The Last Spanking Story

by Susan Thomas

  Miles drove for four hours before giving up. He had found himself driving back into the centre of the village, however he approached his exit. Sir George's servant had a whisky and a hot meal waiting for him.

  "My great-grandfather was the squire back then and he and the vicar set up what we have now. We are very strict because we have no support from outside. There are no prisons or high courts so we make our own laws and punishments. As it happens, you're in luck as you'll be able to see our village court in action for it meets three nights a week and tonight is one of those. When you've finished your meal we'll head off out."

  ---oOo---

  The 'court' was in the village hall, a decidedly old-fashioned building but very well maintained. To Miles it was more like some sort of fund raising event. The Women's Institute had a table with various cakes, jams and chutneys, another table was run by some sort of craft club and seemed to have every kind of wooden kitchen or household utensil you could imagine, including a separate display of 'spanking spoons'. It was actually labelled as such with the wooden spoons having much wider heads than normal and the backs having drawings. Miles looked closely at them - one had a picture of a little girl weeping in a corner and a title, 'The Spoon of Correction', another showed a boy with a red bare bottom and the title above it, 'Well Spanked', but another showed what was clearly a young woman holding her bottom while exaggerated tears flowed freely and the title above read, 'Never too Old'. There were also other tables selling goods and refreshments. At the end of the hall was a stage - on one side were a table and three large chairs behind it, on the other side was a wooden bench, and in the middle was a clearly recognisable punishment bench, beside it a large umbrella stand with an assortment of canes.

  Miles sat next to Sir George right at the front of the hall, looking up at the stage and aware he was attracting a great deal of curiosity. "Aren't you mean to be up there?" he asked.

  "No, I chair the village council and the vicar chairs the court. That was how it was set up and we haven't changed it. Baker is the sixth vicar since 1937 but I am only the fourth in my line. The poor old vicar has the problem of having to teach his successor everything he knows because there is no theological college whereas I only have to produce an heir, which I have done."

  "We have women vicars in my world."

  "Good grief, that's appalling. I hope we never get one of those through the mist. She'll end up having a hard time sitting down I can tell you."

  Then the court was called to order and Miles watched, intrigued. The vicar sat in the middle with a large woman on his right and a tall skinny man on his left. They all looked terribly serious. There were two beadles (Sir George whispered this information to Miles) with dark green sashes and each carrying a stout wooden staff with an ornamental metal head. The court was called to order and two women of around fifty years of age were brought in. Each had made a complaint about the other. Various people spoke including the two women and then the three at the table conferred.

  "It is the judgement of the court..." the vicar sounded like some high court judge, "that you are both at fault and that your constant bickering is disruptive to the harmony of the village. You will both receive two strokes of the cane and spend one hour in the pillory tomorrow, whatever the weather. You should regard this as a warning. The court will not be so lenient if you return."

  The two women looked at each other sourly but made no protest. Two beadles came and took them off with very a firm grip of their arms. They were returned a few minutes later to sit on a wooden bench wearing nothing below the waist and only their blouses and bras above. There were more cases, many settled by a judgement awarding the rights to one person or another with no punishment. One man was sentenced to spend a morning in the pillory "with strap" which Sir George whispered meant that anyone passing could use the official strap to give him one whack on his bared bottom. He had done nothing about mending his stock fences which meant his sheep were constantly getting out into the school playground and causing mayhem. One sheep had even managed to get into a classroom and had jumped up on the tables in fright and even managed to knock the headmistress over when it jumped down.

  However, there were no more sentences of corporal punishment and at the end of the hearings the two women were hauled to their feet. One looked simply angry but the other looked scared. Miles wondered why two strokes should make her frightened. He soon found out.

  The angry woman was taken by the two beadles and strapped down over the punishment bench. One beadle withdrew while the other took a nasty thick cane from the pot, and with one quick swish took up position behind his victim. To Miles' surprise it was no ordinary stroke - the man took a short run and with all his power and an extremely fluid movement (doubtless born of long experience), brought the cane down on her bottom with huge force.

  Her bottom was rather chubby, for both women were generously built, what Miles' grandfather had called, "A nice armful." The cane hit her bottom with a huge meaty thwack and seemed for a split second to bury itself in her ample flesh, before exploding upwards again leaving a rapidly growing red weal. She gave a loud anguished shriek and tried hard to move against her restraints but they were far too strong for that.

  "One," called the other beadle from the side in a neutral voice.

  The beadle with the cane was by now in position for the second stroke. Again that nasty run, the beautiful, fluid movement culminating in the nasty thwack as the cane buried itself in her large bottom.

  The shriek she gave was followed by the neutral voice calling, "Two."

  She was released and made to stand while the other woman took her place. She didn't stand still, however, but wriggled on the spot, gingerly touching the two nasty welts on her bottom and wiping tears away with her elbow.

  Miles was so busy watching her that he didn't catch the delivery of the next cane stroke. It was as formidable as the other two but this woman shrieked even louder and wailed afterwards, causing a sneer to appear on the lips of her fellow culprit.

