Captain of Cricket

The Women’s Cricket World Cup kicks off today and to mark the occasion here is a sporting tale from Uniform Girls 6

‘Good luck then, Shona. I am as you know expecting great things of the team this year.’ Miss Cartwright rose to her feet and Shona Ashford got up as well. The coffee session, the little tête-à-tête with the Head, was evidently over.

‘Yes, Miss Cartwright, I… er… I hope we will.’

The Headmistress raised her eyebrows. ‘Hope, Shona? I expect more than hope. I expect results; and I imagine that Mr Kirby will ensure we get them.’

‘Yes, Miss Cartwright,’ said Shona, exiting, somewhat red in the face. At 18 she was a big girl and a pretty one, short blonde hair and clean attractive features, tall and sturdily built with solid but shapely thighs and buttocks, not to mention big firm breasts. The sturdy but shapely buttocks seemed to be tingling slightly as she walked down the corridor from the Head’s office, Miss Cartwright’s words ringing in her ears. ‘Mr Kirby will ensure we get them…’

The results that Miss Cartwright spoke of were those the school cricket team was expected to get this year and Shona Ashford, for her sins, was captain. She wasn’t really all that keen on cricket and also not especially good at it, but back at the end of last year she had been appointed captain largely on the back of that large and athletic build. It wouldn’t have mattered, the school had always had an awful cricket team (and an awful hockey team as well) and no one had bothered except Miss Cartwright and there wasn’t much she could do because Miss Fleming, in charge of those games, was quite hopeless and ineffectual. It wouldn’t have mattered except that…

At the end of last year Miss Fleming retired and Miss Cartwright, incensed that that school always lost its matches, decided she would do something. She hired a man, an ex-army PT Instructor. And this winter his results with the hockey team had been truly amazing. They had started off losing as usual but then the last four matches had all been won. Unprecedented!

It was clearly down to Mr Kirby, the new man, and everyone knew how he did it. He was a hard man. He had girls running long miles and jumping up and down, to get fit; also practising until they felt ill. But he also did something else, something that not everyone knew about. He caned girls. It was this thought that was making Shona’s firm and shapely hindquarters twitch as she walked away from the Head’s room.

Yes, he caned girls; not a lot of people knew that but Shona knew because she was quite friendly with Penny Hurstley, captain of hockey. Penny had told Shona, sometimes tearfully — because Penny had been on the receiving end more than once last winter. It was not a pleasant sight to see a fellow member of the Upper Sixth in tears because she’d been caned on her bottom. On her bare bottom.

Mr Kirby’s philosophy apparently was to be especially hard on the team captain — as an example to the others and to ensure her keenness and co-operation. As a result poor Penny had seemed to get it rather frequently. When Penny had first told Shona she had simply not believed it. For answer Penny had lifted her skirt and slid down her knickers. Shona had blanched. There across the pale flesh of Penny’s good-sized rear were six distinct bright red stripes.

‘Holy Cow!’ she gasped. ‘Tell Miss Cartwright!’

Penny had laughed, a bitter little laugh with tears in her eyes. ‘Bloody Cartwright knows — and approves. She’s so bloody keen for us to beat someone she’d probably let him kill me.’

Shona had then said, ‘What about your parents,’ but had been forced to agree with Penny that at 18 you couldn’t go crying like a baby to your mother and father complaining that you’d been caned. So clearly if Miss Cartwright OK’d it you had to take it.

‘You just wait till it’s cricket season,’ Penny had said, and Shona had felt sick. Everyone knew that Miss Cartwright’s father had played county cricket back in the middle ages, so she was even keener on cricket than hockey, even more chagrined that the school team never won.

Holy Cow! thought Shona as she walked away from her cosy coffee session with the Head. It was the beginning of Summer Term, the very first day. Later, this afternoon, she had a meeting with Mr Kirby…

Shona hadn’t in fact seen a lot of him yet except that at the end of last term he had called the prospective team members into his office and said he expected them to be in sharp physical condition when they got back from the holiday. ‘Do some running, do some sport, and keep off the sex, girls,’ had been his instruction. With that making them all rather red-faced he had ‘playfully’ slapped a hard hand across Shona’s bottom. ‘You especially, Shona. The captain leads by example.’

