‘However, there will naturally be a penalty. Please remove your shorts.’
The immediate relief in being allowed to drop the ball was so intense that it quite eclipsed Amelia’s shame at having to uncover, and even for a moment, dread of the penalty. She unbuttoned her shorts, feeling the pain in her shoulders finally begin to ebb away. Struggling to tug them down, she winced as the cotton grazed those portions of her hindquarters that had been kissed so brusquely by the hardwood bat.
‘That must be tender.’ The Reverend gave a sigh as he regarded her glowing bottom. ‘Unfortunately, I am afraid I shall have to make it really rather sore.’
A bit of the old Amelia, the proud Amelia, bridled at this mocking. Anger at her appalling usage and this beast’s hypocrisy stole unbidden into her soul. She turned and glared. It was only for a moment, but he saw it and smiled.
‘Not licked yet, are we, madam?’ There was almost admiration in his voice. ‘I like a bit of spirit in a girl.’
Amelia felt her heart hammer as conflicting emotions boiled within her breast.
‘Now, my dear, pick up the ball and clutch it to your belly.’
She picked up the heavy ball and did as she was bid, pressing her stomach and thighs against it, horribly aware of the way her bottom was pushed out by this posture. Now there was only one thing in her heart and mind. Something called terror.
She gasped as she felt the Reverend’s hand on her sore behind. In front of her she could see Charlotte reluctantly pulling off her shorts for a smiling Mr Ziri, but this sight meant little to her. All her attention was fixed on the presence behind.
‘My, my, this bottom feels hot.’ The Reverend’s relaxed voice reminded her of a tiger’s purr, seductive yet threatening. ‘The exercises must be warming you up, my dear.’
He took his hand away and Amelia closed her eyes, clutching the big medicine ball towards herself. The smack of the paddle was not long delayed. There was a sharp retort, sending fiery pain through her buttocks.
‘Keep still, and count them out.’
Was there a hoarse tone in the Reverend’s voice? Could the sight of her bare bottom be affecting his usual self-control? Amelia had no leisure to contemplate the matter. A second crack doubled her agony.
‘One... thank you, sir,’ she whimpered as soon as the power of speech returned.
Crack!
‘Oooh... two, thank you, sir.’
The pain in her arms and shoulders belonged to another era, perhaps another person. This Amelia knew nothing but the scalding sensation in her bottom. The next pair of meaty cracks expanded her universe to include the tops of her thighs. She clutched the medicine ball convulsively and waited until the pitch of pain started to recede.
At last she managed to count the fourth stroke to the Reverend’s satisfaction. The final crack took her four-square on the spot where the underhang of her cheeks met her bottom crack. The pain was no less intense here than it had been on her thighs, but it seemed to be more endurable, even more welcome, in some inexplicable way. Still, she had to clutch the ball and hiss like a boiling kettle for a moment before she could thank her tormentor for his pitiless handiwork.
‘Very well,’ the Reverend said, sounding regretful. ‘You may go on to the rope.’
The rope proved easier than before. This time around her arm muscles had at least had some respite whilst her bottom took the strain. The presence of the Reverend with his paddle and the throbbing soreness in her naked rear probably also helped her to shimmy up the rope with greater alacrity.
Gasping, Amelia touched the bar at the top of the rope and began her descent. This was less appealing, as she would be lowering her tenderised behind towards the Reverend and his bat. She could not stay where she was, however, and she was appallingly aware of how her position above him revealed the most private parts of her person to his hawk-like gaze. Amelia could feel moisture trickling down her inner thighs and tried not to think about what sort of glistening picture she presented.
There was nothing for it, so she lowered herself as little as she could before jumping down to land on the mat.
Perhaps she had let go of the rope too early, for she could not keep her footing as she landed, pitching forward on to her hands and knees. Her bottom only stuck up for a split second, but that was enough.
The bat caught her across the middle of her buttocks even as she was rising up to run. Yelping, she dashed away and out of range as fast as she could.
