Sixth-Form Discipline

From Blushes 11

When Diana Fraser had first moved into the Sixth Form College of Brankwood School she had been pleased. It was a positive sign of her growing maturity, since girls had to be at least 17 when they were sent there. You had to be pretty bright to get in there at 17; most of the pupils were, in fact, 18 like Diana herself. One or two were even 19 which seemed an absurd age to Diana for a girl to still be at school. Even if that School was now called a College. She longed for the day she would leave and, with the idea of hastening that moment, decided to do as little work as possible. Her aunt, who was her guardian, would almost certainly not want to go on paying the excessive fees if she were making little progress.

The Sixth Form College at Brankwood was isolated from the rest of the school. Indeed, it stood in its own well-kept grounds and no Juniors were ever allowed in. This had always intrigued Diana Fraser, since it gave the ivy-covered building an air of ‘grown-up’ mystery. All she knew, before arriving, was that there were two classes comprising twelve girls each, both run by middle-aged schoolmistresses. Presiding over the College was a headmaster who, Diana presumed, was mainly engaged on administrative duties. He was rarely seen… a rather portly red-faced individual in his forties who was occasionally glimpsed driving off in his Rover.

Rather naturally, Diana had assumed life would ease a little once she became a Senior. After all, she was, in truth, a grown woman and not really a schoolgirl at all. She had expected to be allowed to dress more or less as she pleased and was, therefore, considerably shocked to discover she was expected to wear exactly the same kind of uniform she had done at Brankwood. This was a white blouse, with blue-and-white-striped tie, a blue, pleated skirt, blue socks and flat-heeled black shoes. All girls also had to wear blue serge knickers and the more well-developed were permitted a plain white brassiere.

Resentful of this continuance of ‘schoolgirl-ism’, Diana made a small act of personal rebellion. Instead of putting on the plain white brassiere on her first day, she encased her generous breasts in a cheeky net-lace item of pink and white. Similarly, the blue serge knickers were ignored and she slipped into a matching pair of pantie-briefs. They made her feel much more grown-up.

Diana was startled when one of the mistresses, a Miss Braisher, came into her cubicle in the dorm and, without so much as a by-your-leave, snapped out an order. ‘Lift your skirt, Diana,’ she said.

Flushing with fury and humiliation, Diana stood her ground. She knew she had broken the rules but it was so childish to be caught out in this way and to be told such a thing. ‘Wh-whatever do… do you mean?’ she half blustered.

‘I mean,’ replied Miss Braisher, ‘you are to raise your skirt and show me your knickers, girl!’

‘Girl!’ Another humiliation. How awful it was. Reluctantly, flushing deeper, Diana raised her skirt just sufficiently to display what she was wearing.

‘I thought as much,’ snapped Miss Braisher. ‘You newcomers are almost all the same. Think you’re grown-up because you’ve come to college. Well, you’re not.’ She unfastened Diana’s blouse briskly. ‘You’ll put on a plain brassiere and the normal serge blue knickers. Do it at once, Diana. Then report to Miss Pettigrew’s class. This piece of rank disobedience has earned you two evening detentions and five demerits.’

Diana didn’t know what demerits were nor care very much. But she hated the idea of detentions and was in a right rage. She was, however, a shade perturbed to hear Miss Braisher add: ‘Ten demerits means you are sent to the Head.’ What on earth did the woman mean by that? It was too late to ask. Miss Braisher had gone and, burning with resentment, Diana removed her fripperies and donned the plain white support and hated blue serge.

What a start!

----//----

Things quickly got worse rather than better. Discipline was stricter than at Brankwood and work far harder. What surprised Diana was the docility of her companions. They seemed to accept it all as natural. Some even seemed cowed, if not frightened.  Diana broached the subject with one or two of them but everyone was rather evasive and advised her to buckle down or, as one or two hinted, ‘things could get worse.’ That made Diana all the more determined to leave as soon as possible and she wrote a strong letter to her aunt to that effect. ‘It is absurd that I should be treated in this fashion at my age’, she concluded. ‘Kindly take me away from this place as soon as possible.’