Shona had spent a nervous and apprehensive holiday. She had not done any real exercise and she had indulged in what even she herself considered to be too much sex, mainly as a result of being nervous and apprehensive. Three or four times a week with Roger, her boyfriend. They had only started a few months earlier and Roger of course wanted to do it all the time, and when you were worrying about something having intercourse was a big relief. With the prospect of her meeting today with Mr Kirby, Shona had let Roger do it yesterday even though they’d also done it the day before as well. A longish session, going on for over an hour, and leaving Shona with a bit of a headache. So what with all that she knew she was in just awful shape, and if that hard Mr Kirby was ever to guess…

The day passed like a dream. I hate cricket, she told herself, and I hate awful Mr Kirby as well. She thought ruefully of her misspent holiday; no proper exercise, just mooching around, and those long sex sessions with Roger when her mother was out. Oh God. She was big and athletic-looking but running half-a-mile would probably kill her. Sex sapped your energy, Miss Mather in Biology had said that, reinforcing Mr Kirby’s message. It was probably true. All too soon it was 4 o’clock. Everyone else going home except the odd stragglers. Everyone except Shona… and presumably Mr Kirby. Oh God!…

She went to the changing room to get into her cricket gear which was how Mr Kirby wanted her. The white shirt and very brief skirt; the skimpy white knickers underneath; knee-socks and white sports shoes. She put her blazer back on top, and made a face in the mirror… At his room she felt a desperate urge to turn and run. Penny had said he caned you in his room, bent over his desk. Also in the gym… also in the sports pavilion… She felt sick. But she couldn’t run, she had to knock… and go in…

He was seated at his desk, writing, his close-cropped head bent. He looked up, those hard grey eyes… then got up. Mr Kirby, late forties, was a hard man…

‘Ah Shona, good. All ready for the season then, are we? Fit and raring to go?’

‘Yes sir,’ said Shona who wasn’t at all fit and ready to go, but Mr Kirby wasn’t to know that, was he?

‘Good. Let’s see then, shall we? Let’s have a bit of running on the spot.’

Holy Cow! He couldn’t! But he could. He made her take off her blazer, and then the short skirt… and start running. Shona’s big thighs pumping, her big buttocks in the brief tight white knickers… She felt weak at the knees…

‘Knees up, girl. Up! And faster, faster!’ She was gasping already, full thighs trembling, buttocks jouncing in the brief sports knickers. His hand flashed out to splat stingingly across the heaving buttocks. ‘Get moving, girl. Faster, faster!’

There was a burning pain in her lungs, her legs were two lead weights. Before long she simply ground to an exhausted halt, gasping for breath.

Mr Kirby’s curt, clipped tones said it was incredibly bad, he had never seen a girl less fit. His hand again smacked hard across Shona’s trembling buttocks. ‘Kindly explain!’

‘ I… I’m s…sorry, sir,’ gasped Shona, breathing heavily. ‘I… I meant to… do some running, sir… But…’

‘What have we been doing then, miss?’ His hand came out and sharply smacked the front of one pinkly glowing thigh. ‘We have been doing something, I have no doubt. And can I guess? Is it excessive masturbation perhaps? Or is it letting some horny youth get up there at frequent intervals. Is that it? Let’s hear it, if you please.’

Shona didn’t answer but went bright red in the face. Was he allowed to talk like this? But who was there to stop him?

‘Masturbation, miss; is that it? Bringing yourself off all the time?’

Hot-faced, Shona shook her head. She didn’t do that, or at least not very often, not like some girls. ‘So it’s the real thing then, eh Shona?’ His face had come very close. ‘Your boyfriend, is it? Letting him shag you. How often?’

Shona didn’t answer; she felt weak and sort of dizzy. Surely Mr Kirby shouldn’t be allowed to ask such questions, but who could she complain to? Not Miss Cartwright… and not her mother either. Shona’s mother certainly didn’t know she and Roger did it and if she did she would stop Shona seeing him. The hand gripping her thigh let go; then she gasped. Both of Mr Kirby’s hands had come up to her big breasts, squeezing them through the cricket shirt.

‘How often, Shona?’

She heard herself gasp, I don’t… oooh… I… three… three times… a week I suppose…’

The hands gave a final painful squeeze and let go. ‘With the shape you’re in, my girl, I would have thought three times a day would be more like it. That will have to stop forthwith, Shona.’

