by Victor Bruno
Mr. Hackenheimer’s nerves flared. Another one! The Head Girl! “Really... and why is she being sent to you, may I ask?”
“We have a system here. Pupils are awarded Demerits for bad work. Those Demerit marks build up gradually. When they reach ten, the girl is sent to me for a ten-stroke caning. A Senior Girl, that is. Juniors get a ten-stroke strapping from their Form Mistress.”
“I see,” nodded Mr. Hackenheimer. He was marvelling at Madame Vosges’ organisation.
“This Head Girl, Melanie, has only held her position for a week. It does, however, involve special responsibilities and severe treatment.”
“Really?”
“Oh yes. No privileges. No favours. The girl is at the peak of her career here and has to be treated accordingly.”
“Well, well,” said Mr. Hackenheimer who, frankly, was a shade puzzled. “How old is she?”
“Though Senior Girl, she is only nineteen. Melanie came here when she was just eighteen.” Nice... very nice... thought Mr. Hackenheimer.
“The Head Girl,” went on Madame Vosges, in a rather lecturing kind of way, “always receives two extra strokes. Twelve rather than ten. You see, she should be setting an example to the class.”
“Quite,” agreed Mr. Hackenheimer gravely. Twelve strokes from that thick cane would be a really nasty experience, he reckoned.
“Also,” said Madame Vosges, “I make a practice of caning the Head Girl on her thighs. Mainly on her thighs anyway. It is not generally realised what an exceedingly sensitive area this is.”
“Is that so?”
“It is Mr. Hackenheimer. As, if you wish, I shall shortly demonstrate to you.”
“Mmmm... yes... Madame... that would be indeed. I am most interested.”
I bet you are, you old lecher, said Madame Vosges to herself. But then, she shouldn’t be churlish. These rich middle-aged men were such a marvellous source of income!
“Perhaps you would like to go up to your little room now,” suggested Madame Vosges. “I don’t think she will be long.”
“Fine... right... I’ll go up now ...”
“You’ll find Bourbon... wine and brandy... all you need in the cabinet.”
“Thank you, Madame, you are most kind. Exceedingly kind.” Mr. Hackenheimer left in a mounting fever of excitement. It did not occur to him what a ridiculous statement he had made in view of what Madame Vosges had just done and was shortly about to do!
***
Sick at heart, trembling, Melanie made her way to the Study. Her lovely dark eyes glistened with unshed tears; she was very pale. Perhaps, she told herself, this is the very last time I shall have to make this nerve-racking journey. Whatever lay ahead for her, she reflected, that at least would be a relief. She recalled what Georgina had told her. About the thighs. Well, in her time, she had received a few cuts across the tops of her thighs, probably accidental, and they had been very painful. To be caned there exclusively scarcely bore thinking about.
She came to the massive, dark wood door, with the gold plated sign. “HEADMISTRESS”
With trembling hands, she knocked.
“Enter ...”
Melanie went into that dreaded, musty Victorian room, with its thick carpets, heavy curtains and absurdly ornate furniture. She stood silent before the desk, seeing the Headmistress making some entries in her PUNISHMENT RECORD.
“Yes, Melanie?” The waxen face came up, the black eyes bored.
“Demerits, Madame,” said Melanie forlornly.
“And you now being Head Girl, too.”
Melanie gulped. “I... I got most of them before I was made Head Girl, Madame,” said Melanie.
“Don’t answer back to me, girl,” snapped Madame Vosges sharply. “That’s earned you two extra strokes!”
Melanie choked into trembling silence. She knew she would be getting two extra, now it was four. Apart from any other extras she might earn herself. The unshed tears in her lustrous eyes began to trickle silently down her cheeks. Madame Vosges stood up and took out the Number One cane. Melanie shuddered.
“You may or you may not be aware, Melanie, That I cane all Head Girls mainly on their thighs.” Melanie said nothing, just gulped. “It is a very sensitive area and, not being used to it, they all seemed to find it exceedingly painful. But as Head Girl, you should be setting an example, which getting Demerits does not.” Still Melanie said nothing, sensing it would get her into worse trouble. “Remove your knickers, Melanie, and stand close to the front of my desk.”
