‘This stupid girl defied me. See the result? Look and learn, my dear,’ she snarled triumphantly.
‘Resistance is futile and the consequences…’ she squeezed Jaya’s soft cheeks between her outstretched hand. Jaya shook her head but could not release it from the vice-like hold. ‘I repeat, the consequences are quite dire. Do you understand?’
Miranda, wide-eyed with both shock and concern, nodded dumbly.
‘Good. Get undressed and prepare yourself. You,’ she returned to Jaya, ‘I want you to consider our little discussion and come back here tomorrow morning. You may have changed your mind by then. If you are sensible, you will have.’
What evil act had Matron attempted upon Jaya, causing the gentle young Asian beauty to resist and thus merit such a savage punishment? With her severe crop, Jaya looked like a pathetic little duckling just in from a storm. Wiping away her copious tears, the shorn girl took up a brush and slowly, resentfully, swept up the remains of her glorious hair.
Miranda turned away from the scene, it was too painful to witness. With tears of pity now pricking and glistening in her own eyes, she turned to mount the dreaded examination table. A surging tide of fear and loathing, shame and resentment welled up inside her. Being at the ruthless whim and scant mercy of this overbearing demon numbed her sensibilities almost completely. Almost. Not completely. There were still enough quivering apprehensions kindling within her to feed and fuel her flames of dread. And Miranda knew that those shadowy flames would soon have flickering substance as her punished buttocks were set ablaze once more in scarlet suffering.
‘Hurry up girl. Get ready,’ Matron snapped.
Miranda, utterly naked, shivered before slipping up onto the examination table as instructed. She lay on her side, drawing her knees up until they nestled into and squashed her passive bosom. Jaya, having completed the heartbreaking task of sweeping up her own hair from the floor, was ordered out of the san.
‘Over. Onto your tummy, my girl. Face down. Full stretch.’
Miranda, puzzled, obeyed.
Matron picked up the short length of rubber tubing and flexed it menacingly in her hand. A hand that remained gloveless. Miranda frowned. And where was the customary jug of warm water? The cold lubricant? The cruel funnel?
‘No enema for you tonight, my girl. I am far too busy for all that. Staff dinner. Brace of pheasant with bread sauce. So I’ll be brief.’
Miranda closed her eyes, remembering the gentleness of Emily, the art teacher. She tried to picture Emily, head bowed, her beautiful fluttering hands like butterflies as they shaped white roses for the floral centre-piece.
‘Brief, but effective.’
Miranda opened her eyes in alarm. Matron was flexing the rubber tubing with a tenderness close to affection.
‘You are failing badly, my girl. It has been noticed. I do not tolerate failures. Not at the Academy. It is clearly time your independence of spirit was truly broken. You need several harsh lessons and a firm teacher.’
The flesh on Miranda’s rounded soft cheeks crawled. She clenched her buttocks anxiously.
‘Only total and absolute obedience will suffice. I am sure that strict discipline will secure that obedience. This, my girl, will be the first of very many lessons.’
Crack. The length of rubber tubing kissed the upturned, satin cheeks with a savage adoration. The snap of the whippy rubber on taut flesh exploded in Miranda’s brain along with a searing flash of red pain. She winced, gasping audibly. Crack. Again, with unerring accuracy, the length of supple rubber whipped down across her rounded buttocks, striping the soft, creamy domes with a lustful caress of violent intimacy. Crack.
The searing lash burned into the blazing, exposed bottom, causing it to buck and bounce in contorted pain.
‘Get it up, my girl. Up. Higher.’
Miranda dipped her belly obediently and offered her scalding rump up for the next stroke. Crack. Matron gave a carnal grunt as the rubber tubing hugged the convex contours of the supine buttocks. Faint pink and red stripes were emerging across the sheath of simmering flesh.
Crack. The tingling tongue of fire licked deeply, ardently, across the taut expanse of defenceless skin. Miranda struggled, but failed, to suppress the squeal that flew from her parted lips. She gripped the edge of the examination table, her knuckles whitening. Crack. Her fingers splayed out, registering her pain. Resentment rose like hot bile in her tightening throat.
