The Cambridge Candidate

From Blushes 12. Continuing the stories of Kingsmead school, following Two Stripes Rule.

Most of the girls — 110 out of 150 — were boarders at Kingsmead, daughters of essentially middle-class and some of what I’d term the landed-gentry class: the county-set, as they might be called, who thought they were a cut above the other girls in status.

I was privileged — I choose the word carefully — to be able to attend to the disciplinary needs of one of these rich young ladies when she stepped over the boundaries of common-sense. Privileged, because she was probably the most physically attractive young lady at the school: short, fashionable blonde hair framed a face of elfin pertness, high cheekbones, a fresh complexion with a light dusting of freckles, and a mouth boasting a set of perfect teeth and lips to tempt a priest.

This was Melissa Hammond, a seventeen-year-old whose high spirits were tempered only by her capacity for hard work: for she was a bright girl, academically almost brilliant, with a real chance of gaining entrance to Cambridge the following year.

Her one weakness — as a boarder — was that she regarded it as her right to visit the local town when she pleased: a privilege granted only to prefects. More than once, she had been warned by her housemistress, and had been given three detentions for it, to no avail. She had not exercised her option for a Two Stripe, but her housemistress had made it clear that the next time she was caught in town without a pass her bottom would be on the receiving end of any retribution.

I knew nothing of this until I heard Miss Parminter, Melissa’s housemistress, complaining about the girl’s apparent blind spot over this area of school discipline:

‘It’s not as if she doesn’t understand that the rules are there to protect our girls rather than restrict them: but she cannot seem to get it into her head that she has to ask for permission. I blame it on her parents, you know: she gets a pretty free hand at home, especially with her father abroad so much on business. I know her mother’s tried to get things sorted out, but even we haven’t had a lot of success with town passes.’

‘There doesn’t seem to be an easy solution, dear,’ consoled the crabby Mrs Groves, ‘but if I were you I’d bring the head in, or see if a Two Stripe knocks some sense into her.’

‘She’s seventeen, Mrs Groves: I hardly think beating her is really going to solve any problems,’ retorted Miss Parminter.

‘Probably what she needs’ came the tart response.

So you can imagine how, when I was walking past The Rifle Volunteer in the centre of town the following evening, I was surprised to bump into Melissa Hammond with a young man who waved goodbye before jumping into a large red sports car.

‘Ah… er… Monsieur Deauville. I was on my way back from the library, sir,’ she began.

‘The library doesn’t have a branch in this pub, does it Melissa?’ I asked, looking her up and down. Her school skirt peeked below the mid-length light coat she wore despite the fact it was June. She was a tall girl, at least 5’8”, and had adopted that haughty look I’d seen before in PE classes when she was defeated by a particularly difficult bar exercise. The schoolgirl I taught then, clad in gym knickers and vest, was a different animal to the aloof young lady before me now.

‘Are you going to report me, sir?’ she asked.

‘I don’t know. I shall have to, I’m afraid.’

‘It’ll mean I’ll be caned, you know. On the bottom’ she added, unnecessarily.

‘Really? Why?’

‘Because I’ve been caught out before, of course, sir. Miss Parminter’s tried detentions, but they don’t seem to work. So it looks like Friday’s the day.’

(Fridays, incidentally, were when all Two Stripe offences were dealt with.)

‘Well, from what Miss Parminter has mentioned, it seems corporal punishment is the only answer now. So you deserve it,’ I said.

‘Oh, do you think so, sir? God, I haven’t been whacked for a year or more. I bet it’ll hurt.’

‘I think that’s the idea, Melissa. When was the last time you were punished?’

‘Ummm… it was my French tutor at home actually, sir, last summer hols. But you don’t take me for French, do you sir?’ she asked with a smile.

‘And why were you punished?’ I continued. I really wanted to know how: the idea of this particular teenager bent over for a sound ‘whacking’, as she called it, was suddenly quite exciting. And by a French tutor, no less!

We were still standing outside the pub, and I suggested we continue our discussion in my car before I took her back to school.

‘Well, I wasn’t really working hard enough, and I hadn’t done any homework for two days, and Mummy was paying a fortune for him to come over specially from Bristol, about fifty miles from where we live, so when Mummy asked how I was getting on he told her the truth… and that was it.’

