LSF have published a new story just in time for Christmas. It is an unabridged reworking of the previously published Winter’s Tale only slightly more romantic, more spanky… for those who like their love OTK.

Princess Sofia is beautiful, tempestuous, and spoiled. As the harsh winter sets in, her father, Prince Molotov, forbids her to leave the castle. She disobeys him, sneaking out with the horse sleigh into the snow-covered forest for one last wilful adventure. It is the woodsman, Ivan Ivanov, who discovers her tracks, and when he comes upon her, finds her stranded after the sleigh has turned over. Ivan is not impressed by her rudeness, and he spanks her until she apologises. Then he turns his attention to the immediate problem, for the weather has turned, and Sofia will not be able to return to Castle Molotov. As the wolves close in and the storm rages, they eventually reach the sanctuary of Ivan’s hut – a simple dwelling, nothing like the grand castle Sofia is accustomed to. Her demands are met with little sympathy, and once again she finds herself spanked, then made to stand in the corner.

And so begins her relationship with this man of lowly rank, for there is to be no return to Castle Molotov until the Spring when the snows begin to thaw. As the days pass, an unspoken love develops between them. In spite of his rough ways, she feels safe and secure with Ivan – even though he always deals with her bad behaviour in the traditional way. When Spring finally arrives, Sofia feels desolate, but how can she tell Ivan she would prefer to remain with him?

Available now.

Sarah dropped me a line saying how much she enjoyed my post on Land Girls some time back and how she thought her grandmother may have had a similar experience during the war. She didn’t have any details as yet but she did point me to a link about war time spanking and land girls. Unfortunately the link on Femfirst was a dead end but a search of the same forum did throw up this from a discussion regarding corporal punishment on the home front during the Second World War.

KellyB wrote:

Further to MDJ’s forum comment last week [not found] I don’t know about Land Girls, I am sure they had a hard time too. But Tilly said she had gone to work on a farm as an apprentice in 1940 and had mainly worked with machinery.

I suppose she would have been around 19 or 20 then (by my maths) and was a bit older than some of the girls and a little older than the apprentice boys who had worked in the machine shop before the war. But most of the other apprentice women were in their 20s, having switched from other trades and keen to stay out of factories. However, Tilly was very much against special treatment when the gaffer’s wife offered to put her up at the farmhouse: an opinion, to use her own words, ‘she very much backed down on after a few weeks.’

I gather two of the farm girls had got themselves into a bit of scrape with some ‘boys and a bottle of cider,’ surely quite forward of them in those days. There had been much amusement by the apprentices when they had been treated like little kids and put over the Gaffer’s wife’s knee for a good sound bare bottom spanking. She even sent them to bed without supper and other childish sanctions.

This made Tilly all the more keen to be handled with the women.

But the Gaffer was a no nonsense sort and in his view what was good for boys went twice as well for the women machinists. It was not unusual to have them across the work bench with their heavy overalls taken down to receive a good few licks of the belt across their bottoms. Tilly was shocked to find that the Gaffer was ‘a traditional pants and trousers down kind of man’ and the women were certainly left sore and very embarrassed, especially being handled that way by a man. But for every job on the tractor farm, there were a dozen women hoping to get away from the factories in the cities and the bombs.

Tilly herself got into trouble with the Gaffer after an incident with a shattered drill bit. She said, “I was shaking like a leaf when the Gaffer told me to drop my trousers and get my bottom up over the bench. There were other girls there but no one battered an eyelid. I was so embarrassed, but that was nothing to the real fire he lit in my behind. It was a thrashing that seemed to go on and on.”

Tilly said that after another incident a few weeks later the Gaffer’s wife took pity on her and Tilly jumped at the chance to move out of the apprentice digs and get machine and maintenance work around the farm.

Not that she escaped a sound spanking when she deserved it, she said and admits it was horrible being treated like a kid but after the Gaffer’s belt going across his wife’s knee and being sent to bed early was more preferable.

I only see Tilly once a fortnight and these days her mind wanders, but if she will say more I will pass it on.

=

I have no idea who Tilly is or her relationship to Kelly, nor what else had been said in this discussion as unfortunately I only found access to a partial thread.

A little known and now forgotten event took place during the Second World War, some of the details of which were reported in a magazine published back int the 1980s. I have only a photostat of a long letter carried by the publication and many more details we forthcoming, but here is what I was able to type up and summaries.

In 1943 12 women serving in the British Women’s Auxilliary Air Force (WAAF) had to make a forced landing in the Aden Protectorate while on route to Asia. There being no accommodation on hand the group were taken to a guest house six miles outside the Crown Colony authority into Aden itself.

For reasons that are unclear the next day the WAAFs refused to board taxis sent to collect and police were called during which there was an altercation and several police constables were assaulted. Within two hours the 12 women were hauled up before a civilian judge who acquitted six of them and convicted the other six of affray.

Five of those found guilty of affray were summarily sentenced to 12 strokes of the cane each on the bare bottom downstairs at the court and then released later that day. Meanwhile, a sixth, a public school educated 19-year-old Leading Aircraft Woman known only as Shirley, faced six further charges. She seems to have been the most belligerent and as the senior officer present was assumed to be the ringleader.

Shirley was sentenced to nine months in Sana Gaol and for the duration of her punishment was to receive eights strokes of the birch on the bared bottom at five intervals for each of the five separate (making 40 in total)all at the discretion of the prison governor.

On appeal and following a campaign launched by her home town newspaper this sentence was later reduced to 12 strokes of the cane.

But as she was seen as the ringleader and as the authority of the court had seen to be challenged by outside interference this was subsequently raised 18 strokes of the cane for being the ringleader of an affray and a single birching of 24 strokes for inciting mutiny was reinstated. Although the prison sentence was quashed.

The caning was witnessed by a serving police officer in the Aden police and a 21-year-old WAAF Officer from the girls’ unit, who were ‘shocked and outraged’ at this turn of events, but both admitted later that they were also ‘rather aroused by the situation,’ and most of their outrage was over the issue that the girl had been thrashed by a male police sergeant.

The punishment as described by them: The girl was fully clothed and in uniform for her punishment but after being bent over a frame in the prison yard, she had her skirts raised and her draws taken down. The strokes themselves were laid 3/4 of an inch apart and applied at intervals of 20 or 30 seconds.

There birching was carried out on another occasion within the confines of the prison and exact details were not known to these witness.

An appeal launched in her home town did little to persuade the authorities to be merciful. In fact one of the mothers of another of the girls, 22-year-old Peggy, wondered what all the fuss was about. Their daughter’s punishment was no worse than that suffered at Batley High right up to the age of 18. Where as a senior girl she had received 12 strokes on three occasions for anti-social offences and petty theft.

Peggy said the worst part was the waiting for her turn. The strokes themselves were received at 10 to 15 second intervals and although painful causing her to she sob and scream, they were “no worse than those received at Batley High from Mrs Moore.”

During 1943 and 1944, no less than 79 other European women were  punished in this way in Aden, including eight stewardesses, three nannies, one teacher and nine nurses.

This is a short work of fiction inspired by a true story according to Jane.

*

Everyone seems to think that sex wasn’t discovered until the 1960s and that kinkiness didn’t heave into view until the 1970s. Well I have to tell you that as a 20-something secretary we knew a thing or two. Oh to be sure we had to be discreet and sometimes the kinkiness had to be disguised, but looking back it was definitely there.

In 1955 I went to work for a law firm in London. It was a sexist world back then and pretty girls were often looked upon as office chattels and closely guarded by the lords of these various domains. There were all kind of rumours of course, but being something of a looker and a much sought after blonde to boot, I had it in mind to have an adventure and take full advantage of this secret world. After all I didn’t make the rules and a girl has to get on doesn’t she?

As I said there were rumours. One of the rumours was that one of the senior partners Sir G had a penchant for caning his secretary and any other young woman in his orbit. These rumours were fuelled by the combination of a high turnover of his staff and the ridiculously high bonuses his girls got. The ones that stayed really stayed for the duration.

This situation was coupled with extensive discretion around all matters Sir G and any attempts to poke someone for gossip from his team was met by an almost embarrassed air of silence. I was intrigued from the start.

Unfortunately I didn’t work for Sir G, I worked for Johnny Ed (which is as close to his real name it is appropriate to use). Johnny was a happy go-lucky guy and long on flirting and generous with his little perks for any girl who wanted to play.

I didn’t exactly dislike Johnny, but he wasn’t my type. He came across as too friendly and too over-confident. Also I thought he was a bit soft. I liked my men with an edge; men like Sir G who had supposedly been a para in the war and almost never smiled.

If six of the best across my bum was the price of a high salary and the opportunity for foreign travel, then I was more than game. To this end, no pun intended, I twice put in for a transfer to his office and twice had it blocked.

The second time, Johnny’s boss gave me roasting over it and told me to knuckle under. However, Johnny was more sympathetic and took me to lunch.

“If it’s a raise you want…” he had begun. “You don’t want to work for old G,” he continued. “He is a bit of a blighter…”

The gist of it was that despite the perks Sir G was a hypocrite and beneath the old guard disciplinary zeal he rather enjoyed his reputation.

“So what,” I said, “Maybe I don’t mind.”

Johnny brightened suddenly.

“Really,” he grinned.

I blushed. No I really blushed. Sex, spanking and the whole damn thing was all very well, but in those days you had to pretend reluctance.

“Well you know… I don’t enjoy it but…” I blustered.

“I do,” Johnny cut in. “I just don’t like to take advantage, not like some people.”

I laughed. “You don’t seem the type to me.”

Lunch got more interesting after that and we came to an arrangement. Not as lucrative as working for Sir G but quite good and I didn’t really believe in the spanking side of it right then anyway.

About a week later I was late. Not very late, but I figured Johnny for a push over and as I said, I thought we had an understanding. I knew something was up as soon as I got there.

“Bring me a coffee will you,” he said before I had even got my coat off.

I didn’t usually do that, but I guessed maybe this was part of our new deal. By the time I got into his office he had already removed his jacket and was rolling up his sleeves.

“Someone had been a naughty girl,” he said, patting his lap.

I must have frowned for in very short order he told me it was time to pay the piper and to take my knickers down. I am not slow, so I asked if I might keep them up. It was more than embarrassing to do what he had asked and I figured he would have me pegged for a trollop if I gave in that easily.

“Whoever heard of a girl getting a spanking without baring her bottom,” he said sternly.

I was quite thrilled. I was still going weak at the knees when he grabbed me and toppled me across his lap. I didn’t wear a girdle like some girls, but my slip was tight and my knickers didn’t go all the way down to my stocking tops. All the same he made a good fist of it and my skirt and slip were soon in the small of my back and he got my knickers down to my thighs.

The first slap stung and I squealed. This was mostly in surprised, but the spanking that followed was quite biting enough and I was soon panting hard and a little damp around the eyes. My bottom too was stinging and was still very red much later on when I inspected it in the mirror. I certainly felt it where I sat for the rest of the day.

“Next time I want better access or else,” he scolded me. But he had the good grace to wink.

Later that night he took me to dinner and we had our first kiss.

Spanking was pretty much a regular arrangement with us after that. Mostly I would engineer the thing, to my advantage of course. If I needed to pick up some dry cleaning or do some shopping I would be late in or come in from lunch after 1.30 and the only price was a spanking. I mean the spankings did hurt, especially once he knew I would play ball. I usually cried and sometimes I couldn’t sit down for a day or two. This was always the case once he started employing that damn clothes brush he kept for dusting down his suits. But afterwards we would usually do dinner in the evening or take in show. Sometimes he even gave me a pound or two towards a more convenient outfit.

I think we went on five dates before I thought it appropriate to stay the night at his. I have to say he was a considerate and skilled lover, but any chance he got to catch me out would lead to a pretty sound spanking.

Also if we were at his place or mine I would often find myself stood in the corner. A totally embarrassing game I hated but really turned him on. He said it helped put me in my place.

Then one day Johnny had a run in with Sir G. I don’t know the exact details but Johnny was asked to see a small group of senior partners to explain some irregularity. The boss was pretty pissed and although he agreed it was just a clerical error and not Johnny’s fault, they couldn’t very well fire the whole typing pool.

Johnny said it would blow over, but he looked pretty shaken all the same.

Then I had an idea. Figuring at worst I would lose my job, an easy thing to find in 1955, I sent Sir G a memo implying that the error might have been among the support staff, especially implying that it might even be my fault. It was a subtle enough hint, but I followed it up with a visit to Sir G’s office, where I not only apologised by way of identifying myself (he would not have known me from Eve otherwise), but while I was there I asked for a particular file I already knew was kept in the bottom draw. One carefully selected pencil skirt, one opportunist bend at the waist and an idea formed in Sir G’s mind.

“You’re the little filly who caused all the bother aren’t you?” he said.

I fluttered my eyelashes and replied I hoped he wasn’t too cross.

“I expect you have heard how I deal with naughty young women like you?” he said.

I nodded and feigned some real fear (a task that required no acting ability). Without explaining he asked if I would take my medicine to let the whole thing drop. He didn’t exactly spell it out but we both knew what he meant.

I didn’t tell Johnny. I had some idea that he might stop my little arrangement. Instead that Friday I reported to Sir G’s office promptly at six after his own staff had all left.

“Ever been caned before?” he asked as he removed a long thin yellow-brown stick from a cupboard.

“Oh rather Sir,” I lied. I thought it best to play to his imagination and give him his money’s worth. “At school both the headmistress and matron used to thrash me ever such a lot.”

“What six of the best or was it 12?” he said, adding, “Bare bottom drill was it?”

I gulped but decided to play it to the hilt.

“Oh always bare Sir, but there were too many strokes to count really,” I ventured nervously.

I hoped I look cute.

“Well if you took 12 or more as a girl, then two dozen should fit you now right enough,” he growled. “I bet you know the drill too.”

I didn’t but it didn’t take much imagination or ordering from him before I was bending over the back of stuffed armchair with my bare bottom mooning the ceiling.

The sound is hard to describe but after the first stroke I couldn’t have cared less. My bum felt as if a sword had slashed it and I yelled.

“Do try to keep quiet won’t you,” he instructed.

I obeyed for four more strokes before the searing lines across my bottom bettered me. By then I was crying and it was all I could do to stay bent over. I realised then that I had overplayed my hand. If I hadn’t been so brazen I am sure now that I could have escaped with a mere six. But it was too late by then and for the next 20 or 30 minutes I had to endure the worst punishment of my life so far. I say that long, it felt longer obviously, it is just a guess on my part. He must have given me about 24 strokes in all, dished out in four sets of six. I would guess that each set lasted two or so minutes, given the spaces in between. But then he put down cane and offered me a handkerchief to dry my eyes and rest.

Once the caning was finally done Sir G shook my hand and gave me a five pound note.

“Good sport,” he said.

I had to laugh, even through my tears.

Anyway all I can say that I cried all the way home on the bus, standing up of course with everyone staring, but I scarcely cared. On inspecting my behind in the bathroom mirror I could see a great many purple lines all standing out proud on my bottom. There were so many that they actually merged. I couldn’t sit down for almost a week and tenderness and marks lasted for most of that month.

Johnny was furious, but he couldn’t argue that the meeting with the senior partners was cancelled. Also he waited two weeks before spanking me for my little prank, which was pretty decent of him under the circumstances.

“Jane…” he said earnestly as I left the following Monday, “Thanks.”

“Anytime,” I replied, “It wasn’t so bad.”

That was a remark I came to regret, but that is another story.

There is a scene in the movie The Notorious Bettie Page where Gretchen Mol, in the role of Bettie, explains to a fan that he can only photograph her from behind. This is because of obscenity laws that prevent any hint of the pubic region or as my grandmother might have quaintly called it, the front bottom area.

This problem explains some rather curious little snippets unearthed while researching spanking and Hollywood (a project still ongoing). Apparently during the cheesecake era there were professional models who had the kind of personal layout (how else to put it?) that meant that whilst in a normal pose and viewed from behind there is no hint of their more forward charms.

It is actually an issue I have considered before but hadn’t realised it was a professional ‘thing.’ Namely, I tend to, and virtually always do, avoid pictures that are too revealing or containing full frontal nudity. However, sometimes this is difficult as even in relatively innocent photographs some women are apt to ‘show’ from behind; as if women didn’t have enough to put up with in the body fascism stakes.

It is not an issue that usually matters, I suspect, except if one is living in an era when nudity was banned or severely restricted.

