The Punishment Book

Story from Janus 14.

The Punishment Book
by Tom Horner

'THERE'S YOUR TEA, Mr. Conrad.'

The pretty dark-haired young woman plonked the cup down on the desk, and with a flick of her hips, turned and left the room.

Seated at his desk Anthony Conrad watched the swing of the tartan skirt as she left, and sighed. Then he looked slowly and carefully round the room, taking in each object in turn: the leather armchair, the glass-fronted bookcase, the low oak chest, and the clock ticking quietly on the mantelpiece between two brass candlesticks. It was as if he were looking at each of them for the last time. As indeed he was, for this was Anthony's last day as Head Master of St. Edmund's School for Girls. After 25 years it was unlikely that he would ever really forget this room, but nevertheless he wanted to savour its atmosphere one last time. For he knew that it would never be the same again, even if he were invited back to the school from time to time, as he was sure he would be. He had already heard something of his successor's, Mrs. Palmer's, plans for his study — her study. Most of the furniture would remain, with the exception of the leather armchair, with its peculiarly worn back. But the heavy blue velvet curtains would be replaced by something light and flowery; the patterned Persian carpet by a plain beige Wilton; the candlesticks on the mantelpiece by fresh flowers; and the smell of pipe tobacco by Mrs Palmer's discreet perfume. It would become a headmistress's study, not a headmaster's.

Anthony sighed a deeper, even heavier sigh. He had just finished clearing out his own possessions, filling three waste bins with rubbish, and packing the rest in a suitcase which now stood on the floor beside him. Only three items remained on the big mahogany desk with its leather inlay. These were a crook-handled rattan cane, a leather tawse, and a large, red, leather-bound book, with gold lettering spelling out the words PUNISHMENT BOOK. In that Book was the record of 26 years of well-caned girlish bottoms. There were inscribed the names of all the girls who had passed through his study and lifted their skirts to receive their just rewards across stretched knickers. In some ways it was also a record, perhaps the only one there would be, of Anthony's career as Headmaster of St. Edmund's. For the cane had played an important part in life at the school. Anthony's predecessor, Miss McDonald, a formidable Scottish spinster, had been the first Headmistress back in the 1930s, and her aim had always been for strict discipline, combined with academic excellence. Miss McDonald had achieved both by means of a strong brain, a strong will, and a strong right arm, all of which she had applied wholeheartedly to the job. So that when Anthony took over from her St. Edmund's had an excellent reputation, and there was immense competition from all over the country for the 60 places offered to girls each year.

Miss McDonald had not approved at all the appointment as her successor of a man, a bachelor moreover, and only 35 years old, but that had not stopped her from giving Anthony some advice.

'You have four hundred and fifty girls in your charge, Mr Conrad,' she had said as she handed over the keys of the study. 'I hope you will love them as I have done — but never be afraid to be firm. Just because they are girls, don't think that they should be treated softly. You must drive them on all the time. And if they step out of line, cane them, and cane them hard. The girls expect it, their parents expect it, and the rest of your staff expect it — don't disappoint them!'

Anthony had taken this advice to heart, and had resolved to wield his cane with even more vigour than he had done at the boys' school where he had previously been Assistant Head.

For some reason, which he understood better now than he had done at the time, Miss McDonald had insisted on taking her Punishment Book with her, and Anthony had had to acquire a new one. It was this that lay on the desk in front of him now.

He opened the cover and read the first entry.

'14th September 1956: Jacqueline Walkington', it read. 'Form VA. Gross impertinence. Four Strokes.'

Ah yes, poor Jackie! Anthony smiled a rather rueful smile at the memory. It had been about a week after he had started at St. Edmund's. He had been returning from Chapel one morning in a crowd of girls, and had come up behind two fifth formers without their noticing him. The taller one had said:

'What do you think of our new Head? Don't you think he's rather handsome?'

To which her friend, who turned out to be Jackie, had replied:

'No I don't! He looks like a dry old stick to me. I shouldn't wonder if he prefers little boys.'

The next thing she knew a heavy hand descended on her shoulder. She turned to see who was attacking her, and went very red, and then very pale.

'It's off to my study with you, my girl!'

Jackie's feet had hardly seemed to touch the ground as she was whisked into the school, and through the door of the Headmaster's study. In another instant she was face down across the desk, and her skirt was being turned back to reveal the first pair of tightly stretched grey St. Edmund's knickers that Anthony had ever seen. And then whack! whack! whack! WHACK! Four strokes one after another, spread evenly across that pretty, slender bottom. In less than half a minute Jackie was upright again, blubbering into her hankie, as Anthony wrote the details into the book.

Anthony smiled to himself as he remembered how inexperienced he had been then. First for treating the girl's remark so seriously — nowadays he would have ignored it, or passed it off with a caustic retort of his own. But he had been lacking in confidence then, and was keen to assert his authority. And as for the punishment itself, well...! — there was no style to it. It had been simply punishment, with no attempt at rehabilitation. For Anthony was convinced as a result of his experiences at St. Edmund's that one of the quickest ways of turning an immature silly schoolgirl into a sensible young woman was, paradoxically, by transitionally reducing her to a sobbing child by means of a swishy stick applied skilfully to her bottom. But to achieve that effect the beating had to be done carefully, slowly, and with finesse, judging the critical moment in the girl's emotional state, as well as the crescendo of her pain, for the administration of each stroke. With his present experience Jackie's caning would have been a much more prolonged and rewarding episode for all concerned.

In the same way, experience had taught him that lying across a desk did not present a young girl's bottom at the most suitable angle. There was a danger of the cane hitting too high, instead of the full firm flesh of the buttocks which was its proper target. On the other hand, apart from senior girls, and more experienced victims, touching the toes, which got the bottom at the required angle, was too difficult a position to maintain, if the punishment was to be prolonged in order to obtain the maximum benefit. And so he acquired the heavy leather armchair. Now those who presented themselves for punishment could bend over the back of the chair, or kneel on its seat (depending on how tall they were), and with their heads lower than their bottoms, assume an ideal position for the attention of one of Anthony's many whippy rattans.

But no more would that happen, of course! As this realisation came back to him, Anthony began to flick through the pages of the Book in a desultory way. Some names appeared with a tiresome regularity. Far more made but one or two appearances — particularly in fifth year, when young girls' rebellious urges seemed to be at their strongest, and they needed a short sharp shock to sort them out. Those who managed to reach the Sixth Form without exposing their knickered bottom for a swishing generally managed to emerge unscathed from St. Edmund's. But there was one notable exception to this which suddenly came into Anthony's mind, and he began to flick through the pages more eagerly as he sought the relevant entry.

Aah! There is was! — 20th January 1963: Mary Singer. Yes, Mary Singer had been a very special pupil. She had joined St. Edmund's at the same time as Anthony, and from the first had shown herself a serious hard-working girl, both intelligent and good at sports, and always popular with the other girls. In fact she came close to Anthony's idea of the model schoolgirl. And when Mary reached the Upper Sixth it came as no surprise to anyone when it was announced that she was to be Head Girl. Anthony regarded this appointment with particular pleasure. Mary was the first girl whom he had been able to watch proceed right through the school to achieve this honour. And any jealousy which might have been felt by the other girls was dissipated by the conscientious and unassuming way in which Mary went about her tasks. She would get up early to sort out her administrative responsibilities so that they would not affect her A-level work; and while not taking any cheek from the younger girls, she always had a friendly word, even for the juniors, unlike most of the Prefects who treated them as though they did not exist, except when they needed to be told off or sent on an errand.

So, for a term-and-a-half Mary lived up to all Anthony's expectations. And then, one cold Wednesday afternoon, the school hockey team, of which Mary was centre-half and captain, happened to be playing another local girls' school, St. Hilda's. Anthony arrived just after half time to lend his voice in support of the shrill cries of the 10 or 12 girls shivering on the touchline. On this occasion he quickly learnt that St. Edmund's were two-nil down, principally because St. Hilda's had one brilliant forward who was running rings around the St. Edmund's defence. Anthony was soon to see an example of this.

The ball was played quickly forward to the St. Hilda's star — a tall slim blonde girl, very athletic-looking, supple and quick on her feet. She advanced steadily towards the St. Edmund's goal. Mary came out determinedly to meet her, but the ball seemed glued to the slim girl's stick. She feinted once, twice, then flicked the ball through Mary's legs and skipped round her to collect it on the other side, and Mary stood leaden-footed and open-mouthed. Several of the girls on the touchline tittered at Mary's embarrassment, until silenced by a glare from Anthony. The goal was at the St. Hilda's girl's mercy. But as she set herself to shoot, her left foot caught a particularly slippery patch of mud, her perfect balance deserted her for once, and she fell in an ungainly heap. The ball trickled harmlessly a few yards until one of the other St. Edmund's backs thumped it far down the field. All eyes, both spectators' and umpires', turned to follow the play. All that is, except Anthony. He was watching Mary, who, with an unpleasant grimace on her face was advancing on the fallen St. Hilda's girl. Anthony thought for a moment that she was going to help the other girl up. But when she got close, to his amazement he saw Mary strike the girl's ankle with her stick, twice, hard! The girl winced with pain, and her eyes opened wide with surprise, but Mary had turned and gone. Nobody but Anthony had seen what had happened, and the St. Hilda's girl was too much of a sportswoman to complain, as she got to her feet at last, and limped back to join the game. Anthony went up to one of the Sixth Formers standing nearby.

'When the game is over, tell Mary Singer that I want to see her straight away in my study. Straight away, do you understand?'

'Yes sir,' came the nervous reply. But Anthony had already stormed off to his study.

About half-an-hour later Mary bounced in.

'We won three-two in the end, sir,' she crowed, as she plonked herself into the armchair. 'Their forwards seemed to run out of steam!'

'I'm not surprised.' The harshness of his tone caused Mary to look at Anthony sharply, as he continued. 'I saw what you did to their best player. And stand up girl while I am talking to you!'

In a daze Mary got slowly to her feet and stood in front of his desk.

