Cold Showers and Canings

Story from Janus 38 by R.T. Mason & Peter French

Dear Mummy and Daddy,

Just a little note to tell you I’m safely back here at good (?) old St Morag’s and settled in. All my friends are back except Helen who left last term as you know. We are now of course all Sixth Formers — Lower Sixth but Sixth nonetheless — so we think we are quite important. I don’t know if anyone else does. Everything is pretty much the same — oh except one thing, there is a new English Mistress, Miss Baxter. She’s quite young and seems very nice. She liked my essay and, guess what, invited me to tea with her tomorrow to discuss it. She said I have a very good style!!

Anyway I have to rush, there’s hockey practice and I might get in the Second XI this year if I get to all the practices and get fit (no cakes!). I will write more at the weekend. I hope that Middle East sun is not too unbearable.

Your loving daughter, Pippa.

She licked the envelope and stuck it down, then addressed it. Mr and Mrs R.W. Stevens. She thought of them out there in Abu Dhabi and momentarily felt a sharp pang wishing they could be here in England and she at a day school able to go home every afternoon. But still, when Daddy’s contract was up next year he was probably going to come back. That would be really super. And anyway she had been out there with them this summer; swimming in that terrific pool among other things and getting a tan that her friends were really envious of.

Pippa put the envelope on her desk where she’d remember to post it and turned her attention to the present, here at St Morag’s. Hockey practice was due to start in ten minutes, which incidentally that new Miss Baxter would be taking. Pippa hurriedly started to get changed. Her dark blue blazer with the red St Morag’s crest came off and then the dark blue pleated skirt. In white blouse and red-and-blue tie, and a pair of rather skimpy white nylon knickers Pippa sat on her bed to remove shoes and socks.

She was a pretty girl, a very pretty girl, with softly delicate features in a frame of close-cropped ash-blonde hair. Her 16-year-old figure was also undeniably attractive, slim but well fleshed out in all the right places, most noticeably the firm medium-sized breasts and the perhaps slightly more than medium-sized bottom. Yes, altogether a very choice package — which was what the alert eyes of Lynn Baxter, new English Mistress, had immediately registered on seeing Pippa Stevens in her class.

Lynn was 25, tall and slim and darkly attractive. She had had various boyfriends but somehow none of them ever really got to her. Whereas certain 16- and 17-year-old members of her own sex could really turn her on. Problems with one such girl had unfortunately led to Lynn having to leave her last school — but the matter had been hushed up for fear of publicity and Lynn had agreed to resign in exchange for a good reference.

So here she was at St Morag’s with a clean slate and with no great inhibitions about that awkward business last year, although naturally she intended to be careful. But generally Lynn was looking forward to the coming term, not least because St Morag’s allowed caning of Sixth Form girls. Lynn Baxter was rather partial to using the cane on a nubile 16- or 17-year-old. The palm of the hand, the backs of the thighs, and naturally a nice plump bottom; they were all decidedly stimulating, and at the same time they would be legitimate pleasures. Yes, she thought she was going to enjoy it here.

Had Pippa Stevens known all this it is doubtful if she would have described Miss Baxter as ‘very nice’. Because the unfortunate fact was that Pippa Stevens was just Lynn Baxter’s type, with the sort of softly pretty face that could really send shivers down her spine. Indeed Pippa looked a lot like that Jennifer whom she’d rather lost her head over last year, yet if anything she was even prettier.

Controlling her feelings, Lynn had told herself to ignore the shiver and keep her distance. Perhaps if the opportunity arose one could enjoy the heady pleasure of caning this delightful girl; but one must not, repeat not, get involved in any personal relationship.

That was what she told herself but then, at the end of the lesson, Lynn nonetheless found herself praising the essay which Pippa Stevens had produced in the summer vac (in fact it was not all that good). And then inviting her to tea tomorrow to have a chat about it. Really you just won’t learn, will you? she wryly told herself.

