Subject: STORY Millicent1 schlgrl MMMFFF/fff nonconsens
From: klick <klick@sanctum.com>
Date: 1998/01/04

This story involves the severe nonconsensual spanking of schoolgirls. If that subject bothers you or if you are under 18 please move on.

Millicent’s Letter

Dedicated to Laura Werner in gratitude for her help and encouragement.

Chapter 1

Dear Cousin Jane,

I write this to you on my bed lying on my belly because anything else is too painful. Can you guess why?

Yes, you're right. When I last wrote you I was so proud that I hadn't "visited Lapland" for almost a week and I kept that up more than two weeks all told, something of a record for me, until today. Today more than made up for it, however. I must tell someone so please let me spill over on you no matter how horrified you may be with my tale (or tail), I know how barbaric you progressive Americans think our antediluvian British ways are.

It's partially your fault, of course. If you hadn't sent me that box of "pocket books" none of this would have happened. You see, yesterday...Sunday, it was...we were allowed into the village for lunch and when we returned I sat down with the best of intentions to complete an Art project and do some reading for Eng. Lit. The Art project, a deadly dull study of small primroses and violets was really setting me to yawning so I decided to take a short break with one of your books. An Earl Stanley Gardener, I think it was. Is he a new author? I was only going to read a chapter and then go back to work.

When next I looked up it was almost lights-out and my roommate, Amy, was already asleep. In a state of near panic..."Oh, heavens, Mellicent, you've done it again"...I decided that the Art piece could wait and hurriedly skimmed the Eng.Lit. reading...an essay by Boswell, no less. Turgid reading at the best of times.

The call for lights-out came and I could do nothing but put pack my bookbag and go to bed. There I proceeded to play and replay the Gardener story, his characters are so real and vivid that I could see every one. I ran his plot through my mind again and again, marvelling at his cleverness. He certainly is a step up on dear old Miss Marple! In short, I couldn't sleep.

Of course, I finally slept and, of course, when I awoke it was twenty minutes to eight with my first class at eight o'clock. I've no doubt that Amy tried to wake me, bless her, without success and gave up. I dressed in a rush and set off at a dead run but I wasn't really too worried.

My first class is Art taught by Mr. Shingler, whom all of us girls thought was a dear. He's quite young, just out of university, quite tall with lovely shoulders, and exceeding handsome with wavy brown hair and large strong hands which are amazingly delicate with pencil or brush. He really is a marvellous artist and, truth be told, more than one of us has cast him as co-star in certain adolescent fantasies. Even better, he's told us he doesn't believe in corporal punishment! It came as something of a bombshell when he explained in class on his first day that he believed that as we were all on the verge of adulthood he would treat us as adults, making full use of sweet reason.

We were suspicious, of course, as this put him at odds with the entire staff. Even sweet old Miss Gillivray, whom he replaced several weeks ago when she was felled by a stroke, would occasionally bend a girl over a desk with knickers lowered and whack away. Some keep spanking as a last resort, others seem to feel that a day in which they don't smack a girlish bum is a day wasted, but they all do it.

So far, however, young Mr. Shingler had been as good as his word and late assignments, a mind wandering in class, even a few minutes late to class, had been met with stern admonishments and logical discussion but nothing more. So I wasn't terribly worried to find the classroom door already closed, although with any other Master I'd have felt the chill wind of disaster.

I opened the door and slipped in as quietly as possible, heading to my desk . Mr. Shingler was collecting the "primrose and violets" projects and I had no sooner reached my desk in the back row when he asked for mine.

I presented my brightest smile.

"I hope you'll understand, sir, I've run into a bit of a problem with that. I've tried several approaches and it just won't go quite right. I wonder if I might have until tomorrow so I can do it full justice?"

I wouldn't have tried that on any other Master in the school but with Shingler it seemed there was a chance.

"Let me see it." He walked toward me, his voice was as cold as his eyes.

Still hopeful, I dug into my bookbag and pulled out the few pitiful daubs I'd done last night and handed it over with my brave smile rapidly fading. He took one look, his eyes narrowed and he spun on his heel.

"Miss Peters, come to the front of the room!"

How often have I heard those words, that verbal crack of doom, from other Masters! This time, however, I was dumfounded. This was the Master who didn't believe in bumwhacking!

"Miss Peters, must I ask you again?" He was moving his chair out from behind his desk to the centre of the room, in front of the chalkboard.

No, he most assuredly did not. Hesitation in response to that command leads to a quick trip to the punishment room under the stairs where Mr. Payne, the Headmaster, and his cane hold forth. I had been there once, early last year when I was new to St. Angela's, and I knew that no experience in the classroom could be as traumatic as that. I dropped my bookbag on my desk and marched briskly forward, already beginning my soliloquy.

"Please, sir. It was a very difficult assignment for me. I worked on it so late that I overslept..."

The soliloquy has been a subject of some discussion among Laplanders. "Occasionals", of course, when they are about to be spanked, babble in the hope of mitigation. We, on the other hand, despairing of mitigation, have what amounts to a prepared presentation simply because the Masters seem to expect it. To be silent might be considered defiance which would assure a most unpleasant time of it. I must admit that mine this morning was prepared on such short notice as to be indistinguishable from spontaneous. Surprise had a great deal to do with that.

So I babbled as I walked up to him, already seated in his chair, and stood at his right waiting for the next command.

Another surprise.

"You may have noticed, Miss Peters, that I draw and write with my left hand. I shall also do this business with my left hand."

Of course we had noticed he was left handed, what had that to do with...?

Oooh.

Sheepishly, I moved to the other side of the chair.

"Yes, sir. Of course I've noticed sir.."

We both hesitated a moment and then he said hoarsely, "Go right over, Miss Peters, don't dawdle."

I leaned forward, put one hand on his knee and the other on the right edge of his chair and let myself down on his lap aware, as always, of scratchy wool suit, metal belt buckle, and a certain odor that is male. At the last moment I treated myself to one small act of bravado. I bent my knees and placed myself with my stomach rather than my hips on his left thigh. It meant my thighs were vertical, with my knees almost touching the floor. I would never have gotten away with it with Poppa or most of the Masters at St. Angela's; they wanted their victims well across the lap, toes off the floor, elbows nearly on the floor and bum highest.

He didn't seem to notice.

There was a hesitation, and then I felt my skirt pulled up to land with the hem around my ears. My slip followed and I felt one hand between my shoulder blades and the other at the small of my back hooking the waistband of my knickers and beginning to tug at them. I quickly lifted up, wishing he'd pull at the sides as the other spankers did. Have the elastic on your knickers torn in first hour and you spend the day with them pinned in place. Thankfully, they slid down to the top of my thighs without a rip. Small mercies.

"Miss Peters, I have tried and tried to approach you and the other young women as adults but some of you insist on behaving like children, to your detriment and mine. Being on time to class in not a great deal to ask and timely submission of..."

The door opened behind me, someone came into the room and stopped in their tracks, presented with the spectacle of my shapely bum prepared for chastisement with my smallclothes at half staff.

I hate that!

A shocked little voice said, "Sorry to be late, sir, really didn't mean to...". She broke off and sidled toward her desk in the front row. It was Helen Dowell who, if I am Queen of the Laplanders, is surely the Most Holy Angel. I was sure she would go to her desk and have a front row seat as I participated in Mr. Shingler's first spanking at St. Angela's; maybe his first ever.

"Just stand right there, Miss Dowell. I'll deal with you in a moment."

There was a hushed gasp from everyone in the room but me. I had other concerns just then.

One of those big delicate hands of which I was so enamoured firmed its hold in the small of my back and, as I made every attempt to let head and legs hang limp, the other smacked tentatively at the top of my buttocks, exactly as I had hoped when I positioned myself.

"Oh," whispered the stupidly optimistic part of me. "Maybe this won't be so bad after all. Maybe he won't know to aim for the tender underside"

The painfully experienced part of me wasn't having any: "It always hurts more than you think it will."

However, I bucked my hips and squealed as piteously as ever I did for one of Mr. Trulove's best stingers. A few of the Occasionals seem to think there is some small victory to be won by resisting as long as possible any reaction to a spanking; suffering in silence. This, of course, brings to the Master's mind the thought that the student is showing defiance which, as I have said, is actively and painfully discouraged. They ARE going to get a reaction and they will keep whacking longer and harder until they get it. And, there is always Mr. Payne and his cane in the little room under the stairs. To my knowledge, no one ever came out of there still insolent.

The big, delicate hand descended again and made contact a little lower and a little harder. I rewarded the effort with another hip spasm and squeal. I still retained the faintest forlorn hope and I was using every weapon in my slender armoury.

