Scraping Through

A marvellous story with lovely Alan Bell illustrations, from Roué 4 

Sunlight streams in through lace-curtained windows in a little flat above a tea-shop. The noise of traffic filters up from below, the telephone on an elegant corner table rings in a muted way.

Miss Etheridge ignores it for the moment. The thick strap in her hand whacks once, twice more across the reddened and bouncing buttocks. The girl stifles her sobs, with her knuckles pressed against her mouth, and then weeps desperately as the strap cracks across her bare bottom one last, stinging time.

‘Get up girl, and stand there!’ Miss Etheridge indicates a place at the end of the piano. The girl gets to her feet and tugs at her drooping knickers as she hurries to obey.

‘And leave them where they are! I haven’t finished with you yet!’

The weeping girl drops her pants, and they fall forlornly to her ankles.

‘And stop that blubbering child!’ Miss Etheridge walks to the telephone and picks it up, with a cautionary glare over her shoulder. The girl snuffles miserably into a sodden hankie and worms her hips slowly from side to side trying to ease the smart.

‘Yes? Miss Etheridge speaking.’ She continues to glower at the wretched girl, who looks down at her feet to avoid the icy stare.

‘Oh yes, Mr Mortimer. Yes, I’ve decided after all that I will accept your niece. You understand my conditions of course…’

The girl whose knickers are around her ankles rubs tentatively at her sore bottom, and blows her nose dismally.

‘No, Mr Mortimer. I have already explained that. I do not make any charge for tuition. Please don’t insult me by offering money. I teach because I feel it my duty to do so. My reputation as a musician, and as a teacher of music, is international, as I’m sure you are aware. I teach only those girls whom I believe have the necessary dedication to achieve recognition in the very highest circles. That recognition is my reward. I shall not wish to teach your niece if you mention money again.

The girl’s tears dry up a little, but still she eases her weight from one foot to the other, her hips rocking gently, her naked buttocks aglow with scarlet strap marks.

‘Very well then, Mr Mortimer. I shall want her for three lessons a week, Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, from six o’clock till eight. And she is not to be late!’

The phone is replaced on its cradle, the knickerless girl bites her knuckles, and Miss Etheridge picks up the strap.

‘Now then, get back across the stool. You’re going to learn that when I say practise, you practise!’

The girl edges away, but the strap catches her sizzlingly across the back of one thigh. She yelps and skitters sideways. The raised strap threatens again. Her feet leaden, knickers stretching between her ankles as she moves, the girl comes nervously to heel and rearranges herself across the piano stool. Her punished bottom glows cheerily. The strap descends, sore buttocks tremble and jerk, the sunlight streams in through lace-curtained windows.

----//----

Monday, five minutes to six. A pretty girl in a summer dress hurries along the now quiet High Street. Something in a shop window catches her eye and she stops, but only for a moment. She glances up at a clock over a jeweller’s shop and trots a few steps before slowing into her bouncing, agile walk again.

Into the door beside the tea-shop, up the narrow, winding stairs onto the first floor landing. The girl knocks on the panelled door.

It is opened by another girl, Anne, dressed in a tartan skirt and white blouse with a frilled ruff at the neck.

‘Hello, is this Miss Etheridge’s flat?’

‘Yes. I think she’s expecting you, you’d better come in.’

The new girl is ushered in and Anne closes the door behind her. Miss Etheridge is in the room with the lace curtains. The late afternoon sun dapples the back wall of the room and glints on the silver tea-pot on a tray in front of the window.

‘Good evening. I’m Sally Mortimer. My uncle…’

‘Yes, I know who you are. You may sit down.’

Sally sits, precariously, on the edge of a straight-backed chair, watching Miss Etheridge watching the clock which ticks quietly on a tall glass-fronted cabinet.

‘May I say how grateful I am Miss Etheridge, that you…’

‘Quite so Sally, quite so. Now be quiet girl, I am planning this evening’s lesson.’

Sally subsides and glances around the room. It is a rather old-fashioned room, though the furniture looks to be quite valuable. In the wall dappled by the sunlight there is another door which might be a cupboard. In one of the panels there is a knot hole, and Sally stares thoughtfully at it, not knowing where else to look, nor why the three of them are simply sitting, waiting.

