Chapter 19

A few days following her horrible ordeal at the hands of the Colonel, Anna found herself once again sitting squeezed behind one of the small desks in the same classroom. Somehow the cramped size of them just added to her sense of discomfort and humiliation as she forced her long thighs under the low desktop.

On this occasion however, the lesson was being taken by Jackie Frayn, the 18-year-old niece of the Governess. Anna’s heart was pounding. Mainly with hate. For a few brief moments she let her mind dwell on what she would like to do to the girl... then switched away. Such thoughts were too dangerous. Her hatred for this teenage bitch - who held temporary power over her - knew no bounds. But as always, there was nothing she could do about it. Or, rather, nothing she dare do about it!

Jackie Frayn looked round her classroom with complacent satisfaction. Before her, eight heads were bowed down. Black, brown, dark blonde, light blonde, even red. Her 'pupils', whose ages ranged from 20 to 35, were all dressed in schoolgirl uniforms - at least, a bizarre travesty of school uniform designed deliberately to degrade. And that afternoon they were doing long division sums. Twenty of them. The concentration and the silence was intense. The penalty of failure in this arithmetic exercise was known by all.

One stroke of the cane for every wrong answer and a period of detention for some.

This classroom regime was one of the integral parts of the discipline at Blackfriars Grange, one of half a dozen Senior Reform Schools throughout the United Kingdom. Others were planned over the next three years. The Reform School inmates, mature young women each of whom had been sentenced to a term of strict re-education for their crimes, were being treated as schoolgirls again.

"Five more minutes," announced the young warden complacently. She turned a page of the novel she was reading ... hearing a gasp or two of anguish form various members of her class. Some were very bad at arithmetic ...

A little thrill of pleasure went through Jackie. She loved her work. Being the niece of the Governess also gave her a special kind of authority. She was not simply another prison official; she was in charge of the 'educational' side of Blackfriars. Like her aunt, she adopted a Victorian style in dress, although her long gowns were rather more frilly and fanciful, as befitted a young woman. Her gown that day was of pale lilac with a white ruffed lace collar. Very fetching.

"Two more minutes," announced Jackie.

Again came that anguished murmuring ...

Yes, it was tough at Redesdale, thought Jackie. But then, it was supposed to be tough. The state decreed it so. Amelia Frane, her aunt, like all the other officials in the place, were only doing their duty. Carrying out policy laid down.

"Time's up. Bring up your exercise books."

Each woman stood up and extricated herself from the small desk at which she had to sit. Those with long legs had an uncomfortable time of it. In a tense silence they filed up and, in turn, placed their work on Jackie's desk. She looked at each pale, frightened face ... seeing the tension and the dread in uneasy eyes ... sensing which ones had made the biggest hash of the exercise. Well, she would soon know for sure.

The women returned to their places where they waited, still and silent, hands clasped on top of the head - the obligatory posture whilst an exercise was being marked. Many an eye flickered with anguish to the cane which hung on display behind Jackie Frayn. It had a hooked handle, was three feet long, slim and whippy, and highly polished, especially at the last twelve inches. This was because this 'business end', as it was sometimes referred to, had been lacquered to increase its hardness. And, thus, its efficiency. This lacquering had been the idea of the Governess, and had swiftly gained Ministry approval. It was with some pride and pleasure that the Governor had recently learnt that these lacquered canes were now used in all Senior Reform Schools.

Certainly, each woman in the classroom knew just how painful a full-blooded cut from such a cane was.

Jackie's blue pencil was busily at work. She worked from a crib, slashing through each incorrect answer and noting how many problems had not been solved. Then she sorted the pile of books into some order. Though she sometimes dealt with the women at random, it was more usually her policy to summon out first those who had done best. Thus, those who remained at their desk had to watch the preliminary punishments, all the time knowing that her punishment was bound to be worse! That indeed was a most salutary experience.

Jackie looked up and then slowly round the class. By then you could almost cut the tension with a knife.

"Some good efforts from a few," she announced, "but bad efforts from the majority. Some VERY bad efforts." Jackie could see many of them trembling. Lips being bitten. Tears already beginning to form in terrified, despairing eyes. Well, they were there to suffer ... and suffer they would!

"It seems to me," she continued, "That this class is particularly inept at this form of arithmetic. Very well. I intend to change that. We shall have more long division in future. Also, if there isn’t a rapid improvement, I shall increase the penalties. Two strokes instead of one for every error might make some of you wake your ideas up! And anyone making more than three errors will have a spell in Detention"

There was a low horrified gasp ... Detention was feared even more than the cane.

Then Jackie stood up and took down the cane. She flexed it and then ran her fingers almost lovingly along its smoothness. It was her favourite corrective instrument.

"Alice Williams!" she barked. "Come out here ... "

With something like relief, a tall young woman with red hair stood up. She had a willowy figure and rather small breasts.

"Not a bad effort. Just the one sum uncompleted."

It was no mean feat to have got nineteen of the sums correct! Jackie didn't pay compliments.

"I ... I'm sorry, Miss ... I didn't quite have ..."

"Silence, girl! Get over my desk."

Without demur or delay, Alice knelt on the trestle stool that ran along the front of Jackie's desk, her back to the class. Then she pulled down the absurd bloomer-style shorts and regulation knickers worn by all inmates. Her bottom was unmarked and the flesh exceedingly white, as it often is with redheads. Alice bent across the desk and clasped the back edge ... and Jackie, almost casually it seemed, measured the naked bottom before her.

Then the cane went up fast and high ... and came whistling down even faster.

It lashed across the waiting buttock cheeks ... instantly raising a vivid twin-tracked weal. Seeming all the more vivid on account of its extra-white background.

"Oww ... oww ... aaaahh ... ooowwww!" gasped Alice, red head jerking up and back, bottom squirming uncontrollably as it absorbed the excruciating pain. She managed, however, to maintain her grip on the desk edge.

Oh how thankful she was to be getting only one!

"Back to your place!"

Alice wriggled her knickers and shorts up, stood down and walked back to her desk. For her it was over. Just one burning weal to be endured. But when one had had a dozen or more ... sometimes many more ... to endure, that was really nothing.

"Deirdre Smith!"

A mousy-haired, rather plain woman came out to the front.

"Again ... not a bad effort. Two errors. Over you go, girl." Deirdre was a rather ungainly individual with a big bottom and thick thighs. That bottom was exposed to the class. Not very attractive, thought Jackie; on the other hand, it was a bottom made for corrective treatment. Plenty of flesh, Jackie liked that. The soft, rather loose whiteness quivered as she touched it lightly with the tip of the rod. She could see Deirdre's knuckles clenching white. The woman was a relative newcomer to Blackfriars.

The stroke came lashing down.

As with Alice, the twin-tracked weal flamed instantly over both big buttock cheeks. But, unlike Alice, Deirdre lost her grip. As she uttered an agonised yelp, her arms were flung back and her hands clasped urgently to her jerking-juddering bottom.

"OOOWW ... OOOWW ... AAAAAGGGHHHH!" she cried, head thrown back.

"I've told you about that before," said Jackie acidly.

She was supposed to keep her grip and not interfere with the punishment as Deirdre had done - even if she were a newcomer and unused to withstanding pain. The penalty was that the girl got the stroke again.

Deirdre's hands unclamped form the weal encircling her bottom and gripped the edge of the desk again. Too late!

"Here it comes again, Deirdre," said Jackie.

Deirdre's bottom seemed to quiver all over in anticipatory dread.

Up went the cane ... down it came ...

