Exercises with the Reverend Brown

From Blushes 26

‘I’m ready.’ A young girl in navy netball skirt and white blouse stood in the doorway to the office. The receptionist looked up from her typewriter. ‘Right. The Reverend Brown is ready for you; but you won’t need that skirt; it’s a house-rule.’ The girl looked a little embarrassed. ‘I’m sorry… It’s my old school games kit. I thought…’ The middle-aged woman stood up and shook her head. ‘Well, here, we find such heavy garments tend to get in the way. After all, netball skirts are usually for outdoor use, aren’t they?’ Pamela was about to explain that her top and skirt were the only items of sportswear she possessed. ‘Just slip it off. You’ll do fine in just your blouse and knickers.’

To Pamela the words ‘blouse and knickers’, had rather a nostalgic ring to them. She was 18 now, but it didn’t seem too long ago that she could have been seen on the sports field of her old school doing her physical exercises in just that sort of outfit. Still, this was a professional establishment. The Reverend had seen many of his girls progress to national status in various branches of athletics, and her parents were paying dearly for his services.

At that moment another girl appeared, taller than Pamela but about her age, and a sideways glance confirmed that she too wore the ‘uniform’ of the establishment, a thin aertex blouse and navy knickers. ‘You’re late!’ The middle-aged woman was brusque. ‘Please wait in the changing room, Teresa.’ The girl, looking a little flustered, disappeared through the door as directed.

‘Make your way through the gym, and knock on the door at the far end. The Reverend is waiting. And you can leave your skirt with me.’ The receptionist held out her hand, and Pamela took off the short navy garment, handing it over to the older woman. The gym was a long narrow room with sets of costly and complicated exercise apparatus lined up along its longer walls. It was quiet and empty, the public session still being some hours away. Her rubber-soled shoes squeaked as she walked on the parquet floor. The door at the far end was marked Private. She knocked and waited.

It was a moment or so before the Reverend opened the door and ushered the girl inside. Nervously and politely she stepped into the room, and he closed the door behind her. An ex-storeroom, it seemed, with one or two sets of apparatus, together with a large empty desk and a swivel chair into which the man descended. ‘Miss Pamela Hodge?’ She nodded and decided to smile coyly at this rather tall and distinguished man. He opened a binder on the desk in front of him and read silently for a moment. ‘Good. We shall begin!’

He stood up again and walked around the side of his desk, bringing the binder with him. ‘The secret of this course is gradual progression. We intend you to learn no more than two specific exercises each week, and these have been designed especially to help you learn them quickly.’ She thought she ought to respond politely, so Pamela nodded again and repeated the smile. He seemed to ignore her efforts to soften the atmosphere. Perhaps he preferred to remain detached in his tuition, she thought.

We start with general posture, the way in which we want you to stand at the beginning and at the end of every exercise.’ He pointed to a circle marked out on the floor, with two straps hooping up from the floor in the middle. ‘Please place your feet under these straps, Pamela.’ Anxious to please, the girl skipped forward, sliding her toes under the straps. They gripped her shoes firmly. ‘Posture is related to balance, Pamela. Now, please reach up, raising your hands and arms as high above your head as possible, looking forward.’ She did as directed, stretching high, her blouse parting company with her knickers.

‘Now hold your breath for the count of three… One… two… three… And now relax.’ He walked round her, studying her figure, the moderate swell of her breasts, and the more noticeable swell of her bottom curves. ‘And again, but this time, keep your arms outstretched, and bring them down, level with your shoulders, and then down to touch your feet.’

This proved more difficult. She certainly needed some training. She nearly over-balanced, but just managed to correct herself. ‘Good.’ The man was still studying her form, making a note or two in her file. ‘Now; I have another pupil to attend to, so I want you to continue with this exercise for the next ten minutes, taking care particularly that you keep your body straight, regardless of the position of your arms. Keep your bottom in exactly the same position as you reach up, or bend down.’

He left, closing the door with a soft click. Pamela did nothing for a few seconds but then thought she ought to do as she had been told. She stretched up high again, wobbling slightly, then lowered her arms until they were level with her shoulders, and then bent forward to touch her toes. She fell forward again, and put her hand out to stop herself. She tried again and again.

The ten minutes passed quickly, and the man returned, the door opening again with a soft metallic click. ‘Success?’ He asked.

‘Yes — I think so —’ She tried to look enthusiastic, though her thigh muscles were beginning to ache.

‘Let’s see how successful, then,’ said the man, wheeling from the side of the room a framework of stainless steel tubes and springs, which he placed directly behind her, about three feet away. She saw him make some adjustments, and attach two cables to some points on the floor.