The third blow was lower yet, well into my more sensitive area and delivered with considerably more force, at the centre of my bum vertically and laterally. The fourth, fifth and sixth followed quickly. The primitive part of my brain ordered my hips to move directly away from the sudden pain and that brought the front of my pelvis up against the side of his thigh. Failing to escape in that direction, the lower brain the directed a vertical motion. I could achieve that only by digging in my toes and pushing which, of course, drove my torso forward over his lap nearer the position I had tried to avoid in the first place. The artificial squeal was much less forced .

I can only thank his inexperience as one of those hands I admired so much pushed firmly on the small of my back and moved me back into my beginning position while the other came down again with the hardest blow yet. He was learning quickly that adolescent bottoms, or at least mine, were not the least bit fragile and that his first fears of striking too hard were needless. I had a small success. He hadn't moved any farther down toward the junction with my thighs, my most sensitive area. However, there was a price: Each of these last several smacks, delivered with as much force as I had ever experienced, had landed precisely on the site of the previous one and lit in my bum a small fire where before there had been only a tolerable smart.

That elicited a young, totally involuntary squeak...we were past the point of artifice now...and I found myself bent like a reversed bow; head straining upward, thighs parallel to the ground and knees bent so my calves were vertical. I suspect that even my toes pointed at the ceiling. This violent reaction must have bemused him because he hesitated long enough for me to relax again. I was beginning to pant.

The next strike ended all hope. It was lower, the hardest yet and, as I went through my horizontal dance, the hand on my back didn't push me back again. It let me heave my bum to a higher, more vulnerable position and then clamped me into place.

The other of those hands I had dreamed about on a very different part of my body whacked the very spot I had hoped to protect, again and again, landing with the greatest force yet. Again my body bowed as I tried to move my now painful bottom away from the source of the pain.. Again my toes came down and tried to hoist my simmering buttocks over the obstacle of the his lap to freedom. Again the restraining hand let me move just far enough to put my vulnerable bottom somewhat more than halfway across his lap so that when I wasn't bowed my most tender part was his most obvious target.

That once-beloved hand came down again and without hesitation again and again. By now my frenzied gyrations were such that he had no hope of precision and even his increased pressure in the small of my back was of little consequence but the blows continued, now on my upper thigh, now on my upper buttock, twice on the most painful place.

Then he stopped.

"You will endeavour to keep your backside still, Miss Peters, or we shall continue this at another time when I have more leisure to make my point." I was still clearheaded enough to recognise the words...I'd heard them, or words to the same effect, often enough. Someone, or more likely several Masters, had been coaching our young hero on the finer points of spanking the girl student.

With a massive effort I relaxed as much as I was able and found my elbows on the floor with my forehead almost touching it and my toes dangling well up in the air. The idiotic counter in my head which insists on informing me of such things said I had received just over three dozen and I knew the worst was still to come. He moved his right hand to the curve of my hip clamping my waist against his body with his elbow.

He began again, now coming to understand how hard he could strike and where to strike for best effect. He left off taking both sides at one blow and began concentrated on first one side and then the other, three strokes up one side and three strokes down the other, working faster now and, though I hardly thought it possible, harder. He made the circuit again, and again...and again. He paused, slipped his restraining hand under me so that he almost completely encircled my waist and began again that awful tattoo. I was bucking and kicking again, gasping and panting, each exhale an abbreviated shriek. I swung my hands frantically, grasping first the legs of the chair. then his legs, then trying to reach back to block the blows...a disaster if I had succeeded...and finally dug with both hands into my hair and pulled hard, trying to distract myself from the growing inferno in my bottom.

Still the sharp, rhythmic, smack continued with still more force and I knew that I was a screaming, hiccoughing, red-faced animal, all dignity gone, with no hope for anything but for this to end.

Then my cloud, my merciful cloud, descended and carried me away.


One of my earliest memories is lying face down on my nurse's lap while she lectured me for some childish misdemeanour, one hand on my naked bum. I can remember wishing the drone of her voice would go on and on because I knew, even then, that when she stopped talking the pain in my bottom would begin. A later nurse refused to let me wear knickers in the nursery, the better to have quick access to my bare seat. She had a motto I heard often: "A child in tears is less likely to be a child in mischief." We both lived by that motto.

Later my tutors, all male for whatever reason, were not granted the privilege of access to my uncovered buttocks but they all located the required area on my knickers. One kept a careful record of all failings each day along with the appropriate punishment. Each night, after evening studies, he would read out the list of my offences along with the accompanying "awards"

"Inattention, three; incorrect sums, two; blotted copywork, four..."

When he got to the end of the list I would know to place my self across my desk so he could lift my skirt and begin applying the sole of an old slipper he kept for the purpose. On one occasion the total was forty seven but I never remembered the last couple of dozen. I do remember he left because of something to do with one of the maids. She left too.

Another of my tutors had far less patience. He would snatch me out of my chair the moment I committed some blunder, and, holding me aloft, would put his foot up on the chair, turn me over his thigh, flip up my skirt with a haste that was almost frantic and apply the correction on the spot. I felt every one of those.

Between nurses, governesses, tutors and even butlers and housekeepers, it seems there were always people whose business it was to assure my good behaviour and too many had access to my bottom.

And then there is Poppa.

I'm still not sure what he does but he travels a good deal, is away for long periods and must be very wealthy. When he is home he demands utter quiet in the house but at the same time he tolerates, and regularly causes, the wails and screams of a well-spanked girl. I learned early that out of sight was more likely out of mind, being quiet might well mean being forgotten, and that any sort of notice had the potential for calamity. The library was my refuge, not the room itself but its contents, which had the double joy of opening worlds to me where pain was not a constant, and transporting me away from this one.

Somewhere in this doleful history, I discovered that when a spanking got very bad...not always but often,...I would...sort of...go somewhere else. I was still Millicent of the flaming bottom and I was still draped over a lap or desk or chairback, but it was as if the agony was happening to someone else, the frightful pain was a distant tingle. I came to think of it as a loving cloud which came down and took me away. When the punishment was over I would slowly come back to proper awareness and then I would again be the hopping, screeching, frantically bottom-rubbing penitent but for a short time I was mercifully spared.


So it was this morning. There was a tap on my shoulders and a voice said, "That's all, Miss Peters, you may return to your desk." Of course I could no more respond than I could fly! I was still writhing and panting and groaning like a wild thing, the furnace in my bottom at full drought. I am something of an expert: That had been a most serious classroom spanking.

After a few moments the voice came again. "Miss Peters! Stand up at once and arrange your clothes...unless you'd like me to continue this!"

With a supreme effort, I pushed my hands against the floor and slid laboriously backwards over his lap until my toes touched the floor. Taking part of my weight with them I let myself down onto my knees which shuddered and barely supported me, my torso and arms still over his lap. I was aware of a hard lump at the base of his stomach pressing against the side of my ribcage but I'd felt that before with most other men.

"Come. come, Miss Peters, a bit more briskly, please."

I hauled my upper torso erect, still on my knees; tried to stand and found myself falling back on my heels. My hips were still twitching, my breathing was still out of control, and I heard someone whimpering shamelessly. I had an unearthly desire to rub my backside.

He rose from his chair, took hold of my upper arm and dragged me aloft. I got my other hand on the back of the chair and helped. A little. Once on my feet I chivvied my skirt back into place and took a moment to fulfil that unearthly desire. It really helps!

I suddenly had a vision of what I must have looked like: Medium-height, prematurely filled-out, dark-haired school girl wearing rumpled long-sleeved white blouse, wrinkled McLaren-tartaned skirt, white kneesocks and black lace-up shoes...(pumps would have gone flying, maybe we wear lace-ups for reasons of safety...giggle)...also wearing a red, screwed-up, tear-stained face with hair like a fright-wig and very plain white cotton knickers around her knees. Not visible at the moment are the very red, inflamed and slightly swollen buttocks under the skirt. As we observe, she dances a strange little dance, hopping from one foot to the other as she rubs frantically, under her skirt, at her nether regions. She is breathing heavily and emits a series of high pitched whines.

A disgraceful exhibition...and I cared not a whit.

I fear I was still unsteady and I wobbled, first against the chair and, trying to get my balance, against him. My knees were weak and I'm afraid I leaned heavily against him.

Rather instinctively, I think, he threw an arm about me in support. I collapsed against it, not entirely without motive. He took my weight as I threw my arms around his neck and hung on for a moment.

"Miss Peters, control yourself!

Then in a very different tone. "Miss Peters, are you all right?"

I managed a weak whisper. "Yes, Sir, I'll be all right in a moment."

"Come, Miss Peters, this won't do. Arrange your clothing and go back to your desk."

I reached down and drew up my knickers, easing them carefully over a certain tender area and then checked carefully to ensure that the hem of my skirt was not caught in the waistband. Every week or so someone does it, the best was a cordially hated Occasional who got her whacking at the end of a class. She walked all the way to her next class with the back of her skirt in her waistband before one of the Masters took pity on her.

