It is already Thursday and I haven’t posted since Monday, you may have noticed. It is all a question of time. I hope to post The Sinclair Method later this week and then on with In the Service of the Wolf.

It is all about time really and that got me thinking about time and how attitudes change.

I saw the line drawings above, which originally from a New York exposé magazine from the 19^th century. If I recall the article (which I could not find) it was about rough justice way out west. The article decried how the westerner was no respecter of women and that they could receive the same handling as the men if not worse. The picture depicts a quaint custom called riding the rail, a fate often reserved for con-artists, uppity outsiders and even anti-slavers.

Sometimes men like this were lynched, but to the women they were more merciful and were merely stripped naked and whipped. Riding the rail involved sitting a woman (and sometimes a man as pictured above) on a rail fence for some hours or made to ride a narrow pole or plank and run out of town.

Apparently a lady reporter from the East went to investigate and very nearly met the same fate herself. When she demanded justice from the local law officer he actually spanked her and put her on a train. Undeterred the woman snuck back into town. This time she was captured by a posse of townswomen and stripped naked and treated to a ‘good old-fashioned switching’ or two. She didn’t come back.

No doubt the town’s people thought it was fake news.

Nor did these things end with the 19^th century. The cowboy above is demonstrating how they handled party girls, loose women, Sunday raiders (no idea what that is), liberals and hippies.

There are several westerns where the heroine is tied to a tree and switched or hung from her wrists. Perhaps an echo of this tradition, if one can call it that.

In 1970 a young lady reporter from New York went in search of answers.

For one ex-sheriff and his wife this was considered overkill.

“Damn if any women like that came to my town I would just turn them over my knee and spank their bare bottoms for them. If they needed a switching too then what is wrong with the barn or a woodshed. These aren’t bad kids, just a bit wayward.”

What about reporters? They were asked. One can’t help wondering if our intrepid reporter wasn’t a touch nervous at this point.

“Them too if they gave me too much sass or came on too nosey,” the old man told her. “For the girls anyway, I have my gun for these so called gentlemen of the press.”

Prussia was the largest country in what is now Germany, occupying the north of that territory with its capital in Berlin. I will spare you the history, but by reputation Prussian society was austere, militaristic and disciplinarian in outlook.

This attitude extended to the raising of women, particularly in the Junker (gentry) class who were expected to live by high standards and toe the line until they could be found an equally severe husband.

In truth the Prussian attitude could be found further East into Russia and most of the Czech countries where wife-spanking was practically a daily art form.

There is also little evidence that Prussian society was any less disciplinarian than their German cousins in Bavaria or other German states, but it is Prussia that gave its name to an attitude to discipline that prevailed in Europe from before the 17^th century and right into the 20^th.

The PN Dedeaux novel The Prussian Girls (as illustrated below by Hans Braun) cemented this reputation among spankos of course and for any that have read it you will know that this sexualised exploration often wanders into the extreme.

The Prussian Girls is about a girl’s school of the type featured in such German films as the 1931 Madchen in Uniform and other less well known films from that era.

Of course the true Junker maiden would not have gone to school and would have been under the iron hand of a governess or tutor.

No doubt situations varied from household to household but interesting accounts exist.

In 1836 one Prussian household, having exhausted a host of fashionable French governesses for being too soft, employed a Scottish one. The main argument for a British governess was to teach the ever more important English to girls of good breeding, but also it seems many English and especially Scottish educationalists were not so corporal punishment adverse.

So it was Elisabeth Campbell arrived at a large estate just outside Konigsberg to take up her post as tutor-governess and was surprised that the youngest of her charges was almost 17 and her sisters 19 and 20; conventionally too old for a governess in Britain.

By her account she was not above applying ‘a stout slipper to a girl’s naked behind’ and ‘should it be needful, denuding a girl entirely for a prolonged application of the (birch) rod.’ Nor was she opposed to giving a ‘fine old spanking’ to a girl of 20 or more, “Great giddy girls being more commonly apt to indulge in mischief and defiance,” as she explained.

What did surprise her was that a whole room was set aside for these corrections and in it she found ‘all manner of sticks, whips and straps for both the restraint and application to bare posteriors.’

Furthermore she was surprised by the strictness of the rules. At first she confesses, ‘one might think some restrictions petty in the extreme and certainly worthy of a sanction no more serious than a good scolding.’ But soon she seems to ‘go native’ and warm to her tasks.

Exact details are scant, but spanking seems to have been routine and a trip to ‘that room’ not at all uncommon.

Native Prussian governesses of the period seem to have even less scruple in ‘flogging a young woman senseless’ or ‘striping their tails until they could scarce sit for their meal times.’

To give one a true flavour one said, “A whipping that draws tears is essential, one that draws blood is sometimes necessary.”

These governesses would have come from good families themselves and would have suffered the same treatment so long as they lived at home.

A 1920s Berlin libertine said as a young girl her father would lay lines of welts across her bare bottom until she ‘sang.’ “No doubt he would do it now if he could see me,” she added with a wink.

The prurient interest in flagellation and the cloistered nuns goes back as far as the Sisters of Vespa in pagan Rome. Medieval engravings depict myriad floggings of nuns, by nuns and not always in the context of suppressed erotica. If the images above are anything to go then nothing much has changed.

Flagellation was thought to be good for the soul and the daughters of Eve particularly susceptible to sin and requiring severe chastisement to drive out the devil.

Whilst the Christian brothers favoured the scourge on the back, the good sisters often resorted to the ‘lesser chastisement’ by application to the ‘naked buttocks,’ as the 19^th century Abbess de Chartres of Lyon explained.

It was one of her predecessors who cleaned the mother house by sending the old guard away and inviting the local Father to whip the sinning sisters on their bare bottoms for their sins. A task he felt needed to be repeated after many a confession time and again lest the devil return.

Rumour had it that the zealous young Abbess too asked to be also ‘cleansed’ in private sessions in her chambers, the stuff of fantasies surely, but many stranger things occurred among the cloistered of both sexes.

Anecdotally there is much evidence.

In 1676 French woman, Juliette des Court, was unsuccessfully prosecuted for attempting to corrupt a priest. It seems her confessions were so scandalous, or so the priest said, that he was forced to chastise her. Guided by her confessor she was frequently stripped naked on her knees and made to offer her naked hind end to his rod. She was thrashed vigorously ‘until her flesh was razed and she screamed out for forgiveness.’

The repentant girl returned over and over in attempt to save her soul. It wasn’t until another priest discovered the punishments that the priest was accused of being overzealous and he in turned claimed the girl had seduced ‘him with sin.’

The charges don’t seem to be taken too seriously but Juliette herself ended up in a nunnery, eventually rising to be Abbess.

Whether because of her experience, or despite it, in later life she gained a reputation as a flagellant. It seems she had a penchant for guiding young novices in her order. She defended her actions by stressing that she only permitted ‘scourging of the inferior kind,’ that is whipping the bare bottom, as opposed to on the back as was the wont of monks.

In Prussia and elsewhere it became the custom during the 18^th century to employ nuns as governesses. It was thought that ‘high discipline’ and strong religious guidance by means of the rod was good for young women. After all who could accuse a nun of being other than kind and forgiving? Some art from the period perhaps suggests otherwise.

Even in the 20^th century some orders employed the scourge and other means. Certainly many have testified to the terror of the penguins and ‘horror stories’ have emerged as far afield as Ireland and the US.

Candace Truman, later known as Sister Mary, had a strict catholic upbringing in New York.

She later recalled her senior class years. “Some days the good sisters would tackle my bare bottom so enthusiastically with a strap that I could scarce sit down for days. Nor was I alone in my misery. Many a time did a class full of my fellow students line up to feel the same. The shower room usually displayed more bruises than not and right where they would do the most good.”

In England as late as the 1970s Barbara found love and discipline were often conjoined. Encourage to scourge herself she was troubled that it was ineffective and consulted an older woman of the order.

Her friend offered to aid her and twice weekly she was laid face down on her bed naked and ‘lashed on the bottom until I cried lustily.’

“Afterwards I always felt so good,” she wrote.

An affair ensued but after Barbara came out as a lesbian she left both the order and the church. “It turns out that a thoroughly good spanking was all I really needed. As a girl I was so drawn to rules and more so to the dreaded consequences of not obeying them.”

Much has been written about the birch. A Voice even carried some anecdotes a few years ago about the old country custom of sending maids out dressed only in their shift to gather birch roads for a good sound birching. This is custom prevalent in some places before the First World War, seems to have survived on occasionally into the 1930s. After the Second World War the age of maids, in Britain anyway, came to an end and so did the need to birch them.

Here a few more examples of county punishments that neatly segue into another birching escapade.

Milly Jeffrey writing for Titbits in the 1970s recounts an experience she had in 1939. She was working on a farm in Shropshire along with several other girls. Most of her article was about these bucolic days but she refers to the day they got to ‘messy around.’

“As the nearest, Lizzie got a few good swats on her bum from the farmer’s wife, Mrs K, which got us girls all steamed up that we were too old to be treated that way. Silly when you think that our childish hi-jinks had the hay bales in a mess and not one of us was over 20. Things escalated until Mrs K exploded and said what we all needed was a damn good thrashing.”

“Crazy as it seems now we were all made to strip out of our coveralls and sent into the nearby woods to gather sticks. Despite the situation the sight of four girls naked from the waist down and four bare bottoms scampering about got as all giggling. Not for long as we soon found out what the sticks were for. Little bundles swiped across bare bottoms left us all teary-eyed with great red wheals on our skin. These were real stand out welts and all for answering back more than anything.”

“The remaining sticks got made into a broom, the business end of which found our bottoms more than once after that.”

A respondent to the letter sympathised and recounted how when she was in service in the 1950s the house she worked in still kept a ‘block’ in the basement. The block, she explained, although never used in her time there had been used for birching the maids in former times.

The block is an old method for birching school boys in former times, Eton had one I believe and so did Rugby school before the advent of the cane. Although since out of favour in boys schools by the turn of the century rumours persisted that girls were still birched in some places.

Indeed formerly reported here were suggestions that a certain girls’ school in Kent was still birching girls on the bare bottom in 1970s and 80s.

Back in the 1980s glamour model, Tyler T, recounting her school days a decade before, was asked if she was ever spanked or caned. In a throwaway line not followed up she said that she was never spanked and that her school didn’t have the cane, but the “very bad girls might go across the block occasionally.”

No doubt the reporter didn’t understand the reference, but it seems clear enough and quite suggestive. I wonder if she was educated in Kent.

The Kent anecdote, if you missed it, was the suggestion that the good nuns of that county were given to birching six form girls across the bare bottom. I could never identify the school or substantiate the rumours.

However a young lady at my school who was kept back for another a year of the Upper Sixth had to sign her own permission slip in order that she might get the cane. This was the 1970s. no birches were used that I know of, but it proves that a 19-year-old could still expect CP back then.

“Father please, I didn’t…” Elizabeth Kalstein gulped as she trawled her brain for a magic word to placate him.

She was a comely blonde with an aristocratic bearing. Her perfect nose was perhaps a little turned up for her own good; serving as it did, to give her a haughty standoffish demeanour. Otherwise even in the green riding habit she was well-rounded at hip and breast.

However, at 23 she was well past marriageable age for her people and her once indulgent father was fast losing patience with her.

“Here before the court you will be pleased to call me your majesty,” her father growled as he regarded her with a look usually reserved for rebellious nobles or bandits sent for judgement.

King Mark was a large overbearing man with shoulders like an ox and hands like shovels. His black-blue hair was already shot through with silver, but that was the only feature that hinted at his age.

“Your majesty,” Princess Elizabeth ventured.

“Is this the part where you blame your sister or that cousin of yours?” Mark said wearily. “I really don’t care.” He shook his head. “You should be away from here with a court of your own, not playing childish games and trying to outmanoeuvre those younger than you.”