"OOOWW ... AAAGGHH ... OWW ... OOOWW"

A second long weal over the madly juddering flesh and Deirdre jerked under the grip of the Monitors. But there was nothing she could do, except take whatever Jackie had to hand out. Luckily for her, on this occasion, it was but one more stroke.

She got it ...

Sssswwweeee ... ccrraacckkkk!

"AAAAGGHHH ... OOOWWWW ... AAAGGHHHHH!"

A third encircling weal striped the big bottom vividly. A bright red which purpled towards the end of the weal where the lacquered part of the cane bit more effectively.

Deirdre was sobbing, even though she had received only three cuts ... a potent sign of her lack of experience.

"Back to your place ..."

A struggle with the knickers and her baggy shorts, then Deirdre stepped down and went tearfully to her desk.

The next three punishments ranged from two to four strokes. All the girls, Jackie knew, were considerably more experienced than Deirdre.

One by one they were called out to the desk ... knelt and pulled down their shorts and knickers ... gripped the edge ... and got their stripes. But each girl was far tougher than Deirdre and all maintained their grip to the accompaniment of breathless gasps and whinnying yelps.

Jackie was warming up nicely, rather like a golfer hitting practise shots before the real thing. She was just in the mood to hand out this kind of mass caning ... which was becoming a pretty regular event in her class. They were coming at something like once a week now and, needless to say, were much dreaded. The long drawn-out aspect of them was a terrible thing to have to endure. To witness the torment of others while one waited one's turn. For the women who were left, it was worst of all, in every sense.

In her long, lilac-coloured dress, Jackie faced the class. She was a pretty young woman - but in a rather hard way. Especially hard were her dark brown eyes. And especially now, as they glinted round the classroom.

Oh how terrified of her they were!

And rightly so!

"That has disposed of those who made some effort to use their brains," she announced. "Now we come to a wider band of defaulters. Those who made between five and a dozen mistakes, or failed to finish problems. There are three of you ... a disgraceful performance," continued Jackie. "There is NO excuse for it. Long division is not difficult. It simply requires effort and application. Each of you will spend the rest of the week in Detention. As for the rest of you," Jackie tapped the cane in the palm of her hand, "I want you to remember my warning. If there is not a distinct improvement in the near future, any girl is likely to find herself getting TWICE the number of strokes!"

She consulted the books on her list.

"Melanie Perkins!"

An attractive young blonde girl rose from the back row and came forward, moving with a natural, seductive grace. Just 29, Melanie had served five months of a nine month sentence for having illegal sexual intercourse with three young men on different occasions (three months for each man she had taken!).

"Six errors, Melanie," said Jackie, smiling at her.

The pretty blonde bit a fulsome, pink lower lip. She knew only too well what fate awaited her, having been in Detention before.

“Next, Catherine Green…”

Catherine had so far managed to avoid Detention but she was nevertheless aware of what others had had to endure there. Silent tears ran down her cheeks as she slowly made her way to the front of the classroom.

Anna waited for her name to be called out. She knew, almost certainly, that she had not got many right. Her brain, never too good when it came to arithmetic, had seemed like putty that afternoon.

“… and Anna Dobson!”

Nervously, Anna extricated herself from the small desk at which she had been sitting at and joined the other two women at the front, each of them pale and fearful ...

“Right, you three. Report to Matron upstairs for Detention.” Jackie dismissed them with a wave of the hand towards the door. “Be quick about it... and no talking.”

Dejectedly, the three women made their way up the long staircase to the top floor in silence, broken only by Melanie muttering under her breath: “It’s so fucking unfair. Just for getting a couple of sums wrong”.

Anna sighed miserably in agreement. There seemed no end to their wretchedness in this awful place.

Chapter 18

When Anna entered the room, she saw the Colonel seated behind a solid-looking table. Feeling cold and vulnerable in her pyjamas, she felt a frisson of fear as she saw the slim, hook-handled school cane lying on the polished surface of the table-top. She knew at once how much that beastly cane would hurt through thin cotton pyjamas.

“Sit down, Anna.”

The Colonel indicated the wooden school desk in front of the table.

His eyes glinted lustfully as he watched the pyjama-clad young woman ease her long legs under the desk.

“I have seen the work you have been doing. It looks very comprehensive to me. Would you say you have learnt a lot while you have been here?”

“Oh yes, Sir, a great deal.” By God, I have too, reflected Anna. Twice as much as she had learnt during her years as a teenager at school.

"Well, the rod is a great stimulus to learning,” said the Colonel with a little smile. He laid his hand over the cane on the desk. “I am going to test you on some of the subjects in which you have been instructed by Miss Beeton. I hope for your sake you have retained a lot of the knowledge that has been inculcated into you.” Again the Colonel laid a hand over the cane on his desk.

He just can’t wait to use it, thought Anna. What a sadistic old lecher he was! Still, she had been caned with worse canes than that ... and they had also been wielded by stronger arms. So, painful and humiliating as it would be, it could not be as bad as some of her experiences in the past. Thus Anna tried to comfort herself to some degree.

“I must tell you, Anna, that if your behaviour does not measure up to my requirements during this afternoon’s lessons, I shall deal with you severely.”

Anna’s heart sank like a stone in a pond. Surely ... surely ... he could not be so cruel!

“I ... u-understand ..., S-Sir ...” she whispered.

“Good,” said the Colonel. “We will get on with your examination.”

Anna braced herself, heart fluttering. Now she had to be more careful than ever. Respectful, obedient, submissive ... to the ‘nth degree’!

“I shall begin with oral questions,” said the Colonel. “Later on this afternoon, you will have a number of written tests.”

“I ... I shall try my very best, Sir,” said Anna earnestly.

“You’d better,” said the Colonel, with evident relish, “Because, for every mistake
you make, this cane will be laid across your bottom, young lady! Understood?”

Anna gulped. “Yes, Sir,” she replied.

The afternoon ahead was beginning to look exceedingly unpleasant.

“From what poem do the following lines come, Anna? Hope springs eternal in the human breast?”

Anna’s brain raced. The subject was English Literature, at which she wasn’t too bad, but the range of it was so wide. Her brain clicked. Got it!

“Essay on Man, Sir” she answered.

“Correct,” nodded the Colonel. “Author?”

“Alexander Pope, Sir.”

“Correct.”

Another hurdle cleared. But how long could she keep up the pace? She had answered the first half dozen questions correctly. Of course, it couldn’t last for ever.

“Who wrote the words ‘Oh daughter of Death and Priapus, our Lady of Pain?” asked the Colonel.

Lucky again! It was an obscure line that had stuck in her mind, on account of the phrase Lady of Pain, no doubt.

“Swinburne, Sir.”

The Colonel raised his eyebrows. “Correct. You have become well read while you have been here, Anna.”

“Thank you, Sir.”

“Now some Shakespeare. In which of his plays do the characters Benedick and Beatrice appear?”

Anna thought hard. Shakespeare’s plays teemed with people. It was so easy to go wrong. And she did.

“Measure For Measure, Sir.”

“Wrong,” said the Colonel with some satisfaction. He made a note on his pad beside him. “Much Ado About Nothing is the answer. We will continue with the Bard.”

Anna concentrated her mind. However, with such a broad subject, it was impossible not to make some mistakes. Of the next dozen questions, Anna got five wrong. Each time, the error was noted on the pad.

“Right,” said the Colonel at length, “I think that will do for English Literature, Anna. You have, I think it fair to say, done quite well. Yes ... quite well. However, there were some errors and you must pay for them. It’s the only way to try and ensure you don’t make the same errors in the future, isn’t it?”

