by Maggie Ryan
This was a hundredfold worse than being bent for the cane earlier. The room seemed thick with tension, and Lucy felt things she had never before experienced. Her heart was racing in her chest, her face hot with the shame of all that was happening. She had just seen her twin, a copy of herself, open her legs and her sex to the room, her bottom willingly lifted for the cruelty of the birch rod and then… then heard that same punished sister actually thank her husband for the lesson. Lucy had never been more confused in her life, and certainly never before as terrified at what was about to happen to her. She began to cry harder but when she felt his hand touch her inner thigh to pull her legs apart, she quickly spread her legs wide in order to have the hand removed.
“That’s better. Now, heels turned out and ask for your chastisement.”
Lucy heard herself speak as she tried to remember the words her sister had uttered. “Sir, I’m so sorry… please…” Shaking her head, she sobbed, “I don’t think I can do this. I beg you, please spare me this shame.”
“You not only can, but you shall. Look deep inside yourself, Lucille, and I know you will find you not only deserve this shame and the pain that you will feel; but that you need it to be able to forgive yourself.”
Lucy broke into huge sobs, the sight of Mrs. Bremmer shaking her head in displeasure not the least bit surprising, but though the view of her guardian was a bit wavy due to the tears filling her eyes, she saw him simply standing, the birch at his side, as if he had all the time in the world, and she knew the truth. In order to ever rise from the desk she had to do exactly that. She had to accept both the shame and the birching.
In just a few moments, she tried again. “I’m-I’m sorry I was… was disobedient. Please…” Stumbling a bit, she forced herself to emulate her twin. “Please, birch me, sir,” she finished and tensed for the first awful stroke.
It didn’t arrive, and she heard him speak, “That is incorrect, Lucille. You must apologize for being naughty and ask for ‘your’ birching. After all, you are requesting my attention to your bottom, and need to make your desire for correction clear. You must also rise up on your tiptoes and lift your bottom, pushing it well out for me. The lesson will only be effective if you properly submit to your punishment.”
She was more mortified than she had ever been in her life. Baring her bottom for the caning this morning seemed like nothing when faced with not only opening her body to this man but to actually be forced to ask for correction, and a birching at that! She had seen Louisa’s position, and blushed even more hotly remembering all she had been able to see of her sister’s charms. She knew he could easily see every square inch of her most intimate places. Places she never even thought about were now on display to her brother-in-law as well as his horrid housekeeper. She wanted to jump up and flee, but knew she would be easily caught. She also felt incredibly guilty and a deep seated need to prove the contrition she truly felt at bringing them both to the awful moment.
She found she just wanted the ordeal to be over. Choking back a sob as she forced herself up onto her toes, she cried, “I’m sorry I was naughty, sir. Please may I have my-my birching?” Evidently he was pleased with the request because before she could take another breath, she heard the swish of the birch and then the first explosion landed across her upturned bottom. It was worse than she’d even imagined. It was as if a thousand angry hornets had all descended to sink their stingers into her flesh at the same exact moment. The second stroke landed before she found enough breath to scream in agony from the first.
It was then she realized that the birch’s branches left some wetness on her skin and she suddenly understood another of the implement’s unique abilities. Every twig that made up the dozen or so in the rod had been soaked in some sort of solution. It was as if each stroke was meant not only to prick her flesh, but to rub salt into the wounds, intensifying the sting. As the third stroke painted its angry lines against her skin, her hands released from the desk and flew back to cover her bottom. Edward barely had time to check his swing, and the birch landed on the backs of her thighs, barely above her knees. Lucy screeched and flung herself off the desk, her hands moving to cup her thighs as she bounced up and down. Mrs. Bremmer quickly stepped forward, and physically forced the young woman back over the desk.
Lucy continued to struggle and kick out until Edward said, “Settle yourself, Lucille. You have earned a good birching, and shall receive your due. Get back into position or those strokes won’t count and will be given again.”