‘This piece of equipment will correct your posture, Pamela,’ he explained. ‘The dark circle around you is pressure-sensitive, which means that if you touch it by over-balancing, a signal is sent to this framework behind you.’

It sounded very technical. The Reverend walked back to his desk, sat down and looked up at the teenager, still standing inside the circle. Unnoticed by the girl the apparatus behind her included a thin nylon cane, springy and whippy, which he had adjusted to exactly the level of the midpoint of her knickered bottom. For the time being it was held back, under tension, by a set of wires and rods.

‘Right. Let’s see if you’ve progressed. Stand upright, take a deep breath, and raise your arms above your head.’ She did exactly as instructed, trying hard to please. ‘Now bring your arms down.’ Down they came, level with her shoulders, and then lower, as she bent forward to touch her toes. She over-balanced, toppling forward, and automatically tried to save herself. Her hands touched the dark circle. There was a loud buzzing sound, and a slight metallic clink. A relay released the nylon wand, which whistled through the air in a 90-degree arc, arriving firmly across her tautly-stretched knickers.

‘Aaagh!’ For a second Pamela was unable to imagine what had happened. Shaken, she stood up, twisting round to look again at the mechanism.

‘Some practice still needed,’ commented the Reverend, as he reset his patent apparatus. ‘Let’s try again.’

Suddenly Pamela was frightened. All at once she realised why her college and her parents had been so eager for her to undergo these sessions. She remembered her Principal and a discussion they had had, in which she had mentioned ‘discipline’ in all its forms. But there was nothing she could do, except to try again. She stretched up once more, and this time lowered her arms slowly, bending carefully, checking her posture and balance inch by inch, her muscles aching with the unnatural strain. She thought she had succeeded, but no, she tilted forward. Her hands fell flat against the dark circle.

Another metallic clink, a tell-tale whistle, and the cane cracked again, right across her bottom, in exactly the same place as before. She yelled, the pain biting across both cheeks, and she rubbed her knickers frantically, attempting to ease the pain.

‘Perhaps next time, then.’ said the Reverend, as he reset the apparatus for a third time, and again sat down.

‘It’s early days as yet. Some girls take dozens of attempts to get it right, you know —’

----//----

It was with considerable foreboding that young Pamela returned, one week later, to the Reverend’s gymnasium. It had taken the best part of three days for the cane marks to fade, to say nothing of the stinging pain that accompanied her home on the bus after that first frightening visit. The Reverend had been on the phone too, to her father.

‘He says you did very well for your first attempt.’ Pamela wondered what else he had said. ‘He’s given you a first class mark in your personal file, as well.’ Pamela pouted ruefully, still suffering from the several first class marks across her bottom.

The week had passed all too quickly, and each night, in the privacy of her bedroom, she had practised the exercise she had been taught, determined not to suffer again.

The day came, and immediately after college she reported, in blouse and knickers, to the Reverend’s receptionist. She was ushered, as before, into his private room at the far end of the building. This week, however, she was not on her own.

The new girl’s name was Clare, a small slim blonde with a lithe, strong young body which hardly required any remedial attention. Pamela’s attention however was directed to another girl whom she had seen but briefly on her previous visit, who was standing smartly to attention with her back to the wall. To Pamela’s astonishment, she was wearing no knickers; apart from a short white tee-shirt which hardly covered her waist, the girl was naked! Pamela could feel herself blushing as she tried not to stare at the girl and her dark brown bush so blatantly on display.

‘Good afternoon, girls.’ The Reverend had arrived; he closed the door behind him and smiled at the three teenagers waiting in line. ‘I don’t normally instruct in groups, but I felt that you three could well help each other for just this week.’

He seated himself behind his smooth tidy desk and opened each of the three files before him, checking names, glancing up occasionally at the three nervous girls. He introduced Clare, the little blonde, who seemed already to be on the verge of tears, dressed only in a pretty cotton blouse, buttoned up to the neck, and a brief pair of pale blue knickers through which more than a hint of a neat pubic triangle could be seen.

‘Pamela. As a beginning I would like you to demonstrate the first exercise to our new recruit; and then you can watch as Teresa demonstrates the second exercise for your benefit.’ He pointed to the dark circle on the floor, the two other girls shuffling back to the edge of the room. Looking pale, though her bottom was feeling hot and twitchy, especially when the Reverend wheeled his dreaded mechanical contraption into place, Pamela tucked her feet under the tight leather straps fixed to the floor in the centre of the circle, glanced anxiously at the three observers, and with the greatest reluctance, began the exercise. Taking a deep breath she reached up with her hands and arms, lifting them high above her head. She straightened her body, tucking her tummy in, attempting also to pull in her curvy round bottom. Then slowly, controlling each inch of movement, she lowered her arms, further and further, until she bent forward, every muscle in her body taut, adjusting her balance until her fingers touched the tips of her shoes. Then up again until she was, once again, standing to attention. The relief was almost unbearable. She felt a tear trickle down one cheek as she looked to her tutor for approval. The Reverend grinned. ‘Well done, young lady. I can see you’ve been practising. An excellent demonstration.’

