BEXHILL SCHOOL FOR GIRLS, Assembly (5 page)

The wretched
figure of the Fourth Former, awaiting her first taste of Stinger.
At least she’d be allowed to keep her knickers on. Miss Holloway
imagined her struggling to stay still as the heavy hairbrush
smacked against the thin, tightly-stretched cotton. How would
‘Three Taps’ position her? Holding her ankles, perhaps. But now the
girl was moving so restlessly on her chair that one of her white
socks had slipped halfway down her leg. The headmaster hated
slovenliness: she would have to tell her to pull it up before she
went in.

The Fifth
Former, on report for disrupting her class, her bare bottom
certainly facing the whack of the tawse, if not a cane. She was
trying to look cool and calm, but her nervous blinking gave her
away. The secretary had heard the older girls were usually told to
bend over something - a chair, the desk, the conference table,
perhaps even a sofa. They were beaten harder than the juniors and
the furniture helped to support them and prevent them from
moving.

The elegant
Sixth Former, almost a woman, folding and unfolding her long legs,
embarrassed that the more junior girls knew that she was about to
be thrashed. Sixth Formers almost always got the cane and a Senior
at that: heavy, whippy rattan, it would leave dark stripes on that
shapely bottom for a week or more.

All these and
many more like them fed Miss Holloway’s fantasies and caused her to
wrestle futilely with the ‘dirty thoughts’ they engendered.

Then, one
Wednesday afternoon, sports afternoon, the intercom from the
headmaster’s office buzzed.

“Miss Holloway,
would you mind stepping in here for a minute?”

“Of course,
sir, coming straight away.”

She was
surprised by the request. Some minutes earlier ‘Faster’ Fraser, the
games mistress, had ushered three unhappy-looking girls into Mr
Masterson’s study. When she emerged alone a little later, she stuck
her head around the secretary’s door.

“Caught them
red-handed smoking behind the pavilion. They’ll be for it now.”

“Poor things -
it usually means twelve with the heavy cane.”

“Well, serves
them right. They shouldn’t be smoking at their age. Or indeed at
any age,” she added.

Miss Holloway
had felt the familiar tingle in her stomach as she listened for the
punishment to begin. Sure enough, after a couple more minutes, she
heard the crack of a cane and the cries of one of the girls. If she
listened hard enough, she imagined she could almost hear the swish
of the descending rattan. She counted twelve strokes, and then
there was a pause. Presumably the next bottom was being lined up.
Miss Holloway reached down and pressed her hand against her
lap.

The first whack
of the next series was followed by a loud yell and then the raised
voice of the headmaster. There was a long pause, followed by
another whack and even louder cry. She could hear Mr Masterson
remonstrating with a girl. After another pause there was a crack as
the cane landed for the third time. This was followed by a loud
shriek and Mr Masterson’s harsh voice. Shortly after that, the
intercom buzzed. Miss Holloway hadn’t heard the girls leaving. Were
they still in the study, and if so, what could the headmaster want?
She wondered whether he’d broken the cane and needed a new one from
the stock in her office. Occasionally ordering replacements for
broken canes was one of the duties Miss Holloway secretly rather
enjoyed. When they arrived, carefully packaged in corrugated
cardboard, she couldn’t resist the odd, discrete swish with the
whippy, bendy rattan before she placed it on the rail with its
siblings.

She went into
the headmaster’s study with just a cursory knock on the door. The
sight that met her stopped her in her tracks. In the middle of the
room three chairs from the conference table had been placed in a
row, about a yard apart, with their backs to the fireplace. Two
girls were bending over, grasping the padded seats. The girl on the
left was obviously the one Miss Holloway had heard receiving twelve
strokes: her bare bottom was a grid of purple stripes from the join
with her thigh to the top of both cheeks. Her shoulders shook with
gentle sobs. The girl on the right looked round as the secretary
came in. Miss Holloway recognised her immediately as
Mrs Winchester’s daughter, Margaret. She was bending down,
clinging on to the chair seat, but her behind was still white and
unmarked. The girl who was, presumably, meant to be positioned over
the middle chair was standing up, hopping from foot to foot,
wailing and massaging three red lines which were etched across her
backside.

