The Spanking Writers

A work acquaintance told tale t’other day of a colleague who’s just relocated from London to the States, together with wife and teenage daughter.

It would be a few weeks into her first term at her new school that the call would come from the principal’s office, asking him to pick up his daugher immediately for some grave offence. “I’d usually paddle students for this, but since you signed the form refusing permission for me to use corporal punishment, I have no choice but to suspend her,” he’d explain.

“What form?”

“It was one of the sheaf of papers you returned to us before your daughter started.”

And so the saga would unfold: the daughter who’d offered to read all the paperwork and so helpfully to fill it in, so all her father had to do was sign. Her failure in so doing to mention the disciplinary form, knowing that her father would doubtless condone a sound paddling were she to misbehave.

The journey to the school to pick up both the girl and a fresh punishment form. A stern lecture that evening, before his belt was taken off and folded double. Tears and cuddles afterwards. And a trip to the principal’s office the following morning to deliver her fresh form, then bend over his desk to be paddled hard across her jeans.

I got out of bed at my normal weekday hour of 7am, except it was Sunday, so I didn’t have to actually be properly up. I padded to the bathroom, waving good morning to Abel (who gets up at the crack of dawn no matter what day it is), and then, coming back, I told him that I wasn’t, in fact, up: I was still in bed.

“Why are you not in the dormitory in the middle of the night?” he demanded, getting up from his chair. “Wandering around the corridors like that is not acceptable. Come with me.”

He escorted me to the bedroom, where he picked up a conveniently available cane. “Over the bed,” he said.

I leaned over the edge of the bed, bit on my lip, not wishing to wake the neighbourhood, and winced through a swift, stingy caning. “Ow, sir,” I said meekly when it was over.

“Don’t let it happen again,” he said. “Get back into bed, young lady.”

And so I did. The rest of that morning’s dreams were very pleasant.

“Harems don’t really do it for me.”

At least, that was my starting point in a discussion with Cath, who’s been staying with us for the past few days. She sniggered her surprise.

It wasn’t so much the continuous availability of beautiful women at my beck and call that was the problem, I explained. More, it was that the sultan (for, of course, that would be my role) would feel very distant. One could end up hardly seeing a girl for weeks on end, were there to be (say) twenty in the palace – and my fantasy sultan’s palaces pre-date the era of the internet to keep in touch between visits.

But then I thought about it more deeply, and realised there was a whole new dimension to this: collecting one’s girls in the first place. Oh, how I could relish that process. Girls sent as gifts from neighbouring princes; slave markets to check out; villagers offering up their prettiest for my consideration as I toured their humble abodes.

And then, the task of taming a new girl once I’d selected her. She might protest when she was sent to my chamber that first time; would a spanking over my knee teach her obedience, or would I need to tie her for a whipping before she complied? Indeed, *would* she comply…

Suddenly, the harem has a whole new appeal. But still, the lack of emotional connection would be tough. I think I’ll pass on becoming a sultan. Although it’s a close call.

PS Dear lady sitting next to me on the Jubilee Line reading over my shoulder as I type this. Yes, you may well look shocked. Let that be a lesson to you in being so rude as to read other people’s notes.

There was an article in The Times about this “teachers’ pet and pest name chart”, in which teachers vote for names they associate with good or naughty pupils.* It quotes one teacher:

“I went through my new class list and mentally circled the ones I thought would be most difficult. I reckon I have a 75% hit rate.”

It would be sad, of course, to be a girl in the remaining 25%, somebody whose parents had an unfortunate idea to name her after a place, or a character in a soap, or give her a weird spelling.

It’s well-known that if you get into trouble accidentally on the first day of school, your reputation is then sealed: the teacher knows who you are, and that’s it for getting away with putting a toe out of line. Having a name your teacher is wary of is just like that, only crueller: you don’t even have to get into trouble that first time, they’re already keeping an eye on you.

It may be unfair, but it is, somehow, quite hot.

* The article is an exercise in unapologetic snobbery, but it gave me quite a laugh to see what they think the good girls are called, and to compare them with the class roster at Lowewood. I was a bit offended on behalf of all Daniels, though. It’s a Biblical name, for crying out loud, and not a weird one, either. There’re too many Daniels in the world for all of them to be naughty or nice.