Anne takes her violin from its case and resins her bow. Sally does the same and Anne whispers, ‘Marion’s late. She won’t half cop it this time.’

Sally doesn’t know what to say, but she tries to look grateful for the information imparted to her. She takes out her violin and plucks at a string. Miss Etheridge’s eyes flicker to her, and Sally says ‘Sorry,’ not knowing quite why.

The sound of pounding footsteps on the stairs brings only a raised eyebrow from Miss Etheridge. A knock sounds timidly on the door.

‘Anne, I believe this may be our latecomer.’

‘Yes, Miss Etheridge.’ She hurries out to admit Marion, who flusters into the room, bangs her violin case against a spindly-legged table and causes a rather ugly vase to wobble dangerously.

‘Why is it that you can never do anything quite right Marion?’ says Miss Etheridge.

‘I — I’m ever so sorry Miss Etheridge, but the bus was late and…’

‘That is no concern of mine young lady, I’m not in the transport business, I am a teacher of music. And why must you come here dressed like a first form schoolgirl. Don’t you know that it’s bad manners to call upon people in the evening still dressed in the clothes you have worn all day?’

‘I’m sorry…’

‘And you seem to have a penchant for being sorry Marion, and reasons to be so aplenty. So you’ll understand when I say that I intend to make you sorry yet again, though for a more tangible reason.’

Marion looks to the other girls for support, but finds herself quite alone. She bites anxiously at her bottom lip, while Miss Etheridge prepares for a little ceremony in which poor Marion has taken part before.

Sally’s eyes widen as Miss Etheridge produces an old leather slipper from within the music compartment of the piano stool.

‘If you please Marion.’ The slipper gestures to another stool, a taller one, which resides behind the piano against a wall.

Marion swallows. She seems most reluctant.

‘Come on girl! We’ve wasted enough time for you as it is!’ Miss Etheridge’s voice is suddenly brittle and insistent.

Marion scuttles to the stool and lugs it to the middle of the room. Sally stares unbelievingly as the girl then hoists up her pleated school skirt to her waist, her plump, softly contoured bottom cuddled snugly in her white cotton knickers, and is then ordered peremptorily across the stool.

‘Haven’t you forgotten something Marion?’ said with a chill inflexion of the voice.

‘Miss Etheridge…?’

‘Your knickers girl. Where should they be?’

‘Er — I-I’m sorry M-Miss…’

Whack!

Sally jumps almost as violently as does the girl across the stool, who squirms to one side away from the threatening slipper and gasps between her teeth.

‘Where should they be Marion?’ The slipper hovers menacingly.

‘D-down Miss Etheridge!’

‘Yes, down girl!’ The slipper smacks again, and Marion bleats her apologies and struggles to tug her knickers down without daring to get up from the stool. They slip easily off her elevated bum-cheeks but her weight makes it difficult for her to prise them down from under her tummy. She pulls desperately at them though, and at last yanks them down, the stool teetering as she struggles with the uncooperative knickers.

‘Now then Marion. What time should you have been here?’

‘S-six o’clock, Miss Eth…’

Whack!

‘Six! Quite right Marion.’ And five more stinging smacks crack eagerly across the protesting girl’s upturned bottom, the bright marks reddening rapidly so that as the sixth spank lands it does so on two cheeks already patched pink and crimson.

‘And what time do we finish our lesson girl?’

‘E-eight, Miss Ether…’

And after eight more strokes poor Marion’s gasps are being interspersed by what sounds to Sally like sobs.

‘And how old are you Marion?’

‘Oh — M-miss, p-please don’t…’ she squeals as the slipper catches her on first one bare thigh and then the other. She wriggles helplessly and gasps the answer.

‘Sixteen?’ Whack! ’And shouldn’t a girl of sixteen…’ Whack!… ‘have learned to tell the time…’ Splatt!… ‘… Eh, Marion? Shouldn’t she?’ Wallop!

‘Oooh — y-yes — but d-don’t smack me any…’

The slipper, hearing nothing of Marion’s sobbing pleas, kisses her delicately colouring cheeks until the sentence is completed. Marion wriggles tearfully but the full number is given nevertheless, and then she is ordered to her feet, the stool is replaced, and Marion is told to dry her eyes and grow up, being a big girl of sixteen as she is.