“Yes, Sir.” answered Anna meekly. It was better to know that what the Colonel had just said was true. Was this not the method Miss Beeton had employed? And had not Anna learnt vastly under her tuition? Miserably she watched as the Colonel stood up and removed his black jacket. Oh how unfair it was!

“Come out here.” The supple cane tapped the polished top of the table, lightly but insistently, as Anna got up from her desk and went forward. The Colonel came slowly round in front of the table. “Now bend over and touch your toes, girl,” he ordered. His cold eyes brightened with cruel lechery as he watched his young victim obey. Her ample pyjama-clad bottom thrust roundly at him as Anna bent over and reached for her toes.

“You will, of course, remain touching your toes...”

“Yes, Sir ...”

Anna gritted her teeth fiercely. She had had worse... far worse... she told herself as she felt the light tap of the tip of the cane on her waiting flesh.

SSwweepppttt!

The familiar burning, electric-wire pain of the biting cane. Encircling, searing; the tip most searing of all. Anna gasped between clenched teeth. Oh God, no matter how much one had had of it, one could never get acclimatised to the pain. Always it was that bit worse than she expected ... or hoped.

Sswweepppttt!

The next cut came a little lower down that taut curve of her bottom. Equally painful,. A thin streak of blazing fire as the flexible willow cracked across the soft flesh ... then a deep-searing burn ... followed by only a fractional ebbing of the immediate pain. Then one was ready for the next.

Anna felt her buttocks clench involuntarily.

Sswweeepppptt!

Anna’s fingers lifted a few inches off her toes as the third stroke cut across the so-tender overhang of her buttocks. And this time a louder gasp came from between her teeth. Quickly she re-touched her toes and straightened her long limbs. Three to go.

The Colonel was putting everything he had got into each stroke, marvelling at Anna’s stubbornness and fortitude. The delight of caning the bottom of such a luscious 28-year-old woman was beyond description. And to cane her just as hard as he liked! Still, the afternoon’s only just beginning, he said to himself. Before it’s over, I’ll have her squirming and yelling with pain ... and pleading with him for mercy!

Sswweeppptttt!

What a wonderful sound... what a wonderful sight!

This time, the Colonel saw Anna’s curvaceous bottom give a sudden juddering squirm as she absorbed the pain. Good ... there were limits even to this young woman’s stoicism.

Ssswweeeepppttt!

The fifth stroke bit again into Anna’s overhang ... and the blonde head jerked up momentarily and once again the fingertips left the toes. There was a sobbing intake of breath as Anna bent over fully again.

“Ooofff!”

So that’s where it hurts her most, the Colonel thought, and aimed the sixth stroke at precisely the same area.

Sswweeeppptttt!

The Colonel’s aim was inexpert and he caught Anna full across the centre of her bottom. The girl took it with no more than a shudder and a whimper ... and remained bending over.

Six long weals smarted and throbbed and burned, especially where the last inch or two of the cane had bitten. Anna choked back the gall in her throat and blinked away the hint of tears that pricked her eyes. Those weals hurt.

Oh yes, they hurt quite enough!

“Alright girl, you may stand straight,” Anna winced as she came erect; the skin over her bottom seemed to have shrunk. It always felt like that after a caning. “Now go back to your desk.”

Meekly, Anna obeyed, watching the Colonel move back to his chair.

“Right, Anna, we will turn to another subject. French Grammar, I think.”

Anna’s heart sank. Certainly not one of her better subjects ... though Arithmetic was perhaps her worst.

“Define the future of the verb Alder” said the Colonel.

Once again Anna cleared the decks of her mind for action ... and began.

Just think of that cane biting for every mistake, she said to herself severely.

And that thought certainly did seem to stimulate her mental powers to quite a remarkable degree!

However, as is self-evident, no-one can possibly be perfect in one subject, let alone several. Anna certainly would not have claimed to be ... nor would the Colonel have expected it. The whole thing was a kind of charade which both ‘pupil’ and ‘teacher’ played out ... simply for the latter’s sadistic amusement.

After English Literature ...

French Grammar ...

Followed by History ...

Followed by Arithmetic ...

... after four subjects, poor Anna’s bottom carried over thirty throbbing-burning weals. Such was the pain she was suffering, she could scarcely sit down on the wooden seat of her school desk.

Oh God, how much longer was this long drawn-out inhumanity going on?

There was just one tiny crumb of hope. Anna felt that the Colonel’s arm was definitely beginning to weaken ... Biting her lips, she watched as he seated himself again and took up yet another paper.

“Geography ...” he announced.

“P-Please ... Sir ... h-haven’t I had enough ... f-for one afternoon?” Anna heard herself making the plea despite the fact that she knew the futility of it. She knew he wanted her broken, made to grovel and plead… Why add to his enjoyment? All the same, it was something that came bubbling out of her in sheer desperation.

“I don’t understand,” said the Colonel flatly. “Had enough? What is enough, young lady?”

“Sir ... please ... Sir ... you’ve caned me ... s-so much ... I ... I ... just can’t think straight any m-more ...”

“Really? Too bad for you, my dear. We will proceed with Geography ... and exactly the same penalties apply.”

A deep shuddering sob came from Anna and, for a brief moment, she buried her head in her hands. Then she forced herself erect again and tried to think calmly. She must ... absolutely must

“I’m ready, Sir,” she said.

“What,” enquired the Colonel, “is the capital of Malawi?”

Anna’s brains felt like scramble eggs. Malawi? That was one of those new African states. She could never remember about them.

“Mogadishu ...” she said tentatively.

“Wrong,” said the Colonel emphatically. And another note went down on his pad.

A big tear ran down Anna’s cheek. Already, for that simple mistake, she could feel the cane making her squirm with pain.

“Next question,” said the Colonel relentlessly. “What is the average annual export of coffee from Brazil?”

Anna’s mind became a complete blank. She began to sob helplessly.

“Ten questions ... and not a single answer right,” said the Colonel. “I’m shocked at this failure. You deserve the caning you’re going to get.”

“Sir ... please ... Sir ... my b-brain seems to have gone dead ... I don’t know why ... ooohh, please ... I ... I’m s-so ... t-tired ...”

“Come out here, girl. I know a way of making your brain come to life again!”

“No, Sir ... please it won’t ... it c-can’t!” Anna’s voice was high-pitched and wailing. All the same, she got up out of the desk and moved to the front of the Colonel’s table yet once more.

“Bend over ... touch your toes ...”

“Please ... please ... no more ... I’ve tried ... I’ve tried so h-hard ...”

“Bend over, my little beauty!”

The cane was being flexed. ... He watched avidly as his commands were obeyed and the pyjama-clad young bottom was once more presented for his attentions.

Chapter 17


The first lesson of the day ended after one hour. Miss Beeton left the room ... but, previously, had set everyone to learn twenty different lines of Longfellow’s Hiawatha!

“I’ll be testing you when I get back ...”

Silence reigned in the classroom. Every head was bowed.

Concentration was intense. Nowhere more so than amongst those who had just felt Miss Beeton’s strap. They didn’t want another taste!

Anna tried to put pain from her mind and make her brain absorb the words. Oh how difficult it was. Yet, it had to be learnt.

From time to time, she felt rebellious flares of resentment at what she was having to do. However, strenuously, she fought them down. There was no other option than to do as she had been told. To grind her brain to the limit. Other women there had learnt how to do it ... and thus now suffered less.

I must join them, Anna resolved.

I must, I must!

It was the only way ...

From the forests and the prairies,
From the great lakes of the Northland,
From the land of the Ojibways,
From the land of the Dacotahs —

Oh God, what rubbish it was! Yet Anna knew she must learn it.

