Our story began here.

Katherine regarded the seat of the chair with utter dread. Both the rounds of her rather full bottom felt tight and sore-prickled, but that was nothing to the deep all-pervasive ache beneath the chafed surface of her skin that exploded with pain at the least touch. The first discomfort was ever present and she felt it against the soft surface of her panties and skirt where they dragged across her bottom. The latter pain troubled her only when she walked or tried to sit down. An act she had attempted on the relative comfort of her soft bed; the breakfast chair looked like a whole other story.

Janet too, a transformed girl now modestly attired in a loose flared skirt and button-up sweater, seemed in no hurry to sit down and when no one was looking made wincey grabs at her behind.

“Still feel it huh?” Jenny said to Janet ruefully as she shifted in her chair.

Katherine noted that the younger girl was still using a pillow of her own two days after her own spanking. Only Mary sat easily and unconcerned.

“Oh go boil your head,” Janet said sullenly.

Janet’s spanking the day before had been a very public affair and the girl knew it would be decades, if not centuries, before she could live it down. Oh it was easy enough in the dark tickle of night to feel the throb and wonder of it. In private she felt like a princess in a storybook on the verge of a great adventure. No had ever given that much attention before and it may well be the best thing that had ever happened to her. But now in the cold light of day she could only decide that it was the worst. It was certainly the most embarrassing.

“I was only saying,” Jenny said defensively, “I got spanked too and right in front of everyone.”

Both girls shared a blush and looked at Mary for the least trace of amusement. But the shy older girl in the group could only bite her lip and look away. Meanwhile Katherine continued to regard the chair with dread and balanced the ordeal of sitting against the embarrassment of admitting that she too had been spanked.

“I think I’ll pass on breakfast this morning,” she said casually, “I suggest you both stop your squabbling before Alice comes down. Janet, why don’t you get a pillow like Jenny has?”

Janet glowered at the sensible eldest and returned an angry pout. But she guessed the transient humiliation was modest set against the previous afternoon of bare-bottom corner time and stomped away to get one.

Katherine gave the retreating Janet a tight smile and then with a rather fixed grin backed away from the breakfast table and with very slow careful steps went into the garden.

*

“A penny for them,” Alice said as she strolled over to Katherine.

Katherine whirled around and then blushed as she averted her eyes.

“Oh I was just… the garden, it is so lovely,” Katherine said.

Alice nodded.

“How is your behind this morning?” she asked solicitously, “Slept on your tummy last night, I bet.”

Katherine went tomato red and ducked her gaze.

“It’s fine thank you Ma’am,” she quickly replied.

“You missed breakfast,” Alice said. It was an accusation.

“I wasn’t hungry,” Katherine said with a head shake.

“You were too proud to fetch a pillow or eat off the mantle,” Alice shot back.

Katherine turned to look at the roses beyond the well-manicured lawn and formed a line with her mouth.

“Everyone has to come to breakfast, one of those pesky rules I mentioned,” Alice said gently, “We don’t want girls getting sick and I need you to set an example.”

Katherine nodded. “Sorry Ma’am.”

“It’s embarrassing I know but…” Alice began.

“I know, but I need to be taken down a peg, it is all part of the Sinclair Method,” Katherine cut in grimly.

“Bluntly, but accurately put,” Alice chuckled, “We all go through it. The girls have to know that you are not too old for a good sound spanking when you need it.”

Katherine nodded, but her blush now rivalled the roses for colour.

“We will let it go this time. Besides I want to get Mary’s measure before we press on in earnest,” Alice confided.

Katherine turned her head and took in her governess with a quizzical look. It seemed she was to be trusted then.

“She is an odd one. You, well I think I understand. You are a lot like me,” Alice continued thoughtfully. “Jenny and Janet are easier still. But Mary… why do you think she is here? She doesn’t seem to have the self-knowledge and confidence that you do and she certainly hasn’t been coerced.”

“And those clothes…” Katherine blurted.

“I know,” Alice giggled. She put her hand to her mouth to recover her indiscretion. “I am going to have to take her in hand, although…” She looked significantly at her Katherine.

“You want me…” the other woman gaped.

“It might be better coming from you, you know, I’ll be the stick to your carrot,” Alice suggested.

“And by stick you mean hairbrush,” Katherine replied ruefully.

“By stick I mean stick if necessary,” Alice said sharply, “But essentially yes, when it comes to it.”

Katherine’s eyes widened a little and she gulped, all the same she smiled and nodded. “I’ll do what I can,” she said.

*

Mary studied the ensemble of dresses, pants and coats sprawled out untidily on her bed and wondered what was wrong with them. True, most of them were hand-me-downs, but most of them fit her, more or less. She had even tried matching colours that she hoped went well together. Yellow and green ‘should never be seen’ or was it orange? Anyway, she had taken that sort of thing into account where she could. She even had gloves and hats, which were more than Jenny or Janet seemed to have. But the gloves she had were somewhat greying, she guessed, and one or two of the hems on the other clothes were becoming frayed. Maybe Alice had had a point after all.

Alice had taken her aside the evening before and asked to her to think about matches and to set aside some clothes that might do for various types of outings. Mary sighed. What was that supposed to mean? Surely people didn’t have different clothes for going shopping and the theatre, not these days?

“Ooh bother it,” she groaned and dropped onto the mismatched laundry heap in despair.

In frustration she snatched up her hairbrush and began to drag it through her unruly red locks despite the pain and hard resistant tugging. It was a defensive gesture she had adopted over the years, especially in the face of criticism. It was a way of saying ‘hey look I am making an effort.’

But for Mary the hairbrush had other connotations.

For as long as she could remember she had been fascinated by hushed-whispered tales of spanking. She had drunk in reports and stories of how her girlfriends had been put across a parental knee or sent to the corner. Some of these little nuggets of gossip had even been embellished with details of panties being taken down or big girls of 18 or 19 being spanked in front of boys.

Happily, she told herself, it had never happened to her and at the age of 21 she had thought to put all these thoughts behind her now. But still they had persisted. What was wrong with her, she was a mess. Then she had seen the advert for the Sinclair Method. Just a short paragraph in her state newspaper containing the phrase ‘training for young women using old-fashioned methods’ it had said. The self-addressed envelope sent to a PO Box had been rewarded with a small pamphlet. Mary had read it to death, drinking every sparse mention of guidance and punishment, ‘strict direction and chastisement where needed’ and several mentions of spanking. One in a heading: NEVER TOO OLD FOR A GOOD SPANKING.

Until Jenny had been spanked she had decided that it was magazine hyperbole or merely theoretical. Then Jenny had been spanked again.

Janet’s treatment had sent her wild and now she was a whirl of confusion. It was true and it could happen. Mary paused in mid brushstroke, her heart racing. It could happen to her.

To be continued.

Our story began here.

A bird sang nearby, a sweet accompaniment to the hush of the trees as they swayed in a light dance in the wind. Not that Mary noticed. She sat under the tree pretending to read a book as she kicked her life around in her head. Nor did she see Alice’s approach along the side of the gravel path.

“Anything good?” the governess asked as she nodded at the book.

Mary shrugged and shook her head.

“Come on, let’s go for a walk,” Alice suggested.

Mary didn’t reply, but ungainly got to her feet and dusted off her patterned flared skirt. Then quickly falling into step besides Alice, she ducked her head as if complying from duty.

Alice chuckled quietly as she sized the girl up. Her attire was better than the night before and it was obvious the girl had washed her mass of red hair so that it shone for once. But her demeanour was a little sullen

“How do you feel things are going?” the older woman asked carefully.

Mary shrugged.

Only the night before they had had a chat about Mary’s shortcomings and the 21-year-old had shown the first glimpse of spirit since coming under Alice’s wing. Katherine too had fared little better after offering up some make-up tips and afterwards the two older women had compared notes.

Now there was another matter that needed to be addressed.

“Why are you here?” Alice said stopping suddenly.

Mary’s face became animated and pained as she looked away.

“You want more don’t you? You want…” Alice began tentatively.

“I want to be like you and Katherine,” Mary blurted. “I know what you said last night; I know you were right but… oh… I don’t know, I just don’t know…” she stamped her foot in frustration.

“Is that why you went through my things last night?” Alice said in a neutral voice.

“I… I didn’t…” Mary stuttered.

“Not my books?” Alice pressed her.

Mary blushed to her ears and dropped her chin to her chest.

“I was just…”

“So you don’t deny it?” Alice said lightly.

Mary shrugged and looked around at the garden as if she might be rescued by the grass or the flowers.

“What were you looking for?” Alice pressed her.

Mary felt a throb of blood in her head and her mouth went dry.

“A book… a book like the pamphlet I was sent,” Mary mumbled.

If Alice guessed Mary’s true meaning she didn’t reveal it. Instead she nodded and said, “So you think the answer is in a book?”

“I was just curious?” Mary said quietly.

“Do you think you should have gone in my room without permission? Do you think you should rifle through my books?” Alice asked as if addressing a class in geography or French, both equally alien to Mary.

“No,” Mary breathed.

“What do you think I should do about it now?” Alice asked pointedly.

Mary looked up, her face a picture of panic and her eyes dancing rapidly in her head.

“What do you think I would do to Jenny or Janet?” Alice said sternly.

The girl worked her mouth as she blanched.

“Is that one of the things you are curious about?” Alice barked.

Mary jumped and dipped her head. But she nodded.

“When I asked you if you went through my things, you lied,” Alice said more gently.

Mary sniffed, her eyes now a little moist and she shrugged.

“Should I go easy on you?” Alice asked in genuine curiosity.

The redhead squirmed and hugged into herself.

“No,” she said, seemingly more like a little girl than a 21-year-old.

“Public or private?” the governess asked sharply, “Private will be harsh, public will be like Janet.”

Alice was still working the young woman out and wanted to know her choices. Usually there would be none and shouldn’t be.

Mary responded with saucer eyes and mouthed the words ‘you can’t.’

Alice glared and made to take the girl’s arm.

“Private, please, private,” Mary gabbled hastily.

“I’ll think about it,” Alice snapped and taking Mary’s arm led her down the path towards the house.

*

The arm-towed Mary tottered behind Alice half-resisting as they approached the house. She wanted to beg for a private spanking, but she wasn’t even reconciled to the idea of any kind of spanking yet so the ‘please’ stuck to her tongue.

But just as the back door to the kitchen loomed they made a hard right and went another way towards some out buildings. They were of old brick with one or two broken window panes and a partly tumbled down roof.

“This has a kind of woodshed at one end,” Alice told her, “You know what woodsheds are for don’t you? It is a grand old American tradition.”

“Yes Ma’am,” Mary blurted.

“Good,” Alice sighed as they reached the open component of the buildings under a lean-to stacked high with wood.

“It is fairly quiet here, so we will leave your privacy in the lap of the gods. Take off you skirt, petticoat and panties.”

Mary gaped.

“Any procrastination and I’ll take you up to the house,” Alice snapped.

A red-faced Mary swallowed down a hefty dose of dismay and scrambled to obey.

Once naked below the waist Alice took her clothes and directed her to face the wall under the half roof in the only space available.

“I’ll come back in a while and if you are still here then we will begin. If not I will expect to find you in your room to await a trip to the bathroom,” Alice told.

Mary could feel the blood singing in her ears and the chill on her thighs and exposed bottom. It was too unreal and she could hardly get a breath. There was no question of not obeying and she knew well what would happen in the bathroom, or could.

“That’s it,” Alice said cheerfully as Mary reluctantly turned her bare bottom out as she faced the wall. “There are only girls to see and if they do then too bad. Otherwise this will be between us. But mark my words, don’t move a muscle or turn away from the wall. I want you to think about things and exactly what you have coming.”

“Yes Ma’am,” Mary gasped. “But Ma’am… how… how long do I…?”

But Alice didn’t answer and walked away leaving Mary in a state of consternation.

*

How long she had been standing there was lost in her shame as a race of confusion went through Mary’s brain. It was a totally alien experience, standing as she was half opened to the elements with no skirt or panties on. She only had Alice’s word that only she and the other girls could see and that was bad enough. But that wasn’t even the worst of it. She was going to get a spanking and she knew it. A spanking worse than Janet’s or Jenny’s that ran the risk of being even more embarrassing.

She could run of course. Go to her room maybe or leave altogether. But that did not bear thinking about and besides she was too much the coward to defy Alice.

Suddenly at a crack of a twig behind her she stole a look over shoulder. There was nothing but the afternoon shadows under overgrown shrubs and the woods. She imagined local boys spying on her and thrilled at the shame. She blushed. She would die if there really were anyone watching her. Her tummy tingled with butterflies and she was torn at every sound between peeking and the fear that it was Alice or one of the girls.

She could leave me here all day and then send Katherine to fetch me to be spanked in front of everyone. Her head nearly burst at the idea. Then she thought of the sneaking into Alice’s room and what she had been looking for.

She deserved this, she really did, and any watching boys. A nasty girl like her should be spanked in town where young men could see and know how bad she was. It was an odd train of thought and she buzzed as she ran with it. She hovered then between a netherworld of secret fantasies and the hard reality of the sounds in the woods and the hard knots and smell of pine just inches from her nose.

Mary grabbed at her bottom and imagined it spanked, glancing again backwards and picturing the scene from the trees like some narcissus. The rush of wind in the forest beyond the garden lulled her and she began to drift in sleepy submission, surrendering herself to the world.

Then a hard crunch on the path brought her back and Alice was at her shoulder.

“That’s a good girl,” Alice said with a grin that Mary risked turning to see. “You look so cute there I could almost let you off easy,” the governess continued.

Then Mary saw what Alice was holding a gulped. Her mentor rolled a long thin stick of hickory or the like between her fingers. It was robust enough and the older woman had taken the trouble to peel it carefully.

“Oh yes, it is for you,” Alice said in amusement. “Mark it well, as it will shortly mark you, next time you will find, cut and prepare your own, and sans culottes as you are now.”

“Sans-what?” Mary said absently, but her entire attention was on the switch.

“Without panties or skirt, or even naked like wood nymph,” Alice said sharply.

Mary worked her mouth and turned away again as if out of sight out of mind.

“I have decided to get creative with you,” Alice continued, warming to her task. “I am going to give you a switching old-style just to take the edge of your somewhat unhealthy appetite and then within three days you will come and see me and request a sound old-fashioned over the knee spanking on your bare bottom. If you don’t, on Sunday we will come right back here and you can demonstrate your switch-finding skills.”