Now this brings us to the point. In a magazine cutting about cheesecake one woman is described as an ‘ass model.’ She is quoted as saying ‘that some knock out girls used to get canned just because they had camel-toe issues, back as well as front.’ She on the other hand could be pictured from behind clothed or unclothed ‘without showing the goods.’

A very delicate matter to be sure, but just who had the job of assessing these girls? I bet he was pissed off when the permissive society got going. But then maybe it was a woman: the Brooklyn Bridge going cheap, anyone?

More to the point, another article in the same search suggested that bottom models were used in close up for any delicate situation, not only to make the artist look good, but to ensure ‘appropriate levels of propriety.’ More of the same issue then, we might suspect?

But what delicate situations do they mean? Apparently spanking was the big one. Not only did a girl need a ‘good seat’ for presenting a target when the script called for it, but a girl had to take a ‘decent spanking’ for sometimes up to ‘three or four dozen takes.’ The headline actors were reluctant to suffer that much for there are and besides it could hold up production. Not that some actresses didn’t occasionally take one or two for the team.

Now I wonder if there were auditions and who had that job.

Our story began here.

Alice waited in the drawing room and tried not to look at the clock. It was almost 10 o’clock and neither girl had arrived. This was going to be difficult enough now that Janet and Jenny had gone back with Mrs Baxter, but she had hoped not to have to have quite a high stakes encounter so soon.

It was time to tighten the ship and for that there had to be strict adherence to the rules. God, she could murder a cigarette, the governess thought. She eyed the clock and the minute hand creeping towards the 11, she had seven minutes.

The patio doors opened easily and Alice was able to slip around the side of the house as she lit up. It would be a disaster if one of the girls caught her, but she was too on edge not to indulge. She thought about what would happen to her if Mrs Baxter were ever to catch her smoking. Her last trip to the woodshed had been one of her most memorable since leaving the college house. Mrs Baxter had been very hard and unrelenting in her treatment of girls who had smoked, she still was.

Back in her early days she, Kelly McMamara and Amanda Casey had been caught out back with a new pack. Mrs Baxter had hauled them into the common room and made each of them quickly smoke one down prior to getting six of the best on the bare in front of everyone.

Then they had to smoke another and another, each time with the same six across the very bare and tightly bent bottom. Alice had prayed in thanks that there were only enough for six cigarettes each, but that was still 36 strokes of biting rod for each of them, all while their smirking compatriots looked on.

The only break in a two hour public vigil facing the wall was when Kelly had turned green 15 minutes in and had run to the bathroom to throw-up. The hairbrush later made Mrs Baxter’s disapproval felt over that lapse. A spanking administered over cane welts was a special species of hell.

Suppressing the memory Alice eyed the cigarette in her hand and dropped it with a rueful pout as she stamped it out of existence. The evidence on her breath was removed with a mint.

She took a deep sigh. It was time to raise her game and let the girls see another side to her methods.

By the time she got back to the drawing room Katherine was already sitting by the window. Alice frowned and gave her a significant look as she waited. The foolish girl just smiled. Forgetting the basics are we? Alice thought grimly. She was still weighing this up when the door opened and Mary tumbled breathlessly in.

“Sorry I am late,” she panted as she too added a smile.

The old Mary was in full retreat and instead of the gauche fright of a girl now stood a sophisticated woman. Alice glanced at the clock. Sophisticated or not, she was three minutes late.

“Tardiness is not tollerated,” Alice said sharply, “And you,” she added rounding on Katherine, “You should know better. Why didn’t you stand up when I entered the room?”

“Oh,” Katherine whispered and stood to make amends.

“Too late, both of you, too little too late,” Alice scolded. “I warned you things would get strict around here. Now both of you, skirts and slips off, panties down… and those off too. Then you can both face that wall.” She pointed decisively at the bare wall facing the mantelpiece.

“But…” Mary gaped.

“At once,” Alice barked.

Both women exchanged horrified glances and then blushed. But there was no argument and both slowly moved to obey.

By the time the two smartly semi-attired women were facing the wall Alice had retrieved a cane from the corner.

“Things have been too lax around here and I am going to test you both further. Before this week is out you will both fetch a hairbrush and ask me to soundly spank you as you deserve…”

“Yes Ma’am,” the both said in unison.

“Furthermore,” Alice continued, “You will both read the books I will give you for a test at the end of the month. It is time you tackled the academic side of your training.”

“Yes Ma’am,” Katherine said with some confidence.

Mary just gaped and rolled her eyes at the wall.

“How many strokes should Katherine have for not standing up?” Alice asked.

Mary half-turned and pointed at her chest as she mouthed ‘me?’

Katherine went peony but didn’t move her nose from the wallpaper.

“Yes you, and face the wall,” Alice snapped.

“I-I don’t…” Mary wailed.

“Katherine?” Alice growled addressing the elder girl.

“Eh…” Katherine spluttered.

“Wrong,” Alice sighed. “Eighteen I would say, but given your age and the fact that this is a rookie mistake…”

“Two dozen Ma’am,” Katherine said quickly.

“A little harsh, but as you couldn’t answer the first time I will accept that,” Alice agreed. “Mary, you were late,” she said, “Should you get more or fewer than Katherine?”

“Same…” Mary said tentatively.

“Enunciate,” Alice barked, “And elaborate. I would have said 12 for only being three minutes late, but for your failure to answer and for taking your nose from the wall… you will accept the same,” Alice said sharply, and then she added, “And if you had been more than five minutes late?”

“Eh…” Mary whined.

“Katherine?”

“A dozen plus one for each minute late up to 37,” Katherine said with some pride.

“Someone has been paying attention,” Alice smiled. “Why stop there?”

“After 30 minutes lateness one is deemed to have been absent altogether and there are other sanctions for that,” Katherine answered.

“Good,” Alice nodded, relaxing a little.

The governess slashed the cane through the air and made to inspect the tip of the thin biter of a stick.

“Alright, turn around,” she said.

Both women made to guard their sex as they made an about turn. Both were also blushing.

“Katherine, you can go first,” Alice said in a firm voice. “Stand out and bend over to grab at your ankles.”

The posture was difficult and completely undignified, but Katherine obeyed readily enough, although her inverted face was rather mauve.

“Stick your bottom out” Alice ordered.

Katherine complied.

Alice felt frisson as she lined up the thin cane to Katherine’s bottom, she had a good seat for it and although she had punished the girl before this felt like a new chapter. The stroke made Mary startle and her expression was agog at the impact.

Katherine too lurched, but held position in readiness for the next stroke, which came very hot in its wake. This one made her hiss and oh so slightly wiggle her behind. Two red ridges grew and blossomed on the woman’s tail and Alice an her tongue over her upper lip as she struck in again hard.

The caning was slow and sharp, each biting sting crossing Katherine’s bare bottom every seven or eight seconds, but pausing for effect at the top of the minute so that four such eons passed before the punishment was done.

For Katherine the struggle redoubled after each pause and by 12 she yelped at each cut with increasing distress. By 18 or so she began to slow tremble as silent tears tumbled down her face. At 24 Katherine was shaking at the shoulders as she asked in a strained voice, “May I rise Ma’am?”

“You may,” Alice told her.

Katherine’s face crumpled into a picture of woe and before she recall them sobbing tears broke like a dam from her.

“Than you Ma’am,” she sniffed, as she extended a hand.

“Well held,” Alice said with admiration as she shook it, adding quickly “Now Mary, your turn.”

Mary gulped, but was determined to show as much spirit as her older friend; indeed there was more than a hint of bravado in her posture as her bottom was out thrust.

In the event she took them well, but by 15 she too was shouting out as the cane sawed into her and before she had taken 20 she too was sobbing like Katherine.
After the thanks were given both women were sentenced to a long spell facing the wall while Alice took up a book. For grown women they took an age to control their crying and Alice smugly drank in every tear.

Here’s one of those little forum finds you so love. I have no context whatsoever for this and apart from some small edits I publish it as is. I am not sure if this is UK-based or American experience, but my guess is that it is from the US.

Elizabeth_2 wrote:

Yes I got that, great story, but I am not sure where that leaves us. The point is my great aunt was one of the first women cadets so I guess they had no idea how to handle the changes at that time. I certainly don’t think they had any political agenda at all, except maybe that they did not want her there because she was a woman.

The sanctions used on the male cadets were so many swats with a paddle depending on the offence and at what level they handled things. Yes, my aunt took it on the bare a few times and I have no idea whether this was unusual. I didn’t exactly talk this over with her when I was a kid. Remember I only got told about this within the bounds of yet another ‘you kids are lucky’ speech.

I know that she got six or more swats on the seat of her clothed bottom several times. Each time it was from a woman instructor. She also got some more serious work-outs also on the clothed behind, and also from a woman. It was these that she mostly talked about and I gather that she found them hard to take and had trouble sitting down afterwards. I know too that she got swats from a senior male instructor more than once, but I don’t think this was usual.

I know that at least twice she got swats on the bare, but I don’t know if these were from men or women or if she got more swats at these times. I think that the two times she got it bare it was worse for her but I have no idea if she was only getting the same treatment as the men. Only that my aunt implied that it was.

I hope that makes things clear.

Jane1959 asked:

In high school we never got more than six and usually only four. Do you know how many swats she got or what she got them for?

Elizabeth_2

These were cadets and it was nothing like high school. These kids were all college aged remember. As for rules and number of swats well it is like I said I didn’t exactly get the entire low down. Everything I know I pieced together over a couple of years as a teenager. I am only going on what I remember.

I know six or so was a standard thing and she got that a lot. I know she got quite a bit more a few times and it was these occasions that she most talked about. Like I said before, she had lots of welts and bruises and couldn’t sit down for a few days.

I think I remember her saying she got 24 at some point but I might be making that up. But she definitely got more than just six for the really serious stuff.

I hope that helps.

=

I couldn’t find the original comments and this thread petered out with some very short comments, questions by trolls and repetitions of the above.

But it makes you wonder what kind of cadets they were and when all of this took place.

I was surfing one reference from another and ended up on Google reader reading about wife spanking in the 1930s. The dateline put me in mind of a post on Slapper-At’s published here about the seeming craze of young women seeking out spanking fun during the roaring twenties, 1930s and into the 1940s.

The OTK illustration below was used in a magazine article of this time but then I remembered a book I had with anecdotes about spanking in this era, which had similar illustrations.

There was too much on this in the end to do this subject justice, especially when my concentration for research isn’t all that it might be. But here is a taster for a subject to which we might return.

Ray Visconte of Lousiville was acquitted on all charges last week after spanking his wife. The wife, 29-year-old wife Velma Visconte, testified that she was in no way put out by her husband’s treatment of her and in her own words, “she probably deserved it anyway.”

Police had been earlier called to the house in the Albemarle District following a disturbance. On arriving police found 38-year-old Ray Visconte spanking his wife across his knees on the steps of their apartment house.

Despite assurances from Mrs Visconte that she was no worse for wear from the experience her husband was arrested for disturbing the peace.

She was later quoted as saying, “Ray sure has a heavy hand and knows how to apply it when he needs to.”

A spring breeze came up from the meadow and rustled the trees along the edge of the garden. This set a small cascade of white petals to rain onto the lawn like snow. Or at least that was how it seemed to Ruth standing on the terrace at the back of Hedley Hall. She sighed.

But there was something else on the wind and with no one to see her she stood arms and legs akimbo as if bracing herself against a storm. Her white cotton gown clung to her limbs and several strands of light brown hair escaped her bonnet. But Ruth cast her bright blue eyes and delicate nostrils wide and opened to the world. The scent was seasonally sweet, but that wasn’t it. This was the wind of change and she felt her life at Hedley was coming to an end.

“Whatever are you doing?” Aunt Edwina said sharply.

Ruth whirled around with a start and a blush to confront her fusty old aunt carrying the tea tray. It was unusual to see Edwina doing such menial tasks, but then Ruth remembered that Milly had a head cold and that the other one… the new girl must have gone to the village by this time.

“Young women do not adopt such postures in polite society,” he aunt continued absently, her attention more on the tea and dusting stray biscuit crumbs from her old-fashioned blue dress.

“No auntie,” Ruth said quickly while adjusting her pose.

But Aunt Edwina was no longer listening and as she stooped to put the tray down on the garden table her high-piled dome of hair wobbled, but not a strand broke free. Never was the façade to be broken.

Ruth frowned at the stifling formality her aunt represented. The young woman had little idea what polite society was exactly, society as far as she was concerned existed in London somewhere, not in the more forgotten fringes of Hampshire. But things were certainly changing. The old queen was dead and the Barton’s across the way even had a motor car. So maybe society would find its way to Hedley too. But Ruth hoped not, society sounded dreadful.

Perhaps Ruth had spoken aloud for Edwina said disapprovingly, “Tommy Barton makes the devil of a noise with that infernal vehicle of his; I just don’t see the point.”

Ruth tended to agree, but she would never say so. A horse was both faster and more elegant than a stupid old motorcar.

“But at least he is not as bad as that older brother of his,” Edwina added with a sigh. “They say such scandalous things about him. Did you know that he turned 30 last year and he isn’t even married, or likely to be?”

As far as Aunt Edwina was concerned the world was divided into two camps: the married and the marriageable. Anyone outside of this just wasn’t part of society.

But Ruth had stopped listening. So James Barton was back was he? She allowed her teeth to trouble her lower lip as she had when scheming as a girl. Old thoughts and fancies tumbled into her mind and she leant back against the wall and looked up at the sky with the dreamiest look on her face.

“Ruth? Ruth…?” Aunt Edwina repeated in some consternation.

But Ruth still wasn’t listening.

*

James Barton looked conventional enough in his grey broad-lapel suit. He had even worn the kind of hat Ruth’s uncle wore for church, not that he wasn’t handsome. However Ruth was disappointed, she had expected someone more devilish not a man with all the style of a banker.

Tommy of course was more garishly attired in a broad-striped blazer and boater. The pale green and maroon bands clashed, or so Ruth thought, but that did not put Maud off making cow-eyes at him.

Maud was Ruth’s friend from the village, a mousey girl in a pale lime dress, an absolute requirement if Ruth was going to get her aunt’s approval to invite the Barton men over for tea. But Maud required no encouragement, not with Tommy Barton to make eyes at.

Tommy appreciated the attention and was happy to play the clown while Maud giggled at his every joke and foolish jape. This was an ongoing exchange that caused Ruth to roll her eyes and make impatient little puffing sounds as she loudly broke into the couple’s banter to press yet more tea and cake upon them.

James was another matter entirely. He was taller than his brother and had the solid physical build that comes with maturity. Not that he was aloof. Rather he stood back making pithy witticisms as the younger people conversed.

“I sense that you are far too sensible for such foolishness,” he said to Ruth suddenly.

Ruth caught her breath and fixed her attention of the steady reddish-brown stream of tea glugging into the cup. Sensing James’s gaze she held her eyes averted, but a heavy blush gave her away.

“I do rather,” she blurted, what? Do rather, what am I saying? She added hastily, “I mean, yes I do think it foolish, not that I…”

“I would have thought you married at your age,” James cut her off. “I mean that is what they do around here?”

“Here?” Ruth said suddenly interested.

“Here in society.” James gestured to the house and garden.

“This is hardly society,” Ruth snorted, but she sensed that James Barton shared her disdain of convention.

Just then Tommy and Maud laughed raucously and appeared to have started a game of patty-cake.

“Perhaps you would care for a turn of the garden Mr Barton?” Ruth said more sharply than she meant as she glared at the others.

“What without a chaperon?” James said in mock horror, “Isn’t that rather daring for Hampshire?”

“Oh I think we might risk it,” Ruth said cuttingly, “This is after all the 20^th century.”

She didn’t mind his disdain of society or his cutting wit. But she did hate the idea that he included her in notions of society and her aunt’s stilted world.

“Very well then, on your head be it,” James said in an amused voice as he offered Ruth his arm.

“You spoke of marriage,” Ruth said lightly as she took it. “I am scarce 21, not quite the old maid yet. And anyway I would have thought a man such as you would have no care for such things.”

They had reached the corner of the house where the gravel path cut left out of sight of the others and James glanced back at them as if considering.

“A man such as I? Why what have you heard?” James asked, but his casual smile had faded.

“Only that… well you must admit that you are bit of a scandal around here,” Ruth said, but she sensed that she had touched a nerve.

“I do as I please and do not give a fig for so-called reputation,” he said, still holding them at a pause within sight of the others. “Aren’t you afraid for yours?”

“No,” Ruth said defiantly and she smiled at him warmly.

James nodded and patted her arm and then boldly led her around the corner and into the shadow aspect of the house and onto the gravel path that led to the far side of the garden.