Lucy heard him, but couldn’t wrap her mind around the threat. Her bottom burned, and the backs of her thighs felt as if she had sat on hundreds of nettles. “Nooo, please… no more, Edward. I-I can’t!” Edward heaved a loud sigh and took Lucy’s arm and helped her to stand as Mrs. Bremmer moved away. His ward was sobbing, her face streaked with tears.
She looked up to see him staring at her and she sobbed harder. “Please, Edward. Please. I’m so sorry and I’ll never disobey you again. Please, please don’t spank me anymore.”
Edward kept his voice firm as he responded, “I appreciate that you’re sorry for your actions, Lucille, but I am not anywhere near done with your discipline. I am not spanking you, you are being birched. You will not die from your birching but since firm discipline seems to be something that was sadly lacking in your childhood, I will give you a choice.”
For the first time since she’d walked into the headmaster’s office and seen him standing there, she felt the first flicker of hope. Sniffing loudly, she swiped the tears from her face and nodded for him to continue.
He gentled his voice, saying, “You have only received three strokes. You have two more to go in this first set. The choice is this. You will either accept the consequences of your choices and the need for this lesson by placing yourself back into position and take the remainder of your birching without breaking position, or ask that I apply your intended strokes to your sister’s bottom after she has taken the remainder of her own count.”
Lucy heard her sister gasp though she didn’t speak. Lucy looked over at the prostrate girl and saw the marks from the birch, vivid across her bottom. She also saw that her sister remained in position as if simply waiting for her turn. Lucy looked down to see Louisa’s eyes tightly shut but saw a small tear leak from beneath the dewy eyelashes. Finally truly accepting full responsibility for all that had transpired this horrid day, it broke her heart knowing that Louisa was in this position only due to Lucy’s forceful nature. She’d rather die than extend any punishment to her beloved twin. Sobbing but determined, Lucy laid herself across the desk, took hold of the edge and once again spread herself open and lifted up onto her toes.
Even as Edward stepped back, she stated more clearly than before, “I’m sorry, sir. I’m sorry I was naughty and that I have delayed my punishment. Please continue m… my birching.”
Her determination to prove her courage was immediately tested as Edward did just that. After two hard strokes had been given, Lucy felt the birch rod being placed across the small of her back.
“I’m very proud of you, little one. You may lower yourself until your feet are flat on the floor, Lucille, but keep your hands on the edge of the desk and be prepared to lift that naughty bottom again.”
Lucy sobbed at the fire on her bottom, but gratefully lowered her feet to the floor, allowing her legs to close in an effort to regain even a modicum of dignity. Her eyes followed Edward as he walked back around the desk and picked up the birch lying upon his wife’s back. She was soon in the proper position and accepting her next set. Lucy sobbed with every stroke of the birch as it fell across her sister’s bottom five times and then was shamelessly begging for mercy as she was given her second set.
Edward allowed the twins a few moments before picking the birch rod up off Louisa’s back for her third count of five. Lifting her bottom high when instructed, and forcing her legs open for the third time, Lucy felt as if Mrs. Bremmer had been wrong. Surely it was possible for someone to die from such a
horrific thrashing. Lucy was sure there was not an inch of skin left intact on her bottom, every bit of her bottom felt as if she were sitting in a roaring fire and yet, when Edward quietly told her to present herself, she had done so and had indeed lived through not only her third but fourth set as well.
After each girl had been given twenty strokes, the desk’s surface was slick with their combined tears. When Edward stepped behind his wife once more, Louisa finally joined in her sister’s pleas for mercy when he once again took the birch that was beginning to loosen from its bindings from her back.
“How many extra strokes did you receive from the cane, Louisa?” he asked, ignoring her pleas as easily as he’d ignored each one of his ward’s.
“One, sir.”
Edward nodded and lightly drew the rod down across her welted bottom. Lucy saw her sister shudder, both women knowing what was coming and fearing the pain.