Three days later, Miss Pettigrew came into the class looking particularly grim. ‘Diana Fraser… stand up’ were her first words.

As usual, Diana felt instant resentment at such a public order. She occupied one of the small desks in the front row, reserved for newcomers. Standing, she knew all eyes were upon her. Her uniform somehow felt even more ridiculous. ‘Yes, miss?’ Diana had already learnt the wisdom of being polite. Cheek on the second day had earned her two more demerits, so there were only three more to go before she had to face the Head. She didn’t like the idea of that.

‘You are to report to Mr Chalmers immediately’, announced Miss Pettigrew. She had straggly, grey hair and a mouth that always looked as if it contained an acid drop. Mr Chalmers? Who was that? Couldn’t be the Head? Diana’s heart sank, then rose suddenly again. Her aunt must have got her letter and understood. She was virtually on her way out!

‘Where’s the Head’s study?’ she asked almost jauntily.

‘It’s in the basement,’ replied the Form Mistress sombrely. ‘Use the flight of stairs in the Main Hall.’

‘Yes, Miss…’ smiling confidentially at some of the pupils around her, Diana tripped lightly from the room. For their part, most were puzzled by her demeanour. Still, the girl was new…

Diana’s leather-soled shoes echoed loudly on the bare wooden stairs. They were highly polished and she moved with care. The corridor below was also bare and echoing. A long way off, at the end, she saw a broad brown door with a brass handle. My gateway to freedom, she thought happily. However, she couldn’t help being a little over-awed by the grimness of the place. ‘HEADMASTER’ announced the plaque on the door. She knocked and heard a distant command to enter. In she went and saw the little-seen Mr Chalmers behind a wide, broad-topped desk. Yes, he was portly and his features were mottled. His jowls quivered as he looked up. ‘Yes?’ he queried, unsmilingly.

‘I… I’m Diana Fraser. You… er… wanted to see me, I believe?’ Diana flashed her teeth at the man. Might as well be pleasant.

‘I did, Miss Fraser,’ nodded Mr Chalmers. ‘And, by the way, young lady, you always address me as Head.’

‘Sorry… er… Head,’ said Diana. What did it matter? She wouldn’t have to do it that much more often.

‘You wrote to your aunt, I believe. Your guardian…’

‘That’s right, Head. I expected you’d have a reply by now. All settled then is it?’

‘Settled?’ Mr Chalmers looked faintly puzzled. His eyes were a watery grey-blue. Unpleasant. ‘I don’t know about settled,’ he said finally. ‘But certain decisions have been made.’

‘Ah… good…’ Again the Head looked a shade bemused. Was this girl one of the type who enjoyed getting into trouble? The thought intrigued him. She didn’t appear the sort and he’d met a few in his time. Not many, but a few.

‘I do not think there is anything particularly good about it,’ said Mr Chalmers carefully. ‘Certainly nothing good about your behaviour. The letter you wrote to your aunt was quite scandalous, criticising this college and the staff in the way that you did. Very sensibly your guardian sent it back to me with some sharp comments. For a start, she insists you stay here until you are 19…’

Diana experienced hate and rage… and something like despair. That silly old cow! If she hadn’t been worried about her inheritance she would have run from that study, and the college, there and then!

‘…later,’ the Head was going on, ‘I had a word with her on the telephone, as to how this matter is to be handled. I told her of our methods here and, I am glad to say, she thoroughly approved…’

‘M-methods?’ quavered Diana. She was beginning to feel more frightened than angry… in that bleak room with a strange man.

‘She later confirmed her decision in writing,’ added the Head, waving a pale blue letter across the desk. Diana recognised the notepaper. ‘Like to read it?’

Diana almost snatched the letter but found her fingers shaking so much she couldn’t read to begin with. She had been expecting release but now, she suddenly sensed something awful was happening.

Finally the words, written in her aunt’s spidery scrawl, etched themselves into Diana’s now fevered brain. ‘…certainly I approve of corporal punishment,’ the sentence read, ‘particularly for girls of this age. It is a very difficult and dangerous time for them and discipline must be firm and strict. Something of your reputation reached me, Mr Chalmers, that was why I had Diana sent to your college. I agree that you deal with this matter personally and in the fashion you think most fit.’