“Perhaps you can tell me what you have heard,” James said as they moved out of sight of Tommy and Maud.

*

James listened indulgently while a wide-eyed Ruth gushed about the whispered scandal, half-truths and gossip she had heard concerning the Barton family’s black sheep of a son. It seemed to him that his life to date had been far more interesting than even he had suspected. The faux horrified Ruth seemed to have drunk in every detail and now recounted her version of events like a tale in a penny dreadful.

So earnest was Ruth’s recounting that it was almost as if she had forgotten that the subject of her story was also her listener. He let his eye take in her gentle beauty and the feminine curves that belied her somewhat strident tomboyish demeanour.

They had strayed beyond the house by now and onto the sunny openness of the back lawn. Ahead was the white painted summer house and away to their left the old orangery and the shaded love-seat under the arbour. Beyond the summer house were the woods and the edge of the grounds that led to the pond.

James had intended to take the girl onwards to that spot, but if Ruth had such a dire picture of him then what would the villagers think? No to be seen with him in public would do the girl no favours. Instead he guided her gently towards the orangery to where he guessed the path led around the house and back to where his brother and the giddy Maud still frolicked.

“Tell me,” he chuckled, “Did you also hear of my visits to courtesans and worldly ladies in Paris?”

Ruth paused in mid-flow and sized the man up for a hint of mockery. Surely he was joking, she thought, but the very idea of sexual scandal atop of all else thrilled her deeply. She shook her head dumbly and blushed.

“Just as well,” he laughed.

Ruth frowned, she felt patronised now.

“No, not that, but is it true that you swindled the Sultan of Timbuctoo out of…?” she said archly, hoping to impress him with the extent of her worldliness.

James stiffened and made a half turn to face her.

“You think me a thief?” he growled.

Ruth became puzzled, how could he…? Surely the other things were worse than defrauding some ignorant native somewhere? She was still pondering his changed mood when his grip tightened on her arm and he led her more swiftly to the love seat by the orangery wall.

“Wh-what’s wrong?” she gasped as she tottered along in his train.

“Young lady I think you need a sound and prolonged lesson in manners,” he said sternly.

“What did I say?” she wailed, still not clear about what was happening.

“You casually and brazenly announced that I was a liar, a cheat and a thief,” he said incredulously, “And for your information there is no Sultan of Timbuctoo, although I have been there, for heaven’s sake, you people…”

“Mr Barton, please, what are you doing?” Ruth spluttered.

As she spoke they reached the stone seat and she found herself tumbled without ceremony across James’s lap.

“I am going to give you a good sound spanking on your very bare little bottom,” he snarled.

The threat thrilled her but that did not help her with the consternation or panic. James Barton was proving very dangerous indeed and not at all polite. Luckily she did not quite believe him, or didn’t until she felt her skirts and underskirts rucked up behind.

“Mr Barton,” she squealed.

The man was an expert it seemed, for what had taken her several minutes with help to achieve, he undid in a moment and a beat later she felt a tug on her draws.

Ruth clamped her hands to her face as if to hide from the shameful exposure. Only the spring chill on her nether parts challenged the idea that the ruse was in any way a success.

“So I am a thief am I?” James snapped at her.

The twin domes of her pale bottom were revealed to him now and he was surprised at the sizable pert prominence adorning such a slight girl. This was a dangerous sport and for a moment he felt sorry for her. Honour demanded that he pay her out thoroughly and end their budding friendship. For her sake he hoped she would leave it at that and not set up a hue a cry after, but that was her choice, this was his.

“You little brat,” he spat as his hand landed sharply with a tight crack.

“Ooh,” Ruth squealed and made futile little kicks with her feet.

The first spank sang a song of nippy little tingles in her seat and she would have clenched had she not be held over half bent. The second stung her more sharply as did the third and then things rapidly became difficult.

“Mr Barton please,” she gasped, “I am sorry for what I said, truly I am.”

But James had just begun and in rapid slaps he delivered half a hundred spanks in barely a minute. Nor did he spare his arm and twice that time Ruth’s bare bottom was quite red and mottled over with tight buds of gooseflesh and purple swirls.

“Ow-oooh-ooh-oooh-eeee,” she shrieked or something near. Her diary entry later that day was even more expressive. “I’m… I’m sorry….”

“I bet you are,” James barked and began another minutes worth of spanking.

“Ruth, Ruth what’s that noise?” said an imperious voice.

Aunt Edwina sounded close by.

“Is that applause I hear?” the puzzled woman continued.

Satisfied, James set Ruth quickly on her feet where she hastily smoothed down her dress and petticoats. Her draws were half tangled in her ankles and there was no doubt that her face was at least as red as her bottom.

“Oh Ruth, there you are,” Aunt Edwina sighed disapprovingly as she rounded the corner, “What’s wrong with your face? Have you been crying?”

Ruth managed a smile and her posture positively enthused with innocence. Taking a step forwards she quickly kicked her fallen under garment under the bench and wiped her eyes.

“Oh, I eh… a little hay fever I think,” she said quickly. “I was showing Mr Barton the orangery.”

“So I see, well perhaps you had better join us for more tea,” Aunt Edwina said suspiciously and eyed James with a daggered gaze.

Unseen Ruth winced and clawed at her behind and then forced another smile.

“We were just resolving a small matter of dispute,” James said pleasantly.

“Eh yes… Mr Barton has been most instructive… I eh… I feel quite corrected,” Ruth said ruefully, offering James a pout once her aunt’s back was turned.

“Yes well… this way,” her aunt said doubtfully as she led the way back to the respectable tea on the terrace.

*

Despite serious reservations Aunt Edwina had consented to permit Ruth to visit the Barton’s for afternoon tea. After all there was no serious reason not to accept the polite reciprocation James and his brother offered her.

Her fears were assuaged by assurances from Maud’s mother that it was Tommy’s interest in her daughter that was the main incentive for the invitation and that James and Ruth were only required as chaperones.

For her part Ruth had sworn that she never wanted to set eyes on James Barton again and had told him so in a harsh whisper as he had departed on the day of the tea party at her home. But her resolve had not lasted beyond bedtime and even a prolonged inspection of her naked posterior in the mirror had not sustained her anger. After all she had called the man a thief and had probably deserved it. Such men were not to be trifled with. Naked before the glass she shivered, although it wasn’t cold.

Much to her shame it had been necessary to sleep on her tummy, but as she relived the events of the afternoon she had become unaccountably restless. As a precaution against any shameful misunderstandings when the maid changed the bed sheets, she placed a towel under her hips to reduce any stains from excess intimate perspiration. This was a happenstance that often plagued her when she was distracted so by unusual thoughts of the kind she dare not share with even Maud, let alone her aunt.

That night the sheets had so chafed her naked bottom that it had been all that she could do not to fidget and massage herself for some girlish relief. At such times she often thought of boys and handsome men, but never had she dwelt so on such a direct experience. Damn the man if she didn’t sit down again. But why did even that thought…?

“More tea Miss Ruth,” James offered breaking into her thoughts, but it was the maid who stepped forward as if playing mother was beneath him.

Tommy and Maud had already moved onto the tennis courts and were pretending at a competitive game while giggling excessive. For some reason one or the other of them would frequently hit the ball so far from court that they had to scurry away together to retrieve it.

“No thank you Mr Barton,” Ruth said icily, addressing James with a scowl. “I think I need to…” she coughed.

“The powder room for young ladies is at the top of the stairs Miss,” the maid informed her.

Ruth blushed and shot an angry glare at James, but deigned not to notice.

*

The house was grand, much grander than Hedley Hall, and Ruth ascended the ornate gothic staircase in awe. On the walls were huge paintings with the look of the Barton’s about them, some of them wearing wigs dating back to the 17^th century by their style. Ruth felt her family were newcomers by comparison.

But it was not to the powder room she went but along the hall to nose about. After all if Maud was to marry Tommy, as looked likely, then it was her duty as a friend to sniff out any skeletons.

She hadn’t gone far when she spied an open door and seeing a number of books on shelves within she became curious. The library was downstairs, so what was all this?

The bed was mannish, too manly for Tommy, and in any case the style of clothing laid out on the bed was too conservative. So James was a bookish man on the quiet, she pondered.

“I wonder what he is reading?” she muttered as she cast her gaze over the desk under the window.

There were several tomes, both open and closed and they looked like a set. Some research no doubt and she tip-toed over to peek.

The legend Karma Sutra meant nothing to her, nor did the Collected Works of Swinburne, but one of the open books had pictures and she adjusted its angle with her smallest finger.

“Oh gosh,” she exclaimed when she saw the subject.

A naked woman was bending artfully over a divan with a wistful expression. The pose only revealed her bare bottom, but thoughts of her spanking rushed with hot blood to Ruth’s face.

Feverishly she turned over a page to look at another such image. Amid engravings and short passages of text were photographs of naked women. The best ones were of flagellation themes and page after page carried them. The words too were evocative, but Ruth felt too self-conscious to linger.

In a moment of madness she seized up the volume and tucked it into her skirts.

“What are you doing there?” said a stern voice and Ruth froze.

James stood guarding the door to fix her with the gaze of a schoolmaster or magistrate.

“I… I eh…” As she bumbled the book fell from its unsecure seclusion onto the floor with a thud.

“So,” James growled, “Not only a sneak, but a scandalous sneak and a hypocritical one at that,” he said. “On top of that what do we have but a thief?”

“Please I was…” Ruth’s face was peony and her hands wrung as if of the own volition.

“Am I wrong?” James bellowed.

Ruth let her boiling red hot head answer in the positive and knew for certain she would die of shame.

“Are you so determined to wreck your reputation?” he sighed.

She swallowed and dipped her head. What could she say?

“I see,” James said wearily and strode towards her. “You know what happens now.”

Ruth started and with a look of wide-eyed horror she backed away.

“Look you can’t just…”

“Just what? Spank you? We both know that I can,” James growled.

It was more casual than before. This time Ruth was stunned with her shame and she was unresisting. Not that she could. The slight girl was draped easily across James’s firm lap and as before she was quickly unveiled behind until only her draws shielded her modesty.

Then these too went south as James quickly bared her bottom to address it with his palm.

“Tell me you don’t deserve this,” James said sharply, “And I will let you go.”

Ruth’s only answer was a trembled, “Ooh.”

James’s hand stung and the stung her again as he spanked her with gusto. This time she bawled like a pond-dipped kitten as he legs kicked like steam pistons.

“Oh, oh, oh, eeeh, oooh,” she squealed and gasped as her bottom became red.

In short order she was rapidly breathing and then really let rip with some yelling so that it was doubtful that nearby servants or even Tommy and Maud could not hear her.

“This is for playing the sneak,” James told her, “If we are to remain friends we will address the matter of theft another time.”

“What,” Ruth shrieked indignantly.

“Come on, you can’t think that one spanking would attend to your crimes,” James said sternly. His hand hung mid-air as if poised for another strike.

“No… I mean it isn’t that… but friends you say… I thought…” Ruth felt the fool.

“I see, I have spanked your bare bottom and by the rules of polite society now we must be wed?” he said scornfully.

“Polite society go hang, but if you are going to go on spanking me…”

“Oh I’ll do much worse when we’re wed,” he chuckled.

“Wed?” Ruth exclaimed as if she had not first broken cover, “I hardly know you, what do you take me for?”

James gaped in amazement and then angrily restarted the spanking. “Why you…” he barked.

He spanked her for a good 10 or 12 minutes before she began to make choking sounds and began to struggle with it.

“Pax, pax,” she sobbed. “I admit to an understanding then…”

James laughed and gave her sore bottom a pinch. She squealed.

“First you will accept your medicine and then we will talk further,” James told her.

Ruth sniffed and nodded, then allowed herself to be dropped to the floor.

“Meet me in the summer house of Hedley Hall next Sunday morning with a good stout house-brush,” James ordered.

“Yes Sir,” she sniffed ruefully as she made cow eyes at him from the floor while rubbing vigorously at her bottom.

“I warn you, any further misbehaviour on your part and you will become acquainted with a razor strap,” James said manfully as he stood over her with his arms folded.

“Yes Sir,” she gushed.

Oh gosh, she thought, what will become more abused, my sheets or my poor bottom.

Indigo and I have been following The Vikings for three series now. You may not have seen it as it originally aired exclusively on Amazon and can so far only be seen on the History Channel (on cable) and I believe that there they have yet to show beyond season 1.

The story follows the fictional adventures of the legendary Ragnar Lothbrok (who may or may not have been a real person); all we know historically speaking is that his four sons (and in this tale his brother) were among the most influential figures in early medieval Europe and helped shape the destiny of Britain, Scandinavia and France at the very least. So we are talking epic stuff here.

We are also talking sex, nudity, magical realism and lots and lots of brutal violence. I don’t want to go into details and review this with spoilers, I only suggest that if you haven’t seen this Canadian/Irish co-production and you like meaty historical drama that doesn’t pull punches then consider watching it.

Now I wouldn’t watch this for the spanking, if you like your women meek for instance then Viking shield maidens are not for you – this show even boasts a woman earl and a queen ruling in her own right. But a story development in the final episode of season 3 (series three if you are a Brit) hinges on Count Odo, the commander of the Francs who is opposing our hero. It turns out that his ambition is to tame the Parisian princess, but while he is waiting consoles himself with some consensual whipping action in a real dungeon.

The scene linked below is atypical of the ‘sex and violence’ of the show, but may represent a new story arch for season four.

If the link doesn’t work in your territory basically having apparently saved the city all the women are enthralled by Odo and one in particular offers to make herself interesting to him. He takes her to the dungeons and invites her to take a whip.

“You can call a halt any time, but I prefer to make that decision,” he tells her.

The build-up is well done if the onscreen action brief, but I thought it worth bringing to your attention.

The spankee is played by British Irish actress Karen Hassan who appeared in the UK teen soap Hollyoaks, which is know for racy spin-offs and glamourous photshoots.
//sendvid.com/embed/x7ccrycr

The mountains around the fjord cut the crystal blue air like shards of glass. For once there was not a puff of cloud and Anneke fancied that she had only to reach out her arm to touch the sky. It was hard to leave on such a day but there was nothing for her now in Gottheim, for she was sure no one there really loved her.

On such a day as this it would have been fitting to leave by ship, it certainly felt like a funeral, but there were none to be had and in any case who would have taken her? Instead she had thrown on some of her brothers clothes and slipped away into the forest.

His shield had been too heavy for a long journey but his short sword hung comfortingly at her hip as she stepped into the emerald shade of the heavy pines. The smell was cloying and too sweetly stank of defeat. Furthermore the townsfolk talked of trolls and dark aspects of the fey always ready to bring down a lone traveller, especially a woman. Anneke shuddered and almost turned back.

“Where is your courage?” she muttered and then more loudly, “Come on then, do your worst.”

This last shout echoed back to her as if someone else was calling.

“Is there anyone there?” she called again.

“Is there anyone there,” came the reply as close as a sail on the wind.

Anneke laughed mirthlessly and sneered. Then flicking a wheaten blonde braid behind her ear she extended one long leg and decided to make some progress.

There were no tracks to follow and the young woman only made progress by fixing her gaze upon the furthest tree and walking straight for it as her brother had taught her. Only the gods knew where this would guide her and within a few hours she was deep into the wilds beyond the mountains enclosing Gottheim’s fjord.

From time to time a sound would startle her and Anneke would draw the sword and half-expertly wheel around to face some imagined foe. But always the stag or other creature was too quick for her and she would not even see it.

“Lucky for you,” she would yell, but glad all the same that the beast had fled.

A night and another day passed in this way, always there were unimaginable creatures and always they were gone when Anneke confronted them.

It was late into the afternoon before she heard the onrush of water and after some searching she found the track that led to the sound. By then she could smell too the smoke and the pungent tang of fish cooking.

For a moment she pondered going on without stopping. After all here might be… what, she chided herself, no outlaws dwelt so close to Gottheim, none that she did not know anyway.

“I am Anneke Bjorkdotter,” she yelled, “Shield maiden and free woman of this forest.”

But no answer came and Anneke froze. To draw a sword before seeking hospitality was a great sin and had no honour to it. Yet a woman alone walking into a stranger’s camp should take precautions. It was certainly a dilemma, she thought as he hand strayed to the sword hilt and gave it a tug.

“What are you going to do with that?” asked a sudden and firm voice.

On instinct Anneke drew her blade and whirled around ready to fight.

The man was not old exactly, certainly still young enough to be a warrior, but despite his powerful fighting build his face was etched with wisdom and he had the look of a seer or healer or…

“You were asked a question daughter,” the man said sharply as impatience touched his voice.

