirm. Mr Miles knows from long experience that the initial smarting impact of the bamboo across Elaine's adolescent behind will swell in intensity to a savage climax several seconds later. Expert that he is, he aims each stroke to coincide with that climax of its predecessor.

Naturally there is an electric tension in the room as the smack! ... whip-smack! of two more uncounted strokes rings out across Elaine's rear cheeks. This is accompanied by a gasping, a wrestling, and the strained creaking of the punishment bench. Surely the rebellious youngster must know as well as the witnesses that she will yell at the top of her voice for the first counted stroke, sooner or later. Only then will the official discipline begin. Incredible though it seems, she is actually trying to add to her punishment while she can still bear to.

To be fair to those who now advocate the return of the birch, they do not suggest flagellations on the Victorian scale. The Tory proposal favours 12 strokes, though the figure 18 has also been mentioned. The danger, of course, is where the punishment routine provides for an increase in the number as a reprisal for misconduct while the tanning itself is actually being given. Elaine's five years in the reformatory, under the old-fashioned law, would probably extend from adolescence to 18. One can well imagine the sort of discipline which the present law-and-order brigade might well want to administer to the bare checks of Elaine's strapping young tomboy bottom during such a period of detention.

Back to Mr Miles in the reformatory punishment-room back to the details which the pro-birchers would prefer you not to know....

After a number of uncounted strokes, the inevitable happens. A sizzling lash of the bamboo causes Elaine's sturdy young buttocks to clench frantically. As the impact swells, she tosses back her fair hair, cranes round at the witnesses in consternation, and yells out, 'One!'

The well-fed justices smile knowingly at this triumph of their power over her adolescent rebellion. The eventual submission of the victim is inevitable, but they prefer it when they have to wait. Mr Miles's mouth is set tight. The bamboo thrashes down with a pistol-crack report across the red cane-prints already branching across Elaine's backside. The sequel is predictable and easily imagined.

'Two! ... Three! ... Fo-o-o-ur! .... FI-I-I-VE! .... SIX! .... Please, not across there again! No! N-O-O-O! .... O-O-O-W! .... My BOTTOM! Oh, please count that one! Ple-e-e-e-ase! .... O-O-W-HOO-HOO-HOOO! .... SEVEN! .... E-E-E-Y-OW! .... OH, NO! NOT THERE AGAIN! .... AHH! .... EIGHT! .... NINE! .... No-o! Not there again! It isn't fair! .... Y-O-O-W! .... TEN!'

Does this sound-track show the unacceptable face of law-and-order? Remember, if the present proposal becomes law, much worse than this will be heard many times a day throughout the land. One can well believe that by this stage of the discipline, the fiery spread of Elaine's bottom-cheeks 'resembled a girl made to sit all day on a cruel thorn-bush infested by angry wasps!' However, those in parliament and the courts who support such proposals have considered all this and have decided that the type of punishment inflicted on Elaine and her kind is OK by them.

The rest of us, however, may wonder about the so-called 'healthy' effect of such reformatory discipline. By this stage of the tanning, Mr Miles is finding the front of his trousers uncomfortably tight. Small wonder that the French suggested he was having 'punishment fun' with Elaine. One can well believe that the lads from the adjoining boys' department would have risked their necks to reach the high barred windows on the outside. The master and justices were perhaps too busy to notice. Yet Elaine, as she craned round with eyes brimming and mouth howling, may have glimpsed the faces at the windows — wide-eyed and open mouthed, the lads' legs squirming to hold themselves high up as they peeped in on the scene. Healthy? Well, it beats jogging on the hard-shoulder.

So before we all go out and vote for the return of the good old system, let us consider some of the things it actually involves. Those who advocate it — without ever having seen it — give the impression that a reformatory tanning would he a clean, decent, thoroughly British occupation. Rather like a game of cricket with birch and rump — six strokes to the over. Stiff upper lip? If anything was stiff in the punishment-room it is not an upper lip.

Victorian hooks and magazines thrived on whippings, sport and imperialism. For instance, Miles was quite entitled to cane a girl like Elaine or Ange after breakfast, and then call her back for a second bambooing across her bare bottom after lunch. Were our ancestors shocked by this? Not a bit, it seems. The Captain, 'A Magazine for Boys and Old Boys', assured its readers that a second tanning an hour or two after the first was merely 'a second innings on a sticky wicket'. How England's upper crust chortled over the joke. One imagines the humour may have been lost on Elaine or Ange or Sal.

