The Spanking Writers

All of this flying lately’s got me thinking. See, in these days of ever-tightening security for hand luggage, and ever-reducing weight limits for checked bags, it’s not easy for a gentleman to carry approporiate implements with him as he travels the world.

Every problem, however, creates opportunity for those with entrepreneurial spirit. So here’s the solution. Picture an arrivals hall at an airport. There’ll be a coffee shop for those waiting to greet folks flying in; doubtless a bookstore or newsstand; a taxi office; a tourism bureau. And then add in the latest addition, my bright idea: the implement store, offering a range of accessories to meet every disciplinary need.

I can picture it now, flexing their canes, swishing their straps through the air, weighing up the paddles, admiring the local varieties (martinets, camel whips, sjamboks?). I’d select a few, conscious that a queue would be forming behind me – young ladies standing nervously to one side as their guardians perused the stock, newly-wed brides blushing as their husbands stocked up for the honeymoon… And, the secret to commercial success for the new enterprise: one would return the items at the end of one’s stay, having paid a daily rental fee. (Naturally, there’d be a penalty charge payable in the event of one breaking an implement whilst thrashing a girl, but I’d never do that. Oh no).

Needed: investors. Who’s going to chip in the first pound?

At about four this morning I was awakened by the sound of loud cane strokes coming from my study. Now Haron’s back home for a week, no-one else is here to keep me company, and I was pretty sure that the cat hadn’t pulled a kinky girl during her nightly rambles through the neighbours’ gardens and dragged her back in through the open window to play a scene. Cue mild panic.

I stumbled out of bed, opened the study door – and found a spanking video playing. Now I’d watched the start of said movie yesterday evening on my ever-so-clever new touch screen PC, before swapping to the much-less exciting Prime Ministerial debate. And, being rather tired, I’d forgotten to turn off the PC before collapsing in bed. But that it had brought itself to life and starting playing? Weird, I thought, assuming that there’d been some bizarre technical glitch. I stopped the video, and headed back to sleep.

A few minutes later… yet more whackings and cries. I went to investigate more closely. And there, fluttering around in front of the PC, was a small insect. I’d describe it as a mosquito, but that’d be flattering it. Said flying thing was bouncing along my screen, perhaps attracted by the light and heat, and every time it brushed against the surface the computer was following its instructions. One of which seems to have been, by colliding with the open Real Player window, to play the spanking video…

Interesting, I reflected as I dozed back off – the PC switched safely off – to contemplate others who may have unexpectedly overheard thrashings of girls unknown over the years. The prison guard, disturbed by a whipping in a cell along the corridor. The schoolmaster, teaching a lesson to echoes of cane strokes from the adjacent classroom. The gentleman hearing the butler administering the carpet beater to a penitent maid, or said butler hearing said gentleman spanking one of his daughters in the drawing room. So I’d hereby like to thank said “not quite a mozzie” for providing such lovely inspiration.

With spring upon us, one’s mind turns naturally to the abundance of fresh growth on birch trees everywhere. Whereas my springtide thoughts last year were of gambolling lambs and flowering daffodils, this year I’ve been toying with a rather darker scenario.

The setting’s a punishment cell within a prison. A girl – freshly showered – has been stripped and strapped down by two gaolers over the flogging block. Five neatly-tied sprays of freshly-cut birch rods lean ominously against the wall.

But here’s the thing: the officer who’s to inflict her sentence only enters after she’s bound in place. Arched over the wooden frame, wrists and ankles bound tight with leather straps, the offender has no means of looking back to see him – or possibly her. All is silent: no words are spoken. For the remainder of her sentence, the inmate will have no idea whatsoever which of her guards is the one to have administered her thrashing.

Five birches: each used for ten strokes, then discarded in favour of a fresh implement. She’d take the first batch bravely; she’d break on the second. Before the final ten, she’d be begging for forgiveness, vowing never to reoffend, pleading for clemency. But mercy would be in short supply, and the final flurry would be the cruellest of all, before the disciplinarian turned and left the room…

I was right to worry about the implements Abel had bought on his trip away. We got to test them out and… ouch.