She blinked her eyes, not looking at him. This was just impossible. ‘Did you hear me?’

‘Yes sir.’ But she couldn’t just stop, Roger wouldn’t let her.

‘We will say no sex whatsoever for the present. None. I will consider the situation again in, say, two weeks’ time. So you’re to tell him it’s out, you’re in strict training. Is that clear?’

‘Yes sir,’ she muttered. This was all quite impossible. Penny had said nothing about any of this. But maybe Penny didn’t do it, though Shona knew she had a boyfriend.

She gasped again as Mr Kirby’s hands once more came out to squeeze her breasts. Penny also had said nothing about that. ‘If you get really desperate, Shona, we can allow a very occasional indulgence in DIY. Masturbation is not so sapping of a girl’s energies and I am aware that all girls do it anyway. But no more than twice a week.’

Shona bit her lip. Perhaps she was dreaming all this. In some sort of nightmare.

He let go. ‘Right, miss. Well, that’s that; and now I think we need a little something to hopefully show you the error of your ways for complete disregard of the instructions I gave at the end of last term. For the team captain, Shona, your behaviour has been quite unacceptable. Or as we would have said in my army days, a proper bloody disgrace.’

He paused, his grey eyes glinting. ‘So I shall now cane you, miss, and we will see if that will drive the message home. Slip down your knickers.’

Shona’s heart was thumping. This part, of course, Penny had told her about but being told about it was one thing. To be here in the close confines of his room and have him telling you to take your knickers down was something else. The room, and Mr Kirby, started spinning around a bit.

‘Take them down, miss.’

Her hands were somehow obeying. In the top of the tight white knickers and sliding them down off her womanly hips. ‘Right down to your knees,’ his brusque voice said. Her hands did it. She stood, trembling, at the side of his desk, wanting to cover herself with her hands but knowing that he’d bawl her out if she did. The cricket shirt was short, reaching only inches below her waist. The knickers were bunched at her knees. In between… well, Shona was a big girl, a well-developed one. Full womanly flanks and heavyish thighs. In the centre a thick swatch of light brown hair on the full mound of her sex — which was where Mr Kirby’s eyes were riveted.

‘A girl can’t let her pussy rule her head, Shona. Certainly my team captain can’t.’

Shona was staring intently at the carpet in front of her white gym shoes. Trying to concentrate on it.

‘So you keep that thing under firm control, is that understood?’

‘Yes sir,’ she mumbled.

‘Good. Now get yourself over my desk.’

She turned, and bent herself down over it; over the side of his desk that he had cleared of papers etc. His hands positioning her, stretching her arms out to grip the other side, then placing her feet, parted as far as the lowered knickers would allow but not too far from the desk so that her bottom was well thrust up. His hands then at her bottom, positioning that; slapping and squeezing it… and then…

Cheek against the polished surface, over her outstretched arm, Shona saw him go to the cupboard… and take out a cane… a slim, curvy, crook-handled bamboo… she closed her eyes. Her heart was thumping against the desk; she could feel her bottom flinching. She was sweating… she was going to faint… she had never had the cane…

Crack!…

Oh Jesus Christ! She heard her breath burst out in a gasping yell. It felt like she’d been cut in two. Cut in two transversely across the full meat of her bottom. Her stricken rear went into a desperate jiggling dance. Great waves of pulsating pain shot through her. They were still pulsating through when there was a second Crack!…

Spaced out, there was a third and a fourth; a fifth and a sixth. Each one punctuated by a wild howl; in between a sort of low moaning sound.

When it was finished and he told her to get up Shona saw she had dribbled on his desk. Saliva. Or was it tears? No, there were tears and dribble. Her bottom was absolutely white-hot, glowing with pain. It felt like raw meat. She clutched at the desk, her legs refusing to support her.

Mr Kirby, coming back from putting his cane away, unfeelingly slapped his hand on her glowing bottom, producing a further yelp of pain. ‘Get your knickers up, then,’ he brusquely told her. ‘And you can put your skirt back on. Then I want to talk about the rest of the team.’

And incredibly, with her knickers and skirt back in place, Shona was expected to sit at the side of his desk and discuss the other team members as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened. Mr Kirby drawing up his list of players. ‘I’ve got Julie Piercy and Sally Micheldene down as opening bats; how does that sound?’