“But…” Mary wailed.

“Oh you’re getting both, believe me, but the second, an encounter with a hairbrush, you will have to ask for. I am determined to shake you out of this shell of yours.”

Mary took a deep breath and willed the ground to do some proverbial swallowing, but it stubbornly refused to oblige.

“Now turn and face the saw-horse,” Alice continued, “And bend right over with your bottom uppermost.”

Mary blanched, still considering the near future shame when she saw the wood crossbar, mercifully polished with long use. Whether from cutting wood or bent over girls, Mary couldn’t decide. But the reality of imminent indignity and an encounter with the switch was now too close for sanity.

“Bend over,” Alice said with firm deliberation.

Mary nodded and took a step forward. The cool of the crosspiece was a hand-span down her thighs, too high to lower herself with any dignity, and she had to strain on to tip-toes to get right over.

Alice meanwhile was appraising Mary’s well-defined high-set bottom that jutted deeper in profile than it did to the sides. Not that the girl was narrow-hipped; just athletic. Once doubled over her bare bottom domed up firmly offering a good target that looked well able to take a good whipping.

“I ought to spank you first for mercy’s sake,” Alice murmured.

“Ooh, ooh,” Mary fluttered, “Please don’t.”

“Suit yourself,” Alice shrugged and with a light flick-snick she struck the girl across both bottom cheeks.

Mary hissed and rocked her bottom, one of her feet kicking back. Alice landed several more in quick succession exacting the same response. In moments the pale bottom was pinkened with a rash long bumps forming ridges.

“So you know, most girls think this worse than a spanking, I certainly do, but something about you suggest this is your level. Besides, we both know you have an unhealthy interest in a traditional spanking, which is why you are going to have to ask for the other first,” Alice explained. “Ask or face more of this,” the switch sliced crossways and then across the under-curves of Mary’s bottom where she sat, “Much more.”

Still doubled over with her head down, Mary glowered into the floor, mortified at both Alice’s suggestion and her proposed solution. But the lines of fire quickly overrode all and she began to gasp and give over to tight pained grunts as the switching continued.

By now the welts were fully formed and stood out as angry purple-red ridges fit to burst. While Mary rocked and pumped her legs as she squealed comically at each impact. Her distress was earnest enough but Alice could tell it was not soul-felt and for a first-timer the girl was amazingly stoical.

“Is it what you expected?” Alice asked; she remembered her first encounter and the shocked reality of it, which had been nothing like her imaginings.

As she spoke the snick-hiss-thwack of the switch continued until Mary became quite shrill.

“Omigod,” Mary yelped, bug-eyed into the floor.

“Is it?” Alice pressed her picking up the pace.

“Nooo,” Mary wailed, hardly knowing now what was said; “I’m sorry, so sorry…”

Despite her tearful regrets, no more than pools at her red-rimmed eyes, the girl wasn’t broken and there was no true sobbing, Alice marvelled, well some girls were tough and it was always the quiet ones.

“I will have your surrender one way or another,” Alice told her, “Or you will back here time and again.”

The governess might have continued for longer but if Mary was equal to the ordeal, her virgin bottom wasn’t and the mass of worm-tracks looked very raw indeed.

“That should do you for now,” Alice sighed, “You can go and cool your bottom back in the corner for a while.”

The sweat-bathed Mary got unsteadily to her feet, panting as if she had run a race. Her mouth hung open beneath a mess of red hair and she nodded. The little pain-dance was more subdued than many Alice had seen and Mary found the strength not to rub as her arms stayed defiantly at her sides with hands clenched.

“You know what you have to do. You have three days,” Alice said kindly.

Then she tossed the switch out into the grass and as soon as Mary was facing the wall she left.

Mary faced the wall gaping like landed fish for a moment, her hands clawing frantically at her ravage bottom. She had survived; she was not quite the weak ninny everyone thought she was. She was one of the girls after all. For a second she regretted that they might never know, but she wasn’t that ready, not yet.

Then unbidden, and taking her totally by surprise she burst into violent heaving sobs, which continued for long, long minutes.

To be continued.

Our story began here.

None of the girls had missed that Mary had been soundly spanked. Given that she was older than them, Jenny and Janet could not help sniggering about it too. This despite, or perhaps because, they had both recently suffered at Alice’s hands also.

Only Katherine showed any sympathy at all, although even she had to stifle a small laugh at the comic scene at supper when a stiff and limping Mary had oh so gingerly lowered herself onto a pillow that she had had to place on the dining room chair. In the event her attempts failed and after only a few moments of squirming and facial animation she had regained her feet and opted to take her supper off the mantle instead. The poor girl was mortified and would not look anyone in the eyes for days.

Nevertheless, after her embarrassing sojourn at the mantle, Mary sheepishly waited for Katherine once the other two weren’t around.

“Katherine,” Mary offered up wanly, “I am sorry I was so… I’m sorry. Could you please tell me again… I mean, could you help me about my clothes?”

Katherine smiled and agreed readily.

“How was it anyway, your meeting with Alice I mean?” Katherine ventured once she was sure the others had skedaddled and weren’t lurking somewhere to eavesdrop.

“Oh it was just peachy, can’t you tell?” Mary replied ruefully.

“So I noticed, what did she do?” Katherine whispered conspiratorially.

“She introduced me to her friend Mr Switch,” Mary rolled her eyes.

“Ouch,” Katherine said with a wince, “She mentioned something about a stick. I gather you must have done more than just give her some impudence regarding her advice.”

Mary looked at her shoes and blushed. Just then the two women arrived at the stairs and Mary found that she had to ascend them grandmother style, with very careful steps.

“Come on,” Katherine prompted, “Confession time.”

Mary pulled a face and blushed again.

“I snuck into her room.” There was genuine shame in her voice.

“Find anything that was worth the tail blistering?” Katherine asked, not altogether without curiosity.

“What do you think?” Mary said sullenly.

But after a brief mutual glare they both giggled.

“So you are all square now I presume?” Katherine said at last.

“Ooh,” Mary wailed and pulled a face.

“Now you really do have to talk,” Katherine said decisively, “You go lie down on your bed and I’ll fix an ice-pack.”

Leaving Mary to it Katherine hastened away.

“But…” Mary called after.

Katherine had just disappeared out of sight at the end of the passage near the bathroom when she ducked back.

“Oh, I suggest you lay face down,” she said with a wink.

“You beast,” Mary growled.

*

The door to Alice’s room seemed like the gates to hell and Mary wondered if she might flee rather than face this trial. Lying face down on her bed while a girl she hardly knew put an ice pack on her blistered bare bottom had been embarrassing enough. Especially when Katherine had insisted on hearing all the details of both her recent correction and what she had to do next. But now she had to face the reality of going to Alice and actually asking for that very spanking.

The deadline set had been three days, but although she could just about sit down now, embarrassment aside Mary would have preferred three weeks before inviting any more attention to her behind.

But now her time was up and her hand hung reluctantly frozen in the act of knocking.

“Alice,” Mary ventured, tapping oh so lightly as if the wood might splinter.

After a few moments of similar reluctant taps the door swept open and Alice stood there regarding Mary in some amusement.

“I thought that mouse scratching might be you,” she said, “What do you want?”

Mary started at this and stood gaping.

“B-but… you said…” she wailed.

“Yes?” Alice asked bluntly.

Mary took a deep breath and looked furtively up the hall and listened. She had hoped to be invited in before she humbled herself.

“I have come for my… you know,” Mary said in a whisper.

“Yes I know,” Alice said wearily, “Well at least you came. Come in.”

Once the door was closed Alice pulled a chair away from the wall and on it she put a large flat-backed hairbrush.

“I know why you’re here but tell me anyway,” Alice said sharply, “No, ask me properly.”

Mary blushed and felt her head swim. Then heaving a sigh of death she muttered. “I have come for my spanking.”

Alice regarded her charge imperiously and waited.

“Please Alice, will you… sp-spank me?” Mary managed at last.

Alice considered this for a moment and then directed the girl to lower her panties and face the wall with her skirts and petticoats raised. Blushing for her country, Mary complied. A few moments later she was bare-bottomed in the corner displaying her purple and red rash-streaked behind to Alice’s gaze.

The governess made her stand at attention for a good 20 minutes before announcing that Mary’s bottom was too sore and that she could put things off to the weekend.

Mary sunk into herself with a sigh and staggered back. It was a small reprieve but she had never been more grateful to anyone.

“Mind you, I want a proper request on Sunday afternoon. You will ask explicitly and fulsomely for a bare bottom spanking and some corner time. I suggest you write out something and rehearse it like a speech. If I am not satisfied I will spank you anyway and then have you back again until you get it right. Do you understand me?”

“Oh yes Ma’am,” Mary gushed.

“Now cut along.

*

Mary had hoped that her reprieve would be a blessing. But instead she had been thrown into turmoil by the postponement, disappointed even. Now she found herself back where she began without the closure.

Worst still she felt her submission had been expanded and instead of just asking to be spanked, she now had to prostrate herself verbally in the worse way imaginable, or so it seemed.

Now she stood again outside Alice’s door plucking up the courage to knock.

“Mary Welling, if you don’t stop dithering I will send you out back to cut a switch,” Alice’s scolding voice came from inside.

Mary jumped and rapidly smoothed down the front of her skirt. But before she could wrap on the door it opened.

“Oh do come in,” Alice sighed.

Mary gulped and sneaked a couple of glances up the hall in search of unwelcome witnesses before obeying.

“Come along then,” Alice chided her, “You have something to ask me, don’t you?”

Mary stooped her head and could not fail to notice the hairbrush in Alice’s hand. Her hands felt awkward at her side and she could not meet her governess’s eyes as she gulped down several lumps in her throat.

“Yes Ma’am,” she managed, “I mean… that is… I am here… eh, to be sp-spanked,” she finally said.

“Yes I know that, what of it?” Alice folded her arms and regarded the girl sternly.

“On my… you know, b-bare bottom,” Mary said in a thick voice, still not meeting Alice’s eyes.

“Oh I do know, but you were to ask for it, not mumble,” Alice said impatiently.

Mary made tentative grabs at her behind, still feeling a hint of tenderness there.

“Yes Ma’am, I mean, please Ma’am… um, could you please… ah, s-sp-spank my… eh… b-bare eh… b-bottom. I d-deserve it, oh and…” she blushed, “The corner too.”

Alice rolled up her eyes in consternation and took Mary by the arm.

“Hopeless girl,” she sighed as she tumbled her across her lap. “Hopeless. I am afraid that is not good enough.”

“Oh but…” Mary wailed.

But in a moment the brush struck her across the seat of her skirt and drew a yelp. Alice struck twice more before hauling up Mary’s skirts and shucking down her panties.

“You had your chance and I mean to have you back as many times as it takes,” Alice scolded her charge.

“Ooh, ah… wait,” Mary squealed.

Alice ignored all further protests and set about spanking Mary until her bottom was strawberry red all over.

“All you had to do was what you were told,” Alice growled as she spanked on. “Politely ask for a fulsome spanking. I know it is embarrassing, but you have been too full of yourself and not at all entering into the needful spirit of things.”

Mary tried to splutter out excuses but the burn in her bottom was taking all her attention.

“Now I want you to come back and ask properly,” Alice said sharply, not pausing in her assault, “I want no mumbling and plenty of adjectives. By rights I should make you ask in front of the others. Mess it up again and maybe I will.”

“Ooh please,” Mary wailed, but the spanking was in earnest and totally beyond anything she had expected.

“Please nothing,” Alice sighed, “Go stand in the corner and keep your nose to the wall. I don’t want to look at you.”

A distressed Mary made a break for the other side of room while bawling like a kid.

“And keep that skirt held up in back,” Alice chided her.

Mary heaved great choking sobs as she quickly obeyed. Breathing was hard and took a while to ease back, but eventually Mary could hear the birds and a clock ticking somewhere. Despite her gruesome ordeal, as she saw it, the spanking wasn’t as bad as the switching she had gotten and somehow she felt closer to Alice; better in herself even.

“What am I going to do with you?” Alice said in a weary voice.

“I tried, really I did,” Mary sniffed, “It’s not fair.”

She sounded like a kid and she knew it.

“Fair is not exactly the name of the game here,” Alice replied. “We all have to go through it and you don’t know what you want do you?”

Mary shrugged and pouted sullenly and she risked taking a look over her shoulder at Alice.

“When I first went to stay with Muriel, Mrs Baxter to you, you’ll meet her one day; anyway, when I first went to her I was oh so grown-up. I had been in the military as you know and well anyway… I was full of myself. Despite me seeking out the Sinclair Method and its lessons I still managed to resist the idea of being taken in hand. In short I thought I was way too old for a good sound spanking. But a good sound spanking on my completely bare bottom and then a long stint in the corner was exactly what I got. See, it is not so hard to say is it?”

Alice launched into her story with a hint of a blush and a faraway smiled on her lips. She hadn’t scolded Mary about turning to look so she made a half turn and leaned on the wall to listen.

“Four times I was summoned to Mrs Baxter’s room and four times I was made to ask for a spanking,” Alice explained. “The first time I completely refused and boy did I get it.”

Mary giggled at the idea and Alice rolled her a sidelong conspiratorial smirk.

“The second time I rather sullenly mumbled out my request and got another spanking for my trouble, this time with a bath brush. I was spanked so hard and long that I thought I was never going to sit down again. I actually couldn’t for about a week,” Alice continued. “The third time I managed to say with certain amount of grudging humility something like, ‘please Mrs Baxter Ma’am, spank my bare bottom as I deserve and send me to the corner.’”

The governess was blushing as much as Mary ever had at the memory and Mary gasped in horror.

“Oh if I had managed that the first time it might have been enough to save my behind, but it was far too little too late. Instead I was hauled out to the woodshed and had the tar whaled out of me with a strop and several switches. When I was finally let out of a very humiliating stint in the corner… a very public one I might add, I was told to think very carefully about the next meeting and be ready to ask properly and very fulsomely with embellishments or I would think that my spankings so far were tickle pats.”

Mary gulped, especially when she saw Alice’s icy smile.

“One day I tell you what happened, but I suggest that you really do go above and beyond for our next encounter,” Alice added, “It is after all for your own good.”

As she finished she made a circle with her finger indicating that Mary should turn and face the wall again.

To be continued.

Our story began here.

Mary had run her little speech through mind over and over and each recall had caused a festival of blushing. But finally she had managed to work out her humbling request.