Anneke flushed as she levelled the blade as if to strike. But seeing the man leaning against a tree and folding her arms she felt foolish and not a little rude. She pouted and after risking a glance to her sword belt, she guided the short sword home to its sheath with both hands. Then she shrugged.

“I do not like asking questions twice, more than that and there will be consequences,” the man warned.

Anneke saw no weapons or any particular threat at all. True the man was large, but he was no giant. He wore his hair long and unbound, excepting that he wore a large wide-brimmed hat like no other she had ever seen. The most striking thing about him was his right eye, which looked as if it had once been gouged out and replaced with another. It was enlarged and a milky white film covered his iris.

On his shoulder sat a large raven with a polished beak and two eyes of its own that never left off gazing at the woman before it.

“You startled me,” Anneke said sullenly, an attitude she tended to adopt when it was she who was in the wrong.

“Have you come to rob me then?” he said, but she thought he was mocking her.

“No I… I hoped to trade for some fish…” Anneke said with a lick of her lips and toss of her head in the direction of the smoke rising above the nearby treeline.

“Trade is it?” the man chuckled.

“Well I…” Anneke realised, as did the stranger, that she had nothing to trade with.

“Come on,” the man laughed, “I have plenty to spare.”

“What is your name?” Anneke asked as she fell into step beside him.

“I have many names, but it is not always wise to share,” he said, “It is said that there is power in names.”

“That’s an old wives’ tale,” Anneke scoffed.

“Are you sure Anneke Bjorkdotter?” the man asked her seriously.

Anneke stopped in her tracks and gaped. “How did you… how did you know my name?”

The man laughed and whispered that he was a sorcerer. Then seeing Anneke’s growing terror he laughed out loud. “Did you not announce it to the world just now?”

Anneke winced and for the second time since meeting the man she felt a fool. “It seems you have the advantage of me,” she said in a sullen voice.

“I do not fear names, I have had so many, why not call me Báleygr, yes Báleygr Vegtam, that’s my name today,” he chuckled, “I am a wanderer.”

“Báleygr,” it suits you Anneke laughed for the first time.

Báleygr executed an ostentatious bow and gestured to his withered eye.

“Tell me, what are you doing out here?” Báleygr asked in a friendly tone, adding conspiratorially, “Oh just so you know, I despise lies almost as much as asking questions more than once.”

“Oh nothing… it’s none of your business anyway,” Anneke muttered.

The Wanderer stopped and folded his arms with a glare.

“Why are you here Anneke?” he asked paternally.

Anneke shrugged and offered the man her usual evasive pout.

“I am going to visit… a friend in…” she stuttered, why was she so nervous with this man, she wondered?

“Where are you going Anneke?” Báleygr asked impatiently.

“I ran away… I mean left home,” she admitted.

“Ah so, finally,” the Wanderer sighed and then without another word he seized Anneke and threw her over his shoulder. As he did so the raven took flight with an angry caw and fluttered away in annoyance.

“What are you doing?” she squealed.

Báleygr ignored her and in three great strides he reached a great fallen stone and sat down. Then he tumbled the Anneke across his lap. It took only a trice to unsheathe her legs and bare her bottom and then despite her howls of protest he belaboured her naked behind with a strong powerful hand until he had thoroughly spanked the shield maiden to copious tears.

“Stop it, stop it,” she wailed, “Please, it’s none of your business if I ran away.”

Báleygr laughed and immediately stopped spanking the young woman. “You foolish girl, I am not spanking you for that, that we will come to,” he chuckled, “Now tell me why you are being punished.”

Anneke struggled in a futile attempt to break free as her breath heaved as if from the heat of battle.

“Anneke, why are you getting a spanking?” Báleygr growled.

“Because I… because you…” she felt about six again and two answers battled in her head for command of her mouth.

“Shall I ask again?” the Wanderer warned.

“N-nooo, I mean I made you ask your damn questions more than twice,” she spluttered.

“And?” Báleygr asked patiently.

“Because I lied to you,” she admitted.

“Good girl,” the man laughed and resumed the spanking.

“Yaaah,” Anneke shrieked, “I’m sorry, I’m… look you can’t just do this…”

Báleygr let out a great hoot and told her that patently he could. “This is for your first little sin, afterwards I will punish you for the lie.”

“Oh come on,” she protested, but to absolutely no avail.

The stranger spanked her for what seemed like hours, long past the time that Anneke had lost all composure until it seemed that she was in a kind of purgatory and all her life was a spanking.

“Now, I will ask you a question and you will answer it,” he said at last, “Do we have an understanding?”

Anneke sobbed and sniffed, but she nodded.

“What else do you think?” Báleygr asked her sharply.

“I won’t lie,” she said sullenly.

“Good girl,” he chuckled and set her on her feet.

The shield maiden bit down on her lip to stifle her tears, but nothing could stop her hopping up and down and grabbing at her seared tail end.

“Now do you want to fetch me a nice swishy stick from the forest or shall I?” Báleygr asked.

Anneke gapped at him for a moment until she saw he was serious.

“Come on,” she wailed, “I’ll tell you what you want to know, not that is any of your business.”

“I will be the judge of that,” Báleygr growled. “Now will you fetch a stick or shall I?”

“You do it if you are all so keen on… on… ooh, you aren’t really going to…” she sniffed, “Please I’ll…”

“Very well,” he cut her off, you go and face that tree and do not move, “I’ll go and form a nice sharp rod for the rest of your punishment.”

The man didn’t wait to see if he was to be obeyed and Anneke astonished herself by completely submitting to him. She didn’t even pull up her breeks.

*

Anneke stood facing the tree for what seemed like hours. All that while her head spun at her own reaction and she could not fathom why she had permitted what had happened or why now she did not run away… that last thought checked her breathing. Why should she run away? She should pull up her breeks and take her sword to confront this impudent itinerant. That was obvious.

She had no sooner relaxed into that resolve when she came again to the realisation that she was still standing there feeling a breeze caressing her bare bottom.

“Witchcraft,” she spat, although there was no one to hear her. Then instead of removing herself she pondered this new puzzle; all the while facing a tree with her breeks at her ankles as she recovered from a tender spanking.

Finally the spell, if that’s what it was, was broken and she angrily hauled up her brothers trousers and secured them at the belt. The sword lay nearby so she grabbed it, but after pondering some revenge she decided to it was better to flee.

The track ran straight from the direction of the camp site and at one point she heard Báleygr calling her name. Looking back she saw him standing akimbo laughing, but he was a long way behind her and made no attempt to give chase. So she had defied him, she thought bitterly, but she was afraid and ashamed and… very, very confused, she realised as she ran on ever faster.

After two straight miles of running she gradually stopped to get her breath.

“What craziness,” she said to herself breathlessly and she shook herself as she made ready to see the funny side of her adventure.

“So you defy me again,” Báleygr said sternly as he stepped from the trees just ahead of her.

Anneke gaped. How could such a large ageing man get ahead of her? She looked back as if expecting to see a twin.

“Sorcerer,” she accused in a tone of hissing rage. But she was afraid now.

“Not so,” the Wanderer chuckled, “I assure, although my son and others have often accused me of such girlish pursuits as witchcraft.”

Then Anneke saw the thin branch in Báleygr’s hand and she swallowed.

“I told you to stand and face that tree until I returned, and I went to such efforts to find the best stick to correct you with,” he sighed.

“Look,” she said taking half a step backwards, “I… I did what ever I did to upset and we are square now,” she told him in an even voice dripping with supressed panic.

“And what was that?” Báleygr asked wearily.

“I don’t know,” Anneke protested, but one cocked warning eyebrow made her bite her tongue. “Okay, I made you ask too many questions and you don’t like that. I told a lie and you don’t like that. I get it,” she said quickly.

“And?” Báleygr asked sternly.

She was about to deny anything else when she remembered why she had been spanked and that she was dangerously close to making him repeat himself. Besides he might interpret any prevarication as a lie and she had just realised her third error.

“I didn’t stay where you left me,” she said sullenly.

“So you learn,” he said cheerfully, “See how wise and clever you can be.”

Anneke sucked in a breath and glowered at him.

“Now if you can guess what to do without being asked I will go easier on you for this last little act of defiance,” Báleygr said indulgently.

Anneke flushed and dipped her head. She thought about drawing on him for a fight but somehow now she knew she had met her match. With a hard swallow and a pout she unhitched her sword belt and then with an angry sigh lowered her breeks.

“There, happy now?” she spat.

“Good, but don’t spoilt it by being insolent,” Báleygr warned her. “Now I see a fallen log there,” he added cheerfully, “Be pleased to bend over it.”

Anneke frowned for she hadn’t noticed the large toppled tree until he had spoken. This was turning out to be a very strange and miserable day indeed. But all the same she trudged forward only lightly hobbled by her breeches scrunched below her knees and did exactly as she had been told.

“Bottom up,” Báleygr chuckled.

“Hmmm,” she moaned as she obeyed.

The thin stick lashed down hard again and again and this time all thoughts of heroism or defiance were stolen from her. Anneke howled like a wolf on a moon-filled night and then some. It was a song that was to be longer than the sagas and it was as if days passed under the lash of Báleygr’s wand of pain.

“Remember this is just for your falsehoods, later we have other matters to attend to,” Báleygr said firmly as he whipped her.

Finally it stopped and Anneke crumped into a cascade of tears, clawing at her bottom as if the texture sting could be torn away.

“I trust that lesson was well learned,” the Wanderer said sharply as he gazed down at her where she rolled upon the ground.

“Yes lord,” she sobbed.

“Now you remember the tree?” Báleygr chuckled.

Anneke nodded but was about to say that it was miles back when she looked where he was pointing. The great tree stood not 30 paces from where she knelt on the ground.

“That’s impossible,” she gasped, “That tree was a league from here.”

“That tree grows where it is needed,” Báleygr sighed impatiently, but as he spoke his hand rubbed absently at his neck and he appeared to shudder. But his demeanour quickly softened as he paternally said, “Now go and stand to face it as before.”

“Well it’s not as if I am going to sit under it, is it?” she said ruefully as she rubbed at the network of welts that criss-crossed her exposed bloodstone red bottom.

“Don’t answer me back girl,” Báleygr barked.

Anneke knew he wasn’t really angry, just dutiful and she felt some resentment lift from her shoulders. “You sound like my father when he was alive,” she snorted.

“I sound like all father’s duty bounds me to say,” Báleygr sighed.

As Anneke obeyed him she felt she had missed something in his words but she shrugged it away. This adventure, painful as it was, was getting interesting and she finally knew when not to swim against a tide.

*

“Who is responsible for you now?” Báleygr asked as he finished cooking the fish.

Anneke seemed to remember that they hadn’t quite reached the cooking fire before, but now as she stood still exposed facing the tree Báleygr sat two lengths of a tall man away with their supper. Stealing a glance she saw too that the raven had returned to his shoulder and she was put in mind of something she could not quite recall.

Then she remembered he asked her something and said quickly, “No one, I look to myself.” But her voice was sullen again.

Báleygr sighed and looked over at her. “I’ll ask once more as I assume that you were speaking only of the time since you left your village,” he said.

“My brother,” she blurted, “He stands as right hand to the thane. But he wants me to marry a big oaf of his lord’s cousin.”

“A good match then,” Báleygr said thoughtfully, “Don’t you like him?”

“He’s alright,” Anneke said sullenly, “But no one asked me, they just…”

“And if they had?” the Wanderer asked innocently as he began to serve the food onto wooden platters drawn from a sack by the fire.

Anneke shrugged. “How long do I have to stand here anyway, I feel stupid?”

“Why don’t you answer that?” Báleygr chuckled.

Anneke scowled into the tree and muttered, “Until you say.”

“You see, you really are a very fast learner. You will make this nobleman a good wife I am sure,” the Wandered laughed.

“Are you really going to punish me?” Anneke asked, her voice was wistful like a little girl lost.

“I am afraid I must, but tell me little one,” he sounded regretful, “For what must I punish you?”

“For running away,” she said, knowing it was true.

“From me or your brother?” Báleygr put down the platter and gazed on the young woman as if a world hung by her word.

“It is all the same, isn’t it,” Anneke sighed.

“Yes it is,” Báleygr roared joyfully as if she had made a great kill in battle, “Now pull up your breeks and sit down and eat.”

Anneke smiled, she was forgiven then, or nearly so and she stooped to ruefully pull up her breeches as she blushed. “Might I not stand instead,” she asked shyly.

Báleygr laughed.

*

“For your punishment you will gather thin twigs no thicker than your small finger, but enough so that together they are as thick as your arm,” Báleygr told her the next morning. “They should also be half as long as your outstretched arms.”

Anneke blanched and nervous hands stole towards her bottom.

“Too harsh?” Báleygr asked solicitously.

Anneke blushed, but she shook her head.

“Go that way and meet me under the tree when you are done,” she was told.

Anneke swallowed and studied the man sadly. She suddenly felt a great loss, almost as if she went to obey him then she would lose something. But nothing now could compel her to disappoint him and she drew in a breath as if on a quest and strode forwards.

She took one last look back at the Wanderer standing under great tree feeding the raven on his shoulder and then she walked on in search of the rods she had been sent for.

“Anneke,” someone called and she felt her heart lurch.

Up ahead were Bjorn, her brother and Lord Henrik who she was betrothed to. Neither looked happy.

“Where have you been?” Bjorn yelled, “This forest is dangerous, we have been searching for days. What are you doing here?”

Anneke looked back to point at the great tree and the Wanderer but there was nothing, no man, no raven and no tree. She might have been surprised but she now forgot why she had turned away from her brother and what she had expected to see. Indeed, she had forgotten why she had run away in the first place. It seemed foolish now for never had she been so glad to see anyone.

“I was gathering tree switches for…” Anneke said absently.

“Oh you’ll gather tree switches alright, two sets of them…” Bjorn snarled.

“No thicker than my small finger, but enough so that together they are as thick as my arm,” Anneke said absently, the words coming to her as they were something she had dreamed.

“You know the way of my family then,” Lord Henrik said approvingly, “So you know how I intend to thrash you?”

“Yes,” Anneke squeaked, her hands stealing to her bottom, which for some reason already seemed sore.

“Damn right,” Bjorn barked, “By the time we are done with you, you won’t sit down for a month… you’ll, you’ll…”

“You’ll look pretty enough standing in the corner of my cousin’s hall,” Henrik chuckled, “But your brother is correct I am afraid.”

“Yes my lord,” Anneke said demurely, “I know.”

For a second she thought she saw a man watching from the trees and he reminded her of her father. But it was just a raven whose caw calling seemed to be laughing at her.

Spring has sprung and spanking is the air. But before the Catholics made it all about guilt and punishment, physical chastisement was seen as a sacred and magical act. In ancient Rome and Greece women would go to the temple to be spanked for fertility’s sake.

Another ritual involved switching the bare bottoms of slave girls or sometimes the virgin adult daughters of the house at certain landmarks on a farm to assure the fertility of the land. There are versions of this ritual from Scandinavia to the Mediterranean and they may have been practiced by Germanic peoples and Celts alike.

One version has it that a girl would be assigned at certain stone or fallen tree at the boundaries of the family or tribal land and wait until the elder or shaman arrived to whip them with a wand of birch, hazel or perhaps apple. A sizeable posse of onlookers would accompany the switch-wielder as the girl was expected to bare her own bottom and offer it for the lash.

In other versions girls would flee while young men pursued them, stripping and whipping them wherever they found them. The only rule was that the women were not to cross the boundary of the farm. One can imagine giggling or not so cheerful girls hiding in barns or under hedges, encountering other girls already hiding until a young man found them to haul them out.

This free-for-all is seen in the Eastern European Easter traditions and in England it has echoes in the beating the bounds rituals that were common until the second half of the 20^th century.

Another tradition is the binding spell.

This involves young women gathering up switches from a birch, a hazel, a rowan and various other trees to make a bundle rather like a punitive birch rod. Then the shaman or witch would cast a spell that would be finalised by the ritual thrashing of the girl seeking the magic and who had gathered the rod.

The number of strokes and the severity of them would reflect the strength and durability of the spell. Love potions were especially popular and girls might offer their bottoms to be “thrashed silly” in order that the man of their dreams would be theirs.

Such were the pagan practices of the past. Given the revival of such things who knows we may see such things again.

I unearthed a slightly new take on the spanking and caning of wrens prior to them being incorporated into the Royal navy proper. I also came across a new expression, ‘marrying the gunner’s daughter,’ as opposed to kissing it, which means getting a caning. There was also some light shed on the official position.