I took a tentative step towards the back of the room, I was still twitching and hiccoughing but I had most of the squeak under control. I was still rubbing furiously at my seat. My classmates were studiously avoiding my glance, all eyes were on Helen Dowell who stood trembling beside her desk obviously desperate to speak. I looked back at Shingler who was unconsciously rubbing his left hand hard against the side of his trouser leg.

I could appreciate Dowell's dilemma but I could not sympathise. She is one of, perhaps a leader of, the group we Laplanders called "Angels". They are the academic stars, the leaders on the playing field, the presidents and officers of the school's clubs and activities and the runners-of-errands for the faculty. If we had a prefect or proctor system they would have had those jobs. In a dispute between an Angel and one of us mere helots, the Angel would invariably win. And, although they almost never got spanked...at least not in public, they were expected to set an example in obeying the rules

She had come to St. Angela's at the beginning of this year and had immediately made it clear that there were those with whom she would associate and those she would not. Her disdain for the latter group, of whom I am one, is poorly hidden. No, I had a total lack of sympathy.

Dowell is small...perhaps petite is the word...blonde, very fair, with bobbed hair, a perfectly flat bosom, narrow boyish hips and...dare I say it?...skinny legs. Besides an angelically pretty face her only interesting feature is a pair of narrow, very round jutting buttocks which seem attached to her hips as an afterthought. I wondered if hers were doing the odd twitch just now.

Nothing daunted, Dowell screwed up her courage and grasped the nettle

"Sir, you must understand. I apologise for my tardiness but I was on some business..."

That was perhaps the wrong tack.

"Must I understand, indeed, Miss Dowell? Come to the front of the room."

The room was dead still and I had completely forgotten my bottom. Dowell's jaw dropped with a quick intake of breath, a move I'm sure was echoed by most everyone in the room. Among the Laplanders, I'm equally sure, there was a silent cheer. For us, in the space of ten minutes Mr. Shingler had gone from hero to villain and was now rapidly reverting hero status again. If he carried this off we would nominate him for sainthood.

Dowell knew better than to directly disobey the command. As he seated himself again she, with something a great deal less than enthusiasm, approached the chair. His left hand flicked out, grasped her forearm and pulled her to his left side.

No hesitancy now: "Go right over, Miss Dowell, and we'll discuss what it is I must understand."

Her brow knitted in annoyance; this wasn't going at all the way it should. I believe she leaned away from him, unconsciously pulling away against his grasp. "But, Mr. Shingler, if you would please just listen..."

That was most certainly not the right move. His face became a storm cloud, he started to stand then sat again. He pulled her close to the chair and thundered. "Go over, Miss Dowell. Right now, d'you hear? Right now!"

She knelt beside the chair, I mean put her knees on the floor, and leaned the upper part of her torso across his lap. It seems impossible that she didn't know better. Even if she'd never been spanked she'd certainly witnessed enough, she'd seen the proper position and this was emphatically not it.

Shingler went off like a rocket. With me he had been annoyed and a bit frustrated but now he was angry. It may be that he suspected she was mocking him, it certainly was that she was not obeying these most basic commands as he had been led to expect.

He reached down, grasped her on either side of her waist and hoisted her bodily over his lap where, whether through intention or chance he had her in what the experts considered the perfect position...bum up, head well down and feet waving in the air. It was a bravo performance although with her weight, surely not much over 6 stone, not nearly the job he'd have had with me.

She let out an "Oh!" that sounded the exact intonation of a society matron who's had her bottom pinched at the greengrocers.

He wasn't listening. He pressed down between her shoulders, his other hand got hold of the hem of her skirt and pulled it up and her lace-trimmed slip followed.

Again she emitted that outraged "Oh!", this time in a higher key and a bit more drawn out.

As he had with me, he hooked a finger in the waist band of her knickers and pulled down. She reacted in evident horror and pressed her hips down on his thigh in desperation and reached back with her left hand to halt this grievous violation of her dignity. He pulled harder and, of course, the sound of tearing elastic and cotton reverberated around the hushed room. Her knickers floated down to her knees exposing those oddly prominent white hillocks.

Her voice dripped irritation and accusation. "Now you've torn them, Mr. Shingler. Really! If you would just listen a moment, none of this is necessary. I was a bit late but there was a reason..."

"Were you ill, Miss Dowell, were you at the infirmary?" He asked it quietly and she craned her head around to try to see his expression.

"No, sir. That wasn't it, I was..."

"Were you delayed by a member of the staff? Were you perhaps running an errand or performing a service for a member of the staff?" I wonder what he would have done if she'd said "yes".

"Not exactly. We were discussing..."

"Not exactly, Miss Dowell? Were you or weren't you?"

She hung her head. "No, Sir", but..."

"Those are the only excuses I can think of which are valid, Miss Dowell. You were late to class, you caused a disruption when you arrived, you've resisted obeying my orders and you've displayed an impertinence and disrespect which I will not tolerate!"

She still had the idea that this was all a big mistake which could be remedied if she could just explain. "But sir...but sir." That last was said with an imperious rising tone...in another century it would have been "sirrah!"

I saw him reach under her and gather her to him. His first stroke was a stunner, very hard and exactly on target at the base of her little bum. He was starting with her where he'd ended with me. The man learns fast.

Her loud, shrill "Aaaah!" pierced the room and she immediately bowed up, her face registering shock and sheer disbelief. It was as plain as if she had shouted it: "This can't be happening to me!" As she began to relax from her bow, he hit her again and again. She bucked and wiggled in an attempt to escape the assault. She hadn't a chance.

His hand rose and fell, his arm swinging from the shoulder. His hand was big enough to quite effectively cover both buttocks and in two strokes he had painted the vertical distance so for several strokes he simply alternated, upper, lower, upper, lower.

By the sixth stroke she was in full cry and after a dozen she was frantic. Her shrieks got shorter and sharper as her breathing became more ragged.

He shifted to the circulation which had been so successful on me; three strokes up one side and three strokes down the other which meant quite a lot of overlap. Her bottom was a dark angry red.

She was still wriggling and bouncing, her feet kicked well above her head but her cries were becoming a series of long wails. He continued without letup.

Then, in the middle of his backswing he stopped abruptly; she hardly noticed. He started another swing and stopped again. He appeared to be at war with himself and we all waited to see which side would win. I was miffed. She had hardly endured half what he'd given me and she was already on the edge of hysterics. Maybe experience has something to do with it.

He covered her carmined buttocks with her skirt, lifted her bodily and set her on her feet. Like me she was shaky as she began her dance but that didn't affect her volume. She bellowed out her pain and rage like a three-year-old, rubbing briskly at the offended part.

Shingler tried to stem the torrent. "That will do, Miss Dowell, kindly control yourself. Arrange your clothing and go back to your desk."

She ignored him, still hopping, rubbing and squalling.

"Miss Dowell, that will do! Get hold of yourself or I may decide I'm not done with you. We can do this all again right now."

This time she heard him. Suppressing her howls down to a muffled keening she hauled up her lacerated drawers and, holding them up with one hand and still rubbing with the other, shambled to her desk.

As I watched her lower herself gingerly onto the hard wooden chair I became aware that, except for her now muffled sobs, the room was a breathless silence. I also became aware of a familiar sound coming through the wall behind me from the adjoining room, a rhythmic whacking accompanied by anguished yelps. It was Mrs. Ethridge's classroom and it was a sound I hadn't heard from there in weeks.

I began to suspect that this was a most unusual day.

Chapter 2

My suspicions were heightened at the end of the class. It had been a strained, subdued hour with Mr. Shingler distant and distracted. Though I did my best to appear attentive I haven't the faintest notion of anything he said until the bell finally rang and we were filing out the door. Then I heard him very clearly.

"Miss Peters, I wish to see you here this afternoon after your last class."

I was thunderstruck.

Let me explain. A classroom spanking must be somewhat limited, Mr. Shingler's performance this morning notwithstanding. . A girl smacked into hysterics, past all control, is going to disrupt the classroom, probably for the rest of the hour, and the Master is, after all, there to teach. Therefore, the usual classroom punishment, from the call forward to the girl's tearful return to her place, seldom takes longer than two or three minutes. If it is longer, the time is usually taken up in scolding as an object lesson for the rest of the class. The actual bumwhacking hardly takes more than a minute or so, plenty of time to get in thirty or forty hard ones and get the victim's undivided attention.

So, if a Master isn't sure that he’d got his point across in class he can call the student back at the end of the day and make his statement again in an empty classroom. There he can take as long as he wishes and make use of the implement of his choice, saving only the cane which Mr. Payne reserves to himself, and disturb no one but his victim.