To begin with, the language in such chastisements as Elaine's is not at all the sort approved by the Viewers and Listeners Association for family entertainment. A vulgar young tomboy like Elaine, when stung beyond endurance, is apt to use terms you would not find in Jane Austen. After more than a dozen counted swipes of the cane across her bare bottom, even a sturdy youngster like Elaine is frantic from the lingering smart. Then there comes a wickedly-aimed stroke across the tender willow-pattern of bamboo already striping her backside. In a fury of anguish, Elaine twists her face round again, yelling, 'My arse! Oh, you bastards! You bastards!'

We can look forward to a good deal of this, if the new proposals become law. The supporters of official corporal punishment, like those supporting the capital variety, are apt to assure us that their method is quick and clean. That's great, as long as you're not the one who has to clean up afterwards.

The last phases of such a punishment are likely to be extremely undignified. A sturdy impudent adolescent girl, kneeling so tightly forward over the block, is not particularly well-placed to exercise psychological self-control under the cane. After a stroke wicked enough to raise goose-pimples, Elaine's tomboy bottom thrashes in a paroxysm of wild agony, and her lips scream profanities. The snub-nosed rebel turns the broad oval of her face to the witnesses, her mouth forming an 'Ooo!' of dismay at what she has so pitiably shrieked. She knows that such impudence qualifies for extra chastisement. Worse still, as her expression indicates to the judicial amusement of the witnesses, Elaine knows that in her present state the next smarting stroke may very well cause a repetition of her 'insolence', for which vengeance will be duly executed.

Supporters of the rod, of course, are quick to suggest that it would be 'different' nowadays. It's hard to see how. Certainly as one correspondent in the Daily Telegraph ('Caning of girls', 26 January 1976) pointed out, the female bottom would continue to be the target zone. 'After all, decorum has nothing to do with it, since the punishment is to be dished out by mistresses.'

That sounds fine until you read another report in the same newspaper on 25 May 1978, 'Home Office turns blind eye to lesbian warders'. And not just lesbian, in this account, but ladies with a taste for sexual violence. In one of its best exposés ever, the paper revealed how Anita Sasin, aged 22, alleged that she had been the victim of lesbian rape at Styal prison in Cheshire. The Home Office dismissed the allegation with customary smug imperturbability as 'Bizarre and untrue'. Unfortunately for the Home Office, Mrs Wynne Egerton, a senior officer at Styal, had the courage to disclose the true state of affairs in some female prisons. The Prison Department, she announced, 'turns a blind eye and retains in the service, staff who are known to be active lesbians, and even corrupt married women.'

So much for the soothing assurance that reformatory canings would be 'all right now' because girls like Elaine would be tanned by female officers. Just imagine two or three ladies of this ilk standing over the culprit as James Miles did, eager to let off some disciplinary steam. It will all be behind closed doors — and no questions asked afterwards. Even if the questions are asked, the Home Office will be able to tell us that the allegations are bizarre and untrue. Picture the scene, the culprit over the block and a good selection of canes in the rack. Can you imagine what would happen to the strapping young cheeks of Elaine's fifth-form bottom in the next half hour?

For the moment, though, you are still James Miles back in the last century. To Elaine's shrill and frantic protests that she can bear no more, you need only reply that she will be made to bear it away. No need to concern herself over that.

During the rest of the evening you ply the cane with the virtuoso skill of a concert pianist before your guests. Every 20 minutes or so, the door of the Red Room opens. One pretty miscreant leaves, rubbing her behind cheeks tearfully, and another is summoned. Sarah Barnes and Charlotte Burton may have praised your virtues at your trial, but that only makes you the more keen to instill a little virtue into them now. Perhaps you progress all the way up the age-range in your disciplinary zeal, all the way to flighty young women of 27 and 28.

Your guests depart, leaving you weary of arm and damp of brow. Time for a nightcap in your study and a quick count-up of the day's earnings. But, devoted public servant that you are, you cannot rest while duty remains undone. Surely when your time comes there will be a statue to your memory: 'James Miles, erected by the girls of Hoo reformatory'.

You have just recalled a sluttishness of behaviour by an impudent young woman of 25. You summon Jacqueline to your study. Under the short bell of blonde hair and fringe, Jackie has a pale sullen face, blue eyed and heavy jawed. As ordered, she is in white singlet and working-trousers of tight smooth denim. Long legs with trim thighs. The softness of breasts and hips suggests one furtive pregnancy.

You employ her in various casual chores first of all, which involve her in a good deal of bending over with her seat towards you. You decide her fate while pondering, in their skintight denim, the fattish cheeks of blonde Jackie's arse. All her sly attempts to seduce you from your duty fail. You are proof against such things.