The last big debate on corporal punishment in the Royal Navy took place in the House of Commons in 1949. It was reported that up to 1/7th of boys were caned at training establishments but other sanctions were preferred.

However, many such sanctions were not available for the discipline of female personnel. Therefore “it is likely” (although not proved) that caning “was more often applied to females” (both officers and other ranks) than “would be otherwise be supposed.”

It was reported in committee that no direct figures were available as women are not considered part of the “official establishment” and that most evidence was anecdotal. During recent hostilities it did not “seem prudent to interfere with naval traditions in this regard and in any case why shouldn’t an errant female continue to ‘Marry the gunner’s daughter,’ to borrow a naval expression,” said one committee member.

No investigation was deemed necessary as no complaints had been received in verified cases where corporal punishment had been used. However as a side note, “it has been supposed that future guidelines will provide that wrens should no longer be caned on the exposed backsides, especially by male officers.” However, as at that time women remained “outside any official military establishment” it was considered “beyond the jurisdiction of this current discussion.”

This report was referring to the fact that the WRNS were established in 1939 under the Civil Establishments Branch at the Admiralty. They were therefore considered civilian workers rather than naval personnel. However, wrens could be punished in various ways, including discharge from WRNS, disrating, suspension, stoppage of leave and deductions from pay. They could also be charged in a civilian court, but they couldn’t be “court martialled”, even if absent from duty or AWOL. As a consequence often officers using irregular methods of discipline could not be court martialled either in matters concerning their dealings with these women. In fact wrens remained free of the Naval Discipline Act until 1977.

Nevertheless the ATS and WAAF, because the army and air force became worried about wastage in their women’s service, were given full military status in April 1941. Interestingly, despite being regarded as “civilians”, only 37 wrens out of 11,000 deserted between Dec 1940 and March 1941.

Here is an example of some anecdotal evidence of the type that was referred to, some of which may have been published here before.

“I once heard about a wren of 23 who sent out a letter to the wrong person causing a bit of an incident for the war office. She was summoned to the Sgt’s office and made to undress, right down to her stockings, suspenders and bra, she was bent over his knee and had her bare bottom spanked. This wasn’t normal but it happened occasionally because men were well and truly in control and they could get away with it.”

“I asked my mother-in-law about this topic. She’s an old lady, but quite open about worldly subjects. When she was in the Wrens in WW2, was there corporate punishment for minor offences?

“The procedure was always the same. After ensuring they had understood the offence, he would to tell them to ‘take down your drawers,’ a quaint old-fashioned expression. The woman was expected to pull down her service knickers to her ankles. Then, ‘bend over.’ At this point he would lift her skirt over her back and clear any other clothing to completely bare her bottom. A two foot wooden ruler was used.”

“Surprisingly, my mother-in-law, who says she was punished in this way twice, also reminded us that in the UK in the 1940s you couldn’t vote until you were 21 and indeed this was often thought of as the age of ‘growing up’. Too many older people, young service women aged 18-20 were still children and to be treated as children then were.”

Gina K wrote:

“Gran joined the Wrens when she was just turned 18 and after a few months training in England was posted to Malta where she worked as a clerk/typist at a large base near Valetta. She said that once overseas the discipline was a lot stricter than in England. And that Wren ratings were subject to corporal punishment in the form of caning if they misbehaved.”

“My Gran’s first experience of such naval discipline was soon after her arrival in Malta. She and three of her pals were not back to base before the time were supposed to be after being out one night. They were caught trying to sneak back on to the base through the fence. Appearing before the commandant the following morning she ordered all four of them to be given six strokes of the cane on the seat of the knickers. The punishment was carried out nearly straight away. Gran and her three co-offenders who were all a similar age to her were taken to an adjacent gymnasium and had to change into their PT kit. Each in turn then had to bend over a vaulting horse and were given six strokes of the cane on the seat of their gym-knickers. The canings were administered by a

Chief Wren (equivalent to Chief Petty Officer). Gran described her as being a very stout woman, quite masculine looking with a very sour face. She tanned their arses using a slim and whippy crook handled cane of the type normally used on the backsides of juvenile boys in the navy.”

“Gran and her four mates had to get back to work soon after their punishments. Gran said she couldn’t sit down afterwards her bum was so sore. She had to stand at her desk for the rest of the day. This brought a few wry comments from the people she worked with and visitors to her office. It soon became common knowledge that she had recently been caned. She couldn’t sit comfortably for days and it was a few weeks before marks faded altogether.”

“Gran also told me of another caning she witnessed some time later. This was of three young Wrens who had been found guilty of stealing stuff from the stores where they worked and selling it on the black market. The commandant thought in this case an example needed to be made. The three were sentenced to a period of detention. But the commandant also ordered that they would be caned in front of the whole Ships Company.”

“All the Wren ratings on the base were assembled in the same gymnasium where Gran had been caned to witness the punishments of the three miscreants. There were two younger girls who were about 18/19 who were to get 10 strokes of the cane each and an older girl aged about 20 who were considered the ringleader was going to get 12 strokes. Gran said punishments were carried out by the same Wren Chief Petty Officer who had caned her and her gang. She was also using a similar cane to one that she had felt on her own backside.”

“The three were marched into the gym under escort dressed in their PT kit. Each girl was then in turn was held bent over a gym horse. But unlike gran and her mates once over the horse these three had their navy gym-knickers pulled down! Their bottoms bared for all to see. Each girl raised as they got their arses tanned good and proper, naval fashion.”

“Gran said by the end of their punishments the trio were bawling as though they would never stop. All three were lined up handcuffed with their arms stretched up on gym’s wall-bars with their caned backsides on display for all to see as the rest of the Wrens filed out of the gym. Witnessing the canings and the sight of the three red-raw striped backsides they produced certainly had the intended deterrent effect on the rest of the young women.”

Alice J K wrote:

“The cane was very much in my day during the 1950s and into the 1960s even. I got it several times and it was an easy way to escape worse punishments like confinement or being put on a charge, which could result in docked pay.”

“During the war my eldest sister got far worse and far more often than I. At least I was caned on my pants; she was caned several times on the bare bottom and on one occasion couldn’t sit down for several days. At least she only had a female CO, mine were all male.”

“I think it did us no harm and things might be better if they still caned today.”

(Mrs) Jean S, Gloucester wrote:

“During the war I served in the WRNS, which is where I met my husband, and in all the years since various people have joked to me about ‘rum the other thing and the lash’ an old Nelson quote I think. I have always blushed, but for years only my husband knew why.

When I was at Dartmouth in 1940s I had an experience with both rum and the lash, so to speak. I noted after all these years with some amusement the recent debate in the national press about the subject of caning women in the navy, because that is what happened to me.

A friend and I drew the short straw one night and had to stay behind when the others had leave. My friend thought it would be a good wheeze for us to share a bottle of rum while we were on duty, but of course we were caught. We were lucky and avoided 30 from the CO but both took 24 on the bare from our own officer. I could not help think that she enjoyed it, even though we did not, but it was better than seeing the CO and we both deserved it.”

Here are those now famous Daily Telegraph letters:

May I recommend that the Army instructors who cannot enforce discipline because they fear being accused of bullying (News, January 15) adopt the system used at the Royal Naval College, Dartmouth, when I served there in the 1920s?

Cadet captains administered a “tick” for any breach of discipline, such as being late on parade or a fault in our uniform. Acquire three ticks in a term, and you received six of the best on a bare behind. It worked.

I wonder what they do at Dartmouth today – now that there are female recruits too.

Douglas D, London, Daily Telegraph Jan 29th

=

If Douglas D is interested, I attended a Wrens’ Naval Cadets training school in London, in the early 1950s. We were subjected to similar discipline, which did sometimes include being caned on the behind, though it wasn’t bare but over our knickers. I don’t think it did me any harm, but I don’t think it did me any good either. What I do know is, bullying still went on, but we did tend to show more respect to authority and we were certainly not as rude as our modern-day counterparts, male and female.

(Mrs) Gwen L, Kent, Sunday Telegraph Feb 5th

=

Your correspondent who as a Wren was caned over her knickers had it easy. In the 1940s, it was a daily routine for cadets at the Royal Naval School in Portsmouth to be beaten on their bare buttocks.

Once, for carelessly discharging a clip of live ammunition, the commanding officer gave me 30 of the very best and I could not sit down for five days.

Mavis P, Leicestershire

=

Like Mavis P, I did my Wren training at the Royal Naval School in Portsmouth and made numerous visits to the staff sergeant’s office to have my bare backside welted with the “knotty” – a big bamboo cane.

I was a wilful cheeky girl and usually deserved my regulation 12 strokes, often with six extras for “lip”. I did manage to avoid the dreaded CO’s 30 strokes given to Mavis P, but in one week received 12 strokes on Monday, Tuesday and Thursday for smoking in the lavatories.

Doris B, Bristol

Many years ago I saw a beautiful graphic portrait from the 1950s. It was of a very smart looking aristocratic woman with a young maid across her knee giving her a spanking. The drawing was within an otherwise vanilla collection and no particular attention was drawn to this image as if it was quite commonplace.

I have not seen this image since, but I do remember the caption was simply ‘spanking the maid.’

Now I have posted on this topic before but every now and then I chance on something I haven’t seen or don’t remember seeing before. This time I found some interesting articles on Google Reader.

This incomplete snippet was taken from Woman’s Weekly in 1911 was supplied under the heading ‘domestic discipline.’

Do you still spank your servant girls? Many perfectly sound housekeepers still do, although the practice seems to be in decline. Professional agencies have suggested that the decline is down to modern thinking and the growing shortage of girls willing to enter service in the first place.

The Modern Woman’s Guide to Good Housekeeping says that spanking of girls over 21 is very much a thing of the past and good servants will expect better conditions than previous generations.

Your grandmothers probably had girls in their house who had begun their service at aged 14 or 15 and who were treated as part of the family. But this way of things is sadly in decline and modern women are more inclined to move on or even get married younger.

In 1883, the Domestic Gazette, suggested that “birching your maid is decidedly old hat, and not to mention barbaric. If one has a girl in their house needful of such harsh treatment, then this humbler reporter is of the opinion that you might consider seeking a new maid.”

However, unlike the later article there is no doubt that maids needed punishing as the article goes on to say, “if your maid needs corporal chastisement then might this writer suggest that a good old-fashioned slipper applied to the naked posterior is quite effective enough. Or for the older more recalcitrant girl that one applies a patent leather strap to the same place.”

I particularly like an advertisement form an even earlier date that ran the legend ‘Domestic Trouble?’ above a crude line drawing of a nervous young maid and went on to offer: “Whips, crops, rods of all sizes for those difficult servants.”

No doubt the reality of this employee abuse was rather grim, but I chose to remember that drawing I saw of the 1950s maid and the romantic fantasies it conjures up.

Or why we should pay more heed to Miss Nin than to Mr Gibson

The quotes scattered throughout this post are by Anaïs Nin..

“Had I not created my whole world, I would certainly have died in other people’s.”

I am learning my kings and queens. I have always wanted to know them from William The Conqueror 1066 right up until today. The thing is there is rather a lot of them and to remember you need to have a little context or all of the Richards, Henry’s, Edward’s and George’s get muddled up.

But before you learn the order of who went where and why you have to get rid of the myths that you thought you knew, the bits and bobs you got from half listened to history lessons, films and dubious historical novels.

Edward the first for example, was way cooler than I thought. He was the one who clashed with William Wallace (immortalised by Mr Gibson in the film Braveheart). He seemed like a terrible man for setting off happy go lucky farmer Mr Gibson (in the days when Mel’s rage was still a secret). The film shows Wallace as a peace loving farmer whose lover was raped and killed the evil English forcing Wallace to bring forth noble rage and duff up the English. That is almost totally true- except Wallace was arguably a descendent of a minor Welsh nobleman who had been given some land in Scotland in return for an oath of allegiance to the English king. What caused him to join or start an uprising was not the rape and murder of his wife was most likely was a dispute over something like logging rights or taxation- very valid disputes for a minor nobleman to engage in but not quite the romantic picture portrayed by MG. There are no records of him having a wife.

(To clarify, if there are any Scottish people reading, I totally agree that Scotland should have been self-governing and in charge of its own taxes and well done to Robert the Bruce- who is known as Braveheart, not William Wallace. And I think that in the film Robert was shown as taking sides with the English against Wallace, not true either. I am writing in favour of a good understanding of history rather than in favour of Scottish oppression.)

History is like that. You do your best to pick up details from here there and everywhere and before you know it your head is full of nonsense. It makes things very difficult to understand because all your false assertions get in the way of what may be true. Another example, Richard the Third may have done quite a long sighted and helpful thing by seizing the throne and mislaying the Princes bringing an increased chance of stability to a throne and kingdom that had been in dispute for generations. Tens or possibly hundreds of thousands had died in the disputes so far and handing the kingdom over to a 12-year-old may well have led to many more deaths.

We can’t understand history until we unlearn what we thought we knew before.

And all of life is like that, especially when you turn it on its head and try to live a life where one of you gets spanked and the other one does not.

There is an awful lot that has to be unlearned.

For example, fairness needs to be re-understood. I had thought fairness was vital in a relationship and, although I knew it did not mean treating everyone the same, I had thought it meant things should be roughly equitable. I think it still does mean that but I am not sure I think it is that important anymore. If he does something I think is wrong or irritating I do get to tell him but that is it. If the situation is reversed he can spank me. That is not fair, not equitable and I am not sure I care. Or is it that it is unfair that he has to be in charge while I can dip into his arms and not worry about it?  I must review what fairness means.

I have to unlearn what I think I am. This is perhaps the hardest of all. We build up our own image from experience, from how family and friends treat us and the words they use. This is very deep learning that is ingrained into the core of us. It is hard to separate what is true from what we believe; it is as though we are all in our very own film set, a false history with a cast of writers and directors. I think many of us are harmed by this false history and held back from what we could be.

“What we call our destiny is truly our character and that character can be altered. The knowledge that we are responsible for our actions and attitudes does not need to be discouraging, because it also means that we are free to change this destiny. One is not in bondage to the past, which has shaped our feelings, to race, inheritance, background. All this can be altered if we have the courage to examine how it formed us. We can alter the chemistry provided we have the courage to dissect the elements.”

I have found in a relationship where I question everything and where I allow myself to be open to questioning. I discover that I am not who I thought I was. I can check DJ’s assessment of me and compare it to  my own conclusions by checking for evidence on both sides. I do so and am constantly surprised by what I learn. It is ironic that in my (attempts to follow a path of) submission I am finding myself to be a better person than I had previously thought.

This does emphasise the importance of finding a Top/ lover/whatever who is not only wise but also kind and selfless. I can see how a person could be terribly harmed by an unkind Top.

“It is the function of art to renew our perception. What we are familiar with we cease to see. The writer shakes up the familiar scene, and, as if by magic, we see a new meaning in it.”

I think this confusion about who we are may be true of lots of us. I think people with a tendency to be submissive allow themselves to be very open to other people’s assertions and we can internalise even unintended messages about who we are and how important we are. We live in a film set that we have built from a million interactions, taking directions and cues from events long past.

Mr Gibson, he was an angry man who wrote an untruth for his own ends. The story he told was stirring and big – but believing it would not be helpful. These unhelpful and true stories are all around us and within us.

We have a lot to unlearn. And this history, your history can be begun now, today in the way that you wish it to be.

“There is not one big cosmic meaning for all; there is only the meaning we each give to our life, an individual meaning, an individual plot, like an individual novel, a book for each person.”

Let us find our own meanings, and our own truth. We deserve nothing less.

“Elisabeth Anne Whitfield did not join the WRNS to be consigned to the backside of history,” The haughty brunette made a pout and wrinkled up her nose in disgust.

It did not occur to her that speaking aloud in the third person sounded somewhat arrogant, or at least it never had during the first 25 years of her life. After all her father was an admiral and both her brothers had their own ships for the love of God.

Elisabeth eyed the dilapidated buildings and hastily assembled tin huts with disdain. She had completed her basic, hadn’t she? They had made her an officer, albeit only a Third Officer, somewhat lowly in her opinion. She reread the missive left at her last posting.

“Further training required,” it concluded.

There was a lot of double-talk about attitude and lack of team spirit, but she was streets ahead of the other girls, and she knew it.

Just then a Spitfire roared overhead as it made a dash for the airfield. A trail of smoke told its own story and Elisabeth wondered if the young man would make it. They had won the Battle of Britain, but there was still much more to do.