It's all part of the school's much touted "After-class individual attention and tutoring program" . Don't mistake me, a great deal of real tutoring does take place. It would be no surprise at all to walk a darkened hallway on any afternoon and see in most classrooms a Master with one or several students going over a difficult lesson. But there would also be no surprise if from one or two classrooms came the anguished wails of students undergoing a much more difficult lesson. Girls who spend their late afternoon in the latter fashion are seldom interested in supper.

You can guess I was rather devastated by Mr. Shingler's invitation. I had been the guest of honour at far too many of these affairs last year and painfully learned how to avoid them. So far this year I had been completely successful: Any time I spent after class was spent getting lessons clarified. I was not looking forward to this meeting.

The hallways after that first hour were abuzz with whispered conversation as girls compared notes on the fly with friends in different classes. We discovered that each Master in the school had found reason to call one girl or several forward and it seemed red eyes, rumpled skirts and tearstains were everywhere you looked. The entire student body was already walking on tiptoe, almost literally and already the rumours were flying.

My next class was Maths with Mr. Carfax and I had no doubt how it would begin. Not satisfied with the irregular sacrifices he could glean from such infractions as poorly done homework or obvious inattention in class, Mr. Carfax had a system for assuring that there would be girlish bottoms across his lap. About once a week and always a surprise, he would give a short written quiz with the results to be announced the following school day. The girl receiving the lowest mark always got spanked, our only question was: Would it be Darla Ellison, his most common target so far this year.

Surprise!

"Miss Baird, come to the front of the room."

My roommate, Amy! Poor, sweet, good-hearted Amy, always cheerful and outgoing, ready to give her last penny to anyone who needed it, she did well enough in art and music but had little head for other studies and sometimes gave up too soon. I helped when I could and Mr. Carfax, to give him his due, had spent hours with her going over and over the mysteries of Algebra. Now it was easy to see he wasn't happy.

Neither was Amy. She took some satisfaction, I think, in the fact that she almost always did well enough to avoid unwanted attention. I doubt she had been spanked more than twice this year. Now she almost dragged her feet as she moped forward, a short, dark-haired, chubby girl with head hanging and tears already flowing.

"Please, sir. Please, I did the best I could..." And so on.

Mr. Carfax dragged his chair from behind his desk, set it in the middle of the open space in front of the first row of desks and sat waiting for Amy to stand at his right side. Still babbling and with no prompt from him, she went across his lap with palms on the floor on one side of him and toes on the other. He turned up her skirt and slip and with both hands lowered her knickers. As she felt them slide down to mid thigh she groaned and covered her face with both hands and then began sobbing. He put one hand on each of her hips and lifted her farther across his lap so that her toes were off the floor and her plump bottom was well up.

"Be silent, Miss Baird. You did not do your best and I must make you understand that it is not enough to..." He went on in that vein for some moments while she sobbed as if heartbroken.

Then the lecture was over. He patted her lightly on both bottom cheeks and she sucked in her breath sharply. Then his hand went up and came down smartly. She squeaked and jerked up her head, eyes tightly shut, face contorted. One foot kicked. By fifteen she was bowed across his lap, head and heels up, panting and squealing. By thirty she was wiggling and bucking, bottom well past pink, and crying like child. It was clear Amy had not been often spanked because this was rather a mild session.

Then it was over. He set her back on her feet, let her dance for a moment as she got her drawers back up and sent her back to her chair. I sent her a look of commiseration but she wasn't seeing anything. I'm pretty sure the pain of embarrassment and humiliation was worse that the pain in her bum.

Then he surprised us again.

"Miss Ellison, you had the same score, will you join me please?"

Ellison, who thought she'd got away safe, looked stunned but got to her feet and started forward already whining. New at St. Angela's this year, she's taller than Amy or I, already getting heavy in the shoulders with no discernible waist and a flat bottom. Unlike Amy, who usually tries very hard, Ellison seems to do the least possible to get along. Worse, though not enormously bright, she thinks she is quite clever, and always seems wounded when her ploys don't work. If fact, she seems to be going for the reputation which I earned so painfully last year.

"Go right over, Miss Ellison, you know the drill." She did indeed with her soliloquy running as she took her place. Her skirt came up and knickers down and once again we were treated to the sight of that wide, pallid, doughy bottom. He made no attempt to reposition her and I thought that at eleven stone plus, she could jolly well leave her toes on the floor.

"Quiet, Miss!" He whacked her once, sharply, and her line of alibi cut off.

He then launched into a tirade of which I remember only that he knew she could to much better and that she would do. He ended by ordering her to return after last class in the afternoon, not a new experience for her either, although it was unusual for that command to come before the classroom punishment started. It left Ellison in no doubt that this would be an unfortunate day.

Then he began to paint those flat, flabby buttocks a new but familiar colour. His hand came down with as much force as I have ever seen in the classroom or out and each stroke echoed around the otherwise silent room. Ellison wailed and spasmed from the first...but then she would. It went on longer than I expected and, with her bottom a dark, splotchy red, Ellison was in real distress by the time he let her up...I expect they heard her in the village. If this was anything to go by I thought that their meeting after school would be memorable.

Last year, for the first several weeks, that had been me. You see, I had discovered years ago that if I played stupid long enough in the subjects I loathed, my tutors would eventually give up on me. Mr. Carfax, along with Mr. Trulove who taught Physics last year, and Mrs. Milner, Geography, didn't see it that way. Along with the occasional smackings I got in other classes for general misbehaviour, they spanked me daily, it seemed, for inattention, incomplete or poorly done studies or low marks on quizzes and I received tutoring after classes every day without fail. Sometimes that meant some of the worst spankings I've ever gotten, except from Poppa, usually because I refused to cooperate and concentrate on the subject they were reviewing for me. Finally, Mrs. Milner lost patience and sent me to Mr. Payne.

I've had the cane before in cases that related little to my behaviour but here, I suddenly realised, I didn't have to suffer it. All I had to do was sign on to the program, give them a bit of what they wanted. That didn't completely end the spankings, as you can guess; I'm not ever in danger of being angelic although this year I had been doing pretty well.

We got through the class with Amy obviously wanting to disappear and Ellison snuffling and fidgeting. Mr. Carfax spoke harshly to her a couple of times and threatened a repeat performance but he didn't carry through.

Again, the hall between classes was a flood of whispers and again it appeared that at least one girl had been spanked in every class. Rumours as to what was at the bottom of all this...giggle...raced in all directions becoming more and more outrageous.

History class was next with Mrs. Ethridge, who is a widow...we are told...of middle age, about whom there is nothing special; small stature, mouse-brown hair in a loose bun, brown jacket and skirt, plain white blouse buttoned to the neck and sensible shoes. Nothing special except that she made History interesting and, for me at least, far more than a dreary recitation of names, dates and places. She saw my bottom twice early last year and not since.

Usually she spanked but seldom, and then not very effectively, but today was a singular day and I'd heard her deal with at least one unfortunate earlier. She didn't let down the side. Fifteen minutes or so into the hour she decreed that Pamela Osman's answer to a question indicated that Osman had not read the lesson. There follow a quick but merciless cross-examination which moved this suspicion to certainty and brought Osman to the front. Being a budding Laplander, this is not new for her by any means; I doubt that a week has gone by in which she hasn't been redbummed at least twice. Today she had a red-eyed, dishevelled look which was a sure sign that she was still feeling the sting of an earlier encounter with someone.

New to the school this year, Osman is a small girl who appears to be younger than the rest of us; to see her you would think her eleven or twelve, and therefore is one who Mrs. Ethridge would take over the knee. Taller, heavier girls she bends over a desk. However, as Osman trudged forward there was a another surprise in a day full of them, for along with her chair Mrs. Ethridge brought out a small wooden paddle. I say surprise because paddles, slippers and the other horrific implements used with force on the human backside are seldom used in the classroom. Just as spankings are always applied to the denuded posterior so they are almost always done with the open hand. However, Mrs. Ethridge apparently is aware that her classroom spankings are the least feared in the school (now that Miss Gillivray is no longer with us) and was out to earn a bit more respect in this department.

Osman had been on this lap before, and most every other Master's more than once, and should have known what to expect when she reach the front.

"Let's be about it, Miss. You do your own undies in this class."

This reminder stopped Osman's spiel in full flight and caused her face to redden more but she reached under her skirt with both hands and slid down her knickers. The Master patted her own right thigh and nodded to Osman who lay herself across the waiting lap. With her toes down, her hands barely reached the floor.

"Come now, Miss, you know better!" That was punctuated by a slap to the seat of the skirt and Osman grabbed the legs of the clair and pulled herself farther across. Now her feet were well up, knickers at her knees and immediately her skirt was up as well, revealing a small, rounded little girl's bottom which showed evidence of having received prior attention. The Master began the scolding, marking her points with a series of light pats with the paddle on her intended target. Each pat brought a tightening of those modest cheeks and caused the ankles to cross and recross as the hands fidgeted from chair leg to floor to chair rung.

