Cordelia Lavington Chapter 2

Cordelia Lavington Chapter 2
By Governess

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This story is intended for ADULTS ONLY. It contains explicit depictions of sexual activity involving minors. If you are not of a legal age in your locality to view such material or if such material does not appeal to you, do not read further, and do not save this story.
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Chapter 2

Elizabeth dragged her feet as she went to her room. Her legs felt heavy and unwilling as she mounted the stairs. She had an angry and sulky look on her face but in her eyes there was fear. She wondered whether other mothers were as strict as her mother. She had recently read a story about a girl who had stolen from her mother's purse and had then been spared the spanking that she deserved. It had seemed unreal, and had spoilt her enjoyment. Needless to say, her own mother never spared her one smack of the hairbrush or one cut of the cane, let alone a whole whipping. The spanking she was about to receive would send her to bed with a hot bottom, sore against the cold sheets. And her pillow would be wet with her tears as she lay there heaving and crying in her desperation and loneliness.

She pushed open her bedroom door, and wanted to kick something. To vent her anger against some innocent helpless object. But instead she crushed her anger and sealed it up, throwing herself on the bed. But she knew she could not remain there long. She had to change into her nightdress and return to the drawing room. And collect the hairbrush on the way.

Eventually, she climbed off the bed and undressed, folding her clothes neatly. Her mother insisted on a tidy room and might inspect it at any time. She placed the garments over the back of the chair. The chair her mother had sat on many a time to give Elizabeth a spanking. She stood naked, glancing at herself in the mirror. She liked what she saw. She was a small compact girl of nine, with a boyish figure and a snub nose. Her hair was short and cut into a fringe. She bit her lip and pulled the nightdress over her head.

She made her way slowly down the stairs and picked up the hairbrush from the hall table. She was familiar with the brush. All too familiar. Yet she still ran her hand over the hard flat back, fascinated by the cold smooth surface that would soon impart such heat and soreness to her bottom. She felt her throat tighten as she swallowed, her saliva thick and tasting somehow bitter.

As she entered the room, her mother was standing silhouetted against the window. It was difficult to see her face, but Elizabeth could imagine it. It was in many ways a beautiful face. A straight nose, a smooth brow, and a generous mouth. And just as she was expansive in her love, hugging the children and comforting them when they were hurt or sick, so in her discipline she was equally unrestrained and generous. Never holding back the strokes that she believed necessary, and never applying the rod other than with the firm intention of causing pain and distress. Some parents might believe that making a girl submit to the rod and offer her body for correction was a sufficient discipline and that to cause real pain was unnecessary. But not Cordelia Lavington.

She stretched out her hand.

"Thank you, Elizabeth."

She took the brush and smacked it appreciatively against her palm. The Mason Pearson hairbrush she used had once sat on her dressing table with all the impedimenta of a woman's toiletry, with scent bottles, a small jewel box and a manicure set in a leather case. But it no longer belonged to that world. She remembered the riddle 'I make you smart top and bottom. What am I?' And she smiled.

How different from a cane. A cane was made from a length of rattan that was cut and crafted with the sole purpose of raising weals on a child's flesh. It had a masculine directness and singularity of purpose. Not so a hairbrush Mrs Lavington remembered the times she had sat in a sunlit room, brushing her hair, pulling the bristles deliciously through her long tresses, gently scratching the scalp so that she felt goose pimples running down her back. And that pleasure could be given to another. She remembered how Elizabeth as a little girl had loved to have her hair brushed, and indeed still did. How the hairbrush shone and glossed her hair, and straightened the tangles.

But her daughter from the outset knew that while her mother loved and cared for her, she also disciplined and punished her. Cordelia nodded to herself. There was an ambiguity about motherhood, just like the hairbrush. It could be soft and caressing but also hard and punishing. The hairbrush now used for spanking was kept quite separately on the hall table. It was never used to straighten hair, but applied only to a child's bare, smooth rump until that child was squirming and sobbing.