However, now that she stood outside Alice’s door her courage began to falter and words once set in her head wriggled form her grasp like her resolve. Nevertheless, she straightened her skirt and knocked firmly on the door.

The pause that followed could have encompassed eons and Mary almost fled. Then finally a feminine voice from inside called, “Come in.”

Mary heaved a sigh and then reached out for the door knob; a slick little beats that seemed to resist her grasp for a moment. Then she was in.

Alice was sitting in a comfortable chaise long smiling. Next to her on the upholstery was the hairbrush, a big heavy wooden beast with which Mary was now well-acquainted. For a moment neither spoke and the only sound was the ticking of an alarm clock on the bed stand.

“I eh… I have come for my spanking,” Mary managed at last.

Alice cocked an eyebrow and waited.

“I mean… please… eh; please would you give me a spanking. On my… um… on my b-bare b-bottom,” Mary’s voice was thick and she could not meet Alice’s eyes as she added, “And then…” she swallowed, “Please send me to the corner as I deserve.”

Alice rolled down her lower lip in disdain and then frowned.

“Is that the best you can do?” she sighed. “I mean it was alright and had you come to me with that humble request when I first asked you I might have been satisfied. But it is hardly a request to make the newspapers is it?”

Mary gaped aghast at the idea of such publicity.

Alice rolled her eyes to heaven as she realised that the girl had taken her literally.

“What did I tell you to do?” she asked.

Mary shrugged and squirmed like a worm on a hotplate, “But I asked,” she whined, “I did.”

“I said, fully and fulsome, like you meant it,” Alice said wearily, “Weren’t you listening?

Mary gaped like a fish. In her head it had sounded so much more comprehensive and she seemed to remember words like ‘soundly’ and as ‘I richly deserve’ which she had just now omitted in her shame.

“Oh, oh,” Mary wailed, “Let me… can’t I… try again.”

“No,” Alice barked as she seized the girl and upended her over knee.

This time the spanking was long hard and very drawn out until Mary kicked a bawled and begged that she was sorry. Not that it availed her anything and all through it she knew she had to come back.

In all the spanking lasted over half-an-hour and by the time Mary was sent to the corner she was a puddle of tears.

*

Janet stood back and admired the neat piles of clothes on the dresser shelf. All her new clothes were hung on rails, each seam razor straight. The old Janet would have sneered and she practiced one by way of trying one on for size. Her heart wasn’t in it.

It wasn’t just that an untidy room would get her a spanking from Alice, it was something else, a feeling she couldn’t place.

“Oh Jan, aren’t they wonderful,” Jenny gushed as she entered the room, “When Alice said we would get new clothes I thought…”

Janet remembered picturing wet drippy duds herself, not that she would admit it.

“They are okay I suppose,” she acknowledged grudgingly.

“Alice is such a brick,” Jenny continued enthusiastically, her friend’s clung-to cynicism largely unnoticed.

“You soon changed your tune,” Janet said in surprise.

Jenny blushed but stuck to her guns.

“Well…” she pursed her lips sullenly, “It is just that no one ever cared about me enough before to spank me.”

Me neither, Janet thought, but her response was a derisory snort.

“Don’t you like Alice?” Jenny asked seriously, an incredulous tone dominating her voice.

Janet looked off to the side, not meeting her friend’s eyes. How could she like someone who spanked her like that and who would continue to spank her? But did she? She answered with a shrug.

“She’s alright I suppose, better than some anyway,” she answered reluctantly.

“Oh it is going to be great here, I just know it,” Jenny was gushing again.

Janet returned a disbelieving smile and together with a withering look let her scepticism show.

“Yeah well… there is that, but we will just have to be good won’t we?” Jenny pouted.

“You poor dopy kid,” Janet joshed her with a gentle punch on the shoulder.

That was it, she thought, I have to show that I am not so easily cowed.

*

Mary swallowed hard and took a long look at herself in the mirror. Her behind still held a deep ache from her encounter with Alice three days before and she grabbed it hard, perversely enjoying the sharp flaring it caused.

She glanced at her writing desk and blushed as her eyes fell upon the scrappy notes she had made. Even from where she stood she could see the words ‘spanking,’ ‘corner time’ and ‘punish me,’ that were underlined.

What exactly as her problem? Was she too ashamed to say such things aloud, was she that much of a ninny? What was she scared of? She took a long slow deep breath and fixed her gaze on the eyes staring back at her.

She was going to get a spanking. A very long painful and very sound spanking on her bare bottom, nothing could alter that. She might even be taken to the woodshed for a taste of the switch. She gulped at this thought. She certainly would be if she didn’t buck her ideas up. Was that why she kept messing up? Did part of her long for that afternoon in the woods? It had certainly been the most intense and profound experience of her life. Maybe, she thought, but she was certain now that sooner or later such things would happen anyway.

No, the real matter in hand was respect. If she was going to please Alice, and that she knew now was important to her, then she had to progress. She gave herself an emphatic nod. She had one more chance before it all became impossible, she decided. She had to do this.

In her worst moments she considered how shameful what she had to do would be if she had to ask for a spanking in front of everyone. Perhaps one day she would have to, maybe that was what graduation would look like. The insight stopped her in her tracks. I am here to learn, to be punished, she thought, but I can barely admit that to myself, not yet, not even now… she shook herself and dismissed that train of thought. She wasn’t ready.

*

Alice’s door loomed up before her like the gates to purgatory and she drew herself up straight. Then she knocked on the door.

She wasn’t that surprised to see Katherine sitting in the corner. Her friend looked uncomfortable and despite her inherent poise, shifted uneasily in her chair.

“You have something to say Mary, do you not?” Alice asked from her place sitting on the chaise long.

Mary nodded and licked her lips. Katherine’s presence made this ten times worse, but she couldn’t fail again. She nodded.

A flicker of disappointment crossed Alice’s face, a look that threatened to crush Mary.

“Yes Ma’am,” she said firmly, claiming the moment back. “I wish to apologise for my behaviour. Going into your room and snooping was a betrayal of your trust. I am sorry. I know I have been a bit of a… a ninny about all of this and I am sorry for that too. I am here to ask you to spank me on my bare bottom. Or indeed discipline me in any way you see fit.” Mary blushed as she faltered and then steeled herself to continue. “If you spank me, you should spank me soundly and then send me to the corner with my… my naughty bare bottom on show so that everyone can see what a silly girl I have been. So to recap…”

“Thank you Mary, good girl,” Alice beamed.

Even Katherine looked impressed.

Mary let her mouth hung open as she breathed softly. Her heart pounded in anticipation, a feeling complicated by her open relief.

“I have spanked you quite often enough over this affair,” Alice told her, “So since you are now being adult about it I will give you an adult punishment. Please remove your skirt and the rest of your under things.”

Mary swallowed, blood pooling at her cheeks.

“When you are ready I want you to bend over with your hands flat on the chaise and your bare bottom sticking up and outwards for me,” the governess instructed.

Mary nodded and blushing like a rose, slowly obeyed. Not once did she look at Katherine.

*

Katherine’s heart and mind raced. Mary had surpassed her. Even now, almost nude below the waist with her bare bottom sticking out obscenely for correction she had found some dignity. Could she do as much?

The other disconcerting thing was Mary’s well-presented bottom and the way it made Katherine feel. Her pulse rate was definitely up and she was tight in places usually reserved for thoughts about girls

“The cane is a civilised method of correction, much used in England,” Alice was saying.

Mary didn’t move in her posture, although she chaffed at the indignity of it. But Alice had been right; this was far less childish than being across the knee. But somehow she missed the security of Alice’s lap.

Katherine shifted in her seat again and put a poised hand to her chin as if contemplating a painting. She was here to learn after all and ogle like some hairy oaf. But all the same she squeezed her thighs together a little and hoped no one would notice.

The caning was short and efficient. Almost as if Alice wanted to bring this chapter to a close without further ado. The first stroke was loud and hissy; a scratch in the air that ended in a taught sharp line across Mary’s bottom. The girl blinked hard at the impact and then gasped like a fish as the pain continued to grow.

The next six did nothing to assuage Mary’s growing distress and from four she emitted a little distressed ‘oh’ sound.

It took a while for Katherine to realise that Mary was gently crying, a penitent dampness with echoes elsewhere and nearer to home. Feelings fed by the sight of clean dark reddish line forming into tight ridges long ways across Mary’s curves.

From 12 or so the steady swish-thwack was accompanied by moaning sobs as Mary cried in earnest, this little more than a minute in. But not once did the girl move, not even after all 18 strokes had been administered.

“Alright, that’s enough. You can go with Katherine and she will put something on your behind,” Alice said at last.

“But Ma’am… don’t I…? I mean to say…” she glanced at the corner.

“Cut along,” Alice soothed gently.

To be continued.

Our story began here.

Like unseen fingers, the breeze from the window tickled Katherine’s flesh and reached into intimate areas unaccustomed to such exposure. It was a caressing shame that ended in hot pools of blood on her face and drew a soft whimpering sigh from her throat.

Once well-groomed hair now cascaded down onto the floor like a curtain over one eye. While the other peered ruefully back and up at elevated hips held aloft by the hard padded chair pressing into her disconcertingly and stimulating what should lie still.

From behind the curves of her cool smooth denuded bottom formed two almost perfect spheres as it domed up over the chair back. While behind her Alice stood brandishing the cane as she studied the target with a professional air and lingering excitement in her belly.

“You have been forgetting yourself haven’t you Katherine?” the governess said in a crisp voice as she licked her lips.

“Yes Ma’am,” Katherine answered in a rather wan but dignified voice.

Up to then things had been going so well. Katherine had learned fast and the other girls too now knew their place.

Mary reported to Alice regularly for what amounted trivial offences. Alice understood. The girl had found her level and now sought out replenishment from the well of pain and submission. It was time to explore maintenance spanking with the girl, Alice pondered. That way she could be truly shaped and then if she erred, even a small step, she could be very soundly spanked as prelude to a good caning or even a humiliating trip to the woodshed.

Jenny and Janet, although not perfect and given to girlish bickering, had long since offered less attitude and resistance to getting a spanking when a spanking was due. Unlike Mary though, who thought herself clever to court ‘accidental’ spankings, their submission was subconscious and they were yet sorry and ruefully when required to bare themselves for the hairbrush or were sent bare-bottomed to the corner for an hour or two in front of the rest of the girls.

Katherine had more pride, and however much she secretly or unknowingly required it, she walked a firm respectful line to avoid trouble. That was until that afternoon.

Alice had informed the girls that Muriel Baxter, her own mentor and lead exponent of the Sinclair Method was coming to inspect them. The excited apprehension that followed the announcement was to be expected but Katherine’s attitude had been a surprise.

She had at once put on airs and appointed herself as a kind of surrogate governess issuing orders and bossing the other girls around. So much so that Alice resolved that after the visit she would contrive to take the young woman down a peg or six. But for now, the girls eager marshalling was useful, especially when then others put up little resistance to it.

Alice was fearful enough about Muriel’s visit and however well her efforts were regarded, there was small doubt that sooner or later she too would find herself across a mentorial knee or even taken to task in the woodshed. For one thing she had not yet given up smoking, a vice Muriel detested and she was a woman who could see a sin at a hundred paces.

Then Katherine had overreached herself and had begun answering Alice back.

“Of course I have seen to the girls Alice, their rooms are clean, even Janet’s,” Katherine had answered wearily to a civil inquiry. She had even impatiently rolled back her eyes.

Such an exhibition in front of Muriel Baxter would see them both to the woodshed and a month of eating standing up. Alice might even find herself taken back for further training if Muriel deemed that she couldn’t cope.

As it was Katherine knew at once that she had gone too far.

“My room, after supper,” was all Alice had needed to say.

Now Katherine was naked between waist and stocking tops, bending over the back of the padded chair to present her very comely bare bottom to the cane.

“Anything to say?” Alice asked tartly.

“No Ma’am, I am truly sorry Ma’am. I… I… I only…” Katherine visibly gulped and then decisive, added, “No excuse Ma’am.” She sounded strained.

The cane landed with a whistling stroke that began a long way away and ended in a line of pain across her bottom. This first such experience for Katherine was soul-searing and stole her breath.

“Oh my God,” she managed finally, her voice now a tortured breathy sigh.

Alice admired the plum ridge that began to develop across the centre of Katherine’s tight curved bottom and she smiled. Then she made a decision.

“I think you will count them and then ask for the next stroke as we proceed,” Alice told the woman.

Katherine’s eyes darted in her head as she tried to get Alice’s measure.

“Wh-what? I mean…” she blurted through a laboured breath.

“Count: one, thank you Ma’am, may I please have another,” Alice told her sharply.

Katherine remembered Mary’s humiliation and blushed to her ears. It was just, she decided.

“Yes Ma’am,” she replied miserably.

The second stroke made Katherine yowl and she rocked back and forth so that her bottom bucked up and down.

“That didn’t count as you didn’t ask for it and now nor does the first,” Alice said sternly. “So this is your first, understand.”

Alice caned her again and Katherine made and a wordless angry retort as she clawed the air in frustration.

“Yes Ma’am,” she said miserably, tears pooling at her eyes and dripping of her words. The searing pain was overwhelming her already. Just in time she added, “One thank you Ma’am. Please may I have another?”

Alice obliged.

*

Ten bars of pain sawed into Katherine’s bottom, each an unsubtle combination of sting and ache that went on hurting long after the stroke was delivered. Unbidden tears tumbled over her sodden cheeks and her failed attempts to contain her crying had left her stretching and straining as she made mewling chuckling sounds in her throat.

She had to give it to Alice, she knew how to make a girl feel two feet tall and as sorry as hell.

“Eight, thank you Ma’am,” Katherine sobbed, “May I have another?”

The cane bit in hard and Katherine jerked further into woe.

“Your line is, please, may I have another,” Alice corrected her, “now that one doesn’t count.”

“Eight, please Ma’am, I mean… thank you Ma’am, please may I have another,” Katherine wailed.

Alice caned her again.

*

To Alice two dozen seemed a round enough number, although in truth Katherine had actually taken 29 for one reason or another. The eldest of her charges certainly seemed to think so and lay in a prone heap over the back of the chair sobbing her heart out while her well-scored bottom wagged in the air in a parody of a contented dog.

“Now you can spend the rest of the evening between now and bed time in the corner over there,” Alice ordered the girl.