The lecture was brief and the pats abruptly became serious blows, each of them more severe. In moments, Osman, already turning up her volume, had wriggled and kicked her drawers down around her ankles and then completely off. Her little bottom bounced and bucked under the assault of the paddle and assumed the expected colours. She pulled herself farther and farther forward until she seemed about to slide off the lap, her feet kicking high and her yells gaining in intensity. Mrs. Ethridge, with hardly a pause, wrapped her left arm under the struggling girl's waist to hold her in place but after a few more strokes stopped.

"Miss Osmon, I don't intend to wrestle with you. Stand up and get back in the proper position. We aren't finished yet."

Osman wasn't listening and, scrambling to her feet, rubbing madly at the afflicted area and sobbing loudly, turned toward her desk. The Master grasped her wrist and pulled her back.

"Hear me, Miss, we're not done. This is finished when I say. Go back over and stop this foolishness, these antics are unseemly. Keep yourself still!"

Still wailing Osman was drawn back across the lap and back into position. Her skirt came back up and the paddle started again its rise and fall, after half a dozen swats Osman began again her gyrations which became more and more wild, excessive even for her.

When she did this with the male Masters they simply held her down until they were finished but Mrs. Ethridge wasn't having that. The rules were, a student remained in position during punishment until it was over and anything else brought extra punishment, up to and including being held down while Mr. Payne applied his cane. I hadn't need that particular lesson but each year there are a couple who do.

I thought Osman was a bit over the top even with an already sore bum. The paddle not withstanding, Mrs. Ethridge wasn't delivering thunderbolts, indeed she hadn't a patch on what I had received from Mr. Shingler or what I'd watched Mr. Carfax administer to Darla Ellison. This was more an exhibition of anger and frustration than a response to pain and the Master knew it.

“All right, we’ll suspend this now and resume after classes this afternoon. I think before we’ve finished you’ll have learnt a bit about self control. I remind you that we can meet every afternoon until I believe you’ve done so.”

Osman, hopping, rubbing and squealing, ignored her, started back to her desk and then remembered her knickers. A she turned to go toward them, Mrs. Ethridge was in the way.

“Answer me when I speak to you, Miss. I want you back here this afternoon, do you hear?”

For a moment, a look of purest defiance flashed across Osmon’s face and I thought that this is one girl who is convinced that she’s having a bad time at school. As you Americans might say, “She ain’t seen nothin’ yet!” She glared at the Master for a moment and everyone in the room caught their breath. Then she became more sensible, lowered her eyes and quietly said, between hiccouchs, “Yes Ma’am, this afternoon.” She reclaimed her scanties, everyone in the room resumed breathing, and the class went on without further drama.

The halls, between classes, contained a still larger percentage of penitents and tales of new victims were making the rounds. I learned that Helen Dowell wasn’t the only Angel to bare her bottom. I also noticed two girls waiting forlornly outside the door to the little room under the stairs.

On to Current Affairs class and a really spectacular “do”.

Mrs. Milner, one of my nemeses from last year, is a large-ish middle aged lady with grown children, outspoken with firm convictions and not to be trifled with.

Lucretia Sansonetti, very much an Angel, is the daughter of an official at the Italian embassy and, she says, the niece of an Italian admiral and the granddaughter of a countessa. With a volatile temper and an exaggerated opinion of herself, she is quick to take and give offence. Sansonetti professes to be an admirer of Mr. Mussolini and a strong supporter of his facist ideals. She tells anyone who will listen of the wonders that facism has worked in Italy and of the similar wonders to be worked in Germany under “Il Duce’s” protege, Mr. Hitler. Indeed, she and Monika Von Stroheim, our only German girl and another Angel, have set up their own little “bund” with a few British hangers on.

The lesson today was on the activities of the Italian government in its North African colonies and included an article from the “Times” which reported the slaughter of Berber tribesmen by Italian soldiers.

“Lies!” yelled Sansonetti, leaping to her feet at her desk in the front of the room as Mrs. Milner read out the article. “All lies! This is communist propaganda, probably written by jews to slander Il Duce!”

Mrs. Milner was more tolerant than I expected, far more than she’d have been if I’d done it.

“Sit down, Miss. We can discuss the reliability of the article when I’ve read it to you. True or not, if it’s in the “Times” the whole world is reading it and we need to consider it if we are to be well informed.”

Sansonetti looked around for support and, not finding any, subsided. Mrs. Milner read on. Moments later we heard of further atrocities and “La Donna”, as we called her, erupted again.

“I cannot permit this! It libels my country, it is part of a conspiracy against Italy and if you go on I will think perhaps that you...”

The room was dead silent.

“Yes, Miss, go on,” Mrs. Milner invited quietly.

Again, Sansonetti stood for a moment. She is one of the tallest girls in the school with short, dark hair always carefully coifed, slender but well on the way to a womanly shape. She’s obviously had training in dance and maybe just how to walk. I had never seen her look other than elegant, even sweaty from the playing field. If she were a swan, I would be a little brown duck.

She changed tack.

“It is wrong that you read this thing. It is a war there and these filthy wogs murder our soldiers every day. My father says they are savages, little more than animals, not to be thought of as human. Is it so different than what you English do in India?”

Now it was the Master’s turn to consider for a moment.

“All of these are points we may well discuss and I hope you will bring them up later. If you will allow me to finish we may find that the journalist addresses some of them.”

Sansonetti, still standing, took a breath to continue her tirade but Mrs. Milner overrode her.

“There are also the matters of courtesy and discipline and you are out of bonds on both. Now take your seat and don’t speak again until I’ve finished.”

Well, she sat but you know what happened. Two paragraphs later something else offended “La Donna” and she was up and shouting.

Mrs. Milner marched over to the front of Sansonetti’s desk, put her face quite close, glared at her eye-to-eye from a height advantage and said firmly, “That’s enough.”

Sansonetti sputtered to a halt.

“Now, Miss, come forward.”

The Master walked back to her chair and lifted it to the centre of the room while Sansonetti stood dumfounded, not unlike the rest of us.

“But...”

“Come here, my girl. I’ve been over-patient and it seems you’ve gotten the wrong idea. Come forward, now.’

Sansonetti seemed fixed to the spot, perhaps she felt that as long as she was behind the desk she was safe. I waited for Mrs. Milner to pull her forward but that wasn’t to be.

“Miss Sansonetti, you have a choice: Me, or Mr. Payne first and then me. One way or another, you are going to feel my hand. We can do it now or we can do it after you’ve had the cane but we will do it. Choose, girl, but choose quickly.”

Moving like a sleepwalker, Sansonetti tottered around her desk and toward the now seated Master. Her poise was slipping. Mrs. Milner, though, was the picture of poise in her stolid fashion. A dark green dress with a full skirt draped her ample figure as she sat with knees primly together and hands resting on heavy thighs. Her short grey hair was carefully permed and she was the model of matronly authority.

“Please, Signora, I am sorry, I lost my mind for a moment, Please forgive...”

Though I haven’t attempted to portray it here, I could hear that “La Donna’s” usually perfect English was coming unstuck and I could see her hands shaking.

“Take the position and we’ll discuss your behaviour, Miss.”

“Please, I...”

“Me or Mr. Payne, girl. You’re going to be across this lap. Choose...will it be now or after the cane?”

Nervously, hesitantly, the bemused girl laid herself across that wide, comfortable, very safe-feeling lap. I had spent a lot of time there and more than once wished I could just enjoy the warm security of it without the hellish infliction which was the price.

“La Donna” achieved something like the right place on the first try but Mrs. Milner moved her a bit anyway with apparent ease. The girl seemed limp, lying in the classic penitent’s pose. That perfectly tailored tartan skirt came up alone with a beautifully trimmed slip The knickers appeared to be fine linen with lace edging; they slid down as easily as the cheapest cotten. Sansonetti made to reach back as if in mute protest of this uncovering but stopped at a warning.

“Don’t you dare, my girl. Keep your hands in front of you, do you hear?”

There was a muffled, “Si, Signora.”

The scold was classic but surprisingly short, considering the offence and “La Donna” lay there with head hanging, long legs straight with those lovely undies at mid thigh and her toes just off the floor. She hardly moved, even when her trim bottom was patted by the Master’s wide, warm, seemingly soft hand.

We watched in something like awe as the first stroke fell from on high and something like a gunshot resounded about the room. Sansonetti clenched eyes, fists and buttocks, one foot kicked and her head jerked up but she made no sound. Though I have no more use for “La Donna” than she does for me, my bottom twitched in sympathy. Mrs. Milner gave her a moment to feel that one on her now parti-coloured nether cheeks, one white, the other red fading to pink and delivered her second. Now both cheeks matched in hue and in their tensing and clutching together, part of a general contraction throughout her body. She had a grip on the chair legs and had crossed her ankles. Again, she made no sound.

