Bouquet of Bamboo

by Sarah Steel

  Her taxi slowed down, congealing in the jam at Notting Hill Gate caused by another film shoot. She slipped out and walked the remaining couple of blocks to the posh end of Ladbroke Grove, lined with four and five storey white stucco façades as hard and gleaming as slabs of wedding cake. A prettily uniformed maid admitted Freddie into the salon downstairs and withdrew, returning moments later to escort her up two flights of richly carpeted steps, into what seemed to be a spoof version of a Wimpole Street dentist’s waiting room.

  She surveyed her surroundings warily. Subtle Swedish lighting effects, decent Adam chairs in prim array and all the right magazines to flick through.

  The maid disappeared silently. Across the room a pair of double doors remained firmly closed. Behind them, she assumed, was the dowager. She snatched up a glossy and, skimming through it somewhat petulantly, took stock. She knew of the dowager in a vague sort of way. Incredibly ancient but rather good at getting things sorted. Not so much CAB as AAB – Aristo’s Advice Bureau. She had cured the Welham girl, the one with the lesbian crush on the children’s nanny, or something like that.

  Freddie shrugged, supposing she was here to receive some sort of financial guidance, money management skills, crap like that. She wondered if she could touch the old bag for a couple of hundred.

  The Adam chair, un-upholstered and testing to the buttocks, grew increasingly uncomfortable. She wriggled and squirmed. The shadow of a memory stole over her as she sat in the still silence of the waiting room. The memory became less vague, and as it took hold, so did her mounting sense of unease. Then she suddenly realised being here waiting for the double doors to open was just like being summoned to see the headmistress at her boarding school. Recognition swept over her, with the lingering smell of lunch – boiled ham hock, parsley sauce and baked potatoes – creeping down the corridors from the refectory to the head’s office. Painful moments, long, agonising minutes of waiting. Then the even more painful encounter with the fierce headmistress.

  Like the hard Adam seat of polished wood biting into the softness of her bottom cheeks, memories of waiting at the head’s office door stung Freddie painfully. She remembered sitting on an uncomfortable wooden seat after that lunch of ham hock, sitting and shivering in delicious dread as the rest of the lower sixth whooped it up on the netball court. Ducking out of prep or squabbling over lipsticks would have been sharply dealt with by a slipper-wielding dorm prefect just before lights out. But on this occasion, Freddie had been caught cuddling a dean’s niece, naked, after lights out.

  She giggled as she remembered the dreadful row, but then sobered up at once as she recalled squirming on the hard chair. Outside the netball game was warming up. The squealing, coltish girls dashed up and down the asphalt court, their brassier-free breasts bouncing up and down. Leaping to intercept, or even higher to score, their white panties could be briefly glimpsed as they stretched up to shoot.

  ‘Frederica.’ The curt tone, the menacing glint of gold-rimmed glasses perched on the bridge of a beaky nose, the brisk invitation – no, the stern instruction – to enter the inner sanctum of the dominant head. Inside the office there followed a long lecture on the unsuitability at boarding school of intense Sapphic attachments. Freddie, blushing and squirming, was made to confess the grim details – hard nipples touching, and tongue-play in the warm wet pussy of the dean’s niece. The description of her transgression was met by an intense silence as her face blazed red with shame.

  ‘Across the desk,’ came the dreaded command, and she vividly recalled the cruel glint of the bamboo cane as it was retrieved from the walnut cabinet, glimpsed from where one of her blushing cheeks was pressed down into the cold leather of the desk she was bent over.

  ‘No, take your hands away. I’ll deal with your knickers presently.’

  Freddie obediently levelled her hands, palms down, on the leather blotter, shrinking away from the sure and certain touch of strong fingers flipping up the hem of her grey pleated skirt. Those same fingers, gripping firmly, pinched up the elastic waistband of her panties, and then thumbed them down across the swell of her proffered buttocks. Bare-bottomed and trembling, she cringed as the headmistress strode slowly across the room to the window and drew the heavy curtains closed.

  The purposeful tread of the almost silent brogues approached the desk again, followed by the thin whistle of the practice stroke as the whippy wood swished down savagely. Then came the gentle, almost playful caress of the cane tap-tapping the tensed cheeks it was about to blister.