“I would have thought…” she was about to address herself with the observation that ‘Daddy might have swung her an admiralty job’ when a rather nervous young wren paused in her passing dash to salute her.

The girl was still gaping when a raucous woman screamed an unintelligible order and she hurried on to joining a crowd of hapless wrens across the way.

“You should have returned that salute you know,” said an easy male voice from behind her.

Elisabeth made a slow turn and appraised the young lieutenant coolly. The man’s grin evaporated and he straightened his cap. She shrugged and met his sudden disdain with a full measure of her own.

“Just as you should have saluted me,” the lieutenant prompted her.

Elisabeth rolled her eyes impatiently but then reluctantly came to attention and saluted smartly. The man was barely 30 and much too cocky for her liking. He sounded common, like a grammar school boy, and in peace time she wouldn’t have looked at him twice.

The man saluted her back and relaxed.

“Okay, let’s have it,” he said lightly.

“I beg your pardon,” Elisabeth said sharply.

“You have it,” the man agreed nonchalantly as he reached for a cigarette from his top pocket. “Now perhaps you wouldn’t mind telling me your name.”

“For your information I am Elisabeth Whitfield,” she said as if expecting a reaction.

“You’re late,” the man yawned, “And the correct response when reporting is to give your service number, your rank and your surname only. Give it a try.”

Elisabeth gave a heavy sigh and sagged where she stood. She had no idea what her service number was and she couldn’t be bothered to make one up.

“Third Officer Whitfield reporting for duty… sir,” she said indolently.

“You’re the one with the attitude problem,” he sighed, “Just my luck, you’re one of mine.”

“One of yours?” Elisabeth frowned.

“I am Lieutenant Carpenter, your training coordinator and service moderator,” the man told her as he lit up.

A cloud of blue smoke billowed and drifted on the breeze.

“I have had my training,” Elisabeth blurted.

“I have had my training… Sir,” Carpenter corrected her. “And no you haven’t. You passed out as an officer… barely, but you didn’t get any skills and the pool didn’t want you… something about not being a team player and some guff about being an admiral’s daughter.”

“It is not guff, I assure you,” Elisabeth said indignantly, “My father is an admiral and…”

“I don’t care,” Carpenter barked, suddenly seeming more than just a grammar school boy. “I suspect that you got an easy ride. Well not here. Here we have two approaches, the easy way for women who try and need a bit of a shove in the right direction. And the hard way for little navy brats like you who should never have passed out in the first place.”

Elisabeth started and this time thought better of answering back. The frustration of having to kowtow to this little man made her blink rapidly. She remembered that at Dartmouth some of the other girls had a few run-ins with their training captains, what was the expression…?

“If you don’t double over to your quarters, stow your gear and report to my office in 15 minutes, we will start the day with a tick,” the Lieutenant snarled.

Tick; that was it, six of the best, she remembered, only it hadn’t happened to her, no one had dared. This man was bluffing too.

“I just got here, I don’t even know where…” Elisabeth sighed.

“I don’t care, find it, at the double,” Carpenter yelled, “Move.”

“Yes Sir,” Elisabeth snapped back before she could stop herself.

There was an exchange of glares and then his eyes swivelled to his right and she took the hint.

*

Elisabeth’s quarters were apparently shared with another girl, but at least the obvious blonde she found reading on the next bed knew where Carpenter’s office was.

“Dreamy isn’t he and such a pussycat?” the blonde said absently.

Elisabeth harrumphed.

She found the office two minutes late and knocked.

“Come,” Carpenter called form within.

Elisabeth gave a heavy sigh and indolently stumbled inside.

Carpenter was writing rapidly and didn’t look-up.

“Get out,” he snapped, “And try that again.”

Elisabeth made to protest and then she spotted the little tin-pot tyranny and with bad grace wheeled about and went out. This time when he answered she marched in made a salute and rattled off something resembling her service number and gave her name and rank.

Carpenter let his eyes slide up to meet hers and then slowly stood up.

“These are for you,” he motioned to a pile of books on his desk. “I want the naval ranks and establishment branches memorised… after all you should already know them. The others I just want an outline understanding for now.”

Elisabeth nodded and made to grab them.

“Wait for it,” Carpenter said sharply. “First we have to take our tick, don’t we, Third Officer Whitfield?”

Elisabeth became puzzled and shrugged.

“You were late and the manner of your entrance was…” he searched for a word. He settled on “Unacceptable.”

Elisabeth sighed and rolled her eyes.

“Okay, you know the drill,” Carpenter reached over to a hat rack at his left and amid some umbrellas extracted a long thin stick. “As you know a tick is six with one of these, right where it will do you the most good. A second offence is on the unprotected rear, as is a double tick. You can appeal, but wasting the CO’s time will get you a 30 stroke bare bender, so I wouldn’t try it.”

Elisabeth’s eyes were on stalks as she resisted the instinct to back away.

“Hat off and bend over,” Carpenter ordered. “Oh and by the way, three ticks or double ticks in a week and it’s an automatic high jump up before the CO.”

“You can’t be serious,” Elisabeth gasped.

“You going to appeal already?” Carpenter gaped.

“No but…”

“Then bend over,” Carpenter snapped as he moved behind her.

“B-but…” Elisabeth had heard of this, she knew he was within his rights, but she had never thought…

“If you are not going to appeal the sanction then you are disregarding a direct order. The last brat that tried that got twice 30 on successive days,” Carpenter sighed, “Make up your mind which you are doing but don’t do both.”

Elisabeth sucked in a slow breath and then removed her hat. There was no more instruction and she blushed. It was undignified having to bend over in a skirt and the fabric tightened across her behind.

The cane hissed-thwacked and stung her across the bottom. It took a supreme effort not to stand upright or swear at the man. Then as she contended with the cut that didn’t ease in its sting he caned her again.

“Ah,” she gasped and wiggled.

“Stop that,” he ordered and gave her another stripe.

There were three more at 10 second intervals so that after a minute he was done and she was left foot-stamping and decidedly wet around the eyes.

“Attention,” he barked and she rose, her face a picture of woe.

“Let that be a lesson to you,” he smiled encouragingly, “Report to me at eight tomorrow and I expect you to have read those books. Oh and remember, a CO’s visit goes on your record. If you play ball and learn to be a good sport I can handle any sanctions myself, but only if you’re sensible. Don’t go getting caught doing something stupid.”

“Yes Sir, I mean no Sir,” Elisabeth hissed through her teeth.

Then she was dismissed.

*

Elisabeth’s mind raced as she made slow awkward steps back to her quarters. How dare he? But he had and he had been fully within his rights. What would Daddy say? Daddy wasn’t going to find out, nobody was. Elisabeth blushed.

Okay so the wretched man had some balls and it looked like she was going to have to smarten herself up a bit with this one. Maybe I have been taking too much for granted, she sighed.

She was still pondering when she found her room.

The blonde was still reading, only by now she had put on some striped pyjamas. The thought of stripes sent Elisabeth’s hand to her bottom. The girl looked up.

“Got a tick did you?” she smiled sympathetically, “I got two last week, four the week before that, two of them double ticks. Adam was kind enough to handle it and we agreed to leave the CO out of it.”

Elisabeth blushed, hating the idea that the situation was so transparent.

“Adam?” she asked to deflect a more embarrassing answer.

“Adam Carpenter, dishy I call him,” the blonde looked wistful. “Oh I’m Clarice, Clarice March,” she offered a hand from her prone position.

“Third Officer Whitfield,” Elisabeth said sourly as she eased her bottom onto the bed. She winced and made to stand again and then heaving a great sigh she added, “Elisabeth.”

“I’ll get a cold flannel,” Clarice said finally moving off the bed.

“It’s not… necessary,” Elisabeth grunted.

But her new friend helped Elisabeth undress. Then once down to her underwear, Clarice led her to lay on her front while she eased Elisabeth’s white undies down over her thighs to reveal six plum ridges marring her tight round white bottom.

“You have had more than… I mean… did he really… you know… cane you on the…?” Elisabeth didn’t know how to ask.

“Bare bum drill, bending right over,” Clarice giggled, “Jolly well hurt too. Goes with the territory I am afraid.” The blonde shrugged.

“I am beginning to get that,” Elisabeth said ruefully.

“Oh you’ll get it alright,” Clarice giggled again.

*

Elisabeth thought her face would melt. No man had ever seen her naked before, or even half naked as she was. Yet here she was standing in just a tie, blouse and stockings while her precious skirt, knickers and jacket lay neatly folded over a chair in the corner of Adam’s room. She could feel the chill caressing her where it shouldn’t just out of his eye line under the oh-so-short white cotton hem of her service shirt. She couldn’t help tugging down a little in front, even at the cost of an increased rear exposure.

“Late, late to the wrong administration class and then… then you blame the officer in charge,” Carpenter shook his head. “Lucky it was old Stephens or you would be in serious shtick.”

“Sir…does this mean I get a double… you know?” Elisabeth blushed again.

“Damn straight, now bend over,” he growled.

Elisabeth rolled her eyes to heaven and made an about turn. Oh well maybe Adam was kind of a dish, but this was no less embarrassing. She eyed the stuffed leather chair he had placed in the centre of his office. For six on the seat of her skirt she had twice just had to bend over and touch her toes. This offered support was a harbinger of a far stiffer experience

“Bend over I said,” her supervising officer barked, “The chair, get your behind pointing at that ceiling.”

Elisabeth worked her mouth and wondered if it was worth reminding him that she was an admiral’s daughter.

“You don’t have to make it a double you know,” she muttered.

He raised both his eyebrows at once.

“Sir,” she added in a hasty mutter as she again dragged down her shirt in front.

“I’ll make it a double-double in a minute,” he rasped and she balked.

Bending over the chair-back was embarrassing, she was most definitely showing him her bare bottom now; she only hoped that she wasn’t also revealing the rest of the goods.

“Any complaints, appeals or other assorted backchat?” he snarled as he lined up the cane.

“No Sir,” she sighed.

The cane bit her across the lower bared cheek and she hissed. The undignified wiggle was unavoidable and she knew he would add a stroke or two if she persisted. Then the cut really clung on in.

“Nuh,” she grunted.

He caned her again: hard. At 15 second spaces he could make this last six or seven minutes with a few extra cuts. By then of course she would be in a puddle of tears.

“Count them,” he ordered her.

“Two, thank you Sir,” she added cheekily.

He caned her sharply and drew a hiss.

“Was that impudence, make that number one,” he said quietly as he bent low to her ear.

“Yes Sir,” she replied through gritted teeth, “One, thank you Sir.”

“Good girl,” he chuckled, as he caned her again.

He doubted she would keep count so well under the onslaught, but the extras would do her good and she knew it.

“Two thank you Sir,” she squeaked as he lay in the fifth biting stroke.

Elisabeth was gaining a new understanding of navy life, Daddy would be proud yet. She almost smiled as a tear rolled down one cheek. The first of many.

I promised the publishers that I would plug Magic hard, so I could become a bit of a bore about this. I have thought about writing a bonus short story about some of the characters as an oblique way of pushing it.

Until then here is a short article about spanking and its use in magic as practiced for real by those who believe.

Ancient Pagan rites included spanking and flagellation in many fertility ceremonies. These stem from an earlier belief that is derived from ancient magical practices.

There are many theories about this. One is that it was derived from sacrifice and that the endurance of pain (and perhaps the minor bloodletting caused by severe birching) was needed to enact certain spells. Another is that the bottom is the fundamental part of the body and that as a woman’s bottom is bigger, thrashing females was more potent.

The theory I like best is that in ancient times many cults existed that required the blood sacrifice of a virgin female to appease the gods or invoke some great power or spell. Since this was a big ask of a father or husband it is thought that over time this was mitigated into ceremonially birching unmarried women.

One version is that once a year all the unmated girls of childbearing age were gathered at the centre of the village and bent naked over a coping stone so that there bare bottoms were presented to good advantage. Then they were whipped on the bottom a certain number of times that corresponded with an arcane calculation.

Some accounts suggest that the girls themselves had to gather up the rods and others that the women themselves competed to take the most strokes as it was deemed lucky.

Whatever the truth, throughout history, spanking and whipping rituals are to be found from Ireland to the Urals and even beyond. Some of which survive today, especially within Slavic communities.

The clack-clack of the typewriter filled the office as Amelia Travers picked her way through desks piled high with old tea chests. Many were over-ladened with business sundries and long dead accounts for transactions now  forgotten. She was a slight girl from the modern cut with a dark page-boy bob and a straight up and down dress that tried vainly to hide her curves and ended at the knees.

From the sound of the typing it was obvious that someone was having a time of it and was no expert.

“Hello,” Amelia called out.

The typing stopped for a moment and a tweedy young man with a pipe stood up from behind a wall of tea chests at the other end of the room.

“Who the Dickens are you?” he barked, taking a hard suck on his pipe and sending up a cloud of heavy blue smoke.

“Amelia Travers,” Amelia said brightly and then in her best head-girl manner straightened up and extend a very straight right arm.

The man regarded her suspiciously and took another pipe-drag.

“Your new secretary,” she offered as if that said it all.

“What do you look like?” the man said incredulously, the suspicion not having left his face.

“Oh, I’m a modern, it’s all the thing rather,” Amelia told him enthusiastically.

“Not a damn flapper,” he groaned, “I was hoping for a chap this time.”

Amelia pursed her lips. She had heard it all before.

“Well think of me as a chap then,” Amelia suggested. “I can type 80 words a minute and match it with my shorthand.”

“Can you make tea?” the man asked.

“At a pinch, would you ask a male secretary that?” Amelia’s nose crinkled.

“Damn right,” the tweedy young man shot back.

He wasn’t bad looking, if a bit old-fashioned. He was probably old enough to have served in the war, but apart from the severity of his eyes, there was nothing to suggest he was damaged in anyway.

“Then I’ll crack on with the tea,” Amelia said brightly.

“Yes and then you can finish typing this up,” he sighed.

“What about the mess?” the new secretary asked. As she spoke she retreated back to where she thought she had spied the makings for tea.

“Just moved in, new offices, hence the new secretary, namely you Miss Travers,” he said as he picked up a pile of papers and put them down again less than a foot from where they had started.

“Am I right in supposing you are Duncan Whittington?” Amelia called out from where she manfully juggled with the kettle and pot. The kitchenette was served only by a spirit stove and a row of earthenware pots which contained in turn tea, sugar and biscuit crumbs.

“Well I’m not the Archbishop of Canterbury,” Duncan answered.

“No, you only type like him,” Amelia countered.

“Does the Archbishop type?” he asked puzzled.

Amelia frowned. She hoped her new boss wasn’t going to be a dimwit.

*

Over the days and weeks that followed the office slowly took shape and they even had a telephone installed. Much of the organising had been down by Amelia, not that Duncan showed the least appreciation. It was almost as if he was treating the arrangement as temporary.

“Just what is your problem with me?” Amelia finally asked, rounding on him over tea one day.

Duncan frowned. “Well look at you, are you a boy or a girl? I can’t swear, I can’t talk about the cricket and I can’t date you.”

Amelia laughed, “Why not?” she asked.

“Why not what?” he replied.

“Well if it comes to that, all three, although I must admit I don’t know that much about the cricket, I am more an Association Football girl myself,” Amelia giggled.

“There you are then,” Duncan said sharply poking the air with his pipe, “What kind of girl likes football?”

“Don’t you like the way I look? Or is it the way I act? Or is it that I am a girl at all?” Amelia asked pointedly folding her arms.

“I’m the boss around here and you don’t even call me sir, you don’t… don’t…” he waved at her with his pipe and shook his head in lament for his loss of words. The filly was too smart for him and he didn’t like it. “Why if my sister acted and dressed the way you do I would put her across my knee.”

“Well Sir, that is soon remedied isn’t it?” she smiled. “I’ll call you Sir, but if you can point to a single thing I do wrong then you can spank me. How does that suit?”

Duncan opened his mouth to answer and then coughed to hide his discomfort. He was being manipulated again.

“And just who decides when you do something wrong, that is what I would like to know?” he said sharply.

“Well you do, you’re the boss after all,” Amelia said pleasantly.

“And if like my sister I decide to spank you on the bare bottom and send you to the corner for an hour after work…?” Duncan countered, calling her bluff.

“You can send me to bed without supper if you have a mind to,” Amelia said reasonably, “I am quite a good sport you know Sir.”

“Well what if I said you are all wrong and that I don’t like flappers or moderns as you call them, what then? Perhaps I should spank you just for being a rebel as the newspapers advise?” Duncan was on solid ground now; he would soon shut her up.