The penultimate exercise gave her some chance to recover. She had to run ten widths of the gym, from the entrance to the far wall bars. The first time round, desperate not to lose sight of Arabella and Kirsty, she had run as fast as she could. She knew better now. The circuit training was too taxing to take it at full tilt. The ten lengths gave her time to collect herself and let her arm muscles and bottom recover a little, before she had to start the whole purgatorial round again.
It also gave her the chance to assess the others. Amelia knew perfectly well that she had to stay in touch with the leaders if she did not want to be adjudged to be slacking, but she had to pace herself better if she wanted to have a chance of getting through comparatively unscathed.
Bella was still in front; Amelia could see her at the squat thrusts. She was red-faced but determined and still in possession of her shorts, even if these looked about to burst every time she squatted. Linnet, on the other hand, was now clambering out of hers, blinking fearfully, as the Reverend watched her. Charlotte was struggling with the medicine ball.
Over on the precarious beam, Kirsty was being supervised by Mr Ziri, the nerveless girl seeming to manage easily. That left Gretchen, whose running had slowed to a rather pitiful limp. Amelia passed the plump woman, who was blowing like a steam train as she stumbled by on her last length of the gym.
Now it was Amelia’s turn for the vaulting horse. She paused before the run. To her chagrin Kirsty had completed the beam and scurried off to do her squats. Mr Ziri was waiting beside the horse, pelota bat in hand. Amelia’s belly flipped as his eyes dropped down to peruse her naked sex.
‘Not a very impressive show really, girls. I think I shall have to bring you down here more often to drill a little fitness into you.’
Six gasping girls were lined up by the vaulting horse. Only two of them were still possessed of shorts. Amelia had recovered enough from her exertions to feel the shame of her exposure, but she dared not cover her naked cunny despite the hot eyes of the gym instructor. Mr Ziri’s tights now bulged noticeably at the front. Amelia took a gulp of air and hung her head.
‘Gretchen, Linnet, your singlets are soaked in sweat. You had better take them off before you catch your deaths.’
To her side there was a movement as Gretchen peeled her vest off with obvious reluctance. It was true that the cotton top was moist with perspiration, but then so was Amelia’s. She did not point this fact out, however, electing to silently thank heaven for small mercies instead.
The girls were made to change positions, so that they stood in pairs according to dress. Bella and Kirsty still retained their shorts. Amelia stood between Kirsty and Charlotte; who also wore only her singlet, socks and plimsolls. Linnet and Gretchen, naked except for long white socks and gym shoes, blushed and trembled at the end.
‘As the bats seem to have little effect we are going to try this instead.’ The Reverend glanced towards Mr Ziri, who had picked up a nasty-looking split-tailed tawse.
‘To finish the day’s exercise I want you to run circles around the gymnasium. When you hear this sound,’ he put a whistle to his lips and blew, producing a piercing tone by way of illustration, ‘you will run as fast as you can. When I blow again you will stop dead still. I may, or may not, call out one of your names then. Should your name be called you will skip over here,’ he patted the horse, ‘to take a few of these.’ The Reverend gestured to Mr Ziri, who gave the leather-covered pomm
el of the horse a heart-stopping thwack with the tawse. ‘Then the rest of you will stand and watch until the whistle sounds again, and you will resume your run.’ His face grew grave. ‘I must tell you, girls, that slacking will result in strokes, as will failure to stand still until the whistle sounds, as will failing to watch attentively. Is that understood?’
Somewhat reluctantly, the girls chorused their assent.
‘Is that understood?’ The Reverend’s voice echoed around the hall.
‘Yes, sir.’ This time the chorus was loud and emphatic.
‘Good.’ The Reverend put the whistle to his lips and blew. The little knot of girls set off at a trot.
‘Faster, faster, I want to see some titties bouncing, girls. Now run.’
Charlotte was at her side and Amelia heard her companion sob at this. For her own part the crude remark had made her all the more aware of how her full breasts jiggled under her thin singlet. It could be worse, she told herself, as Gretchen’s naked melons bounced in the corner of her eye. The group soon resolved itself into the usual order, Bella’s long legs taking her away in front. Amelia tried hard to keep up with Kirsty, losing Charlotte as she chased the Scottish girl.
