Showing posts with label cadet. Show all posts
Showing posts with label cadet. Show all posts

Tuesday, 18 May 2010

Training ship "Viceroy"

Story from old Blushes.

Training ship "Viceroy"
England expects –

FROM ADMIRAL I.C. TRAINING COMMAND TO COMMANDING OFFICER T.C.'VICEROY'........MESSAGE BEGINS: H.M. INSPECTOR OF TRAINING ESTABLISHMENTS WILL VISIT YOUR SHIP THIS A.M. 11.00 HOURS. MESSAGE ENDS........10.37


Although the afternoon sun struck dazzlingly across the water in the harbour, there was a breeze off the sea that was distinctly cool against the cheek as it blew up little waveletts to chuckle against the planking of the boat. Bare skin chilled in the intermittent gusts and there was plenty of unclothed girl-flesh in the whaler which had been sent to ferry the inspector across to the training ship moored in the deeper water of the main channel.

The bespectacled figure sitting awkwardly at the stern beside the girl handling the tiller looked now and then towards the tall-masted vessel riding quietly at her bouy, but his attention was more often focused onboard, where the girls on the thwarts laboured clumsily against the weight of their oars, dashing up little flecks of spray that spangled the man's raincoat and got onto his glasses so that he had to take them off several times and wipe the water away. The girls' legs were bare up to their shorts winch cut close across the tops of their thighs and pulled intimate creases up from between their legs. Their tee-shirts left their arms bare and their alternate leaning forward and straining back gave glimpses of flat naked bellies at each stroke. Nipples pushed against tight-stretched shirts as each pull had the girls inclining backwards and breasts bounced youthfully as they leaned forward again. Plump little peach-clefts strained juicily against white cotton between suntanned thighs and the healthy pink of physical exertion suffused young, smooth cheeks below bright eyes which watched the watcher watching.

Ten minutes saw them rounding the bow of the ship to pass under the boom and along the side to the ladder. A girl stood straddle-legged in the bow with a boat-hook held erect between her feet like a lance tipped with brass. Only when the girl had got to her feet had the inspector realised just how immodest the girls' shorts all were. Self-consciously this girl had looped a finger up under the leg of her shorts and eased the cotton down over the perkiness of her buttocks, aware no doubt that her saucy young bum would offer the inspector a fresh place to rest his eyes after their exploration of the other girls' thighs, but her buttocks could still not be entirely secluded from interested eyes, the diagonal upsweep of the shorts being cut high on the hip, emphasising the length of a girl's legs but making no secret of the roundness of her bottom in so doing. The inspector eyed the up-pull of the shorts between the girl's bum cheeks, noticed the edge outlined shape of brief knickers underneath and noted too the way the boat's crew-leader, a girl older than the rest with three red diagonal tags on the left breast of her shirt, one for each six months of her service, weighed a short straight cane in her hand and constantly turned her head to judge the distance still to go to the ladder and then looked back at the girl with the boat hook.
The boat swept down beside the ship, swinging sideways across the tide as the girl at the tiller heaved on the shaft. The crew-leader whacked her cane loudly down across a thwart. "Pull, oars, pull!" she bawled, and the girls threw their weight back and the boat stemmed the tide for a moment. "Hook on!" yelled the girl and the boat-hook swung for the ladder – and missed!

"Thwack!" The bow-girl's bum-cheeks trembled with the stroke's impact. With a squeal she clutched desparately at her bottom and the boat-hook splashed into the water. Squeezing her bum, her knees clamping together with the pain, the bow-girl's bare thighs caught the next one, loud and meaty across both legs at once. Her anguished yelp caused several of the girls at the oars to look round and then everything went wrong at once. One of the crew swept at the water with her oar and skimmed it across the surface instead of making it bite deep. A shower of salt water drenched the inspector, the oar slipped from its rowlock and went over the side, and the girl slipped backwards off her seat to end up half-lying between the knees of the girl behind her with her legs still hooked over her thwart and the seat of her tight-stretched shorts in a puddle of water in the bottom of the boat. With the girl behind unable to move because of the first girl's arrival in her lap, and the girls on the other side still rowing, the boat began to swing broadside to the tide flow and away downstream. The crew-leader shouted orders at the top of her voice, and dealt the bow girl a third wicked stroke up under her half-bare bum out of sheer spite. The girl at the helm stood up to lean all her weight against the tiller but the rudder blade caught against the ship's side and swung her hard across the boat into the inspector's lap. He helped her struggle to her feet, his hands alternately full of firm young breasts and chubby buttocks as he handled the situation the best way he could, while the crew-leader snatched the boat-hook from the water and yelled "Catch that oar there!" A second time the inspector found his lap full of warm young femininity as the tiller girl dived across him to grab the floating oar. At full-stretch she found she couldn't lift the oar, but she hung on determinedly until help should arrive. The inspector did what he could. He held the girl round the hips and tucked his fingers into the waist of her shorts for the sake of security, and while the crew-leader lent a hand to recover the oar, the inspector affected a look of embarrassed surprise as he found that the girl's shorts slipped down very easily when he tugged at them, under the pretence of keeping her steady. A nimble readjustment of his grasp on the shorts ensured that he had her knickers clutched in his fingers too.

"Oh Christ!" It was the tiller girl still struggling to hang on to the oar as both her shorts and her knickers slipped down off her hips. As though more concerned not to embarrass the inspector than she was about falling out of the boat, she turned her face back towards him and stuttered that she was – "Sorry sir, only there wasn't much I could do about it, Sir, honest!" With his lower hand cupped under the girl's pubic swell, the inspector clung on to her hips until the oar was back in the boat.

"Thank you, sir" gasped the tiller girl, struggling to pull up her knickers while the crew-leader regained control of the debacle and shouted for the boat to be steered up into the current. With her pants still only half-way up the girl had to attend to her helmsmanship. Gallantly the inspector volunteered to help her. He could have taken the tiller of course, but instead he retrieved her knickers, made quite sure that they were snugged up into all the warm little places knickers are meant to keep snug, and then did the same with her shorts.

With the bow-girl relegated to holding the boat's painter, the crew-leader herself supervised the pull up-current and hooked on to the ladder. Solicitously she helped the inspector onto the steps and with anxiety plain in her face she offered her sincere apologies for the incident.

Relieved to be out of the whaler – he didn't like small boats at the best of times – the inspector regained his dignity as well as his sodden condition would allow and gave her a thin smile.

"Miss, er –?''The inspector paused for her to tell him her name.

"Marley, Sir" said the girl helpfully, and after a hesitation as she realised that he was looking at her nipples poking themselves erect under her wet shirt, she added "Allison Marley, actually sir" just in case the discreet suggestion of informality might do some good somewhere along the line.

"Well, Miss Marley" – She really did have very nice breasts, didn't she "– um – I was going to say that I don't get paid to risk life and limb on these visits, you know. I should like to think that you'll give that crew of yours something to wake them up, eh?" He glanced down at the cane which was still in her hand, remembering the way she had whacked it across that girls bum, and the tantalising thought occured that he'd really like to see it being used on her bottom. "Er – will you see to that for me, Marley?".

"Yes sir – I certainly shall!" she said, the cloud of apprehension lifting instantly from her face now that she realised she wasn't going to be held personally responsible for the fiasco in the boat. The cane flicked eagerly against her leg – it seemed probable that she would enjoy herself "seeing to it" as she'd been told to.

As a tall girl came along the deck to salute him and take him below, the inspector heard the crew-leader's voice calling "let go for'ard!" down near the waterline, and then quite distinct, although distant, the 'thwack' of cane against cotton shorts. The plaintive yelp which floated up over the side confirmed that Allison meant to discharge her duty with a will.

T.S. "Viceroy's" intelligence system hadn't had much warning of the inspector's impending arrival but it had coped perfectly nevertheless. While the whaler had been pulling across the harbour towards the jetty to fetch the inspector, the motorboat had slipped away on the far side of the ship in the direction of the signals office, and while Senior Cadet Marley's crew were still making a pig's ear of hooking on to the ladder, a breathless girl had been tapping at the door of the Captain's cabin.

"Sir – a signal, sir". The captain had read it in a moment.

"Thank you. No reply".

The Educational Petty Officer's grape-vine had back-tracked to the inspector's last three visits and the word had come back – "Bent as a nine bob note". Susceptible, persuadable, a man who liked to enjoy his work like most of them on the Inspectorate. The Captain had already summoned the girl who, for lack of a proper officer in these straitened times, acted as his First Lieutenant.

"Who's on punishment detail for this afternoon?"

"Um – Cadets Howard, Cranley and Everwood, Sir. I dare say I could muster a few more, sir –".

"Right. Put Cranley on Captain's Steward for lunch. This one probably likes 'em young and pretty – don't they all – and see that she looks her best, Fairbrother – I imagine you know the drill by now".

"Yes sir". The girl had licked briefly at her lips, checking through the myriad items that would have to be seen to if the inspector's visit was to be a success. "Punishment parade on the foredeck as usual, sir? Eighteen hundred?"

"Yes – oh and see if we can arrange some kind of tour of the harbour or something for this afternoon – get the sod off the ship while we smarten the place up eh?"

"Yes sir. Will that be all, sir?"

"I think so. Right then – get up there and smile at him girl – and wiggle your bum!"

"Yes sir!" Senior Cadet Fairbrother had taken herself off and the Captain had had a moment to himself before he needed to turn on the charm.

With the information from the Educational Petty Officer's dash ashore, he was at least equipped to deal with the situation with his eyes open. More than once it hadn't been that easy – but never mind. This inspector it seemed, was a man after his own heart. He had snatched up his cap and gone up to meet the man from the Ministry.

