Har­ry rolled out of bed, rubbed his eyes and threw open the cur­tains. The morn­ing sun was already high in a cloud­less sky and burn­ing down fierce­ly. He mut­tered a mild curse under his breath. Har­ry knew that he would have to com­plete today’s job in that stuffy air­less attic room. If only he had been allowed to work late the evening before! But the archi­tect had insist­ed he come back today. It was even worse that he couldn’t get into the build­ing until mid­day as they had some meet­ing going on for the whole morning.

He took a cold show­er to fresh­en up and dust­ed him­self lib­er­al­ly with tal­cum pow­der before dress­ing. As he ate his cere­al he decid­ed to stroll down to the cor­ner shop and buy a cold drink and a sand­wich for lat­er, so he would be able to work through to fin­ish as quick­ly as pos­si­ble. A cou­ple of hours’ work he reck­oned, then at least he would get his money.

It was wor­ry­ing that there was noth­ing else lined up for a cou­ple of weeks. A lot of his reg­u­lars were away on their hol­i­days, and oth­ers were on an econ­o­my dri­ve as a result of the reces­sion. Prop­er­ty main­te­nance came low­er on the bud­get than oth­er more impor­tant items of expen­di­ture. He bad­ly need­ed to get some­thing else to tide him over.

Despite these wor­ries he whis­tled cheer­ful­ly as he strolled down the street, although he felt a bit uneasy. With the idea of keep­ing as cool as pos­si­ble, that morn­ing he had dis­pensed with the nor­mal box­er shorts and tee shirt he wore under his paint­ing over­alls.  His mates called it ‘going com­man­do’ and he was not used to the feel­ing of vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty such a state of undress induced in him.

‘Morn­ing Pat!’ he called out as he entered the shop. The pro­pri­etor, who was serv­ing a cus­tomer at the till raised his hand in acknowledgment.

‘Just the very man,’ replied Mr. Patel. ‘This is the chap I was telling you about,’ he con­tin­ued, address­ing the lady at the counter, then turn­ing back to Har­ry, ‘come over and be intro­duced. I may have some busi­ness for you.’

Was this to be his lucky day after all? Har­ry hur­ried across and offered the lady his hand. ‘Pleased to meet you madam. Har­ry Thomas is the name, builder and decorator.’

The lady shook his hand firm­ly and smiled. ‘Elsa Sven­son, delight­ed to meet you too. Mr. Patel was just telling me that you do alter­ations as well as gen­er­al paint­ing. You see I have recent­ly moved into the area and my house needs a good facelift. First of all it needs paint­ing inside and out, and lat­er on I will be think­ing of putting in a new bath­room and kitchen. Is that the sort of thing you could do Harry?’

She spoke with a slight accent and Har­ry reck­oned that, with her blonde hair, she was prob­a­bly orig­i­nal­ly from Scan­di­navia, although she had excel­lent English.

‘Right up my street Elsa’. He sud­den­ly realised the pos­si­ble mis­take he had made, being a bit too famil­iar by using her first name but, then again, she had addressed him as Har­ry, and she con­tin­ued to smile. So he decid­ed to strike while the iron was hot.

‘Do you live far from here?’ he asked, ‘because I have an hour to spare and could take a look right away if it suits you.’

‘Excel­lent! It is only a few min­utes’ walk and I real­ly want to begin the refur­bish­ment as soon as pos­si­ble. Are you busy at the moment?’

‘As it hap­pens I could start first thing tomor­row morn­ing – that is if you’re hap­py with what­ev­er I quote of course.’

She set­tled her bill, thanked the shop­keep­er again polite­ly and they strolled togeth­er chat­ting ami­ably. Har­ry found out that she had just retired and moved from the next sub­urb to make a clean break from her pre­vi­ous life. He saw that the house was indeed rather run down as they walked up the front path.

‘Would you like some tea?’ she asked as she unlocked the front door.

‘That would be love­ly Elsa, thank you.’

She showed him into the front room and sug­gest­ed he have a look round since this was the first area she want­ed painted.

‘If I accept your quo­ta­tion for this room, I will see if I like your work. Then we can talk about the rest. Please make your­self at home. I will put the ket­tle on.’