Miss Etheridge places the slipper conspicuously on top of the piano and takes her seat. The three girls gather nervously around and tune their instruments with Marion still sniffing fitfully.

‘And can you stop that Marion,’ says Miss Etheridge. ‘D’you want your strings to lose their tension because of the dampness in the air?’ She smiles at her own humour. None of the girls sees the joke.

The lesson begins.

It just isn’t Marion’s day.

‘Fetch the stool Marion!’

‘But Miss Etheridge…’

‘You’re playing like someone with gloves on. Now fetch the stool!’

‘Oh, no, please! My-my bottom’s ever so s-sore Miss. Please don’t…’

‘D’you want me to make you fetch the strap as well Marion?’

‘S-strap…? Oh, n-no…’

‘Then bring the stool, and be quick about it!’

‘Oooh…’ Marion scampers for the stool and carries it clumsily back to the centre of the room, banging one of the legs against her shin and whimpering miserably as she stands hobbling on one foot.

Miss Etheridge hovers, the slipper loitering menacingly in a hand by her side. Marion stops hopping.

‘Well?’

‘Er…’ Marion fumbles with her skirt, hoisting it reluctantly up her legs and making a pantomime of it. The tight tuck where her little-girl knickers slip between the tops of her thighs peeps out from below the hem at the front. Anne shuffles her feet and Sally blinks unbelievingly and finds herself trying to remember what knickers she’s got on, just in case…

Marion petulantly completes the unveiling of her silly schoolgirl knickers, and her plump cheeks thrust themselves out behind, the pants covering only part of the spankable bits and the crimsoned overlap glowing in bright contrast to the white cotton.

‘D-d’you — shall I…?’

‘Of course you stupid girl! Get them down at once!’

They come down, the tender cheeks spilling hotly out over the elastic. Marion leaves them clinging around her thighs and puts herself back across the stool, the wooden top still warm from her occupation of only a few minutes before.

The slipper strokes its cool touch up and over the swell of the penitent’s bottom, and dabbles playfully on a bright and tender blotch on the crown of one cheek.

‘Now then…!’

Crack!

‘Oooh! Ahh…’

Marion jerks her bottom to one side. The slipper is not deceived.

Whack!

‘Ooow! Oh, n-no…’

Smack!

‘OOooch Miss — m-miss, no please…!’

Crack!

‘OWW! Ooogh…’

Her bare bum-cheeks squirm pathetically and she begins to gasp through parted lips.

Whack!

Splatt!

Crack!

The crimson blotches spread rapidly, and Marion’s knickers slither treacherously to her knees. Her helpless bottom bounces frantically and she starts to kick in response to every stroke.

‘Keep still…’

Smack — Smack — Whack!

Miss Etheridge gives her pupil another smarting half dozen and then simply abandons the wriggling girl, who is left sobbing semi-hysterically across the stool.

Some time elapses before Marion re-joins the group around the piano, to stand awkwardly and restlessly as she tries to pick up the place on the music. The harmonious little gathering doesn’t last long.

‘I think you’re having one of your days, aren’t you Marion?’ says Miss Etheridge sweetly.

‘M-miss…?’

‘Yes, I’m sure you are. Really, it’s hardly worth your while bothering to pull your knickers back up, is it dear, if you’re going to have to take them down again every five minutes for the rest of the lesson.’

‘Miss…?’

‘Fetch the cane.’

‘Oh, no Miss — please, I-I’m trying…’

‘The cane Marion, if you please.’

‘But-but…’

‘Two extra!’

‘Miss, please…!’

‘Four extra!’

‘Oh…’

‘Well, are you going to fetch the cane?’

‘Oh Lord…!’

‘Six extra!’

Marion scurries away, her violin clattering onto the top of the piano.

The cane is slim and swishy. It quivers malevolently as Marion hands it speechlessly to her tutor.

The routine is repeated. Marion’s knickerless bottom looms defenceless across the stool yet again

Sally can hardly believe what is about to happen. She stares wide-eyed and flinches as the cane swooshes smartly across the wretched Marion’s buttocks. Marion gurgles her sobs into her hands as she is methodically caned, her big bottom twitching almost in resignation as she gets twelve crisp strokes nice and stingy across her already smarting bum.