The Headmaster, in my day dreams at the back of my conference in Germany last week, was standing at the front of the classroom of twenty or so girls, wearing his gown and flexing a crook-handled cane. “This is your final chance,” he warned. “If the culprit doesn’t own up now, I shall cane you all.”

The girls looked at each other, and slowly one of their number rose to her feet. “It was me, sir,” she confessed. “Then you’ll accompany me to my study,” came the icy reply.

Later in the day, one of the masters would overhear a conversation in the playground that he reported to the Head. The girl who’d been caned hadn’t, it seemed, been the actual offender – rather, she’d admitted guilt to save the whole class from punishment. And the two real miscreants, who’d now confessed to their friends, had escaped scot-free save for the unbearable guilt.

The three girls concerned were quickly called before the Headmaster. The lass he’d punished in the morning was shown in first, to learn the painful way that he took an even dimmer view of lying than he did of the offence for which he’d caned her that morning. And she’d discover that six strokes on the bare would hurt far more than their predecessors over her skirt.

The two real culprits would then be called in in turn. Blazers removed, skirts lifted, knickers lowered, they’d each receive twelve of the very best with his thickest cane, before being sent back to their classroom in utter shame.

Abel was spanking me over his knee on the bed, and I was making lots of squeaking noises, as I do.

“I don’t know what you’re complaining about,” said he. “This isn’t a hard spanking. I’ll show you what a hard spanking is like; get me that hairbrush.” And he pointed at his Mason Pearson lying on top of the chest of drawers a good metre away from the bed. “Or,” he added considerately, “you can hand me that one if you want,” and he pointed at my light paddle brush, easily within reach on the bedside table.

“It’s OK, I’ll go get the Mason Pearson,” I said, clambering out of my comfy spanking position and out of bed. “The other one is full of hair, eww.”

Don’t think I’m a slob and don’t clean my brush. It’s just that my hair is really long; if there’re even three stray hairs remaining after cleaning, the brush looks like it’s been used by the wild woman of Borneo. It’s just not good for spanking.

Maybe one of the features of a good spanko girl should be that she always keeps her brush pristine, just in case it was needed.

It would be a lovely ritual, actually: cleaning the hairbrush every morning. Time-consuming, but lovely.

HSBC have long run a wonderful series of adverts at Heathrow Airport, featuring striking photographs of different images to illustrate a chosen theme.

The latest campaign- which I spied on a trip up to Scotland a few days ago – rather took me aback, though, for their pictures illustrated the topic of ‘Discipline’. A pair of ballet shoes, a set of scales and a child’s piggy bank were duly displayed.

Now, much as the idea of spanking ballerinas appeals, I did think they’d rather missed a trick. After all, Heathrow welcomes foreign visitors on their arrival in the UK – surely a cane and a tawse should have featured in the sequence?

But here the mystery deepens. I went onto Google to try and find a copy of said adverts to illustrate my post – and it appears that the Heathrow posters are a somewhat edited copy of the original campaign. (Click to get a better look.)

OMG. See, there was me thinking my mind was all twisted and perverted, and I was right all along…

The BBC are showing a series of programmes called “The World’s Strictest Parents”. They send teenagers whom their own parents are struggling to control to families in other countries, with a much stricter understanding of discipline than at home.

Now, these are not difficult yobs: they’re middle-class youngsters who are a bit spoiled and a lot disrespectful, nothing that a firm “no” said a few times won’t correct. So they get sent to people who know how to say “no” to a 16-year-old. Obviously, nobody gets spanked on national television. But the rest of the discipline is quite fascinating to watch – and to apply to my own fantasy teenage persona.

There was, for example, a deeply Christian family in Alabama, whose own 3 kids had zero privacy in anything. There are random back checks, there’s combing through their iTunes for songs with swearing in them, and there’s Internet time supervised by Mom and Dad. Whereas I found this level of control deeply creepifying, the parents came across as caring, gentle and taking an interest in what was going on in their kids’ minds. The British teen duo – a chain-smoking girl and a very gay MySpace addict boy – responded to the mix of caring and rules, though there was initially a lot of gnashing of teeth, swearing, and  furtive cigarettes.

In reality I wouldn’t respond very well to this regime – I need my private corner – but my fantasy self would relish a strict family that was also loving, caring and engaged.

There was, for example, a particularly awesome moment when the father discovered that the kids, whom he’d sent to volunteer in the homeless shelter, had been swearing and bumming cigarettes off the residents. He tried to tell them off calmly, but faced with lack of contrition, he lost his temper (albeit in a very controlled way).

