BEXHILL SCHOOL FOR GIRLS, Assembly (8 page)

Mr Masterson
pointed out that whispering in church constituted some form of
blasphemy, whilst chewing gum in the holy precincts ensured an
express route to Hell.

“And what,” he
had asked, “did you girls learn from my sermon?” He waited in vain
for an answer, because neither Anna nor Jenny had the slightest
idea what he’d been warbling about. This inattention to his
finely-crafted words proved to be the straw that broke the camel’s
back. He reached down to a drawer on the right-hand side of his
desk. Both Anna and Jenny knew the consequences of such a move and
their eyes widened. Sure enough, the headmaster opened the drawer
and extracted from it the legendary Stinger. He laid the hairbrush
on his desk. It looked bigger, heavier, and altogether more
sinister than the girls had imagined.

“Right. I think
this is the first time either of you have been spanked since you
came to the school?”

Anna managed a
muted “Yes, sir,” while Jenny just nodded, transfixed by the sight
of Stinger. The headmaster stood up and walked around the desk.

“I want you to
stand here,” he said, pulling Anna gently towards him so that there
was a yard or so between her and her partner in sacrilege.

“Good. Now both
of you bend over and grasp your ankles.”

The girls
exchanged frightened glances and did as they were told.

Mr Masterson
moved behind Anna, lifted up her dark blue Sunday skirt, and folded
the hem securely inside the waistband. The white shirt-tail thus
revealed he arranged on top of her lower back. He took a step
across the room and did the same to Jenny, pulling the elasticated
bottom of her white knickers down so that they lay stretched tautly
across her cheeks.

He went back to
his desk, picked up Stinger and smacked it against the palm of his
left hand.

He took up
position beside Anna. “You’re each going to get six.” He tapped
Anna’s bottom once with Stinger. Anna suddenly remembered the
headmaster’s nickname, ‘Three Taps’, and realised that she was on
the verge of experiencing the celebrated procedure. He ran the
brush up and down the curve of her cheeks, making Anna wince. “Keep
still until I tell you to get up.”

Tap. Tap.

“I won’t
tolerate girls who cannot show respect for their surroundings,
especially in chapel.”

Tap. Tap. Tap.
Anna dug her nails into her ankles. The smack, landing mostly on
her right cheek, made a noise like a thunderclap. It was followed
immediately by a burning sting. Anna cried out but held her
position. The second stroke came almost immediately, landing
symmetrically on her left cheek. Anna rocked forward on her
toes.

‘Three Taps’
moved across to Jenny. Anna was so absorbed in trying to manage the
pain which was radiating out from Stinger’s impacts that she hardly
heard Mr Masterson telling Jenny to stick her bottom right out, or
registered the distinct tap which followed. Then she clearly heard
a double tap and saw Jenny screw up her eyes.

“And as for
chewing gum - you know that this is not allowed anywhere in the
school.”

Tap. Tap. Tap.
Jenny bit her lip just as the first stroke landed athwart both
cheeks. She gasped. The second stroke produced a cry of “Oooww!”
and she rocked forward so much that Anna thought Jenny might lose
her balance.

‘Three Taps’
returned to his position beside Anna and whacked her hard, twice,
landing the hairbrush right across the centre of her bottom. Anna
bucked and wailed.

Jenny got the
same treatment a few moments later, howling rather more loudly than
Anna.

“Last two,
Anna. I hope you’ve learned a lesson.” It seemed to be a rhetorical
question, so Anna just hung on to her ankles for dear life as the
final two strokes were delivered, one to each side of her backside.
The first elicited an “Ooouch!” and the other an “Ooooww!” Both
delivered with feeling.

“You, too,
Jenny. Any more irreverence in chapel and it’ll be the cane. Now
stay still for the last two.” It was all Jenny could do not to
bounce up as the heavy wood twice struck the lower part of her
cheeks, sending a searing sting pulsing through her body.

Mr Masterson
walked slowly back to his desk, replaced Stinger and closed the
drawer. He took his seat.

“All right, you
can get up.” Both girls straightened themselves and adjusted their
skirts. Both were snivelling.