Trousers and pants off, Jackie. Kneel on the sofa! Now kneel tightly forward over the padded back. Put your palms on the floor to take your weight. Such a pale plump pair of bottom-cheeks, Jackie! Why, you have escaped discipline far too long. I promise you, miss, my trusty bamboo shall soon alter that sad state of affairs! I shall send the matron in charge of your work a message to inform her that you will not be returning there tonight. In a moment, Jackie, the reformatory cane! Did you not guess it would be that when you were sent for? I do not believe I have ever had the opportunity to acquaint myself so well with your bottom before, Jackie! What a sluttish arrogance you must have showed as a shopgirl. Still, I can well understand why the customers were always asking for trinkets which obliged you to turn your back to the counter and bend to rummage in the lowest shelves! Keep that fat young backside of yours quite still, Jackie! No, don't tighten your seat-cheeks as I measure the bamboo across them. Disobedience will prolong the caning!'

A devoted public servant, it seems, knows no rest. And yet, if the French account is to be believed, there is a curious sequel to your busy day.

One morning, not too long afterwards, a party of girls in singlets and trousers is tending the garden outside your study window. Your desk at which you are working stands in the bay of the window, giving you an excellent view. Elaine is there, tightly clad in white singlet and working-trousers of smooth lavender-blue material which are very, very tight-fitting. The cause of this is partly the broad leather waist-belt drawing them in so narrowly. Also the trousers are really too small for her sturdy hips and seat. Indeed, from the rear, the outline of Elaine's well-filled seat is an almost perfect circle — across the back of her waist, out round the flanks of her hips, and under her buttocks.

As you work at your papers, Elaine takes her place at the flower-bed a few feet beyond the glass. She turns her back to you to begin her allotted task of weeding. You are bound to glance up from your correspondence occasionally at her sturdy adolescent buttocks straining the tight smooth trouser-cloth. Once, at least, she stares back at you over her shoulder, the lank fair hair from its central parting framing the broad oval of her face, the snub nose, narrow eyes, and thin defiant mouth.

Then she bends over to weed. By now you are having real trouble with your correspondence. You look up and there, three feet away, you are confronted by the sturdy thighs, the broadened young cheeks of Elaine Cox's fifth-form bottom once more. No one can truly blame you for leaning forward on your elbows and staring with lips tightly pursed at the view beyond the glass! The impudent tomboy is bending right over and, it seems, deliberately thrusting the spread-cheeked seat of her lavender-blue tight trousers in your face!

Understandably, you do not get round to your correspondence. Your lips are rounded with a sharp intake of breath and your eyes gleam at the smooth seat-cloth drawn splittingly tight as the youngster bends. Vulgarly filled and fattened by this posture are the strapping young cheeks of Elaine's bottom. You hold the paperweight in one hand and polish it vigorously but absent-mindedly. From time to time, the insolent youngster tosses back her fair hair and cranes round at you. She shifts a little but deliberately stays bending to confront you with her broadened young bum-cheeks, all morning long. Under the straining trouser-seat, Elaine's arse-cheeks are wantonly and suggestively parted by her posture.

Yet Elaine is deliberately idling, showing you that she has not pulled up a weed all morning. There can only be one outcome to this. At the end of the session, you summon her for a study-tanning.

'You're really in trouble this time, Elaine,' you say smilingly as you escort her in. The other girls stare aghast at her boldness.

Elaine on the sofa this time, kneeling tightly forward over the scroll at the end. Once again those trousers are beautifully tight over the cheeks of her sturdy young backside. Down come the trousers to her knees with Elaine's pants inside them. The afternoon lies ahead of you, the doors are locked, and no tales will be told afterwards.

Why did Elaine invite such retribution? She certainly did not enjoy the strokes. Mr Miles was the only man in her life, of course, and perhaps this form of undressing was the nearest thing to sex she could get? Perhaps his mind would turn to other things? Alas, there is no evidence that he even thought of it! Perhaps Elaine was angry on another girl's behalf. That might account for one incident but not her general conduct.

The likely truth is so obvious one overlooks it. Elaine was bully of the reformatory — like a gangland boss among humble cons. Instead of constant fights which she would one day lose, she held her authority by taking public discipline which other girls quailed at. Hence the incurring of extra strokes while she could still bear them — in order to display a more battered bottom! Hence the deliberate defiance of the master during the garden detail where other girls could see. She was one of those who, as the Telegraph put it on 15 October 1979, 'bare their weals with pride.' Like another problem pupil described by the same paper on 15 January 1976, Elaine 'enjoyed being caned and went back for more.' Like Mr Miles's fifth-form tomboy, this pupil too 'attacked teachers... disrupted classes, defied all rules.' What seems like incredible behaviour by a reformatory girl was all too credible!

