The Last Caning at St Hilda’s
Story by Stephen Sims from Janus 139 It happened less than three years ago, but it seems much longer than that. I’ve left school now and hope to graduate next year but that painful and amazing time still haunts me. I never did decide whether those two girls were hell-raising mischief-makers or just plain bad. Looking back, I think there was no real harm in them, although they made me suffer. But I suppose they felt justified in what they did to me, and I try to understand. There are no welts any more on my bottom, but sometimes, in a nightmare, I feel again the phantom fires eating into each cheek, and I squeeze them until the heat oozes away and I wake and stare into the darkness, remembering. They were Jasmine Fenwick and Ruby Blanche Cridland. Jasmine, or ‘Jazzy’, was one of those annoyingly pretty girls who put you in mind of a cat, sort of lean and graceful with flowing dark hair and sapphire eyes. Her friend, Ruby Blanch...