'I will not tolerate that kind of vicious behaviour from anyone — especially my Head Girl. Good God, you might have broken that poor girl's leg — and all because she offended your precious dignity with her superior skill. There is only one answer to such nasty behaviour. Bend over the back of the chair, please, Mary.'

Mary's brown eyes opened wide, her jaw dropped, and to Anthony's disgust she began to blubber and plead.

'Oh no, sir, don't cane me sir, please, I'm very sorry, I won't do anything like it again. I've never been caned, sir, please...'

Anthony ignored her pathetic pleadings and went to the cupboard where he kept his canes, bringing out his most punishing Senior cane, and swishing it through the air.

'Stop that noise and get over the chair, girl, or you'll be in here every day for a week!'

Still snivelling, Mary draped herself over the cold leather back of the chair. The short maroon games skirt rode up, barely covering the matching maroon knickers. Anthony lifted the skirt, and then measured his cane against the fullness of Mary's firm athletic bottom. He could see that her thighs were trembling, and she was still sobbing. And then, as he lifted the cane for the first stroke, her right hand darted back to cover her bottom. This was the last straw. Anthony flung the cane down onto his desk.

'All right, it's clear you're not in the right frame of mind to receive this punishment. If I beat you now it will not have a corrective effect upon you. Get up and clear out. But you will present yourself here after Chapel tomorrow morning, at which time I shall cane you — and unless you show a bit more restraint and decorum then, you will cease to be Head Girl, you will cease to be a prefect, and you will be caned every morning after Chapel, until you can show me, by your willing acceptance of deserved punishment, that you are a mature young lady of 18, and not a pathetic, snivelling little girl!'

Mary fled, her illusions shattered. Anthony felt aroused after that confrontation. He could not sit still, but paced his office like an agitated man.

Things were very different the next morning. Anthony had left his Deputy, Miss Hargreaves, to take Chapel, and at five past nine precisely there was a sharp tap on the door.

'Come in!'

In response to his command, Mary entered the room briskly. Her head was held high, and her chin was resolute. Her uniform was immaculate — freshly laundered white shirt, maroon tie, and grey pleated skirt. She looked at Anthony as he briefly lectured her, and when he told her to take up her position for a caning, she said, 'Yes sir.' Mary walked straight to the middle of the room, bent over, flicked up her skirt, and with her fiat-heeled sensible shoes planted 18 inches apart and her long legs stretched taut, she touched her fingertips to her toes.

'That's better,' said Anthony, with a smile, as he again produced his cane from the cupboard. He gloatingly took aim at Mary's rounded bottom, now covered in taut grey cotton, and framed by her white suspender belt and the dark tops of the stockings which, as a senior, she was allowed to wear. The only trace of the emotion of the previous evening was a slight trembling in her legs as she tried to hold them straight and firm.

Thwack!

Thwack!!

Thwack!!!

He beat her slowly, and soundly. Six swishy strokes of the very best he had ever administered to boy or girl. Mary did not react, except with a sharp exhalation of breath as the cane swished into her cheeks and, towards the end, a wriggle and squirm after each stroke. Her self-control was incredible considering the severity of the caning.

Anthony left her in position while he wrote the details in the Punishment Book.

'You may get up, Mary.'

'Thank you, sir,' she gulped as she straightened. Her eyes were glistening and her cheeks were wet, but her jaw was still firm as she said, 'You certainly laid it on, sir! But I know I needed it. Thank you.'

And immediately they were back to their old relationship of Head Master and favourite Head Girl, as they settled down to discussing school business for the day, with Mary seated extremely gingerly on the edge of the armchair over which she had sobbed the previous evening. It was a very impressive performance on her part, Anthony thought, considering the inflictions she had just received.

But all trace of cockiness and self-importance had vanished from her manner, never to return, and she completed a very successful year as Head Girl. She was now a lecturer in an English Department at a provincial University, and still wrote to Anthony from time to time.

Anthony came out of his pleasant reverie, and continued turning the pages of this Book which was providing such fascinating memories. Here was another interesting entry! 5th November 1967 — a whole page devoted to one form, VA, the top English stream, all destined for University. The form had decided in the then current fashion to have a 'happening' during one lunchtime. This had involved throwing all the classroom furniture into a pile in the middle of the room, and then dancing round it chanting 'Hare Krishna' or something similar. Miss Hargreaves had come across the event, and had been told either to push off, or to 'let it all hang out!' Anthony had then been summoned, and had arrived in his best impersonation of the deus ex machina, in full academic dress, and brandishing his cane. The effect had been instantaneous. In less than five minutes the room was back in perfect order. But then he had led the whole group of by now very penitent and apprehensive girls through the playground, past the crowds of giggling junior girls, to his study. He had had them in two at a time, in alphabetical order, from petite blonde Janet Armstrong to that tall, willowy brunette, Bridget Wilson, for four strokes each — not too severe, but enough to make them think again about 'doing their own thing' in school! The form Captain, Elaine Deasy, a plump but very attractive young miss, he had left till last, and she had taken a double dose to remind her of the responsibilities of her office. How his arm had ached at the end of that little lot!

Most of those girls, like Mary Singer, had been one-time-only recipients of the cane. At the other end of the scale there were the regular visitors. A lot of these were trouble-makers or bullies of one sort or another. They were not girls towards whom Anthony could feel any sort of affection. They deserved to be beaten, and he saw to it that they were. But there were exceptions. In particular, Maggie Clark.

Maggie was a quiet conscientious girl, and generally well-behaved. At least once a term she would be reported to Anthony for some serious breach of school discipline: a member of staff would find her blatantly smoking on school grounds, or out of uniform, or she would arrive late for school (for Maggie was one of the small number of day-girls) five days in a row. Anthony would have no alternative but to send for her and cane her. She would take her punishment without complaint, and then would return to her normal hard-working well-behaved self. Once he had noticed this pattern of behaviour Anthony was puzzled by it, and he had no inkling of the explanation for it until the affair of the blue jeans. This had occurred in 1974, when 16-year-old Maggie was in her fifth year.

During the summer term a number of girls had started wearing jeans instead of school uniform. It became so much of a craze that to stop it short Anthony announced one Monday morning that in future anyone appearing in jeans during school hours would be caned without more ado, no matter what excuses or explanations were offered. The next day at Chapel all girls were correctly dressed, with the exception of two — a sixth former named Barbara Harris, and Maggie Clark. Anthony, very annoyed at this blatant disobedience, escorted both girls to his study immediately after Chapel. The older girl, Barbara, he called in first, and having told her to remove the offending garment, he made her bend over and take six across her knickers. She left the room in tears, and caused no more trouble. Anthony then called in Maggie, and likewise told her to remove her jeans and bend over. While she was doing this Anthony went to the cupboard to exchange the light cane which he had been using on Barbara, for the heavier one to which Maggie had graduated by virtue of her previous visits. As he turned back Anthony was astounded by the sight that greeted him. For instead of a tightly stretched pair of grey knickers he was faced by the pink pert roundness of Maggie's naked bottom, tipped up towards him over the back of the chair.

'What is the meaning of this?' he spluttered. 'You know I can't cane you like that.'

'I don't like wearing knickers under these jeans, sir,' came the demure reply.

Anthony gulped. For the first time for a long time he had lost his composure — but only for a moment!

'Pull your jeans up,' he barked, 'and then get back over that chair.'

With what, he reflected later, was something of a disappointed look, Maggie did as she was told.

She received six ferocious, whistling strokes across the tightest part of the stretched blue denim. He had never caned that hard before — in fact with every erg he could summon in his strong right arm — and a slight fear that perhaps he had gone too far this time marred the slaking of his righteous anger. When he had finished Anthony wrote the punishment in the Book, and then, more than a trifle stiff below the belt, he informed Maggie that she was to report to him again the next day for a further four strokes for failing to wear regulation underwear.

'Yes, sir,' she murmured surprisingly demurely, flicking the long dark hair back over her shoulder.

It was at this second caning in two days that Anthony began to suspect something about Maggie. He had administered four firm strokes across what must have been still a very sore rump, and Maggie was standing waiting to be dismissed while Anthony wrote the details of her punishment in the Book. He noticed from the corner of his eye that, unlike most of the other girls, Maggie was not rubbing furiously at her bottom, nor, like many, was she crying uninhibitedly, but was standing, a rather misty expression in her eyes, with one hand up the front of her skirt, moving rhythmically. Surely the girl wasn't...? Anthony looked across sharply and caught Maggie's eye. She blushed, and with a flutter of eyelashes, dropped both her hands and her gaze.

'My goodness,' thought Anthony, 'the girl's actually enjoying it!'

With that moment of realisation so much else about Maggie's behaviour fell into place. Slit uncharacteristically got herself into trouble when she wanted a beating. She wanted to feel a cane on her bare bottom, so she had engineered the jeans incident.

He did not work all this out at once, of course. But over the next two years, observing Maggie's behaviour, and her regular, though not frequent, visits to his study, Anthony became convinced that he was right. And then, with two A-levels, she had left for secretarian college. Anthony sighed deeply as he looked at the last entry in her name: 'Margaret Clark, Form UVIB, Smoking. Six strokes.'

At that moment the pretty young secretary stuck her head round the door.

'Have you finished with your cup, sir?'

'Yes, thank you. In fact, I was just thinking about you, Maggie.'

For yes, it was she. As chance would have it, one year after Maggie had left Secretarial College, the old School Secretary, Miss Jones, had retired. Maggie had applied for the job, and the Governors had been very taken with the idea of appointing an 'old girl', who would 'know the ropes'. And any doubts about her inexperience were countered by the excellent references from her college and her present employer, and, if the truth be told, by the realisation that she could be paid about half the salary they had been paying Miss Jones!

So Maggie had returned to St. Edmunds. And it was not long before she presented Anthony with a letter containing more silly typing errors than she would normally make in a month. Anthony had been half expecting this, and led the way with comments such as 'Not what we expect from St. Edmunds' girls,' and 'You know what would happen to one of the girls who had the effrontery to present such an atrocious piece of work?' So that before long Maggie was tipped up over the familiar armchair, her tight black skirt folded neatly beside her, and the cane whipping into her firm round cheeks, protected now, not by thick cotton knickers, but the flimsiest nylon briefs. And once again, caning her gave him an erection.