From his vantage point, Mr. Hackenheimer approvingly watched the little briefs pushed down. He saw they were black, not white like Pruella’s had been. Now Madame Vosges buckled a slim strap around the lowest part of each of Melanie’s thighs. The girl looked startled... frightened... what is happening? There was a little clip on the front of each strap and Madame Vosges fastened one of these to a ring set in the front of the desk.
“Lift your skirt high... and spread your thighs wide,” came the order. Melanie obeyed but with obvious reluctance. The second clip went on the other ring, thus splaying Melanie’s thighs very wide. “Now bend over.” Melanie did so and Mr. Hackenheimer whistled. This young charmer could not have been more blatantly or enchantingly revealed. He gasped, lust mounting. Oh what couldn’t he have done with that!
Madame Vosges buttoned Melanie’s skirt hem to her blouse collar and then, to Melanie’s surprise, locked her wrists into the waiting handcuffs. This hadn’t happened to her since she had been in the Junior Form. A panic of total helplessness swept through her... on the other hand she was aware that she was not going to have to go through the torments of taking her punishment ‘voluntarily’.
“Fourteen strokes,” said Madame Vosges, positioning herself, tapping the cane over the lowest part of Melanie’s left thigh. Mr. Hackenheimer saw the milky-white, soft girlish flesh quivering with dread. As well it might! That cane looked really vicious. He felt his pulses pounding faster than usual.
Madame Vosges raised the cane high... and she gritted her teeth as she brought it down. It blurred through the air at maximum force and Melanie shrieked uninhibitedly as it bit into her so-sensitive flesh. She was accustomed to pain but not pain quite like that... in a new and very vulnerable area. Melanie’s mind reeled at the thought of fourteen such strokes. She was aware, from the sound of rustling taffeta, that the Headmistress had changed sides. The next second, the terrible rod bit agonisingly into her right thigh, at its lowest point.
“Yyyyeee... eeeghhhhaaaaiiiee... no... NOO... OOOO!” screamed Melanie.
“I told you you would find it exceedingly painful,” said Madame Vosges with cruel callousness.
“A-Ahh... Madame... mercy... Madame... c-cane my b-bottom... not my thighs ...”
Mr. Hackenheimer could not help smiling at what he considered a strange request. Funny a youngster ASKING to have her bottom caned! Could that be better?
“I shall deal with your bottom later, girl,” answered Madame Vosges sharply.
Then with a remorseless accuracy, and unremitting venom, Madame Vosges proceeded to lash down the cane alternately across the thighs, spacing each stroke about three inches apart. Each stroke fell across the back of the thigh, then curled round biting excruciatingly into the inside. The very tenderest flesh of all!
Melanie screamed and howled without cessation.
Except when she had been savagely birched, she had never experienced quite such unbelievable pain. At least, so it seemed. When she could catch her breath between screams, she screeched for mercy. Which she was well aware she was not going to get.
Her limbs being pinioned as they were, splayed wide, allowed comparatively little movement of the hindquarters. But what there was, those hindquarters took full advantage of... thumping up and down and rolling wildly from side to side.
Mr. Hack
enheimer, lips wet, mouth open, sat as if mesmerised as he watched the upward march of those twin-tracked weals. Melanie’s howling screams were truly indicative of just how agonising those strokes were.
Particularly the last two.
These, on each side, cut into the crease between the thigh flesh and the actual pussy flesh.
Melanie’s screams seemed to crack her vocal chords and her head slumped in a semi-faint. Flesh and blood could stand no more. Actually, Mr. Hackenheimer felt rather sorry for the girl. She was very pretty and, surely, nothing she had done could have deserved this? He wondered vaguely if Pruella would be treated, one day, with such severity. For all her faults, he didn’t think the girl deserved quite such inhuman treatment.