The names were just names… Shona heard without really being able to put faces to them. They weren’t real; what was real was being bent over Mr Kirby’s desk and the cane slicing into her bare bottom. Her poor bottom that she was now painfully sitting on. It still felt like a slab of raw meat.

His finger prodded out, flipping her left nipple. ‘Shona, are you paying attention?’

----//----

She went home in a daze, and couldn’t eat any tea. She saw Roger later. His parents were going out and as far as he was concerned that meant another marvellous opportunity to do it, an extended session on his lounge sofa. Shona said no, and also said that she would now have to cut it out quite a bit. She had to get in training. Naturally she couldn’t actually say that Mr Kirby had forbidden it.

Roger at first thought it was a joke, she couldn’t be serious. Girls getting in training was a joke and girls playing cricket was an even bigger joke. When he saw she meant it, it wasn’t a joke, he became unpleasant. Shona finished up crying… but she didn’t let him. Later, in bed, she was crying again. The whole thing was impossible — including the fact that she had been told to get up tomorrow morning and run two miles before breakfast. She cried and then she did something else — something that they said sapped a girl’s energy but not as much as actually doing it with a boy. But in the state Shona was in she couldn’t help it, she just had to.

----//----

Woken by the shrill cry of her alarm Shona groaned out of bed at the crack of dawn and in her track suit went running — or more accurately half-jogging, half-walking something like two miles. It just about killed her and she was too exhausted to eat any breakfast. Fortunately she made some sandwiches which she ate at morning break because there was a note from Mr Kirby saying he wanted to see them all before lunch: the whole team.

They were told to change into their cricket gear and report to the pavilion. Quite a number of girls did not look very happy, knowing how the hockey team had been licked into shape. Mr Kirby produced a hard-eyed smile.

‘Welcome team. I hope I find you all fit and eager, as I requested; and I hope none of you have been undermining your fitness by engaging in sexual activity. I shall be questioning each of you privately about that; meanwhile we will see just how fit you all are. Eight times round the field, all of you, at a nice brisk pace.’ He clapped his hands…

They all set off, most of them groaning when out of Mr Kirby’s earshot. Eight circuits was over two miles. Three or four girls clearly had got themselves in decent shape — and perhaps also had not been indulging in too much sex. The others were very soon in various degrees of desperation. Shona’s early morning run had naturally done nothing for her fitness yet — it had merely left her with stiff muscles which now were agonisingly painful. She thought she was going to collapse. She wanted to die. Somehow she finished — next to last.

In the pavilion, with most girls still gasping and groaning, Mr Kirby told them, ‘Right; four girls in passable shape. The rest of you a bloody disgrace. So apart from those four you can all take your knickers down and we’ll see how you like those bottoms warming up.’

They stood looking at him; looks of shock and disbelief. Some girls had not known about the caning — or at least not believed it. But Mr Kirby now had a cane in his hand — and whipped it in across the calf of the girl nearest to him. ‘Jump to it, girls! Knickers off! And then we’ll have you over this desk. The captain first of course; she is just about the worst offender.’

They were getting out of their knickers now, spurred on by that nasty swipe across Mandy Fulford’s leg. None of them, except of course Shona, had ever had the cane before and the prospect was pretty terrifying. Of the four fit ones three had been members of the hockey team; they had seen this before, which was why they’d got in shape. And so shortly, for the second time in less than 24 hours, Shona was bending over, offering up that ample bottom for Mr Kirby’s cane. This time there was a dozen or so extra watchers — but at least most of them would soon suffer the same fate. For some time the pavilion echoed to the sound of girls’ howls…

----//----

That second caning, though, had the effect of strengthening Shona’s resolve regarding Roger. If she didn’t get in shape it could well mean that dreadful cane every day; and so she just couldn’t let Roger do her. She would have loved to let him, she really needed that marvellous relief it could give, but she couldn’t afford to. She had to get fit. Roger that evening got very nasty, but Shona couldn’t help it. In the morning she went for another heart-straining run, and that afternoon there was their first practice session: batting, bowling, catching. Mr Kirby watching them all like a hawk, making notes in his little book.

At the end of the session eight of them were told to report to Mr Kirby’s room after school. Eight unhappy girls being called in, one by one; and the first, naturally, was the captain. ‘Everything needs a great improvement, Shona. Knickers down, please and get over the desk.’

