A Spanking in Time (Bexhill School)

by Tom Simple

  “How do like your coffee? With milk and no sugar, isn’t it?”

  “You remembered! Yes, just white thanks.” While Miss Holloway poured the liquid into two cups, Dick went into the sitting room and, to Miss Holloway’s delight, he sat on the sofa. She served the coffee, put on an Everly Brothers record, and returned to sit beside him. She curled her legs underneath her and wondered how to move things along from here.

  She was twenty-four years old. Looking at herself carefully in the full-length mirror in her bedroom – both naked and clothed – she considered that she was probably quite pretty. Anyway, the male teachers at the school seemed to find her so, to judge from the way some of them flirted. She’d had a few boyfriends, but they had never moved beyond the rather chaste kissing stage. She was still a virgin, but of course that was certainly not then considered the social disgrace that it would be a few years later. She was also fairly sure that she wanted Dick to initiate her into the mysteries of sex. Tonight. She put her hand on his: maybe this would get him going.

  Dick looked at her and moved his face closer to hers. She closed her eyes.

  “What scent are you wearing?” he asked. She opened her eyes.

  “Chanel No 5. Do you like it?”

  “Yes, it suits you.”

  “How?”

  “Well, it’s a little bit mysterious, like you!” He put an arm around her shoulder. OK!

  “Why am I ‘mysterious’?” she asked archly, moving closer.

  “Things you say.”

  “What sort of things?”

  “Like ‘worst luck’.”

  “Ah.” She was looking up into his eyes, just like she’d seen Deborah Kerr doing.

  “Oh yes – that was one of your more mysterious pronouncements!”

  Great! He was going to ask her whether she enjoyed the idea of spanking. He didn’t.

  “Marlene – I must ask you something: have you got a boyfriend?”

  “Yes.”

  “Oh.”

  Pause.

  “You.”

  “Oh, Marlene!” He pulled her towards him in approved ‘B-movie’ style. Their lips met. After a while, their tongues also made each other’s acquaintance. This was definitely better than chaste kisses, but there seemed to be too much light. She wondered how she could dim things down a bit.

  The Everly Brothers came to her aid.

  ‘And I didn't realize what a kiss could be...be...be...be...be...’

  “I’ll fix it.” She disentangled herself, went over to the gramophone and gave the arm a nudge.

  ‘Mmm, ya got a way about ya

  Now I can't live without ya’

  She switched out the lights. The darkness was relieved only by the dim street lighting filtering through the curtains. It took a moment for her to get used to it. When she got back to Dick, his inhibitions had gone. He stood up and threw his arms around her, pulling her tightly to him. Their lips and tongues met again. His right hand slid down her back until it was caressing her bottom, his left held the nape of her neck. He moved his mouth from hers and kissed her ears and neck, working his way around to her lifted throat. She knew then, absolutely, that this was going to be the first night of the rest of her life. She surrendered to the idea with an almost imperceptible shudder.

  He moved his left hand and started unbuttoning the front of her shirt.

  “Naughty boy!” she murmured. “No wonder you got caned!”

  “For this, it would have been worth it.” He slid her shirt off her right shoulder, put his hand under the material and fumbled behind her back for the clasp to her bra.

  “Dick,” she said, trying to see his eyes through the darkness, “shall we do this in the bedroom?”

  “Yes, let’s.”

  She released herself from him, let her shirt drop to the floor and led him down the darkened corridor to her bedroom. The curtains were still open, so the room was lit by the solitary light on the path that led behind the flats. She moved to close the curtains, but Dick put his arms around her and pulled her back.

  “No. Leave them open. I want to be able to see you.”

  “But what about the neighbours?”

  “They can’t see in, silly, but even if they could – all the better. I’d enjoy their jealousy!”

  He reached behind her and unzipped her skirt. It fell around her ankles. She stepped out of it and put her arms around his waist. He slipped his fingers into the waistband of her knickers.

  “Wait a moment.” She leaned back and picked up the long-handled hairbrush from her dressing table. “I’m being a bad girl, aren’t I? Don’t you think you should teach me a lesson?”

