entry 14 by Phillippa!

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As the boy ambled casu­al­ly up to the door, he took note of the let­ter­ing on the brass plate:

Head­mistress

Miss Elsa Sven­son M.A. (Hons), Dip. C.P.

He knocked and received an imme­di­ate response. ìEnter!î

The blond lady sit­ting behind the desk await­ing him looked rather smart and dis­tin­guished dressed as she was in a black skirt suit and white blouse.

ìI was told to report to you and bring you this noteî, he said, hand­ing her a sealed envelope.

ìAnd what is your name boy?î she asked quietly.

ìThomas, Mis­sî.

ìI was expect­ing you fif­teen min­utes ago Thomas. You are late and I do not approve of tar­di­ness. Now close the door please.î

Slight­ly tak­en aback at her stern tone the boy replied vague­ly ìI guess I must have got side-tracked on the wayî, and shrugged his shoulders.

ìYou are fair­ly new here, arenít you?î she con­tin­ued, ìI do not believe we have met beforeî.

ìNo Miss. By the way Miss, what do those let­ters behind your name on the door stand for?î

ìYou will prob­a­bly find out later,î she replied with a lit­tle smile. ìNow let us see what this note is all aboutî.

The Head­mistress opened the enve­lope and began to read the let­ter it con­tained. As she did so, her expres­sion turned con­sid­er­ably more severe. Thomas, in the mean time, stared vacant­ly through the win­dow and began to whistle.

ëSi­lence please,î she hissed, this time sound­ing very much less friendly.

ìAc­cord­ing to your class teacher it seems you have per­sis­tent­ly been behav­ing in an unruly man­ner dur­ing lessons. Is that so?î

ìWell, maybe I talk to my mates and muck about a bitî he replied carelessly.

ìShe tells me that she has tried to dis­ci­pline you but now believes that I need to inter­vene with suit­able pun­ish­ment to dis­suade you from con­tin­u­ing this way. What do you think?î

ìI sup­pose you are going to wal­lop me. Iíve had the slip­per loads of times before so Iím not too wor­ried about itî, said the boy with a cheeky grin on his face.

ìVery well,î replied Miss Sven­son, ìI had no idea I was deal­ing with such a hard­ened criminal.î

Again a faint smile played about her lips.

ìPer­haps then we should get right on with it.î

She opened her desk draw­er and took out a well worn rub­ber soled gym shoe.

ìUn­buck­le your belt and touch your toes!î she commanded.

The boy, seem­ing to know what was expect­ed of him, did as he was told, dropped his trousers and bent over. The Head­mistress moved around beside the stoop­ing fig­ure and lift­ed his shirt tail up over his back. She not­ed with sat­is­fac­tion the thin cot­ton mate­r­i­al of his under­pants stretched tight over his small but round­ed bot­tom. The smile returned one more.

Grip­ping the slip­per by the heel, she raised her arm over her shoul­der and brought it down sharply on the left side with a sat­is­fy­ing slap. Quick­ly she repeat­ed the blow with equal vigour on the right cheek and paused. The boy had not flinched. After a few sec­onds she repeat­ed the treat­ment in reverse order ñ right then left.

The boy seemed unmoved and remained bent sub­mis­sive­ly, his fin­gers touch­ing the floor in front of him. Some­what sur­prised, the Head­mistress put extra effort into the fol­low­ing two swings and detect­ed a slight twitch from the recip­i­ent ìThatís bet­terî she mur­mured under her breath.

How­ev­er, to her sur­prise, there had been no sig­nif­i­cant reac­tion from the boy to these first six. He start­ed to lift his head.

ìStay downî came the harsh instruc­tion. She then moved in front of the stoop­ing fig­ure so that her knees rest­ed gen­tly against his shoul­der blades. In this posi­tion he looked as if he was bow­ing deeply in respect.