Diana’s head was pounding, her throat felt dry. Mr Chalmers was regarding her balefully, seemingly without emotion. Occasionally, he licked wet, pink lips.

‘I hope you understand all that,’ said his voice from a distance. ‘You realise what it means?’

‘It… it’s absurd…’ choked Diana.

‘It means,’ said Mr Chalmers calmly, ‘that, Miss Fraser, you are now going to be caned. Or, since we shall shortly be on considerably more intimate terms, I think I should call you Diana.’

Casually it seemed, he removed a black jacket. He wore those steel-elastic armbands to hold up his cuffs.

Mr Chalmers stood up, pot belly protruding under a grey waistcoat.

‘No… n-noooo… oooo stop this… stop… this nonsense…’ Diana began to back towards the door. Panic was beginning to grip her. Deftly, very light on his feet for a big man, Mr Chalmers stepped past her and locked the door. The key went into his pocket.

It was at that point that Diana noticed there were no windows in that grim, sparsely furnished room. She began to scream.

----//----

Ten minutes later, Diana had calmed down to the extent that she was alternately sobbing and whimpering. Mr Chalmers had made her take a sedative and it had helped a little. Just a little. Placidly, the Head sat behind his desk, hands held together in a prayer-like position, tapping his teeth. On the desk now lay a slim, pale yellow cane with a hooked handle. It was smooth and polished. Diana could not bring herself to look at it.

‘You have three minutes to make a final decision,’ said the Head, glancing at a clock on the wall.

‘Ohh… no… ooo! For God’s sake no!’ The Head said nothing; he looked almost sorrowful. There was a lot more sobbing. ‘You can’t m-mean it,’ whispered Diana at last.

‘Of course I mean it,’ snapped Mr Chalmers irritably. ‘And, as you know, your guardian thoroughly approves. Good Lord, you seem to imagine you’re the first young lady who’s been in this position. Let me tell you, Diana, there isn’t one here who hasn’t been across my desk! Indeed, many have been across it several times.’

So that’s why they’re all so cowed, thought Diana despairingly. They all have to put up with this. How hideous! How unbelievable! Yet there seemed no possibility of escape.

‘Two minutes,’ intoned Mr Chalmers. His features now seemed more mottled. ‘Let me repeat, for the last time, what I said before. You, Diana, will either take your medicine here, in the privacy of this study, or you will take it before your whole class. The medicine prescribed is six strokes on your bare bottom. If I have to take you before your class, you will be held down by Miss Pettigrew and Miss Braisher and receive twelve strokes! Is that clear? Quite clear? I am not bluffing. Girls have been thrashed before their own class before now.’ Another glance at the clock. ‘One minute…’

Panic gripped Diana more fiercely. She was going alternately hot and freezing cold, it seemed. Best to get it over with… here. Surely? Terrible as that was. Surely it would be better? To be thrashed publicly. God no!

‘A…alright then,’ she heard herself croaking. ‘I… I’ll do it. Here. Over your desk. But… but please… just let me keep my knickers on. That… that’s not much to ask. It… it’s only decent anyway.’

Mr Chalmers blinked, owl-like. ‘I only cane on the bare flesh, Diana,’ he said with finality. ‘It is, as you will discover, the most salutary way of all.’ Again he stood. ‘Time’s up, young lady. Let’s have those knickers down and you across my desk.’ He picked up the cane, ran loving fingers along it and tapped its flexible tip on the leather desk-top. ‘Not a moment’s more delay!’

Diana felt as if her blood had turned to ice-water yet her scalp was tingling as if with an electric charge. Could she make herself do it? Could she? Then she caught the glint in Mr Chalmers’ eyes as the cane flexed in his hands. Sobbing, Diana put her hands up under her short skirt and she pushed down those horrible blue serge knickers. How she loathed wearing them… yet what wouldn’t she have given to be able to retain them at that moment!

