Join the Dots 4

From Whispers 4

It was Mr Ashford who had sent her there, Pam knew that. Well actually it was her mother but it would have been Mr Ashford telling her mother to do it. In fact she had heard him through the half-open kitchen door. ‘What that girl needs, Mrs Stelling, is a touch of discipline, otherwise you don’t know where she’ll finish up.’

Pam’s mother had said apologetically, ‘I’m really sorry, Mr Ashford.’

What she was sorry about and what Mr Ashford was annoyed about was that Pam didn’t want to go and work in his house. She had left school and started training as a typist but Mr Ashford wanted her to go round to his place part-time. Mr Ashford was very keen on pretty girls of about Pam’s age which was 16. Two of her friends did part-time work at Cranley Hall, where Mr Ashford lived, and they had told Pam what he was like and the sort of thing he liked to do to you. So Pam said she wasn’t going.

The trouble was that her dad was out of work, as a lot of other men were in 1934. Her mum could really use the money and Mr Ashford paid very generously. Mrs Stelling just got angry when Pam told her what Monica and June said. She didn’t want to hear that sort of talk, she said. The fact was that Mrs Stelling, like other girls’ mothers, had a pretty good idea what Mr Ashford was like but beggars couldn’t be choosers, could they?

So Pam was being sent to Brookley House to learn to be more obedient. Just for the weekend, Friday evening until Sunday afternoon, so she didn’t even have to miss any of her typing classes. If she wasn’t prepared to be more co-operative after that of course she could return for a longer stay. But a weekend was usually enough because in a weekend you could do quite a lot to a girl; unless she was a very hard case you could certainly do enough to ensure she would never, ever want to come back again for more.

----//----

It was a private house in its own grounds on the edge of a village. A train ride and then a bus ride from where Pam lived, with a short walk at the end but she had no trouble finding it, Mr Hawkley had sent precise instructions. It was Mr Hawkley who greeted her at the front door when she arrived with her little suitcase containing the few things a girl needed for a weekend. An uncertain ring on the bell and there, shortly, he was. At the gate at the other end of the drive a brass plate had said: Brookley House Correctional Institute. Prop. Mr A J Hawkley.

Mr Hawkley didn’t look anything special: a smooth, roundish face and rather stary eyes. A big man, though, with big shoulders under his jacket. Strong shoulders and arms… for caning girls. Because that was what happened to you at Brookley House, you got the cane. Pam knew this, she had eventually got that much out of her mother.

Disciplining you, her mother had said at first, not being too specific but she finally got out of her what ‘disciplining’ meant. ‘You’ll find out soon enough, Pam, but I expect it’s the cane. And it’s something your father should have done long ago only he’s always been too soft with you.’

Pam had been silent after that. Silently thinking about being caned. It was quite enough to make you go silent. The Cane. Pam had never been caned. How would they do it? Touching your toes? Bending over a chair? With her skirt up? Could it be… her heart beat faster… with her knickers down?

Those thoughts had pretty much occupied her mind ever since her mother had told her. She was now seriously regretting her defiant refusal to go to Mr Ashford’s. For with all the things the other girls had said caning was not one of them. It was that same thing — the cane — that was central in Pam’s mind now as she stood on the doorstep of Brookley House and said a hesitant ‘Good evening, sir,’ to Mr Hawkley.

He beckoned her in. ‘Another young person who finds discipline a problem, eh?’

Pam had no ready answer. She bit her lip. Mr Hawkley’s hand came out and took hold of her upper arm through Pam’s thin coat. Strong fingers squeezed. ‘Well, I think we’ve the answer, Miss. A nicely warmed-up bottom can work wonders.’

His fingers pinched, his dark eyes bored into her. ‘You begin to have second thoughts, my girl, when your bottom is so hot you feel sure you’ll never want to sit on it again.’

Pam’s stomach felt like a bottomless pit, her legs like two sticks of jelly. ‘Follow me,’ he told her.