“Yes Ma’am,” Katherine sniffed, completely cowed and grateful that her first caning was over.

Alice watched her cross the room, shimmying as she went in a vain attempt to shake out the pain. Then unbidden Katherine placed her hands on her head and tried to gather some dignity. At least she hadn’t been required to go down to the den where the others were watching TV.

Alice watched her for a moment and then settled in to contemplate Muriel Baxter’s visit. It was a cinch that she had missed something. Muriel was almost impossible to please on any score. Furthermore there was her stash of cigarettes. By this time tomorrow she could find herself exactly where Katherine was standing, she thought ruefully. Or worse still she might be cornered downstairs somewhere where the others could see.

To be continued.

“Gentlemen, should you spank your wife?” ran a headline in 1950s gentleman’s magazine. The response was mixed, but a vox pop conducted the same year and published in another magazine widely concluded that they should.

In 1949 a US judge even made a ruling in court that he did not see why a loving husband should not give a wife a good spanking when the occasion demanded.

Obviously things have changed and most modern sensibilities would be outraged. Even readers of this blog might raise an eyebrow or two at such attitudes.

But let us pause for a moment and considered an alternative 21^st century where the values of the 1950s western household still held true and instead of retreating they advanced through the principles of consensual loving discipline.

The downside would be that we would not see antics such as military wives nude calendars or sports club fundraising photo-shoots. For surely should wives indulge in such behaviour in our alternative 21^st century, they would be asking for a spanking.

On the other hand what beautifully behaved wives men would have, because presumably after just one or two spankings they would all behave themselves. So in fact there would be less spanking.

So to recap: in our alternative 21^st century there would be less naked women on show and less spanking…

The serious point, in so far as there is one, and let’s face it you would have to look hard, is that while we might think we want a more old fashioned buttoned-up society, it is actually sexual freedoms and social liberation that permits such blogs as this.

Gentlemen (and ladies) come the 1950s-style backlash repressive counter revolution; you and I will be the first against the wall.

More here.

Our story began here.

Muriel Baxter was a surprise. Katherine had expected a dour elderly lady with horn-rimmed spectacles and grey hair piled like ice cream on her head. She had had a teacher like that at school and boy did mama spank.

In the event Muriel was scarcely 40 and looked much younger. Although her chestnut brown hair was piled-up, it gave her an air of fashionable elegance. Her clothes too were well-cut and trimmed body-hugging style over her full but well-honed curves.

But most of all she had warm smiling eyes that crinkled only slightly at the corners, and only then when the smile reached all the way to her lips.

She had arrived without fanfare with two cream leather bags which she set down in the hall by the door before standing to take in any hint of change or trouble in what was after all still her house. When Katherine saw her she was running a finger along the ledge under the hall mirror and nodding in satisfaction.

It took a moment for Katherine to guess who it was, but before she could speak a challenge Muriel beat her to it.

“You must be Katherine,” Muriel smiled broadly and extended a hand.

“Mrs Baxter…?” Katherine tentatively replied. “I mean yes ma’am, please to meet you.”

Katherine bobbed nervously, bending at the waist as she leaned over to offer her hand, perhaps fearing to get any closer.

“Oh golly,” Jenny gushed from the top of the stairs and then without finding any poise scurried away like a spirited pony squealing, “She’s here, she’s here.”

Muriel’s gaze flicked upwards, disapproval for a moment touching her eyes, and then she returned her attention back to Katherine and smiled again.

“I have heard good things about you Katherine, good things,” she said enthusiastically.

“And a few bad things too no doubt,” Katherine blushed, her hand stealing to her bottom through her skirt.

Muriel followed her gaze and her smile broadened. “Sore bottoms, like thorns on roses, are a part of life for us aren’t they? Like pepper in the soup. We endure them and then move on to better things.”

Katherine was swept up in a surge of mixed emotion at the words. The direct reference to her spankings was embarrassing, but the sentiment cut to the heart of her feelings on the matter. Pepper in soup, she repeated in her head, how absolutely apt. Katherine could fail to notice also the mention of ‘us’ in her statement. Was she including herself in that? Did she get… it would be impertinent to ask, but Katherine was bursting with curiosity.

Just then a herd of tumbling elephants came crashing along the landing, only stopping to compose as they reached the top stair. Katherine winced, knowing without looking that Jenny and Janet would be standing there.

“Janet and Jenny,” Muriel said warmly, “Come down here girls, let me see you.”

Drawing on a deep well of Alice-borrowed dignity and poise, the two girls straightened up and descended the stairs like queens. They only blushed a little as they realised they had acted like kids.

“Mrs Baxter,” Jenny said shyly offering her hand.

Janet followed suit and within in moments Muriel had totally charmed them.

“And where are Miss Bowman and Mary?” Muriel asked at last.

With perfect timing and by way of an answer there came a resounding splat of hairbrush-wood on bare flesh. Katherine grimaced in embarrassment while blushing, Janet and Jenny giggled.

“Ah,” Muriel said breezily, “They seem to have some matters to discuss. Shall we have some tea then girls?”

Katherine shot Janet a look, but was greeted with a defiant shake as the latter girl impatiently mouthed the word no. Muriel missed nothing, but continued to smile indulgently.

Seeing that she was to get no cooperation Katherine said hastily, “Eh… yes, why not take Mrs Baxter into the parlour why I organise that for us?”

“Thank you Katherine,” Muriel smiled pleasantly.

*

A window must have been left open for the sound of spanking could be heard for some considerable time and didn’t end until well after Katherine had returned with the tea.

“Only five cups I see,” Muriel said casually.

The girls exchanged glances with Janet and Jenny’s gaze remaining firmly on Katherine.

“Eh…” Katherine began.

“Don’t mumble girl, diction must be crisp and clear. Say your words with confidence,” Muriel scolded her.

“Yes, sorry ma’am, I don’t think Mary will join us for a while, not after…” Katherine shot her eyes heavenward and made a face.

“Why? Is she permitted to sulk in her room after a spanking?” Muriel asked; her tone rather schoolroom-like.

“No ma’am, but she will be in the corner for a good while after,” Jenny gushed as if imparting important news.

Muriel nodded in satisfaction. She did not miss the fact that Katherine hid her discomfort by pouring the tea.

“And where do you girls serve corner time?” Muriel asked pleasantly.

“Oh… oh lots of places, I mean…” Jenny replied eagerly.

“It depends on the offence,” Katherine said casually. “And to some extent…” She didn’t continue to say the age of the girl. It shouldn’t matter, she knew, but Jenny and Janet routinely stood corner time in the common areas of the house compared to Katherine and Mary’s relatively private vigils.

“Mostly one of those corners,” Janet said waspishly, crinkling her nose in disapproval as she indicated the relevant areas of the room with an airy wave. “But Mary might just get corner time in Alice’s room.”

“I see,” Muriel replied as if pondering, “So either way she will not join us for a while. As it should be,” she added.

*

“Mrs Baxter,” Alice gave a start as she stopped in the doorway to smooth down the front of her dress. “I had no idea you had arrived.”

“No dear, I gather you were busy. Ah, this must be Mary,” Muriel replied suddenly looking past her former charge.

Mary froze just beyond where Alice stood trying to make herself as small as possible. She had obviously been crying and make-up streamed down her face. She was also moving awkwardly with her hands gripping at her hips.

“Mary, say hello to Mrs Baxter,” Alice said sharply.

Mary gulped and managed to heroically blush even more than she had been. It was obvious even from the front that her skirt was still bunched up behind and below the hemline her white panties could be clearly seen bunched up around her ankles.

“Hello Mrs Baxter,” she said miserably.

“I guess we will meet later,” Muriel said kindly.

Alice took the hint and pointed to the corner beyond where the other girls were gathered for tea.

Mary gaped for a moment and then ducking her head hobbled forward and shuffled into the corner. It was obvious then her bottom was indeed bare behind and had been more soundly spanked than anyone had seen for a while.

“Mary was somewhat at twos and eights over your visit as it happens and I felt she needed settling down,” Alice explained, “It is a pity that this is your first impression of the girl.”

“Oh pay it no mind, we have all been there haven’t we Alice?” Muriel said cheerfully.

It was Alice’s turn to blush.

“Now have some tea and this afternoon I will hear your reports about the progress here and then meet the girls formally,” Muriel continued.

“Yes Ma’am,” Alice acknowledged.

Katherine was agape. She was astounded at the change in Alice’s demeanour. This was going to be interesting.

To be continued.

Our story began here.

Muriel Baxter sat in the window seat, the garden behind her even as sunlight poured in to flood the room. Alice’s two youngest charges, Janet and Jenny sat cross-legged at her feet and stared up at her as if hanging on every word.

“Now tell me,” Muriel said conspiratorially, “Are you really sorry that you were assigned to the Sinclair Method rather than reform school?”

Jenny’s eyes were suddenly wide and she squirmed girlishly, “Ooh no Mrs Baxter, I suppose I was pretty much out of control before, and Alice and the others are swell,” she gushed.

Janet looked less certain and shifted uncomfortably as she scratched at her cheek.

“What about you Janet?” Muriel asked pleasantly.

“I guess, I mean, I suppose it is better than going to jail,” Janet answered.

“And you don’t mind getting a spanking now and again?” Muriel pushed them.

“I suppose we do have them coming and they are for our own good,” Jenny replied thoughtfully.

Janet blushed.

“Don’t you agree Janet?” Muriel asked her.

“I guess,” she said looking at her feet and squirming.

“You know I can get your status upgraded if you sign a two year voluntary agreement,” Muriel told them.

“Both of us,” said Jenny’s eager voice.

“Both of you, yes,” Muriel reassured her.

“Oh,” Jenny frowned, suddenly sounding unsure.

“Is it… is it because Alice’s is tired of us?” Janet asked sullenly, she was sure she must be. “I know I was a pain when we first came but no one ever cared about me enough before. You know, cared enough to… well you know.”

“No, not at all, Alice doesn’t even know yet, I wanted to know what you thought first,” Muriel assured her. “It is just that I want Alice to prepare Katherine and Mary for training to be governesses for the Sinclair Method and since she had done such an excellent job with you two I thought you would be ready to move on.”

“Do we have to be governesses too?” Jenny sounded worried.

“Would you like to be?” Muriel asked.

Jenny shook her head and gasped, “Oh no Ma’am, really I wouldn’t.”

“No, I didn’t think so, but I have another path for you. College perhaps,” Muriel confided.

“When you say move on, what do you mean exactly Ma’am?” Janet asked.

“To start with you could come back with me. It is a bigger house with many more girls. It will give you a chance to improve your social skills,” Muriel explained.

Both Jenny and Janet stared at her a little awestruck.

“Of course things are little stricter I would say. There is barely a time when a very sore bottom isn’t cooling in the corner and when I spank, I spank,” Muriel assured them. “I have to warn you switches, canes, paddles and many other things get employed too.”

Jenny’s eyes were wide in wonder but her enthusiasm seemed undimmed.

“I guess you’re saying we wouldn’t get away with much,” Janet said ruefully.

“Especially you Janet,” Muriel said pointedly.

“I guess that’s what I need though,” Janet winced.

Jenny was chewing her lip, the butterflies in her tummy even more excited than she was.

“Anyway think about it, it is in no way an easy option. But as volunteers you will be scot-free when you leave us and the world will be waiting,” Muriel told them.

*

Two hours later Alice and Muriel stood on the back porch watching the girls playing croquet in the garden. The girls were a way off and the conversation between the governess and her mentor would not be heard.

“I am not suggesting you actually train Katherine and Mary, merely break them down and polish them for me to train,” Muriel said, her tone clipped and authoritative. “After all they do need to be at a certain standard when they do come to me. I will want to use them as assistants as they progress.”

“Why me?” Alice asked carefully, “You don’t seem to trust me with Jenny and Janet.”

“Not at all, heavens above, you have done wonders with them. But these days I would rather our difficult cases be handled out of house for the first few months,” Muriel said sharply. “Now they are ready for my attention.”

“You mean my role was to break them in, like you want me to do with Katherine and Mary?” Alice said pointedly.

“Pretty much,” Muriel agreed, “After all I don’t think Mary would have thrived in a big house. We just don’t have time there for coaxing.”

Alice nodded thoughtfully, it was true, but this way Mary could be encouraged and developed as her confidence grew.

“Now young lady, we have another matter to discuss,” Muriel said in a severe tone.

Alice froze and shot a glance to where the girls were playing. Being called ‘young lady’ brought back such painful memories.

“It is about your smoking habit,” Muriel continued.

Alice’s eyes widened and she clenched her teeth a little. Then slowly, she allowed her gaze to meet Muriel’s now very determined expression.

*

Alice’s dress hung on the back of the door to her room leaving her in only her brassier and stocking-tops. She stood sheepishly shielding her pubic triangle with her hands as she faced Muriel sitting on the same backless chair that Alice used for the girls.

Muriel had allowed her the dignity of closing the window and she had been told that the next day the girls would be packed off to go to town under Katherine’s supervision so that Alice and Muriel could be alone in the house.

Alice knew what that meant. Tomorrow she would be taken to the woodshed for a more severe workout. This spanking was to be just a warm up.

“Don’t think I wouldn’t let them watch, but the girls are at a transition point I think,” Muriel had told Alice during the scolding. “So for now I am prepared to be discreet.”

“Yes Ma’am,” Alice replied, her voice thick.

“Don’t give me that look, you knew what would happen if I found out you were still smoking,” Muriel sighed. “And don’t think you are too old for this. No girl in my charge is ever too old for a good sound spanking.”

“No Ma’am,” Alice whispered. Her voice little more than a sigh as pools of hot blood gathered on her cheeks and around her ears.

“Your real punishment will come tomorrow. This is just to take you down a peg or two so you know what to expect,” Muriel said sharply.

“Yes Ma’am.” Alice gulped and bowed her head.

It had been a while for her but the sight of the hairbrush, her own, made her bottom tingle and set her mind racing.

“Come on then, over my knee,” Muriel said wearily.

Alice took half a step forward and then another until her thighs were level with the side of Muriel’s leg. Then gathering herself at a stoop, she leaned forward awkwardly.

Muriel responded by snorting impatiently and taking Alice’s arm to tip her forward across her lap. The girl weighed no more than any other she had placed there and like any other Alice shifted her nervous weight some as she squirmed.

“Ooh,” the prone girl gasped.

She was conscious that her long unspanked bare bottom was now round and exposed across Muriel’s knee and she blushed. She had forgotten; there was no feeling quite like it.