  There was a sinister swish followed by a scream, and her breath clouded the leather blotter. Another swish was followed by an even shriller scream. Outside, unseen behind the drawn curtains, the drumming of tightly laced pumps sounded across the netball court, harmonising with the squeals of excited, jostling girls. Inside, there was only the vicious whisper of the searing cane followed by even louder cries of pain…

  Freddie blinked and sat bolt upright on the Adam chair. The glossy magazine had slipped from her lifeless fingers minutes before. Her mouth was dry, her tongue feeling strangely clumsy. She swallowed and stood up restlessly, peeling her bottom cheeks away from the cruel wood.

  The double doors behind which the dowager held court suddenly opened and a young uniformed chauffeur emerged, stumbling slightly. Red-faced, he frantically stuffed his shirt down into his trousers with one hand, clutching his cap and gloves in the other. He shuffled out through the door that had just been opened by the uniformed maid, who ushered in a matron swathed in sable furs, followed by a sullen little domestic.

  Freddie stood by uncertainly. She wondered if she should go in to see the dowager without being officially invited, and decided against it.

  The maid chivvied the new arrivals in, and closed the double doors firmly behind them again.

  Freddie resumed her uncomfortable seat, and watched the trim little maid depart, the door clicking very softly closed behind her.

  Seventeen minutes became twenty-three. After thirty-two, Freddie closed her eyes. Her bottom became numb again on the unforgiving chair, almost as numb as it had been when she inspected her stripes after her painful visit to the stern headmistress’s office. She remembered peering over her shoulder into the looking glass, peering and counting, with timid bravado, the seven, eight, nine red welts slowly paling into a raw blue-violet across her tender flesh.

  Shaking away her memories, she tried to focus on her present circumstances. What had the chauffeur consulted the dowager over? That shirt being stuffed bashfully into his trousers was certainly suggestive. A discreet cure for the clap, perhaps? Surely not. And what of the sulky little domestic in the dowager’s lair right now?

  She stood up again, feeling increasingly uneasy. The memory of her caning across the desk of the headmistress was unsettling her. Could the little domestic, escorted by the plump fur-laden matron, possibly have committed some misdemeanour, a misdemeanour that no doubt merited discipline – discipline and punishment?

  Freddie found herself on her knees in front of the double doors. Tense and quivering, she strained to listen through the wood. There was no keyhole to peep through. Her imagination was forced to snap up every scrap of sound and convert it into pictures behind her closed eyes. She imagined she heard the furred matron levelling solemn accusations against her maid, followed by a shrill squeak of denial, and then her nipples thickened as she fantasised catching the thin wail of a protest…

  She sat down on her heels, exhaling her pent-up breath. Her mind was playing tricks on her. She had heard nothing, no sharp scolding and no murmured contrition. She sighed, disappointed. The dowager was probably being consulted about some minor matter, smoothing out the wrinkles of an expired work permit, perhaps.

  Crack!

  Freddie froze.

  Crack!

  Her heart hammered wildly in her chest as she surged to her feet, listening intently.

  Another smacking sou
nd was followed by a shrill scream. A bare bottom was apparently being harshly spanked. She held her breath. Surely the sound of the chastisement was too crisp to be a palm landing against soft cheeks. It had to be a paddle. She swore softly beneath her breath and her nipples peaked in their silk cups, the stiff buds straining as they became almost painfully engorged. She cupped her breasts and squeezed them with fierce affection, almost certain she had correctly identified the instrument of punishment the disobedient maid was being soundly chastised with. But she could not be absolutely sure. No, she would not bet on it, not even if the odds against were generous. The red-cheeked domestic was now howling too loudly for Freddie to identify the source of her suffering. Seven-to-four it was a hard leather strap crimsoning her buttocks, eleven-to-eight on a paddle—

  The fat matron in furs suddenly swept out of the room, propelling the weeping, whipped domestic before her. Freddie barely had time to jump back to avoid the door hitting her as it opened, and then she finally heard her name being called from inside the room. She passed through the double doors and found herself in a dimly lit room with heavy curtains shutting out the afternoon sunshine, just like in the headmistress’s study that fateful afternoon, years before.