On the shores of Gitche Gumee,
By the shining Big-Sea-Water,
Stood the wigwam of Nokomis —

Drivel! Yet having to be impinged on the brain. In order to be recited. Unless one wanted the strap. Almost frenziedly, Anna concentrated her mind. She wanted to rage ... to weep ... yet, somehow, she concentrated her mind.

She was beginning to realise that, in Blackfriars Grange, there was no other way except complete mental and physical submission. Hideous as that realisation was, it had to be faced.

Anna wept silent, bitter tears.

Aware of her defeat.

* * *

Click-clack ... click-clack ... click-clack ...

Then, suddenly, Miss Beeton was back. Seated at her desk.

“Attention!”

All heads came up.

“Anna Dobson, report to the Detention Room in pyjamas immediately.”

A freezing sensation in the brain. Almost a loosening of the bowels. Anna remained seated - petrified.

“Did you hear me, girl?”

Anna tried to collect her wits.

“I ... I ... ah ... I mean ... Miss ... but ... why ... w-why ... M-Miss?” Terror was gripping her like a vice.

“Don’t ask questions, girl. Just do as I say!”

Anna was on her feet. Swaying. Panic surging through her. What could it mean? What was it all about? She had done nothing wrong. Nothing which she had not already been punished for. So ... why had she to report to the Detention Room … and why in pyjamas?

Anna summoned the strength to make it to the door. Then out, along the corridor and upstairs to the dormitory, the sickness of dread rising within her. Inside the empty room, she hurriedly undressed and changed into her pyjamas, all the time wondering what ordeal awaited her in the detention room downstairs.

Such a dreadful place!

So full of hideous memories!

Anna recalled her last visit and almost screamed.

Then, her ‘school’ uniform clothes neatly folded on the end of her bed, she hurried down again until she came to the door of the Detention Classroom. Heart pounding, Anna knocked timorously.

“Come in ...”

Anna turned the handle and the door swung easily open.

Chapter 16

6.30am and the alarm bell sounds at the start of another day at Blackfriars Grange.

Once again, Anna and the other women in her dormitory prepare for another day of misery and humiliation.

Pyjamas off and on with the absurd knickers, followed by the rough cotton blouse with rigid starched collar and tie. Then the grey wool stockings held up by a stiff, deep suspender belt, all securely encased in thick elasticated-leg bottle-green bloomers worn under a bottle-green serge gymslip. Everything was designed to humiliate. And it did. Finally Anna pulled on the clumpy school shoes and grey felt hat, remembering to tuck the elastic behind her ears and under her chin. Very neat, but very uncomfortable.

Anna was ready for class.

And she felt sick at the prospect.

In single file the ‘schoolgirls’ clattered down the corridor to their classroom. Behind her, Anna could hear the other new arrival, Catherine, breathing fast. This was to be her second week. Doubtless, she was feeling even more petrified, thought Anna. It was her fourth week.

Into the dreaded room they went.

It looked the same. It smelt the same.

Small, cramping desks. A blackboard and easel. Miss Beeton’s desk on a dais. And, above all, the punishment stool with before it, hanging on the wall, the dreaded paddles. As was her duty, one of the monitors took them down and oiled them.

Dead silence ... but for fast breathing. And a sob or two from Catherine.

Minutes passed.

Then a tingle of nerves as Miss Beeton’s heels could be heard clicking along the corridor.

In she swept, red hair bouncing, wearing a tight-fitting olive-green dress with calf-length boots to match.

“Good morning, girls!”

So bright, so breezy. Not a care in the world. As if that monstrous place with its iron regime was the most natural thing in the world. Hate burgeoned in Anna’s heart as Miss Beeton smiled at them.

“Good morning, Miss Beeton,” they chorused.

“Now it’s back to work. And I hope there is considerable improvement in the work of some of you ...”

Anna felt herself shudder as Miss Beeton’s swivelling gaze seemed to rest rather too long upon her.

“ ... and, Green, you will stop that noise, or I’ll begin the week by laying a strap across your bottom!”

Wide-eyed, dark-haired Catherine Green pressed a hand to her mouth.

“Latin ...” announced Miss Beeton ... and there was concerted audible moan. It was the most hated subject of all.

“Virgil’s Aeneid, starting at the beginning, each of you will translate a few lines.” A pause. “Now, you’ve all done it before, so there shouldn’t be too many errors. Open your books.”

Anna pushed up the lid of her desk and took out the Aeneid. Opening it, she gazed numbly at its opening lines. Once again, her brain seemed to have become like so much rice pudding!

Arma virumque cano, Troiae qui primus ab oris
Italiam fate profugus Lavinaque venit
Litora —

What, in God’s name, was the translation of that?

A wave of self-pity swept over Anna. They were deliberately given these impossible tasks just so that they would fail them! Just to have a ‘reason’ for punishing them! Oh the monstrous vileness of it!

“Green, you will begin ...”

Anna heard the scrape of her chair as she stood up. There was a brief pause. Thank God it isn’t me, said Anna to herself. But, in due time, her turn must come. Anna almost burst into tears.

“... Arms I sing ...” came Catherine’s controlled voice, “... and the man, who first from the shores of Troy came ...” There was another pause. Anna envied her for having got even this far. She was experienced, of course, that made a lot of difference. But would she fail? Then Catherine resumed. “... fate-exiled, to Italy and her Lavinian strand …”

“Good,” said Miss Beeton perfunctorily. “You may sit down, girl.” She was pleased with the ‘progress’ Catherine had made during her first month in class. Originally, she had been as about as mentally lazy as ... well ... Anna, say. In time, the paddle and the cane had persuaded her to make an unpleasant but necessary effort!

“Next. Patricia.”

Tall Patricia, willowy and graceful, thirty-three years.

- multum ille et terris iactatus et alto
Vi superum, saevae memorem lunonis ob iram

Thus Anna read uncomprehendingly. A panic was already beginning to mount in her. She knew she would fail when her turn came! She listened to Patricia translating.

“ — much buffeted he on sea ....”

“On flood, Patricia.”

“I ... I beg pardon, Miss, on flood and ... and ... f-field ... by ...”

A long pause.

“Well?”

“Er ... oh yes ... by constraint ... of ... of Heaven ... and fell Juno’s unslumbering ire.”

The final words came at a rush.

“Passable.”

Patricia sat down. Was that a sigh of relief she gave? It would not have been surprising.

And so it proceeded, with each woman taking up where the previous one had left off.

The next two made a couple of errors ... and each got three strokes of the leather-covered paddle. Miss Beeton was aware of the difficulties of Latin so was less severe than when dealing with simpler subjects.

The next girl word perfect.

And the next ... or nearly so.

Then the seventh woman made quite a hash of it. Four or five errors. It was young, plump-bottomed Melanie. She was much shorter and plumper than Patricia. Twenty-seven or twenty-eight, Anna guessed. Big breasts were straining through her blouse; fat thighs wobbled. In silence the young woman knelt on the stool.

“Knickers down ...”

Obediently, Melanie’s soft-quivering buttock cheeks, so fulsomely rounded, were nakedly exposed.

“Six strokes,” said Miss Beeton. She was still using the paddle.

The big buttocks clenched convulsively as they waited helplessly for the flame-burn of leather-covered wood on flesh ... and quivered even more.

Gasping and whinnying between clamped teeth, Melanie squirmed frantically as the strokes fell methodically. The wild juddering of the whole of her bottom was a hideous spectacle ... especially for those who still awaited their turn. They all knew just how burningly painful even that paddle could be.

