Cordelia Lavington Chapter 33

By Governess

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This story is intended for adults only. It contains depictions of forced nudity, spanking, and sexual activity of preteen and young teen children for the purpose of punishment. None of the behaviors in this story should be attempted in real life. If you are not of legal age in your community to read or view such material, please leave now.
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Chapter 33

“And having birched him once, did you continue to birch him?”

“Oh, yes. After that first birching, Howard was regularly birched. Sometimes he would be spanked with my hairbrush, but I soon discovered that once a boy’s been birched, there’s no going back. He comes to expect it. Almost to want it.”

“Yes, it’s strange, but I‘m sure that’s right. My mother birched both my brothers. My older brother lived in constant dread of the birch, yet somehow he was fascinated by it. Sometimes I’d catch him drawing little pictures of a boy being birched and once he made up a tiny bundle of twigs, real birch twigs, and I caught him with one of my olddolls. He’d pulled down her knickers and was swishing her across the bottom. But though he lived in fear of the birch, like Howard, he accepted it.   And when told by my mother to fetch a rod from the bucket he did so dutifully, even willing.

“Why do you think that was, Cordelia?”

“Well, it certainly wasn’t because he liked to be punished.   He really feared the birch and he roared in agony at every cut. But later, when I’d comforted him, he was much brighter and happier and there was almost a sense of release.   The birch was an ever present reality, soaking in its bucket, but it was not just a visible presence. I’m sure it haunted his every waking hour.   And his nights, too. I would sometimes hear him talking in his sleep and saying things like ‘Please, Mother, no, no’, and he’d thrash around between the sheets until he woke himself up.”

“But from what you say, he seems to have been fascinated by the birch, drawing pictures of it and punishing your dolls.”

“Yes, he feared it, but also seemed to regard it almost as a companion. But that’s often the way, isn’t it Diana. The thing we dread, we need to befriend to take the sting of fear away. As the weaker boys at school admire the prefect who is in the first eleven even though he beats those who fag for him. They admire his strength and even his good looks. They respect him. And many friendships are like that. They’re rarely equal. Almost always there’s a stronger and a weaker, one who rules and one who is ruled.”

“Yes, I’d never thought of it like that, Cordelia. And that’s how he related to the birch?”

“Yes. he admired its lithe, strength and its punishing power, even though he feared the agony of a flogging.   But once caught in a disobedience and knowing he was to be birched, he almost welcomed it.”

“Yes, Cordelia, we can dread something so much that in the end we just want it to happen.”

“Yes, Diana. Deep down we know that the reality when it comes will drive fear away and once that has happened, there is nothing left to fear – at least for a while. Which is why he was brighter and happier after a birching.”

She smiled.

“Not that that lasted long. Once used, the birch needed to be replaced.   And the sight of my mother binding up a fresh rod was a vivid reminder of the consequences of further misbehaviour.”

“Were you ever birched, Cordelia?”

“No. I never was. Not that mother wouldn’t have birched me, if she’d thought it necessary. But she seemed content to punish me with the hairbrush and, when I was a little older, the martinet.”

“And that was less severe?”

“No, I wouldn’t say it was, Diana. I described it to you the other day. It was sufficient to raise welts on my bottom and my thighs.   Afterwards I would be dancing around clutching at myself and howling. Not that that was allowed for long. I was usually sent to face the wall with my dress still turned up and my bottom bare.”

“So, why do you think your mother birched your brothers. The martinet sounds severe enough to keep the naughtiest boy in order?”

“You know, Diana, I’m not sure. But thinking about it, she did believe boys were different from girls. That when a boy disobeyed he did so because he regarded himself as above rules and authority. There was always arrogance, rudeness and disrespect in a boy’s disobedience. Or so she thought.”

“So why the birch?”

“Well, I think the birch better expressed her determination to confront a boy’s arrogance and self-will. The martinet I was punished with was bought in the village stores in Sainte Foy when I was around the age of five. There were always several martinets hanging up, and I‘m sure nearly every household in our village had one. So the one my mother bought could have been purchased for any child. It might have been bought by Mme Palomer to punish my best friend Jeanne; or by Mme Soler to punish her daughter Anna. But when Charles was birched, it was with a birch that had been prepared just for him. He may have watched my mother in the field selecting each swishy length and cutting it down; and then seen her in the scullery stripping off the leaves and binding the lengths up into a rod. So the birch was an expression of her determination to confront his will and bend it to her own.