The Captain leaned back from the table, took his pipe from his pocket and fed it slowly and carefully with an aromatic mixture from a leather pouch. This operation absorbed his attention and the inspector seated opposite was free at last to stare unhindered by considerations of politeness at the softly-plumped pout at the bottom of the girls belly – the girl who had stood a little behind and a little to one side of the Captain chair throughout lunch, when she had not been waiting on them during the meal. The impudent fullness of the girl's pubic swell, enhanced by the snug fit of her little knickers which quite failed to conceal anything of the underlying shape of her pubes, had fascinated him for the entire time he had been at the Captain's table, as had the mere fact of the girl's virtual undressedness in the presence of the Captain and, most surprisingly, himself, without any conscious intimation having been made on his part that such an unusual circumstance would even be permissible according to his own lights, far less something for him to be confronted with over lunch on his first hour aboard the ship. He had said nothing however, because disregarding the oddness of it all, the truth was that the titillating effect of the girl's presence had excited him considerably and he hadn't seen enough of her yet by any means.

Cadet Cranley, the girl whom Senior Cadet Fairbrother had reported as being on punishment parade and who was now acting as the Captain's Steward, stood smartly to attention with her whole posture as militarily correct as she could make it after only nine weeks training, but with the effect entirely disipated by the maidenly blush which heightened the colour in her cheeks and by the virginal downcast of her eyes each time the inspector's penetrating gaze could disengage itself from her pubes or her nipples long enough to take in her face as well. She started suddenly as the Captain spoke.

"You may clear away now, Cranley" he said, as he put his pipe between his teeth.

"Yes sir". The girl came round the table to take the inspector's coffee cup – the Captain hadn't wanted coffee – and then she had to lean across to reach the pot with her knickers stretching across her round young buttocks under the inspector's very nose. The inspector, who had been invited to watch the girl's forthcoming chastisement – in the line of duty of course – which was scheduled for that afternoon immediately after the Captain had finished his lunch, rather self-consciously eyed the solid look of her bum under the flimsy pants and found himself wondering how it was going to respond to a good hard whack with a cane.

"Ooh!" The girl's gasp took him aback, as though she had read his thoughts and felt the imaginary stroke as he had pictured it landing. Even the Captain, couldn't restrain a grin as she stood back from the table with a petulant look on her face and kept the hot coffee-pot well away from her bare breasts this time. "S-Sorry sir" she whispered, aware that she had caused a little bit of a stir by her clumsiness.

"Clear off, Cranley!" said the Captain mildly, "and you can come back with two brandies – you'd like a brandy wouldn't you Mr. Vallis? – in five minutes".

"Yes sir". The girl's scantily-knickered bottom bounced indiscreetly behind her as she left the cabin while the Captain kept an eye on his guest's interest in her retreating shape. He waited until the inspector withdrew his glance and then he puffed on his pipe and allowed a convincing chuckle to lighten the atmosphere between them.

"Pretty little thing isn't she?"

"Oh – yes, she is". The inspector seemed undecided about something. The Captain wondered for a moment whether he had judged his man amiss. He thought he'd better let his visitor make the pace.

The inspector wondered for his part if he oughtn't to stamp his authority on this meeting and demand to know what the Captain meant by having his girls wandering around virtually naked – on the other hand, he knew perfectly well what he meant by it, and it would save him the awkwardness of having to suggest a bit of mutual back-scratching himself. He made up his mind to play the ball as it lay.

"I wonder – perhaps you know that one of my tasks on these visits is to interview a few of the girls – in private, that is – to get an idea of their points of view with respect to conditions as they apply to them at these establishments. Ah – d'you think your steward – Cranley? Was that her name? D'you think she'd make a suitable interviewee?"

"Er – yes, I should say so". The Captain wasn't sure of his man any longer – but he could hardly start any cover-ups now, not with the cards already dealt. Perhaps it had been a mistake after all. He began to think about his pension entitlement and wondered whether he was about to say goodbye to it.

"Fine. Well, would you mind if I had my chat with her when she comes back?"

"Alright with me, Mr. Vallis" said the Captain, a trifle too heartily. This had all the makings of a catastrophe, if his information had been wrong.

"Good, so that's agreed then". The inspector reached for his briefcase and took out an ominous-looking pad of forms, then looked up at his host. "By the way – the crew-leader in the boat which brought me across – Marley, I think she said her name was".

"Marley? Oh yes". Now what was he up to.

"How old is she?"

"Er – coming on eighteen, I should think. I could find out".

"No, no. It's just that she seems a little inexperienced in handling her cadets – she made rather a mess of coming alongside this morning, you know".

"Yes, I heard –" What was he up to?

"I wondered whether you thought she ought to be replaced – perhaps temporarily, that would be up to you – and another of the girls in her crew given the chance to show what she could do".

"Ah – well, I don't see why not, if you think so". It seemed best to go along with him – that way things wouldn't get any worse!

"Fine". The inspector shuffled his papers. "And out of interest, what would you say would be a suitable punishment – I'm speaking of corporal punishment, of course – for a senior cadet whose negligence in boat-handling put the safety of a passenger at risk? And here I'm speaking of myself, Captain". He eyed the Captain in a bland way that was somehow all the more threatening for its lack of expression.

"Well, I suppose the rules allow for her to be caned, just as any cadet might be –".

"Would you think that to be a suitable punishment – a caning?"

"Ah – well, yes. But I rely upon my senior cadets quite heavily – I wouldn't want to undermine the girl's authority in front of her juniors. I mean, I shouldn't think I've had Marley's knickers down – for punishment that is, of course – in the last six months".

The inspector smiled a thin smile. "Whereas you've had her knickers down for other purposes, Captain?"

"No no. Of course not. That wasn't what I meant at all". It hadn't been what he'd meant, needless to say, although the inspector's interpretation had been too damned near the mark for comfort. The Captain gave in. "Well, let's say the girl does deserve a caning shall we, Mr. Vallis. May I take it that you'd like to see her get it?"

Knowing that he'd hit upon a chink in the Captain's armour, the inspector felt free to say "Yes, you may take it that I should like to see the girl punished, Captain".

The Captain puffed aggressively on his pipe, nodded his approval, and turned suddenly to bark at the unfortunate Cadet Cranley, who had reappeared in the doorway with two glasses and a brandy bottle on a tray.

"Don't you know better than to barge into this cabin without knocking girl?"

Cadet Cranley stopped in her tracks and a glass toppled over on the tray and broke into pieces.

The captain got to his feet and caught the girl a hefty slap on the buttocks.

"I'll deal with you when Mr. Vallis has had a word with you, Cranley. Right now I need a breath of fresh air". He left the cabin and shut the door heavily behind him, leaving Cadet Cranley bewildered by the suddeness of events and worming her hips distractedly as the sting of the spank sank in. Her frightened eyes met the inspector's and she burst into tears.

The inspector watched the girl, who was no more adequately covered than she had been earlier, and slowly she stopped her crying and attempted to concentrate upon her asigned task.

"Um – s-sir, would you like a drink?"

"No, thank you". The inspector crossed his legs and motioned to her to put down the tray.

"What's you're first name?" he enquired pleasantly.

"Sir – Susan, sir". She stood now with her hands folded demurely in front, but her attempt at a modest pose was altogether spoiled by the impudent thrust of her young breasts and the rather snooty way her pink nipples pointed in different outward and upward directions.

"Susan - are you happy here? Hmm?"

The conflict between self-preservation and the longing to tell someone just how awful it was on this ship was evident in her troubled face, but her eyes met his, frank and appealing, as though she thought that he might be someone she could trust.

"Sir – n-not really sir. I wish I could go back home sir".

"Do you my dear? And what is it that's so dreadful here that you wish you could go home, eh?"

Stuck for words, fearful of saying too much, Susan could do no more than gesture hopelessly with her hands – the plump pout of her pubes was disclosed for a moment. She saw the inspector's eyes drop to the level of her knickers and folded her hands there again, but then in a gesture which she probably hoped would be interpreted as an expression of trust, she let her hands swing down to her side. It wasn't lost on the inspector.

"Ah – have you been Captain's Steward on other occasions, Susan?"

"Sir, once sir, about two weeks ago".

"I see – and is that –" He indicated the girl's near nakedness – "the usual dress for a steward on this ship?"

"Umm – well, no, not really sir". She seemed embarrassed.

"So it's specially for my benefit, eh?"

"Sir – I suppose it must be". She blushed as she sought for the words. "Um – we – we aren't usually allowed knickers, sir". Her cheeks were crimson as she looked down at her feel.

"No knickers?" He said it mildly, but if anything the flush in Susan's cheeks heightened.

"N-no sir – not on Captain's Steward sir. It – it's very humiliating sir".

"I see". His crossed-over leg swung lazily, the girl watching his polished brown shoe for somewhere to cast her nervous glance. He left the obvious question aside for the moment.

"And what else do you find makes you unhappy – mmm?"

"Sir – getting caned is worst sir".

"Hmm". He caught the momentary flutter of her eyelashes as she looked up at him then away again. Greatly daring, she risked initiating a fresh turn to the convention.

"Sir – the girls say you're someone important sir. Someone from the Ministry. Are you sir, someone important?"

The inspector noted this development with interest. "Yes – I suppose you could say I'm sort of important. Why d'you ask?"

Susan swallowed audibly before she risked speaking again. "Sir – after this – after you've finished with me – the Captain's going to cane me sir. I-I hate being c-caned –". She looked at him pathetically, near to tears again. The inspector smiled at her, seeming sympathetic.

"So –". The girl's tack was transparently obvious "– you'd like me to intervene? To save you and your pretty little bottom from the Captain and his cane? Is that it?"