  The second thwack of the cane caused a far worse reaction as she shrieked so loudly as to cause pain to Miles' ears. What's more, she carried on shrieking even as the two beadles released her. The women were led away, presumably to re-dress, but of course they had the pillory to look forward to in the morning.

  Miles spent a comfortable night in a guest bedroom at Sir George's house. He was fascinated by having sheets and blankets rather than a duvet and also by having a small real coal fire in his bedroom. A taste of the past, he thought. The next morning, after a breakfast that Miles regarded as huge, they set out for the village square where there was a set of pillories. Hanging on one was a strap, presumably for the farmer who had failed to keep his stock fences in good order.

  The three offenders appeared themselves, since they had simply gone to their homes the night before. They did not look happy and were made to remove all garments below the waist right there in the square in front of all, before going into individual pillories. Both Beadles were in attendance plus two deputies and PC Butterfield in his strange uniform. By now the crowd had grown quite large and PC Butterfield announced that the time had begun.

  Immediately, a large man walked up to one of the two women and gave her a tremendous smack across the bottom. She yelped and her bottom wobbled, his hand leaving a red mark to add to the two clear welts of the cane. He then walked to the other woman and gave her a good hard smack - he was not the last. One villager after another came up and gave the two women a hard smack, turning their bottoms scarlet and reducing both of them to tears.

  "Everyone over fourteen is allowed to give one smack or one with the strap to the person in a pillory. Those two will get an hour's worth of smacks and it is a spanking they'll not forget believe me. They have created a lot of trouble and resentment with their constant feuding."

  Miles was only half listening as he was trying to watch the two women getting spanked and the man getting strapped. One after another, people stepped up to take
the strap and give a blistering blow across the man's naked backside. He was stoic at first but after a half dozen formidable whacks he began to groan at each - soft groans at first but growing louder as his bottom became an alarming shade of red and purple. Suddenly, the crowd quietened and parted to allow a solid looking woman wearing a tweed suit to come forward.

  "The headmistress of the school," hissed Sir George, "getting her whack in for being knocked over by his sheep."

  The revengeful head was handed the strap and there was much excitement as she clearly was going to give him one hard whack. She gave a little run and let fly with the strap which landed with a huge crack across the farmer's already well-marked rear end.

  "Arrrgggh!" The cry of pain delighted the crowd who gave her a big round of applause, even patting her back or shaking her hand as she made her way back to the school.

  "That kind of treatment can't really be kept up all morning. It'd kill him." Miles was concerned.

  "Oh, the first hour is the worst. Most of the village will have whacked him by then. After that it is only the odd one now and then, the rest of the time is simply discomfort."

  It was with a little relief that Miles was taken on a guided tour of the village. Everyone was quite friendly but he was worried by the assumption that he would be here forever. In theory he should love this place with so much corporal punishment but he was finding it all a bit too much.

  ---oOo---

  Miles was, to his surprise, taken for a lunch meeting with the vicar. The assumption was he would never get out and he might as well accept that now as fight it. He would have to work of course, no sponging being tolerated in the village and there were no social security benefits. The sick, feeble-minded and aged were everyone's responsibility but idleness was a sin punishable in the usual ways. It happened that the village secretary had died suddenly and what could be better suited to a writer than her job? The post included a cottage and there seemed no reason to wait while he struggled with acceptance. He could always explore routes out if he wanted to waste his time while off duty.

  The cottage was clean, furnished and with a garden. He would have a job central to the work of the village and Miles began to think this would all make rather a good novel for when he did escape because he somehow believed he would. So he accepted.

  It was his job to be present at all village courts and to keep the punishment book and minutes of court decisions. He also had to maintain the village ordering system when orders for coal, petrol and manufactured goods were sent out. The ordering was tightly controlled as the village had no idea who ultimately was paying for all this. He had two assistants in the form of two young women and it was made very clear to him by the vicar that he was entitled to administer corporal punishment if their work was unsatisfactory. Since both were unmarried with rather delightful figures, Miles felt a strong stirring of interest.

  He had a small office in his cottage and the two young women came round and sat with him, going through all the work that had to be done. Everything was written out by hand except for reports which were to be typed on a Royal Portable typewriter. Miles could touch type but found the mechanical keys quite hard at first. There was also a Banda spirit duplicator for the village newsletter - another of his responsibilities. It became clear to Miles that standards of efficiency were not high and he gave the two girls a pep talk ending with, "...and I am sure you don't want me spanking you now, do you?"

  The two youngsters looked at the strong handsome face and muscular body and thought to themselves that if it was just a spanking then that would be just fine with them. They were not the first young women to think so and separately and privately both began to make plans to get him to propose marriage.