“Now my sophisticated young friend, how do you feel?” Muriel asked as she raised her arm.

The flat of the brush landed on bare flesh with a sharp crack and Alice responded by sucking air through her teeth. This was followed by a lip chewing pout as the imparted sting began to burn. The first spank was always like the first drop of rain on desert sand: keen and alien, and so very precious. Then it didn’t so much rain and begin to pour as the spanking came as an onslaught.

Out in the garden Katherine looked up and frowned. The other women were still engrossed in the game, but the eldest of them thought she had heard a shout followed by applause. But that was silly, wasn’t it? She looked over to the house for Alice and Muriel. They had sure been acting strangely earlier, like there was an atmosphere between them. Then Jenny giggled and said it was her turn again and Katherine looked away to forget about it. If she hadn’t of she might have noticed that the usually open window to Alice’s room was closed with the curtains drawn; a kindness Alice once or twice had afforded to Katherine.

If Alice had had any real concerns about the others knowing she had a spanking coming they were far from mind now. The spanking was like a raging fire, consuming all: Alice’s dignity, her alabaster skin, her thoughts and very shortly her ability even to sit down for a while.

From Muriel’s viewpoint Alice’s bottom was a goodly red verging on plum with mottles of dark over raw and little welty places where the unspanked flesh bordered the swelling soreness. Two oval pads had formed like donuts on the crowns of Alice’s bottom and little-by-little they were extending to take in her sit spots on the underside of her curves where most of the spanking was directed.

But for all that, Muriel was only just beginning, a situation that the often merciless Alice knew all too well. If she had had any sense she would have just surrendered and allowed herself to be distracted by howling out her sorry’s and riding it out. But she was a woman used to being in charge and pride was a bitch. So instead she gritted her teeth and grunted under the onslaught even as the burn consumed her tail end.

Not that such resistance could last. After 20 minutes or so, the laboured breathing and occasional angry growl gave way to withering grunts, and Alice began to mutter frantic apologies under breath.

“You may well be sorry Alice, but we are not done, not by a long way,” Muriel chided her, her pace and stamina showing no signs of giving out.

“I’m sorry,” Alice hooted, “I’m sorry,” and broke to great sobbing wails.

“Okay, okay,” Muriel soothed, not missing a spank, “You’re getting there, go easy. Boy you needed this didn’t you?”

“Yes Ma’am,” Alice wailed miserably, but by now she had folded in a dangling heap as she received spank after spank.

“That’s it, that’s it,” Muriel sighed, finally easing off. “Good girl, good girl, shush.”

Muriel gathered the sobbing Alice into her arms and rocked her kindly. The tenderness now completely at odds with the purple rawness that marred each bottom hind perfectly.

“I’m sorry,” Alice honked as she hugged her mentor.

“I know, I know and look at you taking a long hard spanking, shush now,” Muriel squeezed back.

Alice cried for a while until final she nodded and pulled away.

“Now Alice Bowman,” Muriel said sternly, “I want that seared hiney of yours in the corner for a good long while.”

“Yes Ma’am,” Alice agreed ruefully and taking short tight steps she crossed the room to obey.

To be continued.

Our story began here.

By the time the car pulled out of the drive Alice was ready as she had been instructed. After a long night of contemplation her mind was made up to it, she was going to be severely punished as she deserved. She had fallen short of the high standards she had set for her girls and now she too must pay the price.

The way to a girl’s soul is through her bottom, Alice thought ruefully.

She had arrived at her sanguine state of mind after a punitive ordeal that had begun with almost two and a half hours standing with her nose in the corner while the throbbing burn in her bottom halfway subsided. Halfway because after a night sleeping on her tummy it still ached somewhat and was jolly sore to the touch.

Alice had also been instructed to write out 400 times ‘well brought up young ladies who smoke will be soundly spanked on their bare bottoms.’ She had forgotten how humiliating and soul focussing such an exercise was.

“Alice, promise me you will give up smoking,” Muriel had urged her the night before when she had come to collect the set lines.

“I’ll try, I mean I will,” she had wailed, “Only…”

“Promise and know this, if you do give your word I will punish you as I have never punished anyone if you break it,” Muriel had continued sternly. “I mean it. You are my best student and one day… well, just remember we have standards girl.”

Alice knew then that she might only promise to try, but it was not her way.

“I promise,” she said earnestly. God she had missed this clarity.

“Good girl,” Muriel said eagerly, “But you know tomorrow…”

“I know,” Alice sighed, “And I know I deserve it Ma’am.”

After a fitful sleep the morning had come and so too had the true punishment. Now she was ready.

Alice took one more look in the mirror and took a deep breath. She was wearing only a tennis shirt over a brassiere and booby socks with newly whitened tennis pumps. It was a ridiculous ensemble devoid as it was of any coverage between her hips and ankles, and so very shaming.

Of course that was the point, she thought, now tugging at the front of her shirt to cover the neat dark triangle at the top of her thighs. God it had been so long since… The knock at the door was like a death knell and summoned her to her doom.

*

The worst part of her parade of contrition was that in the last week Alice, with Muriel’s help had finally engaged a cook. The woman had worked for Muriel’s people before and was well familiar with the Sinclair Method, but it was mortifying to Alice that a woman she hardly knew and an employee yet was about to witness part of her shame.

Still at least they had yet to engage a live in maid or a daily, both of whom would have been around at this time if they had.

Alice took a deep breath and descended the stairs to where Muriel was waiting to lead her out to the woodshed.

“Oh my, that is the sorest behind I have seen in many a year,” said the cook from somewhere behind Alice, she sounded awestruck and Alice blushed knowing that the behind in question was hers and very much on display under the hem of her shirt.

To tough it out Alice half turned and gave a shy smile.

“I had it coming Mrs Stevens,” she said and blushed a little more.

“I should hope you did,” the cook said earnestly and shook her head, “You girls, such a handful.”

Alice wanted to protest that she was the governess, but today she felt very far from it.

“Come along Alice,” Muriel chided her, “the woodshed is waiting.”

Alice responded with a long slow breath and then with a rueful pout followed Muriel out into the sunshine.

*

The birds tweeted incongruously while Alice gathered switches and as she laboured in the morning sunshine with an unfamiliar chill around her legs and bottom she felt a lightheaded disconnect with the world around her. It was a kind of liberation and for the first time Alice understood something of the naturist she had read about in a magazine once.

Then she saw the woodshed up ahead and the winding path that took them inexorably there.

“I was up early this morning,” Muriel told her, “To make some arrangements you understand. I wasn’t best pleased that you have neglected this important asset. I gather none of the girls except Mary have even made this trip.”

“No Ma’am,” Alice said solemnly, it was true. Had she been failing the girls then?

For a moment she was overridden with such things, a useful distraction from her impending fate, but one that did not last one step beyond the threshold.

The collecting of switches was a traditional American custom and not to observe it was something close to sacrilege, but next to what awaited her that punishment was positively gentle. For inside were three buckets, each holding half a dozen birch rods bundled as expertly as any European jailhouse. Here too at half a yard long and complete with drilled holes was a good old American paddle. Alice could only hope that the razor strop alongside it was just for future use on the girls because if they were all for her then she could kiss her bottom goodbye or at least count on eating her meals standing up for a year or two.

Alice was still blanching with shock when she saw what else had been assembled on the tool bench at the back. Next to an old Belfast enamel sink were a bucket, a funnel, a large hot water bottle and a long length of tubing. There was no doubt what they were for and her eyes were wide with apprehension.

Following her gaze Muriel nodded grimly.

“From young adulthood I was trained in such things and my mentor was rather keen on abrasives,” the older woman grimaced. “But no one can doubt their efficacy.”

“But…” Alice gaped and began shuffling nervously from foot to foot.

“Don’t worry, simple carbolic will suffice, stings a bit but quite cleansing and you do need a cleansing after putting those dirty things in your mouth,” Muriel sighed.

“My mouth,” Alice iterated.

“It’s a symbolic cleansing,” Muriel said in amusement. “The other end will serve as well.”

Alice let her mouth hang open in defeat and nodded. This was going to be worse than she thought.

She had just steeled herself for the ordeal when Muriel pulled her away and lead her to the sawhorse.

“Not so fast,” Muriel chuckled, “First we have to put those switches to work on your tender bottom so they don’t go to waste. Besides, the saw horse puts you in a good position for what comes next.”

The switch was a bitch but nothing she hadn’t encountered before and she was for once grateful for the distraction. So walking forward she bent over and lowered herself down onto the crosspiece of the horse. It was hard beneath her belly and with her head right down her bottom seemed too big and elevated.

It took a moment for Alice to get ‘comfortable’ and she had to steady herself by resting her elbows on her thighs under the crossbar of the sawhorse. She was just about to lament how self-conscious she felt when the first snick-flick of the switch descended. Like a series of electric shocks Alice jerked and squealed girlishly as Muriel expertly plied the switch across her exposed upturned bottom.

The burn was all the worse for tender bruises from the previous night’s spanking and Alice began to wonder how she had ever coped under Muriel’s tutorage.

“Oh Ma’am, omigod, jeez,” and the like spewed form her mouth as she bucked in place under the sting.

“There are four or five good switches here and it would be churlish not to give each one a dozen or two goes on target,” Muriel said casually.

In truth the Sinclair Method usually called for a lot more but Alice was beginning to suspect that the first part of her day was going to be largely symbolic to put her in her place. Some place, she thought ruefully, even this light punishment had tears pooling at her eyes and trickling down her cheeks.

*

Alice lay bent over and prone as she gently sobbed. The switching had well and truly rekindled the spanking of the night before and on top of that she could feel every welty line of fire as it continued to throb from the top of her cleft down to where her bottom curves met her thighs.

“That’s the way,” Muriel cooed, “Now for something interesting.”

Alice tried to look back over her shoulder as the sounds of water filling a bucket followed the scrape of metal at the sink. The metallic glug seemed to go on for ages and Muriel was actually humming to herself as she worked.

Alice always hated this kind of punishment, well hated it more than the rest anyway, but at least she consoled herself with the knowledge that this time it would be a private affair, which had not always been so during her training.

Then at last she felt the cold nozzle against her anus and her breathing became ragged with panic as she wriggled.

“I am just going to ease this in a little more, that’s it,” Muriel soothed.

Alice went wide around the eyes as she imagined she was accommodating a bull’s pizzle; a little more my… she screwed up her face and tensed up, quite literally my… the rest of the angry thought was literally washed away.

“Relax,” Muriel commanded her, “relax or I will spank you.”

The threat was enough and sudden she was open and something filled her to full. However, that was only the beginning, she realised, the real delivery was yet to come.

“Oh, oh, aaaaaah,” Alice groaned as the water poured into the funnel.

The tube was long but not long enough to delay the sudden burning flood that throbbed, pumped and moved in her innards.

“Muriel, M-m… ooh, Ma’am, that’s… that’s enough,” Alice gasped.

But Muriel continued until the carefully measured amount had been administered.

Alice responded by gripping the sawhorse and gasping herself cross-eyed as the deep filling burn began to take hold.

“Now you just stay like that a while, I’ll be back,” Muriel said wiping her hands and leaving her alone.

To Alice’s dismay the door was left wide open and she prayed no one would see her like this.

*

The cramps and spasmodic discomfort had made the 20 minutes of waiting for Muriel to return seem like days. Just about then she would have done absolutely anything she was told.

When finally she heard someone behind her she gave a little sob of relief.

“Now don’t you fret Miss Bowman,” Mrs Stevens said in a maternal tone.

“Mrs Stevens,” Alice gasped, “What…?”

“Hush now, Mrs Baxter sent me,” the cook said, “she’ll be along later.”

Alice wanted to crawl away and just die as Mrs Stevens helped her up. But that was only the beginning. The woman made no effort to move as Alice hopped from one foot to the other and finally dashed for the undergrowth.

“Feeling better?” Mrs Stevens asked when Alice returned.

Alice nodded, her face so red and hot she would have gratefully melted.

“Now Miss Bowman, are you ready for another?” the cook asked holding up the funnel and tube.

Alice gaped. “But…”

“Over my knee now and we’ll get started,” Mrs Stevens said, now sitting on a stool by the sink.

“If you think I am going to… why you are just staff here,” Alice snapped in a shrill voice.

“Oh dear, Mrs Baxter said you might take that attitude,” the cook sighed and as Alice watched she took up the paddle off the bench and beckoned Alice to her.

“You’re not going to…” Alice gulped, hastily looking around for an escape.

The cook shrugged and said, “Mrs Baxter said it was up you but if you didn’t cooperate she would postpone your punishment until tomorrow when Katherine was around to help. She said you would look cute standing in the corner downstairs in front of the other girls.”

“Tell me Mrs Stevens, you didn’t used to be a Sinclair girl did you?” a mortified Alice asked ruefully.

“Once a Sinclair girl always a Sinclair girl,” the cook grinned.

Alice winced and allowed herself to be tugged forward by the arm and deposited crosswise over Mrs Steven’s knee.

“Now for giving me some attitude you are going to get a nice long and good sound spanking,” the cook said cheerfully, “Hell, I have missed this.”

The word ‘this’ cumulated in the impact of a stiff paddle right where Alice sat and she shrieked. The woman was a devil, Alice thought in horror, but the spanking had begun in earnest and Mrs Steven’s wondered if they could hear the woman yelling all the way to town.

“Alright, alright, I’ll take your damn enema,” Alice wept.

“Oh I know you will, two or three before I am done,” Mrs Stevens chuckled, “But first you have that spanking coming and do please give me some attitude about it, please. It is all I ask.”

“Ooh,” Alice wailed through gritted teeth, her bottom really didn’t need the extra help, not today.

I’ll never smoke again, she promised the universe, but she knew that was the least of her sins. This was about standards, the bedrock of the Sinclair Method, and her failure to meet them.

To be continued.

Our story began here.

So far it had been an ordeal of fire and water and Alice Bowman had never felt so clean, neither inside nor out. Nevertheless, she strained to be as stoical as she could but it was a futile attitude to take, for the whole point of Muriel Baxter’s chastisement regime was to break Alice down utterly. So the longer she took to surrender the worse her punitive experience would be. But nonetheless it was expected, that was the nature of the Sinclair Method. If she did not strive to endure then she would not fully benefit from her experience and ultimately neither would her girls.