Allowed down from the stool, poor Marion stumbles with it to its place behind the piano, Sally’s eyes unable to drag themselves away from the girl’s punished buttocks which bob and bounce below the caught-up hem of the grey skirt as Marion struggles with the heavy stool. When Sally can tear her eyes away she finds Miss Etheridge peering at her with a strange half-smile on her lips. Flushing with a confusion of embarrassment for Marion and nervousness for herself, she looks away and wonders what on earth is going to happen next.

The lesson is resumed, though Marion still weeps dismally for several minutes, making the other two girls uneasy and Miss Etheridge decidedly tetchy. Looking out of the corner of her eye at Marion as she struggles to keep in time with the rest of them, Sally misreads the music by two whole bars. Miss Etheridge stops playing and the girls scrape on for a second or two before desisting themselves.

‘Concentration,’ says Miss Etheridge, ‘is the essence of musicianship.’ She looks pointedly at Sally. ‘Sally, what is the essence of musicianship?’

‘Um — concentration, Miss,’ says Sally self-consciously.

‘Indeed it is,’ says Miss Etheridge. ‘And that is precisely what you lack isn’t it Sally?’

‘Er, miss?’

‘You lack concentration girl. I cannot teach you concentration, you can only learn it by applying yourself wholeheartedly. The only assistance I can give is by applying this slipper wholeheartedly. Fetch the stool Sally.’

‘Oh, but Miss…’

‘Yes?’ The single word disarms Sally in her attempt to protest. She stumbles over her theme.

‘M-miss, I d-don’t think my uncle w-would approve Miss. I’m sure he wouldn’t…’

‘He would, indeed he does. He understands perfectly that I teach from pure altruistic motives, and that I refuse to instruct ungrateful girls who waste my time. I have explained to him that I will not have my time wasted, Sally, and I have also explained the remedy I choose to employ as and when I see fit. Now stop vacillating and bring the stool.’

‘But Miss…’

‘Do you want the strap?’

‘N-no miss, but…’

‘Then do as you are told girl, at once!’

‘Oh…’ Sally hesitates. Marion sniffles dismally and Anne merely raises an eyebrow. It’s all the same to them if Sally wants to make a fuss. The longer she takes about it the sooner the lesson will be over and the less chance there’ll be of getting whacked themselves.

At last Sally goes for the stool, just knowing it’s not a good idea. She lugs it petulantly to the middle of the room, her bottom lip pouting childishly. She puts the stool down and stands a little way from it, looking nervously at Miss Etheridge.

‘Well?’ says the teacher.

‘I don’t see why I should,’ says Sally dubiously. ‘I don’t see why I have to have my bum smacked.’ She pouts uncooperatively.

Anne titters. Miss Etheridge glares at her.

‘And you’re next my girl!’ she says icily. ‘As for you Sally, you’ll do as you’re told!’ She stands up, the slipper in her hand. ‘Now get across that stool! Get your dress up, get your knickers down and don’t you dare defy me again!’

Sally clings on to her dignity a moment longer, then, with the tears prickling behind her eyelids, she lowers her head and capitulates. Her pretty dress drags reluctantly up her legs, stops level with her pubis for a moment, then slips even more slowly up to her waist. Her pert bum-cheeks huddle pathetically inside her neat little pants, swelling the tight cling of the material, and her thighs squeeze with embarrassment.

‘Knickers, Sally!’ demands Miss Etheridge. ‘Take them down.’

Sally plucks forlornly at her knickers. They inch haltingly down across the firm plumpness of her buttocks.

‘Come on now! Right down my girl!’

Sally slides her little pants down at last. They cling nervously around the tops of her thighs.

‘Now over the stool!’

Sally does as she’s told, though gracelessly. Her naked bottom poised across the stool, she clutches at the legs of it and squeezes her eyes tightly shut.

The slipper flicks waspishly at a bare thigh and Sally starts.

‘Legs straight!’ insists Miss Etheridge, demonstrating who’s boss.