“But they…” Elizabeth bit her tongue when she saw his eyebrow arch in a warning. “No Sir,” she sighed.

She was seething. Ingrid and Astrid had lured her to a glade in the forest and then ridden off with her horse. It had taken hours to walk back and she had missed supper and the gathering arranged so that she could meet some potential suitors.

Mark waited a beat longer for some sort of explanation and then he waited no more. With a snap of his fingers the male courtiers all executed a curt bow and left, while Lady Holstein, the Chamberlain’s wife, and one of her maids carried a backless saddle stool to the middle of the room. Elizabeth did not need to look to know that the clank that followed was a bucket of birch rods steeping in brine.

“Prepare yourself,” the King sighed as he divested himself of his heavy velvet robe. Under it he wore soldier’s breeks and a simple linen shirt which he now rolled up at the sleeves.

Elizabeth swallowed hard while her face made up its mind if it was glowering defiantly or burning up with shame. She eyed the impassive faces of the assembled women and ladies’ maids and sighed.

The stool beckoned and she edged towards it with all the dignity she could muster.

“Prepare yourself, I said,” her father bellowed and she startled before hastily kneeling before the leather seat and raising her skirts behind.

Once her behind was exposed to the gaze of everyone in the room she bent forward over the stool until her bare bottom was directed at the vaulted ceiling. Then she heard giggling and knew that Ingrid and Astrid were not so very far away.

Without waiting her father strode the chamber and took up the first rod offered to him by the bucket.

“You know if I ever do find you a husband I will get one who has a strong right arm,” King Mark sighed as he eyed the target with some regret.

“Yes your majesty,” Elizabeth said in a trembling voice, already determined not to cry.

There was no more preamble; one moment she was hot faced and chilled tailed and then a thousand fiery wasps bore down on her bared bottom. Her eyes bulged in her head and she gave out an angry gasp.

King Mark did not pause and struck again and then thrice more while he gauged the right place to lash and wrap the thin birchen rods. Each blow made his daughter grunt and groan, although he was pleased to note that she thrust back her bared bottom without overmuch wriggling.

As they watched from the minstrel gallery, Ingrid and Astrid were beside themselves with glee. Already the oh-so superior Elizabeth’s bare bottom was turning from a seasonal white to a more appropriate holly berry red. Given the tender texture forming on her once smooth flesh and her increasingly pained cries and heavy breathing, it would not be long before she… ah there she goes.

Below Elizabeth wailed more keenly and ever after she yelled out at lash. She was obviously crying now, as well she might, given the state of her bottom.

Mark paused and wiped his brow. His daughter’s bottom now resembled two textured plums and she was bawling like a peasant brat.

“I trust you think on before you miss a reception in your honour again,” he snarled.

“Yes Father,” she sobbed.

“Good,” he said, “Better then that you take this,” and added a quick dozen extra swipes.

Once he was done Elizabeth rose with dignity and although still crying hard made to lower her skirts. “Thank you father,” she sniffed.

“Thank you,” he replied sharply, “But you can leave your skirts raised while you contemplate the corner seam of the chamber.”

Elizabeth raised her eyes in dismay but averted them again and nodded. She should have expected this. The rest of the afternoon was a horror, especially after she finally stopped crying. For then her father’s men were readmitted and had to spend the rest of the day pretending that the King’s eldest daughter did not have her bare bottom displayed to the whole court.

That night, face down in bed Elizabeth cried herself to sleep and swore vengeance on not only her sister and cousin but on every smug matron and maid who had dared enjoy her punishment. Of course her father had been right to birch her and soundly too, she admired him for it. Even if she hadn’t intended it, she had defied him. But Ingrid too had defied him, by actively preventing her from attending to her duty. Why had she too not been punished?

As soon as she could sit a horse she would ride into the Black Forest and consult the wise woman.

*

“You are the lady, Elizabeth Kalstein, are you not?” the wise woman asked as she calculated how she might exploit this visit.

Elizabeth drew herself up in her usual haughty manner and said, “I am.”

“Your highness,” the woman bowed low, all the while keeping her eyes firmly on the young princess.

The wise woman was not as old as she was expecting, certainly much less than 40 and despite her eccentric rags and wild hair, she had obviously cultivated her image with care.

“How should I call you?” Elizabeth asked out of a grudging politeness.

“Most call me Marta, but I have other names,” Marta said modestly as if it was of no particular importance.

“Marta I…” Elizabeth began, but looking around she was distracted by the half-hovel, half-herbalist den in which she now stood.

“I know why you are here,” Marta said sharply.

Elizabeth eyed her suspiciously.

“You are after revenge,” the wise woman suggested in an oily voice.

“Justice,” the princess snapped.

Marat conceded the point with a toss of her head and spread her hands placating.

“How do you know…?” Elizabeth began.

“The one you seek is four leagues east from here, between the Eerie and Hell Point,” Marat broke in.

“I don’t seek anyone, I…” the princess blustered.

“You will know it when you see it,” Marta shrugged, “Pay me what you think it worth when you next see me.” With that the woman turned to go deeper into her little empire.

Elizabeth regained her horse and contemplated half a day’s ride deeper into the forest. What else could she do now? It also troubled her that Marta seemed to know what she was seeking. If she had any sense she would ride home and forget the indignities she had suffered. This was magic now and dangerous. She sighed and kicked her horse into life.

To be continued…

Part One here.

An hour later she faced a wall of trees and almost turned back. But beyond she could already see the rising cliffs and the cleft between them just as Marta had said. Furthermore no matter how hard the going was, it always seemed to yield a little more to her and never had her horse been so sure-footed.

Again she considered turning back but the smell of pine was euphoric and despite the nearness of Yule the day was warm and bright. Just a little further, she thought and always the same thought.

In the end the morning raced by and just after noon she was in the small wooded valley between the Eerie and Hell Point, as Marta had foretold.

“Hello,” she called and then felt foolish.

“Hello,” a silky smooth baritone answered her.

Had she imagined it? Elizabeth listened for more. Without thinking she dismounted and clambered forward to where the trees gave way to rocks and she could see a little cave.

“Hello,” she called again.

“Yes, you said that and politely I replied,” the same baritone answered, this time it was clearer and the masculine voice sounded almost impatient. “What do you want?”

“Who are you?” she called into the cave.

“I will ask you thrice and no more,” the voice said, “For the second time, what do you want?”

“I am Elizabeth Kalstein, daughter of…” she said proudly, it was obvious this man did not know with whom he was dealing.

“For the last time, what do you want?” Whoever it was obviously really didn’t care.

Remembering her conversation with Marta, she hesitated. Then in a clear certain voice she called out, “Justice.”

For a second every sound in the forest fell silent and Elizabeth shuddered. Then from within the cave came a rumble and then a roar. At that moment she would have fled, but the horse pre-empted her and raising onto to two legs it neighed and then was gone.

“Oh be damned,” she groaned.

“Damned, not quite,” the baritone said; “Not half as bad as that, not really.”

“Who are you?” she called.

The creature that strode out of the cave was neither man nor beast. He stood some seven feet tall and was, at first glance, half man and half goat. Then Elizabeth saw the claws and the horned head and hooked-nosed face, which was more like a demon than man. Strangely it was not his appearance that unsettled her, but the fact that he carried a birch rod like her father had used on her poor defenceless bottom and she shuddered.

“Some call me the Clawed-One, others the Justicar of Yule,” he said in his rich baritone as if greeting a new world. “But I prefer Krampus.” He said his name as if savouring it. “Krampus,” he said again with relish.

“What…?” Elizabeth shook her head in denial and decided that she was about to die.

“I hate stories,” Krampus sighed. “I have been trapped in this cave for… a long time. There was only one word that could free me and that word had to be spoken by a virgin girl of royal blood in the time of Yule.”

“But that’s…”

“Ridiculous, unlikely, something out of a… a story,” he shrugged, “So you see why I hate stories?”

Elizabeth nodded dumbly.

“Now down to business,” Krampus said briskly and rubbed his claws as one might hands.

“Business?” Elizabeth took a step backwards. “What business?”

“Oh I think you know,” Krampus said pointedly and was suddenly very close.

“B-but…” she did know, she had a sudden and overwhelming urge to divest herself of her skirts to bare her bottom for a good whipping.

“Tell me, what makes you such a bad girl?” Krampus took her by the arm and with a rough casualness through her across his now crouch-formed lap. Somehow her bottom was already bare and she felt her face burn.

“I have been lazy and irresponsible. I have failed to find a family to serve my people and my family. I have wasted time in pranks and petty revenge…” Elizabeth could not believe what she was saying and yet it was true, all of it.

“Indeed,” Krampus said sternly and tapped her bare bottom with the rod.

“But Ingrid and Astrid have been much worse than…” she blurted.

“Telling tales? I told you I don’t like stories,” he chuckled.

“Yes Sir,” Elizabeth admitted and bit her lower lip.

“Don’t worry, I will get to them, I will get to them all,” Krampus told her.

The birch rod lashed her bare bottom and she screamed. It burned, worse than anything and she knew she deserved it.

“This could take a while,” Krampus said in mock regret and lashed her again. “This could take hours,” he added and lashed her across her bare bottom again and again.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” Elizabeth screamed.

“You can’t be or else I would stop. But don’t worry, we will get there and you will come to no real harm, not really,” Krampus told her now warming to his punitive task.

“Please, please, please, I can’t stand it,” she wailed, already as sore and sorry and sobbing as any whipping had ever made her.

“You will stand it, you will have to by the time I am done and even if you can’t well, you will have by the time… oh never mind… take that and that and that and that…” Krampus lashed the girl’s bare bottom until it was as red raw as anything could be and temporary scars and rills patterned her skin.

“Please, please, please, please, I am so sorry,” Elizabeth sobbed.

“Do you want to come into my lair for a while?” Krampus asked.

Elizabeth’s eyes went wide and her mouth formed a perfect O. “No,” she said meekly.

“Good girl, now take your medicine,” he chuckled and carried on birching her, “And stop asking for mercy.”

“Yes Sir,” she tearfully agreed, “Thank you Sir, ouch ow, yah… ooh thank you sir,” she added miserably.

“My oh my, this could really take a while,” Krampus chuckled.

*

Krampus set Elizabeth on her feet and watched her dance. Her bottom was so sore that even the caress of the air set it to throbbing. The idea of allowing her skirts to fall to cover her now raw bottom was unthinkable, she knew and shuddered at the very idea of linen scraping on skin. As for sitting on a horse or on anything at all this side of Yule… that was a horror story.

“Here take this, I can easily make another,” Krampus said and handed Elizabeth the birch rod.

She handled it with dread, determined that she would burn it as soon as he released her. If he released her, she amended.

“That is for releasing me at long last. Give it to your future husband; in fact you will be compelled to. You will yield to him as readily as you did to me,” Krampus said proudly, “It is enchanted you see.”

“Why would I…?” she gaped.

“It is for your own good, believe me, you will thank me,” Krampus said, adding, “See you at Yuletide as I will from now on,” and then he was gone.

Elizabeth made a grimace and tried to shake out the burn to at least manage to walk straight. Next she raised her arm and made to throw the rod as far from her as she might only to find that the idea of parting with it was worst experience of her life.

“Damn,” she sighed and supressed an urge to go at once to find a solid box to keep her punitive present safe. Then she decided that it served her right and made to laugh. “I won’t sit down for a month, but at least I learned my lesson,” she said aloud.

She also decided that she didn’t much care that the horse had gone home without her. It would take a day or two and she might get spanked once she made it, but she would get home.

The skirts were still no more appealing down so she opted to remove her gown and carry it so that her bottom was left bare to heal in the December sunshine. She even took comfort in bathing it in a cool stream, even though the mountain water was near freezing.

That worked some and by and by she could at least more or less walk with only a mild flare of pain in her hind end and she began to make progress.

