Taking Her Medicine

Story from Blushes Supplement 24.

Taking Her Medicine


It was a large and luxurious hotel, living up to its name: The Grand. But then money was no real object for Mr Bellish, he could well afford to indulge himself. Having no money problems of course may not be everything — a man in that position can easily become bored with life without the central interest that making money provides for the rest of us. But George Bellish was fortunately not in that situation. He had his young companion. Joanna. His niece as he sometimes referred to her. 'Mr Bellish and niece,' he said at the lobby. 'We have two adjoining rooms booked.'

He might call her his niece and Joanna, at 19, was young enough to be that but she was not any blood relation. She was more or less his ward one could say though not strictly legally that either. But certainly George Bellish felt all the responsibility of a guardian: not onerous but a serious matter. Especially in these days when one can see all around the results of modern, less structured life. A complete abrogation of responsibility in other words, no sense of purpose, or discipline. This was the last thing he wanted to see in his Joanna. Mr Bellish guarded constantly against it. At his home in Wiltshire and also when, as now, they were on a short holiday. One had perhaps to be even more careful on holiday when the regime he had ordained at home could easily be replaced by the sybarytic cosseting of hotel staff.

But on the other hand the different, more cosmopolitan surroundings of a well-appointed hotel did offer extra opportunities for shall we say testing of his very attractive young companion.

'This seems pleasant enough,' he observed when the bellboy had disappeared after showing them their quarters: two pleasantly furnished rooms facing the sea on the second floor, with bathrooms en suite and of course the interconnecting door.

'Yes, Uncle George.' Joanna delicately testing her double bed with her most attractive bottom. She was a very attractive girl all over, from the top of her head of thick ash-blonde hair cut medium short to the tips of her toes, at present in white high-heeled courts. The distance between these two ends was some 5' 6" in her stockinged feet. They were — the stockings — just that. Mr Hellish abhorred the abominable tights which for some years had been almost ubiquitous. Even if stockings had not made something of a come-back he would certainly have had Joanna in them, with a nice suspender belt. That or simply bare-legged. The 5' 6" was composed of all the usual bits and pieces that 19 year old girls have except that with Joanna one could say they were Jaguar components rather than run-of-the-mill Ford. A pert-nosed, full-lipped face; and the rest slim but nonetheless well-rounded wherever it should be. As was of course especially evident when Joanna had no clothes on.

Perhaps George Bellish had this in mind, to be refreshed by this sight after the mildly tiring drive down. 'I should take a shower,' he observed. Meaning, as his young companion knew, Joanna rather than himself. She smiled and stood up. 'Yes. Should I unpack first perhaps?'

Mr Bellish didn't feel there was need for unpacking at this moment. No. He wanted to see Joanna. In the shower and out. Before and after. And not only see her. There was something else. One needed to get into a routine right away in strange surroundings.

Joanna, standing, was already unfastening, unbuttoning. Obediently. 'And perhaps we can walk on the front afterwards. Before dinner.' Her big blue eyes with a shine to them. Excitement. And also apprehension. A girl may in a way be used to something but that does not mean... that it doesn't cause... a little shiver. The thought. Because taking her clothes off... usually means.

Discipline for one thing. A disciplinary session. The sight of Joanna unclothed seemed to send Mr Bellish — Uncle George — reaching for... his cane. Or a similar item. Joanna tried not to look at Mr Bellish who had sat down in the armchair and was undoubtedly looking at her. As blouse and skirt came off. And the rest: slip and bra and knickers. Suspender belt and stockings last of all. Sometimes he would make her keep them on. While he went to get the cane. Her peripheral vision said that Uncle George was getting up. Coming towards...

Standing with her knickers in her hand and the stockings still on. Mr Bellish patting her bare bottom. 'Not putting on any little extra ounces, are we, Joanna dear?' His hand smacked: a meaty splat. 'Second helpings of pudding perhaps?'

Joanna said a sharp 'No!' Her weight was a constant nine stone, give or take a few ounces.

The hand splatted again, causing a heavy judder of the undeniably firm flesh. George Bellish didn't really think there was any extra weight on this splendid shape but it paid to keep a girl on her toes. His other hand came up and rubbed across Joanna's pert breasts, taking in the soft pink nipples. Her breath hissed out in a sibilant. 'Ooooh.'

'I don't know, Joanna. I don't know. I wonder if you are putting on just a little. And with rich hotel food... Should we perhaps have you on a diet whilst you're here? Bread and water. And some nice big spoonfulls of healthy cod-liver oil for vitamins!

'No! Please...' she squealed. The trouble with Uncle George was that you never knew when he was joking or not. The most outrageously awful things could turn out to be for real. Like the first time he said she was going to get the cane across her bare bottom. He couldn't mean that. So she had thought.

'We'll see,' Mr Bellish said. He rubbed her nipples again. They were firmer now, beginning to stick out. 'Actually I rather like the idea of cod-liver oil. It is good for you. Perhaps we could get someone to bring some up...'

'No...ooo...' she breathed. But Mr Bellish had that look in his eye. He gave the pretty tits a final fondle — Joanna's nipples were right up now — and slapped her bottom. 'Get your stockings off and have your shower.' He was sitting down. Picking up the phone.

'Nooo... oooo...'

'Get in the shower, Joanna!'

Joanna obeyed. Shoes and stockings and suspender belt off and walking with that lovely sway of her bare bottom to the bathroom. Behind her Mr Bellish was talking to the desk. She tried to close her ears. But he was asking...

* * *

A polite knock at the door. 'Noooo....' Joanna breathed again. 'I'll be sick,' she had said a few minutes earlier. 'No you won't be sick,' was the answer. 'I'll hold your nose. A person can't be sick if someone is holding their nose.'

Joanna was in her dressing gown: sea-green silk, knee length and fastened with a sash. Nothing underneath. She had had her shower and she hadn't been caned. Because Mr Hellish had got this other diabolical idea. Cod-liver oil.

It was a waiter. In a short white jacket; middle-aged, sort of Italian looking. And carrying... a bottle... and a big metal spoon. Mr Hellish let him in and closed the door. Began explaining. Joanna tried not to listen but of course she was listening.

'My niece may have some trouble taking it. So... if I hold her while you...'

The waiter was going to give it to her. He was grinning, and nodding. Joanna felt herself sweating, her face scarlet. She shook her head. 'No. I... can do it.' Although she doubted if she could actually take a spoonful of that awful stuff. But anyway Mr Bellish didn't want that. He was going to hold her, he repeated.

'Put your hands in your pockets and keep them there.' It was happening. Mr Bellish behind her pushing Joanna's hands down into the hip-high pockets of the dressing gown. The sash almost immediately came loose, undone, and the dressing gown slid apart. 'No!' she squealed seeing the gown opening, but it was quite possible that Mr Bellish wanted it to happen. He was in that mood. Making her show her tits to the waiter while he fed her this awful stuff. She tried to close her arms together, in the pockets. Mr Bellish grabbed them. Pulled her arms — and the gown — apart. Her tits... and everything else. Her pussy. The waiter's eyes were almost coming out of his head. Mr Bellish let go of her arms and grabbed Joanna's head. Her nose... and her mouth. Forcing it open. 'Come one,' he rasped to the waiter. 'Two good spoonfuls.'

It made her gag. The dreadful oily fishy sensation filling her mouth. She spluttered... but Mr Bellish held Joanna's head back with a firm grip on her nose and forced open her mouth. She had no option but to swallow. There was no thought now for the fact that her gown was gaping wide, exposing her tits, her pussy, to the eager-eyed waiter. 'And another one,' dear Uncle George said.

The big brimming spoon came up again. Tipping into Joanna's open mouth. Some of it was spat out, onto the waiter's nice white jacket, but most of it had to go down. Uncle George let go of her. Joanna grabbed at her mouth. She was gasping, tears in her eyes. A strangled cry and then a stumbling, half-blind dash to the bathroom, the dressing gown trailing out behind her.

'You really didn't take that very well, Joanna. A rather indisciplined performance. Do you agree with that?'

Joanna swallowed and bit her lip. They were in the dining room. A table for two over in the corner with a view out onto the front. Mr Bellish had ordered. Joanna had half expected he might continue what he had started with the castor-oil. Order bread and water for her, to continue her humiliation. To make her cringe as she sat here. It was the same waiter, the one a little while ago in the room oblingingly spooning that gagging stuff between her lips. But Mr Bellish hadn't done that; he had let her choose.

'Don't you agree, Joanna?'

'I couldn't... help it. I just couldn't.' She could still feel it in her mouth. 'I was going to be sick.'

'But you should have done better. It's no answer to say you couldn't help it. It is simply weakness, isn't it?'

Joanna mumbled something. But there was no point in showing dissent; that would simply make it worse.

'I think we're going to need a little taste of the cane, my dear.'

Joanna rolled her big blue eyes. But it was no more or less than she could have expected. Mr Bellish — Uncle George — had caned and strapped her for less than this. At times for nothing at all. She squirmed her bottom on the chair.

'And I'm going to ask the waiter to do it.'

Joanna blinked. She wanted to scream out. That Uncle George just couldn't humiliate her in that way. But screaming in public, in a hotel dining room, would be a terrible offence. Her cheeks had gone bright red. A hissed, whispered, 'Please...'

Mr Bellish said, 'I shall ask him to take your knickers down and make sure you really feel it. Right after dinner I think.'

The waiter was coming over with the soup. Joanna fixed her eyes on the patch of dazzling white table cloth immediately in front of her. Seconds later the soup plate was placed there. That hand holding it had spooned caster-oil into her mouth... and was now going to be wielding Uncle George's cane. Because he meant it, it wasn't a joke. Uncle George was in one of those awful moods when he would do impossibly awful things to her. Things that were done in the name of discipline. He meant it. He was saying it to the waiter.

'After dinner if you're free I'd like you to come up to the room again.'

Joanna glanced up, face scarlet. Her eyes met the waiter's. He smiled. He was no doubt remembering her bare tits and pussy, and the strangled cries she made as that stuff was poured between her forced-open lips. And he was no doubt wondering if there was going to be something else like that.

* * *

Mr Bellish didn't beat about the bush. As soon as the man was in the room he told him. 'I want you to cane my niece for me. She did not behave at all well earlier. All that struggling and spluttering. Getting it on your jacket in fact. She needs a caning. And I don't really like caning her myself.'

That wasn't true; Mr Bellish was quite happy caning her and he did it often enough. He simply wanted the extra humiliation of her being caned by the waiter. 'Can you do that?' Mr Bellish asked.

The waiter looked confused but as the meaning sunk in his expression changed to one of excitement — as well it might. 'Yes. Of course.' He had a slight Italian accent. He was wearing an informal sweater now, not the white jacket. 'Yes. Of course,' he repeated looking hotly at Joanna.

She was wearing the same dress as in the dining room: form-fitting pale green jersey-knit material. But Mr Bellish had made her take off the slip and bra she had had underneath. Now Joanna had only a brief pair of bikini knickers under the dress. Their outline showed through; as did the outline of her bare nipples.

'I want her to really feel it. Can you cane her really hard?' Uncle George's voice was dispassionate, as if he were discussing how he wanted his steak done. The steak, though, was Joanna's bottom.

The waiter nodded, eager-eyed. 'Whatever you say. Young girls these days need some discipline, yes?'

'Yes they do. Joanna, lift your dress. Right up. Over your head.'

She was standing by her bed still not fully able to believe Uncle George would go through with it. But disbelief or not he was handing the cane to this man. 'Lift it, Joanna.'


The stretchy material came up, rather like skinning an animal. Inside-out and up over her head and raised arms. Her body trembling, nude except for the tiny bikini pants. Her bare tits sticking out. 'Now lie over the bed.' Mr Bellish's voice heard from inside the green-lit tent of the dress. 'Lie over the bottom of the bed.'


She was down on the bed and someone was pulling her knickers down. It was the waiter. Mr Bellish had gone to sit in the armchair, she could tell that from his voice. It was the waiter's hands on her, tugging her knickers down across her knees. Her bottom was bare and she could sense the waiter drinking it in with his hot eyes. And relishing the thought of the cane.

'Give it to her then. I want you to hurt her.'

Uncle George from across the room, his voice dispassionate as ever. A little pause... Joanna readied herself...


THWATTT!

Her cry was muffled in the bed cover. The man had done as instructed; it was as bad as any Mr Bellish himself had ever given her. Like a knife slicing into the ripe crests of her buttocks.


THWATT!

Almost on top of the first one, and just as bad. Joanna opened her mouth to bite into the bedspread. Her face was wet. She was dribbling, or crying. Or both.


THWACCKK!


After four of them Joanna felt her dress being pulled down. Not right down, just to her waist. Her bottom was still bare: her red-striped quivering nates. But she could see now. The man. As Mr Bellish turned her face sideways. His hand came on her burning bottom.

'All right, Joanna dear? You're all right, aren't you?'

She made a sobbing sound. Yes she was crying.