A few months later she appeared in jeans, not unlike the pair she had worn for the previous incident, and certainly extremely tight and revealing. Maggie was informed that they were not suitable dress for a school secretary. The next day, however, her long shapely legs were encased in blue denim once again. So down they came, and over the chair she went. Only this time Anthony did not hesitate to whip the bare cheeks which were once again presented to him. He found it fascinating to watch for the first time the reaction of unprotected female flesh to the kiss of the cane. The rattan seemed to sink into the soft yielding cheeks, and then bounce away, leaving a white line which quickly turned scarlet. For the rest of the day she acted very sexily.

He had beaten her on the bare on a number of occasions since then, and he took pride in trying to make a neat pattern of parallel lines, closely spaced over the lower part of Maggie's bottom, but never crossing. Two years ago she had married, and Anthony had assumed that her husband would in future take over the disciplining of Maggie's pert backside. But no. As Maggie had hesitantly and nervously explained, while she didn't mind her husband, Bill, spanking her now and then, she would not want him to (nor would he want to) really hurt her. So she would still need from time to time the strict and more impersonal punishment that Anthony could provide. However, the cane left obvious and lasting marks. For this reason, the next time Maggie felt that she needed a beating she presented Anthony with a tawse — the one which was lying on his desk now — and asked him to use that on her. Anthony had agreed, though he had never wielded a tawse before, and at first he found it difficult to control. But after some practice he felt he had become almost as proficient with it as with the cane, and could make it embrace Maggie's checks with a curling slap! that made her wince, and rub her thighs back and forth at each blow.

But alas, no more would that happen, Anthony realised with sorrow, as Maggie tripped across the room to collect his tea-cup. No more punishing Maggie, now that he was leaving St. Edmunds. Once again the prospect of a long and boring retirement stretched in front of him.

'I've just had Mrs Chambers on the phone,' said Maggie as she picked up his cup.

'Ah, yes — Juliet's mother.'

Juliet Chambers was a pretty 17-year-old about to enter the Upper Sixth and take her Cambridge entrance exams in Classics.

'What did she want?'

'She wondered if you would be prepared to give Juliet a little coaching in her Latin. She said you were so good at keeping Juliet "up to the mark".'

Maggie emphasised the last phrase, and opened her eyes wide in a way that showed that she suspected that this was a euphemism for giving Juliet a sound swishing at regular intervals.

'Ah, I see,' replied Anthony, trying to sound nonchalant, though his spirits were beginning to lift. And they lifted even further as Maggie continued.

'I said you would let her know, and she said that a number of other mothers were interested in a similar arrangement.'

Again the last word was given a particular emphasis. Anthony did not notice it this time. He was smiling to himself at the vision of a succession of pretty schoolgirls visiting his house for individual tuition, which he always enjoyed, especially if the girl was bright and the lessons were backed up, with full parental approval, by the discipline of the cane.

'Thank you Maggie, I shall certainly give her a ring.'

'And there was one other thing, before you go, sir.' Maggie's eyes dropped and her cheeks flushed. 'I was wondering — well — you see — I don't know if—?'

'Spit it out, girl!'

'Well, I know that Mrs Palmer is going to be very nice to work for, and I'm sure we'll get on terribly well, but you see, she's a woman, so it's not the same, even if she was prepared to... which I don't think she would be — in fact she'd be shocked if I suggested it... so you see...'

'For goodness sake, Maggie,' Anthony thundered. 'Get to the point!'

Maggie took a deep breath. 'I know that I shall make mistakes in my work, but that Mrs Palmer won't punish me as I need — she's not even going to cane the girls! So I thought perhaps I could come and see you now and then, and you could clear the slate, so to speak...'

Anthony smiled again. 'Of course, my dear. I'm sure we can work something out. But now, as it's my last day here, and you've been wasting my time with your babbling, don't you think you ought to pay one last visit across the back of the old chair?'

Anthony's eyes were twinkling as he spoke, and Maggie's twinkled back as she answered him in her 'little girl' voice:

'Yes sir, I'm sure you're right. I do need a whacking before you go — just to remind me of how to behave.'

And without more ado she walked across the room and in one graceful movement placed herself over the back of the leather chair, flicking up her tartan skirt on the way. Then her thumbs came back and slipped down tights and knickers together till they were bunched in the middle of her thighs.

Once more her exquisite round bottom with its deep cleft was presented for Anthony's attention. Already he found himself stiffening. He picked up the tawse from the desk, and advanced purposefully. Maggie peeked back across her shoulder, saw the tawse in his hand, and said:

'Actually, Bill's at a conference all this week, so if you'd rather...'

Anthony took her meaning at once, and quickly retraced his steps, returning with the cane in place of the tawse.

'Now then, a round dozen should do nicely, don't you think?!'

'If you say so, sir,' came the meek and slightly apprehensive reply. For she knew that he would want to make this a punishment to remember, and her bottom felt very large and defenceless, exposed naked for the waiting cane.

'I do say so,' Anthony said emphatically. '12 of the very best, my girl, and you'd better keep in position, or there will be extra!'

He was excited as always by the sight of the young woman's nakedness, revealing the most intimate parts of her lovely body, but he knew that he must control himself from thrashing her too quickly. He wanted to make this occasion last, and savour every moment. Once, twice, three times Anthony tapped the cane lightly on the crown of her cheeks to get his aim, watching her firm flesh quiver in anticipation of the coming pain, and then — Swish! Thwack!

'Oof!' Maggie squirmed. She was not used to the cane these days, and had forgotten just how stingy it could be.

Five seconds pause... Swish! THWACK!

'Ouch!'

A slight smile lightened Anthony's face as he watched with pleasure the two red stripes appear across Maggie's superb bottom, one across the crown of her cheeks, the other half an inch below it. He took aim a little lower.

Swish! Thwack!!!

Maggie was squirming and wriggling a bit at each stroke, but she held her position. 'He's certainly putting me through it,' she thought, gritting her teeth. 'Why ever did I suggest he used the cane?'

Swish! THWACK!!! 'Aagh!' A flame of fire. It was agony!

Anthony had now reached the crease at the top of her thighs. He tapped the cane against this most sensitive spot.

'The next one is going to land here, Maggie. Just try and stretch a little more for it, to make it easier for me, there's a good girl.'

Obediently the young woman stretched her already taut body forward, tensing her legs, and thrusting her bottom back and up even more. A position that would have caused even a eunuch to become sexually excited.

Swish! Thwack!!!

'Oh, sir! Please!....'

Swish! Thwack!!!!

The sixth stroke landed across the top of Maggie's thighs, bringing tears to her eyes. She knew that the next six would retrace the path up her bottom, and that as, inevitably, the cane began to cross existing weals, the pain would be excruciating, but at the same time she had begun to feel the glow that she always longed for, so she held her long legs firm and straight, obediently offering her punished bottom for further strokes. Anthony did not take long to oblige.

Swish! THWACK!!!

Each stroke was delivered with equal power, and landed exactly on the intended spot — a tribute both to Anthony's skill, and Maggie's courage in maintaining her position.

Swish! Thwack! The incredible, uncapturable sound of the cane in motion, and the explosive crack of its contact with Maggie's hindquarters.

With the ninth stroke Maggie began to rub her silky thighs together and wriggle her bottom more urgently. Anthony recognised the signs, and swished in the tenth stroke quickly. Maggie's moans now took on a different tone.

Swish! Thwack! 'Aaah!... ooh, sir!... yes... Yes!'

Number 11 — only one more. Anthony waited much longer this time, until his target was really settled and steady, and then brought the cane down fast, with an expert flick of the wrist for extra speed and power, whipping it full across the centre of Maggie's bottom.

'Ooow!!!' she howled, as the pain and pleasure became inextricably mixed.

Anthony smiled at a job well done, as he returned to his desk. He opened the Punishment Book at a new page. With his sixth-form private pupils, and Maggie's regular visits, there was no reason why the entries should not continue for a long time.

As he finished the entry he looked up at Maggie. She was standing now, one hand tentatively exploring her now red and corrugated buttocks, her skirt still caught at the top of their swell revealing Anthony's handiwork to him. She caught his eye, and managed a brave smile in answer to his. A sort of conspiratorial recognition of mutual, fully compatible needs. Headmaster and secretary would very shortly both be relieving themselves, separately and in private, from the heat of this encounter.

Domestic Harmony

Story from Roue 14.

Domestic Harmony

Julia Maitland and the shy, nervous Charles Carey had a strange but contented relationship. Widow and widower, to the outside world their friendship was probably platonic but the villagers, without exception, liked them so much that they were not overly curious what went on within the stone, ivy-covered walls of Charles' small isolated house. Had they known, some of the details would have set the tongues a-wagging.

This afternoon, the diffident 52 years-old man watched, stomach churning, from behind a curtain as Julia's little car stopped before the house. She saw him, so when she opened the door and extended her silken-clad leg, her left hand held the hem of her skirt back so that, before Charles' eyes, it rode up above mid-thigh where a frilly suspender stretched tautly from the stocking-top, and up under the brief leg of her shadowed knickers above.

A thrill of excitement ran through her as she closed the car door and shook her skirt down. Charles' presence behind the curtain meant that, once the coming charade was over, her skirt would be lifted, her knickers lowered, and her bare bottom soundly and satisfyingly spanked.

Until three months ago her clothes had never been lifted by a man in that house. Besides a couple of afternoon visits, three days a week they would share lunch and dinner – in between, the thirty five year-old woman tidied Charles' house and cooked their meals while he wrote sporadic newspaper pieces on West Africa, where he was an administrator before retirement. He paid Julia handsomely for her work – she accepted because, as he said, his pension had increased so much by its index-linking that he had far more money than he wanted for his simple needs.