"Er – well, yes sir, I suppose that's what I mean". Her hands moved to her hips, thumbs tucking into the waistband of her insubstantial knickers. The inspector watched – there was no mistaking the inference of that little motion. He watched as she plucked up her courage then inched her pants down from her hips, a crinkle of pubic hair appearing as she slipped the knickers down to the tops of her thighs. She put her hands behind her back and wouldn't look at him – this helpless offering of the only thing she had, her sweet youthfulness and her body's most precious secret – stirred the inspector to consider the possibilities; possibilities which had to be rejected the moment they came into his mind for fear of the consequences which might ensue it he gave way to his natural impulses and was then discovered by someone coming in unexpectedly. But the girl had advanced, hesitantly but still determinedly, to within arms-reach of his chair. The fresh, warm smell of her body was in his nostrils the invitation becoming more difficult to decline. Almost unconsciously the inspector's hand reached out, stroked the inside of her upper thigh with the back of a finger, delved between her legs, slipped two fingers along the warm, moist tunnel and felt her shiver at his violation of her modesty, or perhaps it was shock at her own invitation to him to have done it. The full, soft weightiness of her bum-cheeks, explored briefly from between her legs, made him think of the caning the Captain was about to give her – the caning which he would let the Captain give her, sweet pleading or not. He withdrew his hand, letting a finger trail down between her cheeks, feeling her little start as he touched a sensitive area on the way back.

"Well now Susan – I'm not sure I should interfere in the Captain's plans for this nice little bottom of yours, you know".

She edged a little away, just a sort of mental distancing from the disappointment that the inspector's words implied.

"Sir – please, I really don't want to be caned – it frightens me; even thinking about it scares me sir!"

"How many strokes will the Captain give you d'you think, Susan?"

She swallowed again, her nerve beginning to go now that this last chance to avoid her punishment seemed to be slipping away. "Er – t-twelve sir, probably sir. Actually I don't know –" She trailed off, her voice catching in her throat.

"Well I'm really not at all sure I should interfere, Susan". He looked up at her, his face bright as though he'd just had a good idea. "But if you're really frightened –".

"Sir – I am sir. I don't want the cane sir –". She looked terrified, in fact, her lips moistly apart, her eyes wide, her cheeks pink. "Please sir –".

"Very well, Susan – I shall stay here and see it through with you". He said it boldly as a man would who was preparing to demonstrate his great loyalty to a friend by the making of a considerable sacrifice.

"Oh – sir, please –".

"No, no, I insist. It's the least I can do". He slapped her bottom playfully. "Now then, run along and tell the Captain I've finished with you – oh, and this conversation is to remain strictly between you and me, alright?"

The girl looked at him fearfully – he slapped her again. "Come on – don't worry. I shall be here to look after your interests Susan".

Susan backed awkwardly away. The inspector 'shooed' her towards the door with a wave of his hand and she turned and went, her step leaden her face turning towards him one last time, only to be waved away again. Bursting into tears she turned the door handle, realising only when she had opened it that her knickers weren't where they ought to be. With a sob she yanked them up – too much, because they slid up between her cheeks and left her bottom virtually bare but she seemed not to notice and scampered from the cabin, her crying fading with her running footsteps.

Susan's caning was a very noisy affair. Swishy canes on girl's bare bottoms make a sound that might not be heard very clearly through a heavy oak door, but a girl's yells as she is thrashed have a more piercing quality which no door can adequately muffle. Susan's caning was no secret on that ship.

Spreadeagled across the cabin's big table, her knickers taken down and off and stuffed nonchalently into the Captain's pocket, Susan began her sobbing even as the cane was first presented to the impudent upswell of her satin-pink bum cheeks, then flicked as if to assess this particular bottom's firmness and resilience to the cane. With the inspector holding both her hands and keeping her well stretched-out, her face, when she looked up, was no more than a couple of feet from her "supporter's" own as he sat in his chair and leaned a little back to exert a slight but constant tension on her arms. Her young breasts were squeezed against the table by her weight, her belly squeaked against the polished wood as she fidgeted nervously while the Captain's cane toyed with the insouciance of her bum – then "thwack!" The cane descended.

Susan's head jerked back – over her shoulder the inspector could see the twitch of her buttocks as the cane's venom sank home. Again the captain brought the cane down across the crowns of both cheeks, and Susan's tears splashed onto the inspector's lap as she threw her head from side to side, her mouth open as she first gasped then sobbed in a series of descending tones, over and over again.

Her caning proceeded methodically; when her legs began scissoring up and down the Captain trapped them against his side with his free hand and caned the agile buttocks with a backhand stroke diagonally across the cheeks, although even his sizeable bulk was barely sufficient to anchor the squealling cadet in the moments immediately following the cane's crisp arrival. By the time the twelve strokes had been delivered, her reactions to it were virtually uncontrollable. When the inspector finally released her there were reddening marks around the girl's wrists from the tightness of the grip it had taken to hold her. His glimpse of her thrashed bottom as she stumbled back from the table and the colouration that the cane had engendered in those previously pale pink cheeks was startling. Hardly recognising that what the Captain was holding out to her was her knickers Susan struggled to stand to attention as the Captain entered the fact of her punishment into a book, and doing things strictly by the rules because of the inspector's presence, read out to her the entry he had made. The girl's legs alternately bent and straightened convulsively and one knee lapped over the other even when she could stand up straight, and all the while her buttocks trembled and squeezed together in an independent little routine which they maintained even when Susan had stepped into her pants and hauled them up.

Weeping still, Susan was dismissed and the Captain poured himself a brandy into the remaining glass without even thinking of offering a drink to the inspector. Perhaps it was just as well – Mr. Vallis' heightened blood-pressure might not have been able to take the additional stimulation of the Captain's brandy. Besides, there was still the business of crew-leader Marley's punishment to superintend – that he was really looking forward to!

The Senior Cadet's public humiliation took place on the deck immediately below the Captain's cabin. Had the ship been at sea they might have bared the girl's bum to the sea air and done it on the upper deck, but the Captain quite sensibly preferred to keep his disciplinary activities as a matter for shipboard awareness only. The ten girls of Senior Cadet Marley's boat were assembled to witness their crew-leader's punishment. Allison Marley herself was told to parade them and to report her crew as being all present to the Captain, during which piece of ceremony she was presumably not supposed to notice that the bow-girl – the one whose bottom she had whacked when the boat-hook had fallen into the water – was carrying the cane which was to be used across her bottom in a few minutes time. Bravely Allison ordered her crew into two ranks and turned to present them and herself to the Captain. She saluted smartly and reported the parade as being ready for punishment to proceed, and then while the Captain inspected the girls ranged behind her, followed by an inspection, chiefly from the rear, of Allison herself, who somehow managed to avoid an eyeball-to-eyeball meeting of glances between herself and the inspector, who was hovering on the gringes of this often-performed ritual and keeping his options open as to his exact position during the forthcoming entertainment, since he hadn't yet worked out which would be the best vantage point to view it from. Of course, he was already enjoying it – the girl herself was as fascinating a picture of teenage femininity one could have imagined. If he had been called upon to record the event for a report back to his ministry, he might truthfully have stated that the girl had been wearing gym shoes, socks, shorts, a tee-shirt and her cap, which she had now passed to one of her crew to hold. On the face of it, nothing to raise an eyebrow about. A more accurate report, however, would have recorded that Allison had been less dressed than undressed and a photograph might well have given an upward lift to more than eyebrows in the office.

Allison's tits, which had excited the inspector's attention earlier up on deck, were an especial treat; not particularly because they were large, they were not; nor because they were exactly womanly – Allison's whole presentation of herself made her look more like a healthy sixth-form schoolgirl than a woman; no, it had to do with the way they carried themselves – firm but inviting, uplifted but cuppable in the hand – in fact, very much like the girl's bottom in all these respects. And that was a comparison which in the circumstances, was easy enough to observe. Allison's tee-shirt, no doubt specially "tailored" for just such occasions as these, stopped short on a horizontal line just below her nipples – the fine upcurve of the underside of her breasts could be plainly seen. As she had saluted the Captain, the raising of her arm had been the cue for the nipple of her right breast to peep cheekily from below the angled hem of the tee-shirt, the whole firm weightiness of both tits bobbing faintly as the girl had brought her hand snappily down to her side. As for her shorts, they had been trimmed and hemmed to proportions no more generous nor modest than the tee-shirt; at the back they curved up so steeply across each buttock that they hardly departed from the crease of her bum until they had reached the top of that soft division of bum-cheeks, whilst at the front, the same tailoring technique had pared down the material until it was little more than a wide seam which appeared between the girl's thighs, dipped snuggly between softly swollen labia and ascended in a narrow downward pointing arrow to the girl's waist. If presentation counted for anything, Allison was the most erotically decorative young cadet that the inspector had ever seen.

Allison wasn't required to remove any part of her scanty clothing – there was, indeed, hardly the need – before she was told to step forward and spread herself laterally across an overturned half-barrel – an unusually large one – which, as the inspector noted, had been provided on one side with cut-out hand holds and on the other with similar but larger places, padded inside on their lower surfaces, into which the girl to be punished would place her knees, these lodgements being sufficiently widely-spaced as to require that her legs were parted at an angle to each other which approached some forty-five degrees. Thus presented, with her body curved across the barrel's fat belly and her bottom conveniently at waist height, Allison was ready for her punishment.

The girl carrying the cane stepped smartly forward and handed it with both hands to the Captain, then stepped back into line. Across her own semi-exposed bottom-cheeks the marks of Allison's cane was plainly visible beyond the coverage line of her shorts – her expression, though not so unseamanlike as to be worthy of remark, held a glow of satisfaction as she resumed her place and bent her glance upon the upturned bottom of the girl who had made her life miserable for the previous few months.