'It's not finished yet, my dear. You've got to have some more. But I have to go out. I've an appointment to see a gentleman. I shall leave you here with Mr Tardelli. You're to do exactly what he says. Agree to whatever he tells you. Is that clear?'

What? What...? Joanna made another sobbing, choking sound. Her poor bottom felt red hot. And she was to have some more. Was that what Mr Bellish was saying? More of the cane.

'What...?' she managed. But he was going out. The door closing behind him. She was here alone with this man, the waiter. Mr Tardelli, Uncle George had said. As if to bring this home to Joanna he now sat down next to her on the bed, where Mr Bellish had sat. His hand came onto her bottom; like Mr Bellish's had.

'Your Mr Bellish says you are to have some more, Joanna. You heard him say it.' His voice was nervous, excited. As if he could scarcely believe this. The hand was fondling her bare bottom. His fingers sliding down in underneath.

Joanne gave a yelp... and the fingers pushed firmly in. Hard in between her warm thighs. 'I think you need something else as well as the cane, Joanna. Mr Bellish told me he thought you needed it.'

'No!' she yelped, all at once aware that he wasn't only talking about the cane.

The fingers came away. He smacked her still-hot bottom. 'Yes Joanna. First some more cane. And then something else that a young girl needs, eh?' He was all at once grabbing at Joanna's lowered knickers. Pulling them on down. Off over her struggling feet.


'Yes. First the cane,' he repeated. 'And then that other thing!'

* * *

Mr Bellish was away about an hour. When he got back Joanna was still lying on the bed, sprawled on her front. The light was off and the curtains closed. Without switching the lights on he went to sit on the bed next to her. Joanna's skirt was halfway down her thighs. Her knickers were lying on the carpet still. Mr Bellish's hand slid up under the skirt, to her warm bare bottom.

'Come on,' he said softly. 'Time for bed.' His hand gently caressed. 'You can come in my bed tonight.'

Love's Rough Justice

Story from Janus 102.

Love's Rough Justice
by John Undermeyer

Time was, when a man could hang for stealing bread. But what if a beautiful woman could bear anything but his death?

THE Welcome Home Tavern was a favourite mooring for sailors. At almost every tide some newcomer humped a studded sea-chest up the inn's crooked stairs. Sailors made the place exciting. We never became used to their weird tattoos, missing eyes and legs, scarred hands and matted pigtails, and when they told of their adventures they mesmerised us.

For a few yards of ale, spiced with cloves and warmed with a glowing iron, they would entertain the table. But tonight we dined without Jack Tar. This was Saturday 24th April 1743 – our friend Doctor Timothy's birthday.

We finished the eggs, trout, jugged hare and mature Stilton. The port circled the table several times. We were all in our early twenties; all the marrying kind. The talk was lewd but mere bravado: only the Doctor had enjoyed a woman and none of us had a wife.

We laughed with, and thought what we would do to, the serving maids. But our dreams were of a mistress more highly-born. As high as the raven-haired, slender-figured Lady Katherine Tovey who lived in Plimpton Manor with her irascible father, Lord Joshua.

An only daughter, her mother ran off with Lord Joshua's younger brother when Katherine was ten years old. So shocking an event could never be kept secret in Longfield. But it had happened a decade past; Lady Katherine was now 20.

Gossip held that she inherited her mother's rebel nature but it was hard to believe when you saw her smile. When men stood agape, devouring her face and figure, she stayed all the time silent, unwilling to look them in the eye. Her father never knew her mind and watched her constantly.

Doctor Timothy wiped his spoon and tapped loudly on the table. He had a story for us and by the way he laughed we knew he had saved it for tonight. We settled down and, satisfied all were listening, he took a red, wet mouthful of Taylor's Reserve and began.

I was fortunate last week (he said) to be at Plimpton Manor. I am not often called there but Mrs Babbington, the cook, had an ague and Lord Joshua sent for me to examine her. I did so, and was riding off, when a mighty shout pierced the night.

In less than a minute I was back in the main hall. I saw Osric, the butler, with two other servants wrestling to hold an intruder. I was struck, at once, by the colour of the stranger's hair: it was straw-gold. The rest of him was formidable: well over six feet tall, his body in proportion, and he looked – until I threw myself into the fray – that he might win.

We struggled for several minutes and I received some unpleasant cuffs. Then Osric produced a pistol. Feeling this at his temple, the stranger knew better than to fight on. It was not until we had him bound to a chair that we breathed easily again. We stood close to him, gradually regaining some composure, until Lord Tovey hurried down the stairs.

A pace behind him came Lady Katherine, dressed as if she were going out. She wore all black: riding boots, high-necked dress tight at the waist and hanging to the floor, boots, cape and gloves. With one hand she was taking off her hat; the other still held her horsewhip. She looked tense and milk-pale.

Reaching the tied man Lord Tovey began an interrogation. The story that emerged astonished us all. The prisoner had come for one purpose only: to collect Lady Katherine. A pair of horses were tethered nearby. They planned to elope.

Her father whirled upon her, furious and frightened. It was as if history would repeat itself. I understood how terrible that would be for him. The girl glared back, defiant and unflinching. Yes, she meant to leave. Her father's regime, her own wilfulness and clandestine meetings with Christian (whom I guessed was the stranger) had made up her mind. She could not wait to be far from Longfield; wanted never to see Joshua again.

But his Lordship had other suspicions. He flung back her cape. Tied to her waist was her jewel box. He cut it loose and opened it. A pile of precious stones sparkled in the firelight. This was the truth of the matter: not elopement, but robbery. Could she not see, he raged at her, that she was the victim of a plausible rogue? The thief's interest was not in her, but in her fortune. He meant to ride to the edge of Longfield, steal the gems and make off.

Vehemently Katherine declared this was a lie. She loved this blond fellow and her love was returned. Her affection for him was easy to believe seeing his handsome face, square jaw, and full head of curls. But for the man: his ardour was doubtful and neither her father nor myself believed in it.

Lord Joshua signalled to me. Since my horse was saddled, would I ride to the troopers in Fairmile and bring an officer and cohort to take the burglar into custody? Let him rot in gaol, declared his Lordship. In a month he can be at the County assizes, before the circuit judge.

I was halfway to the door when Lady Katherine screamed. She ran to her father, hair flailing, and fell on her knees. 'Please do not call the troopers,' she implored him. Lord Joshua swore he would. The girl seized his hands, her lips pushing into his palms in supplication. Despite his fury the old man was embarrassed. But he forced back his pity and gave vent to his bile. Craven crimes had been committed: house-breaking, assault, abduction and theft. Possibly murder would have been next – who was to say Katherine would have escaped with her life? Someone must suffer: someone must pay.

Katherine was distraught and we were moved by her desperation. 'Can you not understand?' she cried. 'Robbery is a capital offence. With all of you to speak against him he must be found guilty. The judge will name the highest penalty. Christian will hang.'

We knew it was true. And, we began to muse, this blond Christian might well have meant to carry Katherine to his own home, there to make her his wife. If this were so, death was too severe a penalty. We had no doubt that even in this modern age, men went to the gallows too often.

Lady Katherine raised herself and begged her father to be lenient. If someone must suffer let it be her. Let her father bring her to heel. She would submit, be penitent and dutiful. She wrung her hands, beseeching forgiveness.

The old man blazed at her with his eyes. He turned to the prisoner and back to the girl. I could tell he felt some reluctance to be responsible for the fellow's death. Finally, after wrestling with his demons, he growled assent. Then, as if already regretting his lenience he roared, spun Katherine round and propelled her towards the stairs, a clenched fist and angry finger pointing her towards her bedroom.

When she had gone he turned back to the men. Osric and the others were to stand guard. The fellow must not be released. Perhaps, if Katherine was properly repentant, there could be a reprieve. But for now he must wait. Turning then to me, his Lordship bid me follow him upstairs. In the mood he was in it were well to have a doctor present.

I climbed the wide, creaking staircase a pace behind him, thinking as I went that if our destination were Katherine's bedroom, what should I do? True, I was a medical man, but I was of Katherine's generation and (unless she were ill) would never be allowed near where she slept. Yet I said nothing, but followed her father's clattering boots until he stopped at a door, paused fractionally then charged in, motioning me to follow.

The room was gloomy, with narrow windows that needed wash. Across one wall stood a giant four-poster surrounded by heavy curtains, open and tied back. The counterpane was embroidered damask, the sheets linen. Two goose-feather pillows were piled by the headboard. It looked old but comfortable. I wondered when the mattress had last been aired.

Six candles struggled to give us light. But there was light enough to see what I wanted to. Lady Katherine lay stretched on the bed. The outdoor clothes she had been wearing were strewn across the floor, her boots and stays slung on to a chair. She was naked and had not dared to slip beneath the covers. She knew that to appease Lord Joshua, she must not hide.

Her face was buried deep into a pillow and she had the cover clenched between her teeth. Her hands either side of her head also grasped pillows, kneading slowly, indicating her helplessness. When she felt us gazing she crushed her pelvis into the mattress, anxious to hide that part of her which I was most eager to see.

Her long black hair spread like silk across her back. Candlelight caught the upthrust of her buttocks which, I am sure, she squeezed tight in an attempt to feel more modest. From her bottom she flowed into trim thighs and slender legs. She was lovely, and she was weeping.

Lord Joshua motioned me to the far side of the room. I was to stand and observe but say nothing unless spoken to. I made myself inconspicuous, happy just to look. Katherine lifted her head, whimpered and began to tremble. I saw that her father had found her riding crop, which she had left on her dressing table.

He wasted no time. Katherine was prepared and the sooner it were done the better. He walked to the edge of the bed and satisfied himself that the girl was properly submissive. Then, deliberately measuring the distance between himself and that beautiful pale bottom, he clenched the whip handle tightly. The candles flickered, I caught myself licking my lips, Joshua took a deep breath. Katherine had only one thought in her mind – the prisoner downstairs.

Joshua's arm drew back. Nothing could stop what was about to happen. Lips tight, he drove the whip down. It travelled those few feet in a fraction of an instant, before burying itself into her delicate flesh with a sound like a wet cloth on stone.


From that moment, in the silence before the cry, it seemed that everything which had taken place, every move made, every word spoken, every thought in every head was pure dream.

The thief's arrival, the fight, Katherine's pleading and submission: it had been seen through stage gauze. It was vague, hazy, indistinct, not defined, not real. Certainly not real. It was too comfortable and unimportant to be real. It was mummery; actors in a play; nothing like life.

Only Katherine knew about life – life was intolerable. All her fine thoughts, imagined love, willing self-sacrifice, her unquestioned offering of her bottom to the whip – all this was folly. More: it was madness. Nobody who knew would do this. A stroke from a riding crop across naked flesh – only that was real. And that was so real, it was unbearable. Only one thing mattered after that. Only one thought burst into the mind. Only one desire, one desperate aim, one purpose.

She must escape; rise up and fly; soar like a bird into the sky, to freedom, to blessed release from pain. Her pain could not be imagined. It was comets colliding. Sunbursts in the night. An age before birth and after death. Arrows in the heart. Worse than childbirth. She could not bear the hurt that took her, never mind the hurt to come.

Katherine knew that if Lord Joshua faltered for a second she would leap from the bed. She could not bear another stroke. No matter that her Christian would dance on a rope. She would let him – nay, want him to, rather than allow the agonising horsewhip to lash her bottom again.

But before she could rise, before she could slip out from beneath her punishment, the second stroke came down. The whole room was awake now. The candles blazed like permanent lightning. The walls shrieked in silent suffering. Lord Joshua and I moved into a new dimension. We were dead creatures, with no notion of truth. Only Katherine knew truth: fierce, vibrant, searing, forever indelible on her mind.

I know why. Katherine did not rebel. Because as the third and fourth strokes came down she stopped wondering why she offered her bottom and remembered she was saving a man's life. So instead of twisting to escape the fierce lashes, she rose into them. She grasped the bedclothes and seemingly pushed her bottom up to actively greet the descending whip. She must overcome pain, and the fear of pain. Her punishment was simply justice, suffered to prevent a fatal injustice.

However deep the fire burned it would eventually be over. She would rise from the bed, walk to the window and, in time, be comfortable again. But if, instead, Christian was punished: the thought was worse than even this...

No matter that her face twisted like flames as she fought to be brave. She could bear to writhe under the biting crop. Tears were nothing. Cries and howls were a passing affair. The air sang, the breath left her body, the twin mounds of her bottom shivered as they absorbed the strokes. It was nothing compared to the rope that broke a man's neck.

Before the punishment ended all Katherine knew was that her body was a great light, incandescent in the gloomy bedroom, a torch that burned to save Christian's life. When her father and I left her she continued to shine, face deep in her pillow, tears soaking the feathers, struggling to still her body, grateful that she wept for an incomparable cause. When she looked from her window at dawn she wondered if the sun had come out watery in sympathy for her tears.