This sort of strict spartan training did work, though. After only a few days, from thinking you were going to die, you found instead that you were improving; you were fitter, you could run further, and faster. And your cricketing skills, which might have been almost non-existent before, also improved. What it also did, of course, was play hell with your love life. After one whole week of enforced abstinence Roger announced angrily that he didn’t want to see Shona any more.

Amidst the tears she told herself that he didn’t mean it — he couldn’t. She had pleaded that it was only for this term, for the school cricket season. Roger had just started swearing, ‘Fuck the cricket season’ etc., and had stomped off. But she had no real choice. She was afraid that if she did it even once she would be right back where she started. That was what Mr Kirby had told her: Any indulgence in actual sex and all her hard-won fitness would be lost ‘So I shall know at once, Shona, if you do it,’ he had told her, his hand sliding round to squeeze one sturdy haunch.

So, well, she could only hope he would eventually relent. At least a couple of other girls were in the same position regarding boyfriends: hoping.

Another week and apart from boyfriend problems and the fact that they were still getting the cane at times, they were mostly feeling not too bad. A lot fitter and sharper. The second Saturday after the beginning of term was their first match. St Hilda’s. On Friday they had their final practice and Mr Kirby seemed reasonably content with their performance. They were in good shape, he said, but they would need to perform at their very best. Or else… Then he suggested to Shona that perhaps she would like to come round to his house in the evening; to discuss final details.

Shona was not exactly enthusiastic. Her bottom trembled. Mr Kirby was Mr Kirby. He was quite capable of giving her a brisk caning just to make sure she was on her toes tomorrow. She had had the cane quite a few times by now and she did not enjoy it any more than that first time. But when she got there Mr Kirby seemed pleasant and friendly.

‘I know it’s been a hard haul,’ he said sympathetically. ‘But I’m sure you’ll agree it’s been worth it.’

Shona said yes and tried to make it sound as if she meant it, but quite frankly she would still rather have never heard of cricket. Mr Kirby slid his arm round her waist in a friendly way. He suggested she take her blazer off… and then he had produced a bottle of wine and two glasses.

‘How’s the boyfriend?’ he wanted to know.

Shona made a face and said things weren’t going too well with her boyfriend. Oh dear, Mr Kirby said, was it the sex aspect? Shona, flushing, said ‘Yes’.

They were sitting on his sofa. His hand came out and settled on her thigh. ‘A little abstinence is no bad thing for a young man, Shona. But there is another side to things. Keeping off it as you have has allowed you to get in pretty good shape. Now you are in good shape… well, just once wouldn’t really affect your fitness… Not to any extent…’

Mr Kirby had certainly never said that before, it had always been ‘even once’. His hand had pushed her skirt back and was now on her bare thigh. Stroking.

‘No… in fact just before a match… well, it can relax a girl. In fact get her in just the right frame of mind. Keen yet relaxed. And it is important that the captain is feeling just right, at her very best.’

Whatever could Mr Kirby be talking about? It surely couldn’t be… The hand stroking her thigh felt very nice, arousing even… especially after not getting any attention from Roger this last week.

Mr Kirby said softly, ‘Pity about the boyfriend… but anyway if you did let him now it would probably cause problems. On the other hand…’ All at once he was gently but firmly pushing her down on the sofa. What…? Oh no! He couldn’t… But yes, Mr Kirby’s hands were up under her skirt and at Shona’s knickers. Tugging them down.

And it was fairly evident that, this once at least, he didn’t have a caning in mind. No, clearly not. ‘Just relax, Shona. We want you in the very best mental shape tomorrow.’ Shona’s knickers were off… and there was the sound of a zip. Mr Kirby’s zip.

----//----

They didn’t beat St Hilda’s, they lost, but it was a very close-run thing, much closer than anyone could ever remember. All the girls did very well, and the captain… well, the captain did all right but a lot of the time Shona wasn’t too clear what was happening. Her head was still in a spin from Friday evening at Mr Kirby’s.

After the match he took Shona home with him. He said he’d have to cane her because they had lost and she was the captain. And he did cane her. But then he did that other thing again: did it. Shona, with Mr Kirby on top of her, and with her bottom still glowing from the cane thought: Surely this is going to ruin my fitness? At the same time, though, it did feel very very good.