Amelia’s heart skipped a beat and she had the decency to blush.

“May I lock the door first or do you intend to shame me in front of the post boy should he drop by?” The idea thrilled her to the core, but she felt a little sick all the same. What if he called her out on it?

Duncan’s palm itched, but a sense of justice prevailed. “Alright, perhaps I wasn’t being fair. But one thing wrong you say? What a typing error or forgetting the biscuits?” he put forward doubtfully.

“When have I ever forgotten anything and as for errors…” she frowned as if trying to remember, “Have I yet made any Sir?”

“Well just don’t, that’s all,” he harrumphed, “Now get on with your work.”

*

Duncan sat intently writing on a pad on his knee. His pipe was set at a jaunty manly angle, although it had long since gone out. But Amy could tell at once that he was annoyed about something from the tense way he sat and his failure to acknowledge her arrival, even with his usual look of disapproval.

“Is there something wrong?” Amy asked brightly.

She had just got back from lunch and despite being 10 minutes late she was well on top of her work.

“You tell me,” Duncan growled without looking up.

“You mean I’m late?” Amy asked, now ready to apologise.

Duncan looked up at the clock and raised an eyebrow.

“I hadn’t noticed,” he muttered.

“What is it then?” Amy pressed him.

Duncan whipped the pipe from his mouth and used it to point vigorously at a pile of papers. Then he returned to his scribble.

Amy tentatively reached for the paperwork he had indicated and carefully turned it right side up from her point of view. There was nothing wrong that she could see…

“Oh…” Amy blushed and suddenly got a sinking feeling.

Turning over several letters she saw the error. The last was addressed to the previous, and there seven such misaddressed letters.

“Oh indeed,” Duncan said sharply.

Amy sighed. “Well I can soon fix that, it won’t take me half an hour.”

“Is that all you can say?” Duncan growled.

Amy shrugged. “What do you want me to say? I’m sorry, I’ll stay late if I have to.”

“That’s what I thought,” he muttered, adding, “Bloody girls.”

Amy frowned and slipped off her coat before heading for the kettle to make tea. She hadn’t got 20 feet when the penny dropped.

Ten minutes later she returned with a tray.

“Biscuits are there?” Duncan muttered, still engrossed in his work.

“Not yet,” Amy said enigmatically. “I brought you another selection first.”

“Eh?” Duncan said, now looking up.

He had to think for a moment about what he was looking at, for on the tray was a hairbrush, a ruler and woman’s canvass tennis shoe.

“I had to improvise,” Amy said, “I hope you can manage with these,” she added ruefully, “With just one of them hopefully, but that’s up to you I suppose.”

“What the Dickens?” he spluttered.

“I told you I was a good sport,” Amy told him with a hint of apprehension. “I mean you are going to spank me aren’t you? That was what we agreed?”

“Ah… hmmm, yes I see,” he said uncomfortably.

“You’re not wet are you?” Amy asked, now sounding surprised.

Duncan’s demeanour became stern again and he gave her a look. “Certainly not,” he said sharply.

“Well?”

Duncan tried to remember how they did it at school, but there was no cane to hand. Then he remembered his sister and her little talks with his father.

“Yes, well… you know how this is done…” he found a commanding voice from his army days.

Amy made a grimace and answered through a row of closed teeth, “Up or down?” she asked.

Duncan frowned.

“My… you know, my smalls, my under things?” Amy said, her voice trailing to a whisper.

“My mother and father favoured down for my sister,” Duncan replied, not sure if it was quite done.

“So did mine,” Amy agreed miserably.

Before Duncan could comment Amy blushed and turned her back. After some fumbling under the hem of her skirt she said, “Oh bother.”

She shot a look back and then shrugged. In short order her slip and then her brief bloomers slid south to her ankles and she daintily stepped out of them.

“They got tangled,” Amy explained.

“My mother used to pin my sisters skirts to her waist up at the back,” Duncan said casually, he wasn’t sure yet if that was the thing. “You know… as a shaming to-do,” he explained quickly when he saw Amy’s look of consternation.

“Oh… oh yes I see, I get that… but pins are so fiddly and…” she thought of the risks of being pricked by him or worse being fumbled in a way that would be injurious to her dignity. “It was much the same at home, you know, when I was younger… the shame part I mean, but my sisters and I just had to take our dressed off and petticoats if… well that doesn’t matter…” she was babbling.

“Well then…?” Duncan wasn’t sure this wasn’t going too far and he was beginning to feel a cad.

“Look, here,” Amy said with a sigh and with her back still turned she quickly unfastened her dress in back and stepped out of it.

Duncan gasped and averted his eyes. Amy’s bottom was alabaster smooth, like one of the three graces in the museum. “I say,” he said.

“There doesn’t seem to be a spare corner,” Amy said hesitantly her hands cupped before her even though she hadn’t turned to face him. “Shall I just face the wall here?” She felt her face burn, and it was a sure thing that her mother would have fainted dead away in the same circumstances. But Amy was a modern and would show some spunk.

“Yes, good idea,” Duncan said, now finding his resolve. “And put those hands on your head.” It was something his sister always had to do.

The question was, how long should he keep her there before spanking her? He sat down and free of her gaze let his eye surrender to the art of her half naked form. No rush was there, at least half an hour.

*

Amy fitted across Duncan’s knee easily and with her maidenhood safely tucked from sight she almost took comfort in the warmth of his thighs.

“How… how many?” Duncan said more to himself than her.

“That’s rather up to you isn’t it?” Amy said, feeling out of sorts and all at sea with embarrassment but determined not to show it.

“Yes quite,” he said sharply swatting her upturned bottom with a sting.

“Ooh,” Amy squealed.

Duncan spanked her again and put some weight into it.

“Ah,” she gasped but for the next dozen spanks she limited herself to making faces he could see and managed to hold her tongue.

But little by little she became breathless and after two or three minutes began to pant as she might playing tennis and her heels kicked up as she squirmed.

“Oh, ummm,” she grunted, now getting ever more vocal.

“Not such the clever little miss now are we?” Duncan laughed, now warming to his task. His gentleman was certainly standing up and taking notice.

Amy felt him rise too, but decided fair was fair and it was better not to mention it. It was certainly something a modern should be prepared for in life.

Duncan’s hand burned and he could see from the deep red cloud staining both Amy’s bottom cheeks that she was sore too. But he sensed she wasn’t yet all in. So taking up the pump from the tray he laid it against her bare bottom.

The first swat got Amy’s attention and she yelped. Thereafter all resolve retreated and the rest of the spanking was a vocal affair that left her both breathless and on the edge of some genuine tears. In fact if he could but see her face he would know that her eyes were now two pools about to overflow.

“Alright, you can go back to face the wall now,” Duncan said with a final spank.

“Yes Sir,” Amy said ruefully.

“A half an hour to contemplate your sins and then we will attend to that hairbrush,” Duncan said brusquely.

“But…” Amy gasped her eyes and mouth perfect Os as she half turned to gape at him.

“Well you were 10 minutes late,” Duncan said reasonably.

“Oh… yes, I forgot,” Amy winced, “Darn it.”

This time she faced the wall and thrust her bottom at him as if to show how much of a sport she really was.

“You know, I am beginning to like you,” Duncan chuckled.

Amy giggled. “I am beginning to like you too Sir.”

Indigo absolutely hates corner time and it is always a last resort with us and it is used sparingly. Not that she gets the last say, but one has to respect what works and thee feelings of your sub. Not that Indigo has a completely corner free life.

It seems that  women react very differently to corner time. I knew of a 20-year-old who would do 40 minutes with nothing more than a pout and another who went from rebelling at five minutes to meekly taking an hour.

A while back a college student who discovered my blog while researching about corner time, of all things. She tells me that it was corner time and not spanking that featured in her domestic sanctions at the hands of her guardian right up to leaving for college and she hated it.

However, after almost three years being young free and single she sometimes misses the “clarity and guidance” of being strictly handled. As an adult these feelings have become mixed up with a curiosity and a prurient interest in spanking, which is why, she says, she is a “big fan” of the blog.

Now I am obviously flattered and gratified by her interest here, but beyond that she posed me a question. “What is corner time and where did it come from?”

I love to do some proper research into this and I am fascinated by others experience and ideas, but that might be one for the future when I have more time. For now, this is what I have.

Corner time is in many ways a form of bondage. One places a girl in a corner, or sometimes facing a wall where she is forced to consider her sins and punishment. The interesting thing about it is that ostensibly it is voluntary. It is a recognition on some level of the authority of another to someone to the corner and an acceptance of an offered cooperation, all without ropes or chains.

Now obviously there is often the threat of a spanking attached to not obeying, but as with most such customary things, this is rarely overt.

Corner time comes in many different forms, it is most often done fully clothed by the very young as a ‘time out,’ given as a chance to cool down and is all the more embarrassing when given to a young adult. As we know this is often, but not always accompanied by a spanking.

A trawl of YouTube revealed one office spanking, played for laughs, but the woman lost in a rather unstable grainy movie looked embarrassed enough. Sadly there was no explanation. There was also a late teen giving it attitude to a concealed camera phone, saying she was “in community college for Christ sake and I got a swat on the butt and sent to the corner. Man this sucks;” again no explanation.

There was also a gang of what looked like some English college kids cajoling a girl of maybe 19 or 20 to go and sit in the corner facing the wall for some unnamed sin. She seemed bemused and uncomfortable, especially as she was being filmed and teased, but making a joke of it she did finally comply. Again I have no idea what was going on, a bet maybe?

My point about all of this is that it does seem to be going on in the 21^st century English-speaking world. This brings me to the question is Corner Time a mainly an Anglo-Saxon pursuit?

I did find an early 19^th century reference to Prussian governesses (that’s German to you) using corner time. It seems to have been used for girls of all ages as either an alternative to birching or as an accompaniment.

I had to do a rough type from a Photostat of an old magazine, which was in German and then run it through Google translator. So do bear with me. The gist of it was:

A girl or young woman of any age may be contained in her behaviour by demanding that she standing a corner facing the wall. This method can be employed as prelude to a sound birching and has the effect of making her wait (in shame?) to dwell upon her crimes.

Further shaming can be effected by exposing that area of operation either before and certainly afterwards, if more time in the corner is needed.

I am not sure if nudity was more acceptable in Prussia, they certainly went in for some quite harsh birch thrashing on the bare bottom and often in public. But in England it featured less.

Most of the line drawings in serious magazines depict women, even married ones either fully clothed or stripped to the petticoats. I found this:

It was most shameful to me to be standing at the corner with my behind burning under my skirts from the slipper. To my way of thinking I was much too old to be treated so, especially as my siblings and young cousins were on hand to witness my shame.

In another update to this post I have removed the Sally Field reference, although she was spanked in movies, it seems the corner time picture was a misreport, thanks to FFairm who corrected the Field reference. They pointed out that Lara Flyn Boyel got public corner time in court as a naughty lawyer in the TV show who is sent to the corner by the judge. See last picture above.

There is also a 1950s western where a young 20-something actress playing a 17-year-old is sent to the corner and warned to stay there “or I’ll paddle your behind to a shiny red.” I saw the movie years ago but don’t remember its name. It’s the kind they don’t show anymore just because of scenes like this.

The earliest reference I found to some form of time out dated back to early American colonial days. A 17^th century settlement in Massachusetts was confronted with the problem of dealing with three unmarried girls indulging in “unseemly behaviour.”  The justice of the peace and the preacher were vexed that there was no pillory or stocks. So although the girls’ families “would no doubt whip them soundly” a public shaming was felt necessary.

The girls were ordered stand “on their honor” at the village pump for two hours after church.

Indeed I have seen engravings of women being tethered at the neck or ankle to a village whipping post from this era. It is not obvious what is keeping them there other than their own cooperation as the tethers seemed mainly symbolic.

Twitter threw up some interesting pictures with comments like, “my sister in time out,” “phooey, the paddle and some corner time, no fair,” “my bad, I guess I deserve it,” and “me in the corner.”

I have no idea if the images weren’t just cribbed and I leave you to put captions to pictures. I have also included some other random pictures for your edification. All the pictures used are of the 18+ variety and I haven’t included faces where not appropriate. There are a million of them out there. It seems no domestic spanking is now complete without putting a picture of your wife or girlfriend in the corner on social media.

There also seems to be a trend, perhaps post-50 shades, of putting magazine models in the corner to make them more sexy. Among the pictures is also a rare picture of Lady D, the famous dominatrix from Real Spankings from the early 1980s when she was still on the receiving end.

Do you use corner time in your lives? Do you have nay insights?

Lady Arabella reached the rise above Grainger Manor with relief. The party had gone on for far longer than intended and against all expectations she had been winning all night. That arse Carstairs had lost game after game until she had nigh on £300 in front of her, which was all very well, but the trouble with winning was that it was very bad form to leave the table without giving the other fellow a chance.

None of this would have much mattered if Edward didn’t so disapprove of gambling; oh to be sure he would turn a blind eye if she were discreet. It was all very reasonable she supposed, but sometimes she wish he would stick to his guns rather and use a firmer hand.

Arabella sighed and plucked a stray tight coil of red from her face, she must look a sight, she thought wearily. She regretted now dismissing the coachman and deciding to walk the three miles home from Brantley. Her feet were killing her.

Oh well, she thought, to bed before anyone gets up for tomorrow’s hunt. No one will care at all by breakfast.

All might have been well but on reaching the terrace she was startled by a coach rattling across the gravel in the dawn light.

“Who the hell is…?” Arabella was indignant.

The coach was unfamiliar, but not the girl who stepped from it. Two girls, she amended as Henrietta stepped out behind her elder sister.

“Oh,” Georgina exclaimed when she saw Arabella. “Hello Arabella,” the 20-year-old said sheepishly.

“Oh cripes,” Henrietta gasped from behind her.

Both young women were in more of disarray than Arabella herself, and neither had a right to be, it being even longer past their bed time than their guardian’s wife.

“Um… we…” Henrietta tried to explain, her fingers pointing impotently at the coach. “Lord Uxbridge and…”

“His lordship and his brother were kind enough to lend us their coach after ours…” Georgina cut in somewhat haughtily, but she was careful not to continue.

“And what has Edward said about you and the Uxbridge’s?” Arabella sighed. “As to returning home at…” actually Arabella had no idea what the time was and bringing attention to it did rather offer the question to her own nocturnal tardiness.

“Do you think Sir Edward is going to beat us?” Henrietta asked meekly, her teeth now worrying her lower lip.

Georgina shot her sister a horrified glance as she racked her brains for an answer to that particular question before…

“Naturally, I shall insist upon it,” Arabella scolded them.

Henrietta winced and bowed her head.

“Oh Arabella, please speak up for us,” Georgina wheedled, “We only…”

“Yes?” Arabella said sharply.

“Well…?” Georgina pouted, not sure now how her sentence was going to end.

“What did you think would happen, returning at this hour in the Uxbridge coach?”

Henrietta proffered a single finger into the air like a student in the nursery. “We thought perhaps that no one would know,” she said honestly.

Arabella laughed warmly. “You and me both,” she chuckled.

“Ooh,” Georgina stamped her foot to set her soft brown curls shaking on her head.

Henrietta pulled a face and made a heavy sigh. “I guess there will be two very sorry sore bottoms by this time tomorrow,” she said ruefully.

“At least two,” Arabella muttered.

Georgina drew her face into a tight line and her expression was a heartfelt ‘damn it.’ Then a look of horror flooded her face, “Oh my God, I forgot: the hunt!” she exclaimed.

Henrietta drew three neat circles with her mouth and eyes before supress a gasp with a dainty hand. “Me too,” she squeaked.

“The hunt is the least of your worries, believe me,” Arabella sighed, and rolled her eyes.

She was trying to imagine what was worse, a well welted posterior tackling a hunting saddle or a naked one displayed in shame.

“Arabella, I really think…” Georgina had spread her arms wide in agitation as she began to launch into a plea for mercy.

“Oh do shut up Georgina, go to bed, we will face Edward in the morning,” she sighed heavily.

Somewhere a cock crowed and the sun lit up the horizon.

*

“Little brats, what?” Edward chuckled as he and Arabella waited for the girls to meet them in the study. “And those damn Uxbridge boys too… if wasn’t for that…”

“Edward,” Arabella began, her lips now pursed, “Don’t get soft on them, we have talked about this. We have a duty to safeguard their reputations and an unmarried girl, let alone two, who are not yet 21 have no business gallivanting about the countryside until dawn.”