Lord Joshua's fury spent, he ordered the prisoner released and escorted to his horse. Christian must never return to Longfield. If he did, Katherine would pay and the second thrashing would be worse than the first. The flaxen-haired adventurer disappeared and whether he will return remains to be seen – I rather think he might. Because I know you will agree, gentlemen (the Doctor's eye went round the table fixing us all) greater love hath no woman.

The story was at an end. Doctor Timothy stretched, drew his fingers through his hair and scratched vigorously. He banged his spoon again on the table: who the devil had the port? – pass it at once. Then bid the Landlord refill the decanter.

Our dinner at the Welcome Home Tavern ended late but we left sober enough to find our homes and climb the stairs to bed. Under the sheets, each thought of Katherine. Each saw in his imagination the woman whipped to save her love.

It would not have surprised the Doctor to know that lying awake that night, each of his companions pictured a perfect young lady's incandescent bottom and held it in his mind. Then each took his own incandescent candle in his hands. And gently, unhurriedly, with long, firm strokes, each put out the light.

Dented Rear

Story from Janus 68.

Dented Rear
by Andrew Grantham

IT WAS unusually early in the evening for Louise to be taking a bath, but Robert had ordered his bride of just four weeks to do so.

She emptied out the water and towelled herself vigorously until her skin glowed to nearly the colour of her hair. Then she padded to the bedroom, sat down on the dressing-table stool and reached for her lipstick and most expensive duty free perfume. Well, if Robert wanted to play games! Preparation indeed!

A couple of minutes later, with her hair brushed and her skin shining she stood, totally nude, in front of Robert, her 25-year-old accountant husband.

He leaned back into the depths of the settee, his heart beating faster than usual as he stared at the gorgeous, newly-bathed Louise.

The dark-haired, lean-framed Robert liked possessions, as witnessed by the elegant suburban home, the fittings and the gadgets about the place. The young whizz-kid accountant regarded Louise as a possession, too.

He was obsessively proud of the slim, 5' 4" tall girl with shoulder-length curly red hair who had been legally his for the past four weeks. Males always looked twice at her and it pleased him to fix admirers with a stare that silently said, 'Put your thoughts back in your trousers, she's all mine!'

Of course, no outside admirer ever saw Louise as he was seeing her now — submissively naked and displaying physical charms which would arouse passions in the most celibate of priests.

Her high, firm breasts jutted out provocatively. The nipples stood out too, red and erect from delicate pink areolae. Her tummy was flat and firm. Long, exquisitely shaped legs naturally led eyes to her bush of red-gold fur at the top of exciting, muscular thighs.

Her upturned nose and slight pout gave Louise a sophisticated, yet arrogant, appearance. Looking straight into his rather cold blue eyes with her own sparkling green eyes, she snorted, 'This is a silly game for grown-ups to play!'

'We're not playing games, Louise!' retorted Robert firmly. 'As I told you when I came in, I'm going to give you a bloody good spanking for denting the back of my car!'

'It was an accident, Robert!' she protested, noting that he had said 'my car' and not 'our car'. The red BMW was Robert's property, not hers!

'It was sheer carelessness!' rapped her husband unsympathetically.

Louise was resigned to her fate at the hands of the athletically-built young man who had courted her for the past eighteen months. There was no way her friends, or sister even, would have consented to what she had consented to as reparation for her 'sheer carelessness'. Louise, however, was anxious to please her new husband — and fully aware of the benefits of his high salary. Furthermore, she had promised to 'love, honour and obey'.

Seductively, she placed one nicely-rounded knee on his knee. Her left hand cupped her left breast and the fingers of her right hand covered his crotch. 'Wouldn't you rather do something else to me?' she asked softly, running the blade of her tongue between her glossy lips.

Robert's answer was to lean forward and reach out a hand, dragging his young wife over his lap. Louise squealed as she fell, but allowed herself to be positioned so that her hips were resting against his left thigh. Robert made her place her hands on the carpet on one side of his legs whilst her toes dug into the thick pile on the other.

He glided a palm over her firm yet softly yielding bottom. The pale-fleshed cheeks were round and full. His nostrils twitched as the fragrance with which she had coated her succulent body drifted up to them.

Louise was quiet now and Robert was aware that she was trembling slightly as she waited for her physical punishment to commence.

'Poke it up for me!' he ordered, prodding the target flesh with a forefinger.

Louise shifted the position of her hands and feet to thrust her shivery behind up as instructed.

'You must keep still the whole time!' was the final commandment from Robert as he raised his open hand up to the level of his head.

Down it came, the sharp percussive ring of the slap filling the quiet room for just a fraction of a second before it was absorbed by a loud 'Owwwwww!' from Louise.

She kicked her long, smooth legs most attractively and Robert smiled as he watched her lewd disclosures. He put his left arm around her waist and raised his stinging palm once more.

Louise, however, did not cry out as the second slap landed. Her right cheek took the brunt of the blow this time. It had been her right cheek which had suffered after the first smack.

Hidden by her waterfall of red hair, Louise screwed up her pretty features. Robert certainly wasn't being playful. All this for a little dent in the back of his precious BMW!

She drew her buttocks together, waiting for the next slap.

It duly landed on the pinkly-flushed bare cheeks and Louise inhaled sharply. She remembered the instruction to keep still and she did her best to comply.

Robert looked at the quivering buttocks. They were colouring nicely but Louise should have been shouting and squirming by now. He would have to use more force, he decided.

Louise would have been surprised had she been able to see the severity of the expression on her husband's face as he began to deliver a crisp tanning rather than occasional, haphazard slaps. He objected strongly to driving round in a dented car — even if it was an E reg!

Slap after slap rained down on his wife's much squirming bottom and she felt herself clenching and unclenching the hurt nates.

The kicking of her legs, the high-pitched squeals and the movement of her body, constrained by his left arm, brought him some satisfaction. He'd teach her to drive more carefully in the future!

The redhead's fingers scrabbled at the carpet and her legs scissored open and shut with the urgent heat building up in her beleaguered bottom — and now on the backs of her thighs as Robert decided to give the livid buttocks some respite.

Gradually, the agitated movements of his wife's body turned into rhythmic gyrations and he was surprised to hear husky grunts of sexual stimulation coming from her throat.

Louise herself experienced a delicious tickle of excitement in her love pit...

* * *

Next morning, after Robert had left for his commuter train, Louise looked at the calendar on the kitchen door. She tapped a pencil against her shiny, white teeth. Yes, three weeks on Wednesday. That would be a decent interval of time, she thought. She circled the figures 27 with her pencil.

Smiling to herself, she wondered what she would answer if Robert noticed and asked her what was the significance of the date in the circle.

Louise rubbed her denim-covered rump. Her bottom was still a little bit tender. Robert had certainly given it to her good and hard — and not just the spanking! Yes, it had turned out to be a very delightful evening after all. The bout of love-making following the hiding had been more intense than any on their actual honeymoon.

When Robert came home from the office on the twenty-seventh, she would nervously tell him that she had scraped the wing of the BMW (his BMW!) getting it out of the garage. It would only be a little scrape of course but he would be bound to tell her to take an early bath!

A Justifiable Cause

Story from Whispers 05.

A Justifiable Cause

'Your Aunt has left this matter entirely in my hands, Elizabeth. I want you to understand that.'

She stood in the middle of the sitting-room, feeling quite desolate. So alone. Mrs Mason was not her Aunt, nor was her husband, her Uncle. It was only custom over the years that had given them such nominations. Elizabeth knew she was alone.

Her Report lay on the table.

An indictment...

She knew she had not done well last Term. But her mind had been so much on other things. She was sixteen now, growing up. Other girls at the School had parents. Love and attention. She was alone. That was very difficult to adjust to when one finally became aware of it. No family. Just a tiny individual in a vast world. An uncaring Universe, indeed.

'I... I have tried, Uncle,' she found herself saying, 'but... but I have not been... well... feeling at my best... this term...'

'Not at your best?' Uncle Walter's eyebrows went up in astonishment. 'You're a healthy young girl. You should be approaching your prime. Physically and mentally.'

'I... I'm sorry, Uncle,' Elizabeth felt tears coming. 'It... it's just that... I sometimes feel... so much on... on my own. Alone...'

'How ridiculous!' Walter tugged at his beard. 'There you are, in one of the more expensive Boarding Schools, surrounded by girls of your own age, saying you are lonely! I repeat, that is ridiculous.'

Elizabeth swallowed hard. She knew her Uncle would never understand. There was no point in arguing about it. He, and her Aunt, had their Rules; she had her natural intuitions. 'I can only tell you how I feel,' she said meekly.

'This Report is a disgrace,' said Walter, picking it up. 'There is hardly a single subject which is not criticised by the phrase 'Could Do Better.' To my mind, Elizabeth, that is an euphemistic way of saying you are lazy.'

Euphemistic? What did that mean? Oh why did grown-ups always seem to live on another planet? If only there was someone else to turn to.

'I... I tried...'

Walter shrugged. 'That is what you say. However, your Aunt and I have decided that you should be encouraged to try far harder next term. We are plundering our capital to pay your fees and, quite frankly, we don't want to see them wasted. That is reasonable, surely?'

'Yes... yes... Uncle...' Elizabeth felt tears coming again. Though she didn't like her Uncle and Aunt, she realised they were spending a lot of money on her. It distressed her that she couldn't be better. On the other hand, nobody seemed to ever look at things from her point of view. An orphan. A nobody. Oh how she would have loved to have lots of brothers and sisters! And, of course, parents she knew. That, however, was something she could only dream about. She was faced with the actuality of Uncle Walter and Aunt Grace.

'I have to tell you Elizabeth, that your Aunt and I have decided upon a rather drastic course. We, jointly, consider it the correct means of improving your educational efforts next term. It is an old-fashioned recipe, but I think it will work...'

'O-ohhh... what is that?' Elizabeth half knew (for that had been hinted at before) but she didn't want to truly believe it.

'Elizabeth,' said Walter (trying to look formal rather than lustful), 'you are going to be soundly spanked. No... don't interrupt me... and... if you do not improve next term, you will be even more soundly spanked. Your Aunt and I are convinced this is the only way to deal with this most serious lapse in your behaviour.'

'Ohhh... mmmfff... oh no... no...'

Elizabeth burst into tears. 'I... I... don't deserve it... oooh... surely Auntie wouldn't really spank me?'

'Auntie is not going to spank you,' announced Walter firmly. 'I am.'

* * *

He has told me what to do. I am shocked and shamed. But what else can I do? I am alone in this world. They think it is right. How can I say it is wrong? I am so much younger than they. I have no experience — not truly — of this world. In fact, I have lived in a contrived world for so long.

I stand in my small bedroom, still hardly believing it. Before me is my narrow bed. Outside the darkness of a winter's night.

As he instructed, I have removed my school skirt. Thus I wear only my white blouse and tie, blue school knicks, and white ankle socks. It makes me feel even more helpless. More lonely.

It seems I have been standing here for so long. Just waiting. Maybe it is not more than ten minutes. When will he come? Ten minutes can be an age.

When will he come?

To spank me?

I can hardly believe he is actually going to spank me. It doesn't happen to girls of my age. Not nowadays. I don't know of any who have been spanked. Anyway, if they have, they've never said.

On the other hand, I would never tell, would I?

It is all so shaming.

Oh when will he ever come?

His instructions were clear. Stand by the side of the bed — skirt off — until I arrive. 'It is a matter of discipline, Elizabeth.' She could still hear his voice. The trembling within her intensified. What would it be like? Nothing like this had ever happened before. She knew about olden times. Children being beaten. But it didn't happen today.

So they said.

But it did. In her case, it did.

I must be brave. They have looked after me. Done their best for me.

Perhaps they are right.

Perhaps I am being lazy and stupid. There could be many young girls in this world who would like to change places.

Perhaps not at that precise moment, though.

* * *

He was nervous. But strangely confident. One might have called it a nervous excitement. After all, he had been waiting a long time. For twelve months or more he had wanted to smack that girlish curving bottom. For a legitimate reason, of course... But there had to be a reason and a time. They seemed to have arrived.

Beyond that, Grace had finally and fully agreed. 'Old-fashioned methods are often the best, Walter,' had been her words. 'I'll leave it to you.'

Well, it had now been left to him.

As he opened the door, he wondered for a moment, if she would actually be there. But she was. More than that she was standing exactly as he had ordered. Facing the bed, with her skirt off.


Navy blue knickers clinging to a swelling bottom.

Oh what an enticing bottom it was!

No... no... he must not indulge himself. This was a matter of family discipline. That was what it was, wasn't it?

But, oh, how that bottom swelled.

He would have it knickerless!

Naked.

And he would smack it and smack it!

She deserved it, didn't she?

When you thought about it, there was nothing really wrong about it. Girls had been having their bottoms smacked for years and years. For centuries. Once it had been quite the normal thing. It was only recently that some people had started to pontificate about it.

A lot of rubbish.

He knew he was well justified. Grace had confirmed that. He saw that the girl was crying softly; trembling. He could understand that very well.

My goodness, she had grown up in the last few months.