Pippa Stevens naturally had no idea of the effect she had had on the new English Mistress, who if nothing else had learnt to conceal her feelings. The pretty Sixth Former continued her hurried changing. Shoes and regulation knee-length grey socks came off and then the blouse and tie. In brief white knickers and bra, which showed off that super tan, she got out her hockey gear: blue short-sleeved Aertex top and very brief blue pleated skirt; white knee-socks and the ankle-high sneakers. Pippa should have changed the brief knickers for a more substantial pair of blue ones but she forgot that as she grabbed her stick and ran out.

Lynn Baxter had not known the delectable Pippa Stevens would be turning out for hockey and as she appeared Lynn once more felt that heady shivery feeling. This time perhaps even stronger as she now saw beneath the ultra-brief hockey skirt those softly rounded sun-kissed thighs going right up to, well, where a girl’s thighs do go up to. And also the unmistakable firm mounds pushing out the front of the games top, in a really sexy way…

Suppressing that feeling of excitement Lynn gave a tight little smile. ‘Hello: I didn’t know you were turning out for hockey. And two minutes late as well!’

Pippa blushed. ‘I’m sorry I’m late, Miss. Yes I want to do hockey this term. I don’t know how fit I am though.’

‘Well I’m sure we can work on that,’ said Lynn. Then to all of them: ‘Come on then, let’s have you running round the pitch a couple of times for starters.’

They ran off, to the accompaniment of various moans and groans. Lynn watched, keeping her look impersonal, though her interest was in fact far from that. It was a very rousing sight, 20 pairs of 16-year-old girls’ thighs pounding along, and a like number of girlish breasts jiggling, and buttocks rhythmically flexing. And all of them under her control! They were all attractive creatures but only one of them had that extra something that really got to her. Damn! she thought. I just hope I can hold this together.

There were inevitably more enticing glimpses of young female flesh as the girls ran about scrambling for the ball. At times girls fell over on the greasy turf providing further intriguing revelations. One whom the fates chose to send sprawling right in front of Lynn Baxter was Pippa Stevens, with a heart-stopping display of those brief white knickers which were definitely not regulation hockey wear. Lynn had a momentary vision of Jennifer at the other school — and then the consequences, being forced to resign. Stick to the other, she told herself. Those sun-tanned thighs, that plump bottom — it would be sheer heaven to cane them.

But it was not Pippa who got it although perhaps Lynn could, just, have caned her for being late and wearing improper and too-revealing attire. It would have been simpler if she had but Lynn could not resist still thinking about alternative possibilities. So she decided instead to have a go at another girl, Anita Cunningham. Lynn was keen to cane a girl early on, if only to establish her authority. The news would rapidly get round and make all the rest of them think twice about any funny business. It would make delicious Pippa Stevens think along with all the others.

Anita Cunningham was quite a nice choice, a good-looking brunette with a nice round bottom and sweet thighs. Quite choice but she didn’t really do anything for Lynn so there was no problem there, just the pure sensual pleasure of a caning. And Anita had conveniently provided an excuse by tending to mess about and not taking the practice too seriously. She was told to report to Miss Baxter’s room as soon as she was changed.

Lynn did not beat about the bush. ‘Generally not giving 100 per cent, Anita, and I want everyone to know that I cannot accept that. So I am going to cane you.’

There were shocked protestations. A caning was the last thing Anita had expected, she hadn’t done anything.

Lynn briskly cut her short. ‘I don’t want any argument or I’ll simply double the dose. Now where would you like it — hand, legs or bottom?’

A frantic-eyed Anita found herself tongue-tied. Lynn regarded her with rising excitement. ‘Come on, girl: answer!’

Anita finally stuttered, ‘H-hand, Miss.’

‘Hand eh, Anita? I imagine you choose that thinking it will hurt less, is that it? Well what if I say I would like it on your legs, on the backs of those no doubt tender thighs.’ The English Mistress gave a mocking laugh. ‘Whose wish, Anita, do you suppose is going to be paramount?’