Sally pushes her legs straight and clings on grimly. Her bottom, elevated and solidly rounded, tempts the restless slipper.

Whack!

Sally snatches forward, and the slipper spanks again as its target rocks back into position. She squirms, and gulps audibly.

Smack! Wallop!

‘Ooogh — nnnmgh!’

‘Quiet girl! And keep it still!’

Miss Etheridge cracks another spank smartly across the crown of one bare buttock. Sally’s breath hisses with a pained sibilance through her clenched teeth. Her tremulous bottom skids away sideways, the reddening slipper-marks already blooming in soft-edged blobs in the centre of each cheek, and the slipper again whacks firmly and sends her back the other way.

The girl starts to cry miserably, more from the humiliation than from the spanking, but she gets another ten or so before Miss Etheridge is satisfied.

‘Now get up Sally! And remember — concentration!’

Sally scrambles down from the stool, groping for her pants.

‘Anne! Over the stool!’

Anne’s tartan skirt is already hip-high. She knows better than to aggravate the situation. She drags her red nylon knickers down to stocking-top-level and plonks herself face down over the punishment stool.

Miss Etheridge slippers the pale, unblemished cheeks with deliberate severity and without a word. Anne twitches as the tenderness grows to a smarting sting in her bottom, but she takes her spanking quite well, only the quickness of her breathing betraying her pretence of stoicism.

The slipper ceases its visitations of Anne’s well-tanned backside and the girl is told to replace the stool.

The lesson can now continue.

They manage to play for a whole five minutes without the luckless Marion losing her knickers yet again, and then Miss Etheridge calls upon the girls to ‘Pin up, now! Time for the final practice piece.’

Sally is at a loss to understand the woman, and watches the other two girls as they each produce a couple of safety pins from their handbags.

‘No pins, Sally?’ enquires Miss Etheridge archly.

‘Er-no, as a matter of fact Miss Etheridge.’ Her face demonstrates clearly that she is quite confused.

‘Dear me,’ says Miss Etheridge, ‘well, you’ll have to find a way my dear, this is the final piece you know.’

Final piece…? Sally sees that Marion and Anne are engaged in pinning up each other’s skirts, hems being pinned to the shoulders of their blouses and leaving their knickers plainly on display. It seems very odd.

‘Well?’ says Miss Etheridge.

Sally shrugs, ‘I-I’m afraid I didn’t realise I’d need pins…’

‘Really? Well you’ll know next time. Meanwhile I suppose you’ll simply have to take it off, won’t you?’

‘Er — take what off, Miss Etheridge?’

‘Your dress, of course. How else d’you suppose you’ll manage, unless you can play one-handed while you hold it up.’

With a long-suffering look on her face, Miss Etheridge turns to the other two girls and matter-of-factly denudes both their tender-looking bottoms by taking their knickers down.

‘Well come on!’ she says to Sally.

‘B-but — I haven’t got a bra on…’ blurts Sally.

‘Indeed?’ says the tutor. ‘And why should that stop you taking off your dress pray?’

‘But…’

‘No “buts” girl! Take it off this instant — or you’ll go back across the stool!’

Sally realises she’ll have to do as she’s told. She pulls her summer dress up to her shoulders and Miss Etheridge slips the girl’s pants down with an impatient yank even as she is still removing her dress.

Sally’s young breasts stand out round and pert, nipples small but pointing saucily. With her knickers at her knees she is naked save for her knee socks and her shoes. Nothing seems more ridiculous than playing a violin under such circumstances, but play they all do, and understandably none too well.

Miss Etheridge leaves her girls to play unaccompanied by the piano, instead she takes the part of percussionist, slipper in hand.

Three bare bottoms, each with the marks of earlier misbehaviour or inadequate attention. Marion’s fat young buttocks the most painfully reddened, the faint traces of her caning overlaying the crimson of scores of slipper marks, the overall impression one of considerable tenderness. Anne’s bottom less well-punished, but hot-looking nevertheless, cheeks full and plump and seeming to shrink away as the slipper passes and repasses within a foot or so of its naked vulnerability. And Sally’s little bum, slippered only moderately yet blushing furiously all the same, the scarlet buttocks a pretty contrast to the nakedness of her young body. The slipper dallies behind Sally’s bottom, waiting its cue.