Madame Vosges, meanwhile, appeared quite unmoved. This, it would seem, was very much an everyday affair to her. She lit the joss-sticks and placed them under Melanie’s nostrils. The girl choked horribly back to sensibility. Was it over? It must be. Surely! She could not stand any more.
“Earlier,” said Madame Vosges, with the faintest of smiles, “you asked me to cane your bottom, Melanie. That I shall do. It is where you get your last four strokes.”
“NNNNOOOOO... NNNNOOOOO... NOOOOO... M-M-MORE! MERCEEEEEEEEEEEE!”
Unhurriedly, Madame Vosges measured the crease of the bottom. Just where the skin of the thighs joined the skin of the buttocks. Now accuracy was called for. Expertise.
Madame Vosges had plenty.
She laid the final four strokes, one after the other, over that crease. In precisely the same area. Melanie’s shrieks reached a new pitch of unbelievable intensity before she fainted yet again.
Unconcerned, Madame Vosges re-seated herself behind her desk. She opened her PUNISHMENT RECORD and made an entry. That, she thought, had probably been the last caning she would give young Melanie.
It had been a most satisfying one.
Chapter Eight
Two weeks later, Melanie left the Senior Class to go to the Remove. Virginia took her place as Head Girl. Having glimpsed the havoc wrought on Melanie’s thighs and lower buttocks by Madame Vosges, she was in a state of high tension. She already had six Demerits against her name.
However, though she got a four-stroke strapping from Miss Magda, she got no more Demerits in that first week. Her hopes began to rise. Only two more weeks to go. Then, one morning, she was summoned to the Headmistress’s Study. She went with hammering heart and a feeling as if her belly was filled with ice-water. What had she done wrong? What final cruel punishment was she about to receive? Silently she stood before the desk over which she had writhed so often in pain. Madame Vosges’ dark eyes came up and she quailed under their gaze.
“Virginia,” she said, “I have been discussing your future with your step-mother, Mrs. Cartier.” Virginia flinched at the very mention of that inhuman woman’s name. “On condition that you sign these papers - which hand over the control of the remains of your fortune to Mrs. Cartier - you will be released from this School.”
Virginia’s heart seemed to soar up like a bird on the wing. Up... up... up... singing with joy. What did the money matter? She would sign anything to get free.
“I... I s-see... Madame... I... under... understand ...” she stammered.
Papers were pushed across the desk. “Sign there.” A waxen finger pointed; a pen was pushed towards her. With a shaking hand, Virginia signed. There, it was done. Deep down, Virginia had realised all along her step-mother had wanted to get her hands on her money. Well, now she had done it and Virginia didn’t give a damn. She just hoped the woman would die very shortly of some slow and exceedingly painful disease.
“Mrs. Cartier,” the Headmistress was saying, “has stipulated that you reside for a period in the Nunnery. This, as you will have doubtless heard, is a place of contemplation, rehabilitation and relaxation. You will emerge from it a fully-grown woman... a quite different person from the wilful, arrogant girl who came here nearly two years ago. Everything that has been done has, basically been done for your benefit.” Virginia could scarcely believe what she was hearing, but she checked the natural protest that rose to her lips. She was not out of Madame Vosges’ jurisdiction yet. “The Nunnery will continue that work of reformation.” Virginia experienced a quiver of dread, deep down. Surely the Nunnery could not be like the School? No... no... that was absurd. She was going there to recover from her hideous, year-long ordeal. To be rehabilitated. She did not even think about what would happen after that. Paramount in every fibre of her being was THE NEED TO GET OUT OF THIS DREADFUL SCHOOL! Nothing else mattered. “You understand everything I have said?”
“Yes, Madame,” replied Virginia with the utmost, respectful politeness.
“Melanie will be going with you.” Madame Vosges’ mouth twisted in a sadistic little smile. “I believe you are quite good friends.” Virginia’s heart soared again at the news. She would not be alone; she would have her beloved with her. “And, since it will be convenient to have you both taken to the Nunnery in a week’s time, I’m having you transferred to the Remove right away.” Virginia almost shouted aloud with joy. No more Demerits! She had escaped! She began to tremble with the excitement of it all. Madame Vosges stood up, black dress rustling. “Miss Magda has reported to me that you have six Demerits against your name, Virginia. I am afraid you will have to pay for those before you leave.” The desk drawer opened and Virginia experienced a familiar stab of despairing dread. But, at least it would be for the last time. “Just six strokes,” said Madame Vosges, “and although you are now Head Girl, you’ll get them on your bottom.” She came round the desk. “Over you go... and get your knickers down.”