But, bravely, Melanie did not cry out. Moreover, she kept her thighs together and thus managed not to rip her knickers. Red-cheeked but dry-eyed, she returned to her place. It had been quite a good performance. Melanie, though, had had over three months’ experience of the ways of Blackfriars Grange.

The eighth woman was word perfect.

The ninth made a couple of minor errors but escaped. Now Miss Beeton was on the front row. Anna’s heart had begun to pound.

Desperately, she tried to work out which lines would be hers ... but even then, she knew she would make little sense of them.

The tenth woman made more than half a dozen mistakes. Six strokes was her allocation with the paddle. Her gasping cries echoed round the room as her bottom changed from white to a rosy-red hue. She had only been at Blackfriars Grange a month longer than Anna.

Sobbing, knickers at half mast, she stumbled back.

It was Anna’s turn.

Trembling, she stood up. The print swam before her.

En Priamus ... she read. Well, that was fairly easy.

“In Priam,” she said.

“Lo, here is Priam, you stupid girl!” interrupted Miss Beeton.

Sunt hic etian Sua praemia laudi; Oh dear God, what did it mean!

“Er ... er ... f-first praise ... er ... here ... was ... er ... his ...” stammered Anna.

“Good Lord, what on earth does that mean?”

“I ... I don’t q-quite know, Miss ...”

“Don’t know? Of course, you don’t know. Because it is gibberish, Dobson! The correct translation is: ‘Even here, virtue hath her rewards.’ That is simple enough. However, it is quite obvious to me you are still not making enough mental effort!”

“P-Please ... I ... “

“Silence, girl! No virtue in that. And the reward here, Dobson, is the paddle. Come out!”

Wretchedly, Anna stumbled to the front of the class. It was all happening as she knew it must. She began to sob as she positioned herself across the desk. Oh the hideous injustice of it! How could she be expected to translate such rubbish?

“Knickers down ...”

She must try to keep her thighs together.

All would be gazing ... mostly with indifference, few with sympathy ... at her bare bottom. She felt her flesh twitching. Then the moment of panic as her wrists were manacled. Anna was pulled a little forward, her bottom curving.

Ready ...

Down from its place came the paddle again.

A sobbing groan from Anna. She tensed. She clenched her teeth furiously.

Thhwwaaccckkkk!

What good did it do to clench her teeth? At once a yelping cry was torn from her as her head jerked up and back. The pain was too great. Always worse than one had told oneself it would be!

Tthhhwwwaacckkkkkk !

“A-Ahh ... a-a-ahh ... aaaahhhhhhhh!”

Full-sweeping strokes from Miss Beeton. Only during the first week or two was she wont to use anything less.

Tthhwwwaaacccckkkkkkk!

“Aaghh owww o-owww aagghhhh!”

Oh God ... the pain of it ... the pain of it! spreading ... burning deep ...

Thwaaaccckkkkkkk!

“A-A-A-Aggghh ... ooooowwwwwwww ... “

That was four. It was nearly over. But not yet. Anna felt her twisting buttocks clench and clench again in frantic dread as there was a momentary pause before the next stroke. She twisted the other way. Again her buttocks clenched.

It made no difference.

Tthhhwwwwaaaccckkkkkk!

She got it full across her quaking bottom ... and it set her writhing in torment yet again as her gasping yelps rang out.

Ttthhhwwwaaacccckkkkkk!

“Y-Yeeeee aaggh a-a-agghhhhh ... “

The last. Oh thank God, it was the last!

Click ...

Where were her knickers? Incredibly ... somehow . . . this time she had managed to keep her thighs more or less together. That was something. An improvement, one might say. She would not have the chore of mending them that evening. Wriggling, Anna pulled up her knickers and shorts. They fitted tight over her burning flesh. Sobbing, she made her way through a mist of tears to her desk.

“Ahh ... hhhaaa ...”

Oh yes, it was always so painful to put a tender bottom down to the hard wood of one’s desk seat! So difficult not to gasp out.

Burning ...

Oh so tender!

Vaguely, Anna was aware that young Maria had made an equal hash of her translation. Weeping loudly, the pretty, Italian-looking woman was placing herself over the punishment stool.

“Six strokes,” announced Miss Beeton.

“N-No ... ooo ... oooh ... n-no ... p-please ... please ...”

“And Maria, this time I am going to use the paddle!”

“No ... no ... m-merceee ... MERCEEEE ... EEEEEEE!”

It would be the first time for her, thought Anna, as she looked upon the girl’s neatly-rounded, twisting bottom. She felt faintly sorry for Maria. But only faintly. They all had to go through it.

In any event, one had not all that much room for sympathy for others when one had so many troubles of one’s own!

Chapter 15

Another two weeks passed, and once more Anna was summoned to the Colonel’s office, this time in her pyjamas.

“Have you been a naughty girl since I last saw you?” asked the Colonel, aware that the women inmates were sometimes made to remain dressed only in pyjamas as a punishment, often for days or even weeks at a time.

Here it comes, thought Anna. Another game he likes to play. She steeled herself. “Yes, Sir,” she answered.

“So that’s why you are dressed like that,” said the Colonel, grinning.

Anna shrugged. Best get it over with. “Yes, Sir ... I’m sorry Sir … I forgot to fold my school uniform neatly ...”

“I thought you might have been, Anna.” The Colonel continued to grin. “So I brought something with me this time. It’s in my briefcase. Go and get it, young lady.”

Nervously, Anna went over to open the briefcase. It contained just one item ... a wood-and-leather paddle. Resignedly she took it out and walked back to the Colonel.

“You’ve felt one of these before?” he asked.

“Yes, Sir ...”

“Stings, eh? Hurts, eh?”

“Yes, Sir ...”

“More than the palm of my hand?” The Colonel was tapping the paddle against his own palm. The instrument was shaped rather like an over-size table-tennis bat ... a thickish wedge of hard ebony-wood covered by about a quarter of an inch of leather. Yes, thought Anna, that will hurt considerably more than a hand spanking.

“Yes, Sir,” she replied, trying not to lose her resolution. Was he going to have her across his lap again, she wondered. Like the last time? That had been a manual spanking and comparatively easy to take. This time she was obviously going to have to draw on her reserves.

The Colonel stood up. “Bend over and touch your toes, Anna,” he ordered, his voice thickening. “I think it will be more convenient to paddle your bottom that way.”

Anna moved towards the centre of the room. Where was she supposed to bend over, she wondered wretchedly? Not that it made much difference. So she made her own decision and positioned herself so that her buttocks were displayed invitingly as she bent over, stretching her pyjama trousers taut across them as she did so.

The Colonel surveyed the superbly proportioned bottom thus presented to him with the greatest satisfaction. It was a bottom worthy of being spanked... of being paddled. Of being caned, too. Well, no doubt he would do that on another occasion.

“Who is a naughty girl?”

“I ... I am, S-Sir ...”

The Colonel’s hand tightened on the paddle and he stepped into a convenient position. The muscles of Anna’s buttocks also tightened in anticipation and there was a momentary quivering of the soft flesh.

SSPPLLAATTTT!

The paddle fell resoundingly over the centre of the fulsome buttock cheeks. Anna gasped, her fingernails clawing into the arm of the chair.

Yes ... that had hurt and hurt plenty. The spreading pain of a broad paddle was not easy to endure.

“Who is a naughty girl?”

“I ... am ... Sir ...”

SSPPLLAATTTTTTTT!