But one evening after dinner their conversation, encouraged by several drinks, reached a more intimate level than ever before. Julia talked of her husband, killed in a hunting accident eleven years earlier.

"Really he was only interested in gambling and the animals on the estate," she said. "He died leaving massive debts."

"You were neglected then?"

"As a woman, yes – as an animal, no."

"What do you mean, my dear?"

"Well, we had separate bedrooms, and he slept alone – except for the first night of our honeymoon, when he deigned to join me."

"How strange!"

"It was, but he wasn't sexless. When he... er... wanted me... always in the day or early evening, he would simply bend me over, wherever we were in the house."

"Not even a kiss or caress?"

"No. He would put his left hand on the nape of my neck and push my head down, as his right hand dragged my dress up and roughly pulled my... er... panties to my knees. I had to stay in that position, my hands against the wall or on a chair, my bottom and... you know... my... er... private parts... exposed to his eyes."

"You poor dear."

"He then talked to me as he slowly undid the front of his trousers and..."

Charles' eyes gleamed behind his glasses.

"What sort of things did he say, Julia?"

"Oh, I don't think I could tell you, Charles!"

"Please!"

"Well, that I had a lovely round, aristocratic... oh no, Charles!"

"Yes... please go on!"

"A lovely round, aristocratic.... arse... and that he liked a woman to wait for his... thing... with her knickers round her knees. Then he would crudely describe what he was going to do to me, and... my legs would be nuged as far apart as my stretched... er... knickers would allow, his hands would grip my hips and... he would thrust away savagely until he... he had finished!"

"Good God!"

"Then he would humiliate me in the harshest way. As he zipped himself up, he would ring for a servant. Quickly I had to pull my knickers up, feeling messy and unclean, drop my dress and appear unruffled as he ordered drinks. He said he liked the servants to see me blush."

Charles was breathing heavily, which surprised Julia. She had always considered him to be... somehow... unrousable.

She smiled. "I'm sure your married life was very happy before the car accident."

He nodded, but looked thoughtful.

"What is the matter, Charles?"

"Well, as you have been so honest, it is only right that I tell you that Brenda liked having her bottom spanked before we made love – and I'm afraid that I enjoyed smacking her."

Julia put her hand to his cheek.

"You silly old thing! Don't look so much like a naughty boy – I like it too!"

And she told him of her first orgasm. Of how she noticed when she was seventeen at home in the vicarage, that perhaps once or twice a week, her father's attitude in the late evening would abruptly change towards her mother. With minor criticisms – her hair was untidy – perhaps dinner was not to his satisfaction. Then he always said, "Go upstairs and wait for me, madame!", and Julia's mother obediently mounted the stairs, her shapely hips swaying, so it seemed, more than usual.

Consumed with a teenager's curiosity, Julia slipped upstairs one night to the balcony outside her parents' bedroom. She saw her mother enter and hasten to the mirror, undo the top buttons of her dress then stand, hands behind her back, facing the door.

When her father came in, he opened a drawer, took out a cane, and laid it on the dressing table. Then he walked over to her mother and undid some more dress buttons; his hands went into the dress, slowly turned, and drew out her big, rounded breasts, their nipples standing out stiff and proud. His hands stroked them for a while before he picked up the cane.

Then loudly he shouted, "Come in from the balcony, Julia, you'll catch your death of cold there!" Red-faced, the teenager came through the french windows, her head hanging.

Her green school knickers were pulled down, her pleated skirt flipped up her back and, face down across the bed, her father briskly spanked her bare bottom before she was sent to her room.

And as she heard the swish of the cane from the bedroom, and her mother's subsequent groans and cries that were certainly not of pain, for the first time Julia's hand satisfactorily quieted the strange hunger she had felt between her legs as her father's hand had stung her young bottom.

When she finished her story, Charles was visibly excited, his lips and hands were trembling, and their new-found intimacy, although fragile, had given rise regularly to the game they were about to play three months later.

-o-O-o-

Charles greeted her at the door. Julia pecked his cheek and swirled past him in a cloud of musky perfume into his comfortable living room. His writing had obviously gone well – his desk at the window was tidy. Thus was his – she would make hers presently.

He studied her as a desultory conversation drifted between them. Her hair, cascading over her shoulders, glinted in the sunlight slanting through the window. The silk blouse, tucked over – tightly into her straight skirt, emphasised the downward curve of her full womanly breasts, and a small scarf knotted at her neck gave her a careless elegance. The man's eyes slowly swept over the fullish hips, the shapely sheer-stockinged legs, and her simple half-heel court shoes.

"Shall I make some coffee, Charles?"

The words snapped him away from his lascivious thoughts.

"Yes, I would like that."

Shortly after she had gone to the kitchen he heard the crash of breaking crockery.

"Don't worry," she called, "It's only a cup and saucer!"

"What do you mean," he shouted angrily, " 'Don't worry, Charles'. Come here, woman!"

Julia walked slowly into the living room and stood before him, eyes defiant.

"Really, Julia, you are as clumsy as a schoolgirl!"

"Don't be insulting!"

"Lower your voice, or I'll treat you like a teenager and give you a pink, smarting bottom!"

"You wouldn't dare!"

Charles rose, locked the door, and pocketed the key.

"I would, and now I definitely will! Your knickers are coming down, Julia. If you have any on, that is! I can see your nipples through your blouse, so obviously you are not wearing a bra!"

"For your information I am wearing knickers, but their sight is not for the pleasure of an ageing voyeur," she snapped.

"We'll see," he said as he moved close to her and started to undo her blouse.

"Am I to be felt first?"

Without answering his fingers busied themselves until the blouse gaped open. With infinite gentleness his hands lifted her round satiny breasts clear, then his fingertips, touching light as a butterfly, stroked over the firm globes, pausing only to rotate lovingly the nipples that stood blunt, roused and rigid on their tiny pink-brown mounds.

"Having a good feel?" she gritted, but her belligerence was melting as her eyes softened and her full red lips parted.

"Yes," he said simply.

His hands left her hungry breasts. He sat down.

"Come here, Julia." She stood before him.

"Raise your skirt!"

Her fingers plucked a fold on each side of her hips that wriggled slightly as the hem lifted – to above mid-thigh,

"Like what you see, Charles?" she whispered.

He nodded. Suspenders of pink lace were tautly clamped to the tan stocking tops. The heavenly scent of roused woman reached his nostrils.

"Skirt up to your waist, Julia!"

It slid upwards. She tucked part of the hem into her waistband, clasped her hands behind her back and stood exposed; the few secrets left to her were not to remain so for long.

"Your knickers are a pretty shade of pink, and the lace is nice and sexy. I have always approved of open-legged knickers."

"Why, Charles?"

"Well, it is easy..." the back of his hand slid teasingly up her inner thigh, one finger probed up under the knicker leg and stroked along the wet, pouting parts therein... "to do that."

She gasped. Her thighs started to open. He withdrew his hand.

"But you are here for spanking, not stroking, aren't you!"

And matching his deeds to his words he hooked his fingers into the waist elastic and drew her knickers down. They hung, half inside-out, at her knees. There was nothing left to be modest about.

From under the cushion he drew a leather-covered object.

"At school we were punished with one of these on hands and bottom. It is whalebone, sheathed in leather, called a 'ferrula'. Used viciously it can bruise badly, even split the skin. I stole it from the school's resident sadist when I left."

"But you can't use that on...."

"Your tender white bum, Julia? Don't worry, I won't bruise those lovely round buttocks of yours, just make them all red, stinging and hot. Bend over the back of the armchair!"

Knees trapped by knickers she shuffled across and arched over, hands on the arms.

"Further, woman, I want your bare bum sticking up, begging for the ferrula!"

She obeyed, until her legs were rigid, and only her toes touched the carpet. Her bottom curves arched up; the hair-covered fleshiness, squeezed heart-shape by the closed thighs, glistened wetly.

Charles stroked his left hand over the rounded flesh, then his right brought the ferrula about a foot above one cringing buttock, and with wrist alone made the springy whalebone beat a tattoo on Julia's silky bum-cheek – tat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat. It was like machine-gun fire.

Julia howled.

He stopped.

"Part of your buttock, about five inches by three, is turning gloriously pink. You spanking will be at an end when both your bottom-cheeks are glowing bright red. So there's a lot more spanking to do – tat-tat-tat-tat.

Julia's frantic "oows" and "oooohs" and yelps died to a growling groan when he started on her other bum-cheek because his left hand moved from the small of her back and, palm upwards, slid under her body to move from one hanging breast to another, the ridges on his hand manipulating the stiffened nipples this way and that.

When her round bottom was all pink, smarting and slowly writhing, he dropped the ferrula to the floor. As his left hand continued the fondling, his other smoothed over and between Julia's hot cheeks, down to that which was no longer heart-shaped, for the legs had parted, but even warmer and wetter... and wanting. His finger gave.

The writhing of the young woman's bottom increased. Then it stopped. Her body trembled, then jerked to and fro; her bottom thrust violently back. And from her lips came a long "Aaaaaaahhhh!!" as she slumped like a broken doll over the chair back.

Her hand reached for Charles' trouser zip, but as always before, he firmly grasped the wrist, steered it away, then quietly left the room.

Hung over the chair, Julia dozed in her afterglow for 5 or 6 minutes before, in a leisurely fashion, she pulled her knickers up, dropped her skirt, wriggled her breasts back into her blouse – and put the ferrula into a drawer.

There was no hurry. Charles would be back in 30 minutes, no more, no less. It was his estimate of the time she needed to put herself back together again without any embarrassment.

As she patted her hair into place, she realised that she loved the dear sweet Charles Carey. But his shyness prevented a greater intimacy. Oh yes, spanking her was intimacy, but her conversation had excited him irresistibly into it the first time, and three months later he still needed a sign to prompt a repetition.

On his return, no mention would be made of the spanking again. He would be his usual courteous, withdrawn self, and they would pass a quiet evening together. Unless she stirred him with her words again!

-o-O-o-

They sat pensively sipping coffee after dinner. Julia took a deep breath and said softly, "My little bottom is still glowing from your spanking, Charles. It's lovely."

