'Enough!' Olivia shrieked. 'The girl's had enough!'
'Nonsense,' replied the matron. 'Two dozen is her lot and two dozen she shall have.'
She gathered the whip in her hand ready for a renewed attack, but it was pointless continuing for Sally had passed out and no matter how many buckets of salt water were thrown over her, she would not recover.
The matron cast aside her whip and released the keys. Sally fell backwards hitting the floor with a dull thump of her head, shoulders and back.
'How very inconsiderate,' said the matron, 'fainting like that. All the more effort in carrying her to the infirmary.' Stepping aside, she picked up the whip. 'Next!'
Jane, a diminutive brunette, walked bravely to the trestle and, standing on the rung, reached upwards, but even on tiptoe could not touch the rings.
'Get down and bend over that rung,' the matron hissed. Jane hopped off the rung and, kneeling before it, bent herself over, pushing her bottom high into the air.
'Perfect,' said the matron, lashing the upraised globes.
As Jane's legs spasmed and kicked she hit her again, catching a fearful blow across the upper thighs, and speedily repeated it, this time landing it on the calves. Jane's body arched in pain, and for a full minute she thrashed about like a stranded fish on a bank, screaming and yelling at the top of her voice.
'Scream all you like,' said the matron, 'no one will hear you.'
That wasn't true. The inmates assembled in the yard could hear everything that was going on. So could the workmen on the roof three buildings away.
The matron paused to regain her breath and waited until the thrashing limbs exhausted themselves. When Jane no longer moved she let her have it in a quick succession of blows down the whole length of her back. From shoulder blades to waist the flesh was ripped raw. Unable to endure the sight of Jane's tear-streaked face, Olivia turned away, burying her face in her hands, but her ears could still hear the barrage of unending shrieks which gradually rose to a piercing crescendo and then finally subsided into a blubber of choking sobs.
'Get up now,' the matron said, pleased with the result and complimenting her for not fainting.
Jane struggled to her feet and tottered about the floor like a drunk. She got as far as the door and fell flat on her breasts, half in and half out of the entrance.
'I spoke too soon, t'would seem.' She took a bottle from her apron and gulped a deep draught, belched, and put it back again.
Her eyes had a demoniac glow as she advanced upon Olivia. 'And now we come to you.'
Right from the start the matron had taken an instant dislike to Olivia, as she always did with any good-looking girl. She had reached that point in her life when no longer young, she began to despise it in others. Her tired breasts and broad thighs made a sad contrast to the finely sculptured contours of Olivia.
'You are a thief,' she went on, 'and thieves are not tolerated here. Moreover, they are punished more severely than anyone else, and you will be no exception.'
'Please, ma'am, I only stole for the food. I hadn't eaten for three days, and as I am orphaned—'
The matron cut her short with a resounding slap in the face, and another that, because Olivia was knocked sideways, missed its target and caught her unwittingly across her right breast.
'Stand still, girl!' she rasped, as Olivia swayed under the blow.
When her breast had settled back into its proper place the matron regarded her with an especially evil glint, which Olivia had often seen on the faces of licentious drunks who accosted her in alleyways and whispered lewd suggestions.
A forefinger and thumb, crooked like the claw of a hawk, closed around Olivia's nipple and pinched so hard tears of pain formed in her eyes. At the same time as it twisted her teat, the matron slapped her again on the other breast, and kept on slapping, turning it a gorgeous shade of pink. The nipple that had all the while been subjected to excruciating pain was released, and then to Olivia's sheer disbelief it began all over again on the other. Then she set about her with the bare flat of her hand, hitting everywhere at once. She slapped her breasts so many times that Olivia was certain they had gone egg shaped, and when she had finished with those she moved to her flanks, working all the way around, lingering long over the firm globes of her bottom, covering them with bright red fingerprints. The finale was a slap of gargantuan strength on the small of her back which sent Olivia tumbling pell-mell head over heels.