“When my mother took down the martinet from its hook behind the kitchen door, it was like selecting any kitchen utensil to do a particular job. In this case, making me smart for my naughtiness. And when that had been done, it was hung up again. And that, I think is the difference. My mother was addressing my acts of naughtiness and defiance, and punishing them. But with Marcel, the birch was used not just to punish his naughtiness but to rule him. And it did rule him. It was always present. If he went in the fields, every birch tree reminded him of her rule. And in the kitchen the birch steeping in the pail was a constant reminder of her authority over him.”

Cordelia gave a little frown.

“And unlike the martinet, the birch gave additional scope to reinforce that rule and humble him.”

“How was that, Cordelia?”

“Oh, in a number of ways. Sometimes she would make him accompany her into the fields to select the birch lengths with her. She’d hold his hand in hers and anyone who saw them from a distance would think it was a mother and small boy having a pleasant walk in the woods. But if they drew closer they would hear her discussing with him the suitability of each birch length for flogging a boy, how supple it was, how thick and straight and then when it was cut, they would see that it was placed with others in a basket the boy was carrying. And when they returned to the house, she made no attempt to shield him from the sight of her binding the birch lengths up into a finished rod.

“And you know, Diana, how during a vigorous birching, little bits break off and deposit themselves everywhere”

“Yes, Cordelia, it’s one of the drawbacks of the birch over the cane or tawse.”

“Well, it needn’t be, Diana. My mother would usually flog a boy over the arm of the sofa and when she’d finished he’d stand sobbing in the corner for ten minutes. Then, she’d make him go down on his hands and knees with his well flogged bottom in the air, and pick up every last bit of birch twig and place them in a small bowl. He could spend a long as he liked on the task, but when he was satisfied he had collected them all up, he had to tell my mother and she would come and inspect the room.   And woe betide him if he’d missed any. She’d give him an extra cut for every little piece he’d missed.”

“With that hanging over him, he must’ve made sure he did a thorough job.”

“Well, surprisingly, Diana, more often than not he’d earn himself extra cuts. Down on the floor he couldn’t see as well as an adult standing up, and you have to remember he was searching for small bits through swollen tear-filled eyes.”

“When you said the birch ruled him, Cordelia, it certainly seems it did.”

“Yes, Diana. And because of that my mother had a special affection for the birch. After she had bound up a fresh rod, she would swish it through the air and run her hand down the length and squeeze the whippy tracery that bushed out at the end and gently draw her hand over it. She seemed to love the feel of it and its lithe, prickly swishiness. And when she birched one of my brothers, she did so with an obvious relish, appreciating its power to rule a boy and bring him into conformity with her will. That may sound cruel, but for her love was meeting a child’s real needs, and that included the need for firm consistent discipline. She was really a very warm and affectionate mother.”

“I’m sure she was, Cordelia. But goodness, look at the time.   James will be wondering where on earth I am.”

When Mrs Fairclough had departed, Cordelia sat in the chair and picked up the punishment book. She re-read the passage about Elizabeth’s caning. What a little madam she had been at that age. And still was! The recent deceit over her reading in bed and then creeping down to watch her brother being punished was typical of the girl.

She walked over to the shelf where the punishment books were kept and replaced the volume Mrs Fairclough had selected. She then took out the very first. She read for a moment and then looked up. How the memories came flooding back. Samuel was nearly two and John was still alive. It was 1913 and war had not yet broken out.

I am continuing to train Samuel to use the chamber pot. I have always enjoyed the intimacy of changing him and because of that have postponed his pot training until now. However, a bottom, bare and ready to spank, is now required if he is to receive the firmer discipline that his behaviour demands.

. . . . .

I have decided that nappies are to come off and that he will wear only a short vest in the house and be confined to the kitchen during the day.   There, when he has an accident, it is easily cleaned up from the tiled floor. When he does that, I am holding him close to the mess, expressing my displeasure with a stern ‘no’ and, after giving him a smack with the wooden spoon, putting him on the pot. After a few days I will start putting him on the pot for fifteen minutes in the morning and try to establish a habit.

. . . . .

Samuel is very resistant to using the pot and much prefers to go on the floor. When he does that he now gets three hard smacks with the wooden spoon and goes back on the pot to teach him that is where he is meant to go.

. . . . .