That wasn't a schoolgirl bottom, even if it were clad in schoolgirl's knickers. It was the bottom of a young woman. His desires too. Particularly that desire to spank that lush young flesh.

She was a naughty, lazy girl... and she deserved it. He was justified!

He closed the door quietly but firmly. This was the moment. 'Elizabeth,' he heard himself saying, 'kneel by the side of the bed and bend across it.'

'P-please, Uncle... must you do it? I'll be better... I will!'

'It has been decided. It is for your own good.'

His tension subsided a little as he watched the girl kneel. It seemed she was going to comply. That was something. That was a start. What would happen later was still a matter for conjecture.

The blue knickers fascinated him; so did the swell of the buttocks. Now it was all actually happening. And it had occupied his mind for so long.

Elizabeth was about to be spanked. By him.

'Take down your knickers,' he said, finding himself choking on the words which had been in his head indefinitely.

'Oh... no... no!' came the despairing cry.

It was one he had expected.


Walter decided immediately it was no time for prevarication. He must act. Resolutely, he moved to the bed, pinned the girl over it and pulled down those blue knickers. The swelling nakedness of girl flesh was exposed to him. Flesh that deserved to be punished.

'No... n-no... U-Uncle no...oooo!'


With hand on the girl's back, Walter began to slap the soft-lush flesh. Hard... hard... hard! Oh what a lovely sound it made... oh how delicious it was to do. Again... again... again!

'Oh stop... stop... ohhh... you're hurting me... oowww... owww!'

'Of course I'm hurting you...' panted Walter. 'That's what you deserve. That's what this is all about.'

Again and again Walter's hand descended on the pulsating flesh... getting redder and redder all the time... until Elizabeth, almost frantic now, twisted off the bed and ran for the door. From his point of view, sensibly Walter had locked it. For, he was by no means finished with this youngster yet. She deserved a spanking and she was going to get a good one!

Elizabeth was struggling desperately to escape Walter's grasp. She had never imagined it would be as terrible as this. She had had enough... more than enough!

But then she found herself over his knees, pinioned firmly, her burning bottom helplessly exposed.


The merciless smacking-slaps began again. There was no let-up. They seemed to come harder and harder and harder. Every one of them blazing worse.

He didn't stop. Uncle Walter, inflamed by the release of a fantasy held for far too long, went on spanking and spanking. Until his vein-lined face was as red-puce in colour was Elizabeth's bottom. Only then did he sink back in exhausted happiness, dimly realising that Elizabeth was thrashing about on the floor, hands pressed to her nates, sobbing and choking unrestrainedly.

She deserved it, he told himself. It will have done her the world of good.

I deserved it, too, he thought. I've waited so long. But what good will it have done me? Will I have to wait until the end of next term?

* * *

'No trouble, Walter?' Grace put her knitting down.

'Nothing that worried me, my dear,' replied Walter, still trying to appear calm after the rigours of the evening. 'I dealt with her adequately, I think.'

'Good...' Grace nodded. 'It has occurred to me, Walter,' she said, giving him a sly smile. 'It might be better if we had Elizabeth at a local school. Not Boarding. Then we could keep a closer eye on her, eh? What do you think?'

Walter realised, in that instant, he had just about the most understanding wife possible. 'I... I... er... yes... I definitely agree...' he said. Then he got up and poured himself a very large Scotch. His right hand was so hot and sore, the glass really was most difficult to hold! But no matter!

Behind high walls – the story in two parts

Story from Janus 44.

Behind high walls. Part 1
by R.T. Mason


THE discreet sign on the brick pillar at the side of the large iron gates says simply: 'Balcombe Manor'. A black limousine draws up along the lane which leads from the main road. The uniformed chauffeur gets out, unlocks the gate and then drives through. In the back seat a pretty young woman glance around, her large eyes alert, inquiring. Are they apprehensive too? The chauffeur gets out again to relock the gates and then drives on, wheels crunching softly on the gravel of the driveway as it winds its way through leafy shrubs and stately old trees.

Yes, the young woman is apprehensive. She is trying not to be and tells herself, as she has told herself ever since it was decided that she was corning here, that there is no need to be apprehensive, that in fact she is very fortunate because a stay at Balcombe Manor is not at all cheap. But her new husband, Roger Filton, is rich and he can well afford to send his young wife here. They have been married just six months. Roger Filton is 45 so he has been in no hurry to make matrimonial ties. Annabel, our young lady in the back of the limousine, is 22; a very pretty girl with a lovely shapely figure, well educated and coming from an excellent family.

These are admirable qualities in a young wife but there are other qualities too that a gentleman may wish to see in a new spouse. In particular that whole area of femininity and submission which nowadays can be so neglected in a girl's upbringing. Many gentlemen of traditional views will regard such qualities as almost beyond price. At Balcombe Manor, for a not unreasonable cost, they can be taught.

In addition to those ornate iron gates Balcombe Manor's ten acres are surrounded by a high substantial brick wall. It is a beautiful, mostly Georgian house set deep in the heart of the English countryside. It was chosen for its purpose because of this very remoteness and seclusion from prying eyes, since the training that is offered here is clearly the sort of thing that the common press, if alerted, would make a very big meal of. One has only to think of that unfortunate establishment in Ireland, set up to give adult young women a taste of life at a traditional girls' boarding school, which in recent months was discovered by the press. It was a highly traumatic experience for all concerned.

Mrs Blackett of Balcombe Manor shudders at the thought of anything like that. So you will not see advertise¬ments for her courses, not even in the most select and refined of periodicals; word of mouth is anyway quite suf¬ficient. Word does get around. Deborah X for instance, a highly admired young wife; oh yes, she spent two months at Balcombe Manor. That sort of thing. In any case it was not intended for the masses. It is expensive and it can only cope with at most five young women at a time. Because personal tuition and attention are essential. All applicants are vetted.

The black limousine comes to the end of the drive, in front of Balcombe Manor's handsome facade. The chauffeur gets out and opens the rear door. Annabel Filton, looking a little nervous, alights. She is quite tall, with lustrous shoulder-length chestnut hair, in a restrained well-tailored navy-blue suit with matching patent leather court shoes. As the chauffeur moves round to collect her cases from the boot a housemaid appears at the front door. Smiling, she conducts the visitor in. Annabel has time to glimpse through glossy laurels an immaculate lawn shimmering in the afternoon sunshine. In the shade to one side in an old-fashioned garden swing-seat sit two young women in quiet conversation.

Inside, across a richly carpeted hall, the maid knocks quietly at a door. They enter a sumptuously appointed office/sitting-room. Opposite, behind a splendid rosewood desk is seated a maturely handsome woman, her thick grey-flecked black hair drawn somewhat severely back. She rises, smiling and extending her hand.

'It's Mrs Filton of course: Annabel. Good afternoon; I am Sylvia Blackett. Bring us some tea, would you, Bridget please.'

The maid curtseys and quietly exits. Mrs Blackett indicates two wing chairs looking out on the shimmering lawn. They sit down.

'Good; now first things first. I shall address you by your Christian name, Annabel, because you are very much in the position of pupil and teacher. For the same reason you will address me as Mrs Blackett. So, Annabel, your husband has sent you here for two months of training. He is clearly an eminently sensible husband, if I may say so, and I do not say this because of my fee. Standards of behaviour in young women simply seem to go from bad to worse. Don't you agree, my dear?'

Annabel hesitates, then nods. She does not necessarily agree and she has remonstrated with Roger at length after he suggested that she come here. But thankfully she is not a rebellious young woman.

'Yes, I'm sure you do. Well, he may rest assured with us. When you leave you will be a credit to him, Annabel, and a credit to your sex. You will embrace all the traditional feminine virtues. Self-discipline and charmingly feminine submission to the male. That is the goal, is it not, my dear?'

Annabel says quietly, 'Yes, Mrs Blackett.' She is reasonably submissive already though and she has been able to see no good reason to come here to learn it. There has been considerable argument, accompanied by tears on Annabel's side. But husband Roger has been adamant. The course has been highly recommended to him.

'Stand up, please, Annabel.'

Annabel stands, her high heels sinking into the expensive carpet. She has a full womanly figure, the jacket of her suit showing the bulge of ripe breasts while, below, her straight skirt likewise indicates generous buttocks.

'Yes; most charming, but we are not exactly a Twiggy, are we, Annabel? And I don't imagine you are wearing a foundation garment?'

Annabel bites her lip and shakes her head. She has heard some talk of foundation garments in connection with Balcombe Manor.

'No, I thought not. But a good firm foundation is the very basis of proper femininity, Annabel. Tight-lacing is a constant reminder to a young woman of that so essential self-discipline. A young woman of quality does not allow her body to sway and jiggle and flop, she keeps it under firm control. Tomorrow morning, young lady, we shall take a trip into town, to my corsetiere. We shall see about that too too exuberant flesh.'

Annabel pushes back a lock of errant chestnut hair. She had noticed, when Mrs Blackett was standing, that under her elegant plum-coloured gown she was remarkably slim-waisted for an older woman. The reason is now evident. Mrs Blackett has not finished.

'And while we are on the subject of discipline, Annabel, there is that other very key area. Physical chastisement. Were you whipped at school? Caned?'

Annabel is still standing, rather as a schoolgirl might before her Headmistress. Mrs Blackett's stunning words make this very appropriate. Flushing red the young woman shakes her head. Mrs Blackett gets to her feet, deep brown eyes smiling.

'Another area of quite essential discipline, my dear. Just remember, those so charming Victorian and Edwardian ladies whom we so very much admire were all brought up with the constant threat of a sound whipping across their buttocks.'

She lightly touches Annabel's arm. An Annabel who can feel her knees trembling.

'So you'll be pleased to hear that we have a regular regimen of the cane and strap here at Balcombe Manor. It is administered by myself and by Gillman, my senior servant, who is a mature and experienced man. A system of demerits is operated. All aspects of a pupil's behaviour are kept under scrutiny arid demerits are recorded in her Record Book which she must keep up to date at all times.'

Annabel's head is spinning. A friend who knew someone who was here had smilingly alluded to the cane but Annabel assumed it was simply a joke. Mrs Blackett squeezes her arm.

'All pupils are assessed stringently, Annabel; that is how one learns and progresses, is it not? You can therefore expect to receive a whipping most days.'

A soft knock at the door. It is the maid with the tea: choice crockery and elegant silver on a tray. Mrs Blackett, as she deals with the tea things, is giving further details. So that body control can be achieved more rapidly and also to get the full effect of body discipline, a restraining garment will be worn at all times, including in bed. Annabel will only remove it for her bath. Annabel sips the fine China tea but its taste goes unnoticed as she listens to what Mrs Blackett is saying. Did Roger know all this? Can he be a party to this subjugation of his wife?

Almost as if Mrs Blackett can read the younger woman's thoughts she smiles across at Annabel. 'It is all as your husband would wish, my dear. It is what he would wish to do himself but to be effective it needs a third party, someone who can take an objective view.'

Mrs Blackett's beringed hand puts down her cup. 'He will naturally be permitted to visit you; up to twice a week is allowed – more than that does interfere with a girl's training. And you will be allowed to see him in the privacy of your own room. We are understanding of a husband's needs and there is no reason why he should be completely deprived of his wife's marital services for the two months she is on the course.'

Annabel flushes. So Roger will be allowed to come and... and make love to her. So that he doesn't get deprived. While she...

Mrs Blacken smiles her charming smile. 'Does all this sound a little unwelcome, my dear?'

'No... no...' Though of course it sounds highly unwelcome. The cane and being constantly in corsets when she has never dreamt of wearing them.

The older woman's tone is suddenly firmer. 'I don't think you are being quite honest, Annabel. I detect that you do find all this less than ideal. Now in the first place I require a pupil to be completely honest with me, and in the second place if one is unhappy about something one has to learn not to show it. So for a start we could call that two demerits, couldn't we?'

Annabel's face flushes deep red again.

'Yes, Annabel?'

'Yes, Mrs Blackett,' she answers submissively.

'That's better, young lady. We shall call it two demerits.' Mrs Blackett rises with a rustle of her rich gown and goes over to her desk. She returns with a small leather-covered notebook, maroon grain with Balcombe Manor printed in gold. The book is handed to Annabel, together with an expensive gold Parker pen.

'Sit down and start your record, Annabel. Write on the first page: Annabel Filton: Her Record Book. On the next page write the date and: Two demerits. Underneath write: Lack of honesty and lack of self-control. When you have done that you will receive two strokes of the cane.'

Annabel's hand seems scarcely able to write; the words that appear are hardly recognisable as her normal firm handwriting. Two strokes of the cane! Has Mrs Blackett actually said this?

That lady has pressed a buzzer and the door now opens. A man, of similar age to Mrs Blackett, in a dark suit like the chauffeur. His face has the impassive expression of the well-trained English manservant.

'Ah Gillman. This is our new pupil, Mrs Filton. Would you fetch a medium-weight cane, please?'