Crack. The fire fanned out, spreading the swathe of its hot dominion. She whimpered, burying her face down into the hard leather surface of the bed of suffering. Crack. Crack. A vicious double swipe that left her buttocks almost molten.
Matron sighed with deep satisfaction. Coiling up the supple instrument of punishment in her left hand, she strode across to the prone girl and placed the cool palm of her hand down on the hot flesh of the punished bottom. A good session of severe discipline. How many strokes? Eight? Less? Or more? Matron counted the nine thin red stripes. Excellent. Tomorrow she would make it a dozen. And the girl would be bound, wrists and ankles. But tonight, nine would suffice. There was an excellent dinner of game bird and claret soon. Her mind wandered to the promise of another sort of hot flesh. Roughly thumbing the pliant, scalded cheeks, now emblazoned with the pinkish red stripes, she chuckled as she examined her handiwork.
‘And that, my girl, will be your daily diet henceforth.’
Miranda climbed down and thanked Matron through gritted teeth.
‘Get dressed. I will see you first thing after breakfast tomorrow morning.’
Jaya was weeping a little more gently when Miranda found her just before daybreak. They were both assigned to early breakfast duties, a rare occasion for snatching a few moments’ conversation as they sliced platefuls of bread, boiled vast kettles on the Aga and scurried about preparing the food for the community. Miranda took the sniffling girl gently in her arms and softly kissed her tear-stained cheeks. Bosom to gently heaving bosom, they remained cradled in their mutual embrace.
‘That was a cruel and wicked thing to do. The bitch. How could she? You had beautiful hair. And will have again, in time. She must have been jealous of you.’
‘She scorned me for refusing to marry. She said no man had ever asked her for her hand. Who was I to refuse such an offer. Then she threatened to… to…’
Jaya was overcome by shame. Miranda could only hazard a guess at the miserable suffering threatened.
‘But you are right. She always pulled my hair. Said I did not deserve it.’ The tears returned.
‘We have to do something. We have to do… something.’ Miranda put her hands out in an unconscious gesture of despair.
‘What can we do? We are utterly powerless,’ Jaya chided gently.
Miranda felt a stab of anguish as she recognised the truth in the Asian girl’s words. Never before in her cosseted, pampered life had she met the feeling before. It rode uncomfortably with her, but she came from a strong breed. A breed of achievers, a lineage of arrant nobility.
‘Then it must be an all or nothing venture. Are you game?’
The timid Asian beauty, painfully shorn of her crowning glory, nodded vigorously. The fierce light of vengeance flashed in her normally gentle eyes.
‘Good,’ Miranda smiled grimly. ‘What do you usually think of when Matron comes to mind?’
Jaya shrugged before replying.
‘Pain. And shame. Fear…’
‘No. Well yes, of course there is always that. But what else?’
‘She is fat,’ Jaya said simply. ‘She always talks about food and eating.’
‘Exactly,’ triumphed Miranda. ‘Always talking about food. Come on. Breakfast will be served in twenty minutes. Let’s give them something of a surprise on the menu today.’
Up in the san Miranda and Jaya worked quickly and stealthily. All they had to do, Miranda argued, was slip a pillowcase over Matron’s head. Split second timing was of the essence. If Matron caught the merest glimpse of either of the two girls, al
l would be lost and their suffering would be great.
Their silent entry into the san safely accomplished, the pillowcase was slipped over Matron’s completely unsuspecting head in a twinkling. She roared like a bullock but was deftly gagged with a towel within a twinkling. The next stage of the impromptu plan — always the best thought Miranda fleetingly — was to bundle their quarry down to the large refectory where breakfast was due to be served. Getting there before the rest of the community was paramount. Jaya, quivering with anxiety, acted as look-out as Miranda propelled the struggling captive down the two flights of stairs. The coast remained clear. Scuttling silently across the hall, the two girls jostled and shoved their burly captive into the deserted dining room and up towards the top table.
They quickly stripped the fat bully’s clothing off and bundled it out of sight, keeping the bound and gagged, hooded and helpless Matron under strict restraint. The naked woman was forced to lie at full stretch — how Miranda grimaced at the memory of that phrase — beneath the length of the top table where the headmistress and her staff would shortly be taking their appointed places.