Anita looked as if she was going to burst into tears. Lynn took her arm, fingers squeezing. ‘Come on, my girl. Bend over please, and touch those toes.’

A trembling Anita did as she was told and Lynn pulled the pleated skirt up over her back. Anita’s knickers were blushing pink, skin-tight over full round buttocks.

‘Pink ones, eh,’ observed Miss Baxter running her hand caressingly over the taut material. ‘What a choice target! But I think we did say the thighs, didn’t we? And they do look nice and appetizing, Anita. A real treat!’

The English Mistress delivered a brisk smack across the nearside thigh and then she had the cane in her hand — and a greedily sensuous look in her eyes. There was nothing like caning a pretty 16-year-old. Well, almost nothing.

CRA-ACK!…

The cane bit breathtakingly in about four inches below the pink knickers. Anita let out a gasping yell and stumbled automatically forward.

‘Get back down!’ snapped Lynn. ‘You’re a Sixth Former, my girl, not a baby.’

It took Anita a little while to get settled and properly touching her toes again. The pain was simply sick-making, she couldn’t take another like that. But she did, she had to. Three more to form a neat little band of four transverse red stripes midway down her thighs.

There were hot tears on Anita’s cheeks when she was finally told she could stand. Lynn Baxter moved up close and took the girl’s quivering chin in her hand. She looked deep into the reddened eyes, the anguished face — and felt a delicious tingle. It really did give one a lovely sexy feeling to make a girl suffer like this.

‘So now we know where we stand, don’t we, Anita dear? Now cut along and show your legs to your friends.’

----//----

‘She… she’s just a s-s-sadist,’ stuttered Anita in the dorm. ‘And I h-hadn’t really done anything.’

The others, looking askance at the marks on Anita’s legs, made sympathetic sounds. It certainly seemed an unreasonable punishment, though Miss Baxter was within her rights in disciplining a Sixth Former with the cane if she felt it necessary. Pippa was as shocked as the others. It must have been murder. And she had thought that new Miss Baxter was so nice!

So it was with some trepidation that Pippa went to her tea-time meeting with Miss Baxter the next day. She seemed very friendly, though, putting out some cakes and pouring tea. At the same time, remembering Anita, Pippa was on edge. Also there was something about Miss Baxter, even though she was being friendly. She had a way of looking at you. An intense piercing look.

But still, as they sat on the settee together, she was praising Pippa’s essay again, saying it showed a lot of maturity etc. And then she also said she was pleased to see Pippa was turning out for hockey. Fit bodies made healthy minds, according to Miss Baxter.

Then the English Mistress led directly on to the matter of Anita. ‘I expect you heard I gave her a caning, Pippa?’

Pippa, flushing, said Yes. Miss Baxter looked at her intently. ‘One thing I do demand, Pippa, is 100 per cent effort and no slacking. For instance you yourself arrived two minutes late for hockey. Also I observed you were not wearing correct underwear. The knickers you had on combined with a short hockey skirt could I am afraid very easily cause undue interest in any men or boys who had come to watch practice. Do you understand me, Pippa?’

Pippa flushed again, this time scarlet. ‘I… I’m sorry, Miss.’

‘Yes I should think so. And strictly speaking I think those examples of slackness would entitle me to put the cane across your bottom. Or those pretty thighs with their delightful suntan.’

Lynn Baxter’s handsome face had a voracious look, as of a predator with its prey. Pippa Stevens was sweating, not knowing where to look. Suddenly there was a hand on her knee. And the English Mistress gave a tinkly laugh.

‘Don’t get upset, Pippa dear; I am not going to cane you. There was your excellent work in your essay for one thing. And also I have the feeling that we two can get along without canings.’ The hand on the knee squeezed. ‘I think in fact we might be friends. I mean, the fact that I’m a member of staff doesn’t have to be a barrier.’