  “What do you mean?” asked Dick, sounding puzzled.

  “Well, shouldn’t bad girls be put over someone’s knee and spanked?”

  “But of course I don’t want to spank you! I’m very glad you’re being a bad girl!”

  He wasn’t getting ‘on message’.

  “Dick, I don’t mind if you spank me – really.” She hoped she didn’t sound too desperate.

  “Of course I’m not going to spank you – I wouldn’t hurt you for anything! I like you much too much. Now come here, darling.”

  He drew her back to him. She could feel a tumescence beneath his trousers as he held her to him once again, kissing her passionately. She enjoyed the feeling of his tongue entwined with hers and the manliness of his arms around her, but she knew, absolutely, that something was missing –and she knew what that something was.

  He let go of her and started taking his own clothes off. She stood there, still clasping the hairbrush.

  “Dick – it’s my first time. You’ll be gentle, won’t you?”

  “Of course, darling. Now, put the hairbrush down. You won’t be feeling that on your bottom tonight. How silly of you to feel that you had to mortify your soul or something! But it was rather sweet, all the same!”

  Reluctantly, she laid the brush back on the glass top of the dressing table.

  “Now, come here!” He pulled her gently down on to the bed, moving the sheet and blanket aside so that they could slip underneath. She could feel his manhood hard against her groin. She knew she wanted to do this, but somehow she didn’t feel quite ready. She took a deep breath.

  “It’s OK, sweetie.” She heard the tearing of foil and then a sharp, almost pungent smell. She could feel him groping to slip on the condom. Then he rolled her over on to her back and was kissing her again, on the mouth, the neck, her throat, and lower. He ran his tongue softly around her nipples, trying to tease them into arousal. They sulked.

  His right hand caressed her leg, moved up her thigh, and cupped itself around her bottom. This was better. She wiggled gently. Then, just as she was feeling that things were moving in a more promising direction, he slipped his hand across the top of her hips and his fingers started a gentle delving. Once again, her libido threatened to take a lunch break. She sighed. Encouraged, Dick probed further. He was breathing heavily now, reaching the stage where brakes are no longer available. He pushed is way into her, there was a momentary stab of pain, and then a rhythmical movement which reminded her, for some completely inappropriate reason, of the motor of her beloved Morris Minor. These are not the sort of thoughts you are supposed to entertain in this rather special situation. The engine jerked a few times and then puttered to a stop.

  “Oh, darling,” Dick was almost hyperventilating, “that was wonderful. Was it good for you, too?”

  “Mmmm! Terrific!” At least she didn’t add “Thank you.”

  Minutes later, Dick was fast asleep, purring like a cat. Miss Holloway lay on her back, staring at the gently moving pattern made by the shadow of the trees on the ceiling.

  So that, she wondered, was it?

  Some more months would pass before she would find out that it wasn’t.

  Chapter 5

  Anna

  Anna, alone in the house, watched the raindrops running down her bedroom window. She was trying to stimulate herself,
but somehow she couldn’t get into the required spirit. She sat up, straightened her knickers and lay back on her bed. What was the missing element?

  She shared the interests of so many girls of that era as they approached adulthood. Her hormones raged at the sight and sound of Elvis and his gyrating hips. Posters of a smouldering James Dean decorated her walls. Like most, if not all her friends, despite some of their fanciful boasts, she was still a virgin. Sex had only raised its head in her life in the form of some back-row fumblings in the cinema, where – despite her own arousal – she had always arrested the boy’s creeping hand before it had reached its goal. She had, of course, masturbated for years – something she acknowledged only to her closest friends during particularly intimate girly-talk sessions. But today none of the usual imaginary triggers – tall, lantern-jawed adolescents with smoky eyes, swivel-hipped rock musicians, or even assured and confident father-figures – was doing anything for her.

  She sighed, got up and sat at her dressing table. She examined herself in the mirror. She was tall for her age, with long legs that she knew attracted admiring glances from the boys, especially when she wore her most daringly short skirts (the ones she changed into at friends’ houses so that her own parents wouldn’t see them). Today, however, she was wearing jeans. She stood and half turned, examining her bottom. The jeans had been an expensive buy, but worth it for the way they clung to her cheeks. If anything needed some improvement, she thought, it was her bum: it was definitely on the small side, which meant that jeans and trousers had to be of high quality if they weren’t to look baggy on her.