"It took you a long time to change into your nightdress, Elizabeth. Why was that?"

"I'm sorry, mother. I was careful about folding my clothes."

"Well, I am pleased about that, but it is not an adequate explanation. It takes only a few moments to fold clothes neatly. Were you deliberately dawdling?"

"Please, no, mother."

"Well if you took your time attending for punishment, then I will see certainly take mine administering it. Stand facing the arm of the sofa."

Elizabeth moved with an easy grace. She stood there waiting for the inevitable command.

"And bend over. Place your hands down the side of the seat. And keep them there until I give you permission to remove them."

Mrs Lavington looked at her daughter's bottom. The cotton of her nightdress was stretched across the soft cheeks, and through the thin material she could see the pinkness of the flesh. She breathed in deeply. She enjoyed these moments of anticipation just before administering punishment.

She remembered how as a child she had been on a walking holiday. It had been a long hot afternoon and she was famished. As they approached the cottage where they were staying she knew that Mrs Dummelow would have the tea ready. Fresh home baked bread, creamy country butter and homemade strawberry jam. And there it was. But instead of sitting down to eat, she forced herself to go up to her room, hungry as she was, in order to extend the exquisite anticipation of tasting the fresh wholemeal loaf, and the sweetness of the jam. Once eaten the delight would be over.

Elizabeth wriggled over the arm, also anticipating the punishment to come. But for her the waiting was not a lingering tantalising pleasure, but a torturing, nervous anxiety. She felt her mother's hand brushing down between her legs, and then her nightdress being slowly raised and draped over her shoulders.

During this time her mother said nothing. The silence was heavy and every little sound seemed magnified. The tick of the clock on the mantelshelf, the rustle of her mother's dress as she moved. And then the sound of the flat hard back of the hairbrush smacking across her mother's palm. And she knew that her mother's eyes were on her bare exposed bottom. She could imagine the look on her mother's face, the narrowing of the eyes, the slight frown and the tightening of the lips. She knew that her mother enjoyed spanking her.

And Cordelia Lavington would not be ashamed to acknowledge it. She always regretted the need for a whipping, and was genuinely disappointed that a child had departed from the straight and narrow way to wander thoughtlessly in the meadows of sinful self-regard. And she regularly prayed that the rod might not be needed. But when it was she took a deep satisfaction in inscribing her displeasure upon the child's soft bottom flesh. She fervently believed that the good Lord has provided a child's bottom for whipping and that the pleasure a mother took in providing that wholesome discipline was God's way of ensuring that that vital maternal duty was never shirked.

To whip an innocent child was a wickedness that she could hardly understand. But to whip a disobedient child, a child who had sinned knowingly, was quite a different matter. It would be a dereliction of duty not to do so. Indeed, a wickedness to spare a child the chastisement that would cleanse sin and open the gate of paradise. Children were loath to go through that gate. It was indeed a gate as narrow as a needle's eye. And a recalcitrant child had to be goaded through it.

And that God had provided a soft enticing bottom for this purpose was equally clear. Cordelia looked at her daughter's small compact rump and a shiver ran through her. She smacked the brush once more across her palm. Elizabeth twisted in an agony of suspense. And her mother smiled.

"You do realise why you are being spanked, Elizabeth?"

"Yes, mother."

"And why is that?"

"Be . . because I didn't try hard enough."

"That is true. But there were other reasons I gave. Can you remember them?"

The girl lay limply over the sofa arm.

"You said I hadn't listened to Mrs Fairclough. And that I needed to listen better."

Her mother detected a slight surliness in her tone.

"Listen more attentively, Elizabeth. With an active questioning mind. Your are nine years of age and well able to apply yourself to your work. The poor effort you have made is inexcusable. Mrs Fairclough does not set work that she has not fully explained and if you had listened attentively you would have been able to complete the assignment and achieve full marks. Do you understand?"

"Yes, mother."