Pippa felt a bit funny with that hand on her knee but her main thought was that the threat of the cane seemed to have disappeared. Miss Baxter was asking about her parents now. Oh dear, she said, it was very sad that they were all that way away and Pippa only got to see them so rarely. It must be very lonely at times.

Suddenly Pippa got to her feet. Miss Baxter was probably only being friendly but the hand had crept halfway up her thigh. Miss Baxter looked up. Her face was flushed and her voice now had a hard edge to it.

‘You mustn’t be so jumpy, Pippa. There’s no need to be nervous now we’re going to be friends, is there?’

Pippa didn’t answer. Miss Baxter was also now on her feet. ‘Now what we must do is see if we can get you in top shape for hockey. You’re very promising but perhaps could lose a pound or so.’

A hand reached out to Pippa’s blue-skirted bottom, and squeezed. ‘Yes, I think a pound or so. What we’ll do is take you for a little run in the morning.’

As Pippa was conducted to the door Miss Baxter’s hand was still hovering about. Culminating in a ‘friendly’ slap to Pippa’s bottom as she went out.

Alone once more Lynn Baxter poured herself a sherry. Her heart was pounding. She knew the dangers but they merely seemed to make it all the more exciting and enticing. Lynn had barely been able to control herself with her hand on the darling girl’s thigh. She knew there was no way she could stop now.

In the dorm some hours later Pippa turned to whisper to Clare Whitlaw, in the bed next to her.

‘Clare, have you ever met any — you know, leses?’

‘What! Oh I don’t know. Why?’

‘It’s just this girl I met in the summer was talking about them. I s’pose they’re always, you know, butchy types.’

‘Oh, I don’t think so, not always. Sometimes they’re just ordinary-looking. You know, pretty even.’

Pippa bit her lip. That was what she was afraid of.

----//----

First thing next morning, in her hockey gear again, Pippa met Miss Baxter behind the gym as planned. It wasn’t necessarily anything odd, Pippa told herself, members of staff did give girls extra training and coaching etc. That was what she told herself but it wasn’t very reassuring. There was something about Miss Baxter — and not only the hand on her thigh and smacking her bottom — but Pippa tried to keep calm. The English Mistress was in a red-and-grey track suit looking very eager.

‘A nice steady run, eh Pippa!’

They set out, at a pace which seemed easy for Miss Baxter but was soon making Pippa sweat. Miss Baxter made encouraging sounds and was also very ready with an encouraging slap to Pippa’s bottom; somehow she made this seem quite casual and normal, though it was by no means soft. They had gone about half a mile, out onto a track that went through nearby woods, when Pippa, gasping, said she had to stop.

Exhausted, she propped her back against a tree. Lynn Baxter came close, smiling and eager-eyed, her hands on the trunk on either side of Pippa’s head.

‘Oh my dear girl,’ she cooed. ‘You’re just covered in lovely dewy perspiration.’

And then with no warning Lynn was kissing Pippa on the mouth, with one hand reaching between the girl’s sweat-slippery thighs.

‘No!’ Pippa gasped, pushing Miss Baxter violently away. ‘No! I don’t want any of that. It’s horrible!’ The words came bursting out as what Pippa had been half fearing was now suddenly happening.

The English Mistress went white in the face. ‘You silly little bitch,’ she hissed.

Lynn tried to keep calm. She shouldn’t have rushed the girl, she knew that, but she just hadn’t been able to control it. But still, all wasn’t necessarily lost. Jennifer had not been very co-operative at first; not until after Lynn had applied some pressure.

Pippa was shaking and shivering, almost hysterical. Lynn grabbed her shoulders. ‘Stop that, you silly little fool!’

Gradually Pippa calmed down. ‘That’s better,’ said Lynn. ‘And I should advise against any stupid hysterical blabbing when we get back to school, my girl. Ridiculous distortions without a shred of truth could easily result in an expulsion. How would your poor parents like that, I wonder?’

Pippa started crying again. ‘Do you understand me?’ demanded Lynn sharply.