Ten strokes later that lithe bottom was bobbing in all directions under the now more rapid tattoo and her heels came up on each stroke but she had her head determinedly down and a fierce grip on the chair. Still, she made no sound.

Somewhere past twenty she emitted a squeak she could no longer suppress and half-a-dozen later she began a small cry with each impact. Her tears started and she was panting now, her breathing matching the sonorous rhythm being applied to her.

In contrast to Sansonetti’s desperation, Mrs. Milner seemed calm, even relaxed. Her whole posture radiated the confidence of experience and authority; she’d done it all before. She sat erect, her left hand rested lightly on her subject’s back as her right played that dreadful refrain.

Then, unbelievably, Sansonetti was on her feet.

With a great cry of “No!”, she had slid off Mrs. Milners’s lap and fallen to her own knees. Firing a volley of loud, very rapid Italian, she managed to stand, grabbed for her knickers and headed for the door.

Mrs. Milner was also standing. “Stop, Miss! Come back here, don’t do this thing!”

Another spate of Italian as Sansonetti slowed to get her knickers into place.

Moving with a speed that belied her bulk, Mrs. Milner caught Sansonetti opening the door, took a hard grip on one arm and frog-marched her into the hall and away from the room.

We sat in stunned silence for a moment and then, bedlam. Someone had the sense to close the door and cooler heads reminded us that too much noise could lead to painful consequences. The intense whispered discussions ended some five minutes later when Mrs. Milner returned with hardly a hair out of place.

“I apologise for that disturbance,” she said. “Now, let’s get back to our lesson.” She picked up the cutting she’d been reading. “Now, where were we?”

About twenty minutes later, there was a tap at the door; it opened just far enough for Sansonetti to edge inside. She closed the door and waited for Mrs. Milner’s attention.

“Yes, Miss?”

Sansonetti looked a fright. Her face was red, grimacing and wet with tears, her hair was off in all directions and she , unconsciously, I’m sure, was rubbing with both hands at her backside.

“Ma’am, I am told to come and ask you to finish...” Her voice quavered and dropped.

“Finish?” Mrs. Milner’s voice was encouraging.

“Finish the...punishment, Ma’am,” spoken low, almost a whisper.

“Finish the spanking?”

“Yes, Ma’am,” barely audible.

The Master lifted her chair from behind the desk, placed it and sat in it.

“Well, let’s get on with it, Miss.”

Sansonetti swallowed hard and approached the chair, it was clear that there were a vast number of things she’d rather be doing. Nevertheless, she took her place and as her knickers came down we saw how she’d spent her time out of the classroom. Her bottom was streaked with the angry red, parallel scores of the cane.

Mrs. Milner delivered a brisk ten, or so, quickly and, I thought, with not nearly so much force as before. No matter, “La Donna” was singing a high thin wail after the first.

We continued the discussion with no further contribution, except an occasional sob, from our resident facist.

Chapter 3

There was a rumour about in the refectory at noon which sounded reasonable. One of the kitchen staff told how she was directed to serve on Saturday morning at a breakfast called by the Headmaster for the entire teaching staff. Naturally she got an earful.

“Read ‘em the bleedin’ riot act, ‘e did.” was the report.

The Head has decided that the school is on a downward spiral, were her approximate words. Discipline is in a swift decline as evidenced by lateness to class, poorly done studies, examination results, untidy uniforms and impertinent speech. Academic standings are sure to follow. Masters must immediately bring violators up short and the brisk application of the open hand to a girlish bottom is the best beginning. Then, apparently he addressed himself to Mr. Shingler, who was informed he must do more. Mr. Shingler protested that violence wasn’t necessary. The Head, we were told, suggested that Mr. Shingler must either follow school policy or seek other employment.

Well! That certainly explained the residual heat in my bottom!

All of this was most interesting but it didn’t help with my forthcoming problem. My first class immediately after luncheon is Chemistry with Mr. Trulove and I feared that if anyone would get at my bottom it would be he.

Mr. Trulove has taught for St. Angela’s for some sixteen years, at least so rumour has it, and I have no doubt that he has spanked at least one student bottom every school day of those years. If you are interested enough to do the maths, your product will be far too small for on many days he did more than one. On more than one day he spanked a girl in every class...as he probably will do today...on another he spanked four girls in one class...I was one... and on yet another, last year, he spanked one girl three times in a class...guess who?

On the other side...giggle...I have had many after-school sessions with him, and, with the exception of one memorable episode last year, they have been all study. He really does teach and I really have learned!

But he seems convinced that I will fall back into my unfortunate ways and that only regular reminders applied to my fundament stand in the way of that happening. Amy says he just likes to smack my bottom. Whatever the reason, I have spent by far more time on his lap, closely examining the floorboards, than any other Master.

So it was with some trepidation that I took my seat in the science lab where Mr. Trulove ruled.

He did not disappoint us. Not five minutes into the session he ferreted out the fact that Christine Maddox had spent less time than she should have with the Chemistry reading during the weekend.

“T-t-the word is v-v-valence, M-m-miss M-m-maddox. S-s-surely y-y-you’ve enc-c-countered it b-b-before.”

Mr Trulove is a tall, slender man whose remaining hair has gone white. Something about him gives the impression of a stork, his clothes seem always too short for his limbs and he seems to have a very small wardrobe, wearing the same suits until they are shiney. The first time I heard Mr. Trulove’s stutter I laughed out loud. His response was swift and agonizing. After a while you hardly notice the affliction but for some reason I heard it clearly today.

Maddox, who is becoming a Trulove favorite, made it clear that she didn’t know a valence from a vestibule...or anything else from the reading and in short order was plodding forward. She is a short girl, only beginning to show any shape at her chest but wonderously rounded below the waist, exactly the sort who, if they are not quick to catch on, are often upended in Trulove’s classes.

Usually a Trulove spanking, after the girl is in place and prepared, is efficient, tormenting and quickly over. This time he seemed to take longer getting Maddox into precisely the right position. Skirt and slip were raised as if uncovering a delicate treasure. Knickers were slid down with the greatest of care. He patted the upraised bottom almost tenderly.

And then he proceeded to lecture!

Not just Maddox but the whole class. With Maddox head down and toes off the floor, he proceeded to explain to all of us the antics of electrons in chemical reactions. At various points along the way he questioned Maddox to be sure she was taking all this in, patting her nates to emphasise his points.

“Now is it clear to you, Miss Maddox?” His stutter continued but I’ll not attempt to record it.

From Maddox a hopeful, “Yes , sir. Very clear.”

“But this wouldn’t have been necessary if you’d read and pondered the lesson, would it?”

The subdued “No, sir” was without hope.

Then followed a typical Trulove spanking. That long arm swung hard from the shoulder and landed with a familiar report, eliciting an involuntary yelp. It swung again and again, harsh, biting blows, landing with precision, attending to every inch of that cringing bottom, about two per second until he had reached near forty. Maddox bounced and kicked; her face became dark red as her bottom became bright red. At first her cries came at each blow but then became sobs as the tears started.

With a nicety of judgement and timing born, no doubt, of experience, he stopped. Getting her on her feet, clothing arranged and back to her chair was the work of moments.

I had read the lesson on Saturday; I always do Trulove’s lessons first, and felt rather superior. He’d had his victim for the day, had a complicated subject to cover and it seemed I was safe. Only two more classes to go and one of them English with Miss Prebble, my favourite Master...

“...Can you, Miss Peters?”

Damn! Damn! Damn!

Attempted recovery: “I’m sorry, sir, I didn’t understand the question.” Muffled laughter from the class.

“Didn’t you, indeed, Miss Peters? Could it be that where ever you were for the last several minutes, they don’t speak plain English? I asked you to read from the middle of page forty seven but I think someone else will do that. Come forward, please.”

There was nothing for it but to take my medicine. I didn’t even bother with a soliloquy as I stood beside his chair. Without prompting I went across his lap, aware, as always, of the smell of musty wool and linen too long unwashed, boney thighs and the pattern in the floorboards. And aware, as always, of the hard lump at the base of his stomach.

This time there was no ceremony. My skirt was up and knickers down in a trice. And there was no lecture, no tender pats.

“Someone has been here before me, it seems. I’m disappointed in you, Miss Peters. I’d thought we were past all that,” was all I heard before that long arm worked and his hand came crashing down.

He is a devil. He always seems to know just how long he can batter my familiar backside to get the greatest effect. The count was well past forty and it seemed it would go on forever as the furnace he stoked burned hotter and hotter. I longed for my cloud, my relieving, rescuing cloud to carry me away.

And then he stopped.