Samuel is still very unwilling to co-operate with the new regime.   I am now putting him on the pot for fifteen minutes in the morning and if nothing is forthcoming, he is taken off, smacked, and then returned for another fifteen minutes. That is continued until there is a bowel movement. Passing water seems less of a problem.

. . . . .

Today, I left the kitchen for a few minutes with Samuel on the pot. When I returned I found he had got off the pot and wet and messed all over the floor. I picked him up and held his nose close to it. I spoke very sharply, ‘No, Samuel. No. No. No’. I then smacked him hard and returned him to the pot and made him sit there for the rest of the morning. Tomorrow firmer measures will need to be taken.

. . . . .

Today, I put Samuel on the pot and then ran some strong string around the rim of the pot and through the handle and up over his small body. At first he thought it was a game, but he soon realised it was serious and that there was no getting up until Mother released him.   I kept him on the pot until there was a bowel movement. It took two hours. I then allowed him up and let him play in the kitchen on the tiled floor. There were no accidents. I felt I was making progress.

. . . . .

Samuel was tied to the pot again first thing in the morning. He grizzled and resented it but was left there until he went. It took four hours. During that time I let him play with his rag doll rabbit. It was a great relief for both of us when he could be released and allowed to play normally. However, despite that he had an accident in the afternoon. I rubbed his nose in the mess like a naughty puppy, smacked his bottom with the wooden spoon and put him back on the pot. He was made to sit there for a full hour. I was very disapproving throughout and he knew he was in disgrace.

. . . . .

It is now a week since I started the new regime and there is no doubt that it is working. He is now starting to have a bowel movement soon after being tied to the pot and as a consequence is soon released from his bondage. There have been one or two accidents and these have been dealt with as before.

. . . . .

Another week has gone by. Samuel is still being tied to the pot in the morning but during the day he now makes his way to the pot when he wants to go.

. . . . .

It is two days since the last entry. I am now putting him on the pot first thing but without tying him. He is now effectively trained. It is a great relief. John has been very supportive throughout.

Cordelia flicked over the pages.

Today, Samuel got his first spanking. A very important event in a small boy’s life!   John said it wasn’t his first spanking but I insisted it was. He’s certainly had his bottom smacked when being trained to the pot, but that was part of the training process and not a proper spanking. But today was different. It was the first time I had taken his trousers and pants down to discipline him. And appropriately it was for his first deliberate act of defiance. I had told him not to crawl up the stairs. He looked at me and I pointed up the stairs and shook my head and said ‘no’ very firmly. I could see he understood. Yet a few minutes later he was clambering up on his bottom.   Again I said ‘no. And added ‘disobedient boy’ and as I brought him down struggling under my arm, repeated ‘no’ several times again. In the drawing room, I looked him in the eye and said quietly but firmly, ‘ A boy who disobeys has his trousers taken down and is spanked on the bare bottom.’ And for the first time he was given six stinging smacks with the back of my hairbrush. He looked surprised when I started to take his trousers down and then chuckled thinking it was a game. But when I turned him over my knee and brought the brush down across his bare bottom, the laughter stopped and he could see nothing amusing in it! Afterwards, I stood him in the corner for a few moments with his trousers and pants around his ankles.

For years I had wondered what it would be like to spank a small boy. Often I’d played spanking games with my dolls. But spanking Samuel with the hairbrush on his firm little bottom and hearing his vocal and lively response are so different.   As different as a real, jumping, darting rabbit is from a dead one. And somehow I felt like a real mother for the first time.

Cordelia smiled and turned over more pages. And then more again. After that first spanking, Samuel quickly learnt that spankings were to become his mother’s consistent response to naughtiness and disobedience. And given his disposition, a frequent occurrence in his young life. Many of the later entries were quite brief.

Trousers came down today for six with the hairbrush. Tears and very subdued afterwards.

. . . . .

Samuel cantankerous and disobedient. Over my knee for the hairbrush. Ten strokes.

. . . . .

Samuel very difficult today. I brought the hairbrush from the hall table and placed it in his sight as a deterrent. Unwisely he persisted in his bad behaviour and was spanked. I applied the brush harder than usual and when I had finished there was a speck or two of blood where I had broken the skin. I must remember that his skin is still very soft and easily worn away and I must be more careful. Still no harm was done. A few surface abrasions after a spanking are nothing to worry about. The important thing is that the spanking is given and the child learns through it.