The eighteen strokes of the caning took some ten minutes to administer – Allison's conduct, as the cane whipped across her plumped-out bum-cheeks, was that of an ordinary teenaged girl whose bottom was an vulnerable to the cut of a cane as that of any girl who was trying desparately, almost endearingly, to be very brave yet failing to be quite brave enough. The first stroke, which was hard and low across the undercurve of both cheeks together, wrenched a shudder from her body and a shiver from her buttocks, but no more than a faint gasp in the way of vocal protest. The second stroke, an inch or so higher up the swell of her bum, brought a little forward jerk across the barrel and a convulsive tweaking together of her bottom-cheeks while the cane was drawn back and held in readiness for the next stroke. Allison's gasp was clearly audible this time; in the ranks of watching girls more than one pair of buttocks reacted in sympathy with twitching of the crew-leader's bottom.

By the sixth stroke, Allison's bum had livened up considerably. As the "whack" of the cane still echoed along the deckhead, there was a scrabbling noise as she lost her hand-hold on the far side of the barrel and a gasp that had more than a hint of panic in it. A second gasp, sounding more frantic, accompanied a lift of her hips and a slow worming of her bottom which took several seconds to subside and which was the first of a series of such pathetic little movements that after a few more strokes would become a sustained squirming that persisted through the interval between every subsequent cane stroke.

Stroke number twelve, and Allison's gasps were now hearty sobs which died away only just before the cane whipped across her buttocks for the thirteenth time. Allison squealed and wrenched her bum sideways across the barrel. She lost her finger-hold again and her hand waved plaintively back towards the twitching buttocks as if to clasp the crimsoned cheeks. "Stop that!" came the Captain's stern voice – Allison's hand returned reluctantly to its proper place and the caning continued.

Thereafter Allison's active young bottom didn't desist from its panicky wriggling at any time, and every stroke accelerated the rate at which it swerved from side to side, with little liftings-up and bumpings-down when the cane delivered a particularly meaty whack across it's crimson-wealed target.

With stroke sixteen, Allison at last gave way to the tears which she had so nearly defied altogether, and her weeping marked the end of her determination to be a brave girl. The seventeenth stroke had her blubbering for it to stop – "Oh please sir, please no more!" – but the last stroke swept down and cracked as hard as all the rest across Allison's frantically squirming bum. Her panic-stricken yells gave way to uncontrolled sobbing as she was ordered up from her place across the barrel and she couldn't help but clutch at her trembling bottom even when she saluted the Captain and turned to march her squad away. The girls, although they all had reason enough to want to see their crew-leader whipped, helpfully obeyed, sobbed words of command even though they were almost incomprehensivel, and the girls marched away followed by the unsteady, still weeping Allison with her bobbing cane-reddened bottom perfectly displayed in all its nakedness by the almost non-existent shorts.

Some twenty minutes later, his visit having achieved its various objects both official and otherwise, the inspector climbs down the ladder over the side of the ship and drops awkwardly into the whaler alongside. Averting her eyes from him, indeed from everyone, Allison stands in the bow of the boat with the boat-hook, holding the whaler close to the hull of the "Viceroy". Someone, presumably the new crew-leader who was to have taken over as soon as Allison's punishment had been completed – has obviously refused the other girl permission to change into her regulation shorts. She is wearing the same tee-shirt as all the others but her punishment shorts still display the plump canedness of her bum cheeks and a glance at the new crew-leader, the girl who had been bow-girl on the outward trip – convinces the inspector that Allison's lack of covering for her bottom is no mere piece of cattiness on the new crew-leader's part. Although she has a respectful air about her with the inspector in her boat and probably hasn't had time to gain sufficient confidence to assert her authority properly with a VIP looking on, from the way she carries the cane across her knees and flicks it now and then against her own bare thigh, the inspector would guess that she is quietly assessing what degree of swish the implement needs to induce what decree of sting on bare flesh. Once the inspector is out of the way the ready accesibility of those bare and well-caned buttocks, glowing tenderly in the bow of the whaler is no doubt going to be exploited to the full.

Monday, 15 March 2010

The Reckoning

Story from Februs 13.

The Reckoning
By Paul Melrose (Alex's Birch pseudonym)

As Melody Prentice walked into the living room of Paula Simmons home to be greeted so affectionately by her hostess, she could have cried with delight for she had, with the help of Paula and the other girls, survived the greatest crisis of her life. Her whole world had revolved around her husband and when she came downstairs that fateful morning to find the note that told her Bob had left her to live with his secretary, she had felt that her life was one huge void. Twenty-eight years old and alone in the world. She should have known what would happen, for the relationship had been rocky for a very long time and now, with so much time on her hands, Melody had been able to see things in perspective rather than blame her husband for everything that had gone wrong... and the truth disturbed her greatly.

She had persuaded... well, virtually insisted... her husband to pack up his well-paid consultancy in London because she was homesick for her beloved Lakes, and after much cajoling and tears, she and Bob had settled in the small village of Branwick in the shadow of Scafell Pike five years before. It had been a desperate throw to save the marriage, succeeding only in making things worse, for Bob had struggled to keep his business alive so far from the nerve centre of commerce and worse, it treated the symptom and not the disease.

Melody was attractive with soft blonde hair and expressive blue eyes which were even more beautiful when moistened by tears, sadly a semi-permanent feature as her marriage had begun to disintegrate. She knew they were headed for disaster but she was too proud and too embarrassed to deal with the problem head on and then it was all too late.

Her husband was a kind, stolid man, his reliability attracting her at first for he was so like her late father, but his lovemaking was functional and predictable, lacking... sometimes she struggled to find the right word... excitement, perhaps. Melody knew too that it was not all his fault for, though Bob had been the first, she sometimes wondered whether any man would ever rouse her. She had never really been too enthusiastic right from their very first night of sex in the back seat of his car, but Melody had just assumed it was lack of experience and that the sex would improve, but it never did.

As time passed, Melody had always seemed to find reasons to avoid sex with her husband and they'd tried to talk about that, too, but the results was always the same... bitter recriminations with Melody ending up in floods of tears. Bob had begun to suspect an affair for she would wake in the middle of the night covered in perspiration, her hand between her legs, her sex moist and hot and he had begun to question her angrily about the moaning and sighing in her sleep, the frantic wriggling which he could only watch in helpless frustration. But she could never have told him about the dark thoughts that came in her sleep, the frightening and exciting thoughts which aroused her so much and made her bitterly ashamed.

Melody knew she had made her husband feel worthless by her nocturnal behaviour and it shouldn't have surprised her when he went, but it did. It hurt her and churned her up to a degree she had thought impossible and it was then she realised how much she missed him. Missed somebody, anybody who would take away this pain and loneliness. She would have put up with the lack of satisfaction, but perhaps he couldn't face the implied failure any more. Perhaps it was for the best. Maybe his new woman would satisfy him in a way Melody could not.

She had felt suddenly alone for, although she had returned to the place of her youth, everything had changed in so few years with all her old friends marrying and moving away to the cities in what had become, overnight, a strange place with few people to turn to in her hour of need. Her father had been long dead and her mother lived some fifteen miles away, crippled with arthritis and unable to travel. At first, after the break up, Melody had driven over to her mother's three times a week but, though greeted with love, had been told very firmly that she had to sort out her own life, that her troubles were as much her fault as her husband's and that she must not rely on her mother as a shoulder to cry on.

* * *

Weeks had passed with Melody at her wits' end with hurt and loneliness. She did a little dressmaking at home, which provided an adequate income for her, though she knew she should stir herself to try to get a proper job; but it was after one of her clients had arrived for a filling that Melody's life began to brighten. Jenny Cousins, the wife of the local doctor, asked Melody what she was doing with herself now that she was on her own, then suggested the local Women's Circle. At first Melody had been dubious, not being much of a mixer, and had suspected the Women's Circle to be a gathering of dumpy matrons who waffled on about the merits of breast feeding all day. However, she liked the impish and lively Jenny so reasoned that, if the Wednesday afternoon meetings kept the livewire doctor's wife interested, they might be worth a visit.

She found, to her delight, that the meetings were nothing like she had imagined and although breast feeding was not on the agenda, breasts most certainly were... and lots of other things besides! The first meeting had been at Jenny's home and Melody discovered that the attendees were virtually all women of her own age, women of twenty-five to thirty-five who were either of independent means or who had husbands with high flying jobs, leaving them with plenty of spare time. She had been welcomed warmly and been entertained to a holiday video, projected unto a large screen in the living room, of Jenny and her husband's trip to a remote bay resort in Jamaica. Melody would have been entertained by the beautiful scenery and Jenny's humorous accompanying dialogue alone, but she sat with mouth open and her face pink in astonishment as the images flashed before her eyes. The holiday had been at a secluded nudist beach and there on the screen were pictures of lots of happy holidaymakers including Jenny and her husband... and all completely naked.

After the film, they'd played Adult Trivia and Melody realised that here was a group of women who were warm, friendly and out for a good bit of fun. When the meeting finished Melody felt as if she had cast off ten years and she had keenly looked forward to the next one. She still felt a little sell conscious and concerned that her own life had been dull by comparison with that of some of her new found friends. She had no nudist holidays to show and no disgusting jokes to tell, but no-one seemed to mind and she was made to feel a welcome part of the gathering.

Now here she was at Paula Simmons' home for her second meeting and Paula, once introductions had been effected, had announced 'an afternoon of self examination' which had prompted a few gasps and giggles from the assembled women. Melody had inexplicably blushed and trembled, although she had no idea what was in store. After sherry and cakes, Paula had turned down the lights, closed the curtains and lit half a dozen candles. Through the glow of the room and the warmth of the sherry, Melody had begun to feel unaccountably aroused. She had caught her breath, her face flushed, as Paula announced softly that everyone was to recount the most embarrassing incident in their lives with no holds barred. They were to be given ten minutes to think about the subject in the candlelight before lots were drawn for who went first.