*

The next day she was able to re-don the gown and knew that by nightfall she would be home. As the sun rose, she realised that she was not far from Marta’s and wondered if the woman had known what would happen.

Elizabeth had plenty of time to consider what she had let lose into the world, but try as she might she was not at all certain it was entirely evil. After all she had sought justice and after fashion she had found it; just not in the way she had expected.

“Hello, who is there?” a voice alerted her from somewhere nearby.

She knew at once that she recognised it.

“Where are you?” Elizabeth called.

“Now that is an embarrassing question,” Marta said.

Looking up the princess saw what the wise woman had meant. For there just above her head draped over the bow of a tree lay an entirely naked Marta. She was doubled over so that her now very bare bottom was skyward and her mortified face hung down to ruefully gaze on the royal girl. From the look of Marta’s exposed behind she had very soundly been thrashed so that her bare bottom was scarlet raw and marred by myriad traceries of welts and grazes.

“I rather think that it is the answer that is embarrassing not the question,” Elizabeth laughed.

“As you say,” Marta agreed miserably.

“Can I take it you have encountered Krampus?” the princess laughed.

“Hmmm, you might say that,” Marta said ruefully, “Let me down will you? That damn goat-demon said I was a special case and had a lot to atone for. He said he was too busy to attend to me know and promised he would be back.”

Elizabeth laughed. “Tell me did you know what would happen?”

“Not this,” Marta protested.

The princess arched one quizzical and accusatory eyebrow.

“Well, I knew something, just not my part in it, if you follow,” Marta sighed.

“But you guessed my role in this though didn’t you?” Elizabeth said sharply.

“You’re not going to get me down are you?” the not-so-wise woman groaned.

“I don’t think so,” her victim laughed and was still laughing as she went her way home.

To be continued…

Began here.

The castle was much as she had left it and it was with some apprehension that Elizabeth approached the gates. After all she had been out all night and all without permission. Since her father was already not best pleased with her, she was absolutely certain that her bottom was in for another long round of punishment. Her buttocks clenched and she swallowed hard. After the Krampus’s treatment of her she was confident that she would not sit down until spring.

It wasn’t until she got under the castle walls that she saw that there was some sort of activity among the guards. The soldiers at the drawbridge had swords drawn and the men-at-arms on the battlements were running to and fro as they yelled to one another.

“What is going on?” Elizabeth asked the leading gate guard.

“We have an intruder your highness, or so…” he looked at his fellow, “…someone was seen inside, but no one passed this way ma’am.” He looked confused.

“Where is my father?” she asked.

“He is out looking for you ma’am,” the guard told her.

Elizabeth rolled her eyes and her heart sank. He would be worried, she thought, oh my lord, I am so getting a spanking. Then she hurried on across the bridge and through the gates.

She followed the sound of the commotion and found the captain of the guard and a dozen others gathering themselves for an assault on the great hall.

“Your highness, thank the lord,” the captain said, “Someone has breached the great hall and taken all the ladies of the court captive.” He broke off at the sound of a scream inside. “My God, what is he doing? We must hurry.”

“No Captain, wait. I think I know what is happening. I will enter first,” Elizabeth said with as much authority as she could muster.

“I cannot…” the captain protested.

However, Elizabeth was already pushing through the door and quickly closed it behind her. Inside she found the ladies of the court in various states of undress running around like beheaded chickens. There were many bare legs and even bare bottoms on show, although most were still mostly still clad.

In the middle of this melee was Krampus, at present holding the Lord Chamberlain’s wife over his knee and belabouring her bare bottom with a fresh birch rod. From the look of the angry purple-streaked stain on her naked rounds he had been thrashing her for some time. The poor woman was weeping and wailing as she kicked and struggled under the assault.

It was then that Elizabeth noticed several of the other women were sobbing pitifully and massaging their well whipped bottoms. All-in-all almost half the women of the court had been punished and the rest knew they were doomed.

Elizabeth for her part doubled over laughing, this was better than she intended all along and even if Krampus seized her again in the punitive mayhem she would accept that as the consequence of justice well served.

Then she remembered her sister and cousin. They, it seemed, had escaped and Elizabeth sighed in frustration.

“Mr Krampus, you have let two get away,” she called out.

Krampus dropped the sobbing Chamberlain’s wife to the floor and gave her a grin. “No one escapes Krampus; I will attend to all here before I move on to the rest of the kingdom. By Yule only the virtuous will be sitting for their festive supper,” he chuckled.

“All before Yule,” Elizabeth said doubtfully.

“Oh yes, time waits for no man, but he waits for me. Do you think the warriors outside are not mustering? To them they are but moments from affecting a rescue; but in here hours will yet pass as I deal out justice,” the demon told her with a wink.

Elizabeth curtsied to the creature and asked, “Have you finished with me or shall form the others into an orderly queue and then join it?”

“I am done with you… for now,” he grinned adding with a mocking bow, “Your highness. Why don’t you watch the fun?”

Elizabeth grinned. She believed she would.

*

The chaos had receded and now there was a line of bare-bottomed women all facing the wall in various degrees of misery. All had glowing red bottoms, but only half were crying. Elizabeth doubted that any of them would sit down for at least a week and that justice had well and truly served.

The last three girls had given up fleeing and now stood in a huddle watching a fourth turned over Krampus’s knee had getting the spanking of her life. Elizabeth knew the girl to be the proud and haughty daughter of the provincial lords sent to court for an education. Well she was certainly getting educated today, the princess chuckled to herself.

The girl, Dagmar, if Elizabeth remembered her name correctly, was bawling like the brat she was and kicked her legs in time to the various and several lashes that stung her bare bottom, which by now was hot, red raw and very, very sore.

The other unspanked women looked on nervously, but made no further attempt to flee, so that once Dagmar was set on her feet and sent to face the wall next to the line of other women, the next girl draped herself across Krampus’s lap almost willingly.

“That’s the way,” Krampus chuckled and began lashing the girl’s bare bottom with vigour.

It took another half an hour of subjective time for Krampus to finish the whipping last three girls and Elizabeth watched in glee as each one took her place facing the wall next to the elegant line of pert bare and very sore bottoms on parade there. Then it was over.

Just then the doors burst open and guards rushed in with a shout and brandished their swords at Krampus.

The demon only laughed and danced around; eluding each slashing sword until at last he leapt onto the window ledge and appeared to jump away.

“Summon the garrison, search the grounds,” the captain was yelling and most of the guards retreated back through the gates to join the pursuit.

“Ladies, I hope you all learned a lesson,” Elizabeth said brightly, “I suggest you don’t move until someone tells you too,” she added with a chuckle.

“What did we do?” Dagmar sniffed as her small soft hands massaged her very sore bottom.

“Oh I think you know, I think you all do. All those little sins that you hoped no one would find out about,” Elizabeth wagged her finger.

Several of the women bit their lips ruefully and remembered. The Lady Chamberlain even nodded her head sagely. None dared move from facing the wall, leaving a row of bare bottoms on display to amuse the guards and returning male courtiers. No one in authority had yet to think of telling them to cover their sore bottoms or to leave the chamber.

Finally satisfied, Elizabeth left them all too it and went to her rooms for a bath.

*

With Krampus apparently gone and the King still out looking for his eldest daughter, the castle was quiet. Elizabeth had luxuriated in a long hot bath and was now draped in a silk robe and reading a courtly romance.

The demon, she supposed, was out in the countryside seeking out naughty wenches and spanking them soundly for their seasonal sins. No doubt he would return and she just knew her own bottom would burn as it should, but at least justly this time. Perhaps once again before Yule, but certainly before next, she thought ruefully.

She remembered the rod stinging her bottom at the cave and where it was now. Would she really be compelled by magic to surrender it to a future husband, she wondered? She winced in anticipation. Justice was so hard on a lady’s bottom.

Just the she heard a squeal and then another. Surely not, she thought and gathered up a heavy velvet robe to cover herself. Them making her way down the passage she approached her sister’s chambers and saw the door ajar.

From inside were yelps and yells and the unmistakable sound of the thwick-swosh-thwack of a birch rod meeting bare flesh. Peering around the door Elizabeth was not surprised to see Astrid and Ingrid kneel bare-bottomed side-by-side on Ingrid’s bed while Krampus stood behind them and birched them soundly.

“I see you have come back,” Elizabeth chuckled.

“I told you I would,” the demon laughed.

Ingrid looked back over her shoulder, her face a picture of utter woe and begged Elizabeth to stop him.

The elder woman could see tears, henceforth a stranger to her little sister’s face, were now streaming down her cheeks and chin while the girl wailed and cried out. As well she might given the utter purple-red devastation being wrought at her other end. In fact both bottoms looked exceedingly sore and the small welts and grazes marring the skin seemed tender enough to almost garner little welts of their own.

“When I marry I shall pull rank,” Elizabeth said gleefully, “And these two bottoms will burn weekly until they learn some respect.”

“Oh, oh, please cousin, stop him,” Astrid sobbed.

“Perhaps,” Elizabeth said absently as she studied the punitive tapestry being wrought on her cousin’s pert bare bottom. “But it is good practice, for I mean what I say and if you won’t submit to my rod, I shall find a groom or a soldier to spank you oh so soundly.”

Neither Astrid or Ingrid were listening by this point as the Krampus gleefully went to work.

“They are so much naughtier than you,” Krampus laughed, “This could take hours.”

“Oh it could,” Elizabeth agreed and settled down in a chair to watch.

to be continued…

Began here.

The castle had been quiet for hours. By the time the captain of the guard heard of any commotion in the royal apartments, Krampus had long since gone and the once sobbing princesses within the chamber had long since cried themselves to sleep; face down on their beds, of course.

Elizabeth half-expected Krampus to come calling on her once more, for she knew she would see him again, if not this Christmas, but the next. Still she could not sleep and opened a book or two before setting the aside. The night was dark and the candles were not up to the task.

It was then that she heard horses in the courtyard and the cries of sentries. Finally her father King Mark had returned and all was well.

Elizabeth, who had yet to get undressed for bed, rose from her chair by the window and with all the dignity due her position rose and went to greet him.

She got no further than the top of the staircase when her father strode into the main hall like a god embracing the world.

“Good evening majesty,” she said formerly and made a deep curtsy on the landing halfway down.

Mark did not pause in his stride but bounded up the stairs and embraced his eldest like a bear.

“My God, you are safe,” he gasped.

He held her tightly for a moment too long before royal decorum was regained.

“I am sorry father… I lost my horse in the forest or else…” she explained, somewhat caught up with emotion.

“I ought to whip you soundly until you can’t sit down for a week,” Mark blurted, but his eyes were both smiling and pooled with tears.

“Yes you should father, and not just for that. I have been a bad daughter and I think it is time that I grew up,” Elizabeth said breathlessly.

Mark nodded and folded his arms sternly. “Not to night I think, come and see me tomorrow… we will have words,” he warned.

Elizabeth curtsied and scurried off to bed with far less dignity than she had come.

As Mark watched her go her shook his head indulgently and smiled. The girl was a woman, or near. That husband he spoke of was overdue, if only for the good of the realm. Then he noticed the captain anxiously wringing his hands, brows arched in woe.

“Tell me,” the King sighed.

Before bed he heard tales of intruders and birched maidens and yuletide magic. A prankster no doubt and one that had done no real harm, he told them. But as he went to bed he wondered if his daughter’s demeanour and much changed attitude might not be linked to this strange visitor.

*

The next day Elizabeth found her father in his inner chamber. As she entered she felt like a small naughty child again; indeed her demeanour screamed it.

“Lizzie,” he sighed, “What am I to do with you?”

He had not called her Lizzie for years and she relaxed; her expression soft. Still she resisted running to him for a hug.

“Shall I send for rods and a whipping stool?” she said bravely.

He noticed she did not suggest they adjourn to the hall where such things were already on hand.

“It would serve you right if I did,” he chuckled.