The Colonel delighted in the sound of the paddle on the naked bottom. He loved, too, the way the soft woman-flesh shook all over, jelly-like at the impact. Above all, he relished the way Anna fought for control, yet could not stop herself squirming and gasping.

The Colonel laid the next two strokes on each buttock cheek in turn ... one stroke swiftly following the other.

SSPPLLAAATTTT!

SSPPLLAAATTTTT!

Both cheeks instantly took on a deeper red hue.

SSPPLLAATTTTT!

SSPPLLAAATTTTT!

SSPPLLAAAAATTTTTTT!

SSSSPPPPLLLLAAAATTTTTTTTT!

Anna gasped more loudly, squirmed her shapely bottom more vigorously.

Oh what a beauty, thought the Colonel. It was the purest joy to whack such a lovely arse as hard as he could ... and as often as he wished!

“Oww ... aaah ... owwww ... OOOOWWWW!”

Tough as she was, the deep-burning pain was beginning to get through to Anna. The paddle was never a laughing matter, that she knew from previous meetings with it.

SSPPLLAAATTTTTT! On the right cheek ...

SSPPLLAAATTTTTT! On the left cheek ...

“Oh ... OWWWW ... S-Sir ... please ... S-Sir ... ppllee ... eeease ...”

“It’s hurting, Anna?”

“Yes ... ahhhh ... yes, Sir ...”

“Good ...”

SSPPLLAAATTTTTT!

“... it’s meant to ...”

SSPPLLAAATTTTTT!

“Ooowww ... oowwwwwwwwww!”

Oh how deliciously that bottom was squirming! And oh how Anna twisted and kicked!

SSPPLLAAATTTTTT!

“Yooowwwww ... oww ... oowww!”

The paddle was now descending on the middle of Anna’s bottom again. In the same place as it had started. Where the flesh was getting more and more burningly tender.

SSPPLLAAATTTTTT!

“Yeee ... ooowwww ... oowwww ... aaahhhggg!”

SSPPLLAAATTTTTT!

“Mercy ... ahhhh ... mercy ... S-Sir ... I haven’t been all that n-naughty ...”

“No? Who says not?”

SSPPLLAAATTTTTT!

SSPPLLAAATTTTTT!

All across the centre. Each one now making Anna yell out with pain ... each one setting the whole of her lush bottom juddering wildly.

SSSPPPPPLLLAAATTTTTT!

SSSPPPLLLUUUTTTTTTTT!

“Merccccc ... eeeeeeee!”

But the Colonel was not in the mood for mercy. He could not remember having enjoyed himself so much for a very long time. He would paddle this woman so soundly she wouldn’t be able to sit down for a week!

He raised the paddle once more, ready to smack it down hard on each reddened cheek

“Sir?”

“You may get up, girl, if you wish ...”

If she wished! Anna got up rapidly and turned to see the sweating figure of her tormentor.

Chapter 14

The following week, Anna found herself once more standing in front of the Colonel. It was nearly time for her first sentence review.

“You’re a very pretty girl. But a very naughty one, too, I think. How long have you been here now?”

“Four weeks, Sir…” Already it seemed more like four months or even years since her arrival in this awful place, where each day was a living nightmare of a humiliating strict school regime of lessons, rules and corporal punishment for even the slightest infringement.

“Then no doubt you are beginning to learn to behave yourself and be a good girl in future.”

“Oh, yes, Sir… I’m really trying so hard, I really am. I’ve been ever so good since I came here.” Anna found herself pleading like child in the desperate hope of getting her sentence reduced.

“I’m sure you are,” grinned the Colonel lecherously. “And what happens to naughty girls, Anna?”

Anna bit her lips. “They ... they are punished, Sir.”

“That’s right. So I think I shall punish you. For having been naughty in the past. Before you came here. Yes ... I remember you were very naughty indeed, weren’t you? However, I shall not be too severe with you, young lady. I am an understanding man. Just a spanking, I think…”

Anna stood before him in her ridiculous schoolgirl uniform, clenching her hands in despair, her cheeks colouring at the shame and utter hopelessness of her situation. Was there no limit to the utter misery she had to endure? Yet she knew must submit to this man’s demands, however awful, if she was to have any hope of getting her sentence reduced.

“Take off you shorts, girl. And your knickers. Then get across my knees,” said the Colonel, in as calm a voice as he could contrive. Inside him the lust was throbbing fiercely. What a delight it was to be able to give such an order to a young beauty like this! To a curvaceous 28-year-old!

Eagerly the Colonel watched as Anna slipped her elasticated shorts down her long thighs to her ankles, then stepped out of them. Whether she took her knickers off or not would make no difference to the spanking. But, all the same, off those knickers were coming ...

Down they went with a wriggling of the hips... and Anna was naked from the waist down. Naked, that is, but for her schoolgirl socks and plimsolls.

“Come across my knees, Anna ...”

Trembling, Anna obeyed. She was aware that the ‘punishment’ she was about to receive, was a mere flea-bite compared with that which was normally her lot. But there was a shaming humiliation in going across this man’s knees which was far worse that the kind of shame she normally experienced.

But she had to do it ... she had to!

Anna prostrated herself face down over the dark serge thighs and felt a hand grip her waist. She gazed at the floor and gritted her teeth again.

At least, it wouldn’t hurt all that much.

But ... oohhh ... how humiliating it was!

The Colonel licked his lips, raised his podgy palm and began to slap the luscious bottom.

Slap ... slap ... slap ... slap ...

Slap ... slap ... slap ... slap

Oh how excitingly the young flesh quivered like jelly! Oh what a lovely feeling it was to smack that ample bottom!

And to smack it again and again and again and again ...

Slap ... slap ... slap ... slap ...

Slap ... slap ... slap ... slap ...

A pity, though, she hardly made a sound ... even if he hit as hard as he could. She didn’t wriggle much either. Not like she had done when he had cracked the cane across her backside. Ah well ... he could do that again soon. At the moment, it was satisfying enough to give her this spanking.

Slap ... slap ... slap ... slap ...

Slap ... slap ... slap ... slap ...

Slap ... slap ... slap ... slap ...

First one cheek ... and then the other ...

Left and right ... left and right ...

For as long as he liked ...

Yes... he could slap this luscious young woman’s bottom for just as long as he liked!

It was getting a shade pinker. But only a shade. It must be slapped more and more. To make it red. To make it glow. The Colonel wished his hand was harder and flatter, so that he could give the woman the kind of spanking he really wished.

For her part, Anna absorbed the slaps of the soft palm almost indifferently. It was as nothing. There was only the shame. But what did that matter in the short term? As long as the filthy swine was enjoying himself, nothing mattered. Perhaps she should wriggle more... to simulate she was suffering? Yes... maybe that would be a good idea. He would like to think he was hurting her.

Anna began to squirm her bottom seductively as each slap fell. Also to gasp out for mercy ...

“P-Please ... oh ... please ... Sir ... p-please ... no ... no ... m-more ...”

The Colonel was delighted by the sights and the sounds. Perhaps he was really getting through to this girl at last. Keep on slapping ... keep on ... hard ... hard ...hard!

My God, thought the Colonel, my palm is beginning to burn! Surely her bottom was beginning to burn too!

But Anna continued to wriggle of her own accord. And to gasp out in pretended pain. She knew that was what the Colonel wanted ... so she gave him what he wanted. The swine!

After two or three minutes, the Colonel’s arm began to tire and his flabby palm to burn too much. He gazed, with slack mouth, down on Anna’s squirming-quivering bottom. Such a beautiful bottom! Six more slaps as hard as he could ...

Slap ... slap ... slap ... slap ... slap ...slap!