Smack!

‘Ooooh!’

‘Less vibrato Sally!’

‘Oh, yes Miss!’ She tweaks her buttocks, trying to relieve the sting.

Crack!

‘Fingering, Marion! Pay more attention!’

And Marion topples a pace forward, her plump bum-cheeks trembling under the impact. She gets another sharp reminder and she bleats dismally as the sting has her wriggling again.

One after another the pert, naked bottoms pay penance. Marion’s tender cheeks flame ruby red and three stinging spanks in quick succession make her drop her bow as she tries to squirm out of range. The two which she gets, good and solid across the full undersides of her buttocks, as she stoops to retrieve her bow leave her hopping foolishly and panting out her sobs.

Anne jerks away as she gets her share, but knows better than to obstruct the course of Miss Etheridge’s justice. She gasps once or twice but fiddles on resolutely even though she feels as though her poor bottom is on fire.

And thus, punctuated by the slipper’s loud and resounding wallops and by the three girls’ alternating yelps of anguish, the lesson drags on to its close.

The three girls gratefully retrieve their knickers and Sally puts her dress back on. Miss Etheridge sees them to the door. Three very polite ‘goodbyes’ are said, and the music tutor closes the door behind the girls as they leave and returns to the sitting room where she opens the cupboard door.

The middle-aged gentleman eases off the chair and gets stiffly to his feet, the two hours being a long time to spend in a cupboard, his eyes blinking in the unaccustomed light.

Miss Etheridge bustles away to the kitchen. She comes back with a pot of coffee which is politely welcomed by the gentleman. An envelope sits on the coffee table, and this envelope is discreetly removed by Miss Etheridge with only a trace of genteel embarrassment showing on her face. She pours the coffee and they each sit and sip.

The gentleman clears his throat.

‘Um — may I say how very satisfactory I found today’s lesson, Miss Etheridge.’

Miss Etheridge inclines her head and smiles, accepting the compliment.

‘Yes, I thought you dealt with them all most — er — interestingly. I specially liked the way we had the pleasure of seeing the new girl, — um — almost naked. Most — um — appealing.’

Miss Etheridge offers biscuits. The gentleman takes one and nibbles it. He starts to chuckle to himself. Miss Etheridge raises an enquiring eyebrow.

‘I was just thinking of poor Marion,’ says the gentleman. ‘I was thinking how sweet she looked in her little school knicks. And how sore her bottom must have been.’ He chuckles again. ‘I thought she was going to burst into tears there and then when you told her to fetch the cane. And you certainly whipped her.’

His portly stomach wobbles as he enjoys the recollection. ‘Dear, dear, poor little Marion.’ His eyes take on a faraway mistiness as he pictures the scene. Almost to himself he says. ‘But it’s her own fault of course. She shouldn’t have such a plump little bottom if she doesn’t want it whipped. Absolutely asking for it, that bottom of hers. Quite delightful. Quite charming.’

‘I think I gave her something like, what, eighteen strokes, didn’t I?’ says Miss Etheridge, with an eye to business, the cane being an extra and used only on special request, and therefore to be added to the bill.

‘Something like that my dear lady. You’ll find I’ve adjusted the fee accordingly.’ They both smile politely, this not being the first time they’ve done business.

‘And young whats-her-name, the new girl?’

‘Sally?’

‘Yes, Sally, very pretty. Pretty little bum too, don’t you think?’

‘I suppose so.’ Miss Etheridge disapproves of the word.

‘Yes, needs a cane across it, eh?’ He chuckles again. ‘Needs something to put a bit of real colour in her cheeks, that girl.’

‘I’ll consider it. Now, did you say you intended to come again on Tuesday week? For the Fraser girls?’

‘Ah, yes. And the other one, Linda. She’ll be there too won’t she?’

‘Yes, Linda comes on Tuesdays.’

‘Yes. Now I’d like to see her caned again. And the other two, the twins — I’d like to see them strapped. Couple of dozen each say, and then what about if…’

Outside the evening turns into dusk, and the street lamps come on. The two people talk on in the little first floor flat, and the lamplight, cool and oddly restful, filters in through the lace-curtained windows.