“I suppose it would,” she said ruefully.

It had been days now since her thrashing from Krampus and her bottom, smooth and white beneath her skirts, was no longer so sanguine about another dose of rod.

“It seems the ladies of the court have all opted to stand at breakfast, even your sister and cousin, although I gather they escaped the debacle in the great hall,” Mark watched her reaction carefully.

“Yes father,” Elizabeth averted her gaze and licked her lips.

“You wouldn’t know anything about this?” he pressed her.

His daughter made a face and looked everywhere but at him. “I might,” she ventured softly.

“I think you had better tell me everything,” he sighed.

The story was long and detailed and as Elizabeth warmed to her tail, she forgot to whom she was talking and became ever eager. When she reached the part about her second encounter with Marta the King roared with laughter, but his principle mirth was reserved for the thrashing of the Lord Chamberlain’s wife and the ladies of the court, which he already gleaned but had not had such detail.

“For so much mischief it seems I really should send for a rod,” he said when she was done, but he was still smiling. Then he asked, “Tell me, do you still have Krampus’s gift?”

Elizabeth nodded.

“Do you think it will work?” he asked.

“I am afraid that it will,” she said with a woeful wince.

“That should tame you, you little brat,” he chuckled and then on impulse he seized her and upended her across his lap. “A little too much mischief to go completely unpunished,” he said.

In a trice Elizabeth’s skirts were turned up and her bottom was bared to his stinging hand.

“Ooh, ow, ouch,” Elizabeth exclaimed, but sting as it did, she supposed she deserved it. Nevertheless, as her bottom got hot a red that was certainly no consolation.

“It has been a long time since you got a good sound spanking like this you little hoyden,” his voice was stern now, but edged in amusement.

Elizabeth chewed her lip in an attempt not to cry out too much as she tried to remember her last spanking like this. “Not since mother,” she lisped.

Mark paused and nodded. “She would stay my birching arm and then take you to her chambers and spank your bottom forge hot-until you almost wished I had birched you,” he said absently as her remembered his late wife’s faux mercy when it came to spanking the girls.

“Almost,” Elizabeth agreed and the first of the tears began.

Her father tipped her over a little more and pumped down with his arm in great satisfying spanks. There was no room to become maudlin, he decided, this was going to be a spanking to remember.

“Please Daddy,” she squealed, as much in acknowledgement of his efforts as a bid for mercy.

The 20 minute spanking lasted a week in Elizabeth’s mind and by the time it was over she was ready for a good cry.

“You may go and stand in the corner,” Mark sighed once he was done.

“Yes Daddy,” she whimpered and moved to obey. For once she did not need telling to keep her skirts up in back and her hot bare bottom mooned the room, as it would for another hour.

Before he left he looked upon her with affection. “Have I been too hard on you?” he asked.

“Not today Sir,” she answered.

“I mean…” he struggled to find the words.

“Not ever sir, I have failed you I think. I unleashed the Krampus for justice, even if I was looking for revenge, but that anger was never directed at you,” she said thoughtfully.

“Yes, but I think I have been too soft on your sister and that cousin of yours,” he replied sternly. “That will change.”

“Perhaps I can help you there?” Elizabeth ventured.

“Perhaps you can,” King Mark chuckled, “But for now, keep your nose in that corner, even if a maid she happen in, understand me?”

“Yes Sir,” she said ruefully.

Then he was gone.

*

The season came and went and despite distant rumours of ladies throughout the land being accosted and birched, no real harm was done by the Krampus and no great alarm went up. By the time the mid-winter feasting was over the Krampus was all but forgotten.

“No more reports of this Krampus,” King Mark asked the Chamberlain come spring time.

“Who Majesty?” the man seemed genuinely puzzled.

“Oh nothing,” Mark shrugged, scarcely able to remember what he had just asked.

Only Elizabeth truly remembered, or at least so it seemed. She rather suspected that one or two ladies at court were keeping their thoughts to themselves. So it was time past and at her father’s behest a dozen suitors came to court seeking her hand.

“I will marry any you say Sir,” she told her father.

“Hmm, I was rather hoping for enthusiasm than that,” he sighed. “Do none of the young men intrigue you at all?”

Elizabeth, who had pondered over some of the older greying lords, shook her head. “Not really,” she said crinkling up her nose. It was true. She had only considered the older men because of the Krampus’s curse. It seemed easier to accept a spanking from an older man, if indeed she hadn’t been duped by the old goat-demon. Was the rod he had given her really magical?

“Well think on,” Mark said gently, “There are many more. Now that you are showing the right attitude there is no need to rush.”

Elizabeth curtsied and they both went about their business.

But business for Elizabeth was a walk in the rose garden. The day was pleasant enough and she chanced upon a gardener burning waste on the lawn. Spring had sprung and the Krampus spell was broken. Within a year she would be lady of her own house. She came to a decision.

Summoning a maid she sent her to fetch the birch rod in her chamber and told her to bring it to her. Elizabeth gazed at the cleansing flames. She was done with the season and done with Krampus. Justice had been served and it was time for a new beginning.

The maid came swiftly and handed the rod to her mistress timorously, in case it was intended for her own bottom. But mercifully the girl was dismissed, leaving the princess by the fire with a rod.

“What are you going to do with that?” a smooth male voice asked from behind her.

Elizabeth whirled around in annoyance to dismiss the youth but something stopped her.

The man was not especially handsome, and to her mind he was a little old. Perhaps being slightly over 30. But he had kind-fierce eyes that held her gaze and a majestic mane of dark hair. His jaw too had the set of a warrior.

“You are…?” she said more sharply than she meant.

“Heinrich, Prince Heinrich of the Lowlands, if it please you highness,” he said in a firm voice. His eyes never left her and he did not bow more than was necessary among equals.

Elizabeth ran an eye of his firm thighs well-formed in his soldier’s breeks. He was broad too at shoulder and she felt her mouth go dry.

“The rod, why do you need that?” Heinrich asked her again.

Elizabeth swallowed. She had an overwhelming urge to hand the bundle of twigs to this man.

“I…” she licked her lips, amazed at the sensation of butterflies in her tummy. “I am going to give it to my future husband,” she told him.

“Indeed, will he need it?” the prince smiled.

“I fear he will, for I am rather headstrong,” she admitted, mortified that she would say such a thing to a stranger.

“Then you are wise indeed, I wish more ladies were so self-aware,” Heinrich said approvingly, “Who is to be your husband?”

“Eh… I am not sure, I haven’t met all the suitors yet,” she blushed.

“Oh indeed you have,” the prince contradicted her and this time he bowed formally. “I have been keeping track. I wanted to be the last. After all, it was only fair to give the competition a chance.”

Elizabeth laughed and Heinrich joined in.

*

The wedding was in the autumn and all in the kingdom who were of any account came to wish them well.

Unseen by most, the near yard long birch rod was secreted in a sturdy box and placed among the gift portion allotted to Prince Heinrich. He had paid no heed to the story of the Krampus and knew that if his wife needed a spanking then a spanking she would get and no magic would be needed.

Nevertheless on their wedding night Elizabeth once again retrieved the gift and got on her knees offered it to her new husband.

“It is rather severe for your delicate bottom,” he chuckled as he gave the rod a swish.

Elizabeth trembled, her tummy turned over and she craved the idea of crawling to him on hands and knees. Damn you Krampus, she thought, but she did not mean it just then, just then she wanted darker things.

“I don’t understand,” Heinrich said as hefted the rod, you have done nothing wrong.

Elizabeth panted softly. “I need you to put me in my place and show me you are my master.”

Heinrich frowned and then to test the jest he extended the rod to her face and watched her kiss it.

“Then bare yourself,” he said and watched in astonishment as she crawled to the bed and slipping from her gown lay face down upon it. Then slowly she raised her hips until her bare bottom was thrust upwards and inviting.

“I will be cruel,” he said breathlessly and tickled her flesh with the withes as he drew near.

“Yes,” she gasped.

to be continued…

Began here.

The party to celebrate the nuptials of the year was winding down. Most of the guests had already retired to bed and the few that remained were deep in their cups exchanging nonsense and tales of exaggerated glories.

Only the servants remained halfway alert and the few of those that had not been dismissed by the steward stood yawning and longing for bed before the sun showed its face and it was time again to rise.

The shrill screams from the bridal suite shook them to alertness. A few of the pages exchanged grins, being young enough to presume that the cries were of a deflowered maiden. But one of the matrons was concerned enough to consider rousing the king.

Then another wail reassured her. For this one was led by a brittle thwack and the sound of birch on bottom was not to be mistaken. It seems the king’s daughter was in need of taming and Heinrich of the Lowlands was the man to do it the wisest of the women supposed.

For a few long moments there was only the sound of a steady bite of rod on the princess’s naked behind, but then she again announced another sustained impact with a plaintiff wail.

She was taking it well, the senior serving wench judged, for there was no panic in the screams and certainly no begging; not yet. Although it was to be hoped that she would not be too defiant. It was only meet that she should not be too proud.

Within the chamber Elizabeth’s groan was unearthly as the rod stung her bare bottom for perhaps the twentieth time. Already her up thrust curves were red raw and gently scarred by searing instrument of justice, each bite of which burned her seat and soul.

No more, she quietly quailed, both praying for mercy and hoping for a true bastard; as divided in herself as the bottom was split by the tender fire-stung cleft of her rounds.

Heinrich was lost in mastery, his manhood rampant and now freed from his breeches, as naked he lorded it over his wife’s proffered hindquarters. Duty demanded that he take her, but it occurred to him that she should beg for that privilege, perhaps after surrender her other virginities.

Finally the lashing stopped while the prince regarded the heavy russet stained bottom and his manhood strained to burst. Elizabeth was tearful and panting, but her behind was still presented defiantly and she had made no claim for mercy.

“I cannot stop,” he said huskily, it was almost true.

“You have no need,” she replied breathlessly, “You can do anything you want to me, anything.” Her mouth hung open as wantonly as her eyes as her needs overawed her wants.

“Anything? You have no idea what dark dreams…” he could scarce breathe himself.

“Anything,” she begged.

“You cannot know…” he protested, digging deep to reclaim his restraint.

“Oh God, anything,” it was a frustrated sob now.

The thrashing resumed with gusto and in a few moments he had recaptured the fire and set her clawing at the sheets. It was an age before he adjudged her bottom could take little more and then casting the rod aside he fell upon her, taking her first naturally as duty demanded and then as she shrieked in pleasure, withdrew his dew-dripped root and placed it unnaturally as his lust demanded.

“God, oh God, you bastard,” she cried, hardly herself as she bit into the pillow.

“I must thrash you some more,” he told her as he exploded within her.

“I know,” she said and clung to him shedding tears of surrender and contentment.

“Then after more of the same you will get on your knees and…” he said urgently, lost in the magic of it.

“Yes, yes, but is that all,” she said lightly and allowed a teasing smile to play about her lips.

He whispered erotic threats into her ear and watched her eyes widen. At last she does not set the pace, he thought.

“Oh my,” she whispered.

*

The yuletide season was again upon them and Elizabeth sighed frantic notes and accounts set against the orders needed for the preparations. It amused her that both Ingrid and Astrid stood facing the wall with their skirts raised to show the marks of a recent thrashing at Elizabeth’s own hands. Not an unusual occurrence these days, but no less satisfying for that.

At times in recent months Elizabeth had spanked and birched the girls whilst nursing her own sore bottom. Not that they would know that. But it amused the older woman to observe that while her young sister and cousin bemoaned their inability to sit down, they failed to notice their chastisers own reluctance to settle upon a chair.

Still it had been weeks now. Heinrich was away at war and doing well it seemed. He was in no great danger and it was hoped he would return for Christmas. Then he would demand of her that she confess all her crimes so that he might put her in her place.

“If you trust me so little then why not have me fitted for a chastity belt,” she had suggested before he left.