Sobbing, dancing and rubbing, I got my knickers into place and stumbled back to my chair knowing, as always with him, that I had felt and endured every moment.

Now, sitting was misery but I had to ignore the torment and concentrate on his every word. It was far from impossible that, given the remotest opportunity, he would do it again.

A trip to the loo and quantities of cold water helped remove some of the evidence from my face between classes. I carefully straightened my uniform and gave myself a fierce talking-to.

The next class was French. I had prepared, and was able to hand in the excercise, and answered when called upon. M. Manet apparently felt that he had already met the Head’s requirement and, for a wonder, no one went forward. I did not rejoice. I just wanted to get through this day without further disaster.

Again, the halls were subdued. Angels clustered together, those who had so far escaped unscathed...the majority, unfortunately...attempting to comfort those who had experienced a new sensation. Girls everywhere whispered hurriedly, unable to wait to tell who had been the victims in their last class. Laplanders gave ample visual evidence of their travails with red faces and rumpled uniforms. There was no one waiting at the little room under the stairs.

English Lit. is without doubt my best subject. Miss Prebble, like Mr. Shingler, is new this year and she seems to bring out the best in me. I get top scores in her exams and several times she has praised my essays and twice even read one to the class. She has called me to stay after class on other occasions, carefully going over my work, critiquing and helping me to hone my words.

She is a tall slender woman, not yet thirty, I would judge, always impeccably turned out, with a cool, almost detached way of facing the world. Only in our after-school sessions have I seen the warm, almost intense person who hides underneath. Rumour says that she has spanked severly on occasion but never in one of my classes.

So, I took my seat, as secure as I could be that once I had endured whatever plans Mr. Shingler had for me, I would be finished with this awful day.

The lesson involved a reading from Boswell and Johnson’s trip to the Hebrides...they are a group of islands to the north of Scotland in case you don’t know...which must have been fascinating for Mr Boswell, getting his hero all to himself, but I found it deadly dull. The seventeenth century language is difficult enough to penetrate and they don’t DO anything. It’s all pompus talk!

Miss Prebble was going on about Dr. Johnson as though he were a cinema star and how fortunate Mr. Boswell had been to be intimate with him. She went around the room asking each girl to discuss this or that of Johnson’s utterances. I felt that chill wind I’ve mentioned. Surely enough, it came to me.

I don’t remember, now, the question she asked me, only that I hadn’t the faintest idea what she was talking about. She appeared puzzled at my stumbling attempt to cover up but went on to another girl. Moments later she came back to me with another opportunity and again I failed.

Then came the intense questioning and I could see annoyance becoming anger.

Finally she asked, “Miss Peters, have you read the discussion questions in the back of the book concerning this chapter?”

I had to admit I had not

“Have you even read the chapter?”

I could only lower my eyes and shake my head.

And then, again, those awful words: “Miss Peters, please come forward.”

I’ve thought about it since. I ‘d given her no choice. She had punished other girls for similiar offences and to let me escape would have branded me “pet” especially on this day of all days.

Once again I made that walk. I was surprised to see that she had not left her desk but was reaching for something in one of the drawers. She brought out one white kid glove which she pulled onto her right hand, carefully working her left hand between the fingers of the glove and tugging it firmly in place. She looked up at me, standing between the front row of desks, and her eyes narrowed as she rose and pulled back her chair. Straight back, not to the center of the room. Her desk would be between me and most ot the class. She seated herself again and beckoned to me.

Again I said nothing, simply taking the classic position without a word. I felt my skirt and slip come up and lifted my hips as the knickers went down.

“Miss Peters, I can’t say how displeased I am with you. I know your history of last year and was gratified to think you’d improved. The evidence I see on your bottom suggests that you have regressed considerably. I won’t have it, Miss Peters. I simply won’t have it.”

With that, the small, leather-covered hand impacted exactly above the crease of my thighs and exactly dead centre so that both cheeks were addressed. Almost immediately it landed again, in exactly the same place; without the slightest pause, again, same place..

Other Masters spank fairly slowly, at a rate of maybe sixty to ninety per minute, perhaps on the theory that the discomfort is more intense with more time between strokes to feel it. They also“paint” the whole area, from thighs to the top of the buttocks, liberally covering both sides.

Not Miss Prebble. It was amazing that she could get so much force into a hand that was moving so rapidly...with each impact flawlessly in the same small area.

To the class, most of whom could hear but not see, it must have sounded like a machine gun, to me, it felt like a rapidly increasing bonfire.

I heard myself cry out a long extended “Aaaaaaaaaaah” and realized that I was working myself into a bow, head and heels up. I managed a deep breath but could not stop that long wail from beginning again. The rapid-fire tattoo went on. Then I was panting, a cry at each exhalation and I knew that tears had started.

Then it stopped.

I was still in that reverse arch, never having had even the smallest moment to relax. Now I did and hung limply for a moment.

“Up, Miss Peters. Back to your chair but you’ll wait here after class. We’ve not finished and I wish to be sure you get my message.”

I was thunderstruck, dumfounded. This couldn’t be happening. As I stood I managed to stammer through my sobs, “I-I-I have an ap-p-pointment with Mr. Sh-sh-shingler, ma’am.”

“Humph That doesn’t surprise me. In his first class this morning were you?”

“Yes, ma’am. But...”

“You keep your appointment with Mr. Shingler and then you come back here straightaway. Do you hear?”

There was nothing to say but “Yes, Ma’am.”

The class somehow ended and I was on the horns of a dilemma. On the one hand, I was in no hurry to meet with Mr. Shindler. I had already worked out that, due to his inexperience, he might have difficulty knowing when to stop. On the other hand, I was certainly in no hurry to return to Miss Prebble.

A vivid picture had come to my mind, a memory of a few weeks after school started this year. I was on my way to a study appointment after class and heard the unmistakable sound of “after hours punishment” coming from one of the few lighted rooms. Keeping well back in the darkness of the hall, I moved to where I could see. Miss Prebble had Darla Ellison bent over her desk and was standing to the girl’s left, intent on her work. The Ellison nether portions, which looked to be three feet across, though still doughy and flabby, were a long way from white and pallid. From the backs of her knees to the tops of her buttocks, she was blazing, firey red. She wailed and shrieked and wobbled as Miss Prebbles’ weapon descended...eighteen inches of Scotch tawse.

For you ignorant colonials, that is a flexible leather strap, two to three inches wide, with three “fingers” cut into the business end. I’ve not had the pleasure, even with my wide experience, but from those who have, I have learned it is to be avoided.

That is what was waiting for me in Miss Prebble’s room.

My route took me from one end of the downstairs hall to the center of the building, up the stairs and halfway down the far hall.Virtually every door was open with lights on. From almost every door came the sounds of anguish. On each side I could see Masters with girls over their laps or bent over desks, employing their hands or various implements. In some rooms I could see bottoms in various shades of scarlet, in others I saw faces screwed up, eyes tightly closed, mouths almost invariably open contributing to the chorus. In several rooms, other unfortunates waited their turn.

I couldn’t help but tarry outside Mrs. Ethridge’s room. She had Pamela Osman over her lap and was applying her paddle with vigor. Looking on with interest stood Mrs. Fowler from the school office. Osman’s bottom was already showing the signs of an unhappy day and it was clear she was not taking this at all well. Like this morning she was yelling, kicking and bucking, about to throw herself free. Mrs. Ethridge dropped her paddle, picked up Osman bodily and bent her over the desk. Mrs. Fowler grasped Osman’s wrists to hold her in place.

“Now, my girl, this ends when you put yourself across my lap and stay there until I say you may leave. We can do this every afternoon for the next week if that’s what it takes, or longer. You decide when you are ready to do what you must.”

So saying, she picked up her paddle, flipped Osman’s skirt out of the way and recommenced her assault. Osman wailed and struggled but there was no escape. I knew who would win that contest but there was some question how long it would take. In any case, Mrs. Ethridge’s reputation was about to change.

I could have no doubt that Mr. Shingler was busy before I ever reached his door, although there was something odd about the sound. As I stood in the doorway I was greeted by the sight of an already pink bum belonging to the girl across his lap He was applying what appeared to be a table tennis bat...you would say “ping pong paddle”... which landed with a loud “whack”, eliciting only a stifled grunt and a wiggle from the girl. This clearly was not an acceptable response to Shingler and he redoubled his efforts.

As I walked into the room he looked at me, stopped what he was doing and said, “Miss Peters, do take a chair, I shall be with you when I’ve finished here.”

I moved to the chair at one of the desks and the girl turned her head to look at me. It was Sandra Alstott-Jones, barely recognisable with red face, clenched teeth and knotted brow. Another Angel who had misjudged the man who didn’t believe in corporal punishment. She is my age but looks older even though smaller and more slender. She had been heard to boast that she hadn’t been spanked since a nurse bared her bottom when she was six.