'Don't bother to get up,' the matron advised. 'I can beat you just as satisfactorily where you are.'
She marched across the room and retrieved the whip from where it had previously fallen, beside the still recumbent body of Sally.
'No doubt you've spent much time in that position,' she croaked, seeing Olivia lying on her back with outspread thighs. 'And as it is so familiar to you, you can stay there.'
'It isn't familiar to me,' Olivia replied, nonplussed. 'I usually sleep on my side with my hands under the pillow.'
The matron's face contorted incredulously. 'For one moment I almost believed you, which just goes to show what a skilful liar you are.'
'I'm not lying,' said Olivia, hearing her voice rise. 'Why ever would I choose to sleep with my legs wide open.'
'Why d'ya think, stupid girl?'
'Really, I have no idea. As I said, I always sleep on my side, although sometimes I have woken to find my hands have gone between my legs.'
'Probably because you were dreaming,' the matron replied absently, staring wide eyed into Olivia's crotch. 'Now, spread your legs wider and draw up your knees.'
Olivia's legs bent and fell open, presenting an uninterrupted and magnificent view of her more than generous mound.
'Please, ma'am,' she pleaded, 'spare hitting me there. I'll be good from now on. I promise I'll never steal anything again as long as I live, not never.'
The matron expressed extreme doubt in that quarter and then whirled round sending the leather tails whistling into Olivia's groin.
'The one great advantage of the cat,' the matron said, 'is that it can cover a large area with the minimum of effort.'
Indeed, the first blow had embraced the whole of Olivia's labia, the crease of her thighs, and entered the slit itself. She groaned like a wounded animal, letting her knees drop and bridging her back into a high arch. Patiently the matron waited for her to recover, and then tickling the fallen knees with the thongs, indicated that Olivia should lift them up again. This she did with greater agony than before. A second blow whipped higher, slashing her belly from mound to naval. Olivia thought it would burst, and when the third stroke lashed her pubic ridge it seemed she had been branded with hot irons.
'Please, ma'am, I beg you, no more! Beat my bottom if you will, but don't hit me there again!'
'Very well,' said the matron in a rare fit of generosity. 'Turn over, and I shall fulfil your wish.'
Olivia didn't wish at all. She would rather have been boiled in oil than receive one stroke more, but groaning and sobbing she rolled over onto her stomach and put her hands under her head. The whip struck into her crease leaving a remarkable duplication of itself, a host of thin red bands which rapidly swelled wider, turning from pink to red to purple until it was impossible to tell which was which.
'Your hardened bottom does, I admit, take quite a whipping,' said the matron, not without a hint of admiration. 'But nevertheless I still have my duty to fulfil, and you were due two dozen and six, were you not?'
Olivia had received half that amount, and braced herself for the rest which the matron delivered with deliberate slowness of hand, allowing long intervals for the agony to spread down the whole length of her legs.
'Are you chastised enough?' she asked, when the final stroke fired its way across Olivia's burning cheeks.
Olivia moaned and lifted her head. The matron turned to fetch the bucket and saw to her astonishment the governor standing in the doorway.
'Has she succumbed?' he inquired nonchalantly, nodding at Olivia.
'The gi
rl is still conscious,' the matron replied dryly.
The governor leaned over her, pressing his fingers into her bottom. 'Normally you would be set to work at once, but on this occasion I will make an exception. Report to my office.'
Olivia struggled to her feet and made her way out into the quadrangle where the coal heavers were gathering around a cauldron of bubbling gruel. Such was the commotion that again her appearance went largely unnoticed. She went through the doorway and up the spiral staircase, but instead of going right to the top she entered the second storey and became quickly lost in a labyrinth of passages and staircases. Each was no different than the one before or after, but it was the eerie silence that unnerved her. Not a sound stirred, and for a moment she experienced the sensation of being completely alone in the world; alone and naked, with only her throbbing bottom to remind her that other people did exist somewhere beyond these grim, dank passages.