“I hardly think…” he had begunn, but seeing his wife’s eyebrows arched suggestively he became stern. “This time I must trust you, but any mischief while I am away and next time you will bound in steel where it will do you the most good and expect it to prick you well in certain places.”

They embraced passionately, both secretly wondering if they were mad. So long ago now.

God she missed him. She eyed again the two hapless women she had punished and decided that they would suffer more tomorrow, perhaps this time before the court.

“You can remain as you are until bedtime,” Elizabeth said and retired to her own chamber.

It was dark and she pondered the bed before electing to light a candle. She would read a little before sleep.

“Good evening your highness,” said a baritone voice from the shadows.

Startled Elizabeth leapt back before she made out the demonic goat grinning at her. “Krampus,” she gasped.

He bowed.

“Why are you here?” she demanded.

“It is the season and you, as my patron, so to speak, will have the honour first,” he told her.

“The honour?” she was puzzled.

Krampus held up the rod. “I have no other plans until dawn,” he said.

Elizabeth gulped. “Actual dawn or one of your near infinite nights?” she asked, cowed by the sight of the birchen whip.

“Whichever is longest,” Krampus shrugged.

*

The dawn was a very long time coming and by then Elizabeth wondered if she would ever sit down again. The tears shed could have floated a laden cog, but at least she felt cleaned. Nor was she pining for Heinrich’s rod and she suspected she would not again for a few days yet.

To add to her indignity Krampus had sent her to the corner for a good cry and then sat back until the sun had fully risen before he bade her farewell.

Taking one last look at her exposed sore bottom he said, “Holly Berry red, it suits you,” and chuckled.

“You said I was the first of the new Season?” Elizabeth sniffed.

“Yes?” Krampus answered, as he mouthed the window ledge to make good his escape.

“Then you are finished with me?” she asked hopefully.

“For this Christmas,” he laughed, “See you next year.”

End

The line drawing by Malteste is taken from the Petite Dactylo (the little typist), which was a spanking novella by Pierre Dumarchey, published under the name of Sadie Blackeyes. The heroine of the novel suffers a series of misadventures, most ending with a spanking or a birching.

Whether or not it was grounded in reality is doubtful, yet there does seem to be an age when typists and secretaries were punished.

As reported here before, whilst at college as part of my course I trained in shorthand and typing under a woman of the old school. This was the 1980s and the 50-something woman had mostly taught office workers since the 1950s when she had received her own training.  When confronted with a student who hadn’t put the work in or hadn’t done their homework (we were learning T-Line at the time), then she would often remark that we were lucky it wasn’t like the old days.

She was heard to mutter in her Glaswegian accent, “Back in the day a girl would get a few swipes of the stick across their backsides for less.”

She didn’t elucidate but it seems up until the 1960s it was common for trainee typists and secretaries to experience a good spanking or even the cane. Of course in those days these trainees were invariably women.

I have written about this before and have read various accounts of CP at adult typing schools up until the 1970s. I remember two women, one trained in the late 1950s and the other the early 1970s, comparing notes about getting the cane at secretarial college.

Both thought it was no big deal. The first said it was a formal thing with a formal note. She had to bend over in an office and get about eight strokes on the seat of her skirt, although she had heard that other girls had been caned on the knickers, including one who had worn trousers to class.

The other said it was unofficial and that she was caned a couple of times rather than get a formal warning, but essential she too got eight on the seat of her skirt.

In another discussion one woman who trained in the 1940s ventured that she had been caned twice on the bare bottom for wasting paper and on a separate occasion for getting a typewriter ribbon tangled. This, she said, because of rationing immediately after the War being a very serious problem and that such mistakes would get you sacked in a real office.

Following on from this I found an article (I think from Forum magazine) on Google reader.

This was about ‘blue-stockings’ and flappers in the 1920s and 30s who were trying to break into business and journalism. Well-to-do women of all classes saw typing and business schools as a way of breaking into a man’s world. Being tough and seen to be tough was an important to them and the prevailing attitude was ‘taking it like a man.’

Ironically, it seems unlikely that young business men were ever caned by anyone, yet serious minded independent girls of the interwar era seemed to have shrugged off corporal punishment as a price to pay or a rite of passage.

Caning before the Second World War in these environments seems to have be rather fiercer and tended to applied to the bare bottom.

One Rose Fenton-Barnes reported, “I had been called into the office several times before by Mrs C-J, all rather bothersome, but I can’t say it wasn’t entirely without merit. This time I was told off right royally and then asked to take up my skirts and so forth. I thought it all a bit grisly when she got out the dreadful stick. Then she told me to take down the necessary and bend over the back of her chair. I didn’t count, but I must have received 15 strokes or more. Jolly well hurt and my tail end looked chopped liver after. Of course I didn’t cry until I was in the ladies room, but I couldn’t sit down for a few days. That was the first time and very much not the last. Those things didn’t get any easier.”

Amy JK wrote of her experience back in the 1930s. “We had a dreadful dragon. One word from her and you would be shaking in your boots. There were always girls going in and out of her office: wide-eyed a terrified going in and usually crying and rubbing their bottoms when they came out.”

“I was one of those girls at least a dozen times. After a dressing down it was bottom bare and bend. No set number of strokes, just fast and cutting swipes until I cried. I couldn’t stand still after, but I was told to dress and get out.”

“It was straight back to our desks in that dreadful room with 20 girls clattering away on their exercises. Hard to sit or concentrate, I can tell you, but a good preparation for work.”

Imagine a world where the spanking agenda was everywhere. Think of times and places where BDSM and its relations informed many of the choices and infused many of the people who dwell there.

That world is not only here and now, but it has been forever, if you but know where to look. Looking back over cuttings and stored articles the pattern suddenly reveals itself. Prurience hides in plain sight.

In my school days the literature presented was liberally littered with spanking references, many lovingly described. Of course it was often boys who were caned and beaten. One school book had a graphic picture of a young Churchill being caned to rags taken from a drama at the time. References to girls getting spanked or caned were gold, but not uncommon.

These few snippets were taken from Google Reader that was not at all unlike some of the passages back in the day

I was late and Father was really quite vexed about it. On top of that the rain did rather spoil the picnic, not to say the tennis. It was all quite a bore.

‘What the tennis?’ Deidre asked.

‘No’ I confided, ‘Father of course.’

‘What did he say?’

‘Say? Not an awful lot, but a quick slippering to where he hoped it would do the most good did most of the talking for him.’

‘Oh my gosh did hurt?’

“Well yes, but my dignity suffered more.’

“Oh why?’ Deidre was grinning at me, ‘Did he take your under things down?’

Well I wasn’t going to admit to that and suggested we sat down for some tea before I remembered that I would rather not sit at all just then.

Flappers, as we can presume they were, were not the only gals getting spanked. There is a brief scene in many of the books I read. King Rat has a girl caned on the bare bottom. I also remember a colonial girl getting so soundly caned that two chapters later she laments that she still cannot sit a horse.

Still on the subject of horses, a TV version of Black Beauty back in the 1970s has our 20-sometrhing heroine firmly grounded and sentenced to two weeks of chores for defying her father in order to save the day. In a brief scene where she explains her plight to a friend she is seen massaging her bottom in the yard. The housekeeper comes out to scold her and threatens to spank her like her father did. She is clearly embarrassed by the reminder, having omitted that part in her story. But she replies, “Oh don’t, I think father already has more of that in mind.”

TV was awash with spanking in those days, none of it up front and sexual. McKlintock! Was routine fare and hardly a Saturday afternoon movie was complete without the heroine getting a spanking. In those days it wasn’t only necessary for a hero to spank, but it was cool.

In a scene from a Chicago gangster tale a hoodlum is spanking a would-be prostitute on the bare bottom when the police raid.

“Hey, hey leave that and come with us see,” the cop tried to make with the tough.

I could see half a dozen of them through the door all waiting. So I tells him that the whore ain’t no whore but a runaway I was just putting straight. By this time the girl was bawling and sporting a shiny apple-red tail end. At this the cop grinned and told me to carry on while the others all laughed. One of them even offered me his belt, which I took. No sense in leaving the job half done and in any case it was kind of fun.

Nor was it just fictional cops with this sense of ‘justice.’

In the 1980s a British senior police chief serving Greater Manchester commenting on youth crime said give me a birch and I will tan the bare arses of these little misters and madams myself. He went onto describe in great detail how these youths could be strapped down while he gathered a large judicial birch and ply it to their backsides until they cry for their mummies, until they bleed if it is needed. Are these really the words of a judicial zealot or did he have another agenda of perhaps even he was not aware?

Around the same time a mother of seven, by then mainly grown up children, lamented the decline in corporal punishment and said she had not hesitated to spank her four daughters and three sons when they needed it. Interviewed on early evening BBC TV, she sat with one of her older daughters and both expounded and expanded on her theme. A slipper or hairbrush was her preferred choice of weapon, but warming to her theme she said that a stick was sometimes required.

She explained that a dutiful daughter (or in past times son) would cooperate and would submit to a bare bottom spanking. And how old is too old? The daughter (perhaps 20-years-old) said “It depends.” As a student still living at home was she still liable to get a spanking, the reporter asked?

“Oh yes,” she replied with pride as her mother nodded in satisfaction.

And what about for a daughter not living at home, she was asked? The daughter continued to look amused, if slightly embarrassed.

“Well by then it is hardly necessary, not often anyway,” the mother reassured the TV audience. “My oldest daughter is 27,” she added in a seeming non sequitur.

And when did she last spank her?

“Hmmm, not so long ago,” came the reply. The daughter giggled.

The mother appeared in many TV chat shows and even a documentary for a while after that. The TV executives must have developed a profound interest in youth behaviour by then or did they have another motive?

Some years ago another blog ran a feature on a strange and rare 1941 mainstream Gene Autre western called the Singing Hill. The movie in question was a cheesy musical of no particular note but at its denouement it features a spanking scene.

The unusual thing was that the heroine was not only the boss but is she who requests the spanking claiming that it was ranch tradition. Her friend and female employee supports this and admits that although she hasn’t had a spanking for a while her last spanking had been ‘doosey,’

In the end the spanking is off camera although we do see the heroine sitting on an overlarge cushion on her saddle and wincing as they cowboys sing the closing number. (pictured left)

I did a follow up feature that expanded on this tradition slightly with pictures from a 1960s rodeo where random girls are spanked by cowboys. This does seem to be a thing.

While we were away I dug up this anecdote.

Shelley wrote on Life Forum.

“Back in the 80s during my summer vacation from college I took a job on a dude ranch. I like horses and a big part of the job was riding the spare horses when there were not enough guests to take them out.

There were all kinds of odd traditions and hazing with the job, mostly eating hot peppers or getting thrown in the creek, riding horses backwards with a dumb hat on and other stuff. Because we had to get up real early there were forfeits for the last two girls out of bed. We had to get up by 5.30 but I didn’t know that this was the latest you could get up so my first week I was roused to find that everyone else but one other girl had been up over an hour.

We were given a choice of a spanking or cleaning the stables out naked. We both chose the spanking thinking it was just a little hazing thing like had already happened. Man were we wrong. We both had to take our strides and panties down and go over senior hands (a woman) knee for a good solid sound spanking on the bare while everyone laughed. This was just other girls, not guests or male staff, but it was tear-making and so embarrassing. My butt was as red as a fire truck after.

I was only up late a couple of more times after that, both times I stripped naked to shovel out the stalls.

Spanking came up a few times. All us newbies got a spanking on the seat of our pants and a couple of girls got spanked for real punishment stuff. But there was a bet once between two senior girls. I don’t remember the bet, but the winner got to spank the loser like a newbie only she had her ass bared.”

If I can find that movie I will repost the link.