She placed her left hand on the small of his back, hold­ing the shirt tail in place and, reach­ing for­ward slight­ly, deliv­ered a fur­ther six smart strokes on the seat of his pants, alter­nat­ing right and left as before. Because she was hit­ting straight down, the slip­per seemed to have much more of an impact. She left a short pause between each blow to allow the full effect to be felt. The boy still did not move but she thought she heard a muf­fled grunt from him after the fourth sting­ing slap of this sec­ond onslaught.

Some­what sat­is­fied, the Head­mistress stepped back.

ìYou may stand upî she said.

Thomas straight­ened and made imme­di­ate eye con­tact, but began vig­or­ous­ly to rub his but­tocks to ease the undoubt­ed throb­bing pain.

ìWhat do you have to say for your­self now boy?î

Con­tin­u­ing to mas­sage him­self, Thomas looked direct­ly at her. She thought he almost looked as if he was smirking.

ìIt was­nít too bad a whack­ing, but I think it was a bit hard for just mess­ing about in lessons. Iíve had worse. Any­way, can I go now?î He made as if to retrieve his trousers but was swift­ly interrupted.

ìJust a moment, I havenít fin­ished with you yet.î

Miss Sven­sonís eye­brows were raised in aston­ish­ment. Admit­ted­ly the boy had tak­en his pun­ish­ment well, but such effron­tery from a pupil she had nev­er before expe­ri­enced. It was as if he were assess­ing her per­for­mance, judg­ing her. Such an atti­tude need­ed nip­ping firm­ly and quick­ly in the bud.

ìI think we should avoid any misunderstanding,î she con­tin­ued calm­ly. ìThe slip­per­ing I have just admin­is­tered had noth­ing at all to do with your report­ed behav­iour in class,î she said, point­ing at the let­ter lying on her desk. ìI gave you that spank­ing for being late, for show­ing no remorse and for offer­ing no apol­o­gy. We still have to deal with your oth­er mis­deeds which demand that I pun­ish you properly.î

She tapped the slip­per thought­ful­ly against her hand and turned back towards her desk.

ìYou were ask­ing about the let­ters behind my name. The hon­ours Mas­ter of Arts Degree is authen­tic, from Oxford Uni­ver­si­ty some years ago. The oth­er qual­i­fi­ca­tion is a lit­tle joke I have with my pupils. I decid­ed to award myself an hon­orary self-taught ëDiplo­ma in Cor­po­ral Pun­ish­men­tí, which is a par­tic­u­lar pas­sion of mine. You have already gath­ered that I know how to use a slip­per, which I will now return to its home.î

With that she replaced the shoe in the desk draw­er and moved towards a wall cupboard.

ìWhen infants are sent to me for being naughty, I usu­al­ly just put them over my knee and smack them with this,î she ges­tured with the open palm of her hand.

ìBut for old­er chil­dren or more seri­ous mat­ters we have oth­er options.î

She opened the cup­board to reveal an array of sin­is­ter look­ing implements.

ìI sup­pose I could use one of my pad­dles or give you a taste of the strap.î Her fin­gers seemed to brush lov­ing­ly over each of the items as they were mentioned.

ìOc­ca­sion­al­ly I even use the birchî.

Then her hand shift­ed towards a row of long thin sticks arranged in a rack, the slen­der­est on the left and the most robust on the extreme right.

ìBut my real favourite is.….î

The boy had been watch­ing and lis­ten­ing, dumb­struck and increas­ing­ly alarmed. Now he got his voice back.

ìThe c..cane, Miss!î he stam­mered. ìI did­nít know you used the cane at this school.î

ìOh yes, when it is jus­ti­fied. As you see I have quite a selec­tion. I pride myself on being some­thing of a spe­cial­ist. They say the exper­tise is in a flick of the wrist at just the right moment. But I donít real­ly know.î

Her hand moved along the row, paus­ing in the mid­dle and then mov­ing again two posi­tions to the right. Final­ly she seemed sat­is­fied and removed one of the heav­ier ones from the rack giv­ing it an explorato­ry flour­ish in the air. It made an omi­nous swish­ing sound and seemed remark­ably flex­i­ble con­sid­er­ing its rel­a­tive thickness.