Har­ry glanced around the room. A large num­ber of framed pho­tographs almost cov­ered one wall, so he care­ful­ly removed one of the pic­tures to check the con­di­tion of the plas­ter under­neath. As he replaced it he couldn’t help notic­ing that it was dat­ed the pre­vi­ous year, was a school pho­to­graph and his poten­tial client sat in the cen­tre of the front row. Scan­ning the oth­er pho­tographs, he saw that they were all of the same school and cov­ered a num­ber of years. Turn­ing towards the door­way he swung back the door back to reveal a tall vase with a Chi­nese pat­tern. It con­tained a cou­ple of umbrel­las, an ivory han­dled walk­ing stick, a shoot­ing stick and three more slen­der rat­tan sticks of vary­ing thick­ness with crook han­dles. Har­ry grinned and deft­ly slipped the mid­dle one out of the stand. He flour­ished it in the air caus­ing it to flex and make a dis­tinc­tive swish­ing sound. No doubt about it.

He heard the rat­tling sound of crock­ery com­ing towards the door, and hasti­ly tried to replace the stick where he had found it, but it snagged half way back into the stand and was left pro­trud­ing rather obvi­ous­ly. He quick­ly pulled out a pad and began to jot notes resum­ing his qui­et ran­dom whistling. The lady entered car­ry­ing a tray laden with teapot, milk jug and cups which she placed on the cof­fee table. Har­ry could not help notic­ing that there was a third cup on the tray.

‘Milk and sug­ar Har­ry?’ she asked politely.

‘Please, just a dash of milk and two sug­ars. I like my tea quite strong. Now how exact­ly would you like the room redec­o­rat­ed, so that I can work out a fair price?’

‘Oh! In here, just plain white ceil­ing and a bland emul­sion on the walls. You can see I have a lot of the sur­faces cov­ered. And the wood­work rubbed well down and repaint­ed white gloss. I think that does it. Quite sim­ple really.’

Har­ry made a note.

‘Elsa,’ he con­tin­ued, ‘do you mind if I ask, were you the famous head­mistress at Rush­down School? I couldn’t help spot­ting the school photographs.’

‘Why yes, Har­ry. By why is it you say “famous”?’

‘Well I went to Mil­lview, this side of town and there we all knew about the strict lady that ran our near­est com­peti­tor. Tough regime they said, but amaz­ing results both in exams and sports. I often won­dered what you might real­ly be like.’

‘I am not sure about “tough”, but I cer­tain­ly insist­ed on prop­er dis­ci­pline. It was the main rea­son I took ear­ly retire­ment you know,’ she con­tin­ued wist­ful­ly. ‘When they banned cor­po­ral pun­ish­ment, I some­how knew I didn’t want to continue.’

‘Real­ly!  We didn’t see much of that at Mil­lview. I had the slip­per once or twice in juniors, but then we got a new head­mas­ter who didn’t believe in phys­i­cal punishment.’

‘Oh yes, Mr. Edwards. A nice man, but I think he was a bit weak.’

‘That’s right, Mr. Edwards. He stopped the use of any form of smack­ing when I went up to senior school, so I nev­er real­ly knew much about it. By the way, I couldn’t help notic­ing that you have some sou­venirs of your time at school.’ Har­ry point­ed at the umbrel­la stand.

The lady glanced at the stand, noticed the one piece out of place and grinned.

‘Yes Har­ry, and.….?’

‘I see that you have three canes there. Why did you need more than one?’

‘Oh, that’s easy,’ she replied indul­gent­ly. ‘The thin whip­py one was for the young­sters, or a first time. They tell me it stings a great deal, but doesn’t real­ly do much dam­age. The medi­um one, the one which is stick­ing out there,’ she point­ed at the umbrel­la stand and gave Har­ry a know­ing look, ‘was my favourite. Not only does it hurt at the time of the can­ing, but it leaves quite some bruis­ing and the pain can last for upwards of a week.’

‘And that thick one?’ queried Har­ry, seem­ing­ly fas­ci­nat­ed by her explanation.