Pheeeeeep! She careered to a stop, facing the wall bars. Only now did she appreciate quite how diabolical the plan was. Amelia waited in trembling trepidation, praying that her name would not be the one.
Pheeeeeep! With a gasp of relief, she set off once more, chasing Kirsty’s bouncing mop of red-gold curls around the circumference of the gym. She had just been starting to get her breath back by the horse, and now she was panting heavily again.
Pheeeeeep! Again she stopped. Again came the awful wait.
‘Linnet, get that fetching little bottom over here.’
Amelia watched the naked girl trot over to the horse. She could sense Linnet’s reluctance though she did not dare delay. Linnet’s hair had been put into a single plait that swayed as she ran over to the waiting men. The muscular Mr Ziri and the Reverend Dawes waited, each with a tawse gripped in his fist, as they watched Linnet approach them. Her slenderness and delicacy seemed all the more pronounced in contrast to their powerful forms, her nakedness all the more shocking as the men were clothed.
Linnet’s pale skin was but a little pink after her exertions, except for her bottom, which was still glowing from the bat’s attentions. As she reached the dwarfing figures of the men, Amelia saw the girl’s sloping shoulders quiver. She did not know if she had ever seen anyone who looked quite so vulnerable.
The Reverend Dawes did not deign to speak to the girl. He simply gestured to the vaulting horse. Linnet had been under his tutelage long enough, it seemed, for she neither hesitated nor questioned his purpose. Instead, she turned to face the horse. To bend over the pommel of the thing she had to give a little jump. Once in place her chubby cheeks were displayed to perfection.
No longer the angry scarlet they had been just after the attentions of the paddle, the oval imprints of the pelota bats were still plain to see. Gazing at them, Amelia felt a sympathetic twitch in her own punished buttocks and thighs.
The Reverend Dawes reached out and patted the proffered cheeks, drawing a startled cry from Linnet as he did so.
‘Mmmm, still a trifle warm. Not the meatiest bottom I have ever beaten, but it really is a little peach. Have a feel, do, Mr Ziri.’
The men stroked and patted, to the accompaniment of several whimpers from the object of their attentions. Amelia watched with set lips. She should have been glad of the respite. It was a chance to rest, conserve her strength and get her breath back. She should have been glad, but she was not.
To her chagrin, as the Reverend patted and praised Linnet’s trembling rear, she felt a surge of jealousy rip through her. What does he mean, a peach? she thought furiously.
What can he see in that skinny little runt’s excuse for a bottom? If you want to see a perfect one you have only to look at mine! Then the implications of the thought hit her and she felt panic overtake her. No, I did not mean it, she prayed silently, as if afraid that some power might read her thoughts and grant her foolish wish. Let him look at anyone but me!
Even so, when the fondling finally stopped and the tawse was raised in the Reverend’s hand, Amelia willed him to lay on with all his strength. Go on, thrash her, she thought as her hands clenched at her sides. Make her suffer for being so pretty.
Her silent prayer was swiftly answered. There was a whirring sound and the brown leather tails blurred the air before a crack echoed around the gymnasium. Linnet was not given leisure to cope with that stroke, however, for even as the split tails cracked across her bottom Mr Ziri unleashed a complementary stroke that thwacked across her upper thighs a split second later.
The effect of this double stroke on her naked flesh was instantaneous. Linnet gave a shriek of pain and twisted like a gaffed fish on the pommel. Amelia was astonished that the girl did not jump right off the vaulting horse, so violent was the twisting of her slender body.
‘Quite still now, Linnet.’ The Reverend’s voice was gentle. He always seemed, Amelia thought resentfully, most content and at ease when he was whipping girls. The man was a complete and utter fiend.
As soon as the trembling girl managed to regain some composure, the fiend in question unleashed another blistering lash. Again it found its echo in an almost instantaneous stroke from his companion. Again Linnet shrieked and again her body convulsed on the horse.