  She sat down again and continued the evaluation. She touched her breasts: they were firm and developing nicely. Her face was pretty, she thought, even though – like her bottom – it could be described as petite. To try to disguise this, she wore her auburn hair full and long. Her hair was really good: glossy and shining with health. She rewarded it by picking up her hairbrush and sweeping it through the locks, teasing out the few knots. With a sudden insight, she pulled the brush from her hair. It had quite a long handle and the bristles were attached to a heavy, oval wooden head. It looked, she realised, a lot like ‘Stinger’.

  ‘Stinger’ was the hairbrush which the headmaster at Bexhill resorted to when scoldings had either fallen on deaf ears or when the offence merited the immediate use of physical correction short of a caning. Mr. Masterson and his Deputy, Mrs. Winchester, used the hairbrush mainly for first offences committed by junior girls. It was often their introduction to the school’s corporal punishment repertoire. Mrs. Winchester’s brush, a little lighter and so less formidable than Stinger, was known as ‘Tingle’.

  Now, as Anna looked at the brush in her hands, she recalled the ambivalent emotions she had felt when Mr. Masterson had been obliged to spank her with Stinger at the beginning of her first year at the school.

  The term had been less than a month old when she and a friend had been caught whispering together and sharing a stick of chewing gum during the Sunday chapel service. A teacher, whom they hadn’t noticed in the pew behind them, tapped them both on their shoulders and whispered that they were ‘on report’. Their stomachs somersaulted and they paid little attention to the rest of the service, and – most unwisely – none at all to the headmaster’s sermon. The teacher was as good as his word, and shortly after lunch both girls were summoned to see Mr. Masterson. He looked grim as they stood before the desk in his study, their hands clasped behind their backs, fingers twirling nervously.

  Mr. Masterson pointed out that whispering in church constituted some form of blasphemy, whilst chewing gum in the holy precincts ensured an express route to Hell.

  “And what,” he had asked, “did you girls learn from my sermon?” He waited in vain for an answer, because neither Anna nor Jenny had the slightest idea what he’d been warbling about. This inattention to his finely-crafted words proved to be the straw that broke the camel’s back. He reached down to a drawer on the right-hand side of his desk. Both Anna and Jenny knew the consequences of such a move and their eyes widened. Sure enough, the headmaster opened the drawer and extracted from it the legendary Stinger. He laid the hairbrush on his desk. It looked bigger, heavier, and altogether more sinister than the girls had imagined.

  “Right. I think this is the first time either of you have been spanked since you came to the school?”

  Anna managed a muted “Yes, sir,” while Jenny just nodded, transfixed by the sight of Stinger. The headmaster stood up and walked around the desk.

  “I want you to stand here,” he said, pulling Anna gently towards him so that there was a yard or so between her and her partner in sacrilege.

  “Good. Now both of you bend over and grasp your ankles.”

  The girls exchanged frightened glances and did as they were told.

  Mr. Masterson moved behind Anna, lifted up her dark blue Sunday skirt, and folded the hem securely inside the waistband. The white shirt-tail thus revealed he arranged on top of her lower back. He took a step across the room and did the same to Jenny, pulling the elasticated bottom of her white knickers down so that they lay stretched tautly across her cheeks.

  He went back to his desk, picked up Stinger and smacked it against the palm of his left hand.

  He took up position beside Anna. “You’re each going to get six.” He tapped Anna’s bottom once with Stinger. Anna suddenly remembered the headmaster’s nickname, ‘Three Taps’, and realised that she was on the verge of experiencing the celebrated procedure. He ran the brush up and down the curve of her cheeks, making Anna wince. “Keep still until I tell you to get up.”

  Tap. Tap.

  “I won’t tolerate girls who cannot show respect for their surroundings, especially in chapel.”

