Two Stripes Rule
A story with a French connection to mark Bastille Day. From Blushes 11 In the middle of the school gymnasium stands a vaulting horse. A girl — blonde, well-built, in her late teens — is bent over it by touching her toes, gym knickers lowered to mid-thigh, her bottom bare. To the girl’s left stands a senior mistress holding a 3ft 4in punishment cane. Behind the girl, standing near the gym wall with a view of both cane and target are two other people: a form mistress, and myself, Pierre Deauville, a teacher from France on exchange for the summer term. Fiction? No, for I was really there, one hot summer’s day at an exclusive girls school in Berkshire, England on 29 th June 1984. An invited guest to witness, and, dare I say it, to enjoy le vice Anglais corporal punishment administered to young female bottoms. Two days before term started, I arrived at Kingsmead School from Paris to meet the headmistress and settle...