“Sign the
Punishment Book here, please, and don’t let me see you on report
again. Next time, it’ll be on the bare.”

The girls
signed their names opposite the entry which recorded for posterity
that on Sunday, 29
^th
September, 1957, they’d each
received six strokes of the hairbrush over their pants for offences
committed in chapel.

“You may go.”
The headmaster indicated the door. The girls slunk out, even
omitting the customary “Thank you, sir” as they left.

“Wooo!” said
Anna, rubbing her bottom furiously, “that
really
hurt!”

“Much more than
I thought it would,” agreed Jenny, clutching her cheeks. “Well
done. You were pretty brave!”

“Oh, I wasn’t!
You made much less noise than me! Let’s go and look at our
trade-marks.” ‘Trade-marks’ was the school slang for the visible
after-effects of any thrashing.

Jenny’s
dormitory was the nearest, so they went in, pulled down their
knickers, and examined in the long mirror the wide, red-purple
blotches which glowed across the pale skin of their backsides.

“Sitting down
isn’t going to be much fun”, Jenny observed, massaging her
still-stinging cheeks. “Let me look at yours.”

It was as she
was running her fingers over the welts on Anna’s bottom that the
door swung open, revealing Matron. It only took a glance at the two
surprised girls for Matron to register the situation.

“Ah, so it was
you two. I heard the headmaster spanking someone. I hope it was for
your behaviour in chapel. I saw you whispering together all the
time until Mr Desmond spoke to you. If he hadn’t put you on report,
I’d have done so. I’m glad to see you got your just desserts. Now,
pull up your knickers and be off with you.” She held the door open
for the two embarrassed girls, who made their way downstairs to
join their friends. As always on such occasions, they became the
heroines of the hour, with a cluster of girls around them eager to
hear every detail of the ordeal.

Now, as she sat
at her dresser, hairbrush in hand, Anna remembered the ambivalent
emotions she had felt on that occasion. She recalled the
trepidation as they had made their way to the headmaster’s study
and knocked on the door; their rising fear during the brief
interview with him as their imminent fate became clear; the
stomach-knotting terror as he reached down to extract Stinger from
the drawer; the nightmare of the slow and deliberate preparations:
the bending over, the sensation of cool air on her bottom as her
skirt was raised, and then - worst of all - that awful wait for the
third tap. The spanking, once it had begun, was almost a relief. Of
course it hurt: each swat stung like mad, but every time the brush
landed it was one more stroke counted off towards the allocated
six.

Thinking about
the episode again, she remembered that there had been another
element present, a perplexing undertone which she could not
understand at the time and which she had driven from her mind. Now
it came back to her again: in some way, perhaps subconsciously, she
had the impression that she had actually
enjoyed
the
experience. How could this be? Surely people couldn’t get pleasure
from pain, could they? But that, on reflection, was exactly what
she had felt, although she hadn’t recognised it at the time: a
completely unexpected feeling of sexual arousal, both as she
herself was being spanked and from witnessing Jenny undergoing her
punishment beside her. It was confusing, shameful even. No wonder
she had driven it from her mind at the time. But now that she
confronted it afresh, she couldn’t deny it.

She looked at
the brush in her hand. She placed it on the bed. She piled her two
pillows one on top of the other in the centre of the mattress. She
unzipped her skirt, took it off, and folded across the back of a
chair. She slipped her panties down to her ankles and kicked them
gently onto the chair’s seat. She pulled up her shirt, feeling the
fresh air on her backside, just as she had in the headmaster’s
study. She could already sense the tingle of arousal which had been
so lacking a few minutes before.

She lay down
with her hips on the pillows, her bottom raised. Clasping her
hairbrush tightly, she reached around behind her and rubbed it
gently across her cheeks, awakening a
frisson
of desire in
her lower belly. She lifted the brush and whacked it down. It stung
a little, nowhere near as much as Stinger had, but well enough for
her purposes. She experimented with different holds and ways of
delivering the smacks. Soon her bottom was turning pink and her
breathing was becoming heavier and faster. She increased the rhythm
and intensity of the blows and after a few minutes her bottom was
throbbing in harmony with her heartbeat. She knew her orgasm was
close, so she dropped the brush, pushed two fingers inside her, and
groaned as a wave of fulfilment crashed over her.