He coloured. "Julia, shall we go down to the garden centre tomorrow and..."

"You do like seeing my knickers, don't you, Charles?", she interrupted.

Blushingly he nodded.

"And lowering them to leave Julia's fat little bum all bare and defenceless?"

"It isn't fat," he blurted, "It's perfect! I never know whether to spank or stroke....." – his voice, trembling, tailed away.

"Would you like to hold me close, gather up the back of my dress, slip your hands inside my panties, and grip the cheeks of my arse?", she teased.

"Not your panties," he murmured softly, licking his dry lips, "Your knickers."

She smiled. "Alright. Julia's KNICKERS!"

She crossed her legs. Her dress rode up, and the stretched frilly suspenders were in his sight again.

"Ann is coming home for her 18th birthday in a month's time. Will you come over for tea?"

"I'd love to."

"What a little minx I have for a daughter! Perhaps it is just as well that her school disciplines them so strictly."

"I didn't know that." Charles was breathing easier now.

"Heavens, yes. She regularly has her bare bottom caned, but its effect is doubtful, because she actually enjoys it with the right master. There is one that she really fancies. She told me she often deliberately misbehaves in his class just for the pleasure of lifting her skirt for him. Sometimes I think she gets the same from him as I get from you after a spanking, maybe more."

Charles clasped his hands to stop them shaking.

She pressed on. "Strange – after we all went out to lunch at Christmas she said you had lovely hands."

He closed his eyes.

"And that she'd go over your knee anytime."

"Oh, Julia!"

"It's true! And her bottom is like a peach, rounded, firm, and often has a pale pink bloom. Imagine, Charles, lifting her pleated skirt and seeing her knickered bottom!"

"Aaaaargh!"

"She wears tight skimpy briefs that only cover part of her bum. Think of dragging those to her knees and laying your hand across those naughty schoolgirl buttocks! You'd make them twitch, wouldn't you!"

Charles' head lowered and swayed from side to side. His hands gripped the chair arms tightly.

"I can see her young nubile body squirming on your lap. And as you spanked her you could savour the thought of laying the ferrula across her mother's bare bottom later, couldn't you!"

Charles was fast losing control.

"Oh, Julia..... darling!"

"What will you do, Charles, when I next misbehave in your house?"

"I'll... I'll... I'll..."

"Yes?"

"I'll... I'll... I'll tan your bottom, woman! I'll make you squeal and writhe!!"

"Over my dress?"

"Dress up, woman!"

"Knickers on?"

"Knickers down!"

"Oh, Julia's poor bottom! Will you also spank Ann's bare bottom?"

At the mention of the schoolgirl his usual quiet courtesy returned a little.

"If she is naughty in my house, and I have your permission to do so – yes."

She saw his shyness drifting over him once more.

"You know, Charles," she breathed gently, "beneath your kind exterior there is a strong, forceful man. And I'm a woman who likes that. We're lucky that basically we are close friends – and I don't mean this "just good friends" nonsense. Charles, darling, I feel at ease and peace with you."

His eyes, warm and a little damp, searched hers. He swallowed hard, and blushed once again. Drawing a key from his pocket he offered it to Julia.

"P...p...please, Julia, go and open the small despatch case in my room."

Puzzled, she did as she was asked. In the quietness of his room she put the case on his bed, unlocked it and lifted the lid. It was empty but for a note, dated four months earlier.

I want you to marry me, Julia. If you accept, come back and tell me. Otherwise, please go out of the door and drive away. I can't bring myself to ask you to your face – you are so beautiful, I am so ordinary.

If your answer is no, think of me sometime – for I love you, Charles.

-o-O-o-

He sat in the quietness of the living room, brow wet with perspiration, face creased with anxiety, hands clasping and unclasping. The thudding of his heart was almost painful as his ears strained for the sound of her return to him or........

The snarl of her car starting shattered the oppressive silence, and as she drove away he slumped in his chair, and a blanket of lonely sadness enveloped his like a shroud.

For ten minutes nothing moved in the room but the hands of the clock.... then the living room door slowly opened...

Julia entered and fixed her eyes on his. Sinuously, she wriggled her skirt to her waist, then bent forward and lowered her knickers to a lacy heap at her ankles. Daintily she stepped out of them, took the ferrula from the drawer, and walked over to him with swaying hips. With both hands she offered the ferrula to him.

"I've taken my knickers off for you, darling. Now spank your future wife's bare arse really hard, then take her to your bed and give her what she is longing for!"

"B...b...but Julia, I... I... I heard the car!"

"Well, you don't think I am leaving it outside the front of your house all night, do you? I've a reputation to consider!" And she smiled gently.

He stood up, put his arms round her, and laughed.

Moments in C.P. History. Numbers VII-IX

Moments in C.P. History
A Series by Paul Melrose

"You're gonna hate me, readers, but as there aren't that many left I'm going to do just do one per post from here on in, but I'll add a bit more detail to each" (Alex put the phrase in his blog, before he began to post the numbers from 7 to 14 of this series. He meant that some texts, which he will post in his blog, will differ from those texts, which were published in Februs. I'm in the future will always warn readers, if some text is taken from Alex's blog and differs from the original text from the magazine)

Number 7. The Boston Quakers (This is the text from Alex's blog, edited by Alex in 2008)

From the very beginning of the migration of religious dissidents from England to the New World, Puritans, mainly Calvinists, had built and developed the city of Boston as a tribute to God's Kingdom on earth, a shining example of strict theology, subservience to church elders and to elected magistrates. They perceived true faith to be represented through strong personal discipline and obedience. Then, in 1656, the first Quakers began to arrive in Massachusetts, many missionaries finding their way to Boston.

Initially there were no laws within Boston preventing Quakers from worshiping as they saw fit or spreading their version of the faith. However, it soon became clear to the Calvinists just what a frightening threat to the established order the Quakers presented with their ideology of 'inner light', independent convictions and individual conscience. All this 'anarchy' was complete anathema to the strict Puritan ethic and very soon the leaders of the community resolved to rid the state of Quakers by any means possible. The first 'shot across the bows' was fired when a ship called The Swallow arrived in Boston harbour in July 1656, carrying two devout Quaker missionaries named Mary Fisher and Anne Austin. They were immediately arrested when they set foot on shore and all their belongings confiscated. Both women were stripped naked in the presence of six male magistrates and humiliatingly searched for evidence of witchcraft. None was found and the two women were sent back to England, but only after all their Quaker tracts had been burned in the market place.

Laws were hastily brought in tightening the screw on Quakers and making it illegal to ship them into Boston. The laws included a whipping sentence for all Quakers who entered the city and heavy fines on any ships captain who transported them. All this did was encouraged more brave Quakers to flood into the city to advance their faith and to express their outrage. In 1659, three Quakers travelled from Rhode Island to Massachusetts to protest against the persecution of their faith. The two men were arrested and hanged and the woman, Mary Dyer, escaped death and was returned to Rhode Island. This brave, or foolhardy (take your pick), woman returned a year later saying it was God's will that she be sent to Boston and this time she too was hanged.

One incident above all others changed the climate for the Quakers because it shamed and embarrassed the local populace and forced are think of some attitudes. This was the arrival in 1662 of three young English Quaker women to the township of Dover, near Boston. They were Ann Coleman, Mary Tompkins and Alice Ambrose. They made a general nuisance of themselves preaching against the established faith and restrictions on individual conscience. Eventually an influential church elder named (yes honestly!) Hatevil Nutter organised a petition to have the women arrested. On receipt of the petition, Richard Waldron, the Crown magistrate issued an order to the constables of each of eleven towns within the Boston area that the three young women should be tied to a cart tail, stripped to the waist, and given ten stripes apiece with a horse whip on their naked backs in each of the eleven towns.

This was a hideous ruling, a total of 110 stripes each, in addition to the forced march tied half naked to the cart tail to each of the towns, a journey of more than 80 miles in bitterly cold winter weather.

On a freezing cold day, in Dover, the three young women were stripped to the waist, tied to the cart tail and severely whipped while the local populace stood and laughed. They were then towed to Hampton, the second of the towns, and delivered to the constable. Early the next day, the cart was set up in the market place and the three women were again ordered to strip to the waist. Two of them obeyed, but Anne Coleman bravely refused. As a result she was stripped completely naked by the constable, displayed to the crowd and then forced to suffer her whipping naked before being allowed to dress her lower half again. Then the three women were towed to Salisbury where the appalling punishment was delivered for a third time.

In Salisbury however, providence came to their aid. A local doctor who was also a magistrate, one William Barefoot, rather bravely overturned the Crown order and declared the punishment to be complete. He personally dressed the wounds of the three women and returned them personally to the state of Maine and safety just across the river. Had the full sentence been administered there is every possibility that the women might have died. As it was, the public humiliation vented on these poor women gave some Boston worthies some uncomfortable food for thought, and pressure to ease up on Quaker persecution began to grow.

Eventually in 1663, these three brave young women returned to Dover and established a Quaker church. By the year 1670, a third of the citizens of Dover, Massachusetts were Quakers, so the sacrifice made by these young women and their predecessors did at last bear fruit.

Number 8. Catherine de Medici (Original text from Februs 39)

Catherine de Medici was born in 1519 in Auvergne and was related via her maternal grandmother to the royal house of France. She was orphaned when only a baby but her fortunes appeared to have changed when, still only thirteen years old, she was given in marriage to Henry, the second son of King Francis I of France. Much political intrigue had surrounded this match because Pope Clement VII was Catherine's uncle and the King had hoped, by this marriage, to gain much influence in papal circles. However, when the Pope died the year following the wedding, all Francis' scheming with regard to marrying off his son came to naught, thus Catherine became 'disposable' and was consigned to obscurity for ten years even after Henry became King. The humiliation she suffered was intense, having to pander to the whims of her husband's beautiful mistress, Diane of Poitiers, merely to retain some degree of respect and authority. It is said that this experience coloured much of her attitude in later life.