‘I wasn’t keen on using that one,’ she replied. ‘It was for repeat offend­ers only. Those boys, because it was main­ly the boys, who were sent to me five or more times in a term, had a spe­cial pun­ish­ment reserved for last assem­bly. Some­times there were none, but usu­al­ly one or two. And I used to beat them with the heavy cane in front of the whole school – six of the best. Those pupils had marks which last­ed until the begin­ning of the fol­low­ing term and they found it very dif­fi­cult to sit any­where com­fort­ably dur­ing the school holidays.’

‘Wow’ said Har­ry, ‘that sounds pret­ty tough to me.’

‘Per­haps,’ she replied indul­gent­ly, ‘but, as you said your­self, my school pro­duced some very good results and, on the whole, the chil­dren were in favour of the sys­tem. They knew the lim­its and what to expect if they strayed.’

Har­ry sipped the last drops of his tea, seem­ing­ly hang­ing on her every word.

‘Any­way, I sup­pose I should let you know my price for dec­o­rat­ing this room, but before I do, per­haps I could ask you for a favour? I would cer­tain­ly give you a bit of a dis­count if you agreed.’

‘And what favour might that be Har­ry?’ she enquired, rather mystified.

At that moment the door­bell rang.

‘Oh Har­ry,’ she said as she stood up, ‘would you mind wait­ing a moment? I was expect­ing a visitor.’

‘Not at all Elsa,’ he replied cheer­ful­ly. ‘Go ahead please.’

A few moments lat­er, Miss Sven­son appeared back in the room accom­pa­nied by a younger woman.

‘Har­ry, may I intro­duce Miss Pren­der­gast, a for­mer colleague?’

‘Nice to meet you Miss,’ he replied shak­ing her by the hand.

‘Miss Pren­der­gast was my deputy at Rush­down and a tow­er of strength I must say. She also felt she had to move on for sim­i­lar rea­sons as my own. You see she was also quite a believ­er in prop­er discipline.’

Miss Sven­son poured her guest a cup of tea.

‘Alright Har­ry, now let’s car­ry on. You were about to ask me for a favour I think, so that I could have a dis­count on the paint­ing job.’

‘Well…er.…it’s a bit embar­rass­ing now Miss Pren­der­gast is also here.’

Har­ry thought for a moment.

‘But I sup­pose, because she was with you at the school, it doesn’t make a lot of difference.’

The two women sat patient­ly, wait­ing for this mys­te­ri­ous explanation.

‘I was won­der­ing whether you would give me just a cou­ple of whacks just so I knew what it would have felt like. You see I nev­er got the cane at school, although I am sure I did plen­ty of things to deserve it, and I have always been a bit fascinated.’

Miss Sven­son and Miss Pren­der­gast gave each oth­er know­ing looks.

‘Har­ry, you just don’t under­stand at all do you?’ said Miss Pren­der­gast, sip­ping demure­ly at her tea.

‘A vis­it to Miss Sven­son at our school was some­thing mys­ti­cal, a rit­u­al expe­ri­ence. You had been sent to “see” the Head­mistress and you knew you were in for a telling-off and prob­a­bly a wal­lop­ing. But would it be the slip­per, or the strap or most like­ly one of her canes? But which one, and what­ev­er the imple­ment, how many strokes? These thoughts run through your mind as you wait out­side her door. Then you are called into the study. You try to judge her expres­sion. Is she just stern or does she look real­ly angry? You try to apol­o­gise for your mis­deeds but you are not to be for­giv­en. She gives you a lec­ture then selects a cane. Oh no! That looks like the senior drag­on, her favourite; and they say it hurts like mad. You are told to take down your trousers and touch your toes. You are fright­ened now as you bend over, but you feel a cer­tain absur­di­ty as you see your trousers or shorts round your ankles.

‘Any sense of humour quick­ly evap­o­rates though as you hear foot­steps approach­ing. Next you feel a few light taps against your but­tocks. She is judg­ing the right dis­tance, find­ing her tar­get to get the max­i­mum effect. With the tip of her cane she flips your shirt tail up and out of the way. You realise you have no real pro­tec­tion from your under­wear. Then there is a pause.