The wooden spoon has a remarkably long handle, which makes it more of a ceremonial implement than your normal rapid-fire spoon. It’s almost a paddle. And it hurts like the blazes.

What really made me howl, though, is the new olivewood brush. It’s tiny, probably smaller than the palm of my hand, and looks deceptively benign. I wasn’t too worried about it – and what a mistake! The first stroke made my eyes water, and the second (and all the subsequent ones) had me howling. This being a test spanking, Abel probably only smacked me a dozen times, but I was as sore and wrung out as if I’d had a lengthy punishment.

“Wow, your bottom is so red,” Abel marvelled when he let me up. He sounded very surprised.

Yeah… my bottom had kept colliding with wooden household items.

I’d like to share a very modest proposal, written in a book of”Essays in Socialism” back in 1907 by one E. Belford Bax. The author opens by stating the general principle that “equality before the law, as it is termed, is the first condition of liberty”.

However, he finds the judicial system to be remarkably biased in favour of women, quoting various examples in support of his proposition:

“From the beginning of the nineteenth century, of course, whilst flogging, the tread-mill, and other brutal forms of punishment have been retained for male offenders, they have been abolished for females…”

–

“Mr. Labouchere made it his business in Truth to hunt up every obscure case of girl-flogging in the country, and to trumpet it forth in his journal as though it were a crime compared to which common murder were a venial affair. But now, had Mr. Labouchere one word for the brutal floggings of boys, not by private individuals, but in national institutions, such as reformatories and training ships? Not one. What he expressly denounced was not flogging, but girl-flogging.”

–

“A little while ago fifty women refused to carry out an order made by the Governor of Wormwood Scrubbs for bringing coke into the laundry. If men had refused to obey any regulation they would most probably have got the lash till they yielded. But what was the lot of these women. The Governor at once politely cancelled his regulation and ‘order was restored’!! Such is the farce of penal discipline in the case of women.”

And so, he demands equality for all.

“I am met by this argument – ‘Are you not in favour of abolishing all forms of brutal punishment?’ I say yes, in common with most Socialists and Democrats, I am… It is then argued: – ‘But surely the abolition of these things in the case of women is better than nothing’; it is at least a step. My answer is that in the first place it is not a step, but generally a shirking of the whole question.”

Indeed. And how refreshing to read such a forward-thinking feminist tract!

In my dream I was a new cadet in a Star Fleet academy. I was recruited into the IT section, and was never going to pilot a spaceship, but at the induction I was shown a video that included a section on discipline all over the academy.

While training was rigorous in all departments, the future pilots, it seemed, had the harshest discipline of all, and were subject to frequent floggings. The video included a clip from a public caning, so that new recruits had complete understanding of the sort of trouble their friends from the pilot training course could get into.

I had never before then wanted to be a pilot, but at the moment when I saw the induction video I was painfully envious of their strict regime. I resolved to see if a transfer was available, and if not, I decided to misbehave so badly that the instructors would simply have to resort to caning me as well.

I don’t know what on earth I was thinking, but apparently, my dream self was a very pervy young woman.

The fate of rulers in our house is a mystery. We keep buying them, and they keep vanishing into thin air. I swear, I have nothing to do with this – other than one or two supposedly shatterproof rulers that cracked in two upon meeting with my bottom, I don’t, on the whole, do anything unpleasant to rulers.

Be that as it may, Abel declared that it was time to solve the problem once and for all: we would go into a stationery shop and buy a pair of rulers: one for his desk, one for mine. From then on, neither of us would need to borrow a ruler from the other, and they would stay put. And definitely not disappear into the toy chest.

Into the shop we went. Abel disappeared down the aisle to look for something else he needed, whereas I stopped in front of the ruler display. There was plenty of choice. We weren’t buying a ruler with spanking in mind, so we didn’t need anything particularly long, or wide, or thick.

Or so I thought.

“Let’s get that one,” said Abel from behind my back. He was pointing at a particularly sturdy-looking plastic ruler. “They’re three for the price of two, you know.”