Again, the surly tone. Cordelia gave a grim smile. If there was one thing that gave her particular satisfaction it was spanking the surliness out of a child.

"Elizabeth, I do not like your tone. I can see that there is more to deal with than inattention."

"Please, mother. I'm sorry."

"I am sure you are. But I will not tolerate rudeness. You know how that is dealt with?"

Again, the girl could hear the ominous smack of the brush across her mother's open palm. Several little smacks. Smacks that barely stung at all, unlike those that were about to be applied to her bottom. And then to her thighs, for that was how rudeness was punished. How she hated her thighs being spanked.

Cordelia placed her hand firmly in the small of her daughter's back. How warm she was, despite her nakedness. She ran her hand lightly over her bottom and noted the contrast. The bottom was much cooler as though the inner warmth of the body could not radiate through the soft heavy bottom flesh to the surface of the skin. She smiled. Well the warmth would be applied from the outside.

Cordelia brought the hairbrush down. There was a soft smacking noise as the resilience of the skin absorbed the hard unyielding surface of the brush. It was an unmistakeable sound. A sound that any would recognise. And as usual was followed by the shrill cry of a child suffering for her sins.

Cordelia stood with her left hand in the small of her daughter's back. With the right she laid on the hairbrush, ensuring that each stroke impacted flatly and evenly. It was all too easy to tilt the oval brush on its downward path so that an edge dug into the girl's soft flesh. This was painful but was not the pain intended. It was not that stinging, smarting, pain that brought home to a child the error of her ways. Each stroke was given with all the force that Cordelia could muster. And as her arm went up so her wrist bent back so that the hand could move sharply in the direction of the stroke, speeding the hard wooden back of the brush to the soft sensitive nine year old bottom.

Elizabeth roared profusely under chastisement. Some children will steel themselves, hold their breath and, apart from the occasional gasp, suffer in silence. At least until the pain becomes so intolerable, so torturing, that tears and screams are inevitable. But Elizabeth was not such a stalwart child. She writhed and screamed from the first stroke, and hence the need for the firm hand in the small of her back, steadying and holding her down over the sofa arm.

Her mother welcomed her struggles and her vocal resistance. It was in her eyes the appropriate accompaniment to a sound spanking. She wanted to see her daughter squirming like a young lamb with legs kicking. And her cries and tearful sobbing were confirmation that the spanking was doing its job of breaking the will and inducing a contrite spirit.

She paused and waited for the girl to cease writhing and for her screams to abate.

"And how many strokes is that, Elizabeth?"

"I . . I'm not sure, Mother."

"Twelve strokes, Elizabeth. Next time please count them."

She paused.

"Or should I perhaps repeat them?"

"No, mother. Please, No"

"But have you learned the lesson they were teaching?"

"Yes, mother."

"I am pleased. And what lesson was that?"

"To listen to Mrs Fairclough when she explains things."

"Yes. And listen not only with your ears, Elizabeth but with your full attention. Listen actively to what she says and repeat it to yourself as she goes along. That is the best way to remember. Is that clear?"

"Yes, mother."

"Good. And now there was something other than inattention that needed to be dealt with. And what was that?"

"You said I had been rude."

"And why did I say that, Elizabeth?"

"I don't know, mother."

Cordelia shook her head.

"The reason I said you had been rude was because there was no doubt in my mind that you had been rude. And how had you been rude?"

"I don't know, mother."

There was a surliness in the girl's tone.

"Then let me remind you, Elizabeth. You replied to me in a surly tone. As though you thought I was asking pointless and foolish questions. Well, young lady, even if I ask questions that are foolish and pointless in your eyes, I still expect them to be answered politely."

She paused, her hand still in the small of her daughter's back.

"And how is rudeness punished in this family?"

"By a spanking, mother."

"Yes. And where is the spanking given when a child has been rude?"

"On the backs of the thighs, mother."

"Yes, Elizabeth. On the backs of the thighs."

(To be continued)