Melody had no need to think about her most embarrassing moment for it had dominated her thoughts ever since that fateful day... but, oh God... could she ever talk about it? She felt her heart beat faster as her name was called out first and she swallowed deeply. She thought fleetingly of chickening out altogether, or making something up on the spur of the moment, both options being speedily rejected, for Melody knew she had to be honest in the presence of these keenly waiting new friends in whose company she now felt so secure.

Melody knew the time had come for a part catharsis, the time to publicly reveal her painful, shameful memories which haunted her dreams and made her so... oh no, surely she couldn't tell all of it, just couldn't, but she wanted to tell them, wanted to open her heart but...! She stood up unsteadily, walked to the centre of the room and closed her eyes, hoping desperately that her blushes couldn't be seen in the candleglow, grateful for the dim, comforting light. She cleared her throat and began to tell them all of that day ten years before which she would never, ever forget...

...she was eighteen, had just passed her A levels with flying colours and the academic world was her oyster. To her widowed mother's surprise and some concern, Melody had announced that, instead of going to University she had applied to join the WRAC through Officer Training School where she would complete her education and make a career for herself. The Army tradition in the family was strong, both her late father and grandfather serving their country with distinction, and Melody's mother had the sense to realise that this was her daughters way of trying to compensate for not being a boy. Melody had loved her father deeply, his death leaving an introverted and lonely girl completely devastated; thus her mother wisely decided to respect the decision and not even attempt to argue her out of it.

Despite her mother's misgivings, Melody had been sent to the WRAC Training Centre in Kendal and, while not being a natural for Army life, had gritted her teeth and literally soldiered through the unpalatable physical training while passing all her written Officer Training examinations with flying colours. Her shy and passive nature at first made her life difficult with Officers and fellow trainees alike but eventually all were won over, for she was almost impossible to dislike. Her class training officer, Captain Laura Martin, particularly seemed to like the youngster and went out of her way to encourage Melody in everything she did. The affection was returned, Melody hanging on to every word that the older woman spoke, and it seemed that her Army career would be one unbroken success story... until the night of Penelope's birthday party!

The girls in Melody's dormitory had decided to celebrate Penny's nineteenth birthday in style with a pub crawl in town and all had got got special night passes for the event with instructions to be back before curfew at 11.30 p.m. To her discomfiture, Melody had never been to a pub and was teased and taunted dreadfully when she confessed the fact. With some considerable misgivings, but afraid of rejection by her peers, she joined the other eleven girls on the jaunt to the town centre.

Within an hour or so, all Melody's misgivings and inhibitions had disappeared with the consumption of considerable quantities of vodka. She lost count of how many pubs they visited and were thrown out of before the inevitable consequence of too much alcohol on a stomach totally untrained for it took its toll. Some time during the evening, Melody had left her equally drinken companions, staggered off to the toilet and sat down dizzily on the seat. The next thing she knew was a feeling of intense cold as she opened her eyes, feeling like death warmed up. She'd looked at her watch... Oh Christ, it was 3.30 a.m. and she was still sitting on the toilet seat. With as much haste as she could manage, Melody had opened the toilet door and found the lounge door locked. She was trapped in the loo for the night! When the landlord opened up the next morning and found a pale, hollow eyed young WRAC weeping with self pity on his toilet seat, he'd roared with laughter, discovering some humour in the situation which seemed to escape Melody entirely.

She'd finally made it back to the Training Centre, trembling with fright and feeling dreadfully sick, to be met by a flinty eyed corporal at the entrance.

'Name?' the woman had barked, then with a smug certainty 'My, my... absent without leave and still in training? That's your career finished here, my girl!'

Melody had crawled up to her room and, to her shock had found a grim faced Captain Martin waiting for her. She had never seen the older woman in this mood and Melody had felt so ashamed. Her apologies were brushed aside and she was told to skip classes for the day and to get some proper rest... then to report to her Captain's office at 4 p.m.

That day had seemed to pass in a haze of intermittent sleep and tears before she found herself standing in full dress uniform in front of Captain Laura Martin, alone in her office. Melody was read the riot act and told that there was no excuse for such behaviour. She was told that girls who wanted to be Officers had to set an example and that while the ocassional drinking binge was tolerated, absence without leave most certainly was not and that, under regulations, Melody should be dismissed from the training centre and sent back home. Melody remembered that day as if it were yesterday... the shock of impending dismissal and the sense of failure. She remembered her pleas for leniency and her tearful apologies... oh Cod!... even clutching the older woman's hand and asking her to reconsider.

Then she remembered those fateful events which would live in her memory for ever! The moment when the lovely eyes of her senior officer softened as Captain Laura Martin got up from her desk and locked the office door while Melody stood transfixed. The moment when Captain Martin's soft but insistent voice said 'You have been very foolish, Melody, but to lose you from the service would be most regrettable, for you have worked very hard. Are you prepared to do exactly as you're told, Melody? Exactly as you're told?'

She remembered her eager gasp. 'Oh yes, anything, Captain Martin, I'll do anything you ask. Anything... I'm so sorry I let you down!' She remembered her eyes widening with shock and an inexplicable excitement as her senior Officer walked back behind her desk, reached down to the floor and turned back to face Melody holding in her band a three foot long whippy bamboo cane.

Melody had responded like a robot, her face red and her mouth agape, as the order 'Bend low over my desk!' was delivered. She recalled how her face had burned as Captain Martin had walked around behind her then firmly lifted her skirt before slowly tucking the hem into the belt at her waist, then how her heart had quickened and the gasp of shame had been forced from her lips as she'd felt the strong soft hands begin to pull her knickers right down. Melody remembered how she'd lain there in total humiliation with tears pouring down her cheeks, all her intimate areas on display, before that first ever in her life unforgettable cane stroke left its fiery brand across her bare bottom...

...Melody opened her eyes in the candleglow and realised she was trembling with the memory of that day and how that strong hand had held her down as the cane whipped across her bare bottom again and again. God, how she had shrieked and squealed, the warmth spreading across her tender buttocks taking her over, her whole body hot and perspiring, her thighs shaking with shock and... something else she could never tell them. Oh God, no she couldn't... she...

Every woman present sat on the edge of her seat, her eyes wide, lips pursed in an attitude of relishing something shameful, not a pindrop to he heard, gasps of disappointment around the room as Melody's narrative obviously finished, the young woman standing in the centre of the room nervously clutching her fingers with embarrassment.

Jenny Cousins broke the silence.

'Is that all, Melody...?' she said softly '...is that all?'

Melody nodded and gulped.

'Yes, Jen, that's it... end of the story really. Captain Martin didn't put me on report and I finished my Basic Training and passed with flying colours. I got posted to London and there I met Bob in a wine bar and I left the Army to get married.'

Jenny smiled and looked meaningfully at Paula as Melody tensed with sudden alarm.

'Oh, I don't think that's all...,' Paula said, her voice quiet and steady '...it's a great story and we want to hear more, don't we girls?' A roar of endorsement followed the remark.

'There isn't any more to tell...,' Melody muttered, almost in a whisper '...there isn't...'

Then the colour drained from her face as a voice at the back of the room said softly 'You're lying, Melody, there is more and you know what happens to naughty girls who tell lies don't you?'

Melody turned her ashen face to the source of the comment, making out the familiar features of the woman who had entered the meeting quietly during the telling of the story. Her hands flew to her face and she gasped.

'C... Captain Martin... how... how could... oh my God!'

The woman stood up and walked to where Melody stood, her firm strong face so compulsive, so insistent.

'Used to be, Melody, used to be...,' she said with a smile '...now I'm plain Laura Martin, for I left the Army six years ago. I teach at the local school now and I'm a good friend of Jenny's. I only missed the last meeting through illness but what a good job I did or you would have got away with half the truth. Tell them, Melody...,' she insisted softly '...you want them to know. Tell them everything... or I'll do it for you!'

Melody was shaking like a baby as she clutched at the woman's sleeve.

'Please, no...' she muttered '...please I'll die of shame!'

The hand on her arm and the voice in her ear were gentle but compulsive.

'You need to tell them, Melody... now do it!'

Almost in a trance, Melody cleared her throat and with a shaky voice, her eyes closed she began again...

'...by the time I'd had six strokes my bottom was red hot but things, shameful things were happening to me down below and I couldn't keep still. I began to cry, not through the pain, but because I knew my... my pussy was soaking wet and I was terrified that it would be so... so obvious. I... I had never had a climax before and I couldn't stop it. My legs were shaking, my bottom was shaking and my... my fanny was tingling, hot and wet. I didn't know what was happening until I felt Captain M... Laura's... hand under the cheeks of my bottom. She began to stroke the lips of my fanny and I was so shocked... and excited... but I couldn't believe it... couldn't believe what was happening to me! I tried to cry out but nothing happened and then she... she slipped her fingers right in and began to bring me off so gently and the feeling began again. It just welled up inside me and I thought I would burst and I was squealing and shaking until her arms pulled me around and she held me close, stroking my hair and kissing me gently on the lips. Oh Cod, I'm so ashamed but I responded to her and I don't know what would have happened but a knock came on the Office door and we broke away immediately. I got dressed very quickly and tried to wipe my eyes so no one would know I'd been crying...'

Melody stopped suddenly as she became aware of the impact of her confession on the entire room and she hung her head, the tears beginning to form in the corners of her eyes.

'I've never told anyone before because I am so ashamed of admitting that it turned me on. I... I've never... never been that aroused since.' She gripped Laura Martin's hand and stared into those wonderful, comforting eyes. 'I missed you so much and I always wondered if...' her voice faltered and she was suddenly conscious of arms around her waist and a soft kiss on her lips.

'I know, my love, I know...' said the woman she had always known as Captain Martin '...and when Jenny told me about your marriage break up, I was very sad. I knew then that marriage was wrong for you, that you had special needs and that no man would ever satisfy them. Melody, you need a woman's hand, a woman's guidance, a woman's discipline to keep you strong... you always have and you always will...!'