She became very powerful once Henry died in 1559 and her son Francis II took the throne. He was the husband of Mary Stuart and worshipped his mother, allowing her great political influence in the affairs of state which she grasped eagerly, being a shrewd political operator. Her second 'reign' began in 1560 when her son Francis died. As her second son, Charles IX, was only ten years old, Catherine became regent and virtually sovereign. She displayed great political skill and diplomacy in her dealings with Protestant England, under Elizabeth I, Catholic Spain under Phillip II (who was her son in law), and the Huguenots within her own borders who were demanding a state within a state. Catherine persisted in her policy of moving back and forth between the Huguenot, English Protestant and Catholic positions refusing to ally herself with one or the other. When Charles IX attained his majority, he told his mother she should have even more power, but the fragile alliances were falling apart. Catherine was frightened that the young king, inclined to the Huguenot cause, would create problems with Spain and she gave the order for the murder of one of the leading Huguenot statesmen in order to deflect her son from such a course.

Tragically, Charles IX died aged only 25 in 1574 and her third son, Henry Duke of Anjou became King of France. He was a much more independent man than his two brothers and the influence of Catherine fell very rapidly It was at this time that Catherine's flirtation with the sect of the flagellants became a matter of public record and one can surmise that a powerful woman suddenly deprived of influence might need some alternative source of spiritual guidance and direction. To the consternation of many, including her son, she found it with the Black Brotherhood, a flagellant sect which, in late 1574, marched through Avignon with Catherine at its head.

Her power slipping away, Catherine's private behaviour began to reflect her newly found public obsession. Dark stories began to circulate around the Palace that Catherine had begun to physically chastise her errant female staff and that one lady's maid, who had apparently been caught trying on a dress belonging to the now Queen Mother was whipped with birch rods until her bottom bled copiously. This became a regular pattern of behaviour during the latter part of her life and there were few maidservants who survived a week without severe stripes across their buttocks. The least blemish in behaviour by any of her maidservants, a soiled bedsheet, dust in the corners, breakfast brought late, all punished by the poor girl stripping naked for a sound dose of the rod before being allowed tearfully and painfully to resume her duties.

Catherine began to preach the gospel of flagellation and corporal punishment both as an instrument of restored religious values and as a necessary domestic correction. She attempted to persuade her son to restore the flagellant sect to a position of influence within the country but Henry was outraged and would have none of it. So she compensated by practising on her staff at every given opportunity.

Perhaps the most notorious of Catherine's excesses followed a violent outburst of anger when she overheard four of her ladies in waiting making fun of her irritability and increasingly eccentric behaviour. These were not common serving maids but themselves ladies of the nobility for whom serving the Queen Mother was a stepping stone to finding a husband of some wealth and influence. What followed therefore must have been as humiliating an experience as it was possible to bear. Catherine hosted a dinner party for a number of influential members of the nobility during which the four young ladies in waiting were summoned into the room. To the surprise, and in most cases, severe embarrassment of the mainly male guests the unfortunate ladies in waiting were naked from the waist down and made to stand in front of the guests while Catherine delivered a public condemnation of their behaviour. Then, in front of the assembled gathering, the four young women were bent over a table and birched personally by Catherine until their screams rang round the Hall. Such was the disgust felt by many of the onlookers that Henry III felt obliged to warn his mother that no such behavior on her part would he ever tolerated again, and it seems she heeded his warning.

Meanwhile, Henry III had fallen into bad company and allowed his reign to fall into disrepute. He had no children and Catherine, now growing old and bitter, saw her fourth child Francis of Valois die in 1584 leaving the future of France to Henry of Bourbon, a Protestant. All that Catherine had worked for was falling apart before her eyes, yet she was still politically astute enough to try to save Henry III from his own bad judgements. Still desperate to keep traditional alliances intact, Catherine was in despair when she found out that Henry had murdered his arch rival the Duke of Guise. Old, bitter and totally disillusioned, Catherine died on 5th January 1589, only 13 days after hearing this news.

Catherine de Medici was a fascinating mixture of wife, mother, peacemaker, diplomat, tyrant and sadist. Ostensibly clever, historians have judged that far from securing the future of France, her devious and unscrupulous alliances which may have looked shrewd at the time actually sowed the seeds of long term instability and distrust in France which took many years to overcome.

Number 9. Father Cornelius Adriason (This is the text from Alex's blog, edited by Alex in 2008)

Cornelius Adriason was born in Brussels in 1518, effectively an only child, though his mother had given birth to a still-born infant earlier. He was brought up in a well-to-do, caring and religiously devout family whose most earnest wish was to see their son pass his theological examinations and enter the priesthood, which he succeeded in doing after hard work and application, not being the most naturally gifted of students.

He spent some time teaching in a church school and was, by all accounts, industrious rather than inspirational and it was not long before he realised his calling lay in more internal Church work. He applied through his diocese for an assignment to a monastic order and was duly appointed to a monastery in Brussels teaching theology where his plodding manner was not so much of a handicap.

Cornelius appears to have been a success in this role which he undertook for five years when, at the age of 30 he was appointed as spiritual mentor to the Convent of the Little Sisters in Bruges in 1548. This was a marked step up the ladder for Cornelius for, in such a convent where he was the only male authority figure, his word was law, his standing in the convent hierarchy above even that of the Mother Superior. By understood convention, however, the spiritual mentor did not interfere with the running of the convent in any way but had overall responsibility for the spiritual well-being of the nuns within its walls.

For the first six months of his tenure, he appears to have applied himself to the role with legitimate and wholesome vigour, earning much respect from the nuns and strengthening his individual position. Sometime within that first year, Cornelius, who had always been a solitary man with no experience of women, underwent an experience which was to change his life. On two separate occasions and concerning two different girls, Cornelius was approached by the Mother Superior with very serious concerns about the behaviour of a young nun. Cornelius, along with the Mother Superior, counselled the errant girl on each occasion and, prompted by the Mother Superior's insistence that suitable punishment should follow, it was agreed that Cornelius would flagellate the offender in public view of the entire convent. As was the custom, the girl was stripped to the waist and a scourge applied to her naked back.

Although by Cornelius' own account the punishments were not overly severe, the humiliation of a half-naked girl displayed to all and the administration of the whip appears to have fired desires in the priest which were to lead to outrageous excesses.

Adjacent to the convent was a girls' school which served the daughters of the wealthy merchants of Bruges and which functioned as a finishing school for older female pupils, virtually young women, who would become distinguished ladies in the society of the time. The school was proud of both its academic record and its commitment to teaching the Catholic faith, visits both to church on Sundays and to regular confessional at the adjacent convent being mandatory for all the girls. The pupils were indoctrinated with the power of the church and an awed respect for their spiritual confessor who they would visit, in the convent, to receive a blessing any any appropriate penance. Cornelius soon realised, by the very nature of his position, how much power he had over these girls and he soon determined to take advantage of it.

He was very careful in the way he devised his scheme, not rushing his fences or allowing himself to fall prey to carnal temptation which would have ruined the plan. Instead he counseled all the girls over a period of time, chose the ones he considered to be the most desirable and vulnerable, then proceeded to work on their innate sense of guilt. In modern legal parlance, Cornelius was undoubtedly guilty of 'grooming'. Soon he managed to persuade most of the girls he had targeted that mere penances of prayer and drudgery were not achieving the desired results and that more painful remedies were necessary. These poor impressionable girls, many very upset by what they now perceived to be their dreadful failings, were induced to virtually beg for corporal punishment to expiate their sins.

Cornelius was so cunning that he even demanded that they be certain that a whipping was what they needed then, on receiving affirmation, would accompany the girl to her home. There he would confront the distressed parents, the poor girl would break down and admit all her sins, and Cornelius would obtain written consent from the parents to administer discipline in any way he chose.

The trap having been laid and the bait taken, Cornelius was free to do as he wished. The errant girls were taken to his home which adjoined the convent, each girl having to report to him on a weekly basis. He arranged his schedule in such a way that he had 'wicked girls' to punish every day of the week. When the girl, nervous and ashamed, was ushered into Cornelius' home she was ordered to strip completely. Too frightened and respectful of the priest to refuse, she would do his bidding immediately. The girl would then be ordered to bend over a stool whereupon Cornelius would administer a variable number of strokes, either with a birch or a whip, to the girl's naked bottom. After the punishment, the girl would have to display her stripes for some time before being allowed to dress and return home.

Unbelievably, this practice continued, unabated for ten years during which time Cornelius later admitted, at his ecclesiastical enquiry, to having whipped or birched over 500 young women, some on multiple occasions. How long he would have continued to enjoy his abuse of power is anybody's guess but eventually, in 1558, the sexual desire which inevitably accompanied the whippings finally proved his undoing, but even then his unmasking was through accidental discovery, and not as the result of a victim's complaint.

It transpired that one student, who I believe to have been named Marie-Ann Leveque (although accounts differ), a niece of the Mayor of Bruges, was one of the penitents whose parents had agreed to regular disciplinary visits and who were quite happy in the knowledge that their daughter was receiving corporal correction at the hands of the priest. After all it WAS for her own good... Marie-Ann had admitted so herself. However one morning, the girl's mother woke her sleeping daughter, who had returned from a disciplinary visit to the priest the previous evening unusually tearful and distressed, and pulled back the sheet.

She was somewhat shocked by the number and intensity of red weals on her daughter's bottom but even more concerned by what were obviously spots of blood on the sheet. There being no obvious signs of broken skin as a result of the punishment, the girl was questioned by her angry mother and, under intense interrogation, Marie-Ann broke down. She said that when the punishment was over, the priest had held her tightly while she remained bending over then she felt something enter her 'shameful place'. A doctor was called who confirmed anal penetration and a shocked Leveque family began proceedings against the priest.

At first a wall of silence was thrown around the complaints by the Church but eventually, after great persistence by the girl's family and their influential civic contacts, an ecclesiastical enquiry was opened into the conduct of Father Cornelius Hadrian.