She returned the volume to the shelf and pulled out the next. All the entries were still about Samuel for although Elizabeth had been born she was still in nappies. However, Cordelia remembered how she had watched wide-eyed when her brother was spanked.    She turned a few more pages and then a few more. She read for a moment and smiled. How she remembered that incident. Samuel was now nearly four. It was the first real confrontation of wills. And she knew she must win the battle. or lose the war.

Today Samuel discovered the power of defiance. That if he doesn’t want to do something, he has only to dig in his small heels and refuse.

At morning prayers I require him to shut his eyes and put his hands together. But today when I said, ‘Put your hands together, Samuel’, he shook his head and refused. I repeated it and he still refused. So I told him that after prayers we’d have a little talk about it. I said prayers, including a prayer that Samuel might learn to be obedient and asking for strength for myself to provide the training he needed.

At the end I explained that children put their hands together when we pray to keep them from playing with things and to honour God by giving him all our attention. ‘So I want you to put your hands together now, Samuel, and keep them together until I give you permission to let them drop.’

I waited. He shook his head.

‘Samuel, you know what happens when you disobey, don’t you?’

He nodded.

‘So what happens?’

“Spanking.’

‘Yes. So put your hands together or I’ll have to spank you.’

He shook his head. And his hands remained wilfully apart. I could see he was defying me for the sheer pleasure and satisfaction of doing so. I knew this was a very serious moment. That I had complete responsibility for this small boy and that it was my duty to break his will and make him submit. However, long it took. And however painful it might be. And I knew that God was watching me.

All sin is rooted in our wanting our will to prevail over God’s will. Samuel’s holding his hands in a particular way was not in itself sinful. But then neither was eating an apple. But by the eating of an apple, Adam and Eve were cast out of Eden into the ruin of the world. What made it sinful was that God had commanded them not to eat.   And they had defied him. And my command to Samuel to put his hands together gave him the choice of obeying or disobeying. And he was choosing to disobey. And for that there needed to be a consequence. A consequence that not only marked his sin but which drove him to substitute obedience for disobedience. I was determined that by the time I had finished, he would put his hands together and keep them together for a full minute.

His eyes followed me as I went to fetch the hairbrush from the hall. I pulled out a kitchen chair and sat on it, and beckoned to him. I spoke firmly but gently. I knew that it would be very wrong to speak with anger as though my concern was not his disobedience but my own affront at being defied.

‘Come here, Samuel.’

Reluctantly he came and stood beside me. And I was pleased when he allowed me to take down his trousers and bare his bottom without a struggle.

‘Good boy. And now over my lap.’

I lifted him up and made sure he was safe and secure.

‘You are being spanked, Samuel, for disobeying me by refusing to put your hands together when asked.’

I gave him three hard strokes with the hairbrush. He stiffened and screamed but there were no tears. I lifted him off my lap and stood him in front of me.

‘You will now sit on the stool for ten minutes, Samuel. No, don’t pull your trousers up. At the end of ten minutes, I’ll ask you to put your hands together and keep them there. If you refuse, you will be spanked again. Do your understand?’

He nodded. And there he sat for the next ten minutes. I sat at the table, keeping an eye on him, and also praying quietly for strength.   At the end of ten minutes, he was spanked again; and returned to the stool for a further ten minutes. Still he refused to put his hands together. So back on the stool he went again. He was sobbing but the sobs were angry and there was little evidence of any contrition.

‘Samuel, I’m going to go on spanking you until you put your hands together as I ask. So the sooner you obey, the sooner you can pull your trousers up and play with your bricks. And next time, I will be spanking the backs of your thighs. Six strokes to each. Spanking you here, Samuel.’

And I bent down and gave him a sharp smack to a well-rounded thigh.

‘Spanked here.’

At the end of the ten minutes, I asked him quietly but firmly to put his hands together. Again, he refused. I picked up the brush, stood him of the stool, and bending him forward against me and with an arm firmly around him, I brought the hard wooden back of the brush smacking down across his left thigh. He screamed like a rabbit when the teeth of the trap spring shut across its leg. And slowly, I gave him six strokes to each thigh. I did it unhurriedly to break his determination to outlast me. To let him feel the smarting pain and learn to dread a repetition. At the end, he was sobbing and choking. So I sat him on the stool and left him for several minutes.

‘So let’s have those hands together, please Samuel.’

And praise to His Name, he put them together.