It was cruel to have to obey, having thought she had finally escaped, but Virginia obeyed with alacrity. Her shapely bottom curved up as it had so often done before, the nates were quivering apprehensively. With fierce resolution, she clenched the far edge of the desk.
The last six, she said to herself. Be brave. You have had far, far worse.
As usual, Madame Vosges laid on with maximum force.
As usual, Virginia gasped and yelped and squirmed uninhibitedly.
ONE!
Oh... oh... the deep-biting pain. Five more still to come.
TWO!
Unbelievable! Breathtaking! Four more still to come.
THREE!
“YYYYEEEEAAAAAGHHH!” A shriek escaped Virginia and she almost lost her grip. Three more still to come
FOUR!
Shrieking again, Virginia did lose her grip, but only momentarily, and she kept her bottom square. Two more still to come. Only two... Oh God... only two ...
FIVE!
A vicious cut into the crease of her buttocks... and Virginia screamed and screamed. Once more she lost her grip but resumed it almost instantly. Only one to come. Only one! Virginia’s bottom was not only square it seemed uplifted to greet it!
SIX!
“AAAIIIIEEEEEEE... EEEEEEGGGHHH... A-A-AGGGHHH ...AAAAAAHHHHHH!”
Madame Vosges had overlaid the crease. The cruellest cut of all. Virginia had slid to the floor, clasping her throbbing weals fervently. Her eyes were filled with tears but they were tears of joy as well as pain.
It was all over!
At last it was all over!
She would never be caned again.
“You may go, Virginia. Pull up your knickers and report to Miss Magda. Tell her you are to join the Remove today.”
“Yes... M-Madame... yes... yes ...” gasped Virginia, scrambling up. Never had she received a more welcome order. She tugged up her black briefs, almost heedless of the stabbing pain of her new weals. A turn of the handle and the door opened. Virginia almost hurtling through it.
Madame Vosges replaced the cane, sat down in her chair, placed her white talon like fingers together and put them under her chin. A sardonic smile played over
her thin wide lips.
Little does that young lady know what’s coming to her, she thought.
***
“What’s it like here?” asked Virginia. She was a little surprised at the appearance of her friend who was garbed in a long grey dress, white apron and maid’s cap. As Victorian as Madame Vosges’ Study.
“Horrible,” replied Melanie.
“What do we have to do?”
“Scrubbing, dish-washing, cooking, that sort of thing. Under the supervision of those horrible Housekeepers.”
“Uuughhh ...”
“What’s more, they can smack your bottom if they’re not happy with your work.”
“How awful!”
“It gets worse. We have to wait at table, when Madame Vosges has guests. All dressed up like a Victorian maid. She has male as well as female guests.” Melanie’s cheeks went pink.
“What’s the matter, darling?” Virginia’s arms went round her friend. Was she allowed to do this now she was almost free of the School? Certainly Melanie did not draw away but clung to her for comfort.
“I once had to wait on one of Madame’s male guests. The beast kept fondling my bottom.”
“How horrible!”
“In the end I protested, almost slapped his face ...”
“I should think so too!”
“But Madame insisted I was making it up. That I had insulted one of her guests. As recompense, she invited him to smack my bottom.”
“OHH... NOOO!”
“Oh yes. And he did it too. Hauled me over his lap, lifted my skirts, unfastened my long drawers and pulled them down. It was awful. I fought like mad but it made no difference. Oh the shame of it! When my bottom was bare he smacked and smacked it. Again and again and again. I could hear the beast snorting and panting... and it went on until Madame suggested he stop. Then I was released and had to pull my drawers up in front of him... then get on with the serving.”