Miss Strang Chapter 87

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 87

As the twigs were slowly drawn across my bottom, I remembered how, a few days before, I had tantalised the boy Cameron in the same way. Scratching the birch across his flesh, and gently swishing it across his small clenched buttocks. He had gasped and I had listened to him swallowing and drawing in his breath, fearful and anxious. And now, if I shut my eyes, I could see myself stretched out on the table with my bottom elevated by the bolster and with my boy’s shirt rucked up.

I remembered how I used to smack my own bottom with my hairbrush, pretending I was my doll Amanda and her strict mother punishing her for her disobedience. And as I lay there, I imagined I was a reformatory boy, caught masturbating by Mrs McLaughlan. A reformatory boy who had been brought to the flogging table to be birched for his sin. And I was Mrs McLaughlan herself, birch in hand, standing over that quivering fearful boy, his bottom exposed for flogging. A flogging that would leave him wealed and smarting, his flesh bloody, and his throat hoarse with screaming. I glistened with a strange hot pleasure as I raised the rod, and brought it down with a wet splashy sound across his bottom.

And I could hear my own screams as the birch cut into the boy’s firm flesh. I was writhing in agony, my head back, my mouth open, and my hands clenching and unclenching in my torment. Like Miss Strang, Mrs McLaughlan knew better than to flog too fast. She paused after each stroke and allowed me time to smart. And by the end I was writhing in agony, as if a hot flame had been licking across my bottom and burning my flesh.

I once saw Mr Mountfield with a rat he’d caught in a trap. It had been put in a steel cage and placed on his work bench. I watched as he reached up for his blowlamp and, after carefully fuelling it, lit it. Smiling, he adjusted the flame until it was a hot, roaring tongue. And then he turned towards the cage. The rat tore frantically around as he directed the fierce burning jet through the bars. He herded it from one corner of the cage to another, back and forwards. And just as a boy having the rod drawn tantalisingly across his bottom anticipates the agony to come, so did the rat. It felt the threat of the singeing heat and from its desperate screeching, it knew there was no escaping the flame. I watched, breathless, with my heart thudding in my chest, as the torch burnt first its tail and then its back legs. It was writhing now, as a boy writhes under the birch. And when his tormentor pauses and watches him in his agony, he knows there is more to come. And so did the rat.

It dragged itself into a corner of the cage, its whiskers twitching. There was no escaping its fate. It was allowed to writhe for several minutes in agony, before, with a roaring jet of flame, it was burnt and set alight until all that was left was a small black twisted body. Its agony was over. But with a boy it is different. A boy roars and writhes but is not vermin to be destroyed: but a will to be lovingly broken and rendered compliant.

The rat feared the flame, as a boy fears the birch. But there was no ignominy in its burning. But not so for a boy. He is stripped and secured. Forced to expose the most intimate parts of his body to the tough lithe twigs. And as slowly, stroke after remorseless stroke, he is bent to the will of his governess, he experiences a burning shame that no animal can ever know. He is seared both in body and soul.

The rat was secured in a physical cage. But a boy is to be secured within his governess’s will, and unlike the rat, the door is left open. He is free to escape from his prison and to assert his will against the hers. And she would have it no other way. For no governess wants a boy whose spirit has been excised like an apple core, leaving a hollow centre, but a boy with character, who kicks against her rule. And who needs repeated flogging to keep him in check.

At first, a boy will pass almost carelessly through the door of his cage to shape his world in accordance with his childish desires rather than the will of his governess. And each time he does so, he is spanked. His bottom is bared and his small wriggling body held over his governess’s knee until he is red, smarting and tearful. For only by such an unswerving commitment to his discipline does a boy learn obedience. He is warned to remain within his governess’s will, to obey her benign rule, to keep her nursery law. But a boy is an independent spirit and the lure of that world beyond the cage is irresistible. And despite regular spanking, the boy is never completely broken. For as the Psalmist says

I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me.

And as the boy grows and his will strengthens, so too must the chastisement that keeps his will in check. Ten hard smacks of the governess’s hand across his firm little bottom becomes first twenty, and then fifty. Soon, the sting of her hand is replaced by the hard wooden back of her hairbrush. And again, strokes are increased to match his growing determination to assert his will against hers. By the time he is six, the cane is in regular use: and by the age of eight, the birch.

I lay on the table panting and sobbing, my bottom hot and burning with a deep, penetrating, indescribable soreness. And I became aware of Mrs McLaughlan speaking.

“Well, Miss Strang, I have flogged the girl as I would flog one of our reformatory boys.”

“Thank you, Mrs McLaughlan. Livia’s bottom is a witness to that. I see the birch has broken the skin in a number of places, and drawn blood.”

“Yes, I am afraid with a heavy rod like this, and with the birch lengths carefully selected and intelligently bound up, some broken skin and some bleeding is inevitable.”

“And desirable, Mrs McLaughlan. As the Bible reminds us without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness. And a child’s blood shed in chastisement is a means of grace by which he shares in the merits of Our Lord’s own sacrifice. But perhaps some salt rubbed into the abrasions would be in order.”