Miranda skipped into the kitchen and returned from its busy bustle unobserved. She grinned wickedly as she brandished a small glass of cooking sherry and a cucumber from the salad box. Stooping, she carefully poured the contents of the cup over the pillow case, taking care to dribble the pungent sherry over Matron’s face and hair. Stifled outrage greeted this action. Already the heady fumes of strong drink spread like a miasma around the top table. Miranda nodded her satisfaction. Jaya grinned her delight. The cucumber, annointed with soft butter, was slowly but surely inserted in between their victim’s pale, flabby buttocks. Jaya, shocked and delighted, stopped her squeals and giggles just in time. The ample cleft parted to receive and accept four inches of the probing cucumber. Matron groaned.
Four minutes to go. Four minutes before the large brass gong would boom out its summons to the community. Like the discipline and the punishments at the Academy, breakfast was always prompt.
Three minutes to spare… Miranda stretched up and grabbed a little Georgian silver mustard pot. Applying the tiny little spoon deftly, she annointed Matron’s nipples with freshly made, yellow mustard paste. The fat bully, more accustomed to having her mustard spread on rashers of crispy bacon and moist, plump sausages, writhed.
Two minutes to go… Already the serving girls in the kitchen were bustling under their laden trays and salvers. Noises of preparation spurred the two girls to their task. Miranda untied Matron’s hands, which immediately flew to ease her puckering, inflamed nipples. The gong boomed harshly with a reverberating echo. Miranda, still pinioning the Matron face-down into the carpet by her shoulders, looked directly into Jaya’s eyes. They had remained absolutely silent throughout the entire escapade, but the tension between them now was almost unbearable.
Soft footsteps of stockinged girls approached. Miranda, giving the cucumber a final twist, whipped off the pillow case and threw it away into a far corner. She nodded to Jaya and in a silent twinkling they both melted into the shadows of the early morning dining room. The Academy assembled in its entirety within seconds. Last to enter, striding majestically in, was Mrs Boydd-Black. From her customary seat, Miranda distinctly noticed the headmistress sniffing the air. Good. She had smelt the sherry. Miranda smiled.
‘Be seated,’ came the command all were used to hearing and obeying.
All assembled sat, and from her lectern the thin, reedy voice of Madame Nina started the reading, taken from Samuel Butler’s Erewhon, a dry, dull text.
A mounting sense of excitement gripped the air. From their vantage point, several of the girls could see Matron’s naked legs and thighs spread out under the top table, at which the headmistress and staff sat unconcerned as they wolfed delicious hot breakfasts. Matron’s absence was only remarked upon by a casual glance at her watch by Mrs Boydd-Black. But the drama was too much for a little dark-eyed red band to bear. She giggled, clapped her hands over her mouth guiltily, then scampered from the room. Amazed, the headmistress scanned the room for an explanation. She was met by a sea of strained, amused, giggling and undisciplined faces gazing back. Not back, exactly. Down at her feet. She looked down and scanned the carpet, staggering up from her chair in stunned astonishment at the discovery of Matron, naked, obviously the worse for strong drink, clutching her bare breasts in a frenzy of delicious torment.
‘Matron. Can you explain?’ the headmistress thundered.
The fat, naked woman rolled, scampered and staggered out from her partial concealment into the full view of all assembled. Several girls, seeing the obscene cucumber, shrieked. Some with horror, more with delight. Matron, having soothed her ravaged breasts, pawed the empty air behind her, found the cucumber and removed it. Miranda could not suppress her joy as pandemonium broke loose as Matron brandished the cucumber, gazing at it in bewildered horror.
For the first and only time, breakfast at the Academy dissolved into ungovernable mayhem. It took the headmistress a full eight minutes to restore a semblance of order and impose the customary regime of disciplined obedience.
It took her only six minutes to relieve Matron of her duties, position and presence there.
Chapter Five
The day after Matron’s departure, Miranda was instructed to visit Mrs Boydd-Black in her smaller, private office. As soon as Miranda saw the full white blouse of the generously bosomed headmistress reflected in the polished black surface of the Japanese lacquered bureau desk, she remembered Porteous and her SOS. Was Aunt Emma coming to rescue her? Had her discharge and release been secured? Why else would she be ordered to this inner sanctum, instead of chopping cabbages, scrubbing floors or wrestling with trigonometry under the vigilant, stern gaze of the indominatible Miss Eaddes.
