Join the Dots… In a Tranquil Retreat

From Uniform Girls 32


She arrives in a taxi. They almost all do, though occasionally one may be delivered in a private car, by a relative, a husband perhaps. Usually by taxi, though, as this one: a pretty young woman, dark hair, early twenties. Her pale face has a rather dazed or possibly anxious expression as the vehicle rolls in through the open gates. Her eyes perhaps catch the little plaque on the weather-beaten brick gate pillar. It says Greenfields Health Centre. The fields around are not so much green as golden: it is September and the crops are mostly harvested after a hot summer. There are green trees, though, scattered about the countryside and clustered here in the grounds to provide a pleasant shade. Yes the grounds are green. Tranquil.

That is what the brochure says. Tranquillity. Though this young woman’s eyes do not register tranquillity as she alights from the rear of the taxi. The driver’s eyes, not tranquil but not troubled either, register the quick flash of thigh as the skirt of her smart russet-brown suit momentarily rides up in the process. Standing, she looks round, still with that same look. Then evidently thinks of the fare, her handbag… but someone is coming out from the house to look after that. A middle-aged man in a blue-grey cotton jacket over shirt and trousers: one of the staff evidently.

He deals with the driver and picks up the medium-sized suitcase. A quiet word to the young woman and she follows him to the house, her high heels crunching on the gravel. The wheels of the taxi are crunching gravel too as it proceeds back down the drive. Another client delivered. The driver’s eyes can still see the pretty young woman’s thighs. Lovely stuff! he tells himself. But then you do get lovely stuff coming out here to Greenfields.

The young woman in the high heels and the smart brown suit is now inside, in the reception area to one side of the main hall. A youngish man — in his thirties — in shirt sleeves has come out from behind the desk. ‘Thanks Arthur,’ he says to the older man who has brought in the young woman and her case. Arthur goes off, the case placed carefully on the floor, and the shirt-sleeved man turned his attention to the visitor.

‘Hello. Miss Fenton of course. Helen, yes? Welcome to Greenfields. I’m Nick Stankin. In charge of admission. So… you’ve been sent by your Mr Granford I believe?’

The young woman, Helen Fenton evidently, forces a smile, and a nod, of agreement. She still has that air of… something, anxiety, distractedness? Is she perhaps not sure why she is here?

‘You’re lucky actually. You’re the only one at the moment. The only young lady here for training.’ He laughs. ‘So you can be assured of full attention at all times. That will be nice, won’t it?’

In saying this Mr Stankin’s tone suggests irony. As if she won’t in fact enjoy it. Helen still has that look, and nods in agreement: whereas perhaps it is not something to feel agreement with. Not for her at least.

He smiles again, stepping closer to her. ‘Oh, whilst I remember. You address me as Mr Stankin. Not my Christian name. The same with the other people here. Including Arthur Walling, our general factotum, who brought you in. He’s Mr Walling. It’s part of the discipline of course. You’re here to learn discipline, to learn to be submissive and obedient. As any proper young lady should be. That is what your Mr Granford wants, and we have to make sure he gets it. Yes?’

Another smile. It is not really a very friendly smile. ‘And until you are properly disciplined, Helen, this has got to suffer. You understand that?’

Mr Stankin’s hand as he stresses this has reached round behind to Helen’s bottom. And simply takes hold of it. Grabbing a full handful of flesh, the ripe curve of the near-side cheek. Fingers through the fine worsted of her elegant skirt reaching deep into the cleft. Helen Fenton lets out a startled gasp at this sudden and out-of-the-blue assault on her posterior. But she does not jerk herself away, although there must be the automatic urge to do so —or for instance slap Mr Stankin’s face, and there might well be an urge to do that. There is only a little whimpering sound. She is trembling now — but is in effect submissively accepting the hand, which is still there.

He laughs again. Groping her bottom still. ‘A smacked bottom, Helen. And naturally the cane. That is what a girl gets at Greenfields. And that of course is what Mr Granford wants, isn’t it? Because it’s the only proper and effective way to discipline a young lady; to curb her flighty instincts. Which very naturally a gentleman like Mr Granford doesn’t want. You agree, of course?’

Whether or not she does Helen Fenton produces an unhappy ‘Yes.’ Her big dark eyes are indicating more than that bemused look now. It is as if Mr Stankin’s action and words have confirmed fears and anxieties that were lurking, half-felt, in her mind. And she is presumably not now in any doubt: she knows what to expect. What the eyes now register is just about the opposite of the ‘tranquillity’ the Greenfields Health Centre advertises in its discreet brochure. But then gentlemen who send a young lady here know what they are looking for: it is a tranquillity, of a sort, that will come when she has learnt to fully accept discipline. Learning to do this does not involve tranquillity, rather the reverse.

Nick Stankin has let go now, with a final sharp pinch and a slap. ‘I’ll take you up to your room,’ he tells her. ‘Then we can make a start on your treatment.’

That perhaps sounds ominous in view of what has just transpired. Helen’s eyes register this fact but she forces an unhappy smile. Mr Stankin picks up her case and she is told to precede him along the hall and up the stairs. Her shapely bottom sways in the expensive skirt as she ascends the stairs, the buttocks flexing metronomically. She is no doubt aware that Mr Stankin’s eyes are on it, sizing it up perhaps. In her head is inevitably what he has just said, confirming those things that other have half-told her, alluded to. Mr Granford, whose companion-secretary she will become if he is fully happy with her, and others. Mr Granford is of course a very wealthy gentleman and that position is extremely desirable for any young woman. So it is essential that Helen pleases him and if that involves a stay at Greenfields Health Centre, and getting a good report at the end of it, well, it is certainly all worthwhile. Even if in the short term… all those half-fears, those whispers, are unhappily amply confirmed.

