The Knicker Man

Photo-story from Janus 160

Harriet Grace, Head Prefect at St Catherine’s School for girls. The epitome of all the virtues: beautiful, full of grace, bright and studious, Oxbridge-bound. Flowing blonde hair and sky-blue eyes. A face and figure most girls would die for. Perfect personality, wonderful singing voice, virtuoso violinist, superb athlete — holder of the school record in long jump and hurdles. A halo would not look odd on that flaxen head. Goodness glows from her.

Even her name is perfect. Harriet Grace. Girls in younger years have crushes on her. The hearts of male teachers thump when they glimpse her going through her paces in the gym or bounding in skin-tight shorts down the runway to soar into the air on shapely legs, hair tossing like wheat in a breeze.

Harriet Grace. Could any of her admirers and acolytes have imagined that she could ever be Harriet in disGrace? The story is painful to relate — yet strangely thrilling too, because it shows that the boundary between reality and dream can sometimes be breached.

One of the school governors saw her winning silver cups on sports day. He had also admired her at Speech Days, collecting prizes for academic prowess. Last time it was he who presented them to her. His name is Sir Simon Fortescue, magistrate and Justice of the Peace. Such a passion for a mere schoolgirl was something he had never experienced before. To Sir Simon, Harriet Grace was the ideal female, glowing with youth, beauty and academic excellence. All his senses were stirred, including the baser ones. One set of which in particular had haunted him since his own schooldays.

White cotton knickers. They were his fetish. Just to see them in their cellophane wrappings was enough to make this normally aloof male tremble with lust; so his imagination ran riot at the notion of this garment clinging to Miss Grace’s secret feminine parts.

He became obsessed with the thought. Exam time came round, and with it the usual batch of queries from the head teacher regarding protocol or official form. One of these stopped Sir Simon in his tracks. It read: Ruling required re. successful candidate Harriet Grace admitting foreknowledge of examination paper for Cambridge entrance.

A ten-minute phone call to the Head explained more fully. The girl had sat the entrance exam and passed with distinction. It was only afterwards that, with remorse of a kind only Harriet could be troubled by, she ‘confessed’ to having already seen the exam paper when her elder brother had brought it home as an exercise from college. Should she be disqualified? Having no idea she would be set the same paper, the girl had made no attempt to study it. But the fact she’d seen it at all plagued her conscience. And, being Harriet Grace, she absolutely had to tell.

‘Tricky,’ Sir Simon told the Head. ‘Better leave this one to me. Let me consult with the girl first, I’ll let you know my decision.’

And so it was that Harriet and her school governor met in his office. The issue, he told her, was grave, and could substantially damage her academic progress; but he would do what he could to save the situation. But she had done wrong, and must be punished. Harriet, with down-hung head, agreed.

They arranged for her to visit him in a private room. Sir Simon insisted she be immaculately dressed in school uniform — including, he stipulated, white cotton knickers. This had puzzled Harriet, but she obeyed.

Alone again in a room with Sir Simon Fortescue, Harriet struggled with fright and embarrassment. Having no idea quite what to expect, her clever mind seemed to switch off its normal functions. Whatever Sir Simon proposed to do with or to her, she was prepared to bear it as long as it assuaged her guilt and righted her sense of having done wrong.

What was destined to be the most appalling ordeal of her young life began with an inspection, from the tips of her shiny shoes all the way up slowly, taking in every dip, swell and concealed contour, to the top of her shining head.

‘Excellent turn-out,’ said Sir Simon. ‘Just what I’ve come to expect from you, Miss Grace. Now I want to see whether you’ve got on the white cotton knickers I required you to wear.’ His voice was quiet, concealing the lascivious excitement he felt as, blushing with shame, the lovely schoolgirl slowly lifted her gymslip.

And there they were, the object of his fetishistic dreams, snugly adorning the private parts of the girl who obsessed him. With thoughts like these, he knew he should resign — yet they were not to be denied.