She walked on, occasionally glancing out of windows to get her bearings. Twice she saw the quadrangle with the coal heavers scurrying about like frightened ants, and once overlooked the roof of a building that, if she had the courage to scale, might have deposited her outside the walls. But the prospect of having to run stark naked across miles of inhospitable moorland was too awful to contemplate.
Using the quadrangle as a compass point with which to navigate, she kept to that side of the building and eventually found herself on the correct floor. But where, she wondered, was the governor's office? The only recourse was to knock on the nearest door and ask someone.
'You!' she exclaimed, thankful for a familiar face.
Smithers regarded her for a moment, her head cocked on one side as if she had never seen another human being and it was a rarity to do so.
'Why don't you come in for a second?' she said, admitting Olivia into a room magnificently furnished with a huge brass bedstead and sumptuous drapery.
'What is this place?' asked Olivia, taking it in with a wide sweep.
'The governor's private quarters,' she said softly, seating herself on the bed and swinging her legs to and fro. 'And I daresay, if you are so favoured, you might one day be invited here for tea, and a little else besides.'
Then she broke into a fit of wild, shrieking laughter that stopped abruptly.
'What on earth is going on in here?'
Olivia stood rigid, arms by her sides. 'Please, sir, I got lost and was asking Smithers the way to the office.'
'You will find it at the end of the passage. Smithers, you will remain here until I return. You know how I expect to find you.'
Smithers, who had got off the bed, dropped a curtsey and hurriedly opened the door. Olivia went out first and rushed down to the office. Although she couldn't say why, there was something deeply disturbing about that room.
The office overlooked fields and meadows beyond, where in the distance she saw a trail of white smoke threading its way to the town station. A faint sound of a whistle heralded its approach and then died in a cloud of black smoke.
'The new railway,' the Governor informed her, coming in and closing the door.
Olivia felt very vulnerable in her nakedness now that he stood beside her.
'Please sir, may I have my clothes?' she asked timidly.
'Your clothes?' he replied, as if it were an odd request and everyone was expected to go around completely naked. 'All in good time you will be issued with a uniform, but for the present you will remain as you are. Kindly bend over my desk.'
'I have had my punishment,' she reminded him, as politely as she could.
'Not quite. There are still four owing, which I shall deliver myself.'
'But,' she protested, 'if I am aright, two dozen and six makes thirty, and when you think there are nine straps to the stroke, I have in fact been belted almost three hundred times. Even though the straps be not as long as a birch, they were nonetheless painful.'
The governor listened with growing astonishment to this startling piece of intelligence, and came to the conclusion that she was far too clever for her own good.
'Shut your mouth girl and do as you are told. A common prostitute contradicting my authority, indeed!'
'I am not a common prostitute,' Olivia protested.
'Indeed you are not, in fact, you are a decidedly uncommon prostitute.'
The fact that he was confusing her with that of one of her companions recently flogged was lost on them both. Sighing with dumb resignation, Olivia did as she was told. She leaned over the desk and spread both arms and legs, saving him the trouble of asking her to do so.
'The matron has served you well,' he remarked, his eyes riveted on her gaping slit, 'but she was not supposed to hit you there. That I strictly forbid. After all a female is, I suppose, entitled to some respect regarding those places. Are you in pain?'
'Very much, sir,' replied Olivia, thinking what a thoughtful gentleman he really was.
'Then I shall only beat you with the lightest of hand, and afterwards tend the place where you have been untowardly mishandled.'
He was true to his word and landed his own Malacca cane with the lightest of strokes, presenting it tactfully well away from her most tender place. It seemed to Olivia that even in the most ruthless of men there existed a spark of compassion. Behind his ferocious whiskers lay perhaps a kindly face and a kinder heart, which at that moment had gone to a cabinet and was fetching the means of her comfort.
'This is a task I usually leave to the nurse,' he told her. 'But as she is busy seeing to your other companions in crime I shall do it myself.'