Through the tears Pippa understood all right. She had better not tell anyone that Miss Baxter had made a pass at her.

‘Yes,’ she whispered.

Her submissive manner served to get Lynn Baxter excited again. She grabbed a handful of short blonde hair and shook Pippa’s head.

‘Louder please! Let me hear it loud and clear!’

Through squeals and sobs Pippa managed a more pronounced, ‘Yes, Miss Baxter.’

‘That’s better.’ Lynn felt her excitement being channelled into a familiar desire. A different desire from the one which moments earlier she had been intent on. A legitimate desire, more or less.

‘Right, my girl. Because of your ridiculous behaviour I think I’m going to give you that caning after all. I let you off yesterday because I thought you were a mature and sensible young person, but now I see you’re more like an hysterical baby. So please take off your skirt.’

Miss Baxter had such a dominant manner and Pippa was in such a state anyway that all she could do was obey. She unzipped her skirt and stepped out of it. Today she had on proper hockey knickers of thicker material. Lynn Baxter, watching hotly, would have been happy to see those skimpy ones again.

‘Right; now turn and face that tree trunk with your arms round it.’

It was a thick trunk and Pippa’s arms only reached about halfway round. The only shred of comfort Pippa could possibly try to cling to lay in her realisation that where they were was so deserted, there was no chance any of her fellow pupils or anyone else would see this happening to her. Miss Baxter kicked at her feet until they were a couple of feet apart, and close up to the tree. Pippa felt Miss Baxter’s hand at her knickered bottom, stroking, and then a sharp smack. Then the English Mistress was pulling her knickers up really tight, into the cleft of her bottom, and Pippa felt very, very embarrassed.

A pause. Suddenly Miss Baxter was holding something in front of Pippa’s face as she stood spread-eagled against the tree, her cheek pressed into its rough bark. It was a hazel switch, about as thick as a finger.

‘This, my girl — this is what you’re going to get!’

Pippa clutched the tree in terrified suspense. The suspense did not last long.

SHWA-ACKK!

The switch zipped into the seat of Pippa’s tightened knickers and landed with horrifying force across the very fullest part of her plump bottom’s overhang. The stricken young Sixth Former let out a wild yell while her bottom went into a shocked frenzied dance.

Through the dreadful pain Pippa heard Miss Baxter’s gloating voice. ‘That’s what that fat young bottom needs, my girl. This will make you grow up a little bit, won’t it?’

How could she say such a thing to her? And what a terrible sharp smarting feeling burning into her bottom!

Lynn Baxter gave her six in all, well spaced out so that she could savour the pain of each one. Each stroke was carefully placed on that same fattest curve of the girl’s rump. Halfway through Lynn broke off to pull Pippa’s knickers up even tighter, and made the now crying girl spread her legs wider. Then she simply resumed, methodically zipping the switch into that same narrow strip.

Repeatedly striking the same spot was naturally much more painful than spreading the strokes out; but after having had her other desire thwarted Lynn was in the mood to inflict pain. By the end she had reduced the girl to a satisfyingly sobbing mess. Lynn felt a sensation of exultation approaching close to ecstasy.

The hazel switch was thrown away and Lynn took hold of Pippa’s arm, pulling her away from the tree. The girl stumbled, to be caught in the English Mistress’ arms. Pippa was in too much of a state to resist.

Lynn felt her desire rise again. In a soft voice she said, ‘Poor Pippa. Would you like me to take your knickers down and see the extent of the damage?’

In spite of her state Pippa could guess what that meant. She shook her head. Lynn pushed her angrily away. ‘As you wish, my girl; but I think you’ll learn that unfriendliness does not pay with me.’

They ran back to school, Miss Baxter tight-lipped, Pippa doing her best to keep up with her head in a whirl and with sobs still coming at intervals. When they got there Lynn Baxter led her companion straight to the changing rooms which at this time of the morning were deserted. There was an ominous glint in the English Mistress’ eye.

