Recently an article on birching from this blog was republished over at Well Red Weekly. So in my quest for recovering lost material from my hard drive it seemed possible that some unused original source material was to be found.
This threw up two separate, mysterious and yet interesting snippets. The first was a reference to the birching of maids on the Isle of Wight. Curious, a search revealed the picture above from the Branding Wax Works Museum on that island. The naked maid getting into bed has definitely been thrashed. Now there is an exhibit some of us would want to see.
The other find was this standalone passage in a single text file that may be from one of my aborted stories. It really is impossible to remember. It was on the partially recovered hard drive in a file from 2006.
-
Emily risked a peek over her shoulder at the birch rod waiting for her. It lay long and menacing on the table, the result of many hours of labour on her part. It was well made and stout and if it hadn’t been destined for a prolonged application across her exposed behind, she would have been a little proud of it.
A sound in the hall beyond the door encouraged her to snap her head back around so that her nose was back in the corner. It was mortifying to stand thus with only a thin blouse and bloomers to cover her. And the bloomers were now down at her ankles where cook had put them so that her neat prominent bottom was bared to the gaze of any who would chance by.
At least the Mr Graham the butler had some decorum and usually absented himself to his parlour at such times. But Herbert and Tom the pot boy would take every chance to enter servant hall while she awaited her chastisement. Emily only hoped that Susan the House maid could keep them at bay. A task she undertook not so much out of sympathy, but out of self-preservation as she herself was not immune from such treatment.
It was bad enough to have to fetch the makings dressed only in one’s underwear. She had heard them sniggering in the bushes. She blushed for the shame of it.
Emily sighed. It had been hour since she had completed the rod and had been sent to the corner. Now there was a light chill around her exposed nethers even as her face continued to burn with shame.
Then finally the door opened and Mr Charles entered.
Emily sucked in a breath, knowing s she did that he could see her bare bottom. But it wasn’t the first time.
“Well my girl, what have you to say for yourself?” he chided her.
Emily was tongue-tied.
Mr Charles gave a heavy sigh and took up the birch.
“Very well, let’s get this over with,” he sounded disappointed. “Come on girl, bend over the table.”
Emily clapped her hands to her naked forward parts and with a strawberry red face scampered across the room in a crouch and bent over.
“Get your bottom out a bit more,” he growled.
It was so embarrassing, but she quickly obeyed, parting her thighs a little for a more secure posture. The table was a little shorter than her legs so that her bottom was well elevated for the coming rod.
“You’ll take three dozen this time and you had better not get out of position,” he told her.
“Yes Sir,” she squeaked.
Mr Charles inspected the target for a moment and then gave a little cough of embarrassment at what she had revealed.
“Legs together a little more,” he said gently.
Emily gaped in horror and quickly closed her legs, an action that elevated her bottom even more.
Satisfied Mr Charles tapped the exposed backside thrice and then brought the rod down with a vengeance.
“One thank you Sir,” she shrieked.
The passage of the rod across her arse left a trail of pain like a million bees. The second stroke was no kinder.
“Two thank you Sir,” she grunted.
It took four more strokes for the first of the tears to come and by then her breathing was ragged and she gently shook her bottom as if to throw off the pain.
“When I am done with you here you spend the rest of the day in that corner, do you hear me,” Mr Charles said in a dark voice.
Then he struck in hard again.
“Yes Sir,” she wailed, “Seven thank you Sir… ooh.”
“Feeling it now I’ll be bound, looks like you are,” he observed.
“Yes Sir,” she sniffed, a tear strolling down her face and off the end of her nose.
The eighth, ninth and tenth strokes really hit home and Emily broke to sobbing.
“I trust you are sorry girl,” he scolded her.
“Ooh, yes Sir,” she wept and then as he struck again she announced, “Eleven thank you Sir.”
Just a third of the way through and she was already broken. Emily doubted that she would ever sit down again.
-
It seems more than a little rough in places; I hope I have come on a little since then. I wonder what else I will find.