Afterwards, she
lay on her bed in a warm afterglow, trying to come to terms with
the new facet that she had uncovered in her character. Gradually,
she felt less ashamed about it: it was her private fantasy, after
all; no-one else was getting hurt. She wondered whether others felt
as she did; she supposed probably not. She wished she could discuss
it with her closest friends, but she was afraid that they might be
shocked.

When her mother
came home, she asked Anna what she’d been doing.

“Oh, nothing
much.”

The telephone
rang. Linda picked it up.

“Yes?”

“What do you
mean ‘Yes’?” said the voice at the other end.

“What did you
want me to say, Sally? ‘No’?”

“I wanted you
to say ‘Hi, this is Linda. I have some great ideas to amuse people
who are bored to tears. If you are suffering from this condition,
please sign up to my service.’”

Linda smiled.
“So, you’re bored?”

“Terminally,
and the holidays have only just begun. Shall we meet?”

“Good idea.
Where and when? How about in the café at Paxman’s tomorrow morning,
about 10.00?”

“Fine, I look
forward to it. Come up with some ideas.”

Sally and Linda
were, to the regular dismay of the staff, best friends at Bexhill.
They had what their own friends would have called an ‘irrepressible
sense of humour’, which translated to the school authorities as
‘they can’t keep out of trouble’. The sad fact was that the two
girls’ seemed to attract tribulations like honey attracts bees and
their pranks at school regularly landed them in the headmaster’s or
deputy head’s office, usually with painful results - not that such
minor inconveniences seemed to deter them for long from dreaming up
another escapade. And in truth, the exasperated teachers secretly
found the two girls antics quite funny and they were glad to have
them in the school. That didn’t, however, mean that they extended a
moratorium to Sally and Linda when a good thrashing was
merited.

Sally lived in
town, but Linda’s home was some ten miles outside, in the
countryside. Fortunately, her village was served by a good bus
route and so it was quite easy for them to meet in town. Thus, the
following morning they greeted each other happily in the department
store’s small café. They each bought coffee and a Danish pastry and
took them to a corner table where they could talk without being
overheard.

“So what have
you been up to?” Linda asked.

“Oh, the usual
stuff: a couple of rather dull parties. What’s wrong with all the
boys? They’re so uninspiring - the only thing they’re interested in
is sport.”

“And sex.”

“Well, they’re
not getting any of that from me until they fix their spots and stop
talking about football. How are you doing?”

“I’ve been out
a few times with a new guy. He’s OK, actually.”

“Oh? Why
haven’t you mentioned him before? What’s he like? Does he try to
grope you in the cinema?”

Linda flicked a
piece of pastry at her friend. “My relationship with Peter has
nothing to do with you, nosey! If you weren’t such a wallflower,
I’d introduce you.”

“You’d better
not. If I fancy him, I’ll let him know that I don’t wear any
knickers.”

“Don’t you?
You’re lying - I bet you do!”

“I’ll just
float the idea and let him find out for himself.”

“Well in that
case, you’re not going to meet him. You can make do with your own
friends, zits and all.”

The chatted
happily until their coffees were finished.

“What shall we
do now? Shall we look around? I want one of those new
‘fit-and-flare’ frocks,” said Sally.

They browsed
happily for an hour. Suddenly, Sally said “Look! That’s the one,
just perfect.” It was a floral A-line shirtdress, with a white
belt. She swept it off the rail.

“Where’s the
changing room?”

“Over there -
look.”

“OK, you wait
outside and then tell me your opinion.”

Sally
disappeared into the cubicle and Linda could hear here slipping off
her jeans and pulling on the dress. She opened the door and
flounced out.

“Well, what do
you think?” She twirled so that the full skirt rose and revealed
her rather shapely legs.

“Faster,” said
Linda. “I want to check whether you’re really wearing any
panties.”

Sally stopped.
“Does it suit me?”

“You look
terrific in it. You’re definitely not going to meet Peter if you
wear that.”