‘Get your clothes off, Pippa,’ she said evenly. ‘You need a shower of course.’

Pippa hesitated. ‘Come on, girl; you’re not afraid of water, are you?’

What Pippa was unhappy about was Miss Baxter sitting there on the bench, watching. But there seemed to be no choice. She dutifully complied, turning her back and showing as little as possible; then quickly wrapping herself in a towel. Pippa looked nervously at Miss Baxter, well aware that she couldn’t hold a towel round herself in the shower.

‘Come on and get in there!’ the English Mistress snapped, going over to the shower control.

Pippa went in, dropping the towel at the last moment and trying to ignore Miss Baxter’s greedy eyes on her. She stood, shivering slightly, her face to the far wall. Miss Baxter could see her bare bottom, there was nothing she could do about that, but it was better than showing…

Suddenly she let out a gasping scream as she was drenched with ice-cold water. She started to back out.

‘Stay in there, girl!’ Lynn Baxter’s voice had a hard rasping authority. ’Don’t you dare come out until I tell you!’

The water was bitterly, mind-numbingly cold and the shower was on full pelt. Pippa crouched, crying in agony, as the icy water blasted against her nude flesh. Lynn Baxter’s eyes were riveted, devouring every detail of the shivering slippery-wet body as it twisted and squirmed in utter desperation. She kept the shower on full blast as long as she dared.

At last the torrent of water ceased. Pippa remained huddled, shaking and sobbing, while rivulets of water continued to run down her freezing, goose-pimpled flesh.

‘Come out now,’ Lynn ordered.

The crying girl stumbled out, one arm over her breasts, the other hand covering her pubic mound. With her hair plastered to her head she looked like a drowned rat.

‘Stand up straight!’

One hand reluctantly came away from the taut white breasts, their pink nipples hardened into stiff little thumbs; the other hand revealed the bush of blonde hair at the centre of white loins.

Lynn snapped a towel at a shivering thigh, then threw it in Pippa’s face.

‘Now get dressed, you drowned little rat!’

----//----

After that, quite unbelievably nothing happened. Miss Baxter simply seemed to ignore her. Pippa went about almost on tip-toe, fearful of another approach by the English Mistress at any time, but there was nothing. Pippa did not tell anyone about her dreadful experience and with Miss Baxter also ignoring her it was almost as if it had never happened. Almost as if it had been only a horrifying nightmare.

Miss Baxter was not inactive in other directions however. Gillian Summers was called to her room for some minor offence and had to undergo the same sort of business as Anita. Where would she like the cane applied? Anita said hand and got the same mocking laugh.

‘I rather fancy that fat bottom, Gillian; so just get over the arm of the settee. Your head down in the seat and your seat stuck well up.’

Then, Gillian related to a shocked audience, Miss Baxter had yanked her knickers up, right up into the cleft of her bottom, so that Gillian’s rear was in effect bare. And Gillian had then got six fearsome cuts across the centre of her bare bum.

Caning a girl’s bare bottom was not allowed, of course. Anita said Gillian should complain to the Head but Susan said what was not allowed was taking a girl’s knickers down and Miss Baxter hadn’t done that. And anyway everyone agreed that the Head would only back Miss Baxter up, she had been saying last term that discipline needed tightening up. Miss Baxter might even have been appointed for this reason.

A day later Susan herself got a caning, on the backs of her thighs; and the day after that Peggy Simmonds had a truly horrifying tale to relate in the dorm. Miss Baxter had forced her to take an ice-cold shower. They all gasped. Pippa felt a bit faint; this was proof if she needed it that it hadn’t been simply a nightmare.

But miraculously Pippa herself was left alone. In class if Miss Baxter spoke to her it was simply as if nothing had ever happened between them. Perhaps, Pippa thought, Miss Baxter had done her worst and decided that that was it. It seemed too good to be true.