Melody hung her head and cried as the implications of her public confession began to ripple around the small room and the women began to chatter in breathless excitement. Despite her shame she fell as if a huge weight had been lifted from her shoulders as Laura Martin spoke again, firmly and insistently.

'...and you will find, in this group, a haven for your desires, Melody, for yon are not the only woman here who seeks relief through punishment. That is why the Circle was formed, to provide relief for the active and the passive among us, though our aims are never specified until we are absolutely certain of our new members...'

As Melody opened her eyes she gasped in astonishment when she saw Jenny Cousins pick up a three finger tawse from behind the sofa, rise and walk towards her as Laura's hand tightened on her wrist.

'...so we all love you Melody and we will meet all your deepest needs, beginning today. You lied to us, Melody, and you will be punished for it. Turn around and face the table. That's a good girl! Now... pull your panties down and bend low over the table! Eighteen strokes of the tawse on your bare bottom!'

Trembling with excitement, Melody obeyed the command, pulling her panties right down to her ankles then, as she lifted her skirt, baring her bottom to the assembled gathering she suddenly cried out 'Thank you, Laura ...oh Cod, THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU!', her words interrupted as the tawse whipped across her naked bottom to a squeal of ecstasy which let the whole world know that Melody Prentice was happy at last.

Beating retreat - 2nd part of the story

Continuation of the story from old Blushes.

Beating retreat
Charlotte smartens up

In the nine weeks and two days that Charlotte had been 'in' she'd learnt that smartness in one's appearance was an essential prerequisite if a girl wanted to survive in the Cadet Service's disciplinarian atmosphere. Back at home she wouldn't have dreamt, for instance, of ironing a pair of knickers; for one thing the little nylon pants she used to wear hadn't even seemed to need ironing, and for another, if there had been any ironing to be done her mum would most likely have finished it even before her daughter had managed to get out of bed in the morning. Besides, back at home knickers had been discreet items of underwear that no-one was going to see anyway, once they were on. Things had proven to be a little different recently though.

That afternoon, on her first day at the C.O.'s rambling official "residence" in the quiet Hertfordshire countryside, Charlotte had pressed and ironed every single item of her clothing, including the nine new pairs of white cotton knickers she had been freshly issued with, together with blouses, vests, in fact everything except her actual uniforms themselves, when she had left the Training Centre behind her for good - she hoped - that morning.

The big house had been strangely quiet after the bustling activity of the centre. Apart from an elderly man who had seemed to be expecting her on her arrival and a girl, who despite her lack of N.C.O. rank had been distinctly superior in the offhand way she had shown the newcomer to her room, Charlotte had seen no-one close enough to speak to until the same lofty-mannered girl had sought her out in the laundry room and told her to be on 'reception parade' in the entrance hall at five-fifty. The C.O., it seemed, was on his way.

For ten minutes or so, too unsure of herself to attempt a conversation, Charlotte had waited anxiously in the hallway with three other girls, one of them in the Cadet Trainee uniform of a student nurse, the other two dressed in shorts and tee-shirts - the shorts looked startlingly brief even when compared with the none-too-modest issue at the centre; no doubt one of the C.O.'s whims - and then the stuck-up girl had come clattering down the staircase and called them all to attention. The C.O.'s car had turned into the drive and he would be here any minute.

Even from inside the house, the noise of the car's arrival outside had sounded, to say the least, precipitate. The slither of it's wheels on the gravel had preceeded by only a fraction of a second a solid thump as something substantial seemed to get in its way. A clash of gears and a reving of the engine had ensued; there had been a clang then a slamming of doors, and the C.O. had appeared in the doorway, trailed by a pink-cheeked cadet who scurried along in his wake.

The C.O. had stopped in the hallway and returned the girl's salutes. He had glanced at them all by turn, acknowledging Charlotte's presence with no more than a snappy remark to the effect that the sooner she went to the Central Driving School the sooner she would be able to replace the "idiot who has just removed the bumper from my car", and then he had disappeared down a passageway while the girl whose driving had caused all the fuss had scampered over to a keyboard at the foot of the stairs.

Her cheeks blushing rosier by the moment, the C.O.'s young driver had hurried back across the hall turned a key in the lock of a door marked 'P.R.' and had been reaching up under her skirt for her knickers even before the door had swung too behind her.

The C.O. had returned minus his briefcase and cap to dismiss his reception committee, and as he had gone into the mysterious room, a glimpse through the door of a plump and knickerless bottom bent unhappily across a tall stool had told all too graphically what was about to happen to the C.O.'s unfortunate driver.

"Twelve, I should think" the elderly man had muttered, appearing at Charlotte's elbow as she turned to go back to her room.

"P-pardon?"

"Poor little bugger" he'd said, "E's 'ad her knickers down every day this week -" he'd paused.

"You goin' to be 'is new driver, then?"

"Er - yes, actually".

He had looked down at her hips, not exactly lasciviously but without troubling to disguise the direction of his glance, and then, unaccountably, he had nodded several times and clucked his tongue.

"Poor little bugger" he'd said again, picking up his former train of thought as he'd turned away. "It don't 'alf make her cry, you know. Break's 'er heart, she does".

From beyond the door marked 'P.R.' had come the muffled 'phutt!' of a cane across bare girl-flesh. A stifled squeal had been accompanied by the sound of the C.O.'s voice, and then a second 'Thwack!' had been followed almost at once by a yelp a whole octave higher than the first.

Charlotte had looked about her and realised that the other girls had disappeared. The man had reached into the voluminous pocket of his dark blue overall and produced a bottle of Brasso and a cloth. He had taken little notice of Charlotte as she had mumbled an excuse and turned towards the staircase. Tilting the Brasso bottle against the cloth he had wandered over to the door and begun rubbing at its handle with an absent expression on his face, while the cane had descended a third time across the unseen girl's bum. His ear close to the panelling, Charlotte had thought she'd caught the words "Poor little bugger" again as she'd scooted away up the stairs.

The caning of the C.O.'s inefficient young driver had troubled Charlotte considerably - she, after all, was here to take the unfortunate girl's place and her apprehension had not been lessened when the cocky cadet who seemed to be in charge had blundered into her room without knocking.

"Library, half-past eight C.O. wants to see you".

Charlotte had spent the intervening two hours nibbling her nails and pressing her uniform again, so that by the time she was standing outside the library at eight twenty, her heart pounding and her tummy filled with butterflies, Charlotte had looked just as smart as it was possible for a cadet to look. Uniform immaculate, blouse neat, tie just so - but as it turned out she really needn't have bothered to iron her knickers after all.

The elderly caretaker had appeared, wandering apparently aimlessly from the direction of the hallway and appropo of nothing had resumed the one-sided conversation he'd been having with her earlier, just as if he hadn't realised that she'd slipped off in the middle of it.

"Cried 'er eyes out, she did" he'd said. "Twelve 'e gave 'er. Said 'e would. Poor little bugger".

Charlotte had not known how to reply, so she'd smiled nervously - silly, really, considering the subject of the conversation - but he hadn't seemed to notice particularly.

"Only a kid, really. Couple of years ago she probably wouldn't have been old enough to drive at her age. Shouldn't think she's any older than you". He'd looked at her directly, as if properly aware of her for the first time. "How old are you, then, eh?"

"Um - sixteen".

He'd nodded in that strange way he had.

"And - what? Couple of months?"

"Er - sixteen and three months. Well, nearly".

"Hmm. Nope - shouldn't think she's any older than you". He'd looked her over again, unabashed yet somehow without giving offence, so frank was his expression. "Waitin' to see the Old Man, are you?"

"Yes. Um - I - I s'pose he just wants to welcome me onto his staff. Sort of say 'Hello'". She'd said it hopefully, not wanting to be disillusioned.

"Perhaps". The same open look again - face, breasts, hips. "Course, if you don't want your bum caned, you'd better get out of that skirt".

"P-pardon?"

He'd looked at her for a moment then grinned.

"No-one told you then," he'd glanced at the watch on his wrist. "Reportin' to the old man after eight o'clock, you don't turn up like that. After eight o'clock means you ain't just here to say 'allo".

"Sorry - I don't think I -"

"After eight o'clock, any girl what 'as to report to the Old Man is expected to have herself ready".

Charlotte had looked blankly at him, uncomprehending. "S-sorry - I don't understand. Ready?"

He'd looked her up and down again, still amused, then pointed to a place just behind her head where two brass nooks were screwed to the wall.

"Know what those 'ooks are for?"

"Er - no".

"That one, there - that's skirts. An' that one - that's for knickers. See?"

"Um -" She'd started at him, bewildered but with an awful feeling that he might not be joking.

"Course, if you don't want to take my word for it -"

Confused, Charlotte had hovered on the brink of calling his bluff, only he hadn't looked as if he was bluffing. He'd taken a look at his watch and pointed at the hooks again, amusedly mocking her disbelief.

"Skirts - knickers. Got it?"

"Um - er -"

"You can suit yourself of course".

She'd unzipped her skirt, uncertainly, hesitantly, knowing that she would be too embarrassed now not to take the caretaker's advice since he'd offered it, seemingly in a spirit of helpfulness, yet she'd felt humiliated to be undressing like this with his alert eyes on her every movement. She'd hung her skirt up, while the caretaker stared with his odd matter-of-fact gaze, then hesitated again when it came to her pants.

"Now your knickers". He had prompted her with gently mocking in his voice, and she had slipped the little cotton knickers down and stepped out of them, her fingers unresisting as he'd taken them from her and put them on the hook to save her the trouble. Her blouse came not much below her waist, leaving her belly and bottom bare - and that other little bit, of course.

"Better stand at attention".

She'd straightened up, hands stiffly by her sides, breasts pushing forward, bottom feeling big and helplessly naked behind, afraid she'd been deceived by the caretaker for the sake of his amusement yet fearful that probably she hadn't been after all.