Then The Colonel stopped. He was panting, red-faced, his eyes a shade glassy. Oh God ... how he was enjoying himself!

“You ... you are ... a naughty ... naughty girl...” he panted. “And ... and ... for that ... you ... ahhhh ... yes ... you have ... b-been ... punished ...”

“Yes ... Sir ... thank you Sir ... I deserved to be punished...” responded Anna. She knew that was required of her under such circumstances.

The Colonel’s hand ran over the soft-warm buttock cheeks. Oh what a delightful feel was there! Ripe fulsomeness ... glowing warmth ... secular femininity!

Ah yes ... sexual femininity ...

The Colonel licked his lips, just in time to stop himself actually dribbling. Why should he not indulge himself a little further?

Softly, lightly, he ran his hand over the warm buttock cheeks. Oh ... oh ... how delicious that was! Oh Yes ... yes! To rub ... and then squeeze. Just gently squeeze. Oh ... oh what a superb bottom it was!

Anna stood nakedly submissive.

She felt disgust. But, on the other hand, nothing was quite as difficult as she had expected it would be.

It had been a most enchanting afternoon.

The first of many ...

Chapter 13

When the Colonel returned to the classroom twenty minutes later, Anna had stopped sobbing but her head was still over the textbook. She was writing away as fast as she could.

“Time's up, Anna,” he said, taking his seat behind the desk. “Bring up your work.”

Pale-cheeked and eyes red-rimmed, Anna got up and handed in the sheet of paper with the textbook. She was aware she had not quite finished and hoped there were not too many mistakes. Unless one had been an expert linguist, it was virtually impossible to complete the set-piece in time. And Anna was no expert.

The Colonel tut-tutted when he saw the passage was not complete. Then, using another 'crib', he began to mark the errors. Time and again his blue pencil slashed and each time it did so, Anna seemed to flinch a little.

“Another poor effort,” he said gravely, when he had finished marking. “You don't seem at all up to your work today, girl. What is the explanation?”

“I... I don't know, Sir,” answered Anna weakly. “I'm t-trying very hard, Sir.” She knew it was no use making excuses. They were never accepted.

“But obviously you are not trying hard enough.” The Colonel looked almost sorrowful.

“P-please, Sir...” began Anna. After such a spanking, she was well aware that any subsequent punishment would be doubly painful.

“So,” continued the Colonel, ignoring her interruption, “I think the time has come to stimulate your grey matter...”

“Oh no, please... No,” she begged. “Plee....eease, Sir...”

“Silence, girl! Bend over my desk and take your pants down. You're getting a taste of the paddle!”

Anna gulped, her hands clenching and unclenching. But she didn't hesitate more than a moment two to obey the order. She bent across from the front of the desk and pulled down her thick cotton bloomers and baggy knickers once more. The Colonel picked up the paddle and moved around and surveyed the rosy-hued bottom. A very deep rosy colour.

“Grip tight,” he said. Anna's knuckles clenched white on the far edge of the desk. "You're getting a dozen.” The bottom flesh gave a convulsive quiver. “Any interference and you get the stroke again plus two extra. Understood?”

“Yes, Sir,” whispered Anna. That routine was familiar to her. She gritted her teeth. It was going to be difficult with her bottom so burning-sore... and she certainly didn't want any extra.

Splatt!

The leather-covered paddle cracked down across both buttock cheeks. It wasn't a particularly thick one, but it made Anna gasp and squirm quite adequately. An even deeper-hued welt overlaid the rosy background.

Splatt!

This time a little lower down the curve of the bottom.

“Oh... owww!” gasped Anna, squirming even more. Of course, the paddle didn't hurt as much as the cane but, being so tender, it almost seemed to. Anna's knuckles grew even whiter.

Splatt!

Lower still... almost to the join of the buttocks and thighs.

“OH... ow... oww!”

Oh how deliciously it makes her squirm, the Colonel thought. If I wanted to, he thought, I could give her twice this number.

Spplatt!

“Owwwww!”

He caught the Anna right across the join of the buttocks and she lost her grip of the desk for an instant.

Skilfully, he swung the paddle again and caught her in precisely the same place.

Spplatt!

“OOOWWW... OOOWWW!”

This time Anna did lose her grip and one arm came flying back involuntarily. But only for a moment. Quickly Anna got a grip again but her bottom was still squirming when the sixth stroke fell. Deliberately, for the third time in succession, the Colonel laid it on in precisely the same place.

Spplatt!

“Yeeooowww... aahh... OOWWW!”

Gasping, crying out, Anna squirmed right down to her knees on the floor and clasped her hands to her wriggling, jerking bottom.

“M-Mercy... mercy... Sir... plee... please...” begged Anna.

She was not so much begging for him to cease the paddling (no chance!) but not to continue to lay it on in exactly the same place.

The Colonel had no intention of doing so, but that had nothing whatsoever to do with Anna's pleas. He simply had other ideas as to how he was going to proceed with the last half dozen.

Meanwhile, with a kind of desperation, Anna had got up off the floor and flung herself back over the desk. She must be ready for the stroke to come. Or else.

“Take your knickers right off, girl,” he ordered. He was much enjoying himself. Certainly, already, Anna was going to find it painful to sit down for the next twenty-four hours.

The dark bloomers and knickers were around Anna's ankles and she stepped out of them and kicked them to one side. A deep sob shook her. She knew what was to happen.

“Straddle your legs... wide...” came the order.

Feeling, as ever, the shame of her action, Anna did so, displaying herself flagrantly. Though she had to do it scores of times before, her cheeks till seemed to burn as deeply as her bottom.

“Wider than that...”

Anna complied, gritting her teeth even tighter. What was to come was just as painful, if not more so, than the repeated strokes on the lower part of the overhang.

With seeming casualness, the Colonel gazed on the spectacle before him. Delicious. Quite delicious. He swung the paddle and laid it across the very top of Anna's left thigh. On the tender-white inside of the thigh.

Anna cried out in anguish, head jerking back... yet somehow she maintained her grip.

“Oh... oh... God... h-have... mercy!”

Again the paddle swung and this time it fell across the top of the right thigh. The perfect counterpart to the stroke which had just fallen across the left.

Another terrible cry from Anna. Another despairing plea. Yet, in her heart, she knew she would get no mercy.

The next four strokes, which fell at measured intervals, were cruel indeed. Each one had Anna squirming down to her knees on the floor, clasping her hands to her tormented flesh. For each of the two strokes on each of the thighs fell in precisely the same place. On the very tenderest flesh... which got even more tender each stroke! Little wonder that Anna cried out in such anguish or that her pleas grew more frantic. When it was at last over, Anna remained on her knees in front of the desk, her face buried in her hands, the hot tears trickling through her fingers. She wept not only on account of the unrelenting pain but because of the sheer inhuman injustice of the treatment she had received. There was no rhyme or reason for it. Yet, of course, she dare not... would not think of... complaining. Rather to the contrary.

“Have you anything to say, girl?” came that cruel, calm voice from above her.

“Mmmff... mmmfff... th-thank y-you, Sir for c-correcting m-me... mmmfff...! One never, never got used to it ...

“Leave your knickers off,” said the Colonel, going back to his own chair. He watched as Anna settled her burning bare bottom down on to the hard rough wood of her desk seat. Gingerly as she did it, she simply could not help crying out on contact.

“I hope that will concentrate your mind better next time you have a French lesson,” he said.

“Y-Ye... ss... Sir,” agreed Anna, nodding her head. Would it, though, she wondered? In any event. this monster could always find some other excuse for tormenting her! She simply could not check her tears.