You probably know that the so-called Easter Bunny wasn’t a rabbit, but a hare. You probably know too that this hare is a manifestation of an Anglo-Saxon/Northern European Pagan goddess called variously Ostara, Oestre or Eostre (spellings vary), which gave its name to what Christians in North Western Europe later called Easter.

The pagan festival of Ostara, in honour of the goddess, unlike the Christian festival which took its name, generally coincides with the equinox. That usually happens on the 21^st March, but as it happens this year took place yesterday.

As is often been discussed, here and elsewhere, the Christian hijacked the pagan tradition because it was a challenge to nascent Christian values, as defined by the medieval converts, and was both too sexual and altogether too dark for the prevailing sensitivity.

At such times light and dark are in balance and themes or renewal, mating, sex and sexual dominance are explored in both man(kind) and nature. From Cornwall to Eastern Europe traditions prevail, where men brandishing sticks (or in some cases balloons) attempt to swat a passing maiden. These pagan rites were carried out in plain sight whilst disapproving priests looked on.

From the earliest times flagellation was often associated with fertility and sometimes this was done in earnest. In times and places women were stripped to be flogged in the name of the gods, and of course they had to (no doubt reluctantly) comply. Once naked and whipped, they were ready for whatever followed. If not, they could flee like the hare, caught only if they so desired.

So too the goddess took this form, fleeing from male mastery, for few can catch the hare and less she so desired. Of course to be caught and switched on the bottom before seduction by the god was her destiny and desire. So goes the cycle of life.

This begs the question, if the goddess is ascendant and this is her true desire, then who is chasing whom?

There is a 1960s film depicting the times, sadly the name escapes me, where a comely girl teases a boy saying, “If you can catch me, you can spank me.”

He replies, “If I catch you I will do more than that.”

She grins and runs, yelling, “You will have to spank me first.” The capture is never in doubt.

One Victorian parson writing in the 1850s (it may have been Kilvert) seems to chuckle at the village hussy being chased down ‘to receive stripes to her nether person,’ even if ‘such rough play oft go too far with the rending of gowns and the baring of too much flesh.’

It is no wonder the Christians were so suspicious of the true Easter. While the public fun was limited to a harmless spanking or at worse a bare bottom switching. Later in the bushes and after the consumption of much ale the young were apt to have sex outside of marriage. This was a usurpation of their primary purpose; the control of marriage and the property that went with it.

Finally caught: Conceptual dark photography by Olia Pishchanska

Part one here

The gown chosen for her was of tightly drawn velvet over another corset. As she entered the great hall where the nobility had gathered for breakfast, she noted that most of the women wore headdress and gowns that covered their shoulders. Tzara realised that her naked shoulders and freely hanging hair was a mark of a courtesan and she blushed. All the same, she felt free and at last she could see some of the other characters of this world.

There were three tables set out as a large T-shape. The smallest, forming the cross piece was nearest the fire and had both the most food and the most table decorations. The second table set at right angles to this was almost as well decorated but the occupants sitting there were less finely dressed.

The third was full of young men and soldiers still in chain mail. There were no women at this table and the food was rather more basic.

This left Tzara with a problem. Scanning the empty seats, she had no idea which was hers or what table she should sit at. Galen was sitting in the high seat in the middle of the small table, but he had an elaborately dressed man at his right and well-covered rather demure older woman in a yellow silk gown to his left. Nonetheless, there were one or two obvious courtesans at the table and at least one empty chair.

That presented Tzara with her next problem. Her freshly scrubbed bottom still burned beneath her dress and given that she had had to stand to have her face made-up by Maria, she was pretty sure that she was still unable to sit down at all.

Then Galen spotted her and shot a glance at a vacant space on the bench facing him at his table.

Great, Tzara thought, and steeled herself. Then with careful steps she glided across the floor to the space between a man in a sombre, but nonetheless expensive looking frock coat and a woman with red hair who was obviously another courtesan.

“May I?” she asked as she approached.

The man sneered and continued to chew delicately on a drumstick. However, the woman smiled and silently bid Tzara to sit.

“I don’t suppose there is a cushion?” Tzara said ruefully.

The woman smirked and glanced at the back of Tzara’s gown. “Did someone displease her master?” she chuckled.

Tzara blushed and made a pout.

“It happens to the best of us,” the woman said in a friendly tone and turned and patted Tzara’s arm. Then she turned and signalled a maid. “I am Lucinda,” she told Tzara and motioned that she should stand and wait. Then after to some whispered words to the maid she loudly praised the food and made a recommendation as if that was what they had been talking about.

The cushion arrived discretely and although it did not exactly end the problem, Tzara sat on it with a wince and no small amount of gratitude.

“Who is you master?” Lucinda asked.

Tzara bristled but then remembered the game. “Lord Galen,” she said and glanced over at him.

“Ah,” Lucinda said, “All becomes clear.”

“It does?” Tzara winced again as she tried to settle on the cushion. In the end she had to use one hand to share some of the weight.

“He is a bit uncompromising, but you are in good hands and are now of high status,” Lucinda said reassuringly.

Tzara tried to look grateful but it was the food that concerned her at that moment. Never before had she felt hungry in a program. She wondered if she even needed sustenance, after all her body was in stasis.

“Do you belong to Lord Galen too?” Tzara was amazed at how she could even ask such a thing.

Lucinda laughed demurely has she had been trained. Then she shot a sidewise glance at the man in the sombre dress to Tzara’s left. “I am the noble Karl’s woman,” she said, adding in a whisper, “He is the Lord Chamberlain you know.” She seemed proud of this fact.

“And does he beat you?” Tzara asked in a disgruntled tone.

Lucinda smiled indulgently. “I get a jolly good spanking now and then, sometimes I even deserve them,” she said in a hushed tone. “I wouldn’t expect anything less.” Then she shrugged resignedly.

“And do you get the pleasure of a night in the dungeon too?” Tzara snarled out of the side of her mouth.

Lucinda tut-tutted and smiled wanly. “My, you must have been a naughty girl,” she said, “But since you ask… well not that often, once or twice ever if I am honest.” She sounded almost disappointed. Then she glanced at Tzara’s uncomfortable seating arrangement and rolled her eyes. “Although I have had to stand for breakfast more than once,” she added conspiratorially. “You have no idea how many times I have had to stand in the corner after a spanking,” she said ruefully, “That one during a public meal…” she sighed as she shot a glance at the corner to the right, “…more than once.” She was blushing.

Tzara gaped and her heart raced. She had no doubt that Galen would do the same to her if she continued to be defiant.

For the next few minutes both women were content to eat in silence, especially Tzara who would far rather enjoy the incredible meal that speculate on fresh tortures. Then she asked her new friend. “Do you know what my duties will be?”

Lucinda looked askance and for a second was lost for words.

“I mean…” Tzara was feeling a little foolish.

“You mean apart from sucking his cock?” Lucinda asked hopefully, surely the woman was not that innocent?

“Yes, apart from that,” Tzara said quickly. She had guessed as much, but it was disconcerting to hear it in such vulgar terms.

“I hear he is fond of the narrower road,” Lucinda put in mischievously. “Under your contract there are few limits,” the woman shrugged, “So mayhap most things are in store. But Lord Galen is not particularly partial to… some of the stranger games.” Her last words were said delicately and whispered as she glanced at her master.

Tzara followed her gaze and wondered what perversion Lucinda had suffered. Then turning back she said, “But he will… beat me?”

Lucinda laughed and clapped her hands. “Like all women in this world, not least those of our profession, your bottom will suffer often and at length,” she seemed genuinely amused.

“A dog, a woman and a walnut tree…” the Lord Chamberlain said absently, revealing that he had been listening after all.

“Indeed my lord,” Lucinda agreed ruefully. “Am I to be punished later?” she asked him in a hushed voice.

“Oh my beloved concubine following our little talk after breakfast, you are not going to be able to sit down for a week.” Karl did not even look around as he spoke.

Lucinda made a face and looked at Tzara for a hint of sympathy. Then in pleading tones she said to her master, “Please don’t… I mean… may I not be confined as I was last week?”

The Lord Chamberlain paused in his eating and pondered his response. “I can be… merciful,” he shrugged. “Instead, after your spanking you will stand in the corner of my office with your tail end on show while I work.”

Lucinda blushed. Visitors would come and go all day. But it was better than the alternative. “Thank you my Lord,” she said humbly. Then glancing at Tzara, she shrugged.

Tzara arched her eyebrows and sat speechless. This was a very strange world indeed.

*

After breakfast Galen, who up until then had largely ignored her, beckoned over that she should follow him out of the hall. Tzara, who had not quite finished her food, bid a reluctant farewell to the chicken on her plate with her eyes and then made to go after him.

She had to all but run to catch up with her new master, who strode the hall floor as if marching to war, barely acknowledging the various bows, courtesies and salutes as he passed. By the time she caught up with him he had gained the door and they were walking on a wide balustrade set halfway up the keep. The view was breath-taking and Tzara stopped dead to take it in.

“I think we got off on the wrong foot,” Galen said as he turned back to stand alongside her.

Tzara looked at him sideways, she hadn’t expected this. First take your opponent to the edge of defeat and then make concessions. This guy should have been a fleet captain, she thought wryly.

“That is one way of putting it,” she mumbled.

“What was that?” he said sharply.

Tzara focused and managed a polite smile. “I think you are right my lord,” she said.

He nodded and smiled back. “You do not find me appealing?” he asked.

Tzara looked him up and down and felt more than a little tightness where it counted. Something had reached deep into her psyche to pull this near perfect man from her wildest dreams. “I have seen much worse my lord,” she said lightly and then frowned. “It is just that I am not used to this life. I am not used to this… land in fact. Where I come from… well things are different.”

“You hoped for a settle life on a farm somewhere, not this adventure,” Galen said kindly and gestured at the view.

Tzara followed his gaze and sighed. “No my lord, I’ll take this any day.” Why had she said that?

“But not the other?” he chuckled.

“You…” she made rueful pout and rubbed her bottom, “It hurt,” she finished. You totally humbled me, she thought, but oddly she had to dig deep to even pretend to resent it.

“I will be obeyed,” he said in that tone.

Tzara bit her tongue and nodded. This is a game and I just need to follow the rules.

“If it is the bedroom that concerns you…?” he changed tack yet again, “I can be patient.”

Tzara drew her mouth into a line and took in a deep breath through her nose. For a moment she didn’t look at him. Surely sex was the best part and this was all part of the game. What had Lucinda said, he could do anything to her but that he wasn’t that perverted… she was almost sorry? This is pretty much just interactive erotica, she told herself, but was unconvinced. It was, however, doubtlessly sex without guilt.

“I am not a virgin,” she answered with a shrug.

Galen regarded her sternly for a moment. “Your father obviously thought you were,” he said, but he couldn’t help the wry smile.

“Does this void my indentures?” Tzara smiled back.

“No, I admire your honesty, but I guess I have to spank you now,” he said casually.

She gaped and snatched at her still sore bottom.

“Those are the rules,” he told her with a shrug, but nothing about his demeanour suggested he was sorry.

“Is it too late to apologise my lord?” Tzara said hastily. She hoped she was being amusing.

Galen gently but firmly took her arm. “It is never too late to apologise,” he grinned, “You will do so at length while we get acquainted.” Then he led her briskly away long the upper walkway to another tower with tottering along beside him struggling to keep up.

To be continued…

I was looking for some stories arising from Easter, a traditional spanking season, for an article. I found a whole lot of posts around various pagan festivals, many of which have some spanking (or flagellation element). In addition to Easter: Lupercalia, Beltane, Yule and mid-summer all seem to have some flagellation rites.

Since this requires rather more research, I have put on the pending list with so many other posts.

What I did find was the story of an Edwardian woman who got rather carried away with the rites of spring. According to Titbits Magazine, one 33-year-old Florence Mason was persuaded to strip down to ‘nothing more than a gauzy singlet’ by a Bohemian Isadora Duncan-type and dance.