“Get upstairs,” he ordered. “Both of you. Now!”

Nothing happened after that – I guess, being sent to their rooms was a punishment in itself – but in my fantasy the father would take ten minutes to cool off, and then come into my room with a ping-pong paddle in his hand. I would be waiting in my pyjamas, as always when I get sent to my room. He would sit on my bed, pull me over his lap, and firmly smack me with the paddle until I was spilling tears and apologies.

After this he would give me a big hug, kiss me on top the head and tuck me into bed. It would be too early to sleep, but this too would be a punishment. At no point would he be too severe, or too angry – he would be in complete control of himself and me, because he would know what sort of discipline I need.

So, I’m really grateful to the BBC for providing me with this series. Just the “get upstairs” part was enough to make me very, very happy.

Now *that* was a hot scene. Young Grace (Scarlett, in fact) had been sent her formal notice from the Punishment Centre, requiring her to report at a given time. For the offence of graffiti: 15 strokes of the cane.

Miss Cadogan (Haron) drove off to the station shortly before the time of the appointment, to meet the girl (already in role). And Punishment Officer Jenkins sat back and waited in my office, for the first part of the proceedings were entirely in Miss Cadogan’s capable hands (although carefully planned by us both in advance).

I heard the front door open and close; footsteps on the stairs; heard the door of the back bedroom shut firmly. There, I knew, Grace would be made to strip; she’d then be taken to the punishment room (aka our bedroom) and tied in position ready to be punished.

A few minutes later came a knock: Miss Cadogan to see me. “Your 9pm appointment is ready, sir,” she informed me. We went into the room together; Grace was tied in position, naked, her ankles apart and bound to the foot of the bed, her hands drawn forward by a tight rope to the bed’s head. I couldn’t see her face; she couldn’t see me.

Miss Cadogan handed me the clipboard; I scanned the form carefully, noted that Grace had signed to confirm that she understood the punishment that was to come. And then my assistant left the room, for the whipping to begin.

I lectured, of course: how vandalism couldn’t be tolerated; how I intended to teach her a lesson. I noted how she had existing faint cane marks (my doing at our previous play session), and that she must therefore be a bad girl in need of firm correction.

I picked up the heavy, whippy, dragon cane (one of the more severe in my collection), and administered the first cut. Hard. It striped her beautifully. And then continued – pausing between administering her stripes, lecturing, varying the height at which the strokes fell but never varying their intensity. She counted each, thanking me, her trembling tone (and her “owwww”s) reaffirming the efficacy of the punishment.

And then it was over, and Miss Cadogan was called back in to help untie her and conclude the proceedings – the photographs, for the official records; a (much shakier) signature from Grace to acknowledge that she had been punished; one from me to confirm that I’d dealt with her. Only, the young lady disobeyed an order to keep her hands on her head, thus earning herself one additional stroke: back over the bed, the whack as hard as its predecessors.

And then it was time to hug, and rest, before Scarlett foolishly confessed that she’d never been spanked with a hairbrush and the rest of the evening played out…

We were about to go out for Sunday lunch, when something compelled me to say: “Wouldn’t it be a shame if it hurt me to sit down in the pub?” Abel immediately agreed that it would be a dreadful shame, and ordered me to his office.

I didn’t start to regret my impulsiveness until I saw him pick out a really thick cane, and heard that he had an experiment in mind.

“I’ve been proof-reading my story,” he said, “and in it a girl struggles to take six hard strokes of the cane without leaping up. I want to see how this works in practice.”

Oh, great, I thought as I pushed down my jeans and knickers. An endurance test, just what I wanted… why did I volunteer for this, again?

“If you move out of position, I will repeat the stroke,” said Abel. I silently promised myself that I would not move out of position for anything.

The experiment went like this: he swung the cane and cracked it down with awesome force and noise. I saw stars and screamed a lot. He swung and cracked again, I screamed some more. At one point Abel asked me if I could keep the noise down, at which I asked him if he could keep the pain down. I guess, it was a “no” on both counts.

The results of the experiment revealed that I can, indeed, stay down for an extremely hard half-dozen strokes. But I’m going to scream my head off. It’s either moving or jumping about – the reaction has to go somewhere. So now he knows.

Sitting down in the pub, as well as in the car there and back, was absolutely delicious.