‘And now turn round and bend forward,’ the man almost purred. Harriet did so, blushing deeper as she felt the virginal fabric tighten across her bottom. Behind her, she heard Sir Simon gasp.

Then it was Harriet’s turn to gasp, because he suddenly produced a brown leather strap with two tongues. ‘Do you know what this is for, my dear?’ he enquired.

Harriet’s body and mind froze. For several moments she stared at the strap as if it were an object so alien she couldn’t imagine its purpose. ‘No, sir,’ she whispered. ‘I’m afraid I don’t.’

‘Let me give you a clue, then.’ Raising the strap in his right hand he slapped it down on to his left with a loud smack. Harriet flinched. ‘This was fashioned specifically for corporal punishment,’ he explained. ‘And you, Miss Grace, have confessed a need to be dealt with in the appropriate manner.’

‘You mean… you’re going to hit my hand with that?’ she asked in disbelief.

The man smiled grimly. ‘My dear girl,’ he chided, ‘surely a mind as vivid as yours is able to appreciate that this strap is able to address more parts of the body than the palm. And you have just shown me the part to which I allude.’

‘You mean…’ Harriet licked her pretty lips in horror. She couldn’t bring herself to say the word.

‘Yes, I mean your bottom,’ said Sir Simon. ‘Your exquisitely rounded, perfectly formed, dainty yet robust, petal-soft young arse.’

‘I don’t think I understand,’ she managed, goggling at him in horror.

‘Oh, I think you do,’ intoned Sir Simon, feeling an errant swelling inside his trousers at the prospect he ardently hoped was imminent. ‘I’m going to take you across my knee like the wickedly naughty girl you’ve been, and give that pert posterior of yours the larruping of its young life.’

He paused, as if to catch his breath. ‘Firstly,’ he resumed, ‘over those tight white knickers you’re wearing. Then, once your buttocks are thoroughly smarting, I intend to ease the knickers down and lay bare your bottom for firmer chastisement. And after that, who knows what might follow?’

‘You can’t!’ she cried out.

‘Oh, but I can.’ Sir Simon gazed, enchanted, at the girl’s slim body in its in school uniform. ‘You see,’ he went on, ‘the pain you will feel in your bottom is only part of the punishment. For very good reason, I intend to take it a stage further.’

Harriet’s thoughts still whirled. ‘A stage further?’ she echoed.

‘Indeed. You see, a girl’s abject humiliation is something she will forget far less readily even than a painfully spanked behind. And I intend for you to remember this for the rest of your life, Miss Grace — whatever great things you may do, whichever fantastic places you go to, whoever illustrious people you meet. Hence it is my intention, after you have been soundly dealt with by my hand and this strap, to remove your clothing until you are stark naked, and continue your punishment with you in that condition.’

‘What?’ It was hardly a word, more a preposterous explosion of sound.

‘Afterwards, you will hate me with a loathing stronger than anything you have experienced in your life before, but the overall encounter will be healing, and you will never forget what will have passed between us today. And, who knows, years hence when you look back on your life you might actually be grateful.’

Harriet’s scattered wits did what they could to reassemble. At last she was able to speak. ‘I can’t allow you to do that, sir,’ she said. ‘I’m certain it’s illegal, and I shall inform the police.’

Sir Simon Fortescue sighed. ‘What a pity, Harriet,’ he said. ‘A disqualification from the Cambridge entrance exam at this stage could seriously inhibit your academic progress and cast a shadow over your entire future. You do want a future, don’t you?’

Harriet was silent for several moments as she considered this. Then she drew in a deep breath, braced her lovely shoulders and looked Sir Simon directly in the face, her vivid eyes as staunch as those of any martyr or saint.

‘We’d better get on with it then, I suppose,’ she said.

‘Sir.’

‘Sir!’

Harriet Grace’s brilliant pass-mark stood.