Edward considered this and nodded sagely. At a little over 40 he was still getting used to young women, even his young wife was a mystery still. She was right about the girls of course, but he so hated being the villain of the piece. The role of wicked guardian didn’t suit him.

To this end he feigned reluctance and manfully stroked his firm square jaw and scratched at his grey peppered red sideburns for good measure.

In case her husband needed further encouragement Arabella moved closer and took his arm. “Remember how you were firm and fair in your army days?” she said softly, “That uncompromising manner of yours is what first attracted me to you.”

Edward nodded and drew himself up to attention.

A few moments later there was a tentative rap on the door and Edward took up a manly posture by the mantelpiece and composed himself.

“Come in,” he ordered in a firm but casual voice.

Georgina and Henrietta trudged in with their heads bowed like two women off to a hanging. Arabella noted with disdain that they were both wearing their jet velvet hunting attire, an impertinent presumption under the circumstances. She herself had eschewed it so far this morning; not at all sure that Edward would permit such activity after her own behaviour.

Edward waited imperiously for the girls to line up before him and tried to gauge their mood. Perhaps they were sorry, he thought charitably.

Only Georgina attempted to meet his eyes, but even this brief foray into bravado was aborted. Henrietta being the younger kept her gaze firmly fixed upon the carpet.

“I hear that you were entertained by the young Lord Uxbridge and his brother last night?” Edward said sternly.

“Yes Sir,” Georgina mumbled.

“Despite my forbidding you both to have anything to do with them,” Edward said insistently, his voice gaining a little in volume.

“Yes,” Georgina whispered.

Henrietta shrugged and then nodded in agreement.

“Please Sir, it was all my fault,” Georgina offered with some insistence.

Arabella, who had so far sat back quietly out of the way, now looked up in surprise. Georgina wasn’t given to taking responsibility. Arabella suspected a ruse. Then she saw it.

Edward who had been doing a splendid job as the stern guardian now displayed a change in demeanour.

Of course, it was a sympathy ploy, Arabella thought and decided to intervene, “Nonsense, you are both as bad as each other,” she put in, “Although, you are the elder,” she added to Georgina, “Perhaps you do deserve a more severe punishment. I presumed that is what you meant?”

Georgina’s eyes widened and she became flustered.

Edward frowned. “Well that is very…” he nodded as he tried to compose himself again, “Noble of you.” He would welcome the opportunity to show some mercy to Henrietta after all.

“Please Sir,” the younger girl spoke up, “I am just as much to blame as Georgie. I know we deserve to be punished.”

Georgina shot her a look that countermanded her earlier magnanimity.

“Yes you do,” Edward agreed, now happy to have that confirmed and even more so for having been given a clear direction to take. “So what do you mean by coming here dressed for the hunt?”

“But…” Georgina blustered, “Aren’t we…?”

“I told you,” Henrietta wailed, and then to Edward she said, “Georgie said…”

“Yes, yes,” Edward said dismissively as he reached for the bell.

It took a moment, but Jenny the senior housemaid soon arrived at the door and waited demurely for instructions.

“Take Miss Georgina and Miss Henrietta to their rooms and prepare them for a nursery punishment,” Edward said sharply.

“Yes Sir,” Jenny replied without a flicker, “Am I to conduct them the nursery afterwards or leave them in their rooms Sir?”

“No, no, you are to bring them back here,” Edward ordered impatiently.

Even Arabella was surprised as Georgina gaped at him. Henrietta looked more resigned.

“But Sir,” Georgina whined, “You can’t possibly…”

“Away with you now,” Edward waved her away.

As he turned he saw Arabella gazing at him with something like admiration admixed with awe.

*

Edward had expected the girls to be returned to him in their underwear, after all most of the servants were female and to his mind all those bodices, drawers and petticoats were quite enough to contend with for a whipping. However, he was surprised to see both girls dressed in juvenile attire of the sort that had been required of them long before their coming out at 16.

Henriette was meek and accepting but Georgina was flushed in anger and shame, looking as if she would bolt at any minute.

“I tell you this is too much,” she blustered to Jenny as she was ushered back into the study.

“Nursey rig as ordered Sir,” the maid said sharply as she gave Georgina a swat to the tail, “And not a moment too soon if you ask me Sir,” she added approvingly.

The maid, who had been carrying an large iron coal bucket, now set it down by the door so that inside could be seen two bundles of governess birches, an old school cane, a punitive strap and even a long-handled hairbrush.

“No one was asking you Jenny,” Edward said wearily as he dismissed her with her wave, although he took the trouble to study the bucket for a moment with a half-approving gaze.

Jenny executed a quick curtsy and then pursing her lips smugly she departed.

“Sir Edward, Arabella, please… you can’t do this…” Georgina wailed.

Arabella was about to scold her for making such a fuss, although she had to admit that Jenny’s interpretation of Edward’s instructions was highly amusing. Then she saw just how literally the maid had taken things.

Both young women were not only attired in childish short skirts and blouses, but the hems of their skirts and half-length petticoats had been pinned up at the waist at the back. This might have been scandalous enough but Arabella saw now that neither of Edward’s young charges had be permitted to retain their drawers and that their bottom were now quite bare and thoroughly exposed.

Lady Arabella stifled a laugh with her hand while the other slapped her thighs in glee.

“Oh I say,” Edward chortled, “I mean… well yes, just the ticket I suppose…”

“You can’t possibly… I mean…” Georgina was still protesting and vainly covering her exposed portion with fluttering hands.

“Well you didn’t think you would be chastised on a clothed posterior did you?” Edward said sternly, he rather liked the efficiency of the situation.

“B-But,” Georgina wailed.

Edward snapped his fingers and glared at her.

“How do you suggest I proceed, Arabella?” Edward asked, but he was already advancing on the hairbrush. “I mean I think we had determined that Henrietta’s carried the lesser fault?”

Before Arabella could answer Edward had taken up the hairbrush and was crossing the room again to an armless leather padded chair by the wall.

“Henrietta,” he growled.

Arabella let her mouth fall open and then frowned. “I do hope you are going at least cane her as well…” she muttered.

Edward looked at her sternly; his wife was beginning to irritate him.

“I mean, they were both out late and they met with Lord Uxbridge,” Arabella pressed him.

Her husband gave her one curt nod and then reached out for a reluctant Henrietta who had moved nearer. In fact she was still dragging her feet as she tottered forward as she was pulled down across Edward’s lap.

“I will consider that,” Edward said absently as he adjusted the girl across his knee.

Henrietta was beyond ashamed as her bare bottom was pushed up to meet both her guardian’s gaze and the flat side of the hairbrush her held in his hand.

Georgina couldn’t take her eyes off the vulnerable target and she swallowed rapidly know that she was next.

“A childish correction for a thoughtless disobedient girl,” Edward said sadly, then looking at Georgina he added, “But I have something else in mind for you. Meanwhile you may face the wall… and put your hands on your head.”

“Arabella please tell him,” Georgina wailed, but she found no sympathy at all in the woman’s face.

“Georgina,” Edward barked out soldierly fashion, “Face the wall, I shan’t tell you again.”

The 20-year-old made a face of frustration, and more than conscious that her exposed bottom would now confront the room, she blushed furiously before complying.

Meanwhile Edward, confident he would be obeyed, ignored the elder girl and addressed himself to Henrietta’s bare bottom with a healthy thwack of the brush.

“Ooh,” Henrietta squealed and kicked her legs childishly.

The brush made rapid advances and within a minute both the girl’s bottom and her eyes were a decided red and her yelling and wails were such that no one in the house could doubt what was occurring.

“You are reckless with your reputation and as for consorting with that cad Lord Uxbridge…” he expressed the rest of the sentence with a long volley of spanking that sent Henrietta well beyond any dignified composure.

Georgina, ever certain she could live her life scot-free, was fast giving up all hope for her poor bottom. She dared not even protest now and kept her nose pressed safely to the wall as she chewed vigorously on her lips.

Henrietta, although usually more accepting of a spanking, was bawling like she ever had under her nanny’s hand and great gouts of tears were sobbed on to the carpet as they would be for many minutes to come. Even her sister found some genuine sympathy as she cringed in her shaming position facing the wall.

“Now go and join your sister,” Edward said at last.

Henrietta could scarcely draw a breath to reply as she hiccoughed an incoherent response, but she obeyed her guardian now without question, so her actual words were of no account.

Arabella would have wished for a longer correction for the girl, but she was pleased enough with the dark welted red that stained both of Henrietta’s nether cheeks. Edward had certainly found some grit, she thought with some satisfaction.

Anticipating a grisly summons, Georgina risked a head turn, but to her horror Edward was reaching for the bell again.

“I will cane both girls presently, just on a matter of principle,” he said sourly, “But the elder girl needs harsher preparation I feel.”

Arabella caught her breath and felt a little dizzy. “Oh yes,” she whispered.

Tears pricked at Georgina’s eyes and she would have thrown herself on her knees to beg if she had thought it would have deflected her punishment.

“You rang Sir?” Jenny said as she entered.

“The horse, you know, that fold away contraption?” Edward said.

“Yes Sir I know it,” Jenny replied.

“Fetch it will you, and get some help to set it up in here,” her master told her.

The maid swallowed as mirk as she dipped in respect and hastily scurried away to obey.

*

“I’m sorry Sir, I‘m so sorry,” Georgina wept as soon as she reined in a scream, “I’ll never disobey you again, never Sir…”

But for her stockings the young woman had been stripped below the waist and was now firmly secured across the A-framed trestle in the centre of the room. Her bottom was taught and obscenely jutted skyward where it was set just-so to meet the fall of the birch rods.

Already her mottled red tail was beyond sore and was raked hither and thither with purple and maroon grazes that rose in scores like a relief map of the Himalayas.

Georgina was still begging when the birch rattled some way off behind her and then with a hiss-thwack landed across her bottom once again.

Arabella couldn’t breath and sickened by her own cruelty nevertheless silently prayed that this thrashing would never end.

“Please Sir, I am so much in error, I see that now, please…” Georgina sobbed.

“Do you? Do you truly?” Edward asked sharply, the rod descended again and then after a beat thrice more.

The woman panted like a rider at the hunt and nodded vigorously.

“And if I said we can finish this today or you can do penance otherwise what would you say?” Edward, “Perhaps you have been given too much privilege lately?”

“Oh yes Sir, truly, guide me as you see fit,” Georgina panted.

“Then if you truly repent and agree to it I will finish this punishment early excepting a schoolroom caning for you both…” Edward intoned.

“Oh yes Sir,” the well birched girl spluttered with relief.

“…provided that for the rest of the season you are attired and conduct yourself as is suitable for the nursery…” Edward continued.

Georgina gasped.

“We’ll do it,” Henrietta promised frantically from where she still stood facing the wall.

It would be a relief not to become embroiled in anymore of her sister’s reckless schemes, she thought, life was so much simpler before they had come out. They weren’t ready, she was certain of that.

“You will be caned in any event,” Edward told her, “You have no other punishment to face.”

Arabella frowned and waited expectantly.

“I am done birching you,” Edward finally heaved a sigh without striking another blow, “I am gravely disappointed.”

“I know Sir, but the nursery… it is so shameful,” Georgina sobbed.

“I mean it to be. Let’s see how keen Lord Uxbridge is to pursue a girl who is in juvenile rig and who takes her supper in the nursery before a bed time at eight. Who is spanked and sent to the corner for the least slip…” Edward rattled of a whole screed of restrictions as he remembered fondly how much simpler life used to be with the girls.

“Yes Sir,” Georgina sobbed miserably.

It has not escaped Arabella’s notice that both girls could have easily refused and that Edward would have relented within a day of calming down. Not that she intended for that to happen.

“Might we cane them both on Sunday?” she suggested mischievously. “I have a better idea for taking them down a peg in front of the Uxbridge’s…”

*

Georgina felt a stray tear roll down her left cheek and heaved a sigh. Now that the intense throbbing in her bottom had eased somewhat she had assumed that she had seen the last of those. But this tear was of shame. Shame because she now found herself still facing the wall in disgrace, only this time in the great hall amid the assembled huntsmen and women. To put matters completely beyond the pale she and Henrietta’s were still attired in juvenile rig with their skirts pinned up in back to reveal that both young women were decidedly sans culottes.

Henrietta seemed more sanguine about the whole affair, an attitude that suggested that she should never have left the nursery, but Georgina was among friends and possible suitors, she would never live this down, she thought bitterly. Or at least she wouldn’t for the rest of the season.

“I say, that’s the way to handle the fillies,” some oaf chuckled and he was joined by a chorus of womanish laughter.

“So I take it they won’t be joining us for the hunt then?” said another with barely concealed mirth.

“I would say not, it looks like they have been unseated rather,” chortled a nasal women with a shires accent.

Georgina swivelled her eyes as far as she dared to gauge who was there and saw Lord Uxbridge talking with Amanda Ponsenby. They certainly looked intimate and to make matters almost worse, they were completely ignoring the two girls’ plight. Then she saw Amanda throw her a smirk in her direction and whisper something that had them both laughing, doubtlessly at Georgina’s expense.

“Ooh, I hate him,” Georgina hissed.

Standing next to her a steady-voiced Henrietta murmured, “We deserve this, you know we do.”

Unsure whether her sister was mad or a latter day sage Georgina rolled her lips into a pout and began to cry in earnest.

“Oh poor girl, there, there,” said a matronly woman, “We’ll be off soon and you can go back to the nursery and put something on that bot-bot of yours. I expect in a few days you’ll be able to sit down again, just in time for your lessons.”

Georgina had no idea if the woman was mocking her or had entirely missed the point. The day before both of them had been the belles of the county and now…. Neither choice brought her much comfort. She had never felt so miserable, especially as she suspected that Henrietta was right. A year from now she would again be the toast of society with her reputation intact, which she suspected was more than could be said of Amanda Ponsenby.

Still, an entire season restricted to the nursery under the care of Jenny was going to be grim, especially since Edward had empowered her to spank them whenever she deemed it necessary. Georgina had a feeling that both the corner and the hairbrush were going to be very familiar to them both by Christmas.

“Do you really think Jenny will make us write out lines this afternoon?” Henrietta asked ruefully.

Georgina’s heart sank, she had forgotten that threat.

“Well if she does, I bet mine will be neater than yours and you’ll be the one getting another spanking,” Henrietta lisped.

“Oh I bet they will,” Georgina groaned as she felt herself sag. It was going to be a long season.

*

“I had better greet the hunt,” Edward said as he stood up. “Rum do eh?”

“You mean the girls?” Arabella said.

“What else?” Edward shrugged as he crossed the study. “Hadn’t you better get ready?”

He had to walk around the punishment horse, which Jenny had yet to clear away. He was undecided whether to employ it for Sunday’s canings or just make his wards bend over in the traditional manner.

“About that,” Arabella said carefully, her eyes were cast wistfully to one side. “The girls weren’t the only ones out past dawn…”

“Yes well… you do set rather a bad example,” Edward said wearily.

“I agree, and it has to stop,” Arabella said hesitantly, not meeting his eyes.

“Agreed,” Edward said in a puzzled voice.

“Well I won’t you know, not on my own, you will have to put your foot down,” Arabella told him lightly, steeling herself against either his understanding or his lack of it.

“And I suppose I should spank you too and then send you to bed without supper. Or perhaps, should I pack you off to the nursery with the girls,” he chuckled.

“Well that would be a start, whatever you think best,” Arabella replied tentatively.

Edward stopped and looked at his wife for the first time.

“I deserve it Edward, really I do.” Arabella bit her lip pensively.

“And what if I really did send you to join the girls and put you under Jenny’s care in the nursery?” he asked seriously.

“That, my love, is entirely a decision for you,” Arabella said breathily, “But I would rather you handled my discipline yourself, most of it anyway…”

She let the statement hang and time with it.

Edward regarded his wife for the longest moment and then he strode across the room for the bell.

“Had you been cavorting with young lordlings then I would send you to join the girls,” he growled, “Maybe one day I will. For now…” he rang the bell and then rounded on her, “You will go to the corner until Jenny comes to prepare you. When I return from hunting I will find you in that corner still and ready for a sound birching and a taste of that cane that you were so eager for me to employ in the girls.”

“Yes Sir,” Arabella gasped.

“I will make your excuses to the hunt,” Edward said as the door opened to admit Jenny.

By then Arabella was already in the corner and it was possible that a few of those gathered in the hall spied her there. The thought made her blush and her tummy tingled. “Yes Sir,” she said.

For some reason she wondered what it would be like to join the girls writing out lines and being spanked by Jenny for months on end. Surely it wouldn’t come to that, not for her…