ìI am now going to give you a prop­er beat­ing as I told you, so letís get you ready.î

Thomas was now extreme­ly agitated.

ìNo Miss, please. Itís not fair. I did­nít know.î

ìI think I will have you bent over there,î she con­tin­ued, ignor­ing his protests and indi­cat­ing an upright chair. ìI would advise you to get a good grip on the seat as I donít expect you to move until I have fin­ished. Oh! And just to make it a bit more inter­est­ing, letís have those pants off. I pre­fer to see the results of my work. Neat par­al­lel lines are what I like.î† (She had a men­tal pic­ture of a pair of rail­way tracks side by side)

The boy stood still in defi­ant dis­be­lief, his trousers round his ankles.

ìRe­al­ly no, Miss. You canít cane me on my bare bum.….î

As the word slipped out he knew he had made a bad mis­take. He turned his eyes to the floor and bit his low­er lip.

ìThat does it Thomas,î said the grim faced Miss Sven­son, now advanc­ing on him with the fear­some look­ing cane.

ìAs you are new, I was going to be lenient and give you just four strokes. But as I now know you also have a sew­er for a mouth, you will get the full six of the best.î (In her mindís eye she now saw a five bar gate per­haps with a diag­o­nal strut). ìAnd remem­ber, no mov­ing until I say you may, and no more objec­tions or you will get even more. And I promise you, you wonít want any more than six from this cane.î By the way she empha­sized her words, Miss Sven­son made it very clear that ëthisí cane was par­tic­u­lar­ly to be feared. And she was not smil­ing at all.

The boy stood trans­fixed beside the high backed chair and the Head­mistress saw his eyes begin­ning to moisten.

ìThomas, you are now being treat­ed like a big boy.î Her tone had per­haps soft­ened a little.

ìNow, pants down and over the chair please. Letís not behave like a baby!î

† † † † † † † † † † † † † † † † † † † † † † † ††My Mistake

††††††††††††††††††††††††††††††††††††††††††††††††††††††††††† By PeeJay

It was the day of vac­ci­na­tions.† Because I was first on the list, I had been a bit care­less with my tim­ings and for the first time was a lit­tle bit late for school.† The pre­fect on the gate not­ed this down and I hur­ried for my vac­ci­na­tion. For some strange rea­son the loca­tion for vac­ci­na­tions was Miss Sven­sonís study.† I had not seen the inside of this before, so there was a touch of excite­ment as well as fear because i had heard from sev­er­al of the pupils about things that had hap­pened in here.† I was sure if any of these were true, or had mere­ly been exag­ger­at­ed, but they sound­ed com­pelling and just a bit chill­ing.† I sat down on the sofa and wait­ed for the nurse to appear.† She did­nít. I wait­ed a full five min­utes and there was no sign of her.† Dur­ing the five min­utes I had looked around to see what there was on dis­play in the office to get my imag­i­na­tion going.† Sad­ly, there were no tools of cor­po­ral pun­ish­ment on dis­play, but very notice­able in the mid­dle of the room was some­thing that I imag­ined could be used as a pun­ish­ment stool.† Wow, I could just imag­ine how that might have been used.

As still no-one appeared, I could­nít resist giv­ing in to the temp­ta­tion to bend over it.† I had just moved to this school from anoth­er one, because my fam­i­ly had need­ed to move to a new area.† In my old school, I had been told by my class teacher and the deputy head, both kind ladies who pre­tent­ed to be fierce when it suit­ed them, that they would teach me a les­son or make me sor­ry if I mis­be­haved.† They had nev­er done that, even when I was delib­er­ate­ly cheeky or naughty to see what they would do, so I could only fan­ta­sise about the use of cor­po­ral pun­ish­ment, which was used here.† As I was imag­in­ing, I pulled down my trousers and then my under­pants, just to bring a lit­tle touch of real­i­ty into my imag­in­ings.† Of course, with my bare bot­tom in the air that just had to be when the nerse arrived.