Alice had stood in the corner of the woodshed for longer than she could gauge. With each passing minute she felt herself shrinking even as her tight hot bottom seemed to grow. In fact the searing throb in her behind gave her a sense that the straining ravaged rounds would burst at any minute, a fact that left her as much in respectful awe as cowed. It had been so long since she had been under Muriel’s close supervision and she had forgotten what an expert she was.

“We are not such a big important girl now, are we?” Muriel asked in maternal tones.

As she spoke she ran a gentle fingernail over Alice’s textured welted flesh and drawing a hiss from the woman.

“No Ma’am,” Alice gasped.

“You know that this is for your own good don’t you Alice?” Muriel purred.

Alice gulped and blinked hard into the wall.

“Yes Ma’am,” she said at last, “But… Mrs Stevens…” Her voice was close to cracking and it was all she could do not to cry again when she thought of her humiliation at the hands’ of the cook.

“Mrs Stevens has been invaluable in helping me take you down a peg or two. Just think how very much worse it would have been had I had to employ Katherine to help me,” Muriel said in a vaguely disapproving voice.

“Oh no Ma’am, I mean yes, thank you Ma’am,” Alice said hastily, her eyes bugging at the very thought.

“Hush now,” Muriel soothed. “Now we come to the main event,” she continued. “Next comes a good old fashioned American spanking.”

Alice gaped into the wall and then frowned. She might have expressed her puzzlement at such a relatively mild operation when Muriel picked something up from the bench in the corner of the woodshed.

“For that correction I shall employ a good old fashioned American paddle,” Muriel said crisply as she hefted the object.

Alice worked her throat and wished she could merge with the wall in front of her face.

“This one is of the sturdier punitive sorority paddles,” Muriel added, “Not one of those merely decorative affairs.”

“No Ma’am,” Alice said nervously, “I mean…”

“I know what you mean Alice; I know you are a good girl and wouldn’t argue.”

“No Ma’am,” Alice greed firmly. Heaven forbid; the dread thought came unbidden.

“Now with you heels together and your bottom uppermost I want you to bend over the saw horses there,” Muriel told her charge.

“Ooh, yes Ma’am,” Alice said apprehensively.

*

It took a while for Muriel to be satisfied that Alice was holding the right posture. To that end she had made Alice bend right over with her knees tucked under the cross plank of the saw horse. This served both to elevate her bare bottom to the highest point and to make it form an almost perfect tight sphere.

The position was both undignified and uncomfortable as the stretched skin was reignited with its earlier sting. But worse still was the waiting. As she held position the only sound in the room was her gentle breathing and the light tickle of the breeze in the trees beyond the woodshed.

“Are you ready Alice?” Muriel asked for the third time.

Alice let out along slow breath and nodded.

“Alice?” Muriel chided.

“Yes Ma’am,” Alice acknowledged.

The blast of the paddle was sudden and breath-stealing. For a moment Alice’s world hung on end and then what had been an unbearable fiery sting really tore into her.

“Yahhh,” Alice hissed and pumped her thighs.

The second swat was loud and Alice realised that she hadn’t even heard the first. It landed like hot iron placing sting upon burn and that too began to cook as it grew worse.

“Ooh-huh-eh-huh-eh-huh,” Alice sang as she tried to control her breathing and regulate the pain.

The third defied logic. Alice was sure it couldn’t get worse and that the sting was at maximum but the paddle was proving her wrong.

“Ooooooooh-mmmmm,” Alice grunted as she blinked hard and squirmed vigorously.

“Good girl,” Muriel said breezily, “You’re taking this well.”

Alice’s bottom, which had already been red beyond red, was momentarily reshaped as edged white welts bordered her curves and a real purplish hue flooded the crowns. Bruising was inevitable, but in skilled hands like Muriel’s no skin would be broken, although in short order the governess’s bottom would look twice its usual size.

The next three were placed over less than a minutes and Alice made a strange croaking sound in her throat. It took a moment, but Muriel realised that she was crying again. As well she might, the older woman thought, I know I would be.

Then two minutes later Alice had taken 12 and from nine she trembled and then broke to real bawling.

“That’s it, let it all out,” Muriel soothed and patted the girl’s shoulder.

Alice nodded miserably, but was grateful for the comfort.

“H-how, how many more Ma’am?” she woefully asked.

Muriel considered this, tapping the flat of the paddle on her hand as she pondered.

“If you were me, what would you give you?” she asked.

Alice swallowed. “I guess I’m just about done,” she said in a thick wet voice, “so if it were one of the girls I’s give at least another dozen.”

It was a true but terrifying admission and Muriel was in awe of Alice’s courage and honesty, a true Sinclair girl through and through. The golden rule was that a spanking didn’t really begin until the girl was finished.

“And what if it was a hardened but wayward governess?” Muriel pressed the spanked woman.

Alice swallowed hard again and steeled herself.

“Please Muriel, Ma’am, please I…” she wailed.

“How many?”

“T-twice that, maybe… maybe more,” Alice sobbed.

“And we have a winner,” Muriel said cheerfully s she landed another swat.

This time Alice did not hold back with her song of pain.

To be continued.

Joanna looked at her watch and then shifted impatiently in her seat. What was the big deal? She picked up the Attainder Notice again and re-read it.

The indictment read, petty fraud, tax evasion, failure to report to a hearing, failure to pay preliminary fines and assorted other picky little offences. Well the tax, late interest and all the fines had been paid now, both her manager, agent and even her damn family had insisted upon it.

No doubt they wanted to give her another financial sanction or maybe some community time, but the speculation about jail time was a joke. Joanna laughed as she remembered some of the lurid press speculation. There was no such thing as bad publicity in her game. Nevertheless these justice department people were taking their own sweet time to see her.

Joanna Gatsby gave a heavy sigh and got to her feet and went to the large picture in the waiting room. The glass plate on it gave her a reflective surface to work on her lippy; not that she needed to.

The wide-eyed ‘innocent’ that stared back at her had a practiced pout and neatly groomed piled up business-like blonde hair. The hat was a nice touch too; old-fashioned and told the world she was solid and not just another 23rd century bimbo.

It was the image that had fronted a dozen albums, three movies and a TV show on the Tri-vid; she forced a smile. What the hell, if they didn’t buy her excuses this time she would pay them off again. After all money was no object.

*

The man behind the desk wore all black. Even his hair was slicked back and shiny jet; a bureaucrat right out of central casting. The hint of grey at his temples was a nice touch though, very theatrical, he must have let it remain as a sign of authority. Maybe if this went well she would give him a date.

“Ms Gatsby,” he said officiously, “I am so glad that you deigned to attend this time.”

Joanna returned a tight smile and felt like poking her tongue out at him.

“So what’s the damage this time?” she replied in a bored voice.

“Damage?” he frowned.

“Cut to the chase, I am busy,” she yawned, “How much?”

The man regarded her with disdain and then leant in close.

“There are no outstanding fines,” he said wearily, “But you have three consecutive transgressions to your name. This time there will be… other sanctions.”

The man opened a floating console on his right and regarded the scroll of options. Not that Joanna could make them out. But for the first time she allowed herself a hint of apprehension. She thought of the serious po-faced editorials about celebrity excess and how an example was needed. She thought too of the jail option that many had thought was a forgone conclusion. Joanna decided to say nothing and sat back defiantly as if untouchable.

Finally the bureaucrat turned his attention back to the arrogant starlet and seemed to weigh something up.

“You were found guilty in absentia,” he said carefully, “You know this?”

Joanna pursed her lips and nodded.

“And you have declined an appeal and have resolved matters by pleading guilty?”

She shrugged and looked bored.

“So all that remains is the sentence,” the man said brusquely as if confident that they were making progress.

“Sentence?” Joanna asked nervously.

“Your lawyer explained?” he suddenly looked concerned.

“Y-yes,” Joanna ventured uncertainly. She had sat through a boring meeting with the lawyer and her agent and manager. “Be polite and accept the lesser option,” they had all said. That had brought her here.

“Okay then,” he sighed with relief. “Assuming you want the psychotropic-temporal option and not prison?” he waited for her to nod or agree but she stared at him blankly. So he continued, “Anyway I have to give you the prison options before you disregard them.”

Joanna gaped and was suddenly alert.

“Thirty-six months in an open prison set against 6-24 months dependent in a punitive regime; dependent on good behaviour that is,” he told. “You can apply for either and as a first-timer they would probably accede to your preference.”

Joanna blanched. Three years could kill her career but what did ‘good behaviour’ mean? A possible two years did not sound good at all.

“And the psycho what-not, what is that?” she asked with an almost eager panic.

“Yes, your preferred option your representative tells me,” the man stabbed the air, presumably set open a screen option. “It is experimental and takes between nine and 28 days,” he told her suddenly warming up to a lecture.

“Nine days,” Joanna said breezily and nodded enthusiastically.

“Well that depends on you, on your subconscious so to speak. But as you know temporal…” he launched into another boring set of words about procedures and emersion therapies that went over her head.

It wasn’t until he said “effectively it is a personal time machine” that she began listening again.

“A time machine?” she gasped.

“You must have seen the news and the hoo-ha about military training by visiting past wars and the like, well this is a peaceful application of the same technology,” he said.

“Oh yes?” Joanna thought it actually sounded fun.

“We have three options for you, it doesn’t matter what you pick, not at the moment, although opinions differ about offering choices to future candidates,” he continued.

“More options?” she said wearily. Sometimes she wondered why they didn’t just get on with it. All these choices seemed a bit mealy-mouthed for a justice department.

“Yes, you can be an inmate at a Victorian women’s prison, or at least a 23rd century idea of one, obviously we can’t actually interrupt the timeline,” he explained.

“Well obviously,” she agreed sarcastically.

He looked at her disapprovingly before continuing.

“Or there is the young ladies’ Prussian School circa 1780, quite a favourite of mine, our last young lady had an interesting side trip to 18^th century Vienna and had a bit of a grand tour…”

Joanna didn’t like the sound of either Spartan history and began to feel her heart sink.

“I can see that… well this one is our least popular strangely, but it might suit you…” he ventured.

“Yes?” Joanna leaned forward.

“You can visit the past as an exchange student in 1950s America,” he said, “Subjectively the scenario lasts at least for the duration of one summer, which is why I think it is not popular, although frankly on average they all come out the same. You see the time spent interacting is determined by the participant. But I can say that this one usually completes within two weeks real time…”

“Never mind about subjective scenarios, you are saying that this one lasts no more than two weeks?” Joanna cut him off. She wished he didn’t talk so much.

“Usually… that is… well we don’t have all the data yet, but this is the shortest real time scenario yes,” he agreed, “But there are no guarantees.”

“What if once I am in… or down whatever… what if I don’t cooperate? I mean what if I just take off and follow my own agenda?” she asked.

He frowned and looked at her hard.

“The set-up is quite robust, but if you go too far off-piste then… well you will be extracted and then I am afraid we will have to explore the prison option.

“I get it,” Joanna said quickly, “But I guess I’ll take it.”

*

For a long time Joanna was in kind of a dream. She remembered who she was and everything that had happened but somehow it wasn’t real. What was real and increasingly so was a 20-year-old New Yorker also called Joanna who was on some kind of summer exchange from college in the so-called bible belt of 1950s America.

“Is it real?” she asked no one in particular and a blurry voice answered her.

“Oh yes,” he said in a distant voice, “But don’t worry, remember you can’t be harmed or change the past.”

“But how is that possible?” she asked fuzzily.

The same voice had told her that was classified but that was a memory now and this time another answered her.

“What did you say Joanna?” The speaker was young a feminine.

Joanna blinked and worked her mouth. Her face was pressed up against glass and through blinking eyes she saw fields of wheat race by. She groaned and shook herself.

“You slept then?” the girl who had spoken was speaking again.

The inside of the bus was vivid Technicolor and smelled of bleach and lavender. The people looked like characters in a period movie only, she gasped, the details were too real.

“Oh my God,” she gasped, “This is amazing.”

Several people glared at her and the young woman sitting next to her shushed her with wide eyes. The most disapproving looks came from two middle-aged black women who immediately began talking between themselves.

“Don’t curse,” the girl next to Joanna scolded her in genuine shock. Lesley-Anne, Joanna remembered, the girl’s name was Lesley-Anne or Lanney as she was called at college.

College, she was in college with the girl and at Easter she had visited with Joanna and her folks.

“But I am Joanna Gatsby,” Joanna protested, “I didn’t go to…”

“I know that silly, mercy you have been in a deep sleep,” Lanney giggled.

“Yes,” Joanna said absently, “Yes I was, Jesus though, this is f…”

“Joanna,” Lanney exclaimed punching her arm.

Thank God I didn’t complete that sentence Joanna smirked inwardly. Then she saw the sign on the inside of the bus.

“State law requires all colored passengers to ride in the rear of the bus,” it read.

“Christ on a bicycle,” she gasped, “You are shitting me.”

There were more glares this time but not from Lanney who only blushed and looked into her lap.

“It is kind of crazy ain’t it?” she whispered, “I guess we aren’t in New York anymore.”

“Or even Kansas,” Joanna quipped.

“No silly, this is Missouri.” Lanney found her giggle again.

*

The family Joanna and Lanney were staying with weren’t related to Lanney, although she was from the state and lived in a nearby town. As the Linklater’s were good church-going people Lanney’s folks had agreed to it readily.

The Linklater’s were eager to support young people and further their education which was why they had joined the Interstate Educational Programme and were taking in students. They had a son in the army, a married daughter and one still in college like Lanney and Joanna.

Joanna knew all this as well as she knew the street in New York where she hadn’t grown up or the school she hadn’t attended and the parents she had never ever met. But under it all she was Joanna Gatsby, famous for being famous and several TV shows to her name off the back of it.

“Now girls I don’t know what you are used to in New York but here you will observe a curfew of 10 o’clock. You will be at meals on time and your rooms will be spotless,” Mrs Linklater told them pleasantly as if it was the most natural thing in the world.

Joanna snorted with amusement at the quaint posturing but nodded politely and even muttered ‘yes Ma’am’ a beat after Lanney did.

“I know I don’t have to tell you not to smoke, cuss or anything like that do I?” Mrs Linklater added.

“No Ma’am,” Lanney said earnestly, but she shot a look at Joanna hoping that she wouldn’t slip up and tar them both.

“Your folks wrote to me Lanney and said I had full permission to take you in hand,” Mrs Linklater said sternly, “You know what that means?”

Lanney blushed and nodded.