“Extra strokes mean you haven’t submitted yourself properly, by admitting your need for chastisement, my love. I will double your extras so that you might learn a proper lesson. Rise up and present yourself for your extras, Louisa.”
How she obeyed, Lucy truly didn’t know, but she watched as Louisa forced herself up onto her toes, though she was clearly exhausted. Lucy watched the tips of the branches that made up the rod trail slowly down Louisa’s back before it disappeared from her sight. But when her sister gasped, her body jerking, her face flaming as she turned her eyes away from her twin’s for the first time, Lucy felt her body flush as well. Her innocence not so complete as to render her ignorant of where exactly he was applying the awful implement on his wife’s open body. She might be in the same room as her twin, might be just inches from her, their breaths mingling and their cries joining to fill the air, but Lucy did the only thing she could think of to provide her twin with the privacy they’d been denied. She too turned her face away and closed her eyes, not opening them even though it was several moments before the pair of slaps was given with the mangled rod. Lucy didn’t have to see it to understand where those last two strokes had landed. Not once in the previous count of twenty had her twin’s cry been so piercing. But all Lucy could do was grip the desk harder and remain still as she felt the air stir when her guardian moved once again to stand at her side.
“Position yourself, Lucille. I promised that extra strokes earned double the count. How many extra were applied to your bottom in your headmaster’s office?”
“Two, sir,” Lucy managed, easily doing the math and knowing that her answer assured she had yet another four strokes to go before she’d be done. She was terrified, wondering how she could survive the humiliation of knowing he was placing the extras in a place meant only for the man she wed to see… to touch.
“For your first birching, you’ve done very well, Lucille. Don’t fail now. Relax your buttocks and push them out.”
It took every ounce of her courage to do so and though her cries bounced off the walls with every fall of the rod, she felt nothing but thankful because each awful stroke landed across the surface of her bottom. Despite her fears, her guardian had not broken any moral law by touching her intimately. Still gratitude did not keep her from squirming on top of the desk, willing to sell her very soul for the simple granting of permission to rub frantically at her ravaged backside. She heard the clatter of sticks hitting the surface of the desk near her face as Edward placed her rod next to her sister’s. It took her a moment to realize the silence was to be broken by her.
“Than-thank… you, sir.” Lucille had just received the most intense punishment of her life and she’d not only lived through it, she’d thanked the man who had delivered every cutting stroke.
“You did well, little one.”
And with his words, some place deep inside her, a place she’d never been aware existed before, bloomed in realization that not only did she finally feel she’d atoned for her choices, she’d made him proud.
“You may stand and go to your corners.”
The girls stood, and though their legs were unsteady, the gait slow, they obediently shuffled to their corners. Lucy pressed her nose against the wall, lifting hands that craved a different place to soothe above her head, linking her fingers together, the wafting of air across her heated buttocks reminding her of her exposure as tears continued to course down her face.
Chapter 14
Mrs. Bremmer removed the birch rods from the desktop and returned them to the cabinet. Shutting the doors, she sat down on the sofa to wait until the naughty girls’ corner time was spent. He had no doubt she’d agree that it would be quite some time before either chanced to bring shame to the Wintercrest name again.
A half-hour passed before the sniffles coming from the corners became the occasional hiccup. Edward had spent the time catching up on some estate paperwork, while Mrs. Bremmer simply kept her eyes on both corners, as if assuring herself that the occupants would remember to behave.
“You may release and come here, girls,” Edward said, closing his journal. The twins were soon once more before him, faces red and tear-streaked, hair falling from pins and sticking to their cheeks. Edward couldn’t believe he’d ever seen a more beautiful sight. After all, the only thing more pleasing than a properly chastised girl was seeing her mirror image standing before him as well.