  The dowager was a slight figure, probably in her late fifties. Her silver hair was swept back into a severe chignon, her firm mouth was free of lipstick and her pale green eyes were as sharp as ice. Her hands were beautiful, delicate and exquisitely manicured, resting together as if in silent prayer in the lap of a black velvet dress. Freddie frowned. The woman before her was surely too calm, too unruffled, to have just beaten another woman so mercilessly, and she relaxed, realising it must have been the fur-swathed matron who had punished her own maid. Her inner sigh of relief was almost audible, and the green eyes flickered as though observing it. Then one of the fine white hands gestured to a leather chair.

  Freddie sat down, smiling and at ease again.

  ‘Your father and I have spoken at length, Frederica.’

  The younger woman inclined her head indulgently, thinking it best to humour the old bat.

  ‘I believe I may be able to help you. That is to say, I may be able to help you help yourself.’

  Behind the wing-back chair occupied by the silver-haired woman, Freddie saw a French seventeenth century glass-panelled cabinet. Normally reserved for priceless pieces of Sevres and Dresden, this cabinet contained a display of curled straps, coiled whips and gleaming canes. Leather cuffs, ankle restraints and what appeared to be black hoods decked the lower shelves. Yet, she reasoned anxiously, this frail woman was surely incapable of plying any of those brutal instruments. Nevertheless, the glass cabinet morbidly fascinated her with its curled, coiled lengths of hide resting passively within, potent with the promise of pain.

  ‘Am I to understand from your silence,’ the dowager’s crisp tone demanded her attention, ‘that you do not agree with me, Frederica? Very well, you give me no choice.’ She clapped her hands twice.

  Almost at once a blue velvet curtain parted at the far end of the room, admitting two very athletic-looking young women. Freddie shivered, instantly fearful of their sinuous, ominous strength. Dressed alike in tight white vests and bottom-hugging white shorts, white ankle socks and white laced pumps, they approached the wing-backed chair with unhurried assurance. Flanking their mistress they stood at attention, their buttocks tight and their pumps planted together. Freddie scanned their inscrutable Slavic faces. They were both in their late twenties, she guessed, and both were strawberry blondes, their hair severely cropped around pale faces and seemingly colourless eyes.

  ‘Kristina and Lara,’ the dowager introduced each girl with a slight nod in their direction. ‘From Estonia.’

  Freddie’s eyes were torn between the firm outline of Kristina’s breasts within the tight white vest, and the other girl’s pronounced pubic mound delineated beneath the form-fitting cotton shorts.

  Lara turned, her soft footfalls silent upon the carpet as she sauntered over to the cabinet. Lifting the glass lid carefully, she extracted a thick brown leather strap. Unfurling it, she palmed the gleaming hide across her pale thigh.

  Freddie swallowed hard, watching her.

  ‘We are going to help you conquer your vicious addiction, Frederica,’ the dowager informed her.

  ‘But I don’t have—’

  ‘Gambling is a vice,’ the dowager said patiently. ‘Is it not?’

  Freddie lowered her head, avoiding the piercing green gaze.

  ‘Answer me, girl. Look at me and answer my question at once.’

  Sulkily knuckling the leather arm of her chair, she remained silent, her head lowered.

  ‘Lara!’

  Startled by the dowager’s sharp command, Freddie looked up just in time to see the flash of the oiled hide as it whipped down across one of her soft thighs. She squealed in pain and surprise and rubbed at the weal reddening beneath the sheen of her light tan stockings. ‘You bitch!’ she hissed through clenched teeth. ‘My father—’

  ‘Has given me carte blanche to cure you of your addiction, Frederica. You are to remain here with me until I am perfectly satisfied you have been cured.’

  ‘No, you’re mistaken,’ she cried. ‘I’m not addicted. I enjoy a flutter, but I pay my way, I—’

  ‘Lara.’

  The leather strap hissed loudly as it kissed Freddie’s thigh again, causing her to fling her head back and scream.

  ‘Pay your way?’ The dowager snorted. ‘With your allowance and then your capital, and when you’ve squandered that it’s borrowing and worse, I believe.’