“I use much the same methods I think you know, in fact your father and I had quite a talk on the telephone,” their host continued. “Yours too Joanna, your Pa said you would fit in with whatever we thought best and that it would be good for you for a change.” The woman smiled pleasantly and then added in a bemused tone, “Then he said something about Romans or Rome or…”

“When in Rome do as the Romans do,” Joanna said having no idea how she knew that, “That sounds like Dad.”

Not my Dad, Joanna bristled inwardly, but had the sense to stay quiet.

“That was it,” Mrs Linklater beamed, “What a clever man your Pa.”

*

A week had gone by and frankly Joanna was bored. I get it now, she thought, this whole time travel gig is to bore me to death. The coffee shop chatter between Frankie, Mr and Mrs Linklater’s 19-year-old daughter, and Lanney was inane. These kids don’t know anything, she groaned inwardly.

Still she had an uneasy feeling she wasn’t getting it. For one thing she had had time to think about subjective days versus actual days out there in the future. Joanna was beginning to think that although two weeks away from her precious career didn’t matter she could be stuck in this historical theme park for weeks from her perspective.

“Hey, what do you say we skip out and find us some action later,” she said suddenly to the two dumbstruck girls. “There must be a bar in this town or what about a movie house? Maybe we could hook up with some boys.”

The last thought made her grin. Of course, this place was full of young men not getting any. And she had been told point blank that she couldn’t alter the past. Sex with no consequences, what a hoot, and this was supposed to be a punishment. Hell, with what I know I could rule this planet if I had long enough.

But even as her fantasy played out in her head she was suddenly aware of the look of anguish on Lanney and Frankie’s faces.

“Are you nuts?” Frankie gasped, “My Mom would slay us.”

Joanna scoffed at this and rolled her eyes up.

“What is she going to do? Ground us?” she snorted.

The trouble was that the experience of this 1950s Joanna from New York was lacking in certain areas; mainly areas on which they were all at that moment sitting. It was an embarrassing and painful fact of life which any self-respecting unmarried woman living in Missouri was all too aware.

“I-I had better go,” Frankie muttered and without waiting she hastened off.

“I know you were only kidding Jo, but go easy on the kid will you? You know perfectly well what will happen, you heard Mrs Linklater,” Lanney chided her.

Joanna frowned; she didn’t entirely as there were subtleties that a 23^rd century girl could not quite compute even with the heads up from her counterparts acquired knowledge.

*

Much later Joanna wondered if the parameters of the scenario were pre-programmed in some way. She knew there was no script, on her first day she had written out two or three paragraphs of future history and pulled a couple of dance stunts that no one in this world would ever do. There was no metaphysical balance of nature, she knew that much. To the universe a blade of grass was as important as a war. True history was deaf, dumb and blind. If she could alter little things then she could alter big stuff, except that is it wouldn’t stick so it didn’t matter. However, had she been set-up to fail here, set-up to crash the social system and real the consequences?

The day after the coffee shop discussion Joanna came home to find Frankie standing in the hallway. She was facing the wall with her hands on her head like a toddler doing a time out.

“What the hell are you doing?” Joanna asked her new friend.

“Joanna,” Frankie gasped in horror, “Go away.”

Mrs Linklater wasn’t sure if she had heard correctly so decided to let the H-word go for now. Instead she came into the hall and motioned Joanna away.

“Frankie left her room in an awful mess for the third time this week,” she told her older charge and guest, “I have warned her. Now as soon as Mr Linklater gets home she is going to get a spanking.”

“Jesus H, are you kidding me?” Joanna blurted.

“Joanna Gatsby, I will not have that language in my house nor will you question me with such disrespect. I thought I heard you cussing just now but I… I chose not… well I never. Joanna go to your room at once,” Mrs Linklater all but roared at her.

Joanna jerked back and almost obeyed. Then her true self reasserted itself and she felt a sense of true outrage.

“What the f… now you are seriously joking. Who do you think you are anyway?” she snapped back.

“What did you say?” the older woman gasped. She was beyond shocked for a moment.

“I said…” Joanna began.

“I know what you said,” Mrs Linklater bellowed, “I heard you, but I don’t believe it. Very well, if you won’t go to your room you will go and stand in the corner next to Francine.”

Joanna opened her mouth to protest and then she remembered where she was. What would her 1950s counterpart do? As she considered Mrs Linklater seized her by the arm and projected her to the corner.

“Alright, alright,” she said angrily, “This is nuts but I get it.”

“Oh you’ll get it alright, just you wait until Mr Linklater comes home,” the indignant housewife scolded.

Facing the wall with it just an inch from her nose Joanna suddenly felt very silly and about a foot high.

“This is crazy,” she muttered.

“Don’t Joanna, you’ll only make it worse,” Frankie whispered.

It was only then that something began to gnaw at the pit of Joanna’s stomach.

*

Mr Linklater was 45 going on 60 to Joanna’s eyes. But he had this stern paternal manner that up to now she had quite liked. In some ways she wished that she had had a father like him and since coming to his home she had quietly realised what her own society was lacking. For one thing, although he was friendly he didn’t try to be a friend or indulge in undignified ingratiation with the girls. But as soon as he came home Joanna felt nervous.

As it was Linklater took one look at the girls and snorted before ignoring them.

Two minutes later Frankie and Joanna heard a rather shrill Mrs Linklater telling her rather calm husband what they had done or so they presumed. The details were lost in dark tones and muttering but after a few minutes they heard well enough.

“Francine, get in here,” Mr Linklater barked.

Joanna waited with baited breath while an unheard stern lecture was given. Then a few minutes later there was the sound of clapping. No not clapping, smacks; a dozen short sharp ones at first and then they alternatively were fast and then slow while a scolding male voice berated his daughter with deep tones and unheard words.

A little after this the spanks got louder and Frankie began mewling and giving out with little squeals and yelps. There was a solid definite thwack to the sounds and Joanna guessed that a hand had been substituted for something else.

By then of course Frankie was crying loudly and even from the hall Joanna could hear a chorus of “I am sorry daddy, I’m sorry.”

Fifteen minutes after it began Frankie was brought back and set to face the wall again. Only this time her skirt was rolled to her hips and her panties were at her knees so that her bare bottom was left red and exposed.

Joanna gulped and steeled herself for a concerted round of denials, refusals and objections.

“Miss Gatsby, please come in,” Mr Linklater said in a reasonable voice.

Joanna took a breath and obeyed.

“Now Mr…”

“Joanna,” he cut her off, “May I ask why you were so rude to my wife?”

Joanna blushed and worked her mouth to futile effect. She had been rude hadn’t she? Shit, why hadn’t she just rolled with it and kept her mouth shut?

“I… I’m sorry Mr Linklater, I… was just a little surprised at… well I am sorry.” She sounded sincere and after a fashion she was.

“And did you cuss at her and then refuse to go to your room?” he pressed her; a study in calm reason.

Joanna resorted to mouth breathing and could only nod.

“Hmmm,” the paternal man offered as he studied her over his glasses.

The latter he removed and polished for a moment as he considered something.

“Can you think of a reason why I shouldn’t deal with you just as I just dealt with Francine?” he asked matter-of-factly.

“Don’t you think I am too old for that?” Joanna squeaked. She felt like a schoolroom ninny and wondered where her scorching temper and attitude had fled to.

“No,” Mr Linklater tossed back casually, “As a matter of fact I don’t.”

“Oh,” Joanna winced and scoured her brain for something else to say.

The next series of events happened too fast for Joanna to consider. One moment she was upright and the next she was hauled across the room and down over Mr Linklater’s lap as he sat on padded couch at the end of the room. Her voluminous skirts and petticoats were tossed carelessly over her back in a trice her panties were efficiently pulled down her thighs to expose her pert neat bottom.

“Whooo-at?” she gasped in surprise. Then it got worse.

Punctuated with a solid volley of spanks to her bottom Mr Linklater growled, “I will not have disrespect in my house. You will not, I repeat not abuse my wife.”

Joanna was robbed of breath as she felt more spanks than words blasting on her bottom. But as soon as the initial shock left her she let go with a cascade of yelling until these were overtaken by her struggle to breathe.

By then her bottom was two stinging domes of fire and she kicked her feet in tight little pumping motions.

“Your behaviour is an outrage and I won’t have it,” the man scolded her as he spanked on, only pausing to take up a hairbrush that had been left on the couch by his side.

Joanna’s eyes widened as she guessed what was coming.

The next round of biting fire was beyond words or shouts and for the next 10 minutes she would have happily converted to every religion on Earth just for the chance to pray for her bottom. Now devoid of dignity she bawled like a half-pint brat until her cries might have been heard out on the street.

“Right,” Mr Linklater finally barked at her, “Go and stand next to Francine in the hall and don’t you dare move. Like her you will stay there until we have had supper and then you will go to bed without. Am I perfectly clear?”

“Yes Sir,” Joanna wailed miserably.

She knew instinctively not to cover her bottom as she danced from foot to foot. In fact at that moment there was not one solitary thing she would do without an instruction.

“Good and no rubbing mind, get those hands on your head,” he growled.

Joanna obeyed at once and in a tumble of sobbing she scampered out to the hall trying to shield her nudity half bending as her scarlet behind trailed after her.

*

For Joanna it was a wakeup call. No one had ever treated her like that and never had she been so embarrassed. Not only that but when it came to it and against all expectation she had just caved in to a scolding and gone along with it. Then to top it all she had been sent to bed without an evening meal like an errant teen. It was so early that there wasn’t even the comfort of darkness to hide her shame.

Now the night was dark and hot and somewhere a cicada gently sang in a chirruping throb. The sound matched the ache in Joanna’s bottom and she felt her face flush as she relieved the very public spanking earlier that evening.

Her mind raced even as her fingers oh so slowly explored the tender curves of her bottom. With the sheet pulled down to her thighs the relative chill of the night air cooled her prickled skin to afford some comfort, but not much. Cupping both buttocks with her hands she weighed them and marvelled at the illusion of increased size. Despite her shame there was some sensuality to the act and she blushed unseen in the darkness.

As she tossed things over in her mind she could not recapture the sense of justified outrage at either Frankie’s or her own treatment. It was almost as if she had deserved it, but that was crazy. They were crazy and come to that the whole damn… she swallowed hard. ‘It ain’t you girl it is the others’ she thought.

“You can’t just do what you want and let the whole world go hang,” her mother had once told her.

Well it was crazy, that’s what it was, just effing crazy. Then she giggled. Even alone she didn’t dare swear in her thoughts properly. Man this place was getting to her.

*

The next morning it was almost as if nothing had happened. Oh for sure Frankie couldn’t look her in the eye, but then Joanna felt the same. Only Lanney seemed to risk a curious look or two in their direction. But Mr and Mrs Linklater were all smiles and patience as if wayward young women were a fact of life.

The least said, soonest mended. Now that was something her father had always muttered after a family row. Or was that her other… she sighed and shook herself. It is not real, not really real, she told herself, but the smell of bacon gave made that a lie.

The days passed and thoughts of spanking faded like a closing wound leaving things much as they were before. Well almost. Joanna had stopped voicing rebellion and instead of coasting around town she kept a weather eye on the clock least she be late.

This is worse than prison, she thought, here I am my own jailer. It is almost as if they make me responsible for me, she railed inwardly. But she didn’t dwell on the thought, it made her too uncomfortable.

It was a week after her first spanking that things went awry again.

The girls had gone to a party. It was kind of kooky (kooky was a Lanney word) that there was no booze of any kind, but the wall-to-wall crinoline, bobby socks and pony tails made it the ultimate 1950s theme event.

Lanney had thrown herself into it with an infectious wild abandon so even when Frankie had made her excuses and gone home Joanna had just joined in with the fun. So it was that 10 o’clock came and went and then 11 before either girl noticed the time.

“We are so busted,” Lanney wailed.

“You think?” a grimaced-faced Joanna asked, “I mean we are only…”

Lanney shot her a pitying look, but then added brightly, “But maybe they went to bed already; once Frankie got in I mean. You know, we are older after all.”

Joanna shrugged. What had happened before had been a one-of. She had been taken unawares and this time she would tell them where to get off. But then maybe if the Linklater’s had gone to bed then there would be no issue. After all they were only an hour late.

Two hours after curfew two young women crept toe-before-toe up the garden path with shoes in hand. On account of the heat, the back window was ajar and it was a simple matter to reach in and unhook the backdoor too.

The screen door was a bitch, the hinges screamed like a night jar and both girls froze for a second. Then hearing no other sound they edged forward until they were both standing in the kitchen.

“Well good night,” Lanney whispered as she crept away.

“Good night,” Joanna replied.

The sudden light was blinding. Mr Linklater was just a dark outline from the hall, but even in silhouette they could see his dour demeanour.

“Good evening girls, or should I say good morning?” he growled.

“Mr Linklater we…” Lanney began, her hands nervously wringing.

But he just pointed sternly up the stairs and then folded his arms.

“I’ll speak to you both in the morning,” he said.

*

This time Joanna and Lanney faced the wall in the family room rather than the hall. They had been divested of her PJ bottoms by an uncompromising Mrs Linklater and before either girl could string a word of protest they were nose to the plaster with their bare bottoms cooling in the breeze.

“They can’t do this to us,” Joanna whispered, but not so loudly that anyone but Lanney heard.

Lanney risked a turn of her head to make a face that yelled, ‘oh yeah right.’

“Stand still,” Mrs Linklater snapped. “If either of you move, just once or give me any backtalk… I swear I’ll send you both into the yard to cut a switch just as you are.”

Lanney gulped in a way that convinced Joanna to take the threat seriously. Why am I going along with this? She berated herself, if anyone could see me now… but they could, they really could. For one thing the drapes had already been drawn back to greet the morning and the nets were French-style half-lengths. It didn’t take much to be seen from the street. Also Frankie, and when came in Mr Linklater, were well able to view their shame. Nor was it a comfort to Joanna to tell herself that it wasn’t really real. It was as real as the coffee that assailed her nose.

“You can stay there until after breakfast,” Mr Linklater said when he finally put in an appearance. “I will deal with you then.”

“Yes Sir,” Lanney agreed sullenly.

Joanna worked her mouth but no word of support or contrary would leave her lips.

*

“Is this really necessary?” Joanna asked some 20 minutes after breakfast with still no resolution. With her bare behind hanging in the breeze, so to speak, and with her face hot against the wall the submissive posture was really working on her nerves. She was utterly mortified.