“Right. But we only need two.”

“Well. I’m sure we could find a use for an extra ruler. Don’t you agree?”

That was how we ended up with another ruler in our toy box. It practically jumped there all by itself.

…Would it be a good time to mention I have no idea what happened to the ruler that was supposed to live on my desk?

No spankings, per se, but I’m sure I won’t be alone in my fascination at my latest discovery –  a “List of Certified Reformatory Schools with name of Manager – 1866″!

Let’s pick just a few. There was the Devon & Exeter Reformatory and Refuge for Girls, Exeter, established on 26th June 1858 and managed by one W. Townsend, Esq,, of Friar’s Walk.

Mr Chapman ran the Suffolk “Industrial Home for Girls” in Ipswich, and Mr Alison looked after the girls’ reformatory at 9 Church Row, Hampstead. Or maybe it’s Charles Wilson’s “Sunderland Reformatory for Girls”, established in Tatham Street in 1860, that catches your eye. “Allesley Farm Reformatory for Girls near Coventry”. Religion must have played a major part, too, in life at the “Catholic Reformatory for Girls, Dalbeth, Glasgow” (Supervisor, Miss E Lawson).

How many of these places still exist, I wonder, and in what modern guise? Can any of you locate your neighbouring establishment (photos welcome!)? And do any of the owners of such buildings still standing, on Googling their house details and finding themselves here, fancy hiring out their premises for a weekend’s role-play?

Forget the Christmas story – the “Sufi Message of Hazrat Inayat Khan” is just my sort of religious text. A collection of his lectures from 1918-1920, it contains the following rather lovely story:

Once a slave-girl, making the bed of a Badishah, felt a wish to experience how it would feel to rest in this royal bed. The great heat of the sun, the breeze coming through the windows in this regal bedroom, the flowers and perfumes sprinkled on the ground, the beautiful fragrance of the incense burning, made her so comfortable that she fell asleep as soon as she leaned against a cushion on this bed. She fell as fast asleep as if she were in the embrace of death.

But presently the king and queen came, and they were astonished at the boldness and impudence of this slave-girl. The Badishah woke her with a stroke of a whip, and one or two more strokes followed after, in order to free the queen from all suspicions. The slave-girl got up in terror, and cried aloud, but it all ended in a smile. Her smile created more curiosity in the minds of the king and queen than her fault had done.

They asked what made her smile. She said, ‘I smiled at the thought that the comfort and joy of this bed gave me an inclination to experience its pleasure for a moment, the penalty of which is given me as these blows, and I wonder, as you have experienced the pleasure of this comfortable bed all your life, what penalty you will have to pay for this to God, the King of all kings.’

On one level, the parable could be read as a warning to those who live over-indulged lives. But I’ll go with the alternative interpretation: that a girl should always fall into bed given the opportunity, especially if she think that a whipping might result.

I’ve had a frustrating time recently browsing self-catering sites on the web, trying to find buildings that would be suitable for reformatory weekends*. The criteria? Large, well away from the road and other houses, well sound-proofed, relatively easy to get to – and affordable. Mmm. Not sure all of those go together.

It’s particular depressing as I have a very clear picture in mind of a scene. I’m supervising a group of girls who are sitting behind tables, working diligently at some mundane task designed to pass the day and break their spirit. (Sewing church kneelers, perhaps?).

But one girl stands before me, head bowed. “That, young lady, was completely unacceptable.”

“Yes, sir.”

“You will be birched. In front of the other girls.

“Please, sir. No…”

“Be silent.” I point to one of the other girls. “You: go to the porter and ask him for a birch. And you two – fetch the table from over there and place it in the centre of the room, just here.”

And then I turn back to the miscreant, and issue her instructions: “Whilst you, young lady, can take off your clothes and go and stand in the corner, facing the wall with your hands on your head, until I’m ready to deal with you…”

–

* Somewhat to my amusement, I found one property that described itself as suitable for “grandparents of families holidaying in the larger apartments who can enjoy their own space unmolested.” How thoughtful of them to protect their female guests from grandpapa’s wandering hands…