There were several women involved in the affair at a private garden in Belgravia (a smart district of London) but sadly for her the grounds were overlooked and the police were called.

To avoid scandal, ‘and for the sake of the ladies’ children,’ the case did not get to court but the magazine’s gossip column alleged that Mrs Mason got more than she expected.

Mr Mason took his errant wife across his knee and ‘applied a good sound smacking to her naked derriere.’ How did the columnist know? Apparently Florence proudly told friends that her husband had forgiven her and that he had ‘put more than his foot down,’ indeed, ‘a good stout slipper had been applied where it would do her the most good.’ And where was that, she was asked.

“If you must know, the beast gave me a good sound spanking,’ with the admission that she had been wearing more when she had been dancing.

Part one here

Tzara had been ‘crucified’ facing a large wooden cross. There were no nails, but the triangle of wood that bore most of her weight was getting decidedly uncomfortable. She felt that she was being split long ways and this time she decided that it probably served her right. Talking it over with Lucinda had made her seem how ridiculous the whole situation was how poorly she had been dealing with it.

But the pain was harsh and the blunt wedge between her legs was splitting her bottom cheeks deeply. Much more of this and she would beg for a spanking or the lash. It was distracting.

“Please, I’m sorry,” she cried out in the vain hope someone was listening. Then she gritted her teeth. “I have to focus,” she hissed.

This world was made for her to what, suffer? It was supposed to be fun, so what was she missing. a real challenge with real consequences maybe? She gritted her teeth and thought all the things she would do if she was only allowed to get down from this damn cross.

Ideas and strategies rolled over and over in her mind but everyone ended in an ever sharper pain splitting her where she lived so that she yelled out for forgiveness.

Hours, days, centuries past and finally she started to cry.

“Alright, alright, it is not that bad,” said a weary voice.

Tzara couldn’t turn her head but the voice was familiar.

“Who is that?” she sniffed.

“Tzara it is alright,” Lucinda urged, “It is my Lord Chamberlain.”

“Lucinda told me that you and she had a foolish wager,” Karl spoke in a snarl, “Foolish women.”

“Wager?” Tzara blurted now confused.

“I am sorry I told,” Lucinda said quickly, “But I could not lie to my master.”

“Lie?” Tzara sucked in air. But before she could say more the cross shook and began to both lower and lean forward so that the pressure between her legs was immediately eased. In a moment it was low enough for her to be helped off by Lucinda.

“I am going to teach my Lady Lucinda a lesson that she will never forget,” Karl said gruffly, “But first you must both be punished for a foolish wager and indulging in childish dares. Your games do not permit you to ignore the rules and leave the castle.”

Tzara looked at Lucinda who shrugged and gave her a look.

‘Thank you,’ Tzara mouthed back.

“It was all I could think of,” Lucinda whispered.

“But you…” Tzara hissed.

“Shush, I can handle it,” Lucinda urged.

“Quiet girls,” Karl snapped, “Lucinda I want you naked. Then we will wait for our lord Galen.”

*

When Galen arrived Tzara and Lucinda had been stood facing the wall for some time. Tzara still ached where she wished she didn’t but at least she was off that cross. She could not believe that Lucinda had thrown herself to the wolves to save her, although the prospect of a punishment at the hands of Karl chewed at her somewhat and she knew it wasn’t over yet.

Finally Galen swept into the room and took charge. “I see you have finally got to the bottom of things,” he said.

“Oh not yet, that is yet to come,” Karl chuckled and gave his lord a wink. “But I did find out what was behind all of this foolishness, these girls had a wager of some kind, if you like a dare. I don’t suppose the details matter,” he added, but he had already forgotten exactly how Lucinda had explained it. Once he had been convinced it was women’s folly he had been satisfied.

Galen narrowed his eyes. He was tempted to ask; after all he was still curious as to why his concubine had been discovered naked in the woods so far from the castle. However, if the Lord Chamberlain was satisfied he would let the matter rest for now.

“Are they both equally to blame?” Galen asked, although he suspected that Lucinda may have been largely innocent.

“I am certain of it,” Karl said sharply.

“Is this true?” Galen snapped and then added, “Turn around.”

Both women turned and hugged their breasts. Neither could meet his eyes.

“Yes my lord,” Lucinda mumbled.

Tzara looked at her and seemed about to protest.

“Very well,” Galen growled before she could speak. “Both of you will place yourselves side-by-side over that bench.”

Karl grinned and nodded with satisfaction. “Will you do the honours my lord?”

“Not entirely, a lesson must be learned,” Galen answered. “I am not sure who the biggest fool here is,” her added, meaning the Lord Chamberlain.

Karl just nodded and smiled, “You are so right my lord.”

Already bottom up and head down over the bench Tzara shot a glance at her friend next to her. Lucinda smirked.

“He knows,” Tzara whispered.

Lucinda smiled enigmatically and gave her friend the smallest of shrugs.

“The paddle and the switch will serve them well,” Galen decided and then he turned to Karl, “Both from both of us.”

Karl arched his brows, while out of sight Lucinda and Tzara gaped and exchanged nervous glances. Neither now smiled.

“Do you agree?” Galen asked the Chamberlain.

“I do my lord,” Karl grinned.

“Paddle first then,” Galen said and strode over to the wall where paddles and whips were hung. Taking a stout paddle about a yard long he hefted it. Then thinking the pole too rigid he took a slightly longer one that was less heavy but more flexible. He nodded. “You may select the riding switch when the time comes,” he told the Lord Chamberlain.

Karl brightened at this, he was not convinced the paddle selected was harsh enough; his choice would soon amend this lapse.

Galen studied the two bare bottoms side-by-side and took up a stance. He heard Lucinda gasp; he guessed she knew what was coming. Typically Tzara seemed more defiant. The set of her bottom suggested as much.

Using the paddle Galen patted both bottoms in turn and felt their firm resistance to the contact. He was pleased when Tzara give a little anticipatory squeak when the paddle touched her. Two dozen each, he decided and lined up on Tzara.

The first swat was sudden.

Tzara’s eyes flew open in shocked surprise at the overwhelming burn across her bottom and she was robbed of breath. She was still processing the pain and hoping to breathe when the second swat landed. “Ahhh-jjhhh,” she groaned and clamped her jaw.

Galen waited for her to catch a breath while he studied the dull pink patch on her bottom growing ever sharper before his eyes. “Do you think it is a good idea to leave the castle without permission?” he asked.

“No my lord,” Tzara managed as she wiggled her bottom.

Galen paddled her again.

This time Tzara yelled and then growled her protests under her breath.

Having struck three times Galen doubled the count and watched her pink bottom deepen to an angry red. She was panting now and walking around to the front he could see was welling up with tears.

“Do you think it was a good idea to cavort naked in the woods?” Galen asked her.

“No my lord,” Tzara whispered.

He struck again, this time with an increased impact so that the thwack echoed around the chamber and his woman reacted with a heartfelt cry. Then after a beat he added another swat.

“Do you think it is wise to defy me?” he asked her.

“No,” she wailed, unable to saying anything more coherent. She was properly crying now.

Over the next minute he paddled her four more times, getting a healthy screech at each swat until Tzara was a bawling mess.

The dozen having been given Galen turned to Lucinda. Her larger fuller bottom was more relaxed and he knew she was more used to this treatment. He also suspected that she was far less deserving. Still he had his part to play and it had been Lucinda who had dealt him this particular hand.

“Lucinda, Lucinda, Lucinda,” he sighed. “I really thought you would know better.”

“Yes my lord,” she replied and licked her lips in nervous anticipation. “I am sorry my lord.” She shot a glance at the tear-filled misery on her friends face without a shred of sympathy.

Galen compared the tight pert red sphere of Tzara’s bare bottom with the full still white one of Lucinda’s.

“Yes my lord,” Galen said and then without warning spanked Lucinda soundly with the paddle.

Lucinda grunted, determined to be brave and knowing it was a futile gesture.

Galen struck again and then thrice more. Then he made a turn of both women bent over the frame to see how they fared.

Tzara did not look up, but Lucinda gave him a mournful glance so that he could see that her eyes were bloodshot and brim-full of tears.

“Good, I see you are learning,” he said.

“Yes my lord,” Lucinda said in a firm voice.

Five more paddle strokes landed, this time Lucinda yelled out, as well she might. Her bottom was bright red and raw; she cried freely now.

“Two more,” Galen said.

Lucinda sucked in air and shook her bottom at him as she braced herself.

Galen landed the last swats with full voice to extract a decent scream from both impacts. “Your turn,” he said to Karl and handed him the paddle.

To be continued…

Part one here

Karl ran his eyes over the two proffered bare bottoms and smiled. Both were red and slightly swollen with raised welts forming large ovals on each bottom cheek. If serving wenches had been so soundly spanked he might think they were done.

“You tried to deceive us,” he said.

No we are deceiving you, Tzara thought, but that gave her no satisfaction just then.

“Yes My Lord,” Lucinda managed, her voice was thick and edged in tears. “I am sorry.”

Karl nodded.

“Me too my lord,” Tzara added quickly.

“You are a deceiver too, are you not?” Karl answered.

“Yes lord and I am truly sorry,” Tzara wheedled.

“Good to hear it,” Karl grinned evilly and then he spanked her.

Tzara was still gasping from the impact when he spanked her again and then again.

Lucinda knew how her man could spank and eyed her friend sideways and wondered if she had the same expression on her face when he spanked her. It had been Tzara who had got them into this so she could not help hoping that it hurt.

After six Karl stopped and let Tzara get her breath. Then without warning he switched bottoms and spanked Lucinda. The first impact made her scream and thereafter for five more.

“Sore?” he asked both women now that they were half done.

Both Tzara and Lucinda panted like dogs and throwing dignity to the wind both just cried.

Without waiting for an answer he resumed spanking Tzara and watched her twist and growl under the onslaught.

“This is fun,” Karl said brightly and laid the paddle on Tzara’s bare bottom as hard as he could. “I hope you think so, I doubt the next part will be as jolly for you.”

Tzara remembered that Galen had given him the choice of switch. It was hard not to react to the paddle already and the sharper switch was going to be bad, very bad. It was going to be a long day.

All six swats landed over a minute and each was a tiny parcel of hell. Tzara doubted that she would ever sit down again. It was an unworthy thought but she was so, so glad when Karl began spanking Lucinda again.

*

Lucinda and Tzara were sobbing hard and their sore bare bottoms glowed like burning coals and felt like it no doubt, Galen thought. Well the spanking was done, he conceded and watched Karl while, with no little relish, the man was inspecting the rail where the various switches hung.

Limiting the last part of the punishment to a switch at least kept the sadism down to a minimum, but that didn’t mean that both women were going to rue this day for a long time to come.

“Do you have a stroke count in mind for the switch my lord?” Karl asked as he made his choice.

Galen had half expected the brute to choose a heavy thick crop from the rail, but instead he had chosen a moderately long thin affair with a light tracer cord dancing at the end. This was going to hurt, he thought, but no real harm would result from this bitter riding switch.

“Let us match the paddle and then see how we go,” Galen shrugged.

“Oh let’s,” Karl agreed.

Tzara and Lucinda were just recovering and still bent over the bench where the men couldn’t see, they exchanged hopeless glances. Lucinda shook her head in dismay as if to say ‘you owe me big time for this.’

Tzara made a wincing face in acknowledgment and mouthed a ‘sorry.’

“Now ladies, are you ready for us to continue?” Karl said as he approached.

“Yes lord,” both girls answered in unison.

“Will you do the honours my lord?” Karl continued and offered Galen the switch.

“No after you,” Lord Galen conceded.

Karl bowed and turned to address the two bare bottoms. “Deserved or undeserved?” he asked.

“Oh deserved my lord, thank you,” Lucinda answered quickly. She was well used to his ways.

“You don’t agree my Lady Tzara?” Karl directed his words at her bare bottom.