Shingler went back to his task and for the third time today I saw a battle of wills which the Master could only win and the girl could only lose. It was apparent he hadn’t been satisfied in the classroom and was now determined that he would reduce her to the same sobs and tears he had achieved in all the other girls he had punished this day.

As was bound to happen, she moved more and more with each impact and the stifled cries became louder. By now she had kicked out of her knickers, they were hanging from one ankle, the color of her buttocks became a dark, mottled, angry red and she tried to throw herself back and forth on his lap.

Then she reached back with her right hand to shield her abused bottom.

This is one of the major sins at St. Angela’s and I expected that he would immediately haul her off to Mr Payne for a dose of the cane. This was not to be. He grasped her wrist with his right hand and pinned the offending hand to the small of her back, never losing a stroke.

The bat fell like a metronome, Alstott-Jones’ kicks and spasms became more violent and then she gave an awful cry. And again. And again. It was as though the defiance had suddenly leaked out of her, her head slumped almost to the floor, her feet dangled just off the floor jerking feebly with each blow but no longer vigourously kicking. She sobbed like a child

Shingler, to give him his due, recognised surrender. As he got her to her feet , my fascination with what I had been watching faded and I became very aware of what I faced. After a few moments she got her clothes in some sort of order and tottered out the door; he turned to me, bat in hand.

“Miss Peters, I don’t wish there to be any doubt why you are here. You were late to class, your work was clearly unsatisfactory and you tried to deceive me. As I think back, you have done this before, evidently having decided that I am a ‘soft touch’. Further, other Masters have told me that you have a way of making a great fuss during punishment hoping to get off easier.

“I intend to be certain that you do not ‘get off easy.’”

It was clear that Mr. Shingler was also concerned with his reputation.

He had reseated himself and now he patted his left thigh.

“I don’t expect I shall have to instruct you in what is expected of you. I will remind you to take my left side.”

I heaved a sigh of resignation and said a small prayer for the swift arrival of my cloud as I lay myself across his thighs. My skirt was up and my knickers were lowered far too quickly and that bat came down. My already sore bum sent an agonized message to my brain and I squealed in earnest. There was no artifice left. Where do you go when you start with “unendurable?” After only a half dozen I was sobbing and kicking and could do nothing else. Another half dozen and I was slumped in hopelessness as Alstott-Jones had been.

Suddenly, there was no new agony being added to my flaming bottom. He had stopped and I heard a voice over my keening.

“Excuse me, Mr. Shingler. Sorry to interrupt but it appears you’ve about finished here. Is that Miss Peters? Not a good day for her, I understand.”

Through my tears I could just make out Mr. Payne with Helen Dowell in tow. It seems this was her day to enjoy various views of my nethers.

“We have a situation which I must ask you to address immediately,” Mr. Payne continued. “I received a telephone call from Sir Melvin Dowell this afternoon and...”

Helen Dowell interrupted, speaking to Shingler with all her customary arrogance. “Yes, I telephoned my father this morning. I told him what you did and I demanded that he have you sacked!”

Shingler set me on my feet by main strength and rose to his full height.

“Sir Melvin’s view of the situation differs. He agrees that not only was your action toward his daughter correct, he strongly suggested that you repeat it,” Mr. Payne said.

Dowell’s mouth dropped and her eyes got very big.

“That can’t be so! My father would never say such a thing,” she screeched.

With all attention off me, I took a step backward towards the door.

Mr. Payne showed annoyance, but not towards me. “Miss Dowell, implying that I would tell an untruth involving school matters is unlikely to aid your cause. Mr. Shingler, please follow Sir Melvin’s suggestion and then send Miss Dowell back to me in the room under the stairs. I believe she and I will have further matters to discuss.”

Shingler remembered me. “Miss Peters, you are dismissed. Learn something from this session.”

I mumbled a “Yes, sir,” and reached for my knickers. Shingler grabbed...there’s no other word for it...Dowell by the arm and dragged her...no other word for that either...protesting to his chair and flung her across his lap. Her skirt was up and her new knickers...she’d changed during the luncheon period...got torn as they came down. I doubt she noticed.

Then he applied that large left hand rapidly to her still pink, oddly shaped bottom.

Over her yelling, Mr. Payne said to me, “Shouldn’t you be on your way? You DO have another appointment.” (How did he know?)

“Yes, sir. May I have a moment, please? I’m afraid I’m feeling all trembly.”

“Don’t be too long, Miss Prebble is waiting,” was his parting shot on his way out the door.

I made sure that my skirt wasn’t caught in my knickers and I tucked in my shirt. Dowell was suffering already and telling the world. Shingler had her well and truely fixed and she could only submit. As I turned for the door, the rythm was interrupted. I looked back to see him pick up the table tennis bat. Dowell, thinking her ordeal was over, made as if to get up.

“Not quite yet, miss, not quite yet,” he murmured

And then he bent again to his task. I could still hear Dowell all the way down the stairs.

Three rooms were still active on the lower floor and I made sure to glance in the first two. In one, Mrs. Milner wielded her much feared slipper on a well reddened but anonomyous bottom while another culprit awaited her turn, squirming in a chair. In the other, M. Manet, not a noted spanker, applied a short strap to mottled and bruised buttocks which clearly were approaching enough. I couldn’t see who it was and I’ve no idea how she brought out the wrath in the normally placid French Master.

The last room from which painfull sounds came was Miss Prebble’s A quick glance around the doorjamb showed a familiar scene. Again Darla Ellison was bent over Miss Prebble’s desk and again that awful tawse was at work. Since this was Ellison’s second “appointment” this afternoon, the infernal strap was having a hellish effect. Again, Ellison was mottled between bright and angry dark red from the back of her her knees to the top of her buttocks. Her high thin screech was incongrous from so large a body.

Miss Prebble saw me come in and, for a moment, suspended her labors.

“Wait there, Miss Peters. Miss Ellison, have you begun to understand? How often must we do this before you realize that your falsehoods and schemes won’t work. I promised you before and I promise you again: I expect hard work and honesty and I will have it. Is that clear.”

Ellison, not able to find her voice, nodded her head with such vigor that her rump and thighs wobbled in unison. She began to straighten up, a mistake.

“Stay where you are,” ordered the unusually disheveled Master. “I will tell you when you may move.”

And proceeded to deliver another ten. Ellison needed the help of both of us to get out the door.

Miss Prebble, too, showed signs of the afternoon’s exertions and I wondered how many appointments she’d had. Her normally sleek coiffeur was somewhat askew, her forehead was dewed with sweat and her blouse showed two damp circles under her arms. She stood before me with that fearsome tawse dangling from her hand. There was no one else in the room, and with perhaps two exceptions, the school was quiet.

“You know why you are here, Miss Peters. You have showed distinct progress in the past months and I will not see you revert to your old ways, I will not! If keeping your bottom sore is the price of that, then so be it. You know where you should be now.”

Desperately, irrationally fearing that tawse, I numbly bent over the desk. Once again the too, too familiar sensation of my skirt around my neck and my underwear descending to my knees. It had happened so often, had been so much a part of my life, sometimes, like now, deserved but often simply for the entertainment of another. I needed be strong for only a little longer. I had endured so much, I could endure this, but never before had I felt so helpless, so hopeless, so lost and alone.

Something broke inside. My knees collapsed and whatever composure I had left to me evaporated. I slumped to my knees and barely caught myself with one arm.

And I bawled.

Great racking, whooping sobs that hurt more than the tawse ever could have. I couldn’t catch my breath, each shuddering sob tore its way out of my aching chest as if it left a bloody void. I began to wonder if I would ever be able to stop. I tried to catch my breath but another fearful spasm racked me again.

I became aware of someone on the floor beside me. Arms reached around me and pulled me against a female breast, I buried my face in her neck and and let my tears flood.

I was vaguely aware that I could not remember ever having been embraced by an adult.

The storm receded somewhat and I heard her whisper, “Millicent, Millicent, what are we to do with you?” I’m afraid I clutched her tighter and hung on for my life.

In what was a major rules violation, she closed the door, turned off the lights and sat again with me and held me. As we talked, a dam burst inside me and I found myself telling details of my life that I’d never spoken before, I found myself remembering experiences which had been too painful and so had I buried them. ‘Til now. ***

I know there are limits to what she can do.

I know she can’t appear to favor me, I understand that.

But she says she will try to advise, perhaps be something of a mentor, and, in dire need, provide that embrace I had missed for so long. Even that is more than I’ve ever had.

Hope is a totally new sensation

I fear I’m on my own hook with Chemistry, though; she said her own bottom at one point suffered regularly over the subject of valences.

End

Apologies and thanks to the author of “A Difference in Style.”

All comments...sent by e-mail, please, my server's having trouble with S.S.S....are gratefully accepted and will be responded to.