His expression does not change. 'Yes Madam.' Looking at Annabel he says, 'Good afternoon, Madam,' then goes out. In no time he is back, a wicked-looking three-foot cane in his hand.

Annabel is trembling all over. She has put the Record Book and the pen in her handbag, as instructed by Mrs Blackett. Annabel's big green-brown eyes fix on the cane, mesmerised.

'Stand please, Annabel. Remove your skirt; then raise your slip and lower your knickers. Gillman will give you two strokes across your bare bottom.'

The green-brown eyes dart to Mrs Blackett in disbelief. She is looking as impassive as Gillman, now flexing the cane. What Mrs Blackett has said is impossible.

'Please...' she whispers. 'I didn't mean... it won't happen again...'

Mrs Blackett's voice is brusque. 'Don't be silly. And don't prevaricate. Get that skirt off; and then get your knickers down. I assume you don't want Gillman to have to undress yon.'

The desperate eyes go from Mrs Blackett to Gillman and back again. As a last resort she pleads what new pupils at Balcombe Manor frequently plead.

'C...can you... do it then... Please, Mrs Blackett.'

'I could but I am not going to. A pupil's first caning is always from Gillman. I find there is a little extra shock value in having a male servant do it. And Gillman is a very experienced man, aren't you, James?'

Gillman sounds as if it is all in the day's work. 'Yes, Madam, I have had some experience of young ladies by now.'

'Of course you have. Now will you get that skirt off, Annabel! Or shall we put two further demerits in your book for insubordination?'

There is clearly no getting out of it. Annabel is here for two whole months, unless when Roger comes to visit she can persuade him to cancel her stay. Trembling hands go to her waist. Annabel lowers her skirt and steps out of it. Mrs Blackett places it on a chair. An unhappy glance at the older woman, and Annabel raises her lace-edged white slip. She is wearing flesh-coloured nylons, their darker welts tautly fastened by straps of a white suspender belt. Annabel's thighs above the nylons are full and pale; she is not a sun worshiper and this at least will meet with Mrs Blackett's approval. A feminine lady's flesh should remain soft and pale, not coarsened and made dark by the sun's searing rays. But Annabel's knickers, white nylon, are tight and very brief and Mrs Blackett will not approve of this.

'Slip them down, to the tops of your stockings. And then bend over the chair.'


Mrs Blackett pushes Annabel's head firmly down in the pink brocaded seat, then slides up her slip, pushing it and the suit jacket up beyond the bending girl's waist. Twin full moons are thrust up and out over the chair's arm. Full sumptuous pale moons that have never known the kiss of cane or strap – as they have also never known the tight grip of a restraining garment. James Gillman's face is as impassive as ever but his eyes are devouring this marvellous sight.

Mrs Blackett's soft hands arrange Annabel, pushing her long legs further out and straightening her knees. She delivers a light slap to the soft bottom.

'Try and keep quite still, Annabel. Show some dignity; Gillman doesn't want to have to struggle with a bottom that's squirming about like an eel. He will give you three strokes. The third one is because I regard your knickers as quite unsuitable. Perhaps you didn't know but it will serve as a reminder in future. A young woman's knickers should properly cover her bottom, not leave half of it bare. And they should be loose-legged.'

She steps back and looks at Gillman. 'Right James. Three nice hard ones.'

The pain, when the cane makes its contact with her bare bottom, is something quite out of Annabel's previous experience. Squarely across the fullest curve of her ripe rump, it is like a hot iron searing her soft and most sensitive flesh. Annabel's breath bursts out in an instinctive and most unladylike howl while her whole body jerks in violent reaction. But there is no time to attempt to come to terms with the savage pain before the second stroke lashes down almost on top of the first.

Annabel lets out another gasping wail as a second narrow stripe rapidly reddens across her pale, quivering buttocks. The pain is still rising, intensifying, when the third and final stroke cracks down. Again it produces the desperate yelp, the frenzied flesh-wobbling writhing of ripe nates.

Gillman steps back. Mrs Blackett, bright-eyed, moves forward to pull the shaking young woman to her feet. Annabel's stricken bottom feels as if it is literally on fire.

'Not a very dignified performance, Annabel. We will certainly have to do better than that or we will be getting demerits for inability to take the cane properly. Now please take those knickers right off. If you've nothing more suitable with you you can go without until we can get some acceptable ones tomorrow.'

Still shaking with the pain and shock Annabel steps out of her knickers, then puts on her skirt. She glances at Gillman and quickly looks away. As well as suffering the intense pain she has never felt so humiliated in her life.

'Write your third demerit in your Record Book, Annabel. Put it down as unseemly attire. Gillman will now show you to your room. Your time is free until dinner which is at 7.30. I should have a rest and then Gillman or one of the maids will introduce you to my other young women. I have three more pupils in residence at present.'

Mrs Blackett smiles her charming smile. 'Oh, one thing, I do approve of your stockings. Tights are quite an abomination. All right, my dear?'

Annabel says numbly, 'Yes, Mrs Blackett.'

Another smile. 'Don't be distressed. The first caning is a shock and it is meant to be. It gets a girl nicely in the right frame of mind. Don't brood over it; just remember it is in a very good cause. Now here's something for you to read. It is not difficult and you will be questioned on it in due course.'

The book she has handed Annabel is bound in maroon grained leather like her Record Book. It is entitled 'The Submissive Woman'. With her bottom still searing, pulsating, Annabel goes out with Gillman. She ascends the stairs in front of him, all too conscious of that red-hot bottom; conscious also of the fact that she has no knickers on under her tight skirt and that Gillman, close behind her, is well aware of this.

Annabel's bedroom is cosy, feminine, looking out over the garden, and has its own en suite bathroom. Her cases have been brought up and her things put away. She looks around but her mind is still full of that horrendous happening not five minutes ago. Bending over the arm of that chair with her bottom bare. And this man, this servant, viciously caning her. Gillman, it seems, is also still thinking of it.

'I hope you won't regard it as personal, Madam – what I had to do. It's my duty, you understand, part of my job. I have to do it to all the ladies.'

Flushing, Annabel shakes her head.

In his obsequious manner Gillman asks if she will take a rest now. He will come back, in an hour, to take her out to meet the other ladies. They are probably in the garden, afternoons being generally set aside for relaxation.

Annabel says yes. She feels in urgent need of a period alone before meeting anyone anyway. Suddenly she recalls Mrs Blackett's remark about being under scrutiny. Annabel looks away, not wishing to meet Gillman's eyes.

'I... I suppose you have to make a note of everything I do and report it to Mrs Blackett. Tell me please... Gillman... am I doing anything that will get me demerits?'

Gillman shakes his head. 'I do have to report to Mrs Blackett, that's part of my job, Madam. But there's nothing at the moment, except that you're supposed to call me Mr Gillman. With the maids you can use their Christian names. I'll go then, Madam – unless you would like me to put some cold cream on your bottom. It does help with the sting.'

The thought of it is just too much. 'Am I allowed to refuse..? Or would that be another demerit?' she blurts angrily.

'Oh no, Madam. You can say yes or no, it's not a caning matter. If you make a sexual advance to me, though, I have to report that.'

The big green-brown eyes are suddenly bright with moisture. Annabel blinks rapidly to stop the tears. 'Well I'm not going to, Mr... Mr Gillman.'

Gillman's voice remains perfectly calm. 'That's all right, Madam; but some ladies do, at the beginning of their stay.' He exits, just as Annabel's tears well uncontrollably out. The trickle becomes a flood as she throws herself face-down on the bed. Annabel's body jerks and rolls, overwhelmed with wracking sobs.


The sobbing continues for some time, at last becoming less intense, more intermittent. Annabel turns over, onto her back, to gaze up with tear-reddened eyes at the ceiling. She lies immobile, perhaps dozing for a while, her body exhausted by emotion. Her eyes open, the tears start again; then stop, and then start once more.

At length she gets up off the bed and goes to the window. Outside, standing by a flower border she can see two young women. They wear long light summer dresses and flowery hats against the bright sun. Annabel bites her lip. They are presumably fellow pupils here and presumably, under those light dresses, if what Mrs Blackett has said is anything to go by, is some form of tight restraining foundation garment. And are there also fresh red stripes on their bottoms as there are on her own?

In the bathroom Annabel splashes cold water on her face which is red and blotchy from crying. It is almost time for Gillman to come for her. She puts on powder and some lipstick, but cannot completely disguise the signs of crying. She would like to put on knickers but has none that Mrs Blackett would approve of. And outrageous as it may seem, from what has happened so far there must be a chance of Mrs Blackett – or even Gillman – slipping a hand up her skirt to check. And that clearly would mean one or more strokes of that horrendous cane.

Gillman when he knocks has that same obsequious manner. Annabel again experiences a hot flush at the thought that this man has caned her bare bottom. He asks if she is rested and feeling better; then takes her outside.

In the garden the three other girls are found seated together in a leafy arbour. They are Rosalind and Susan, both blondes, and Felicity who has reddish-gold hair. They are all young and pretty women, each, like Annabel, wearing a wedding ring. All three are in those elegant dresses, 1930s-looking with low necks and calf-length skirts, and broad-brimmed hats that Annabel has seen from the window. Gillman, having made the introductions, goes off.

Rosalind and Felicity have been here for three weeks, Susan for two. These periods seem to have been long enough to quell any rebellious spirit for they are all most docile and seemingly accepting of their lot. Annabel is warned to follow instructions to the letter otherwise there will be many demerits; but if she does she will find life very pleasant at Balcombe Manor.

Susan, laughing, says, 'Like a holiday.'

That is really too much for Annabel. 'A holiday when you're getting caned?'

Susan has beautiful big blue eyes, clear and innocent. 'You mustn't be negative, Annabel. The cane is just a reminder to keep you up to the mark and to teach you to be submissive. You have to learn that submitting is the most wonderful thing. After all this Woman's Lib pollution submitting is a cleansing act. Mrs Blackett will teach you that.' She gives a blissful smile. 'All I want from life is to submit to my husband.'

Annabel frowns. 'Will your husband cane you then?'

Susan produces another sunny smile. 'Of course. And he caned me when he visited last week, because of a shortcoming that Mrs Blackett told him about. He caned me and then he made love to me. It was just the most marvellous and wonderful thing.'

Annabel cannot find a ready answer to this. She pictures herself submitting to a caning from Roger. The thought is scary but also distinctly erotic. Rosalind suggests a walk through the garden and they get up and go out, into the warm sunshine. Rosalind says that Annabel should have a hat on. A girl must keep her skin soft and lovely for her husband. There is something else that Annabel must ask about. Corseting. Do they really have to wear a foundation garment all the time?

'Of course,' Rosalind replies. 'Tight-lacing is the essence of femininity. It may feel strange at first but once you've been tight-laced for a few days it begins to feel really marvellous. A lovely sense of your body being controlled and disciplined. And it's super for your figure. My waist can he tight-laced down to 19 inches now.'

Annabel is not at all sure she wants to do that. There is of course the other question. What do they do here all day? Mrs Blackett didn't actually say.

'Oh all sorts of things,' Felicity says. 'All kinds of lectures and talks, by Mrs Blackett and various other people who come in. There's Music and Movement every day after breakfast, that's to improve your grace and poise; and of course there's your reading programme. You must really study at that and make notes because Mrs Blackett tests you. Most afternoons are free of organised activity but you are supposed to use the time constructively. Walking in the tranquility of the garden is highly beneficial if you concentrate on positive thinking. About being feminine and submissive, that is. In the evenings we often watch a video film. Yesterday there was a lovely film about country house life in Edwardian times.'

Annabel hesitates and then asks that paramount question. 'What about those demerits; the caning?'

Rosalind gives her a wide-eyed look. 'You have to think about that in a positive way too, Annabel,' she says softly in her calm, very feminine voice. 'It is intended to show you how you can improve. We each have to take our Record Books to Mrs Blackett before dinner every day. Each of us has an appointment time in the hour before dinner. Either Mrs Blackett will deal with the demerits or Mr Gillman will. But you mustn't think of it as a punishment.'

They stroll on, through splendidly kept flower borders and then across the immaculate lawn and into the rose garden. It is almost like being in a dream with the heady scent of the roses and a blackbird trilling, and Annabel's three beautiful companions in their elegant dresses reminiscent of a bygone age. Am I dreaming? Annabel wonders. But she knows she isn't. She knows that across her bottom, which is bare under her skirt, there are three very real red stripes. If she were to put her hand up – which of course she daren't – she would be able to feel their ridges clearly with her fingertips. But she doesn't need to touch them to feel them. What about the others? she asks. Are they still getting caned – after three weeks?

Rosalind smiles serenely. 'Oh yes. You are here to improve yourself and so the standard gets higher. Oh yes, we all still get the cane – or the strap.'

They continue to wander in the garden and Annabel has to admit it is highly satisfying and restful. They are allowed to walk freely except that they are not permitted to go near the front gate or the driveway. They return eventually to the arbour and it is here that Gillman later comes to tell them it is time to prepare for dinner. Annabel has already noticed that none of the others has a watch, and she has been told that they are not needed because their day is organised for them and there is always someone to tell them what to do. Annabel still has her watch.