Maths had always beeen something of a mystery for Miranda. Cosines and the cane were her present horror. Miss Eaddes seemed to think that all answers rested in the length of her whippy cane. But no mention of any communication from Sandstones, or indeed any suggestion of an impending visit from Aunt Emma, was made. Mrs Boydd-Black referred briefly to Matron’s debacle.
‘You did not laugh along with the other wretches. Neither did that minx, Jaya. I watched you both, carefully.’
‘Jaya had nothing to do with…’ Miranda replied with spirit, eager to protect the buttocks of her dusky friend from the lash of retribution, trailing off as she realised she had given herself away. Mrs Boydd-Black smiled. How typically loyal and decent of this well-bred girl to do the right thing.
‘Logic dictates that your answer strongly suggests that you have certain knowledge. If you know who was not responsible, you must know who was. Hm?’
Miranda, in her headlong rush to Jaya’s defence, had not anticipated this cruel trap. She did not reply, choosing instead to tread carefully along the path of silence.
‘An absolute outrage. Chair and Full Exercise for the culprits, of course. That goes without saying. And believe me, I’ll see to it personally that the tennis table bats are laid on good and hard.’ Mrs Boydd-Black enunciated the words with a distinct relish. Miranda grew pale, her palms pricking with sweat.
‘But I suppose that we shall never get to the… dare I say bottom of the matter,’ Mrs Boydd-Black said, chuckling.
The wry humour was intended as a truce offering. Miranda’s quick mind picked it up. She took a deep breath.
‘The Academy was not her true home, Ma’am,’ she volunteered.
The headmistress looked at her shrewdly.
‘An interesting observation, my dear. Continue,’ she invited.
Gathering up her courage, but not wishing to sound like a gushing toady, Miranda spoke freely. She felt that she could confide in this intelligent woman, whose magnetic personality would drag her thoughts out in any case. The Academy, she said, had a positive purpose. It imposed discipline and instilled self-discipline in those who both needed and deserved it. But Matron was a bully. She broke the rules and went too fa
r.
Silence. Miranda trembled. Had she said too much?
The headmistress rose from her seat and walked slowly around the impressive, ornate desk. Coming to a rest behind Miranda, she placed her hands lightly on her shoulders.
‘You are a brave, and a sensible girl, Miranda. I have great hopes for you. And yes, I agree. As you say, Matron had not found her true home with us at the Academy. But your attitude to the spirit of the Academy and the difficult work we undertake here interests me.’
Aunt Emma will have me out of here before long, Miranda thought smugly, not really listening to what the headmistress was saying. Mrs Boydd-Black mistook Miranda’s secret reverie for rapt attention. She spoke at some length. At first, Miranda did not bother to pay much attention. All she half heard was an intense homily outlining the work, and success, of the Academy. Then Mrs Boydd-Black’s tone changed, taking on a softer, more reflective note. She spoke of her own daughter, killed on the Swiss ski slopes six years ago. She would, Miranda learned, had she survived the fatal avalanche, be almost exactly Miranda’s age.
‘But I have something of a proposition to make to you. Having the advantage of privilege, the ability to command and lead others comes instinctively and naturally to one of your pedigree. Six green-bands are due in this evening. There was something of a minor rebellion, if not an actual revolution, at a distinguished public school in Dorset. Subsequent investigations uncovered the presence of a vicious element. Bullying, smoking, sherry parties and general misconduct. The usual story,’ the headmistress sighed. ‘The Academy has been approached through an intermediary…’
Miranda noticed the sour grimace that accompanied the word.
‘I have agreed to take them for a spell of discipline and character moulding. They will be subjected to a particularly rigorous regime. We will commence with a very firm approach. And you, Miranda, as a newly appointed redband, will take three to induct and mentor. Jane, already a redband, but showing marked signs of promise, will assume responsibility for the other three. Whoever does the best job will be awarded the rank of blueband.’
The Academy Page 11