It was too good to be true. After two weeks a younger girl, a Third Former whom Pippa only knew by sight, came up and somewhat shyly asked if Pippa could help her. She had been told to get some plants for her Biology Class from the wood. She wasn’t too sure what was what but as she knew Pippa did Biology could she please help?

Pippa agreed and the two of them went out on the Saturday afternoon. Looking back on it the girl had seemed a bit jumpy but at the time it naturally had meant nothing. Anyway the two girls were in the middle of the wood looking for the plants when suddenly from nowhere there was Miss Baxter.

Her eyes were shiny with excitement, her voice was gloating. ’Ah what have we here! A Sixth Former having a cosy canoodle with a younger girl in the wood? My oh my, Pippa Stevens, I should say we are in very very serious trouble!’

Pippa spluttered protestations. The other girl said nothing, a simpering look on her face.

‘Silence!’ barked the English Mistress. ‘You have been caught red-handed and I don’t want to hear any ridiculous stories.’

She asked if the junior girl had anything to say and was given a smug, ‘No, Miss Baxter.’

‘Right, young Deborah. You will come with me now. No blame will attach to you as you were clearly enticed by an older girl. Pippa Stevens, you will report to my room in half an hour.’

It was obviously a set-up. Thirty minutes later Miss Baxter greeted Pippa with glittering triumphant eyes when the sick-feeling girl entered her room.

‘Come here and stand close in front of me,’ she ordered. Miss Baxter was seated on that settee where earlier she had fondled Pippa’s thigh.

‘Now then, Miss Pippa Stevens. I think you realise the position you are in. You were caught red-handed with that young girl in the wood and she is prepared to make a statement as to what was going on. If I pass this information on it will naturally mean instant expulsion, you know that.’

Tears started welling in Pippa’s eyes. Was it possible that Miss Baxter could play such a desperately rotten trick on her?

‘For the moment, though, Pippa, I am not going to pass that information on. I am holding it to keep you in line.’

She reached out and gave a little tug at Pippa’s skirt. Pippa jumped as if stung and Miss Baxter laughed.

‘Jumpy, aren’t we! But you can relax, I’m not going to do anything. Not right now, at least. The fact is, Pippa, I do very much want us to be friends but you must want it as well. And until you come to me and say you want us to be friends I am going to give you a rather hard time. And you won’t complain to the Head or anyone because then I should have to tell her about your little indiscretion with Deborah. Are you with me?’

I’m going to be sick, Pippa thought. I know I am.

‘Yes, dear Pippa; a hard time.’ Those three words were pronounced with a definite relish. ‘Anyway we’ve got to get you toughened up for hockey, haven’t we? So it’ll be a nice ice-cold shower — shall we say three times a week before breakfast? And of course the cane, Pippa. The cane on that lovely bot, and I expect on those lovely tanned thighs as well.’

‘But any time you like, dear, I will stop this rather unpleasant schedule. All you have to do is come and see me. And then kneel down by my side here and say, “Dear Miss Baxter, I want to be friends.” In fact you can say, “Dear Lynn, I want to be friends.”‘

Miss Baxter stood up. ‘I don’t suppose, Pippa, that you’re ready to do that now?’

Miss Baxter went to lock her door, at the same time saying, ‘And as this is a private matter and you won’t be telling anyone I do think we might have your knickers down for it. Against the rules of course but really there’s nothing quite like the cane on a girl’s bare bottom.’

Pippa just stood there, weeping.

‘Come on, girl!’ snapped Miss Baxter, back from the door. ‘Down with those knicks!’

Pippa was back in the nightmare; the real-life nightmare of that morning in the wood and in the shower. But what could she do? She couldn’t go to the Head and she couldn’t agree to what Miss Baxter wanted. Her hands went up under her skirt, to tug down a pair of pale blue nylon knickers.

Her heart was beating so fast, it was as if she had just sprinted a mile.

‘Very sweet,’ observed the English Mistress as the knickers appeared below the navy skirt. ‘Now get over the arm of the settee, Pippa dear. Head down in the seat and that lovely bot sticking well up.’