They return to the house, each to take a relaxing pre-dinner bath. When Annabel emerges from her bathroom she finds the maid, Bridget, has brought a dress. In her slip Annabel sits at her dressing table while with long sensuous strokes Bridget brushes Annabel's thick chestnut hair, then coils it high on her head. The maid holds out the dress which is similar in style to the ones the others were wearing: pale green silk with a calf-length pleated skirt and long sleeves. Annabel puts it on and it is very lovely. The maid then leaves, taking with her the blue suit Annabel had arrived in and also Annabel's watch.

Henceforth Annabel will have no independent knowledge of the time while at Balcombe Manor. In the lovely green silk dress, again without knickers, and with her own suit and watch gone Annabel feels completely divorced from her own life. As she sits down again to put on her make-up she wonders what Roger is doing, and whether he is thinking of her at all.

Meanwhile, in their own rooms, the other girls are being tight-laced into their corsets: Rosalind by Gillman, Susan and Felicity by two maids. While Annabel sits dreamily in her room waiting for the call to dinner the other girls go down in turn to Mrs Blackett's office. Later when they meet, with Annabel, in the dining room Rosalind and Felicity each have two fresh cane stripes on their bottoms.

* * *

At 9.30 the next morning the shiny black limousine is again at the big iron gates, now going out. In the back seat Annabel is accompanied by Mrs Blackett and they are driving to town, to Sylvia Blackett's corsetiere. The chauffeur drives smoothly, expertly, while Mrs Blackett puts questions to Annabel on the book 'The Submissive Woman'. She is supposed to have started it last night while waiting for dinner and afterwards. But Annabel is unable to concentrate, her mind returning again and again to the events of the day and the things the other girls have told her. Her ignorance of the book is at once apparent. Mrs Blackett lightly pats her thigh.

'Write 5 demerits in your Record Book, Annabel. Put down: Private study quite inadequate.'

Annabel gives Mrs Blackett a stunned look. Five! Mrs Blackett tells her, 'You're properly on the course now, my dear, and you must take matters seriously; we can't have a girl not pulling her weight. But I think once we've got you tight-laced it will help. It does give a young woman that sense of purpose and discipline.'

It is a private house in Chelsea that they go to. A maid opens the door and takes their coats and hats; then conducts them into a sumptuously appointed sitting room where they are greeted by an elegantly dressed man of perhaps 60. Annabel had naturally assumed it would be a woman and this increases her feeling of embarrassment and apprehension. She is introduced to Mr Delvine whose keen eyes size her up. Annabel is wearing the green silk dress again, with her darker green high-heeled court shoes, and is looking very lovely in spite of her apprehension.

'A full-bodied young lady,' he observes. 'And definitely in need of a little restraining, I should say. Would you slip out of your things, my dear.'

Annabel's heartbeat quickens. She had definitely expected a lady. Is she to have to take everything off? Yes she is, apart from her stockings and shoes. The dress, her slip, her bra, the suspender belt, each in turn must be removed; there are no knickers, of course. Annabel eventually stands nude, trembling slightly and with difficulty controlling the urge to put her hands and arms across that thick red dish-brown bush, those full, pinkish-brown-nippled breasts. Across her ripe bottom the stripes left by Gillman's energetic caning can still be faintly seen.

Mr Delvine measures Annabel: hips, waist, bust; then goes out of the room, and returns. In his hands is a cream-coloured satin garment. It is a busk front-fastening Edwardian control corset with back lacing. The silk laces are loosened and the basque is slipped around Annabel's statuesque figure and fastened. She gasps slightly at the sensation of the cold satin on her bare flesh. And then gasps again, in earnest, as the lacing is tightened.

'Stand firm, and brace yourself,' Annabel is instructed. As Mrs Blackett, seated on a sofa, watches intently the basque is drawn drum-tight around Annabel's full figure, and then tighter yet. It pushes up her breasts, enclosing the lower halves but leaving her nipples free, while below it extends to contain the full upper curve of her hips. The tight-lacing continues, the laces are finally tied. Dangling free are four two-inch-wide silk suspender straps with metal fastenings. Mr Delvine bends to fasten these tautly to Annabel's stockings and then she is finished.

'How does that feel, my dear?' smiles Mrs Blackett.


The feeling is enough to literally take Annabel's breath away for she has the panicky thought that she won't be able to breathe and is going to suffocate. This does not prove to be the case, though, for she can breathe perfectly well but the sensation of being held in an iron grip remains. She weakly shakes her head. There is no real answer to Mrs Blackett's question. The feeling is indescribable.

Mrs Blackett smiles at Mr Delvine. 'It looks excellent. I'll take two others for her as well, one a long-line, I think. Perhaps one in black, and shall we have one in blue, Annabel? I have an awfully pretty blue dress for you. And of course we want some knickers for her, Mr Delvine.'

Mr Delvine produces a pale basque similar to the cream one plus a black long-line corset which will enclose the whole of Annabel's generous buttocks. There is also a selection of pretty silk French knickers in various shades. At last, at least, Annabel can put knickers on. With her head still spinning she slips on a pair of cream coloured lacy-edged ones. Then her own cream slip and finally the green dress. She is complete now. A properly attired pupil of Mrs Blackett.

Annabel and Mrs Blackett have lunch at an expensive restaurant but Annabel can only toy with her food. The constraining feel of the tight-lacing is eerie, giving her that continued sense that she can't breathe properly although at the same time she knows she can perfectly well. Annabel also can't help thinking of Roger. His office is in London and he could easily come into this restaurant. If he saw her and came over she would probably burst out crying. There is as well the thought of those five demerits in her Record Book. Before dinner tonight she is going to get five strokes of the cane across her bare bottom.

Mrs Blackett tells Annabel to eat up and stop dreaming. Time passes, as if she is in a dream. The perfectly normal environment of the restaurant has taken on a new meaning to her: all is changed by being under this training. The chauffeur meets them; they are in the back seat of the limousine again. At the gates of Balcombe Manor. The iron gates clanging to behind them...

In the garden Annabel is greeted by the other girls. It is another lovely sunny afternoon and they go to sit in the cool arbour. Rosalind and Felicity are wearing different dresses from yesterday but in that same elegant 1930s style. Annabel has on a wide-brimmed straw hat with a dark green ribbon matching her green dress. The others smilingly inquire about the tight-lacing. Doesn't it feel super, Felicity says. It doesn't feel super but Annabel is at least now getting more used to the constant tightness. Felicity wants to know Annabel's waist measurement. It is 24. She says that in two weeks Mr Gillman and the maids will have that down to 20.

There is a current of excitement because Rosalind is having a visit from her husband this afternoon. Some time later a maid comes for Rosalind and takes her back into the house. Susan and Felicity giggle like schoolgirls. The three of them decide to go for a walk, through the rose garden and out into the wooded area beyond.

Susan smilingly asks, 'Are you concentrating on good thoughts, Annabel? Are you concentrating on being submissive?'

Felicity giggles. 'I expect Rosalind is being submissive in her room right now. I hope she's concentrating. Lucky girl!'

Annabel wonders what it will be like to have a visit here from Roger. Very painful, she thinks, because at the end of it he will go off and she will be kept here. None of them are allowed to phone out or receive telephone calls at Balcombe Manor, and in addition the television only shows video films, not news or any other regular programme; so the visits from their husbands are their only contacts with the outside world. Felicity tells Annabel she will not get a visit for at least a week so that she can settle in.

The dreamy afternoon passes and eventually Gillman appears, to conduct them in for the pre-dinner rituals. He accompanies Annabel to her room. In his obsequious way he tells Annabel that he has to unlace her, for her bath.

Annabel can't see why she cannot unlace herself but Gillman tells her Mrs Blackett's rule is that it must be done for her. He also says that she must not take too long over her bath because she will be the first today to take her Record Book in to Mrs Blackett. That at least gives Annabel something else to think about. Shuddering, she removes her hat and then unfastens her dress and steps out of it. Her slip follows and, after a reproachful glace at Gillman, her knickers as well. He bends to unclip Annabel's suspender straps, his eyes hot on her thick-bushed mound, then turns her and unties her taut-lacing.

Inch by inch Annabel feels her body being released from its strait-jacket; finally, with all the lacing loosened, Gillman reaches round and unhooks the front fastening. Annabel can see red marks at her waist and on her hips where the foundation garment has hugged her in its vice-like grip. She slips quickly into her dressing gown, conscious of the way Gillman's sharp eyes are caressing her flesh, then takes off shoes and stockings.

Annabel has a quick warm bath and dries herself, then goes out again to the waiting Gillman. While Annabel could have taken the basque off herself, if she had been allowed to, the same would not be true for putting it back on again for proper tight-lacing does demand the services of a helper. Once again, as she was with Mr Delvine, Annabel is soon gasping as the reinforced satin is drawn tighter and tighter round her burgeoning body. Gillman takes a while, his hands seeming to need to touch a lot of Annabel in the process, but eventually he is finished. A quarter of an hour later he is knocking at Mrs Blackett's door and ushering Annabel in.

Mrs Blackett inspects the Record Book which is silently proffered. There are just those five demerits entered during the car journey.

'Good!' says Mrs Blackett, businesslike. 'Knickers down then if you please, Annabel; and get yourself over the chair. I think we'll have Gillman giving them again, shall we? Shall we, James?'

'As you wish, Madam.' With his unexcited, even tones Gillman sounds uninvolved, as if it is nothing more to him than opening the door to a visitor or making sure the cats are out at night. But his eyes tell a different story. As those eyes gaze on Annabel's bared ripe nates, now enticingly framed in basque, wide suspenders, the dark welts of her nylons, there is little doubt that James Gillman will enjoy what he is about to do.

Five strokes of the cane on the bare bottom forcefully delivered by a fit and enthusiastic adult male are not easy to take, especially for one not used to the cane. It is not simply two-and-a-half times as bad as two strokes because if the caner continues to hit with full force, as James Gillman does, the excruciating pain is multiplied rather than simply added to. Before her ordeal Annabel had some thought of taking it in silent dignity, of not letting Gillman, or for that matter Mrs Blackett, see her howling and writhing in agony. But that resolution very quickly goes out of the window once the caning begins. Indeed Annabel's reaction to the fifth, and fortunately final, stroke is such that she jerks right off the arm of Mrs Blackett's chair and finishes up on the carpet.


Mrs Blackett lets her stay there, shaking with tears, for some minutes, before telling Annabel to get to her feet.

'We really must learn to exercise more self-control, Annabel; must we not?'

After more of Mrs Blackett's lecturing Annabel is taken back to her room by Gillman. She scarcely knows where she is. The hot pain is still intense, pervading her whole body, but it is mixed with a feeling of strong arousal which being caned in the ultra-tight-laced basque has brought on. In the state Annabel is in the thought of dinner is quite impossible but one must always present oneself for dinner at Balcombe Manor, whether one is capable of eating anything or not.

Annabel washes her face and puts on fresh make-up. Dreadful Gillman is there, hovering, and he repeats his offer of applying cold cream to her bottom. Annabel shakes her head, fearful that she is going to burst into tears again. She has been here barely one full day. There are two full months to be endured.

----------------------

Story from Janus 45.

Behind High Walls. Part 2

R.T. Mason's account of the feminisation of
Annabel Filton, concluded from Janus 44.


DEEP in the leafy country-side, behind its high protective walls, Balcombe Manor basks in the languor of a drowsy English summer afternoon. The sun is shining out of a clear blue sky and it would be too hot if it weren't for the gentle breeze which is keeping the air pleasantly fresh. The four young women, Mrs Blackett's pupils, are in the garden for their Tranquillity Period, in the rose garden beneath a magnificent Albertine rose from which pink petals now and then fall gently down.

'You've some petals on your hat,' Felicity tells Annabel. 'But leave them; leave them for your husband. His rose adorned with rose petals; isn't that poetic.'

Annabel smiles. All four young women, as usual, are wearing wide-brimmed hats against the sun and are in calf-length dresses of an elegant bygone age – the middle 1930s perhaps. Under those dresses each girl's form is tightly held in that ultimate of feminine discipline, a tight-laced corset, a garment which is worn at all times at Balcombe Manor. Annabel's smile hides a certain nervousness. Today, this afternoon, her husband is visiting her for the first time.

Annabel is excited yet apprehensive. She has been here a week and a week can be a long time, especially a young woman's first week at Balcombe Manor. As is usually the case it has not been as easy adjustment. Modern girls are simply not taught to accept submission and discipline. In particular they have had no experience of being regularly caned on the bare bottom. So when a young woman in her early twenties is sent to Balcombe Manor there is an ingrained behavioural pattern to be broken.

It is always a shock for the new pupil but Mrs Blackett's methods are tried and tested and she is also a strong, dominant personality. Mrs Blackett and Balcombe Manor are invariably successful in remoulding a modern young wife into traditional feminine ways, but the remoulding, especially at first, is painful.