The Colonel realised this. For the moment, Anna had her fill. There were times when it was quite useless to give orders. A balance had to be preserved.

“Right, young lady,” he said, “we will take a short break before resuming. Go and stand in the corner until I return.”

Gasping again, Anna got up and walked stiffly across the room and stood in the corner, automatically placing her hands on the top of her head. It was the prescribed place for them under such circumstances. The Colonel walked after her and then tucked the hem of Anna's gymslip into her waistband. Bright-hued, glowing, the ample young buttocks were fully exposed. He surveyed them with unabashed satisfaction. Naughty schoolgirls deserved to be spanked! Perhaps, he thought to himself, I'll finish off the morning, later on, with a touch of the cane. That should really have her yelping!

So, with that happy thought, he left the young woman sobbing her heart out in the corner of the room.

Needless to say, Anna was in exactly the same position when the Colonel returned. Her tightly-rounded bottom cheeks were still the same bright hue but her sobs had ceased. He saw her give a shudder of apprehension as he closed the door behind him. She was aware that her ordeal of the morning was not yet over. It was simply a question of what form that ordeal took.

“You may go back to your desk,” he said. “No need to put your pants on again.” he added as she bent to pick them up from off the floor.

Anna resumed her seat with a little gasp.

“Spelling” he announced, opening a dictionary before him.

Anna sat rigidly erect, biting her lower lip furiously, striving to check her tears and concentrate her mind. Spelling mistakes were punishable. Usually one stroke for every mistake in a word. Plus one extra. But strokes with what, wondered Anna. The instrument varied. The Colonel clarified the situation but did not exactly put Anna at her ease by taking down and placing the slim, hooked-handled cane on top of his desk. Oh God, the thought of that on her so-tender flesh! Anna felt her buttocks clench convulsively upon the hard wooden seat where they rested.

“Philosophy...” he said.

Anna, taking her time, got it right.

“Lilliputian...”

Anna, taking her time, got it wrong. One L and two P's.

The Colonel explained the error with a little frown and picked up the cane. He stood up, flexing it lightly. “Come out here, girl,” he ordered. Biting her lower lip even more furiously, Anna obeyed. Hideously reluctant as she was, she dare do nothing else. Sterner penalties awaited any delay, let alone disobedience. “Bend over and touch your toes,” came the second order. And again it was obeyed.

Her gymslip rode right up to expose the taut, rose-and-red cheeks. The Colonel sawed the cane across them gently, seeing them twitch with dread.

“How do you spell 'Lilliputian'?” he asked, with seeming calm.

“L... I... double L ... “ began the girl. And at that point where she had made her first mistake, the cane rose and fell swiftly across her bottom. With an anguished yelp, Anna jerked instantly erect, clasping both hands to the thin, twin-tracked weal just raised.

“Ohh... oh... ooowww... ooowww” she gasped, squirming this way and that.

“Yes... double L,” said the Colonel. “Don't forget again. Bend over... and continue.”

Anna bent over again. “I...” she began, “P...”

Again the cane whiplashed across her curving bottom and once more she gasped and squirmed with pain as her hands pressed urgently.

“Yes... one P. Continue...”

Anna bent and touched her toes, spelling out the letters until the word was completed. And as it was, the cane fell for a third time.

“OWW... OOWW!” cried the girl, squirming almost to her knees. The Colonel had deliberately given it to her with all the force of his right arm. Oh, by God, how he loved to make a girl squirm like that ... to see the burning agony in her flesh as she jerked and juddered, gasping out with pain. Oh yes, yes... there was nothing quite like it!

“Back to your place,” he said, putting the cane on the desk and resuming his seat.

Anna, now sobbing again, walked stiffly away. It seemed as if the combination of hate, despair and self-pity in her heart must burst it. No one could have been more aware that the sadist in whose power she was could make her suffer as much and for as long as he wanted!

Fifteen minutes later Anna, weeping copiously and pleading for mercy, was touching her toes for the fifth time that morning with a dozen or so bright red weals criss-crossing her buttock cheeks.

The Colonel regarded Anna's curving hindquarters. He picked up the cane and came round the desk. The pleasures of power, the pleasures of inflicting pain, were indeed unique!

“Now, where were we?” he asked in his usual benign fashion. The cane was still in his hand, the woman's bottom was still curved taut for his attention. She was trembling and sobbing, not surprising after such a spanking, followed by the paddle and then the cane.

“I... I was spelling 'kaleidoscope' S-Sir,” answered Anna.

“And got it wrong in three places, I believe?”

“Y-er... ess... Sir...”

How deliciously the buttocks clenched and re-clenched as the cane swished menacingly! What a joy to have such a 'schoolgirl' to punish as one wished! Anna was certainly having just about the toughest classroom session the Colonel had ever held.

“Start again then,” he said casually, measuring the curving buttock cheeks. He had already explained to Anna where she had gone wrong.

“K...” began the young woman.

Instantly the cane lashed down and bit, sending Anna squirming to her knees.

“Oww... owww .. oooowwwww...”

“That's right this time,” he said. Previously Anna had begun with a 'C'.

“'A'... mmmfff... mmmfff .. 'L'... mmfff...” continued a sobbing Anna as she bent yet again. “'E'... “

Once more the cane cracked down. Once more Anna yelped and squirmed.

Up again .. only to bend over again ...

“'I'... er .. er...'D'... mmmfff .. 'O'...”

For the third time the cane whistled and bit. Ssswweee... ccraaaccckkkk!

“Yer... aaah... ooowww... aahhh... OOOWWWW!” cried Anna on her knees once more, thrashing about on the carpet, hands clasping and grasping. She was fast approaching the end of her considerable nervous and physical endurance.

“Finish the word, young lady,” ordered the Colonel relentlessly. He was aware that she was virtually at the limit, but there was still one stroke to come... and she was going to get it!

Breasts heaving, her contorted features red with tears, Anna somehow dragged herself up, then bent and touched her toes.

“Continue...” said the Colonel, a thin, sadistic smile on his lips.

“'S'... 'C'... 'O'... 'P'... 'E'... “ spelled out Anna laboriously. Then, in a vain attempt to avoid what she knew must be coming, her shapely bottom twisted to one side. But she escaped nothing. The lashing cane caught her fair and square to send her writhing to her knees again.

“Oh... agh... ohhh... pleease Sir... ohh... h-have m-mercy have... mercy...” sobbed the girl.

She was quite defeated. Yet, strangely, perhaps one might think, she no longer felt any active resentment at what was being done to her. She simply wanted it to stop. For the whole thing to be over. Nothing else mattered. The repetitive pain was just too much for her.

“Stand up, girl,” ordered the Colonel, “and spell the word in total.”

Anna forced herself up, heaving with sobs, yet striving for some composure. It didn't matter that she had been utterly humiliated, that she was naked from the waist down. All that mattered was to get the spelling right.

“Any mistakes,” said the Colonel, flexing the cane, “and you'll go over my desk and get an extra half dozen. Understood?”

“Yess... Sir..” whispered the young woman. Oh God, she must get it right!

Carefully... oh so carefully... while the Colonel watched and smiled thinly, Anna spelt out the word letter by letter.

“Correct,” he said, replacing the cane on his desk.

Anna's relief was so great that a loud sob burst from her. The Colonel's smile broadened a little. He re-seated himself on his desk chair.

“Well, you have been a very careless and naughty girl this morning, haven't you?” he said.

Anna nodded her agreement. “Y-yes, Sir.” she answered. She would have agreed to anything. Oh God, how those thin weals throbbed and burnt across her tender flesh!