Through the hallway and up the stairs to a little room with a bed and a chair and not much else. Pam was told to take off her coat and unpack her things. Mr Hawkley would come for her in five minutes.

At least five minutes didn’t give you much time to wait and brood over what was going to happen to you. Mr Hawkley abruptly came back in, his eyes taking in her check blouse and tartan skirt. ‘What’ve you got on: stockings?’ he asked.

Pam said a scared ‘Yes sir.’ Mr Hawkley reached out and lifted her skirt. Brown stockings and a white suspender belt. ‘Take off the stockings and your suspender belt, then put your shoes back on.’

Trying not to think, Pam complied, Mr Hawkley watched. ‘Right, now come with me.’

Up some more stairs, onto the second floor. Into another little room only this one even starker than the one Pam had been put in. No furniture except a bed and that was just the bare metal frame and springs. In the corner standing against the wall were two canes.

Mr Hawkley closed the door behind them. ‘Right, young lady; let’s give that bottom its first warming-up, shall we? So you have something to think about in bed tonight. Take your shoes off and get yourself up on the bed; on your front and with your legs and arms spread out.’

Pam looked at the stark bed-frame and felt sick. Mr Hawkley was taking off his jacket, then going over to the corner, to the canes. She now knew how the caning was going to be carried out. I’m going to be sick, she told herself.

‘Get moving!’ Mr Hawkley’s cane stung across her bare legs. Blindly she stepped forward.

He made her grip the metal end rungs and spread her legs to the bottom corners, hooking her feet round the uprights. ‘I don’t want you moving,’ he said. ‘I want the bottom nice and still and I don’t want it clenching. I want it kept nice and relaxed for the cane.’

He had pulled her skirt up round her waist and now he was dragging her knickers down. Off of her bottom and down round her thighs, hooking them on a bedspring. ‘Hold on tight,’ his voice barked.

Lying face down on the bare springs was quite awful, the hard metal cutting into her. Why had she been so stupid as to argue with her mother and Mr Ashford? English working-class girls in 1934 did what they were told. If they were sensible, at least. If not…

CRACCKKKK!

The pain was impossible, unbelievable. Like a sharp knife cutting right through her. She heard herself cry out, a frantic animal cry like some wild creature caught in a trap. From somewhere up there outside her desperate world of pain Mr Hawkley’s voice said, ‘Keep it nice and still.’ And then that horrendous, knifing pain again.

Some time later Pam was being told to get up. The cane had kept coming down, she didn’t know how many times — it was in fact 10 — and she scarcely knew where she was or even who she was. Just that frantic pain, not only in her poor bottom but it seemed now everywhere.

Mr Hawkley had hold of her arm as she blindly struggled off the bed. ‘How does that feel, Miss? Not quite so defiant now?’

His hand was groping her stinging bottom. Through the tears Pam shook her head.

‘Yes Miss. Two days of that and I think we’ll have you straightened out.’

----//----

‘So how was Brookley House, Pamela?’ Mr Ashford, eyeing her, had a mocking smile on his face. ‘Enjoy your stay, did you?’

Blinking, Pam shook her head. ‘No sir.’ She was blinking because if she wasn’t careful she would start crying, the memory was just so dreadful. Two days of that terrible caning; four times a day. In between doing housework and working in the garden with the four other girls there. It was now Monday evening and she was in Mr Ashford’s drawing room, standing submissively before him.

‘Going to be a sensible girl now, are we?’

‘Yes sir.’ A tight little whisper.

‘Good girl. That’s more like it. Now, let’s have a look at you, shall we? Let’s have a look at what they did.’

He took her arm and pulled her over his lap. Skirt up and then knickers down. His hand began stroking and squeezing where the red cane marks still criss-crossed the soft pale flesh.

‘Mmmmm… yes…’

And then the hand slid in between her legs. That was what Monica and June had said he did. One of the things at least. That was why Pam had refused to come. But now, well, she had a different perspective on it. Having his hand there was hateful, there was no doubt about that. But compared to Mr Hawkley’s cane…