  ‘Fuck off!’ Freddie struggled to rise as she massaged her ravaged thigh. ‘How bloody well dare you—?’

  ‘Sit down and be quiet and,’ the dowager spoke in a chilling tone, ‘let there be no more foul language, young lady. Kristina and Lara are here to, among other things, improve their English. I simply will not have them picking up bad or improper words.’

  Freddie subsided back into the chair as Kristina stepped forward in response to a curt nod from her mistress. Only three paces, but Freddie found the silent movement potent with menace. Both girls were standing over her now, and they were so close she could smell their freshly washed skin. Quivering with suppressed rage she squirmed in the chair, calculating her odds. They were pretty slim, so best to simply play along and agree to anything. A few tears of contrition might please the old biddy. She would play the penitent and be out of there by teatime.

  ‘Put aside any thought of leaving this house until you are cured, girl.’ The dowager’s penetrating stare read her thoughts. ‘It may take days, it may even take weeks.’

  Freddie flinched as she saw Lara’s hand tighten around the leather strap, and then she felt her heart turn to stone inside her chest. Days? Weeks? What the hell was going on here?

  ‘Now,’ the dowager continued smoothly, rubbing her palms together slowly as if applying invisible hand lotion, ‘I think we had better start again at the beginning. Stand up, girl.’

  Capable hands lifted Freddie out of the chair.

  ‘Strip her and prepare her for the question.’

  ‘Look,’ she said desperately, ‘I’ll never play the tables again, I swear, and I’ll give up the horses and—’

  ‘Lara, the gag, if you will.’

  The strawberry-blonde acknowledged the instruction from her mistress with a polite nod, and Freddie could not believe how quickly the two Estonians stripped her of her clothes before expertly slipping black leather cuffs around her wrists and ankles. A soft lint gag was then thrust between her lips and she was dragged, struggling futilely, over to a wooden trestle. She was bent facedown over the framework and secured firmly to it with the metal rings attached to her leather cuffs. Her naked buttocks offered up helplessly, she finally ceased fighting the inevitable, and the trestle creaked ominously as she slumped over it, crushing her breasts again
st the uncompromising wood.

  ‘The inveterate gambler lacks order and discipline, Frederica,’ the dowager declared sternly, ‘and the gambler’s appetite increases with each wager in the search for excitement. An addictive vice, but there is a cure. Since you lack discipline, disciplined you must be. And I need answers to my questions, girl. The truth, mind you, or punishment will prompt your tongue. Remember that both Kristina and Lara are simply aching to get busy on your bottom.’

  She shivered, clenching her naked buttocks defensively and scrunching up her toes in an agony of expectation. Bare-bottomed and bound facedown, she was utterly helpless before her beautiful tormentors. Twisting her head to one side, she saw the puddle of her shiny nylon stockings lying on the carpet beside her white panties, tossed aside after being ripped off her.

  The dowager rose and approached the trestle to whisper instructions to her stern assistants.

  Freddie writhed, straining in her bondage in an effort to determine what was about to happen. Her throat tightened as her pulse quickened, and then a sharp, snapping sound made her whole body tense. She could make no sense of it, and stretching in the restraints, she jerked her face up and caught a reflection of herself in an oval mirror. In the silvery glass she also saw the two Slavic girls stretching their hands, fingers splayed, into pale blue rubber gloves.

  ‘Commence,’ the dowager muttered, pausing briefly at the side of the trestle to fleetingly caress the dark rift between Freddie’s bottom cheeks with one manicured nail. Then a moment later she appeared at the head of the trestle shuffling a pack of cards. ‘Inspect her,’ she barked.

  Rubber fingertips methodically probed Freddie’s slightly wet labial lips.

  ‘Nothing there,’ Kristina murmured, thumbing Freddie’s slit firmly.

  ‘We shall see,’ the dowager muttered. ‘Hold her down.’

  Rubber hands descended fiercely upon Freddie’s naked flesh, one over her shoulder, another at the nape of her neck as two more hands rhythmically palmed and smoothed her upturned buttocks. She moaned an outraged protest, but the gag held fast, smothering her cry into a pitiful mewling. Then the cold latex fingers pulled open her bottom cheeks until her yawning cleft ached fiercely.