‘Well, she went crazy. I was out by the pool sunbathing, and she comes out ranting and raving about me being a selfish, idle little girl not appreciating the opportunities I was being given… you know the sort of thing… and saying that my tutor had told her I wasn’t working hard… and that he’d suggested I needed some firm discipline, and was there anyone at home who could provide it… are you interested in all this, sir?’

‘Yes, Melissa, carry on.’

‘Anyway, Cook always used to deal with any whackings required: she kept a big hairbrush in the pantry, and we all got it at one time or another. Over her lap in the kitchen, knickers down, and whack! The boys got it too. But I hadn’t been spanked for a long time: I think Cook and Mummy thought I was too grown up when I turned sixteen.’

‘So what happened with your French tutor?’ I prompted.

‘Oh, well Mummy told me to go straight up to the old school room where Mr Lamont would ‘deal with me’ as she put it… and of course I asked what she meant by that, and she just said that he was going to punish me as Cook wasn’t there, and that I was to do as I was told.’

‘I said I’d get changed first… I only had my bikini on, you see, and it isn’t that large!’ I could imagine the tempting sight of Melissa’s luscious young body in some skimpy two-piece, most parts of her golden flesh uncovered.

‘But Mummy said I was to go as I was, as I could get changed for my lesson afterwards. So up I went, and Mr Lamont ‘dealt with me’.’

There was nothing for it. I had to ask: ‘And what happened then?’

‘You really are interested, sir. Why, have you had to whack some naughty student’s bottom too?’ she asked with a smile.

‘I want to know how you were dealt with, Melissa,’ I answered as coolly as I could, ‘and, no, I haven’t punished any students, though I did witness a Two Stripe session last week.’

‘And was that interesting, sir?’ she asked, still smiling. ‘I mean, that was the one when Karen Stone got four on the bare, wasn’t it?’

‘Yes it was, Melissa, and she took it very well. I hope you can take your punishment with as much dignity as Karen.’

‘Oh, I’m sure I can, sir. I mean, it’s not the first time I’ll have been whacked. But it depends who’s doing the whacking sir: French tutors are quite good at it, in my experience, but of course you’re not allowed to punish us girls — officially, sir,’ she emphasised the penultimate word. I was getting the drift, but didn’t let on.

‘Your French tutor, Melissa…?’ I wound the car window down.

‘So I went up to the old school room: it used to be the playroom when we were little, now there’s just piles of toys and odds and ends, a couple of school desks and a blackboard, bit of a mess really. And Mr Lamont was standing there trying to look fierce, but he kept half-smiling which rather ruined the effect, while he lectured me about my work and about what I was throwing away, and me standing there with my hands behind my back in just a bikini, trying to look suitably penitent and saying things like ‘I know’ and ‘I’m sorry, sir’… and I knew what he was building up to.’

‘In the end, he told me to lock the door, and I could feel his eyes looking me up and down as I walked over and back again. Then his voice went very gruff… a bit comical really, I think he was embarrassed… and he said: ‘I understand from your mother that Cook normally deals with matters of discipline in this house, but on this occasion she has authorised me to deal with you, and I now propose to punish you,’ — or words to that effect, then he asked me if I had anything to say, and I just said I was sorry to put him to the trouble and something silly like I deserved what was coming.’

I said nothing, waiting for her to finish the story, my palms slightly damp, the summer air wafting in through the open window and the noise from across the pub car-park mixing with the sound of the occasional passing car.

‘I mean, I assumed it was going to be a whacking. He was hardly going to set me extra work, was he?’ Melissa giggled.

‘I don’t suppose so,’ I agreed.

‘Well, the next thing I know, he’s unbuckling this thick leather belt he always wears and pulling it through the loops: it must have been over two inches wide. He doubles it over and slaps the end across the desk to add a bit of drama to the proceedings: he had me worried, anyway. Then his voice goes all gruff again and he says something like: ‘I’m going to give you the strap on your bottom. I want you to bend over the desk while I deal with you,’ — you know, as if I didn’t realise what he had in mind!’