By no means for the first time, the Head of Brankwood Sixth Form College surveyed a shapely young bare bottom, curving over the edge of his desk. So soft-looking, so white, so vulnerable. How nervously the flesh twitched! It was good, so good, to cane a girl for the first time. They could never quite imagine just how painful it was until they felt the first stroke. Then they knew, alright! No more than his duty, of course. Parents and guardians approved of his methods. If they didn’t, a girl was at once removed. Some people would have been surprised how many, with children in their charge, approved of the use of corporal punishment. It was definitely a majority… though most were only prepared to admit their predilection privately.

‘Six strokes,’ said Mr Chalmers, tapping the cringing flesh lightly. Diana gasped and flinched, half twisting over, seemingly careless of how she exposed herself. She had more urgent matters in mind. ‘Keep your bottom square, girl!’

‘P-pleee… eeeease… EEGGHH AAAA-AAAGHHHH!’

The last plea ended in a breathless gasping shriek as Mr Chalmers lashed the cane hard across the very centre of Diana’s lush bottom. She catapulted up, hands clasping frantically at the intolerable pain, twisting left and right, squirming down on to the floor, mouth agape with disbelieving cries. The Head had seen it all before. The very natural reaction to the very first cut. It has to be said he found it a most satisfying spectacle.

Oh the pain! The pain! Diana simply couldn’t believe it. How could it be! How could it? She couldn’t stand another like that. She just couldn’t…

‘Back across my desk, young lady,’ came a relentless voice from above.

It took over twenty minutes to give Diana her six-stroke caning. For naturally, after each successive stroke — each one seemingly worse than that which had preceded it — the girl was ever-more reluctant to place herself back over that hard, cold desk. Mr Chalmers, however, insisted that she did. He was in no hurry. He had all morning, if need be. For him, to cane a girl was, he frankly admitted, a pleasure. To cane one for the first time was the greatest pleasure of all. Oh those wild, shrieking reactions! The breathless gasps. The kicking limbs. The quaking-clenching buttock cheeks. An unalloyed joy! Yet, as Mr Chalmers repeatedly reminded himself, he was no more than carrying out duties entrusted to him.

Twenty minutes of unrelieved mental and physical torment for Diana. She begged, she beseeched. The pain of those encircling weals was quite atrocious. She couldn’t stand even one more! She couldn’t! Yet, always, Mr Chalmers made her present her flinching-clenching bottom to his satisfaction… threatening repeatedly that he could still always take the girl up to the classroom and ‘begin all over again!’ Those dreaded words were the main driving force instrumental in Diana finding the will-power to present herself six times for a vicious, deep-biting cut of the rod.

The sixth stroke having been administered (resulting in the most frantic reactions of all), Mr Chalmers replaced the cane in his desk drawer. When would it have to come out again, he wondered? More than likely, later that week. Scarcely one went by without a girl from one or other of the classes being sent to him. Diana Fraser, he was sure, would find herself back in his study quite frequently during the coming year. She was, he sensed, a natural rebel. Just the type who needed the cane to bring her to heel. Well, he’d give it to her, just whenever the occasion arose.

The girl, kneeling on the floor, was sobbing. ‘You may put your knickers back on, Diana,’ said the Head condescendingly. ‘And go back to your class.’

‘Mmmfff… mmmmfff… please… please… sir… can’t I st-stay here a… mmfff… mmmmfff… little longer…?’ The thought of going back to that class in her condition was more than Diana Fraser could stand.

Mr Chalmers smiled understandingly. It was a frequent request after a first caning. ‘Very well, Diana, on this occasion, you may,’ he replied agreeably. ‘However, it does mean you will not yet replace your knickers and you will remain bending over my desk for the next half hour. It is as you wish…’

A terrible groan came from Diana. Her mind see-sawed between two horrors. Then, slowly but surely, she once more draped herself over the desk. At least, she thought, this time the cane would not fall.

But there was the shame of it. The hideous shame of it!

Seemingly unconcerned, Mr Chalmers picked up a pen and began to deal with some paperwork. Ever and anon, he would look up musingly. Contentedly, one might say.

It was, of course, no accident that a full-length mirror was fixed to the wall which faced him…