“Yes,” came the terse reply from Mr Linklater.

The man nonchalantly tapped his pipe on the mantle and then carefully began thumbing tobacco into the bowl. His demeanour was Solomon-like as he weighed up the girls’ sins. Then coming to a decision he placed the bit in his mouth and paused to light his pipe.

“Now girls have you any idea how disrespectful your gallivanting to all hours was?” he asked. “Not to mention the risk it posed to both your reputations and your personal safety. My wife and I are responsible for you, what were you thinking?”

He sucked down and allowed a huge ring of blue smoke rise to the ceiling.

“And don’t get me started on the example you have set for Frankie,” he continued.

Lanney bit her lip at this point and managed to feel even more ashamed.

“Yes Sir, sorry Sir,” she groaned.

Joanna merely rolled her eyes and sighed.

“Joanna,” Mr Linklater barked.

“Yes Sir, I am sorry too,” she said huffily.

Joanna wanted to be more genuine about it, but under the circumstances her attitude was her only defence. Anything else was an admission he was right and she was wrong and she wasn’t ready.

“I think you will be,” Mr Linklater sighed. “Miss Gatsby, you first I think.”

He didn’t say anymore but put down the pipe and took Joanna’s arm. Then like before she was manoeuvred across his lap on the couch with her bare bottom uppermost.

The spanking was quick and fast to begin with and Joanna greeted the onslaught with sustained and unseemly wail.

“We haven’t even started yet,” Linklater scolded, his hand slapping down in shorter hard burst that really connected.

Then after five minutes or so he stopped and reached for something. Joanna glanced back over her shoulder, shocked at the twin red hills looming there. The hairbrush in his hand was no surprise.

“I’m sorry, I mean it, I’m sorry,” she pleaded.

The brush didn’t listen and in moments pistol like shots really shook the room. They even rivalled Joanna shrill yelling as over the next 10 minutes or so the fire redefined her bottom for her.

She didn’t hear much of Lanney’s spanking. Once returned to the wall it was all she could do not to grab her behind as she hopped and danced in time to some hearty sobbing. It was only when Lanney joined her again at the wall did Joanna become aware of the rest of the room.

“I am sorry,” she said in a miserable voice, hiccoughing out a sob.

“I know,” Mr Linklater said somewhat kindly. “Think on it for a while.”

A while turned out to be the rest of Saturday morning.

Saturday was not a good day to be in the corner at the Linklater’s. For one thing some of Frankie’s friends dropped by. The hoots of laughter and supressed giggles made Lanney start to cry again, although Joanna just glowered into the wall.

At least the fellows stayed outside, although from the masculine chuckles when the girls finally left, Joanna was in doubt that they had been fully put in the picture.

Nor did things get any better after that.

Around 11 Mrs Linklater’s friends dropped by for a coffee morning.

“Oh my, someone has been a naughty girl,” observed one of the women.

“I haven’t seen bottoms like that since my cousin and I were caught skinny dipping,” chuckled another.

“Oh I think my Marnie sported as much the weekend before last, I caught her kissing that Taylor boy you know,” said another.

This prompted a discussion on the youth of today and lax morals. This was accompanied by not a few stories of spanked teenagers and the need to give even college girls a good sound spanking now again.

“If my Marnie sees that Taylor boy again then she won’t sit down for a month,” Marnie’s mother told the group.

“My Jenny is seeing a nice college boy over at Stanford. But even she has let her grades slip and after I found out she went to a hop three nights running… well let’s just say that I know a girl who is as indisposed as these two over at her sister and brother-in-law’s place.” There was a disapproving sigh before first woman added in an amused voice, “Well I couldn’t leave her in the corner alone at home, her little cherry tail might have got lonely.”

“Doesn’t your son-in-law have the boys over for… well on Saturday’s before the game?” the skinny dipping woman said.

“Oh that is later, but I wouldn’t care if they did see her tender hiney, it will do her good, like these two here. They all get far too big for their boots,” the first woman explained.

Joanna wanted to die and Lanney was so beside herself that she had begun gently crying again.

The rest of their corner time was excruciating and by the time they were released Joanna was ready to obey any rule anyone ever made for her.

*

Both Joanna and Lanney had real issues sitting down for about a week after that and neither of them were quite comfortable at Saturday coffee mornings again. Although any embarrassment about being around Frankie’s friends soon faded as the girls learnt that most of them were spanked at one time or another and as in the Linklater’s home, that usually came with rather challenging corner time for everyone.

Other than that the matter with the missed curfew seemed resolved and neither Mr nor Mrs Linklater mentioned it again.

Of course that summer the girls were all spanked several more times for one reason or another, both severally and individually. Joanna soon found that fessing up and a level of acceptance often got her a more discreet session over Mr Linklater’s lap and after these spankings she always felt much better.

So in the end far from dragging the summer was soon over and Joanna almost forgot that there was no college waiting for her in New York.

“Why don’t you both come back later in the year?” Mrs Linklater gushed. “We can even light a fire maybe if it is cold and roast some marshmallows.”

“That won’t be all that gets roasted knowing you Ma,” Frankie giggled.

There was general laughter at this but although Joanna and Lanney were blushing wildly they both joined in.

“I would be glad to,” Joanna said, but in her heart she knew she never would.

Did these people even really exist? They certainly wouldn’t remember her after she had gone if they did. That thought weighed heavy with her all the way to the bus station and well into the journey back north. Then finally Joanna slept.

She was awoken in what looked like a hospital room.

“Was there a crash?” she asked.

Then she remembered.

“I guess I won’t be going back then,” she said ruefully on seeing the same stern bureaucrat from before. “Was I even there?”

“Oh yes,” the man smiled, “Did you learn your lesson?”

Joanna blushed and nodded. Then she grabbed his arm and asked again, “Were they okay? I mean did things work out fine for Lanney and the Linklater’s… the town?”

“As far as I know about this time line, as for the one that was created by you and your actions… well what do you think?” he asked.

“But you said… you said there would be no consequences,” she said animatedly.

“There are always consequences, I said there was no danger,” the man shrugged, “But you seem concerned, would you like to go back some time and see?”

“Could I?” Joanna asked; she was suddenly excited.

“We could call it a holiday and it would be invaluable to our research,” the man replied.

“Has anyone ever done it before?” Joanna said now rather puzzled.

“It is more common than you would think,” the man said quietly, “Some don’t even come back.”

Joanna gaped. “But you said…”

“I said ‘usually’ and that ultimately it was up to the individual. You found what you needed and completed your rehabilitation. This time anyway.”

Joanna frowned and looked away.

“If I had told you before would you have agreed to go?”

Joanna shrugged.

“Are you sorry?”

“Not about going, no,” Joanna gave him a tight smile.

The man picked up his notes and turned to go.

“You seem changed, less of a…” he shrugged and left without finishing.

“Less of a brat, yes I know,” Joanna said wistfully to the door.

It was only then that Joanna realised that she hadn’t asked how long she had been away. But, she supposed, it didn’t really matter. After all, she had all the time in the world.

Our story began here.

Before the girls returned that afternoon, Alice had been permitted to go to bed early with a ‘headache.’ This not only spared her blushes but spared her the ordeal of sitting down for supper. That is to say not sitting down and letting everyone know what had happened. Not that she had any energy or appetite to spare for something as prosaic as a meal. Instead she had limped gratefully to bed and slept the sleep of the just.

Nor did she rise for breakfast the next day, being too mortified as she was to face anyone much before noon. This normally wouldn’t have been tolerated but for once Muriel Baxter very much wanted Alice to be able to save face to preserve her authority.

Finally and just before luncheon Alice donned a loose fitting skirt and putting her best face on made her way downstairs. Even a day after her spanking and woodshed experience just walking was an ordeal. Each step flared in her bottom, which felt tighter than a jazz drum being struck three to the dozen in some relentless and reckless rhythm. Alice had to take slow careful steps with a practiced look of neutrality clinging to her face less she openly wince with each movement.

“Feeling better?” Jenny asked sympathetically on seeing the governess.

“Wh-what do you mean?” Alice said, as she startled.

“Mrs Baxter said that you had a headache?” Jenny put in uncertainly.

“Oh eh, oh yes,” Alice said quickly with a tight smile, “I-I’m feeling much better now, thank you Jenny.”

“Mrs Baxter says we might go back with her for a visit. To Sinclair Ladies’ College I mean.” Jenny still sounded uncertain.

“Yes I know,” Alice said pausing where she stood and desperately wanting to massage her bottom. “It is not exactly a school, more a house like this one but with a few more girls and some trainee governesses. But how do you feel about that?”

Jenny frowned.

“Is it because I have been bad?” she asked.

Alice laughed and shook her head. “No of course not,” she replied.

“I am not completely dumb,” Jenny said carefully, “I mean I do know that Mrs Baxter is the head honcho so to speak and I bet she is much stricter than you. I mean to say… well I know I behaved like a brat at first but isn’t Mrs Baxter’s place more like a reform school?”

“No, it isn’t like that, but you are right there will be higher standards. It is usually where the older girls go, the volunteers. Is that what is worrying you? Are you nervous that things will be stricter?” Alice was frowning now. Jenny didn’t have to go, but if she did she would effectively be a volunteer. Did that mean she could leave? Alice was suddenly nervous for the girl, she wasn’t ready to brave the world alone and if she went back to that aunt of hers she would fall into bad habits.

“No,” Jenny said slowly with some thought, “I’m not scared of worst punishments… well I am, but it is not that. I probably deserve stricter punishments. It is just… well I have a feeling that I belong for the first time and… and… no it’s not that either. I just don’t want to fail and I don’t want to fail you.”

“Oh you haven’t, really you haven’t,” Alice sighed, “If anything I have failed you.”

She remembered her own slip in standards and the previous day’s punishment. Also she didn’t want to say that Mrs Baxter wanted her to focus on Katherine and Mary. That would sound as if Jenny and Janet were less than they were.

“You haven’t failed me, or Janet, even I can see what we were like before,” Jenny gushed. “I couldn’t go back to how it was before I just couldn’t.”

“Then don’t. But all things change,” Alice said kindly as she took half a step forward, and the suppressing a wince she added, “Just think about it alright?”

“I will,” Jenny said brightly and smiled.

*

Alice was attempting to read with one leg tucked under her thigh so as to keep her bottom off the window seat. It was an uncomfortable enough posture, but not as unpleasant as allowing her behind take her full weight even with the soft padding on the bay window’s surface.

She was still wincing and squirming when she noticed Katherine approaching.

“Miss Bowman, can I have a word please?” Katherine asked politely.

Alice gave her a fixed grin and with a surreptitious stiffness adjusted her posture.

“Of course,” she said, the grin not leaving her face as she indicated the seat next to her.

Katherine sensed something was wrong but decided it was better to say nothing as she obeyed and sat in the opposite corner of the bay.

“Is there something I can do for you?” Alice asked seeing that Katherine wasn’t going to speak.

The younger woman sucked in a long slow breath and drew herself up to reply.

“I hear that Janet and Jenny are to return with Mrs Baxter,” Katherine said at last.

“That hasn’t been settled yet, but they may be,” Alice answered, “But Mrs Baxter has made the suggestion, yes.”

Katherine nodded.

“So what is troubling you about that?” Alice pressed the girl.

“Isn’t… isn’t that where Mrs Baxter trains governesses in the Sinclair Method?” Katherine was looking down into her lap.

“That’s right, it is where I was trained, but also a great many girls who are not following that path receive guidance there too,” Alice replied in a neutral voice.

“But I thought… that is… one day I thought I might too become a governess like you,” Katherine said, still not looking up.

“And so you shall and Mary too I think,” Alice said. There was a half-supressed urgency in her voice and now and a hint a puzzlement crossed her face.

Katherine looked up now, a wild expectant look dancing back and forth with her eyes.

“But…” she whispered.

“That is why Mrs Baxter wants Janet and Jenny to go with her, so I can further yours and Mary’s training somewhat. When you go to Mrs Baxter’s establishment it will be as a trainee governess I expect,” Alice told her.

“Oh,” Katherine squealed and launched herself forward to hug Alice.

Alice groaned as she was shoved back on to her bottom and had to grit her teeth.

“I won’t let you down, I am ever so grateful,” Katherine violently enthused, “I can’t tell you how… oh… oh, wait until I tell Mary.”

“Well yes, but do wait until it is settled won’t you?” Alice chuckled, “But Katherine, you do know what this means don’t you?”

Katherine nodded and smiled and then nodded some more before she giggled, “No, not really.”

“That with just Mary and you here I will have a free rein to bring you task,” Alice replied now suddenly serious.

Katherine flushed a little but the smile didn’t leave her face. “I know but… well I know… I think I do… you mean things will be stricter around here.”

Alice’s smile became a firm tight line and she nodded as if in regret.

Katherine shrugged.

“I guess I’ll cope,” she said ruefully. “But in for a penny…”

To be continued.

Here is a Saturday quickie. This a poster from the 1957 movie Sorority Girl. Despite the poster there is only one off screen paddle sequence (the one in the poster) and that is depicted as a bullying. Although the girl takes it in good part and there is a suggestion that she deserved it, but the other girls think that our evil heroine shouldn’t have done it.

It is an interesting curio and well worth a look when it next does the late-night rounds but not one to seek out I think as the poster is more interesting from a spanking point of view than the film.

One of my earliest memories of exposure to spanking was through comics. Mostly it was a school setting and there was something about it that intrigued me. It was pure gold when I girl was getting spanked or caned although these incidents were rare.

As I got older and Marvel beckoned Susan Storm (AKA The Invisible Woman) was a regular recipient and I began to see that not only was there was spanking beyond school but that apparently women were never too old to be spanked. In fact in comic world women were more likely to be spanked than schoolgirls.

I did not realise then that the golden age had passed and that gender politics had reared its boring but necessary head even in comics so I missed out on many great scenes. It was remiss of me to favour Marvel over DC as the latter was much slower in embracing political correctness and even in my day spankings seem to have been more frequent in these comics.

Looking back what surprises me (or would have in those days) is the amount of romance magazines aimed at girls that included spanking. Some of the pictures I have discovered are probably from adult BD comics from the continent and would not have been available to me until much later anyway.

Above and in a future posts I will republish a handful of images of this type, all of which I chanced upon on vanilla blogs and sites and many of which I had not seen before.

The Chicago Spanking Review (linked right) probably already has most of these and many more like them.