Amazingly, the priest did little to defend himself, virtually admitting every charge that was thrown at him, possibly because of guarantees obtained in advance to avoid embarrassing the Catholic Church with a protracted ecclesiastical 'trial'. He was dismissed from his post as mentor to the convent but on full pension and no criminal charges were ever brought against him.

It is assumed that the embarrassed parents, shocked at their own gullibility, had no wish to see their naivety exposed in open court thus Cornelius virtually escaped scot-free, happy in the knowledge, one assumes, that it was great while it lasted!

A School-Leaving Present

Story from Janus 37.

A School-Leaving Present
by Simon Banks

The beautiful grounds of St Millicent's School for Girls were basking in the lovely cloudless June morning, but for James Mackie, Deputy Head, the splendid grounds, the beautiful morning, meant nothing. The dour Scot, fiftyish, tall and thin, bore a typically grim expression on his angular rimless-spectacled face. It was now halfway through the last week of Summer Term. So in just a couple of days another batch of what Mr Mackie regarded as his natural prey – the Sixth Form girls – would be leaving and would be forever beyond his gasp. Or more specifically beyond the reach of his cane. The thought made Mr Mackie grind his teeth.

Mr James Mackie could rightly be regarded as a man with a chip on his shoulder. He had never been able to forget his own background – a poor Tayside family and meagre State education – and bitterly contrasted this with that of the St Millicent's girls, almost all of them coming from well-off middle-class homes. He blamed his own hard upbringing on what he saw as the rich and grasping English. And in consequence derived his greatest satisfaction from caning their daughters' bare bottoms, at times with a cold fury.

Today he had made a tour of the grounds but typically not to admire them. Rather he had been on the lookout for any girls who might be caught breaking some School rule (trespassing into areas forbidden to them, absent without excuse from class, leaving litter, etc, etc) and whom in consequence he could take to the Correction Room for a salutary caning.

But James Mackie had unfortunately found no girls in any of these categories and he was therefore in a worse mood than usual as he re-entered the main School building. The warm day might reasonably have been expected to yield transgressors of some sort but it had not, or if there were any he had failed to detect them. Tight-lipped, angry in particular at the latter possibility, he made for his room.

And as he turned the corner from the Entrance Hall he walked straight into three Sixth Formers, chattering away and quite oblivious of where they were going. All three were in non-uniform summer dresses which the Head permitted School-leavers to wear in their last week of Term. Three School-leavers! Well, after drawing a complete blank in a wearying trek around the grounds this was a sudden and startling change of fortune. He was quite taken aback for a moment – but quickly recovered his poise.

'You girls... what is the meaning of this? Slouching along in that slovenly manner and knocking into members of staff – like common shop girls or worse. You will all, of course, be punished.'

Oh yes: all three would definitely feel the touch of his cane on bare succulent hindquarters. But one of the three, by an amazing stroke of luck, just happened to be the girl Mr Mackie most fancied in the whole School. Most fancied caning, that is. Julie Gilbert: she would definitely be his first treat. The opportunity couldn't wait; he felt so urgent about it.

'You two girls, I shall deal with you later. You may go now and I shall send for you when ready.' The two girls he indicated went off, silent, cowed. At least their punishment was not immediate.

'Miss Gilbert, you will come with me. Now!'

Julie Gilbert, eighteen-and-a-half, was indeed a choice victim for Mr Mackie: pretty, of course, with long blonde hair, and tall and slender but at the same time shapely with firm high breasts and rounded hips. The pretty face now with a look of utter dismay. With only days to go to the end of her school career, out of the blue this had to happen! The worst fate possible at St Millicent's – falling foul of Mr Mackie, the dreaded Deputy Head.

Like the other two girls Julie had the next period free and they had been going to sit outside in the sun until lunch-time. Now instead of that pleasant prospect she was being hurried along the corridor by the most feared man in the School to a destination she knew only too well – the Correction Room.

The Correction Room, as its name implied, was where girls were routinely taken for correction, ie where they were caned or strapped. There were exceptions: the Head mostly caned in his study and other masters did occasionally simply keep a girl behind after class to take her knickers down and administer a spanking or caning on the spot. But generally speaking the Correction Room was where such treatments took place.

It was a plain functional room; windowless and lit by a single overhead light and containing only a chair, a desk, and a cupboard. Quite small, but big enough for its purpose: that is, allowing sufficient room for a cane or strap to be swung over a girl's bottom as she either bent over the back of the chair, hands on the seat, or lay over the seat with hands on the floor on the other side.

On the desk was a register of punishments meted out, and in the cupboard together with miscellaneous bits and pieces were two leather straps and a number of rattan canes of various lengths and thicknesses. It was a room with tearful memories for many St Millicent's girls past and present, especially the prettiest ones. And not least among those with unhappy memories was the slim Sixth Former now being ushered in by the Deputy Head. At one time or another she had been brought here by almost all the masters during her school career.

The most recent occasion had been Mr Martin (History) three weeks before. Then, naturally, Julie had been wearing normal St Millicent's uniform: white blouse and red-and-blue striped tie and short pleated grey skirt. It had been unpleasant of course: over the chair and skirt up and knickers down and four with the strap on her bare bottom. It had stung all right but had not really been absolutely unbearable. Because a beating from Mr Martin – or any other master except Mr Mackie – was never quite unbearable. But Mr Mackie: well, he could make any girl in the school beg for mercy. He was notorious.

Inevitably Julie had been here before with the Deputy Head. She shuddered at the recollections, but the last time had been a good two months ago and she had had every hope of leaving School without a further taste of it. Julie didn't have any classes from him and was normally careful to keep out of his way. Now, she felt close to tears already, her bottom flinching in anticipation. She thought of the sunny lawn outside. Other girls happily laughing...

Julie was wearing her new dress – she'd put it on when she saw it was going to be such a nice day – mauve-flowered cotton lawn, calf-length and full-skirted, with dark nylons and a pair of matching-coloured patent shoes with medium heels. A super outfit – at sad odds with the stark Correction Room and its hated function. It was all like a bad dream.

Mr Mackie locked the door and, pulling the chair to the desk, sat down. 'Right, Miss! Come here please.'

With wide and frightened eyes, Julie complied, to stand nervously at his side. He opened the register, placing it – part of his ritual – fussily in the centre of the desk top. He would follow his usual routine, not caning immediately but taking his time, allowing a build-up of the pretty girl's nervous tension, while he savoured her fear.

'Well, Miss, what have you to say for yourself?'

'P...Please, Sir... I... I didn't know. I mean... I... we... were just talking and...' 18 or not, she was close to tears. And her voice was abnormally squeaky.

'Well, young lady, I am sure you will know shortly when you feel the cane on your bare bottom. I find that has a most salutary effect even on girls of your age. Really I should have thought at this stage of your school career – when you are shortly due to leave – that you would know better. It's quite appalling, in a girl of 18.'

Julie, flushing and with her head hung, was silent.

'And as for that dress you're wearing: well, it certainly would not be allowed if I were Headmaster. You would all be in uniform. I suppose underneath you have some equally unsuitable garments?'

As Mr Mackie spoke his hand went behind Julie and up under the hem of her skirt, inside her slip. Up the backs of her long legs... nylons... bare upper thighs... to her bottom. She certainly was not wearing regulation School attire, for what James Mackie's hand encountered were loose-legged French knickers, of lace-edged silk.

'Good Gracious! What is this?' he slid his hand up inside one leg of the knickers onto Julie's bare bottom. 'This is quite disgraceful! I should not imagine that even the Head would countenance such garments: you are virtually bare!'

And to illustrate this statement, and without fully realising what he was doing, Mr Mackie's hand came round into the loose crotch of Julie's knickers. Suddenly the hand was between her legs... touching bare flesh.

Julie squirmed violently and gasped, 'Sir! Please..!' Automatically she closed her legs... but only succeeded for the moment in trapping the hand where she least wanted it.

'Oooh!' Her own hand shot down protectively. 'Oooohh!'

Mr Mackie, red-faced, extricated his hand from that warm and intimate region. It had been a quite involuntary action on his part, after discovering the French knickers. Bottoms were one thing but the puritanical Mackie basically disapproved of what girls had between their legs and it had been a shock to find he suddenly had his hand on it. It was all the wretched girl's fault of course.

He started blustering, 'Don't you realise, Miss, that this sort of garment is an open invitation to any Tom, Dick or Harry to put his hand there? Or do worse? An open invitation to any common rowdy?'

Julie, embarrassed and shaken, nervously straightened her dress. It was really awful! What he said was typically mean and vindictive. They were simply pretty knickers, that was all, but you might expect Mr Mackie to think up some awful interpretation. She bit her lip. She was anyway rather sensitive at present down there where his hand had gone. Not that she engaged in full sex as yet, although her boyfriend, David, was always trying to persuade her to start. But they did indulge in frequent heavy petting sessions, with considerable manual stimulation.

And in addition to this she had in the last two weeks been getting something rather similar from the School Doctor, in the Sex Course which the Head encouraged School-leavers to take. They were private sessions, one girl at a time, in which Dr Robson made you strip down to bra and knickers and lie on his couch, where certain things would be pointed out to you. Julie did not enjoy these sessions.

Anyway what with the Sex Course plus David, Julie was sensitive to the slightest touch, and the Deputy Head's rough blundering hand had just sent shivers through her, and a feeling of shame. And still to come was the frightening caning. She felt tears welling in her eyes again.

Meanwhile Mr Mackie was concentrating on the register: leafing back counting the number of entries with Julie's name. He looked up, his eyes beady behind the spectacles.

'Really, Miss, the number of times different masters have found it necessary to bring you here... Well, I find it quite unacceptable. You seem to have spent the whole of your school career contravening some rule or other.'

The tears appeared now. It was just not fair what he said. The only reason she was in the book so often was that masters liked to take her knickers down. Almost always they were trumped-up reasons of some sort or another.

Mr Mackie closed the book. 'And on top of that you have the audacity to go about the School wearing items of clothing more suitable to a woman of the streets!'