The little blonde took her place in the circle, some of her confidence perhaps restored. Pamela had made that exercise look reasonably easy; perhaps all those stories she had heard about the Reverend were untrue after all.

Pamela actually felt a little sorry for her, standing there so innocently as the Reverend adjusted the height of his bum-caning contraption.

‘You two into the main gym, please.’ Pamela and Teresa were ushered out, leaving Clare to do her ten minutes practice. ‘She’ll need it, poor girl,’ thought Pamela, unaware of the nature of Exercise Number Two. She was walking behind Teresa, watching her bottom wobbling a little as the two girls kept up with the man’s brisk steps. It was just so shocking, to see a big grown-up girl undressed like that, in the presence of a strange middle-aged man, that Pamela just couldn’t really believe her eyes.

The two girls were led to a familiar piece of keep-fit equipment, a stationary bicycle, with handlebars and pedals. Standard enough, except that the thing was upside-down, the pedals placed very high, several feet above the padded bench on which you were intended to sit.

‘This, Pamela, is Exercise Number Two, in which no-one fails. It is, after all, as simple as riding a bike; Teresa here will demonstrate the technique for you.’

Speechless, Pamela watched as the tall girl climbed onto the padded bench and lay down on her back, gripping two rigid handlebars situated just above her head; but it wasn’t that end of the equipment which demanded Pamela’s attention, for at the other end Teresa had lifted her long bare legs right up, slipping her feet inside the buckles on the pedals. With her legs so raised, her thighs were bent almost at right angles to the rest of her body. There was nothing hidden! Pamela was appalled. In that position, there was virtually nothing that she, and of course that dreadful man, couldn’t see.

Teresa began to pedal, stretching first one long leg and then the other, her body rocking gently from side to side with the exertion, her teeth gritted, and her knuckles whitened around the handlebars as her muscles fought to overcome the artificial drag of the machine. Pamela looked at the other girl’s straining face but her eyes were drawn again, down the girl’s body, to that secret area between her legs, and to what was being revealed with each revolution of the pedals.

The man tapped the tubular steel assembly, indicating that Teresa should stop. The girl dropped her legs, panting quietly. ‘And that’s all there is to it, Pamela!’ he said, with a tight smile across his face. ‘I want you to practice whilst I introduce Teresa to Exercise Three.’

Teresa was escorted through a side door in the long wall of the gymnasium, leaving Pamela on her own to master the new equipment. It did seem easier than before, she was forced to concede. At least there was no question of failing, as with that dreadful posture exercise last week. She climbed carefully onto the bench, gripped the handlebars, and found the pedals with her feet, finding them so high off the ground that her thighs were vertical to the rest of her body as her feet slipped into the buckles. She began to pedal, finding it easier than she had anticipated but also finding that she had to stretch each leg as she reached the far end of the pedal’s stroke. She relaxed for a moment, brushing the hair away from her face, and tried again.

Ten minutes later, the Reverend returned, and watched her as she pedalled, her eyes closed, unaware of his quiet return. When she noticed his presence, he smiled down at her patronisingly.

‘Let’s see how you rate, then,’ he suggested, adjusting some bars just above her head. ‘This is a stopwatch, placed where you can see it. Now, all you have to do is to keep pedalling for two minutes. Shall we have a try?’ He didn’t wait for an answer; he pressed the button on the top of the dial and the second hand began to twitch round. Pamela began to pedal, again eager to please, remembering the penalties of the previous week. The machine seemed heavier than before, though perhaps that was because she was beginning to tire.

The first thirty seconds seemed easy enough, but then her calf and thigh muscles began to ache with the extra and unaccustomed strain. She found herself clutching the handlebars ever more tightly, closing her eyes, picturing in her mind’s eye the turning of the pedals, counting each revolution to herself, listening to the persistent ticking of the clock above her.

She opened her eyes, checking the clock. Just under a minute to go. She was tiring quickly now, and deliberately slowed up, concentrating now on just keeping the wheels turning, no matter how slowly. She pressed her shoulders and her back hard down against the padded bench, breathed deeply and squeezed her eyes shut. Each revolution was an ordeal, forcing a soft moan from the girl as each aching leg reached the furthermost point of its movement. Still more than half a minute to go. She gripped the handlebars yet more tightly, but she was faltering. The pedals stopped, the sweat pouring down her face, and her arms and her legs.