‘It seems like a very long pause then.….Swishhh.….…..Crack! The fiery pain is unimag­in­able and shoots simul­ta­ne­ous­ly down your legs and up your spine. You catch your breath and grit your teeth. Anoth­er pause, then those sounds again and you can’t believe the agony can be even more intense. You sti­fle a yell but your body jerks upwards. Can she pos­si­bly hit you any hard­er? How many more strokes? Can you pos­si­bly last the ordeal with­out cry­ing out? You hear her speak.

“Stay down. If you can’t keep still, hold onto your ankles.”

‘You now have to wait for the next one and how long will you have to wait? The antic­i­pa­tion continues.’

As she spoke Miss Pren­der­gast smiled at Har­ry but he had the dis­tinct impres­sion that she was teas­ing him at least a little.

‘So you see Har­ry,’ Miss Sven­son now inter­rupt­ed, ‘a can­ing isn’t just a mat­ter of get­ting hit across the back­side with a stick. How­ev­er, now that you under­stand a lit­tle more about it, I don’t think we would have any objec­tion to shar­ing a taste of the expe­ri­ence with you, would we Miss Pren­der­gast, par­tic­u­lar­ly for old time’s sake?’  

‘Absolute­ly not Miss Sven­son,’ Miss Pren­der­gast replied, once again giv­ing her for­mer col­league a know­ing look.

Har­ry was by now a lit­tle bemused.

‘Well OK then ladies, what do we do now?’

‘Well Har­ry,’ Miss Sven­son con­tin­ued, ‘ as I under­stand it, you are going to give me a quote for the paint­ing of this room and, if I am hap­py with the price, you will have the chance of doing a sub­stan­tial amount more work on the house as I indi­cat­ed. You have said that, if I oblige you with this lit­tle “favour” you will dis­count your price.’

‘That’s it Elsa, I’m sure you’ll like my work.’

‘I also have con­fi­dence in mine,’ she replied with a smile.

‘There are of course a few rules we have to fol­low, those that applied when I ran the school. Miss Pren­der­gast will remain here of course. It was a require­ment of the Local Edu­ca­tion Author­i­ty that at least two mem­bers of staff should be present when­ev­er cor­po­ral pun­ish­ment was to be admin­is­tered. Actu­al­ly Miss Pren­der­gast often used to assist me. Some­times she had to hold the younger ones down and if more than one or two chil­dren required beat­ing, we some­times took turns. Some of the kids were even more fright­ened of her than they were of me. Appar­ent­ly she had a spe­cial flick of the wrist tech­nique. Occa­sion­al­ly if more than six strokes were allot­ted, we worked togeth­er. You see I am left hand­ed where­as she is right, so we could swing from both sides.

‘ Also, for authen­tic­i­ty, there will be no more “Elsa” until we are fin­ished. You will address me as Miss Sven­son and I will use your sur­name. Is that all­right so far?’

‘Yes Els.… , sor­ry, Miss Sven­son,’ said Har­ry begin­ning now to be more than a lit­tle apprehensive.

‘Fine, in which case you should now go out into the hall­way and shut the door. When we are ready, I will call you in for you to give me your price and to receive the pun­ish­ment I decide is appro­pri­ate. There will be no arguments.’

Har­ry turned towards the door.

‘Oh, and one last thing,’ Miss Pren­der­gast joined in again.

‘You will under­stand that out­er cloth­ing had to be removed. The girls took it on their knick­ers and the boys across the seat of their under­pants. So those over­all trousers will have to come off.’

He closed the door behind him. What had he let him­self in for? Those two ladies were evi­dent­ly enjoy­ing his dis­com­fort and, if he stuck by their rules, he might suf­fer a con­sid­er­able amount more dis­com­fort. He glanced at the front door which sud­den­ly looked invit­ing. But he bad­ly need­ed the work. And it was he that made the orig­i­nal sug­ges­tion. Dare he give up now? But those canes looked pret­ty fear­some and he was by no means cer­tain they would stick to the cou­ple of whacks he had sug­gest­ed. And to cap it all, he had left his under­clothes off that morn­ing. He glanced at the front door again, then turned to the one he had just exit­ed. What should he do?

Then, from inside the room, he heard a clear voice, slight­ly accented.

‘You may come in now Thomas.’

This entry was posted on Sunday, April 15th, 2012 at 11:30 am and is filed under Miss Svenson's Spanking Story Competition.. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.