He had patted her bum a couple of times, taking no trouble to disguise the faint trace of amusement in his voice as he'd said quietly "The Old Man'll like you, sweetheart. Just you see if 'e don't". And then he'd simply wandered away along the passage as if he'd forgotten all about her.

Trembling now with both anxiety for what the C.O. might mean to do with her, and the embarrassment of being helf-naked when he opened the door - it might still be some kind of new arrival's initiation joke, for all she knew - Charlotte had started nervously when the library door had opened a moment later, the C.O. checking her up and down instantly, just as if she'd been on parade back at the Training Centre, and then beckoning her into the dimly-lit room without the slightest comment on the oddity of her appearance. Following the C.O.'s back through the doorway, out of the corner of her eye she had glimpsed the returning figure of the caretaker coming along the passage, Brasso bottle and polishing cloth already in his hand.

"Stand at ease, Barnes".

"Sir", she had moved automatically on the instant, and only as the backs of her hands had come together behind her, brushing across the smooth skin of her bare bottom, had the lasciviousness of girl being made to "stand at ease" when she didn't have any knickers dawned on her. She had blushed a hot crimson and been unable to meet the C.O.'s gaze as he'd turned to face her.

Shifting uneasily, her face still flushing afresh each time she managed to make herself look up into the Commanding Officers face, Charlotte had tried to pay attention to the arrangements that had been made for her driving course - she was to leave tomorrow and would be back in five days, after an especially intensive period of instruction during which she would have to work "very hard" so as to reach the required standard in time. The C.O. himself would finalise the details of her transport right then and there.

Seating himself at a desk he had picked up a 'phone and dialled a number and then whilst waiting for the receptionist to connect him at the other end, he had gestured with a finger and then with a hand for Charlotte to come round and stand beside him "in case they wanted any details from her". Awkwardly she had skirted the desk and stood at a respectful distance, only to be ushered closer by the impatient hand. Trembling with embarrassment she had waited while the connection was made, her bottom kept as far out of reach as she could manage without it being too obvious and her hands together in front of her in an unmilitary posture that the C.O. affected not to notice for a minute or so. Absentmindedly he had stretched out a hand and stroked it up and down the side of her leg, then up under the plumpness of her bottom, jiggling the weight of first one cheek then the other while Charlotte shut her eyes tightly and kept very still, too nervous almost to breathe.

"Oh - yes. I'm waiting to speak to Captain Harvey. Hmm? Yes, alright - I'll hold on".

A digit, indeed several, had slipped nonchalently between Charlotte's thighs about knee height - then travelled casually but insistently upwards. Despite herself, Charlotte's thighs edged closer together as the interloping fingers slipped higher, until she was pressing them quite determinedly against the intrusion, her reaction quite automatic. She hadn't noticed the C.O.'s glance, nor the lift of amusement about his eyebrows as he'd felt her resistance become more determined.

"Barnes...."

"Sir?" Charlotte had looked down at him, startled by his voice. He had glanced up with a little smile. "Stand at ease, Barnes".

"Ooh -" This time Charlotte's reaction had been less the disciplined obedience of a well-trained cadet than the reluctant compliance of an innocent yielding to force of circumstances. Unsteadily she moved her feet apart and put her hands behind her back and felt the confident slide of a fingertip along the moist runnel at the apex of her thighs. The C.O. had said "Hello?" into the 'phone. "Captain Harvey? About the arrangements for my driver - perhaps I'd better let you speak to her yourself". He had handed the 'phone to Charlotte, who had taken it in a fluster and almost dropped it onto the desk and been given a sharp, stinging slap on the bottom for her clumsiness.

"H-hello? Um - this is Cadet Corporal B-oooh - Barnes, Sir".

Spread-apart legs beginning to tremble again, Charlotte had attempted to manage the complication of communicating the required information whilst keeping her mind off the C.O.'s increasingly successful efforts at distraction between her legs, but had been less successful by the moment.

"Er - well, sir - ooogh - um - I could 'phone you - aaahh - you before I left sir - oooh -"

The week that Charlotte had waited, between her interview for the new posting and the day of her leaving the Training Camp, had been one of tensions and worrying, of doubts and uncertainty, with no moment really free of the nagging fear that she wouldn't be accepted, and the frightening possibility that she might.

The two weeks previous to that had been, if anything, more demanding, the almost daily ritual of presenting her bared bottom for chastisement in the C.O.'s office having been not the least of her troubles, and the past three weeks taken together had afforded little chance of 'relaxation' to the harassed young Corporal - going to bed most nights with a spanked or cane-wealed bottom and exhausted from the day's demands, had left her with little inclination to avail herself of the kind of relaxation therapy by which a healthy girl might reasonably be expected to ease her frustrations. On the other hand, unrealised and indeed more unconsciously than otherwise, the sexual undertones of being constantly in the presence of the Camp's training staff, almost all men, while dressed in the little regulation issue shorts that might have been designed to encourage a girl to show off a bit - and to encourage men to watch her while she did it - were likely to leave a girl emotionally "toned-up" without allowing her any form of release save the solace she might find in the comforting intimacy of her own bed after lights out. With frequent takings-down of her knickers - for punishment admittedly but a girl's psyche wasn't always entirely able to differentiate - and regular 'stimulation' of her bottom in the presence of the C.O. and whichever of his cronies he had invited to enjoy the 'performance', Charlotte, though she was hardly aware of it on a conscious level, was a warm, liquid bubble of sublimated sexuality ready to pop at the slightest suggestion of an opportunity to do so.

Slowly she had become unable to continue the 'phone conversation with the Captain. Her legs had gone to jelly and she had had to lean against the desk for support while the receiver had slipped from her grasp. Constrained by the demands of military discipline to remain at least upright and in some semblance of an "at ease" posture, yet coaxed against her conscious will to within a shiver of disgracing herself on the tips of the C.O.'s fingers, Charlotte had whimpered, panted, gasped and finally wept at her helpless response to the insistence of the C.O.'s practised titillation and had given way at last to the inevitable.

Getting her bum smacked after that had hardly seemed fair, but smacked it had been. He had allowed her a minute or two to recover herself a little, while he had dealt with Captain Harvey who had been still on the other end of the 'phone, and then she had been ordered to the far side of the library and told to wait. Then, having poured himself a drink to top up the several he had already had, the C.O. had taken the wobbly-legged girl across one knee and pushed her blouse up her back, clamping her legs between his own so that her bottom was presented neatly across his left thigh. He had spanked her with slow deliberation, each cheek alternately, the spanks solidly applied to what rapidly became a jerking, twisting, target which frantic hands attempted to defend in the fleeting moments when they were able to pull free of the C.O.'s grip.

Here, in this big old house, there were no such things as regulations appertaining to corporal punishment - a girl could be spanked until she could barely catch her breath for yelling and then still be spanked some more. Charlotte had given way to tears almost at once; at first as a result of the relief from tension that the C.O.'s experienced fingers had allowed her, but then, with the pain in her wriggling bottom increasing with every spank, she had cried in earnest until she was incoherent in her protestations and was struggling so much as to make the palm-tingling satisfaction of continuing to slap her crimson-blotched bottom hardly commensurate with the effort it took to hold her down for it to be done. Charlotte was allowed at last to slip from between her Commanding Officer's restraining knees.

Now, her eyelids are reddened and her cheeks wet with her crying. Her lips are moist with salt tears and the inside of her mouth liquid-warm. Her hair is silky to the touch, her nose wants to run and she sniffles pathetically, trying not to pull away and not allowed to anyway, the C.O. saying coaxing words to the top of her tousled head whilst she splutters tearfully for minutes on end in her confused humiliation.

The library clock chimes the half-hour. Charlotte has tugged her tie straight and dabbed surreptitiously here and there at her crisp blouse. Her tongue peeps briefly between her lips and she makes a discreet little spitting sound, not letting the C.O. see her do it, her expression one of child-like distaste. At last, Charlotte is dismissed.

Outside her knickers are proffered to her by a work-grimed hand, and too overwhelmed by the events of the last hour she makes no objection to being assisted into them by the solicitous but over-tactile caretaker. Her tears drying on her face, Charlotte scampers along the passageway clutching her skirt. The caretaker clucks his tongue and slips his Brasso back into his overall. "Poor little bugger", he mutters "Poor little bugger".

Basic training - 1st part of the story

The story in two parts from old Blushes.

Basic training
Starting at the bottom

The atmosphere in the drill hall that morning was charged with the same kind of electric tension that pressages the onset of a thunderstorm. There was silence, of a kind, but the very quiet itself seemed to be buzzing at a pitch that the ear couldn't quite reach, so that girls felt uneasy and sensed the little hairs on the backs of their necks standing on end. The three ranks, standing at attention, were drawn up facing the double half-glazed doors at the far end of the hall, through which the phalanx of visiting V.I.P.s would enter at any moment. Six paces in front of the first rank, two girls wearing white webbing belts and diagonal shoulder straps flanked two other girls whose dress, though the same as that of the girls drawn up behind them, was arranged somewhat differently. Their shorts, together with their knickers, had been pulled down off the plump cheeks of their bums and were now stretched in tight creases across the backs and fronts of their bare legs, with two inches or so of daylight to be glimpses between the level of the re-arranged knickers and shorts and the apex of each pair of thighs. Although eyes were supposed to be directed to the front when standing at attention, fixed on some imaginary and distant point, there wasn't one of the girls lined up behind the two unfortunates in whose honour the parade was being held, who didn't let her gaze drift frequently towards those bared and nervous bottom-cheeks, presently pink and smooth and unmarked, whose trembly sauciness reminded every one of the witnesses that her own bottom would have looked just the same had she had the misfortune to have earned a place at the front of this punishment parade. As a sharp reminder of the consequences of failing to do one's duty to one's utmost ability, those two naked and helpless bottoms had already had a salutory effect on every other girl in the hall that morning – there wasn't one who hadn't pictured herself in the place of the girls who were to be caned, and not one who hadn't promised herself that she would do everything in her power to avoid such a fate befalling her.