The welts from the tawse strokes marked her bottom now; a neat set of furious scarlet stripes. There was a pause, and Amelia watched the welts bloom with mixed emotions. The only sound in the hall was Linnet’s sobbing as Amelia and her companions held their collective breath. Then the hissing of the tawse tails filled the air again, followed swiftly by the sound of leather impacting on flesh. Amelia was so dumbfounded by the spectacle of Linnet’s writhing form that she almost forgot what she had to do when she heard the whistle.
Pheeeep! Again she teetered to a stop and waited, grateful for the chance to stand and gasp lungfuls of air. Yet terror mounted by the second as Amelia stood and listened. Gretchen had got it after Linnet. How could it be otherwise? Of course poor Gretchen had got it. The sight of those meaty buttocks bouncing under the impact of the tawse tails would, Amelia felt sure, stay long in her mind.
Then it had been Charlotte’s turn. She had trotted so reluctantly over to her fate that she had been given eight instead of six strokes for her tardiness.
To Amelia’s surprise, and great relief, it was not her name that was called next, but Arabella’s.
Now only Amelia and Kirsty had escaped the kiss of the tawse, and the feeling in the pit of her stomach told Amelia that particular delight would not be long denied her. Even so, as she waited the seconds might as well have been hours. The beasts were playing with her, she realised with impotent anger. They were playing with them all, letting the pregnant pause go on so that it would fill each waiting girl’s mind with mounting fear.
‘Gretchen,’ the Reverend’s deep voice called out. Amelia could not quite stop a sob of relief from escaping at the sound of someone else’s name. ‘Would you mind bringing that fat bottom of yours over here?’
Chapter Ten
Faith came at midnight, as usual. Amelia did her best to ignore the rattle of the maid’s key in the dormitory lock, quite without success. Who was it to be this time? she wondered, with a surge of resentment that was, she told herself, nothing whatsoever to do with jealousy.
A rattling of chains in the beds around her signalled that she was not the only one lying awake, and wondering which bed the maid would approach. Faith paused, and it seemed as if the dormitory itself held its breath. Amelia knew it would not be her bed to which she came. Cowed she might have been by the long months of the Reverend’s ministrations, but Amelia was no waggle-tailed little whore like Linnet or Kirsty, and she would not consent to such indece
ncies.
The others could seek his favour if they chose, she told herself. Perhaps they allowed him to use them because of their own desires or, more likely, because they hoped he might be less severe with a girl who went willingly to his bedroom. Amelia did not care. It was nothing to her if her dormitory companions had little moral fibre. It was no concern of hers if the Reverend Dawes chose to indulge in sinful pleasures of the flesh.
At least, it should have been no concern of hers. For some reason she did not understand, the nightly ritual obsessed her. She hated the little trollops who trotted off with Faith to the Reverend’s bed. It was indecent! It was outrageous! It was – well, it simply was not fair! Amelia could not help imagining what it would be like if it were she.
The thought was driving her slowly out of her mind. Every night she would lie awake, thinking about the Reverend; a cane or belt in his hand and no pity in his eyes. She would groan as she imagined her tormentor opening his fly, and her hands would flutter in their bonds, maddeningly unable to caress herself as she thought about the man.
There were enough groans from the other beds to make her wonder what the other girls were thinking of, though Kirsty and Amanda still had the privilege of sleeping with their hands unbound. Nightly, she would listen to them caress themselves to climax, tears of sheer frustration forming in her eyes.
Linnet she could, perhaps, understand if not forgive. The timid girl spent so much of the day on her knees these days, using her now rather expert tongue for the prefects’ pleasure. Never allowed to attend to her own needs, the chit must have been aroused to boiling point by the time her hands were cuffed and clipped to her throat.
Then again, if the Reverend showed the least interest in her, it was hard to imagine the girl daring to refuse him.
At least Charlotte had the dignity and self-respect to refuse the man. She would rattle her chastity chains in obvious agitation, and moans of what might have been fear, or possibly frustration, would escape from her full lips.
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