  Tap. Tap. Tap. Anna dug her nails into her ankles. The smack, landing mostly on her right cheek, made a noise like a thunderclap. It was followed immediately by a burning sting. Anna cried out but held her position. The second stroke came almost immediately, landing symmetrically on her left cheek. Anna rocked forward on her toes.

  ‘Three Taps’ moved across to Jenny. Anna was so absorbed in trying to manage the pain which was radiating out from Stinger’s impacts that she hardly heard Mr. Masterson telling Jenny to stick her bottom right out, or registered the distinct tap which followed. Then she clearly heard a double tap and saw Jenny screw up her eyes.

  “And as for chewing gum – you know that this is not allowed anywhere in the school.”

  Tap. Tap. Tap. Jenny bit her lip just as the first stroke landed athwart both cheeks. She gasped. The second stroke produced a cry of “Oooww!” and she rocked forward so much that Anna thought Jenny might lose her balance.

  ‘Three Taps’ returned to his position beside Anna and whacked her hard, twice, landing the hairbrush right across the centre of her bottom. Anna bucked and wailed.

  Jenny got the same treatment a few moments later, howling even more loudly than Anna.

  “Last two, Anna. I hope you’ve learned a lesson.” It seemed to be a rhetorical question, so Anna just hung on to her ankles for dear life as the final two strokes were delivered, one to each side of her backside. The first elicited an “Ooouch!” and the other an “Ooooww!”, both conveyed with feeling.

  “You, too, Jenny. Any more irreverence in chapel and it’ll be the cane. Now stay still for the last two.” It was all Jenny could do not to jump up as the heavy wood twice struck the lower part of her cheeks, sending a searing sting pulsing through her body.

  Mr. Masterson walked slowly back to his desk, replaced Stinger and closed the drawer. He took his seat.

  “All right, you can get up.” The girls straightened themselves and adjusted their skirts. Both were snivelling.

  “Sign the Punishment Book here, please, and don’t let me see you on report again. Next time, it’ll be on the bare.”

  The girls signed their names opposite the entry which recorded for posterity that on Sunday, 29 September, 1957, they’d each received six strokes of t
he hairbrush over their pants for offences committed in chapel.

  “You may go.” The headmaster indicated the door. The girls slunk out, even omitting the customary “Thank you, sir” as they left.

  “Wooo!” said Anna, rubbing her bottom furiously, “that really hurt!”

  “Much more than I thought it would,” agreed Jenny, clutching her cheeks. “Well done. You were pretty brave!”

  “Oh, I wasn’t! You made much less noise than me! Let’s go and look at our trade-marks.” ‘Trade-marks’ was the school slang for the visible after-effects of any thrashing.

  Jenny’s dormitory was the nearest, so they went in, pulled down their knickers, and in the wall mirror examined the wide, red-purple blotches which glowed across the pale skin of their backsides.

  “Sitting down isn’t going to be much fun”, Jenny observed, massaging her stinging cheeks. “Let me look at yours.”

  It was as she was running her fingers over the welts on Anna’s bottom that the door swung open. It only took a glance at the two surprised girls for Matron to register the situation.

  “Ah, so it was you two. I heard the headmaster spanking someone. I hope it was for your behaviour in chapel. I saw you whispering together until Mr. Desmond spoke to you. If he hadn’t put you on report, I’d have done so. I’m glad to see you got your just desserts. Now, pull up your knickers and be off with you.” She held the door open for the embarrassed pair. They made their way downstairs to join their friends. As always on such occasions, they became the heroines of the hour, with a cluster of girls around them eager to hear every detail of the ordeal.

  Now, as she sat at her dresser, hairbrush in hand, Anna remembered the ambivalent emotions she had felt on that occasion. She recalled the trepidation as they had made their way to the headmaster’s study and knocked on the door; their rising fear during the brief interview with him as their imminent fate became clear; the stomach-knotting terror as he reached down to extract Stinger from the drawer; the nightmare of the slow and deliberate preparations: the bending over, the sensation of cool air on her bottom as her skirt was raised, and then – worst of all – that awful wait for the third tap. The spanking, once it had begun, was almost a relief. Of course it hurt: each swat stung like mad, but every time the brush landed it was one more stroke counted off towards the allocated six.