  Miles discovered when he attended his first village court as village secretary that he was rather a celebrity, which he was used to, albeit for different reasons. He discovered that the large woman was the wife of a farmer and the thin man was the village doctor - those two were elected but the vicar's post always went to the incumbent. His first court in his new job was eventful. There were several cases, the first of which was a large rough-looking man who had become drunk in the Swan and Feathers and punched the landlord. He received a sentence of nine with the adult birch and a whole morning in the pillory; then a married woman of around thirty, who had been found with her skirt up and knickers down being shagged senseless by Simple Tom (who didn't sound that simple to Miles.) Simple Tom was also facing the court but he wasn't judged of sufficient intellect to know what he was doing ("Not bloody much," muttered Miles) and was released. The married woman was to get twelve with a youth birch. Finally, there was a group of eighteen-year-olds - a boy and two girls all of whom were caught stealing apples from an outbuilding where apples were stored for winter. They had only stolen two each but they were still sentenced to six with a youth birch. Miles was horrified for they weren't well developed eighteen-year-olds, still more child than teenager. It seemed to him a stiff sentence for youngsters like that. He had no objection to someone giving them a spanking but a public birching was awful!

  It was the same as the first one he had watched. The sentence having been passed, the sentenced person was led off and brought back naked from the waist down to sit on the bench. The rough man looked merely cheesed off. The woman, who had cried all the way through her trial and barely said two words at all, simply sat on the bench sobbing and looking terrified. The children (for that was how Miles thought of the eighteen year olds) were so pale they looked like ghosts. Miles wanted to protest this public birching of the youngsters and wondered if he offered to pay for the apples whether they would be let off. Then he remembered he had no means to pay and anyway had a strong suspicion it would not save them from their beating.

  The rough man, whose name was Jed Morgan, was led up to the punishment bench first. Miles looked at him and thought he was quite capable of knocking the two beadles down but presumably he knew he would have the whole village to deal with, so he just allowed himself to be strapped down to the bench. One of the beadles produced a nasty looking birch from a bucket. It was about a metre long and comprised a half dozen thick, rough-looking switches bound together at one end to form a handle.

  The beadle swished it through the air to shake off the salt water and then stepped into position. The sound of the birch through the air was nasty and the sound when it landed on his bare flesh much worse. Jed grunted loudly and Miles saw his skin was already viciously marked. The birch sang through the air once again, its malevolent tune chilling Miles, and then crashed against Jed's buttocks. He moved against his restraints and again gave a loud grunt of pain. Bits of the birch broke off and skittered across the floor. Each crash of the birch against his bare flesh sent more bits of birch flying but marked him even more. The marks were angry, widespread and vicious, bringing his bottom to the point where it looked like it would bleed. On the seventh stroke Jed broke and gave a loud roar of pain; on the eighth he struggled hard against his restraints and roared; on the ninth he struggled even harder and shouted out, "Bloody hell."

  The woman who had been caught being shagged by Simple Tom was brought forward. She had a really trim figure he noticed and had she not been crying solidly for some time, a pretty face. In his opinion that made Simple Tom far from simple but clearly the village took a dim view of adultery and he could see why. There were no outside bodies to appeal to and no divorce courts, but adultery causes huge emotional problems and they wanted to discourage it. The woman, though, looked a pitiful sight as she was strapped down on the bench.

  The youth birch was different to the one used on Jed Morgan. The switches were much thinner and there were more of them, making the whole thing bushier. Miles, whose writing made it important to know such things, realised that would mean each blow would be reduced by wind resistance and the spread would be greater. It would sting terribly and if used repeatedly would still strip the skin from the bottom, but twelve ought to leave her bottom horribly inflamed but probably n
ot bleeding.

  The beadle swished the brine from the birch (some of which landed on Miles) before stepping forward and then swishing it down on to her bottom. There was a strange sound as the birch crashed against her bottom and little bits flew off while the poor woman screeched, "Oh please I am sorry, please don't do this."

  The mark across her rear was huge - it seemed everywhere, angry red and made of dozens of tiny welts and pin points of red. Shrack, the next blow made the same odd sound but the woman screeched even more loudly, her bottom already covered with angry red. Miles wondered what on earth had possessed her to have it off with Simple Tom when she knew the risks. Whatever it was, it was too late now for regrets. She had to endure the torture of the birch and she was not enduring quietly. As each blow crashed down on her bare bottom, she screeched hideously with an ear-splitting sound that made Miles' head ache. In between she pleaded and apologised, calling on her husband to have mercy on her, though what he could have done was beyond Miles.

  Each blow made her bottom worse, both cheeks were simply covered in small welts crossing and re-crossing each other from high up on her bottom to well below and down to the top of her thighs. The birch had clearly landed to some extent on one hip and even the other side of her upper thigh. Dotted here and there were pin pricks of angry red caused by the tips of the switches, and where the most blows were landing her delicate skin was in danger of breaking down and bleeding. As the tally of strokes mounted, she writhed and bucked against the restraints with great vigour, all totally pointless of course, the steady application of strokes continuing unabated.

  Finally, the second Beadle called the twelfth stroke that marked the end of the punishment and both beadles stepped forward to remove her restraints. As they took the adulteress away sobbing loudly, Miles knew he could stay no longer. He was becoming angry that these children were to be punished in this manner and with this severity. It seemed an awful punishment for two apples and he could imagine himself creating a huge and ultimately pointless scene. There was no need to stay and watch as he had already written everything down so he quietly left, guessing that people would think he was visiting the toilets. Outside in the fresh air he took a deep breath but even here the first cry came from within, telling him the children's punishment had started. He clenched his fists and walked away until there was only the sound of the countryside around him.