“Ah, Miss
Holloway. Sorry to bother you. These wretched girls have been
caught smoking. As I expect you know, the penalty is a dozen
strokes. Jane took her punishment well, but Alice here keeps
jumping up and won’t stay still. I’m afraid I’ll have to ask you to
restrain her.”

Miss Holloway
could hardly believe her ears. She was about witness first hand
everything she had fantasised about for so long. She didn’t trust
her voice, so she just nodded to the headmaster.

“Now, I think
if you go round in front of that chair and we try to get Alice to
bend over again, perhaps you could hold her down by putting your
hands on her shoulders.”

Miss Holloway
moved into place, but Alice was still showing no signs of
cooperating. She was jumping from one leg to the other, rubbing her
bottom, and blubbering pathetically.

“Alice, get
back into position
at once
. You’re only making things worse
for yourself.”

Slowly and
reluctantly, Alice bent over the chair, her tears wetting the seat
cushion. Miss Holloway placed her hands on the white Aertex
sports shirt, just below the girl’s shoulders. She wasn’t wearing a
bra; she could feel her body shaking with each sob. ‘Three Taps’
walked over to his desk, dropped the cane on to it with a clatter
and opened one of the drawers. He drew out Stinger, feeling its
weight. He smacked the back of the brush against his left hand.

“Right, Alice,
the penalty for all this fuss is extra strokes, two for each time
you interrupted. I strongly advise you not to move again until I
tell you to get up.”

He patted her
right cheek the regulation three times and then lifted the heavy
brush and brought it down hard. It landed with a sibilant smack,
Alice’s bottom bounced. She squealed but managed to stay in place.
He repeated the stroke on her left cheek, with much the same
result. Four more times, Stinger smacked against Alice’s rapidly
reddening backside, producing yells of anguish but only minimal
movement which Miss Holloway managed to constrain.

‘Three Taps’
walked back to his desk, put Stinger down and took up the cane. As
he returned towards the three upthrust bottoms, he swished it
twice, menacingly, registering its balance.

“All right,
Alice. You took that spanking quite well. Now, we’ll start again
with the cane. Twelve strokes and I want you stay in place this
time. Miss Holloway, have you got a good grip on her?”

Miss Holloway
managed a horse “Yes, sir.” She was feeling almost dizzy with
exhilaration.

For a few
seconds, the headmaster held the long, thick cane against Alice’s
burning bottom. Then he raised it high above his shoulder, paused
for a moment, and brought it arcing down. Alice’s cheeks quivered,
she bounced up and down, and howled “Ooooww!” at the top of her
lungs. Miss Holloway held on tight and stopped the girl from
getting up. From where she stood, in front of Alice, she couldn’t
actually see the effect of the stroke on the girl’s
derrière
, but it required little imagination to guess at the
vivid tramlines it had produced, to add to the three already there
and the red glow produced by Stinger.

‘Three Taps’
was in no hurry. He timed each stroke to arrive as the effect of
its predecessor rose to a crescendo. Alice wriggled and squealed,
hopping from foot to foot and flexing her knees in a futile attempt
to dissipate the pain. Through her own efforts, clinging on to the
chair seat as hard as she could, combined with the firm grip of
Miss Holloway, she somehow managed to get through the dozen
strokes. At last the headmaster stood back and surveyed his
handiwork. He was an accurate caner and the fifteen stripes across
Alice’s bottom ran in neat, parallel lines, with only one or two
dark, purple overlaps. Alice sobbed and squirmed, her tears
splashing on to the cushion beneath her.

“Right, Alice,
I hope that has taught you several lessons. The most important one,
of course, is not to smoke. But I hope that you’ve also learned the
consequences of failing to take a punishment properly.”

There was no
response from the weeping girl.

“Are you
listening?” The headmaster tapped her bottom with the cane. Alice
flinched, perhaps fearing another stroke.

“Yes sir, I’ll
never smoke again. I promise.”

“And if you
need to be punished again, you’ll behave with more dignity?”

“Yes sir, I’ll
try.”

“You’d better
continue to hold her down, Miss Holloway, while I deal with
Margaret.”