To reinforce, confirm, all this Mr Stankin, close behind her with his gaze assuredly glued to those flexing buttocks, asks, ‘Have you had it caned, Helen? Before?’

----//----

Put your arms behind your back,’ he tells her. ‘Your wrists together. And keep them there. OK?’

Helen is not in that stylish russet-brown suit now. There are still the same white high-heeled courts but they are all that remain of what she arrived in an hour ago. Now Helen is in a figure-hugging little black dress, the hem of which reaches barely halfway down her thighs. It is indeed sufficiently short that the darker rims of Helen’s black silk stockings together with the clasps and a couple of inches of the straps of a black suspender belt, plus associated bare thigh, are visible now, when she is standing, never mind sitting. What the taxi driver saw was thigh in pale beige tights; his eyes would surely be popping out of his head at the present view. But of course that taxi driver is not here. There is only Mr Stankin, Nick Stankin. Telling Helen how he wants her. Hands behind her back. And then:

‘Now get down. Kneeling on the floor. Bending right over, with your head on the floor too. Don’t move your hands though… if you do…’

Nick Stankin has a cane in his hand: that is no doubt the unsaid threat. Helen doesn’t argue. She gets down, awkwardly, with her hands as if tied behind her back. Making little moaning sounds; but doing it. Yes, Helen has been here at Greenfields for an hour and her training has started. ‘Put your things away in the cupboards,’ Mr Stankin told her. ‘Then I want you to take a bath. A nice relaxing warm bath. After that I want you in these things I’ve put out. I shall come up for you in an hour. Then we’ll make a start. Yes?’

Helen is kneeling on the carpet in her little room. Outside it is a perfect September afternoon, the grounds and garden basking in the warm rays of the sun. Tranquillity. That phrase in the Greenfields brochure — ‘the house and grounds are a delight, a haven of tranquillity…’ — would seem to be no mere hyperbole. But in here…

Mr Stankin pulls the brief, tight dress up further. To fully reveal the abbreviated triangle of black nylon which leaves bare a lot more of Helen’s bottom than it covers. In his other hand is that long, thin cane. ‘Stick it further out,’ he tells the kneeling girl. ‘Get your head right down and your bottom up. And keep it still…’

Helen Fenton, bent double, is shaking, shivering. A friend had told her something of this: that Greenfields Health Centre was not the usual sort of health farm. It catered primarily for gentlemen like Mr Granford, or men who were unhappy with a wife’s behaviour. The methods they used, on girls who were sent there… the friend, Caroline, had whispered things that Helen couldn’t believe. Or certainly didn’t want to believe — because she couldn’t refuse Mr Granford’s suggestion. Not if she wanted to be his companion-secretary. A man like Mr Granford could pick and choose, have virtually anyone. So… Helen is here. And it seems… that Caroline’s whispers were no more than the truth.

CRACKKK…!

The impact of the cane sends Helen jerking forward. The impact and the stinging red-hot pain. Oh please God…! She can’t take that sort of pain. Not possibly. But… she doesn’t have any choice.

CRACKKK!!!…

‘Keep it still. Or I’ll have to go on all afternoon…’

----//----

‘That was quite good yesterday, Helen. Not too noisy, and not too much writhing and rolling about. Yes, not too bad for your first time. I think you’ll come along nicely with that. And practice makes perfect, doesn’t it? You’re going to get lots and lots of practice of course. But this morning we’ll try something different, eh? Outside. It’s such a lovely morning.’

Helen, standing in the dining room, with Mr Stankin, is not wearing a lot. Not that little black dress today, or her brown suit. Nothing in fact. Except rather sexy underwear. Plus her white courts again. Black stockings and the black suspender belt and a sexy black bra. The sole remaining garment can hardly be described as knickers. A thong perhaps is more accurate: a narrow strip of black nylon between her legs that at the rear leaves all (not just most) of Helen’s bottom bare.

Mr Stankin slaps a bare cheek. ‘Yes, outside Helen dear. An exercise in the discipline of self-control.’

It is another lovely mild, sunny morning — which is perhaps just as well for Helen Fenton. She is made to stand over at the edge of the lawn under a large ash tree. With her legs wide apart and her arms raised, wrists together.

‘I want you to pretend you’re suspended from that branch by your wrists. And I want you to hold that position. I shall be keeping an eye on you and if you’re not doing it properly, not staying like that, I shall have to give you the cane again. OK?’

Mr Stankin goes off, back into the house. Helen lets out a whimpering sound. Her arms are already hurting. How long is she supposed to stay like this? He didn’t say. Turning her head Helen can see Mr Walling over to the left, raking up leaves which have begun to fall. And Mr Walling — Arthur —can presumably see her in this humiliating position, standing like this with virtually nothing on. But he has seen other girls in this same predicament no doubt, being trained in discipline and obedience. She can’t worry about Mr Walling, it is her arms. They are getting worse. A lot worse. She is not going to be able to hold this position for long. He didn’t say how long. Is she allowed to give herself a brief rest…?

Mr Stankin comes back out a little later. He is carrying his cane. ‘Not doing as well as you should, Helen. I saw you take a break. That means three strokes of the cane.’

Mr Stankin makes her stand against the trunk of the tree with her arms round it. Helen’s breath hisses out as the cane bites into her bare bottom. Once… and twice… and then the third…

‘Now we’ll try again,’ he tells her. ‘Do better this time. Remember somebody will be watching from the house — and you’re going to be out here all morning.’

Mr Stankin moves behind Helen and unfastens her bra strap. ‘I think we’ll have this off, eh?’ He pulls her bra off. His hands come round and briefly fondle Helen’s bare nipples. He gives a harsh little laugh and then walks back to the house, her bra dangling from his hand.

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