'Lucky you,' smiles Felicity. 'You are allowed a whole hour alone with him in your room, you know.' She giggles, as do the other two, Susan and Rosalind. Annabel flushes slightly.

It will be marvellous to see Roger again, to be with him, but at the same time... Annabel wonders if she dare ask him to take her away – as she has told herself all the past week she will. She suspects that even if she dares it will be quite useless – and could even make matters worse. Mrs Blackett could very well ask Roger if Annabel had made such a plea, and it would be very difficult to lie to Mrs Blackett. And then... it would simply be more of that cane, from Mrs Blackett herself or from Gillman, the head servant.

That dreadful cane. Annabel has had it every day, scything mercilessly into her tender bare nates. Yesterday an eight-stroke session and a six-stroke one. She has tried what the other girls tell her – and indeed what Mrs Blackett tells them – to look at it in a positive way. Every stroke of the cane will make her a better young wife for Roger, so she should welcome each caning. Somehow that doesn't seem to make it any easier.

The sun continues to shine benignly and the pink rose petals now and then drift silently down. Annabel wonders where Roger is. Is he on the road now, nearing the Manor, or has he perhaps already arrived? There are no clocks or watches for the young women at Balcombe Manor so there is no way of knowing the time. When it is time for Annabel's visit she will be told; Mr Gillman or one of the maids will come out.

Rosalind takes Annabel's arm, squeezing gently. 'I expect you'll be taken in for a caning by Gillman just before your husband's visit, Annabel. That is what usually happens on the first visit. It is very good for your discipline to have it right before meeting your husband.'

Annabel looks at Rosalind with alarmed eyes. No one has mentioned this before.

Felicity says, 'Yes, it's what happened to me.'

* * *

'SHE is coming on quite nicely. A little reluctance but that is normal.' Sylvia Blacken smiles at her guest. 'Would you like to see her caned?'

Roger Filton, seated with Mrs Blackett in her elegant reception room, feels a rush of blood to his face. Sylvia Blackett's words are, to say the least, a shock although he has known that his wife would be getting the cane here at Balcombe Manor. He coughs, to cover his disturbance.

'It is something I recommend. It is very good for a husband to see his wife caned early on in her stay. On a later visit of course he is allowed to cane her himself but on this first occasion that is not a good idea. But I do like him to see her take it from my man Gillman, who is her regular caner.'

Mrs Blackett's words cause a further increase in Roger Filton's pulse rate. While he has known in general terms about the caning at this rather confidential but highly recommended country retreat he hasn't really thought about the details. To learn that Annabel has been receiving the cane from another male is a real shock – but as the thought sinks in he realises it is also exciting. Arousing. His own young Annabel being made to submit to another man in that archetypal manner.

'Gillman is a very experienced, mature man. He knows how to take her to the very brink of what she can accept, while not going beyond that point.'

Roger Filton takes a sip of the excellent white wine which Sylvia Blackett has poured. It is fortunate they are seated because that feeling of arousal has translated itself into a distinct tightness at the front of his well-cut trousers.

'Annabel will naturally be unaware that you are watching, my dear Mr Filton.' Mrs Blackett smiles her charming smile. 'The wonders of two-way mirrors! It is really only fair to the pupil – if she knows her husband is observing her she might well become embarrassed or upset and find it difficult to submit in the way she has been taught. You do understand.'

Yes, he can understand that all right.

'After the caning you will be free to visit her privately; just the two of you. An hour is permitted. I must warn you, though, that sometimes at this stage a pupil can get upset. She may plead that she is desperately unhappy and beg to be taken away. That is not uncommon, especially on her first visit, and we simply have to ignore it.'

'Yes.' Roger Filton tries to picture the meeting. 'Yes, of course.'

Sylvia Blackett smooths her hands over her elegant dark green dress. 'One more thing. Like all my pupils Annabel is tight-laced and is required to remain tight-laced at all times. It is a marvellous disciplinary training for a young woman – equalling the cane in that respect.' Mrs Blackett coughs delicately. 'So if you want to undress her I would ask that her basque and stockings be not removed.'

Sylvia Blackett gets to her feet. Roger Filton, red in the face, has to follow suit though in the state he is now in he is not too happy about this. Fortunately his hostess has turned, to take the glasses to a sideboard. Urgently Roger Filton wills his aroused member to subside.

Almost immediately a maid appears, in response to Mrs Blackett's summons on a bell. The girl is told to tell Gillman that they are ready and to take Mrs Filton into the Blue Room. The maid exits with a curtsey. Mrs Blackett turns, smiling, to Roger Filton who now is breathing a little more easily. They go out, across the hallway and along a corridor. Into a small room which has no furniture apart from a row of four chairs facing a blank wall.

'Please sit,' Sylvia Blackett tells her guest. 'Then I will turn off the light. It makes viewing so much better.'

With the light off Roger can see that the blank wall is in fact transparent and affords a clear view of the adjoining room. It is not a large room; it has pale blue furniture and in the centre is what looks like a vaulting horse. Suddenly the Blue Room is brightly lit as its lights are turned on. The door has opened – and there is Annabel... with a man.

She is looking very lovely in a light green calf-length dress and a matching wide-brimmed hat. The man with Annabel in contrast is in a plain black suit. He is older, in his fifties, with the sober appearance of an English manservant. He speaks to Annabel but his words cannot be heard by the watchers. Annabel turns her big brown eyes on the man – an unhappy apprehensive look.

Pursing her lips she raises her hands to her head, removing her hat and revealing the full glory of her thick and lustrous chestnut hair. The hat is placed on a chair. And then Annabel's hands, trembling a little it seems, go to the small buttons of her dress. The buttons are unfastened one by one, down to the last which is several inches below Annabel's waist. The opened pale green dress reveals a contrasting dark blue undergarment. As Annabel slips the dress off her shoulders and then down the blue is seen to be a satin basque, tight-laced at the back. She steps out of the dress. There are French knickers of a slightly lighter blue than the basque, and below the knickers wide dark blue suspender straps fastening flesh-coloured stockings.

Roger Filton's hands grip the arms of his seat. Annabel has placed her dress on the chair with her hat, and is now slipping down the French knickers. She steps out of them. The basque contains the lower halves of Annabel's full breasts but not her nipples which protrude pinkly above the dark blue satin. Below, it reaches as far as the upper slopes of her hips, so that the ripe flanks are quite bare. Annabel's thick russet bush is quite bare too and she makes no attempt to hide it from the servant, standing submissively before him with her hands at her sides.

Roger can hear a pounding in his ears. At a word from the servant Annabel turns to face away from the unseen watchers. They now can see the herring-boned criss-crossed silk lacing extending down Annabel's back, holding the satin basque in a grip of iron about her. In addition Roger can now also clearly see, for the first time, his wife's swelling bared buttocks. Those full, pale globes are likewise criss-crossed – with fading dark red stripes, of a cane.


As Roger Filton looks, experiencing an almost overwhelming mixture of shock and desire, the servant moves close and speaks some evidently soft words of reassurance – while his hand reaches out and gently, sensuously, strokes Annabel's silky soft nates.

This now is almost too much and Sylvia Blackett, sensing that, places a soothing hand on her guest's arm. 'He is merely settling her down,' she tells him quietly. 'Getting her ready to take the cane.'

And very shortly Annabel has indeed been moved gently forward by that still caressing hand, to the waiting caning horse. To obediently stretch herself over its leather top. Without argument, for after a week Annabel is now well used to the caning horse in the Blue Room, her hands reach down to clasp the rung near the carpet.

Without needing to be told, her long legs in the nylon stockings spread wide, one high-heeled light green court shoe at either leg of the horse. Annabel's head is hidden in a mass of dependant chestnut locks while her pale buttocks are on high, thrust out, a ripely feminine focal point. The wide-spread stance is also a frankly revealing one but there is no time to dwell on that for the cane is now in Gillman's hand. Upraised, then, to the watchers, silently speeding down.

Annabel gasps as the cane bites in. The gasp is not heard in the next room but it can be imagined as her buttocks vigorously jerk and clench. And as the cane comes back there is now a bright fresh stripe on top of all the faded ones.

The slim bamboo rises and thwacks down a second time, juddering again into the springy flesh of Annabel's bottom. A third and a fourth follow. Roger watches with heart-thudding fascination. It is shocking but he is also turned-on to a truly incomparable extent. The fifth cut is enough to jerk Annabel from her wide-spread stance, her feet kicking up and her thighs coming back together as she struggles with the pain. But the discipline she has learnt in her first week is already sufficient to guarantee that almost immediately she has her feet wide apart again.


Gillman's cane continues to rise and fall. Ten strokes in all. Each one in fact is harder than any Annabel has yet experienced because Gillman is aware that the young woman's husband is watching and wishes to make her suffer that little bit more – and to make the husband suffer too. For Gillman is aware of what will inevitably shortly take place in Annabel's room and he hates the thought of it. He has a powerful desire for this young woman's lusciously perfect body himself and to imagine Annabel and her husband on her bed in the act of love is a bitter pill. Tears are coursing down Annabel's cheeks by the time Gillman has finished.

In Annabel's room ten minutes later the couple stand in tongue-tied embarrassment. Annabel does not know Roger has watched her but for the moment it is still difficult to think of anything except her madly throbbing bottom. Roger for his part has had that overwhelming experience – of watching the caning and also when it was over, of seeing the servant run his hands over Annabel's nude and glowing bottom in a most intimate manner. And after that drawing on her French knickers and helping her on with her dress. The servant, it seems, is very intimate with Annabel.

They look at each other for some long seconds, neither knowing what to say. And then Annabel abruptly rushes forward – to burst into tears in her husband's arms. Through a secret peephole in the wall Sylvia Blackett watches. Observing a pupil with her husband is of course an extremely valuable guide to the girl's progress. Sylvia Blackett is very experienced with young women and will know pretty well how Annabel is coming on, but even so a girl can sometimes keep part of herself hidden. She is not likely to keep it hidden with her husband in the privacy of her own room.

There is also the other matter. Sylvia Blackett is not prurient, she does not wish to watch Annabel and her husband in the act of love for her own pleasure, but it is important to know that Annabel performs willingly and without undue restraint. If there are problems – any mental hang-ups – then Mrs Blackett will have to explore them with Annabel, and also bring her medical adviser in.

But no, as Sylvia Blackett watches it is clear there are no problems on that score. Annabel performs her wifely function with freedom, indeed with that somewhat desperate abandon which is frequently seen in a young woman who has been deprived of her husband for this first, whole week while at the same time being subject to the constant attention of Gillman's cane. Approvingly the older woman notes that, as instructed, there is no attempt to remove Annabel's basque or her stockings.

An hour later in Mrs Blackett's reception room a glass of excellent white wine is again being poured for Roger Filton. He is perhaps slightly-pink in the face; certainly his eyes have a healthy glow to them. Sylvia Blackett tells him she would like him to visit again in a week's time.

'A second visit sooner than that would cause Annabel too much excitement, and we don't want to spoil things when she is doing so nicely.' Sylvia Blackett smiles. 'At the next visit I shall probably ask you to cane her yourself.'

Those images of Annabel in the Blue Room have been replaced in Roger Filton's mind by the more recent heady events of Annabel's own room. His feverish hand removing her dress and knickers, and then on her bed Annabel's opulent body in that tight-laced blue basque. His fingers tracing the taut silk lacing... and then tracing the hot, so-sensitive weals on her burgeoning buttocks. Annabel sobbing – with pent-up emotion, with relief, with pleasure – as he makes love to her.

Afterwards, still lying on the bed, Annabel did plead to be taken away from Balcombe Manor. Kissing her gently, Roger told her it wasn't possible. It was part of Mrs Blackett's conditions that a young woman must stay the full two months. And besides, Roger thought he could already detect a change in Annabel. She was more subdued and docile. It was evident that after seven more weeks she would be an extremely submissive female. And when you are 45 and your wife is 22 it is highly desirable that she be properly trained, otherwise – well, who knew what she could get up to.

Now, sipping his wine, Roger Filton feels a further surge of excitement at Mrs Blackett's words. At the thought that he himself will cane his beautiful Annabel.

'She is showing some improvement already, don't you think?'

Doing his best to keep calm Roger nods assent.

'But I really must know, did she ask to be taken away? I'm afraid they quite often do at this early stage.'

Roger could deny it but he doesn't. It is probably best for Annabel that Mrs Blackett knows the truth.

The handsome owner of Balcombe Manor smiles, her eyes deep dark pools. 'That was naughty of her, wasn't it? I think she'll need an extra session with Gillman for that.'

Roger Filton bites his lip as he pictures again the Blue Room. And Annabel spread over that vaulting horse, her legs wide-splayed for the black-suited, cane-wielding servant.

* * *

IT is not the Blue Room though.

Gillman is called in to Mrs Blackett as soon as Roger Filton leaves.

'Annabel requires another session, I'm afraid, Gillman. Silly pleading with her husband to be taken home.'