Last of all, let us concede that there may well be a case for the return of judicial caning and birching. But certain questions must first be answered which are carefully not discussed in the press advocating it. In a democracy punishments cannot be restricted to one group. Therefore in a modern Miles reformatory there will, basically, be two types of offender. One is the defiant adolescent tomboy of Elaine's sort. The other — for the law in this area always extends to sexual immorality in the end — will be the promiscuous older woman in her middle or late twenties. For such a female, well-established in her waywardness, no other remedy could be appropriate. My story Lesley: Behind Closed Doors in Janus 13, described the case of one such girl.

If reformatories like James Miles' flourish again, readers of Janus may well be among the applicants to become master! There will be many more girls than Elaine and Lesley. Yet the questions which will have to be answered apply very much to their types.

1. Should offenders be sent to the reformatory for a set period and a set number of birchings or strokes? Or should their stay and punishments be decided by the staff there? The old law would require Elaine's presence until the age of 18. Would 6 or 12 months be sufficient for a promiscuous young wife like Lesley?

2. Should tannings be with or without witnesses? Elaine's strapping young fifth-form bottom will naturally get private study canings as well as in front of staff or other girls. Lesley, a liberated young woman, will suffer some humiliation if caned bare-bottomed before witnesses. To avoid this she must bend her urchin-crop and present her firm pale buttocks to her chastiser alone. A real disciplinarian will want to deal very strictly indeed with a trendy young libber who has ditched her marital responsibilities in order to sleep around. Is the risk of extra chastisement justified by saving Lesley a more public shame?

3. Should buttocks be clothed during tanning? Translucent tights over Lesley's bottom-cheeks will be torn by birch or cane. Lesley's black stretch-briefs — like Elaine's white ones — may impede the thrashing and conceal its effects from the person who gives it, which could be dangerous.

4. What punishment posture? Traditionally, Elaine would kneel over a block or lie on the sofa. Lesley's firm pale bottom-moons would be shown while she bent over a tall stool. Should this change?

5. What instrument should be used? Traditionally a birch for a tomboy, a cane or even whipcord on the bottom for an adulterous young wife like Lesley. Few angry husbands have a birch in the house!

6. Should the strokes be set before punishment? What incidents during chastisement require one to reduce — or increase — the number? Should a more absolute obedience be expected from Lesley under correction than from a youngster like Elaine?

7. Should tannings also be awarded and given by subordinate staff? If so, would Lesley or Elaine bend for the master's inspection and the tanning take place later? This guards against unsupervised discipline and ensures fitness for the ordeal. Yet it also ensures 24 hours of 'butterflies in the tummy' and a sleepless night for the young lady in question.

8. With up to a dozen years between age-groups, should severity of punishment differ? Do we accept that Lesley's experience of lovers, marriage, childbearing, makes her more maturely able, physically and emotionally, to endure severe discipline than even a robust tomboy?

Should her greatest feeling of humiliation be taken into account?

9. Would you find work in a reformatory for Elaine and the tomboys or work in one for Lesley and the libbers more rewarding? Try a simple test. You are offered one of two jobs. The way to one lies through a room to the left, the other by a room to the right.

To the left, young Elaine kneels over the block, stretch-briefs down, blouse tail pulled up. Tossing back her lank fair hair she cranes round at you with that snub-nosed insolence which has put her where she is just now. The full pale cheeks of her tomboy bottom are broadly presented. Cane and triple-switched birch lie close by.

To the right, 28-year-old Lesley bends tightly forward over a tall stool, with an air of peevish resentment. The straight fair hair, urchin cropped, is shaped close to her head from the high crown to the jawline. Her blue eyes are dismissive, her fair-skinned features firmly disdainful, her mouth and chin sulky as a spoilt little girl. The short white singlet ends at her waist. Lesley's stretch-briefs and tights lie on the tiled floor. Her long legs, trim from cycling and other exercises, lead up to the proud firming out of the pale moons of Lesley's bottom.

Desertion of marital duties is no longer approved of as 'a woman's right'. Birch and cane lie waiting, together with a short woven pony-lash. Parliament has reinstated Sir James Stephens's ruling. The number of strokes, the instrument used, the frequency of whippings, the removal of panties, will be entirely at the discretion of Lesley's chastiser. A year or two will reform her ways.

Do you turn right or left? The questions are academic. What matters is the answers — and the answers must be yours, aided perhaps by the example of James Miles, the Man with the Golden Rod.