“Things are going to change in this household,” Edward informed them. “I have been sorely lacking in your necessary education, but that has come to a stop. Tomorrow you both shall begin anew your new lessons, as it is too late this evening to truly start.” He noticed that Louisa kept her eyes lowered as required, but that Lucille was once again looking directly at him, her eyes showing her confusion. He saw her mouth begin to open and he quickly continued, “I’m not expecting nor desiring you to speak, Lucille. I simply want you to listen and, if you can’t manage even that, you will do well to remember I will gag you.” Lucy’s face flushed but she evidently remembered the awful feeling of the gag in her mouth, and she nodded, dropping her eyes. Edward smiled, surprised but pleased she had given in so quickly.
He waited a few moments before speaking again. “Though it is my intention to go over all my expectations at a later date, I want you both to understand one thing. You will both learn I expect strict obedience. I promise you this. If you decide to test me, I shall immediately provide the necessary discipline such attempts will earn you. I will not have my authority questioned by you nor hesitate to turn you across my knee and lift your skirts, lower your bloomers and apply a proper reminder to your bare bottoms.” He saw both girls tremble at his promise, and knew it would most likely be Lucy over his knee, testing his resolve. She’d learn that he was a man of his word every time he turned her bottoms up for a much needed lesson. “Lucille, you will go with Mrs. Bremmer, as she will put you to bed. Tomorrow you will spend the entire day at your studies.”
Lucy’s expression changed from confusion to acceptance, to questioning so fast it was rather fascinating to watch. But, she again proved that despite her stubbornness, she was definitely trainable as she did not chance opening her mouth. The gagging, though a very short period of time, had obviously been extremely effective.
He nodded toward his housekeeper. Mrs. Bremmer stepped forward and took Lucy’s arm. His ward’s eyes widened as her gaze fell to the white bloomers draped over the woman’s arm. The sight evidently reminded her that her skirts were still pinned at her shoulders, and even now, her bare and blistered bottom was in plain view. He watched her face flame as the shame of it consumed her.
“Oh… please, Mrs. Bremmer… I’ll take those.”
Mrs. Bremmer simply shook her head and moved her arm away from Lucy’s reaching hands. As the young girl strained to reach her bloomers, Edward shook his head. Perhaps he’d been too quick in thinking the young woman was capitulating already.
“Do you need a reminder of obedience so quickly, Lucille? You are to obey Mrs. Bremmer as you do me.” Lucy sobbed, but shook her head at his offer of a reminder. She allowed
Mrs. Bremmer to pull her toward the door but, when it opened, her feet remained glued to the study’s carpet.
“Please, don’t make me go out there like this. The serv… servants will see my… my bottom!”
Mrs. Bremmer huffed, her gray head shaking. “Don’t be ridiculous, missy. The entire house has been subjected to your unladylike caterwauling, and it is no secret that you have been well birched. If you don’t want the staff to see your naughty little bottom with its earned coating of stripes, then I suggest you learn to behave. Now, stop dragging your feet or I shall take my tawse to your backside.”
Edward watched as Lucy tried to grip her skirts to cover her bare bottom even as she was pulled from the room. She was unaware that he was leading her sister out of the study behind her and that Louisa was making no attempt to keep her bottom hidden until Edward’s sharp order for her to remove her hands from her skirts caused her to jump and drop her hand. With her bottom bare, she quickened her step, and he had absolutely no doubt that despite her exhaustion from her birching, she would have found the strength to sprint down the hall and leap up the stairs like a gazelle had it not been for Mrs. Bremmer holding her firmly and forcing her to walk in a sedate manner.
Edward easily ignored the looks of servants the quartet passed along the halls. His attention was captured in watching both his wife and his young charge deal with the knowledge that from this moment forward, there would be no secrets within the walls of the manor.
When the four finally reached Lucy’s room, Louisa spoke softly, “May I tell Lucy goodnight, sir?” Edward nodded, and released his wife. She stepped forward and wrapped her arms around her twin, the two clinging to one another. It was several moments of silence before a clearing of his throat had her saying, “Good night, Lucy, I hope… hope you sleep well.”