He looked hard into Julie's tear-filled blue eyes. 'Well, Miss, all this is not nearly good enough. It is quite obvious that the canings you have had in the past have done nothing whatsoever for you. But I can tell you, young lady, I intend – today – to try to remedy that. I intend to give you a caning which you will remember for a long, long time to come. And really I think it's the best possible School-leaving present you could have.'

Julie, fighting the tears, could say nothing. Mr Mackie went on, 'And please, I quite fail to see why you are crying yet. I should at least wait until you feel the cane on your bottom. You may well feel like crying then, of course. Indeed you may!' His Scottish accent gave his final exclamation a special intonation.

He went to the cupboard and after perusing its contents drew out a medium weight whippy jointed cane. 'Ah, now then!'

In front of Julie he flexed it, almost into a complete circle. 'Yes, Miss. I think this will be suitable for that bottom of yours. Now: we will delay no further.'

Mr Mackie moved the chair away from the desk into the centre of the room. 'If you will just prepare yourself. The usual position, and please do stop that crying until you have something to cry about. You are supposed to be 18, I believe?'

Haltingly Julie went to the chair... and got herself down over it so that her bottom was over the seat, head down the other side and hands on the floor. It was a position she was only too familiar with. Mr Mackie showed no delay now. Hands went eagerly to the hem of her full skirt, lifting it and a pink slip underneath, both up to her waist. Revealed were the lovely long nylon-clad legs, leading to bare white thighs above. Straps of a pink satin suspender belt held the nylons taut and disappeared into open-legged pink knickers. Pink silk French knickers edged with cream lace – the garment which had caused such offence to the Deputy Head.

With his face bearing a prim look James Mackie's greedy fingers slipped into the waistband of the knickers and drew them down... to the tops of the nylons. Mmm... Oh Yes! His eyes glistened. The surprisingly full bottom for a slim girl, its pale cheeks an invitation. And below, where the cleft of the bottom met the thighs, inevitably revealed by the unfortunate girl's posture, a bush of brown hair – with, if you wished to look, no doubt further details to be seen.

James Mackie did not wish to look. He did not wish to think about that portion of her. In her last term now, he guessed she would be taking that Sex Course which the Head was so keen on. It was, thank Heavens, not James Mackie's province and he had no wish to have anything to do with it. He did not know details and had no wish to, but he did know that the purpose was in effect to teach girls to enjoy sex – and that unquestionably met with his strongest disapproval.

What a girl wanted was not someone teaching her to enjoy sex but the cane. A good hard caning of her bare buttocks. And that was something which Miss Julie Gilbert was about to experience. Yes indeed! Her full white bottom was just waiting for it. His hand reached out. Ah yes...

Julie, hair falling about her lowered face, waited. For, inevitably, the next stage: the hand on her bared bottom, fondling, feeling. And his voice, prim and controlled now:

'First I will give you my usual instructions, Miss, although by now you really should know without being told.' The hand got on with its busy task. 'Keep the legs straight so that the bottom is kept elevated. Keep your head well down. And do try to keep the bottom quite still so that the cane can be properly applied.'

The hand squeezed and stroked the silken-smooth globes. 'Departures from these simple rules may well result in extra strokes. And I will just repeat that I do intend – today – to give you something special. To remember when you have left St Millicent's. A special leaving present, as I have said.'

A final squeeze of the bottom and the hand left. Not long now to wait. A few seconds of awful anticipation. No more than the time it took to reach for the cane. And then raise it...

CRACK! A breathtaking jolting cut right across the full meat of the under-curve of Julie's bum.

'Ooohh! Ah! Ooooohh!' She squirmed and shuddered with the fearsome stinging pain. Mr Mackie was as good as his word. She had never had it like that before. Never... anything... like that!.. Julie was already crying unashamedly.

'Keep the bottom still, girl!'

She couldn't, of course, and he would have been disappointed if she could. As long as it was back in position for the next...

CRACK! A second, fully as hard, parallel and an inch below the first. Another anguished cry as the bottom's desperate writhings redoubled.

But the girl's cries and writhings served only to spur Mr Mackie on. With icy concentration he continued – taking his time and applying deliberately measured slashes to the jerking, twisting bottom. CRACK!.. CRACK!.. The cane rose and fell...

After five all semblance of Julie's control had gone and she couldn't help snatching her hands from the floor to desperately protect her bottom. She caught the sixth stroke partially across her open palms before Mr Mackie angrily jerked the hands away.

'Miss Gilbert, whatever do you think you are doing! Get those hands back on the floor immediately!' He sounded outraged.

Julie, almost incoherent: 'I... I'm s...sorry, Sir. Qooh! I c...can't... Ooh... no m...more, Sir. P...Please no m...m...more.' The tears were flowing. She sounded utterly piteous.

'What are you talking about, Miss! I have certainly no intention of terminating a caning halfway through. Did I not promise you something special? Now get back into position immediately. And if you can't control yourself I shall keep you here through the whole of lunch-time.'

He paused only to mop a perspiring brow: the result of his exertions or perhaps some other cause.

'Yes, Miss, I shall be quite happy to do so. Really it is unheard-of that a member of the Upper Sixth cannot take a caning properly. Now get back and control yourself!'

Sobbing, Julie resumed her proper position.

'Get the bottom up, now!' The tone very tart.

Trembling and crying she complied. Her bottom was decorated with five fiery stripes – three precisely placed, parallel and within an inch of each other, as Mr Mackie liked, but the other two, due to an excessively squirming backside, were further apart and at slight angles. Not perfect, her tormentor told himself, stung by this aesthetic imbalance, but on the other hand good evidence that she was undoubtedly feeling it.

'Keep still, Miss, and I shall give you three more. Plus of course the one which you so disgracefully cheated on.'

It was Mr Mackie's intention to give Julie these – as hard as the preceding ones – and then to tell her she was to have six more, for improper behaviour. But when he had delivered four more stingers on the twisting squirming rump it was obvious, even to James Mackie, that she'd had enough. Well, one didn't want repercussions.

So he contented himself with two extra biting slashes across the backs of her thighs above the nylon tops, as hard as he could make them. A little something for that infantile squirming around which really a Sixth Former should be able to control.

Like a nightmare it was finally over. Mr Mackie surveyed his work: the sobbing trembling girl, the scarlet-striped bottom... Yes, she would remember it all right.

Julie stumbled to her feet when told to, and still shaking and crying, fumbled the pink knickers back up under her skirt. The stinging pain was made worse by the seat of the knickers tight across her bottom. Mr Mackie's hated unctuous voice:

'Now, Miss: I do hope that is something you will remember.'

'Y...Yes... S...Sir.'

She could hardly gasp!

'Because I am very saddened to find these shortcomings in your behaviour just on the point of your leaving St Millicent's. I had sincerely hoped that you would have been proof against them by now. You will be expected to carry the School's standards with you, you know, after you have left here, as a living example to the word at large.'

Julie's mouth opened but nothing came out save for a panting gasp. Tears rolled down her cheeks.

'Very good. Well, I hope it has been a good lesson for you. You may go now.'

Mr Mackie unlocked the door. As she went out past him, none too steadily, he repeated, 'Remember now!'

And lifting her full skirt he gave her throbbing bottom a final sharp slap.

* * *

It was almost lunch-time when Julie got out of the Correction Room. Mr Mackie went off to enjoy his lunch – and savour the prospect of those two other charming bottoms to be enjoyed in the afternoon. Julie, on the other hand, didn't go to lunch. She couldn't face her friends and couldn't face the thought of eating either. She wandered aimlessly, conscious only of pain and the shock of what had happened.

Her day wasn't over though. There was another event to come which would significantly relate to Mr Mackie's 'School-leaving present'.

The first was an appointment she had with the School Doctor an hour later. He would make it clear how easy it was for you to become aroused, with great emphasis on the risks of an unprincipled man or youth doing this to you and then getting you pregnant. So of course his efforts had a highly moral purpose.

Dr Robson made Julie take off her dress and petticoat and lie on his couch in just her underwear. He spoke to her for a few minutes and then he was ready to start on the next stage. She slipped down her knickers – and not surprisingly there, still very obvious, were the marks of Mr Mackie's caning.

'I think I can guess who's done this,' said Dr Robson with a shake of his head as he ran his hand over the red-striped bottom. Mr Mackie's little pleasures were well-known to his colleagues.

He remarked that it must have stung. That was the understatement of the year, thought Julie, struggling not to start crying again. And then Dr Robson said something which, at the time, seemed to the pretty 18-year-old quite ridiculous.

'Of course, on the other hand caning can heighten sexual pleasure, you know, Julie. Because at the subconscious level pleasure and pain are closely related. In fact it is not unknown for a couple to use caning as an added stimulus in their sexual enjoyment.'

Well, she did find it quite ridiculous. She didn't tell Dr Robson that she thought he must be off his head, but that was just about what she thought. She was of course a quite inexperienced 18-year-old and it was not surprising that the School Doctor's remarks were difficult to believe.

Dr Robson asked, 'Don't you feel more sensitive, Julie? More easily arousable?'

Julie bit her lip. She felt more sensitive all right: she felt like crying. Dr Robson's hand was now actually caressing her. She felt she could hardly think straight. Then he told her to turn over and lie on her back... and relax...

But naturally nothing improper took place. He only spoke to her, soothingly and caressingly. Helping her to come to terms with the cruel experience she had undergone that morning in the Correction Room. She needed Dr Robson's reassuring words. Words which went round and round her head as she lay there with her clothes off, feeling the heat throbbing out from her bottom beneath her where it pressed into the slightly prickly surface of the School Doctor's couch. Sending tingling sparks shooting through her body, all of them bearing the same glowing message.

Julie Gilbert relaxed totally, finding peace and a sensuous feeling of well-being in the Doctor's hypnotic speech. He was talking about caning, among other things. All sense of the physical shock she had earlier experienced had left her body, her eyes were closed and her mind was in a dream, with her boyfriend David and Dr Robson and Mr Mackie and his cane all tumbling across the screen of her consciousness. She did not even remotely suspect that there would be a lifelong effect: of bringing her into the fold.