At the sound of
her name, Margaret Winchester winced and shifted her feet from side
to side. Mr Masterson took two steps to his right and tapped the
long cane against Margaret’s bottom. Margaret clenched her teeth,
determined to get through the ordeal without making a fool of
herself as Alice had. She glanced up at Miss Holloway. She noticed
the secretary looked flushed and that there were beads of
perspiration on her forehead. She assumed it was from the effort of
holding Alice down. Mr Masterson was banging on about something to
do with smoking. She felt two distinct taps on her right cheek. She
tightened her grip on the chair seat and wished he’d just get on
with it.

“…the reason
why we take it so seriously is that it will ruin your health…” Tap,
tap.

Margaret took a
deep breath. It felt as if every nerve ending on her two cheeks had
gone to ‘Red Alert’.

“…so this will
be painful, but it’s for your own good. Now stay still and don’t
move until I tell you.” Tap, tap, tap. Margaret tightened her
bottom. The headmaster tapped it again.

“Don’t
clench.”

She tried to
relax her cheeks, but every fibre in her backside was screaming
“Brace! Brace! This is going to hurt!”

The fibres were
right. As the first stroke cracked across the lowest part of her
buttocks, she couldn’t help jerk but up on to her toes and let out
a gasp. It felt as though someone had just taken a brand out of the
fire and laid it over her cheeks. She started counting the seconds
between strokes. She had got to five when she heard the brief swish
of the cane as it arrived for the second time. Gritting her teeth,
she took it without a sound. She counted again, this time the
interval was about four seconds. She uttered a muffled “Ooomph” and
flexed her knees, hoping this might relieve the throbbing
sting.

Miss Holloway
now had a better view of the action. As she held the writhing Alice
in place, she could see the stripes developing on Margaret’s left
cheek, one after the other, like the rungs of a ladder as ‘Three
Taps’ worked his skilful way up her backside. The secretary wasn’t
just flushed and perspiring from the effort of restraining Alice:
she was now extremely aroused. She wasn’t counting the strokes, but
judging by the progress of the scarlet lines on Margaret’s bottom,
the poor girl must almost have had her ration.

Margaret
was
counting, both the strokes and the interval between
them: ‘... number eight, “Ooowch!” One, two, three, four, five,
thwack! “Ooooww!” Number nine. One, two, three...’ She had been
caned before, once by the headmaster and once by her mother, but on
each occasion it had only been six strokes. Those were painful
enough, but she could never have anticipated how disproportionally
agonising she would find the second six of the dozen she was now
getting. It took all her determination to hold more or less still
and not howl like a banshee. ‘...three, four, five, six. Whack!
“Ooooowww!” Number ten. One, two, three, four, five, Crack!
“Aaaahhh!” Number eleven. One, two, three...” She knew now she
could make it, although the last one proved the hardest of the lot.
‘Three Taps’ raised the cane high above his head and brought it
down with all the force he could muster. Margaret leaped several
inches and tossed her head, causing her long, fair hair to fly like
a mane. “Oh God!” she muttered, “Ooooww, ooooww!”

The headmaster
took a pace back.

“Very well, you
can all get up and arrange your clothes. I trust that’s cured you
of any enthusiasm for smoking. Please come over to the desk and
sign the Punishment Book.”

Miss Holloway
released Alice and the three girls stood up, clutching their
backsides. As they turned to pull up their knickers, she could see
the effects on each of their bottoms: rows of red, purple, and
mauve stripes, outlined with dark blue ridges. Alice’s backside was
even redder than the others, due to the spanking with Stinger; she
was sobbing her heart out. Jane was and sniffing and red-eyed,
while Margaret remained the most stoic of the three. Miss Holloway
was breathing hard. She hoped that the state of her own panties
wasn’t showing through pencil skirt she was wearing.

The girls
signed beside the entries in the Punishment Book, which recorded
the date, their names, the offence committed, and the punishment
awarded (and, in Alice’s case, the extra strokes she’d been given).
Then they filed out of the study, muttering the traditional thanks
to the headmaster as they left. Mr Masterson turned to the
secretary.

“Thank you for
your help. It was Alice’s first chastisement and the poor girl
wasn’t taking it well. I couldn’t have managed without your help. I
suppose you think I was dreadfully strict?” He didn’t wait for an
answer. “But I feel that smoking needs to be dealt with severely.
If they get into the habit at an early stage, they’ll suffer more
than just a sore backside in later life.”