Standing rigidly to attention – or as rigidly as a girl can stand at attention given the femininity of her physiology – and a little apart from the assembly awaiting the arrival of the C.O. and his entourage of voyeurs, Corporal Cadet Charlotte Barnes, though she was notionally in charge of the parade and was therefore supposedly on the side of the establishment in these proceedings, allowed even her eyes to wander to the two girls' bottoms at unguarded moments, and perhaps with more reason to do so than those in her charge. Because for Corporal Cadet Barnes there was no consolation to be had from promising herself that she would do her best not to let it happen to her – in approximately twenty short minutes, while these two miscreants were still weeping their humiliated tears and touching gingerly at their caned bums, she would be taking her own knickers down in the C.O.'s office, regulations about corporal punishment in camera notwithstanding, and would be obliged to pay a second time with her own tears for the sins of those whom she had been made responsible for.

Thai such self-indulgence on the C.O.'s part was supposedly quite outside the accepted scheme of things so far as the rules were concerned, was in reality neither here nor there, since there was non-one to curb or even to comment upon his penchant for pretty teenage cadets. It had been that same tendency to self-indulgence that had prompted him to select young Charlotte for promotion to corporal, even though she, like the rest of her intake, had had only the usual six weeks basic training and was hardly ready for even junior NCO rank. He had decided upon a snap inspection of the cadets' shower room just as Charlotte's group had come back from a muddy cross-country run. Tired though they had been, the girls had 'jumped to it' – naked, water running down their bodies and streaking their mud-spattered legs, impudently firm young breasts pushing pert nipples under the C.O.'s nose, they had stood to attention and goose-pimpled in the draught from the open door while he had 'inspected' them, 'about turned' them – for a good long look at their bums, of course, and an experimental pat here and there – 'double-marched' them on the spot and made them all touch their toes fifty times each while he paced along behind the row and coaxed them to better efforts with smart, wet-sounding slaps to their tight-skinned bottoms as they bobbed breathlessly up and down. Perhaps Charlotte's young buttocks had felt a touch more resilient to the slapping palm, or possibly her tits had bounced a little more perkily than other girls' – for whatever reason, she had been awarded her stripes that same day at a little ceremony the C.O. had conducted in his office. Charlotte – now Corporal Cadet Charlotte Barnes – had crept back into the dormitory at half-past eleven and sewn on her stripes, and then she had quietly cried herself to sleep, having at last been given the bare-bottomed caning – 'just so she knew what it felt like' – that she had so diligently avoided by sheer hard work right the way through basic training.

Since then, with her tight little uniform shorts hiding cane weals or the traces of a good, hard spanking most days of the week, Charlotte's bottom had been reddened and made to wriggle, had bounced and squirmed as the degree of punishment it received had varied with the progress, or lack of it, of her platoon throughout the long slog of advanced training. In desperation to increase the efficiency of her unit, and even though she had known that a girl punished by the C.O. meant that she would herself have to suffer for the girl's offence in the seclusion of the C.O.'s office shortly thereafter, Charlotte had reported half of the platoon for slackness and had had to watch eleven skittish young bottoms turn stripey red one after the other across the punishment bench, and had then been made to take her own knickers down for a spanking that had lasted so long she had run out of tears and had been left slumped across a chair back gasping to herself that there just had to be some other way – there just had to!

Perhaps the C.O. had heard her plaintive whispers, or perhaps he had planned it all along; anyway, a day or two later she had been sent for by the senior civilian administrative officer and told that, if she wished, she could transfer onto the C.O.'s personal staff as a driver – she would go on a seven day driving course at the Central Driving School – and should she decide to accept the posting – she was amazed to hear that she had a choice – the usual two year conscription period would no longer apply to her, and she would be deemed to have completed her service one year to the day after joining the C.O.'s staff. She had been given two days to decide, and today was the day.

Charlotte had at first concluded that it would be lunacy to take up the offer; things were bad enough already. But then she thought about it some more and realised that as a driver she wouldn't necessarily be driving the C.O., she might hardly ever see him, and anyway, even if things didn't get any better, they could hardly get worse. A year of spankings and canings, awful though the prospect was, just had to be half as awful as nearly two years of the same if she decided not to take the posting. Charlotte had made up her mind to do it. Meanwhile, here she was again, presenting two more of her platoon for canings, with the usual knickers-down session in the office afterwards still to come.

Distantly she heard the clip of shoes on linoleum, and the noise of a door opening. The other girls heard it too, and a whisper of anticipation went along the ranks. Charlotte turned her head and the whispers ceased instantly – none of them wanted to be told to join the girls at the front at the last minute.

The two girls who were to be punished stood nervously at attention as the C.O. and his group of visitors filed into the hall. Their conversation ceased; all eyes went to the two half-naked girls – up to their faces and then down to the plump pout of pubic mounds, except for the C.O., who beckoned Charlotte over.

She marched smartly out to the front and took the keys of a cupboard from him. At the side of the hall there was a waist-high bench or horse over which the girls were to be bent to receive their punishments. At a word from Charlotte two girls broke from the ranks and ran to the bench to drag it's weighty bulk to the middle of the hall, while she took a cane from the punishment cupboard and carried it to the bench and placed it squarely on the padded leather top. The sound of half-strangled weeping came from behind her but she ignored it – crying was only to be expected, and the girl certainly had plenty to cry about. Charlotte turned on her heel and returned to her place, noticing the weeping girl's weak-kneed look and wondering if she was about to faint or something equally awkward, like wet her pants.

It was the girl who was crying who was to be dealt with first, a decision made on the spot and without formality by the C.O.; no doubt she was chosen simply because she was crying and might make a better show. She was marched forward and made to stand at bare-bottomed attention whilst the reason for her punishment was read out, then she was told to get herself across the bench, feet off the floor with her bum arranged across the angle of the horizontal top and the sloping sides so that it was neatly presented to the cane. The C.O. himself took the cane from under the girl's tummy as she got into position, and without any further preliminaries the first stroke arrived solidly across both cheeks at once. All around the hall bottoms flinched in sympathy – or gratitude that it wasn't them up on the horse – and the V.I.P.s watched in silence, save for one elderly man who, seemingly unashamed of his obvious enjoyment of the spectacle, muttered 'excellent, excellent', as the girl who was providing their amusement howled at the top of her voice. She continued to howl, more and more loudly, as the full eleven strokes were applied with a remorseless regularity, having to be held across the bench by the two girls who were doing duty as escorts, and Charlotte too had to step forward to assist in keeping the girl's struggles under control.

Blubbering and wobbly-legged, the girl was sent to stand out the front again whilst the second girl was put through the same harrowing experience, with girls in the ranks crying themselves at the awesome sight of a bum that might so easily have been theirs', indeed had been theirs' on other occasions, squirming violently as the cane lashed vivid reddening cane weals across what had been smooth, virgin buttocks a few minutes earlier. Charlotte's own reaction to the sight was doubly disturbing, since she had been responsible for the girls' selection for this morning's 'demonstration' – it was, after all, hardly more than that, put on for the lascivious enjoyment of the C.O. and his friends.

'Corporal!' Charlotte forced her expression into one of attentiveness and stepped forward to take the cane from the C.O. as the girl who had just been caned was sent back to her place beside the other, still-weeping girl. Without raising his voice above a whisper, the C.O. said, 'Oh – and you can bring this cane to the office with you in five minutes.' Charlotte's face must have betrayed her shocked feelings – she was almost always spanked, not caned. The C.O. read her look. 'V.I.P.s here today, Charlotte. We have to do our best to entertain them, don't we?'

'Yes sir.' was all Charlotte could say.

Five minutes later she was knocking on the C.O.'s office door; a minute after that and she was wearing no more than her stockings, her bra and her knickers – and it was only a minute more before her pants too had been confiscated – stumbling through the ritual of apologies she was always required to make whilst the visitors, crowded into the little room, wandered their eyes over her young body and whispered vulgar comments to each other in tones just loud enough for Charlotte to hear.

'Hope you're going to cane her, Colonel.'

The Colonel was, indeed. Charlotte tried to hold her panic in check as she was made to get across the desk, made to spread her legs wide, made to hold her bum up off the desk's edge so that the cane would be able to reach up under the out-swell of her buttocks. He caned her less viciously than he had caned the other girls – nonetheless Charlotte's bottom blossomed with a dozen ridgy cane marks that had her squealing for pity and struggling to her feet less than halfway through so that the C.O.'s friends had to be asked to hold her down across the desk for the balance to be administered. Charlotte's humiliation was completed when she was made to stand at attention in front of them all a second time and stumble tearfully through her apologies again. Then the C.O. handed her the cane to put back in the cupboard outside. He smiled down at her as though he had just conferred a considerable favour upon her, and said. 'Doubtless you'll be pleased to know, Charlotte, that that was your last caning here. Tomorrow you will go to headquarters, Eastern Division, for your medical prior to going to the Central Driving School. The day after that you will report to my official residence. Understood?'

'Yes sir.' Charlotte managed to say between her sobs, and then she was dismissed. She left the room with tears still streaming down her face and her uniform tucked under her arm. Outside she breathed a sigh of either relief that she was going at last, or of dread that she would be going to the C.O.'s home where she would be within reach of a cane twenty four hours a day – she herself didn't know which emotion was uppermost in her breast. But the C.O.'s parting remark had ominous overtones. 'You've had your last caning here, Charlotte'. That probably wasn't the good news it might have sounded like. Tearful and bewildered, Charlotte hurried away to her dormitory to get her things in order for the move.