'You do me great honour, sir,' Olivia replied, settling herself comfortably over the desk.
'Now open your legs a little wider and lift your bottom, up on your toes, if you have to.'
Olivia did as she was ordered, shuffling her feet over the carpet and thrusting out her behind. A cloth soaked in oil went between her legs and gently rubbed back and forth, not unlike the stranger in the prison van who uninvitingly came to her aid. But this was different; instead of a rough, leathery hand that left her dizzy and feeling sick, there came a curious cold, tingling sensation that seemed to penetrate right to the depths of her belly. Round and round it went, all over her mound and buttocks, soothing her burning skin, seemingly charming away the pain.
'Oh, sir, that is wonderful,' she gasped, clutching at the edges of the desk.
For some odd reason, which she was unable to fathom, the oil had worked its charms on her breasts and nipples, and down the length of her thighs, particularly on the insides where they were most sensitive. And it was there he now concentrated, going in broad sweeps from knee to groin and again into her parted labia.
'Look upon me as doctor,' he said amiably.
'I've never been to a doctor, sir.'
The cloth suddenly stopped. 'Then I may assume that you are in excellent health, inside and out.'
She nodded.
'But if you did have reason to undress in front of a medical man, you would not have any qualms in letting him examine you - intimately, I mean.'
She had to give that consideration before replying. 'If it were for the betterment of my wellbeing I should allow him to do whatever he sought fit.'
'As I am so doing at this moment.'
'Indeed, sir, I feel better already.
'This is only the first part of the treatment. Your thighs have been particularly abused and will require further attention. Please remain where you are.'
Olivia could not remember when she had ever felt so relaxed and calm. Her limbs had taken on a curious weightless feeling so that she seemed almost to be floating, except for a mild and persistent throbbing between her legs.
'How does this feel?' he asked, running the tip of his finger up and down her inner thigh.
Olivia shivered. 'It does feel rather odd, sir,' she chuckled. 'A bit like being tickled with a straw.'
'You know all about that, I suppose? A handsome piece like yourself would never lack for suitors.'
'I suppose not,' s
he answered vaguely. 'But in truth, I have not been thus favoured, and nor do I care to.'
'Hmmm, well, tell me what this feels like.'
Olivia could not readily think of a comparison. It didn't tickle her in the way that his finger had done, but neither was it lacking in the same effect.
'Well reach behind you and see if you recognise what it might be.'
Olivia stretched her arm to her thigh and groped blindly for whatever it was that travelled up and down her skin. She was helped when it was put into her hand.
'It feels warm and hard,' she muttered, 'and yet soft enough to squeeze.'
She closed her hand around it and wondered what could possibly grow even harder, or larger. For a while he let her caress and pinch it gently between her fingers, then, he lifted her hand away and put it back on the desk, and as he did so the stalk she had just been feeling nudged into her hip, and again she shivered.
'It does feel rather like the arm of a baby,' she said quizzically, 'but I don't suppose it could possibly be that - could it?'
'Indeed not,' he exclaimed, unable to resist a furtive laugh. 'It's a root,' he informed her, 'containing a liquid with particular medicinal properties which I shall now bestow on your wounded thigh. And when I have done so, you may rub it into your skin to increase its properties. Do you understand all that?'
She nodded and immediately he stroked his weapon against her flesh, running the plum rapidly back and forth over her fleece and then returning to her thigh, which he found particularly to his liking. She was certainly untouched, he was sure of that, which made a pleasant change in a place like this where almost every inmate had at least taken a hundred or more of the very thing that was now quivering against her leg.
'Now hold yourself in readiness,' he warned her, and with that he suddenly erupted, uttering a grunt that made Olivia shudder.
Hot spurts of sap darted against her thigh, a few stray drops spattered over her buttocks and trickled into her crease. Olivia, obeying her master, reached behind and palmed it into her skin, rubbing it most emphatically on her inner thigh.
'And your bottom,' he advised her.
The Instruction of Olivia Page 3