With her eyes still closed, she heard a faint but familiar metallic clink, and the unmistakeable noise of a long thin object travelling at speed through the air. A split-second later she heard the splaat as the cane impacted against her taut, sweat-damp knickers. For some reason she remained clutching the handlebars as the tears splashed down, her upturned bottom still squirming from the stroke of the cane.

The Reverend helped her to her feet. ‘Posture,’ he reminded her. She forced herself to attention, her face burning, her bottom still stinging. ‘One minute and thirty two seconds.’ reported the man, reading the point at which the machine had stopped. ‘Not bad at all for a first attempt.’ He re-adjusted the equipment, casually, seemingly unimpressed by the girl’s occasional sobs. ‘But now it’s time to remind you about the underlying reason for attending this course.’ Pamela really didn’t want to hear. ‘The reason is Discipline with a capital D,’ the Reverend continued. ‘Something about which you are going to learn.’ Pamela was finding it hard to follow his convoluted patterns of speech. ‘This week, just like last week, you are going to remain here until you pass this Exercise. There are two different pass marks, each designed to teach you a certain lesson. You may choose which sort of lesson you wish to learn today.’

The teenager tried to dismiss the stinging of her bottom, and the aching of her limbs, and listened carefully to the Reverend’s words. The target she would have to achieve was three minutes continued pedalling. If she failed, the cane would be released, to whistle down once more across her up-turned bottom. The exercise would be repeated until she succeeded, despite the fact that each attempt would tire her more. ‘But there is an alternative target, providing you are willing to accept your true position in relation to those who are attempting to educate you…’ She just wished he would talk more simply. ‘If you choose to undergo the exercise without your knickers, the target time will be halved.’

Poor Pamela was lost for words as she tried to reason her way around the dilemma. To take her knickers down in front of this man, in front of any man, was just too awful to contemplate; but so too was that dreadful cane. There was no way she could hold out for three minutes on that machine, and he would make her go on trying again and again. Last week it had taken eight strokes before she’d got that exercise right. She looked at the dial. She had already achieved just over one and a half minutes, so the second target was within her capabilities. Blushing profusely, she spoke —

‘I’ll… I’ll take my… knickers off…’ She turned away from his gaze, and slipped the damp little pants down her legs, stooping to drag them hastily off her feet.

Pointless, of course, that modest turning away, as she realised as she scrambled back up onto the still-warm bench, feeling the dampness of her perspiration still on the bench. With eyes tightly closed, and feeling humiliated and ridiculous, she raised her legs, seeking the pedals, well aware that her bare bottom, her fleshy thighs, and every aspect of that secret crevice between her legs was now on view to the Reverend.

‘Are you ready?’ he asked. She nodded faintly. ‘Right. You may start… now.’ He started the clock. Its ticking seemed so loud. She began to pedal, slowly, conserving her energy, attempting to save as much as possible for the end of the ordeal. She tried, but the pedals seemed so heavy, and her muscles were aching badly. At just after one minute, the wheels stopped.

Pamela had just enough time to flinch before the cane swished through the air, landing straight across the fleshiest part of her lower bottom cheeks with a loud Splaat!

She squealed. Her flimsy knickers had, after all, offered some meagre protection; this was even worse than the first one! The tears came again. In the position she was in she couldn’t even reach her bottom, to massage it with her hands. Somehow, she was aware of the Reverend making an adjustment to the wires and levers. Then he was leaning over her, re-setting the clock, and telling her to start again. Perhaps she hadn’t heard him, the pain having distracted her, because although the clock had started its slow pedantic path, the pedals had not begun to move. The wicked pliable cane was released for a third time, landing emphatically across her bottom just above the last two strokes, almost at the junction of her bottom curves and her thighs. She released a piercing scream, her feet waving in the air, seeking to find some imaginary set of pedals.

‘I can’t do it.’ she wept. ‘I can’t, I can’t…’ The Reverend responded firmly. ‘You can, and you will; and all that yelling will only serve to tire you.’ He left her alone for a few moments to get over her weeping, and walked to the end of the gymnasium, to check on his latest recruit. Young Clare had already sampled the sting of the cane across her pale blue panties, and she was still getting it wrong.

Brusquely he ordered the girl to ‘Take a ten minute break, then you can try again.’ Over his shoulder he called to Pamela, who struggled off the bicycling machine still tearful. He would have to give the girl an old-fashioned taste of the cane to ginger her up, then she could go back on the bicycle.

Pamela was stepping back into her knickers as she followed him into the little room. Never mind, he’d soon have them down again.

‘Bend over that chair, Pamela!’ A good, old-fashioned cane made an experimental swoop through the air, then tap-tapped against Pamela’s knickers. ‘Oh, and I think we’ll have these down, my girl —’