Tzara bristled at the ongoing indignity and looked at Lucinda. Lucinda was urging her with her eyes and even looked slightly angry.

Tzara sighed in resignation. “Yes my lord, thoroughly deserved,” she groaned.

“You don’t sound convinced,” Karl said and swiped her bottom once with the switch.

Tzara yelped. “No my lord, I mean yes… I… please, I am sorry. I know I deserve to be punished,” she sounded almost eager now, but her voice had a pleading tone.

“Glad to hear it,” the Lord Chamberlain chuckled, “That one didn’t count by the way,” he added. “This does,” he switched her again.

“Jeeez,” Tzara gasped, this was worse than she thought. The line of pain across her bottom didn’t die quickly and sang on for several long moments.

Meanwhile Karl watched the white line deepen to red and grow to a stand out ridge across Tzara’s already very sore bare bottom.

“Feeling that?” he said.

“Yes lord,” Tzara panted.

“Good,” Karl said and whipped her again.

This time she yelled incoherently and kicked her legs. This stroke was worse, but Karl was in no hurry, he let it burn on her flesh.

“Do you think 12 will be enough?” Karl said to Galen.

The Lord felt his manhood tighten and felt his mercy fade in the face of two punished bottoms. “Perhaps not,” he muttered absently.

Karl landed two in quick succession and watched Tzara growl and twist. Then before she could recover he landed a stroke across Lucinda’s bottom. Now off the leash he intended to keep them both off balance for a dozen or two strokes by switching randomly from bottom to bottom. Not fast mind you, he was going to take his time.

“You think me cruel my lord,” Karl said to Galen, “But I am merely thorough.”

Galen nodded.

“Of course you know damn well that they had no bet or dare in play?” Karl chuckled.

Galen smiled and shrugged. The Lord Chamberlain was no fool after all.

Two quick thwack-swicks and both women yelled; the stripes of fire across both their bottoms was growing nicely now, although there was nothing nice for them.

*

Tzara’s bottom felt like it had been sandpapered, grilled and then fried. It was hard not to cry, in fact it was impossible and both she and Lucinda sobbed soundly for some minutes. Tzara had never cried so much in her life and strangely it felt cathartic. The next challenge would be sitting down, an activity she did not intend to indulge for many days to come.

“I trust you have learned your lesson?” Galen asked.

“Yes my lord,” Lucinda sniffed.

“Please, yes My Lord,” Tzara added miserably, “I’m sorry.” Strangely she was and for once she blamed herself for not respecting the rules. Then forgetting Galen wasn’t real she wondered for the first time in her life whether it was not satisfying to be held to account by a man.

“I am glad to hear it,” Galen said in a tone of amused indulgence.

Karl coughed. “If I might…” he began.

Galen cocked an eyebrow in surprise and wondered if the man was going to propose more punishment.

“Lucinda and I have some unfinished business,” the Lord Chamberlain continued.

Lucinda gaped in horror, but she was not surprised. The punishment so far had been tame by his standards.

“That is your affair,” Galen shrugged, “Tzara, you may go and stand in the corner until I send for you.”

“My Lord,” Karl bowed until Galen had turned on his heel and left the room.

Tzara looked at her friend and wondered if she should intervene somehow, but Lucinda made an urgent face and shooed her towards the corner. Feeling guilty now, she reluctantly obeyed, but all the same she found herself curious as to what was about to happen.

“Please my lord, I plead mercy,” Lucinda said and knelt at her lord’s feet.

Karl cupped her face and allowed his fingers to trail through her hair. “I know you lied,” he whispered, glancing once at the now submissive Tzara facing the corner of the room. His eyes lingered on her colourful and welt-stained bare bottom. Then again regarding Lucinda at his feet he added, “You are a loyal friend, but still I must punish you.”

“Yes My Lord,” Lucinda said breathlessly, she wished she was not so aroused, or told herself so.

“Perhaps the split rail or the cross,” Karl leered, “So many possibilities,” and his hand lifted her chin to that he could see her eyes. There was fear in them, of course, but only a little. Her main emotion was lust. “Later I will cane you, perhaps after a taste of birch,” he said.

“My Lord,” Lucinda panted.

Tzara felt her own lust and wished she could turn an watch. Perhaps she could steal a peek once the birching began. Would he cane her first or afterwards, she wondered.

“The rail, I think,” Karl grinned and Lucinda gulped visibly.

To be continued…

Part one here

It had been over a week since the episode in the dungeon. Neither woman had sat down since then, but no real harm had come to them. The men in their lives quickly forgave and forgot. Well almost. A fortnight after the extended punishment with Lucinda, Galen sat her down in their chamber and had asked for the truth.

He listened intently as she outlined the strange custom in her village of rock climbing, claiming in an aside that it had originated as a way of egg collecting. This white lie had sold the truth and he had laughed for some time afterwards.

“You will never do it again, is that clear?” he had finally scolded her, “I thank you and Lucinda for allowing the Lord Chamberlain an honourable way out of the corner you had backed us into, but also you will never lie to me again.”

“No My Lord,” Tzara had humbly replied, she felt chastened by the accusation and found herself blushing.

“If I had had you alone to punish you would have not got off so lightly, I assure you of that, I hope you are ashamed that Lucinda suffered worse than you and she had done nothing,” he growled.

Tzara dipped her head. She had already apologised to her friend but no matter how many times she lay awake telling herself none of this was real, she had cringed at having to let Lucinda take the rap for her small rebellion. The blush burned to her ears and she felt tears well up behind her eyes.

“Yes,” she muttered, her throat was too tight to admit a ‘my lord.’

Galen ignored the slip and glowered at her as if driving his words home with his eyes.

“Now we have the small matter of that lie you told,” Galen sighed.

Tzara gaped and finally lifted her eyes to look at him. He didn’t mean to punish her again, surely not?

Galen was already stripping of his long coat and tunic. Then as she had watched he began rolling up the sleeves of his undershirt so that she could see his powerful arms. “I have a mind to send for that paddle again,” he told her, his mouth drawn into a fine resolute line.

A protest sprang to Tzara’s lips but she swallowed it down.

Galen sat on the bed and beckoned her. His hands were open and she quickly scanned for a hairbrush or something like it. Surely a hand-spanking would not be so bad. Then he reached behind him for something and she saw that he hefted a short thick butter pat. Lucinda had spoken of such a thing; the gently serrated edge when used was a bitch.

“Please I…” Tzara worked up some moisture in her suddenly dry mouth.

“Over my knee young lady,” he snapped.

Without thinking the deep space bridge officer took a step forward and moved to step out of her gown. Then with scarcely a pause she tugged on the drawstring of light cotton breeches she wore under them and let them fall to her ankles. “Yes My Lord,” she whispered.

Taking her firmly Galen pulled her across his lap so that her now bare bottom domes up at him to present two neat rounds.

“Tomorrow you will apologise to Lucinda,” Galen told her.

“But I already…” she protested.

“Tomorrow,” he scolded, “And I will tell you what to say.”

Before she could ponder this ominous threat he spanked her once soundly across her bare bottom and she made a bug-eyed gasp.

The tight rectangle of red sang like a thousand needles right across the crowns of her bottom cheeks. Then before she could so much as say ‘ouch,’ Galen spanked her again.

“Such a shame that you only got a white bottom again,” he chuckled, “But I think this colour suits you more,” he said running a thumb across the sore red stain on her behind. “In any case I think we are both going to have to get used to it. Something tells me that this is going to happen a lot.”

Tzara rolled her eyes and was beginning to breathe heavily. Then next spank only added to the misery and the next, before long a steady rhythm of swats stung her bottom and she began to twist and groan through gritted teeth.

“That is how the smooth side feels,” Galen told her, “The Lord Chamberlain is very fond of the ridged side, or so I am told. Can you see any reason you should not suffer as Lucinda suffered?”

Tzara clamped her jaw angrily and then spat a grudging, “No.”

“No ‘my lord,’” Galen said as he spanked her again and again.

“No my lord,” she shrieked and kicked her heels.

“Here I’ll show you,” Galen said and switched spanking surfaces.

“Aiieee,” Tzara screamed and really began to twist.

“Oh I like,” Galen smiled and resumed the spanking serrated side down, not sparing his arm.

“Naaah,” was the most coherent Tzara was to get for the next several minutes. After that she eloquently bawled like a proverbial baby.

*

The corner held her fast until a good half hour after she finished crying. Then she sniffed, “I am so sorry My Lord.”

“I know you are,” Galen agreed in a gentle voice from his place watching her while sitting on the bed. “I can go now and leave you to go to bed,” he said, “Or you can remain as you are for a while longer while I watch and then I could stay.”

“Please stay,” she said hastily.

He chuckled. “Then I will need something to read.”

*

Tzara knocked on the door to Lucinda’s chambers. For a long moment there was no reply and she felt relieved. Her bottom felt as if it had been scrubbed with a cactus. Moreover last night’s lovemaking had been vigorous and satisfying, but not before Galen had used her long and hard in the narrower place. The bud between her bottom cheeks was swollen and sore and passage beyond felt like a freight train had passed through laden with chilli peppers. All the same she grinned wistfully.

“Oh come in,” Lucinda yelled.

Damn, Tzara thought but opened the door all the same. Inside Lucinda was with three women while she was being fitted for a new gown.

“You look… bed worn,” Lucinda said in a pitying voce and grimaced.

Tzara took in the three women she didn’t know and inwardly groaned. “I was… I was… well I was spanked,” she said with a hot blush.

One of the women giggled and even Lucinda supressed a smile. “I can see that,” she said.

“I am sorry that I got you into trouble,” Tzara began.

“You apologised already, two or three times, and over a week ago,” Lucinda said, she was now puzzled.

“I have to…” Tzara looked miserable and instead of finishing she glared at the three women strangers and then turned about. Then taking a deep breath she hoisted her skirts up behind her and showed Lucinda her sore bottom. “I had to stand in the corner for an hour and half,” she said irritably. She continued to stand with her bottom displayed.

Lucinda smirked and included her three companions with a conspiratorial gaze. “Are you going to stand like that all day?” she said to Tzara.

“That’s the thing,” Tzara sighed, “That is up to you. I have been sent to stand in the corner here, stand like this I mean, as a punishment. Galen said… Galen said he would give me another spanking if you didn’t keep me here for at least an hour.” Her face glowed hot and she wished Lucinda was alone.

“In that case I suggest you stand… in that corner,” Lucinda giggled. With witnesses there was no way she could let Tzara off and she wasn’t sure she wanted to. “Ladies, this is going to be an amusing afternoon.”

“Afternoon,” Tzara gasped.

“Why not?” Lucinda teased, “It will take me that long for my fitting, especially with such a distraction. I might send for a boy and get some wine.”

“Ooh,” Tzara groaned, but she what could she do?

To be continued…

Google reader has so many random publications. If you have the patience just about every newspaper and magazine ever published must be there somewhere.

This little snippet was in a small corner of The West Country Advertiser in 1886: No big story, no big scandal. Sadly the headline and the date were too blurred.

Mrs C Whitman, 38-year-old widow from Bristol, was ‘acquitted of cruelty’ after birching her servant, Miss G Gilmore, 19, whom she employed as nanny to her three children.

It seems that Mrs Whitman had repeated scolded the girl for coming home late and ‘walking out with gentleman friends.’ Then after a row Mrs Whitman ‘upended the girl’ and after baring her bottom set about giving the girl a ‘good sound beating’ with a birch rod.

Neighbours who were alerted by the screams testified that although the girl ‘looked good and sore’ no real harm had come to her and agreed with the defence that it had been no more than ‘reasonable chastisement.’

Miss Gilmore had argued that as a nanny she was a professional person and not a ‘mere maid,’ but the court rules that she was a dependent and being under 21 still subject to Mrs Whitman’s authority.

Picture above courtesy of Asa Jones.