Cordelia shook her head and have a sigh. She remembered the warm satisfaction she had felt when Samuel submitted and the flush of love for him. There was something almost beautiful in the redness of his bottom, no longer a baby’s bottom, and with the marks of the brush visible upon it. She had had to apply some cold cream to his thighs for the spanking had been severe and had resulted in the skin being broken in one or two places. She got up and returned the volume to the shelf. She pulled out a later volume which now included discipline given to Elizabeth. Not for the first time, she wished she’d kept a separate record for each child. But it was too late for that now. She turned the pages until she found an entry for her daughter.

Elizabeth is now six. And what a little madam! She is the sort of child spanking was invented for. But I can see so much of myself in Elizabeth, particularly her wilfulness. So I have to be careful not to make allowances for her. It is all too easy to say ‘Oh, she’s just like me.’ As if that were an excuse acceptable to Our Father in Heaven! Today, I sent her upstairs to wash her face before we went in to town. When she came down I could see by a smudge on her cheek that she hadn’t done as I’d asked.

‘So you’ve given it a good wash, have you, Elizabeth’.

‘Yes, mother.

‘Are you sure?’.

‘Yes, mother.

‘Fetch me the face flannel, please, Elizabeth’.

She reddened but went upstairs and brought it down.

‘But this isn’t wet, Elizabeth?’

She hung her head.

‘I know, mother. I’m sorry. I didn’t wipe my face. And I told a lie.’

I sighed.

‘And what happens when you disobey, Elizabeth?’

‘I . . . I’m spanked’

‘And if you lie?’

‘I’m spanked for that, too.’

‘Then you’d better fetch the hairbrush, hadn’t you?’

‘But mother, you can’t spank me. I’ve said I’m sorry. You can’t spank me, if I’ve said I’m sorry’.

‘But how do I know you’re sorry, Elizabeth?‘

‘But I’ve told you I am. Please, mother.’

‘But you told me you’d washed your face? And had you?’

She hung her head.

‘No, mother.’

‘Then how do I know you’re not lying now. Saying you’re sorry when you’re not?   A girl is always going to say sorry to avoid punishment. Just as she lies about washing her face. To avoid the spanking she deserves.’

I looked at her.

‘You see, Elizabeth, it is wrong, very wrong, to say you’re sorry without meaning it. Saying sorry is a very important thing. It is by saying sorry, and meaning it, that a child is forgiven.’

I let my words sink in before continuing.

‘And tell me, Elizabeth what does a child say sorry for?’

‘F . . . for things she’s done wrong, mother.’

‘And how does she know they are wrong? How does her mother make her know they are wrong?’

‘B . . . by spanking her.’

‘Yes, Elizabeth.   By spanking her. So think what it would mean if a girl was let off a deserved spanking every time she trotted out the words ‘I’m sorry’ just to avoid punishment. She’d soon come to believe that all the wrong things she did weren’t that bad. And worse, if she didn’t know they were bad, then she would feel she needed to be forgiven. And her saying ‘sorry’ would become more and more meaningless. Just think about that for a moment, Elizabeth.’

I waited.

‘And another thing. A girl who is truly sorry, who knows she’s done wrong, will accept her spanking without argument. Because she knows she deserves it.’

‘But what if she’s not sorry, mother.’

I thought she said this a little too pertly.

“Well, if she’s not sorry, Elizabeth, it would be because she didn’t truly understand what she did was wrong. And the spanking would help her to realise that. The pain would help her to understand how much pain she had caused God by her disobedience.’

She said nothing.

‘So go and fetch the hairbrush.’

She came back holding it, with what looked like a sulky expression on her face.

“You’ll get six strokes for your disobedience in not washing your face when you were told. Six strokes for lying about it. And I’m minded to give you a further six strokes for pretending you were sorry just to avoid punishment.’

I waited to see if she would argue, but she didn’t. I sat on the chair and beckoned to her. Her dress was lifted; her knickers taken right down; and I pulled her over my lap.

Elizabeth responds to a spanking in the most direct and sensuous way possible. Her screams come in long gasping breaths. She twists her body and squirms, wriggling her bottom. And her legs kick and her arms reach out, with her hands clasping and unclasping. But she makes no attempt to reach back or fight the spanking. I gave her the full eighteen strokes. And then stood her in the corner for ten minutes.

Cordelia closed the book and returned it to the shelf. She smiled. How right she had been to write at such length and to record the actual exchange between herself and Elizabeth. She glanced at the clock.   Time for her Bible reading.

(to be continued)

(The End)