Melissa giggled again. I shifted uncomfortably in the seat.

‘So of course I bent over the school desk, which was one of those old all-in-one jobs with the seat attached, which is quite high, and he was fussing about my legs being straight, and how I was holding onto the desk, like he was arranging a photograph or something. I told you I was wearing a bikini, didn’t I sir?’ she asked.

‘Yes, yes you did.’

‘Well, by the time I was bent right over the desk there wasn’t a great deal of material left to cover the famous Hammond bottom, which obviously suited Mr Lamont as the decks were almost clear for action. Then the old bugger… Sorry, sir!’

‘That’s all right.’

‘Then he pops his fingers into either side of the bikini pants where they cover my backside and cool-as-you-please lifts them up so the whole lot’s bare! Can you imagine? I mean, I was used to Cookie taking the old knicks down for a spanking, but it’s a bit much at sixteen to have some bloke about to whack you with a strap with no protection. I blame Mummy for not letting me change first. Then he asks me how old I am, and announces he’s going to give me one stroke for every two years of age and that I’m not to get up until I’m told. Then he strapped me. Real slow. And real hard, too. Wow, that belt stung like crazy. My backside was red for about two days, and the welts were there for over a week.’

‘I can imagine’ I said, coughing softly, ‘Eight strokes, you say. That’s pretty hard.’ Melissa nodded.

‘After that, Mummy arranged to have Cookie’s hairbrush left in the schoolroom in case he needed to ‘deal with me’ again: she actually told him he could spank me if he thought I required it. I never told her he’d used his belt that time. I don’t know what she thought he’d used: probably just his hand, which is why she told me not to change first. Figured the bikini pants would be decent but not give a great deal of protection. She was right. They didn’t give any,’ she laughed.

‘Mr Lamont announced very solemnly at the next tutorial that my mother had given him the authority to ‘deal with me’ and that she had been kind enough to supply a suitable implement, then he hung the bloody thing by the blackboard so I could always see it. Anyway, he never got the chance to try it out on me, but I think he used it on my younger sister Becky once. She never said anything, but was her bottom red one evening! And I knew she’d had a bad tutorial by how grumpy she was. Anyway, enough about French tutors. Oh, sorry sir!’

She sat there smiling sweetly, the fading light catching the fair hair and producing a glow round the edge of her face as she sat in the car.

‘Melissa,’ I began.

‘Yes, sir.’

‘I’m sorry that you have been on the receiving end of such a strapping, but it certainly seemed to have the desired effect.’

‘It did, sir. Never got whacked for languages again, anyway. Now it seems like the cane, which will be a first for me. Karen told me it’s like having a brand applied to your bottom: red-hot for a moment, then it really stings. Not like the strap, which gives you a sting right away. I’d be happier if I got the strap again, frankly: at least I know what to expect. Or the slipper.’

‘Well, I don’t want to see you caned either, Melissa, but you will have to be punished. I could deal with you myself, but that couldn’t be an official punishment.’ I continued, realising I was on dangerous ground.

‘Of course not, sir. But you wouldn’t report me, then, if you ‘dealt with me’ as you say? What would I get instead, sir?’

‘Well, you did say you’d be happier with the strap, so that would seem a reasonable alternative.’

‘So if I take the strap, that’s it then?’

‘That’s it,’ I smiled.

‘OK then, I’ll take the strap,’ she said with a slight shrug as if the matter was of little importance, ‘when do I get it, sir?’

‘Right now.’

‘What, here in the car?’

‘No, no, back in my rooms in the annexe above the science block,’ I laughed. She giggled too. This affable youngster was not only very attractive, but highly personable as well.

‘Another roasting for the Hammond bottom, then, sir?’

‘A well-deserved roasting, Melissa,’ I countered.

‘I suppose you’re going to whack me pretty hard, sir?’ she asked as I started the car and drove back along the lanes to the isolated school.

‘Hard enough to make it hurt, Melissa. You’re not a child, and you should be able to take a proper whacking if you deserve it — especially now you’re 17!’

‘My last French tutor made it hurt all right. Oh well, c’est la vie, as they say,’ and we both laughed loudly.

The story is continued in Time, Melissa, Please in Blushes 14.