James Gillman's eyes light up. 'Yes madam. How many strokes?'

'You can use your own discretion. Whatever you think fit. And you can take her to your own room.'

As she says this Sylvia Blackett's skin is tingling. There is no peephole into Gillman's room. So when he has Annabel in there with the door locked he can do virtually as he wants with her. This thought sends a dizzy thrill through Mrs Blackett.

Her words send a thrill through Gillman too. Having a pupil in his own room for correction is a rare and heady pleasure. He licks his lips. 'Yes madam. Thank you very much, madam.'

Sylvia Blackett moves close to her servant and squeezes his arm. 'A special treat, eh James? I know how you enjoy having a little freedom with a pretty pupil. She's fresh from being with her husband so she'll be extra sensitive. Just have her back and properly dressed in the dining room for dinner.'

When Gillman opens Annabel's door she is dressed again and sitting moodily at her dressing table, thinking of Roger speeding away from Balcombe Manor in fine fettle. She looks up, assuming Gillman has come to take her to the garden. But that is not what he tells her. Annabel's eyes open wide; she has never been to Gillman's room before. They walk along the corridor and up the stairs. It is a normal enough little room. Gillman locks the door – and tells Annabel to undress again. Heart fluttering, she removes her dress, and then the French knickers.

'An extra session,' Gillman says primly. 'A special session because of complaints. Mrs Blackett is not at all happy with that.'

And because it is a special session in his own room James Gillman is free to go beyond the normal rules. He unfastens the basque's laces and loosens them. The wide suspenders are unclipped from Annabel's stockings, and the blue satin garment is removed. Annabel in just her stockings and shoes. Her ripe, unhindered breasts jut firmly out; her waist and sides, after a week of tight-lacing, bear the basque's red marks – marks which are echoed in the red stripes across the splendid buttocks. Annabel stands straight but trembling, wondering what is to come.

There is the cane, naturally. James Gillman loves the cane. But there are also exercises to be performed. Whole series of exercises – running on the spot, deep bending, high kicking, upside-down cycling – each set repeated until Annabel is gasping for breath. The caning comes between the sets of exercises. And the cane also slices out, onto buttocks or thighs or calves, while the exercises are being performed, to ensure there is no slacking. Annabel has so much to endure, as her obedience is tested to the brink.

This continues until shortly before dinner, when Gillman takes Annabel back to her room – for her bath and the tight-laced basque again. And knickers and another pretty dress, and make-up.

'Did you have a lovely visit?' the others ask when she goes down to dinner.

Annabel's body is aching all over and smarting in many places from her session in Gillman's room; and there was also that fearfully hard caning which immediately preceded Roger's visit. She forces a smile, aware that Mrs Blackett's eyes are on her.

'Yes,' she manages. 'It was lovely to see Roger. And he said... I was doing very well.'

Across the table, with its glittering silver, the dazzling white napery, Sylvia Blackett smiles. Her pupil is progressing.

* * *

THE days at Balcombe Manor roll on in their timeless, almost hypnotic way. The outside world might as well not exist for Mrs Blackett's pupils in their little world within the high enclosing walls. The gardens and those same rooms of the house which they visit every day: their own rooms, the Blue Room with its caning horse; the dining room; the morning room where each day after breakfast they dance, in pairs or in individual free movement. The music is quietly rhythmic, nothing at all rowdy, to improve a girl's grace; when they dance together it is something from the past, a waltz, a sedate foxtrot.

There is a tidal rhythm in these timeless days, for the calm and tranquillity of those morning periods of dancing, the afternoons in the garden, the reading sessions in their rooms, are all set in sharp contrast to the sessions – in a pupil's own room, in the Blue Room, also now and then in Gillman's room. The mannered charm of an old waltz or the beauty of the roses in the garden – and the cane, in the hand of Mrs Blackett or Gillman, searing breathtakingly into obediently proffered bared buttocks.

And as they are part of the pattern of life those canings come to be expected. They are for the present more real than a girl's home or husband, the sensations more impressive than any other experience could be, and almost without realising it Annabel finds her mind is beginning to accept it all. The cane has become a major part of her life. A day without the cane would now be almost unthinkable; and in a way it would be incomplete...

Not that there are any days without the cane at Balcombe Manor. A pupil's caning programme in fact increases as her training progresses. In those first few days it was just the one daily period before dinner when she presented her Record Book to Mrs Blackett; but halfway through that first week Annabel was given a caning before lunch as well. It was repeated on subsequent days and has continued, so that there are now always at least two sessions each day. Sometimes there is a third in the evening.

So that is the daily ritual. The morning dancing and movement period followed perhaps by a lecture, and then the cane; the afternoon in the garden, the Tranquillity Period, followed by her bath and then the cane again. This pattern may be repeated in the evening. That is life at Balcombe Manor and a girl's mind, and her body, come to accept it.

'I think you're settling in now,' Felicity says to Annabel.


They are in the summer house and it is early afternoon. The days, without the benefit of clocks, have succeeded each other in a sort of mindless way. Annabel has now been here at Balcombe Manor for a little more than two weeks. She has had her second visit from Roger, two days ago, a visit in which Roger caned her in her room. It was really strange having the cane from Roger. Strange and not all that painful because Roger didn't cane half as hard as Gillman, he wasn't used to caning anyone, of course. But he clearly was very excited to be doing it.

Outside the summer house it is one of the rare rainy days but it is warm and not unpleasant, the rain softly dripping off the trees. It's true, Annabel thinks, she has settled down. She has tried ever since the beginning to do what they said and have a positive attitude to the caning, but for some time it was simply impossible. Gradually, though, as the cane has become so much a part of her life, she has found that she can; like the other girls have said they do. Rather than mentally fighting it you have to welcome it.

It still hurts, Gillman and Mrs Blackett make sure of that, but now when she bends over, bottom bared, Annabel grits her teeth and tells herself: I welcome it. And in a way she does now welcome it And when the caning session is over she manages to produce a smile, that submissive smile which says: I accept it. The pain in her bottom may be excruciating but it is a pain that tells you you are becoming a disciplined young woman, not one of these slobby modern girls with their half-baked ideas about liberated women.

Yes, Annabel is now settling in. She is now accepting the cane and she is beginning to welcome it. That is the key, as Mrs Blackett tells them. It must be welcomed. This is something which at the start of her stay Annabel would have thought utterly impossible.

As they sit there in the summer house watching the softly falling rain one of the maids, Bridget, suddenly appears carrying a large white umbrella. She smiles at Susan. 'Your visit, Mrs Mitford.'

Susan casts a slightly nervous glance at the other three and then with Bridget holding the umbrella over her goes out across the wet lawn. Annabel realises she is holding her breath, and releases it. The reason is Susan's visit, her visitor. Annabel knows it is not Susan's husband, but another gentleman.

It is the next stage of training, a further test. It is a test Annabel has not yet had but she is now due for it, having been at Balcombe Manor for over two weeks. The thought is frightening, like many things new and not yet experienced. Submitting to another man, a stranger; that will be very different to having it from Gillman or Mrs Blackett.

The other girls have told Annabel about these extra visitors. They are friends of Mrs Blackett and there seems to be a number of them. They are all proper gentlemen but nonetheless... the pupil takes tea with the visitor and chats in the normal way. But the main point of the visit is that she is required to submit to the guest. He will cane her, just like Gillman or Mrs Blackett.

'It is only an extra stage of the training,' Felicity has told Annabel when the subject was first raised.

Naturally when a young wife goes back to her normal life with her husband she will not be submitting to other men, or at least not unless her husband wishes it, because she is her husband's possession, perhaps indeed his most prized possession. But during her training, that is another matter. Submitting to another man, a stranger, baring your bottom for him to cane, that is clearly a stern test of discipline. Not surprisingly Mrs Blackett has quite a few male acquaintances who are only too pleased to be of assistance and administer such a test.

'Do your husbands know?' Annabel asked. The others didn't seem too sure of that.

Annabel shivers slightly as Susan walks out of the summer house under Bridget's umbrella. It could be her, Annabel. She will simply be told at breakfast, as Susan was told this morning. That is the only warning. Rosalind puts her arm round Annabel's waist and giggles.

'One or two of them cane really hard. I wonder if Susan will get a hard caner?'

Annabel pictures Mrs Blackett's reception room. These visits are always the same, it seems; just the pupil and her visitor. Hesitantly she asks how many Rosalind has had.

The arm around Annabel's waist squeezes. 'Four. Two were hard caners. But then one should wish for a hard caner, shouldn't one? It is a better test of one's discipline. Are you wishing for a hard caner for your first, Annabel?'

Felicity says, 'Mr Boulton was the worst I've had – or I suppose I should say the best. The hardest caner anyway. He was very nice and pleasant but he really caned my bottom. Harder than Gillman does.'

Rosalind says she hasn't had Mr Boulton. Annabel nervously bites her lip.

Annabel's first experience of this further training comes just two days later. She is told by Mrs Blacken at breakfast, as is usual, which means that there is all the day until tea time to think about it.

It is not Mr Boulton, his name is Craske, Mr Edward Craske. Annabel is conducted to Mrs Blackett's room and there he is. He takes her hand in greeting and she performs a little curtsey, as she has been instructed. Mrs Blackett smiles and says she will leave them together, tea will be brought in shortly. Annabel is trembling, knowing what is to come. The cane, from this previously unseen man.

He is perhaps 60, tall with silver hair, in country tweeds. He leads her over to the window. His voice is smoothly upper class as he makes small talk, asking Annabel about herself. His hand is at her waist... and then it slides down her rose-coloured silk dress onto the richness of Annabel's buttocks. Annabel stands still but her body is shaking. She looks out at the garden as the hand explores the ripe curves of her rear. It is pan of the test of course; discipline. She must docilely submit to this man's hand.

Annabel remains motionless as the hand goes down and then comes up again, this time up the backs of her thighs under the pink dress. Up the silkiness of her nylons and onto the satin-smooth bare flesh beyond.

'You're used to the cane now, my dear?' he murmurs.

Annabel hears herself say Yes. He asks, 'What about spanking? Have you ever been spanked, Annabel?'

Annabel shakes her head. The hand which has slid right up inside the wide leg of her French knickers is withdrawn. She finds herself being led over to the sofa. Mr Craske sits down... and pulls Annabel over his lap. As she goes down there is his voice, jocular:

'A properly submissive young woman should take a spanking as well as the cane, don't you think, my dear?'

Annabel feels her full skirt being pulled up, to fall down about her face; and then her pink knickers are being drawn down, to her knees. Annabel's ripe buttocks are bare, framed by the stocking tops and the wide suspender straps and her cream-coloured basque above. Mr Craske's hand roams freely over the opulent flesh. And then starts crisply spanking.

In a way it is worse than a caning. Not as painful but a more gross invasion of her person; this man's hand sharply smacking into Annabel's intimate flesh. That is the test presumably – to accept this invasion. Fiercely Annabel tells herself: I accept it; it is good for me. She tells herself this but her mind is unwilling to accept it.


The spanking continues. It is still going on when Annabel hears the door open. It is a maid with the tea. Mr Craske stops spanking but he does not cover Annabel's bared haunches or let her up. She can only bite her lip and lie there humiliatingly exposed as the maid arranges the tea things on the coffee table. At last she exits... and the spanking resumes.

A short while later Annabel, red-faced and with shaking hand, is having to act her hostess role and pour the tea. The skirt of her pretty pink dress is back in place but Annabel's knickers are off, a crumpled handful of pink silk on the sofa at her side. They are off so that when they have had tea Annabel can be caned.

He makes her kneel on the carpet in front of the sofa, her head and arms on its seat, and then Annabel's skirt is once more raised, turned back over her shoulders. I accept it, Annabel once more desperately tells herself as the cane zips into her spank-reddened rump. She gasps into the softness of the sofa. The stroke, and the ones that succeed it, are mind-blitzingly painful. Harder even than Gillman at his most intense.

Afterwards, when Mr Craske has left, Mrs Blackett, eyes searching Annabel's face, asks, 'Were you a good girl, then? Did you submit willingly; welcoming it?'

Annabel shakes her head, not in a negative but trying to collect her thoughts. Her head is still going round and round but she forces herself to concentrate. She must think positive thoughts.

'Yes,' she manages, her eyes bright with threatening tears. 'I accept it. I... I wanted it.'

Sylvia Blackett strokes her arm, smiling. Annabel is going to be another success. She is well on the way to becoming one of those nice traditional submissive females; and she still has more than five weeks of her training left. Five more weeks in which these ideas and attitudes can be firmly rooted in her mind and her body.

Smiling still, Mrs Blackett asks softly, 'Would you welcome another caning from me now, Annabel?'

Annabel blinks her eyes to stop the tears which are still threatening. 'Y... yes, Mrs Blackett,' she mutters. 'I... I know it would be good for me.'

Sylvia Blackett's dark eyes glitter. 'Excellent, Annabel. You are doing very well. Would you please slip your dress off, then.'