Lynn Baxter flipped up the skirt, then made little adjustments to the lowered knickers. The girl really did have a choice body. What delights there would be when she’d been brought to heel, but until then there was the almost equally thrilling pleasure of her cane.

She tapped it against Pippa’s pale thrust-out bottom cheeks. There were little smack… smack… sounds as the cane made contact with the springy flesh. Very nice indeed! Lynn’s arm came fully back… then down…

CRA-ACK!

A muffled scream of agony from the settee seat. The shocked bottom did a frenzied wriggling dance.

‘Get it still, girl! You’ll get extra ones if I have to aim at a moving target.’

At the same time, though, Lynn liked to see the frenzied writhings. It meant the girl was really feeling it. Just as long as the bottom was still for the next one. The wriggling rear, now with a bright red double stripe across its centre, became more or less stationary.

‘Good girl!’

CRA-ACK!

The desperate scream and the frantic writhing and buckling of the pretty bottom were repeated, more generously this time. Lynn Baxter watched, with a hot glow of excitement. How really stimulating it was to watch a pretty girl struggling to come to terms with intense pain.

Lynn had planned on six but added two more for what she saw as excessive movement. Well, a girl had to learn some control. Poor Pippa was in a decidedly desperate state at the end of it.

Lynn pulled the crying girl to her feet. Her face was a red tear-stained mess. ‘My my, Pippa, you do look a sight! Are you sure you aren’t ready to be a nice friendly girl?’

Blinded with her tears, her bottom a blaze of many throbbing flames, Pippa shook her head.

A hand under the girl’s chin lifted her face. Lynn Baxter’s voice had a steel-like quality again. ‘So we want that cold shower in the morning, I assume?’

Pippa didn’t answer, but the tears came flowing once more.

Lynn Baxter gave her arm a vicious little pinch. ‘You’d better be there, my girl! Half an hour before breakfast. Or else!’

----//----

Dear Pippa,

You didn’t say a lot in your last letter and I hope everything is going all right at St Morag’s. I am sure it is, though. How are Susan and Anita and everyone? And how are you getting on with that new Miss Baxter? You mentioned her in your very first letter — you were going to tea with her — but since then she seems to have disappeared. I presume she hasn’t suddenly run off or something!! The weather here is still very hot…

No, Miss Baxter hadn’t run off. It was now the fourth week of term at St Morag’s, and the Lower Sixth and Pippa Stevens in particular were unhappily all too well aware of Miss Baxter’s continued presence. Indeed only a few hours after Mrs Margaret Stevens sat writing her letter Pippa was once more with the English Mistress in the auxiliary changing room. Once more standing miserably under a cold shower.

Pippa stood facing Lynn Baxter, her hands at her sides, while icy water cascaded down her shivering nude body. Forcing the girl to stand straight up and facing frontwards like this was Lynn Baxter’s latest little twist in putting on the pressure. But perhaps even worse was the way the English Mistress stared at her in the shower…

Three full weeks had passed, in each of which there had been three cold showers and three canings. It seemed to Lynn that Pippa was now weakening just a little, but there was no doubt she was a very stubborn girl. That Jennifer had only needed one cold shower and a couple of canings to become very friendly indeed. Yet there was just so much pleasure to be had from the slow breaking of the girl’s resistance, and all the while her sense of anticipation of her final triumph grew more acute.

When she was ready Lynn turned the shower off and told Pippa to come out. She enveloped the streaming goose-pimpled girl in a towel and began briskly rubbing.

‘You really are a silly, Pippa,’ she told the quivering girl. ‘I don’t enjoy this, you know. I’m sure you’re ready for it all to stop now, aren’t you, dear?’

Pippa blinked away water and tears. She opened her mouth and then closed it.

Lynn Baxter pulled the towel-shrouded figure close, and for a moment it almost seemed that the girl was yielding to her pressure.

‘Well, dear?’ she asked again, in a softly but hotly seductive voice.