I had to make excus­es about this.† I said to her that as she had been late, I had been try­ing to work out my posi­tion for vac­ci­na­tion.† ìWell, nor­mal­ly, I vac­ci­nate in the arm, but I will very hap­pi­ly do it there if you wish.† And no, I was­nít late ñyou were and as a num­ber of pupils have called in sick, I went to have a cup of tea with Miss Sven­son.† I believe I still have a bit of free time ñ I will text Miss Sven­son and tell her how I found you.† Then she can come and watch you being vaccinated.î† Oops, how could I get out of this one?† Miss Sven­son arrived very quick­ly and gave a very sur­prised look in my direction.

ìMiss Sven­son, as he is in per­fect posi­tion, I won­dered if you could pro­vide me with some of your tools of cor­po­ral pun­ish­ment to get his behind in the right state of numb­ness before I inject him?† She brought out a slip­per, a strap and a dra­gan cane.† ìI think we should each give him six of the best with each of these, Nerse Phillips,î she said.† ìAfter you!î† The nurse start­ed off with the slip­per.† It was quite hard and uncom­fort­able and pro­duced a beau­ti­ful crack, but the nurse was not putting much force into it, which meant that this was going to be no prob­lem for me.† The strap was dif­fer­ent and bit in more and I start­ed to take in deep breaths.† This cane was heavy and hard and made an inter­est­ing sound, but hit with the force of the nurse, it was not going to do me much dam­age.† I was­nít sure about Miss Sven­son though, so I had to do something.

ìPlease Miss, does­nít the nurse need to vac­ci­nate oth­ers now.† I could come back and see you for your pun­ish­munt anoth­er day?† ìIím glad you realise that you need to be pun­ished by me.† I was always sus­pi­cious about the per­fect report and the immac­u­late grades that were described.† I was sure there was more to you than that.† Today you have shown your true colours.† Of course you will be pun­ished by me on Fri­day for the long cat­a­logue of crimes that you have com­mit­ted this morn­ing.† But I promised you six of the best with each of these first, just to get you warmed up for Nurse Philips.† And that is what I will do.

She bent me back over the stool, but put my under­pants back on, so I no longer had a bare bot­tom.† Just as I was breath­ing a sigh of relief, the first crack of the slip­per came.† It was so much hard­er than before and I knew this was going to be seri­ous.† Each stroke was hard­er and caused my now clothed bot­tom to wrig­gle and writhe.† ìKeep still boy,î she yelled, ìor this will also be count­ed against you for your pun­ish­ment on Friday.î† I tried very hard to keep still, but as she start­ed on the strap strokes a whole new sen­sa­tion start­ed to spread down below as I start­ed to feel on fire.† I clenched my mus­cles, deter­mined not to deserve any more pun­ish­ment on Fri­day and bit my lip.† The strap­ping came to an end.

Final­ly, she start­ed with her drag­on cane.† I had nev­er expe­ri­enced any­thing like this before.† It was mean and hard and scary and yet there was some­thing exhil­a­rat­ing about it to.† I real­ly had deserved this for a long time, I thought and I was tru­ly get­ting my just deserts from some­one who could real­ly deliv­er. The sixth and hard­est stroke real­ly did make me writhe and wrig­gle, how­ev­er hard I tried to stop myself.† The nurse gave me my injec­tion, though she did pull down my under­pants first and then gave me anoth­er six strokes with the paddle.

I got up angri­ly and said, ìWhat was that for, that was­nít on the agen­da ñ I did­nít deserve that you stu­pid nurse!î† Miss Sven­son glared at me and said, ìTake your trousers and get out of here now.† That last out­burst will be tak­en into con­sid­er­a­tion too!† Present your­self here on Fri­day after school and then you will get what you tru­ly deserve from me!