Mrs McLaughlan picked up a hand bell from a low shelf and, opening the door, stepped into the corridor, and rang it. After a few moments a young girl appeared.

“You rang, Ma’am?”

“I did, Susan. Please go to the infirmary and ask Mrs Ramsbotham for the saline preparation used for boys who have been flogged, and a sponge. Quickly now.”

She scurried off.

“And while we are waiting, Miss Strang, perhaps we should discuss the additional punishment you believe the girl needs. Remind me. What was it that merited further correction?”

“A surly disposition and an unwillingness to accept her need for correction, Mrs McLaughlan.”

“And what had you in mind, Miss Strang?”

“Well, a dozen further cuts of a fresh birch to the backs of her thighs would not be inappropriate. But she is to go from here to the Innes’s. And it occurs to me that perhaps she should be sent with a recommendation to Mrs Innes to provide a suitable punishment for a girl who enters her service with such a disagreeable and uncooperative spirit. I am sure her daughter would be more than happy to oblige.”

“There’s no doubt about that, Miss Strang. Rachel Innes is a most imaginative girl when it comes to punishing the boys here. Her mother raised her, and her brothers, with a most commendable strictness.”

“Yes. Mrs Innes was most forthcoming about the discipline of her children on her recent visit. But tell me more about the punishments her daughter has devised for the boys here.”

“Well, let me give you an example. About a year ago, we had a rebellious nine year old. As soon as he arrived, he made it clear that he had no intention of conforming to our rules. So within a short time he had been spanked. Several times. Each spanking more severe than the one before. But still he refused to mend his ways. And I can assure you, Miss Strang, that when I spank a boy I apply the hairbrush with the intention of leaving marks that will still be visible a week later. Anyway, matters came to a head, when Miss Innes discovered him in an empty classroom urinating in the corner of the room. She seized him by the ear. And when Miss Innes has a boy by the ear, with her thumb nail digging into his earlobe, he goes where she leads. Once in my study, Rachel explained what had happened and asked if she might take charge of the situation. I agreed, for she is an exceptional young woman, and an excellent disciplinarian. She said she was confident of bringing about a change for the better and I believed her.”

“And did she, Mrs McLaughlan?”

“Oh yes, Miss Strang, there was a most marked improvement in the boy’s behaviour. I watched as she pulled him by the ear towards the ground and made him kneel in front of her. He was squirming and protesting. Then, with her other hand she twisted a length of his hair around her finger and thumb and pulled his head back. And then releasing his ear, she gave him six hard, resounding slaps to his face.

‘Stop your grizzling, and listen to me, Cleary. First, I am going to spank you more soundly than you’ve ever been spanked before. And then, for your disgusting behaviour, I’m going to give you a punishment you’ll remember to your dying day.’

“She ordered him to undress. To take off every stich of clothing. And he did so, without further protest. There’s not a boy in the place that doubts Miss Innes’s commitment to his discipline, and that she is prepared to take whatever measures are necessary to secure obedience. Cleary was now completely cowed and co-operative. He stood bare and shivering in front of her. She sat on the upright chair, and taking the hairbrush from me, beckoned to him.

‘Over my knee, Cleary.’

“She punished him with slow measured strokes, her left arm wrapped across his back, and her hand tucked beneath his body, holding him firmly. The back of the brush impacted first on one small buttock and then the other. He shrieked and stiffened after each stoke, and by the time she had finished she had burst the skin in several places. But his ordeal was far from over.

‘Please stretch out his legs, Mrs McLaughlan.’

“He whimpered as she proceeded to spank the backs of his thighs. And soon he was screaming in agony as she systematically worked her way up and down, until they were red and raw. Then, she let him rest over her lap for several minutes, as she quietly explained what she still had in store for him.

“He was led out into the cobbled yard. It was shortly before the boys’ midday meal. He was made to stand facing the wall and told to remain there, hands on his head, and without moving, until four o’clock, when the boys are allowed out in the yard for a little free time and some fresh air.

“Going without his midday meal, Mrs McLaughlan?”

“Oh yes. No midday meal for him. Although I doubt whether he would have had much appetite for it.”

“So what happened at four o’clock?”

“Well, Miss Strang, we have about sixty boys here, ranging in age from eight to twelve. There are five dormitories and the boys are allocated to those according to age. Each dormitory has a large wash room in which is kept a tin hip bath for Sunday bath night. The hip bath is like a large coal scuttle with one end higher than the other so a boy can sit back to be washed. At the higher end there is a handle.”

“Yes, Mrs McLaughlan, I know what a hip bath looks like.”

“Yes, I am sure you do, Miss Strang. Well, shortly before four o’clock, Miss Innes had one of the hip baths taken out into the yard. The boy Cleary was placed in it, not sitting with his back to the high end, but lying the other way around with his head resting on the floor of the bath and with his legs raised and his ankles secured to the handle.”

I lay on the flogging bench, scarcely breathing, listening with rapt attention.

“At four o’clock the boys came out for their late afternoon break before their last lesson before supper. They were made to line up, all sixty of them. And Miss Innes explained that the boy Cleary had been caught urinating in a classroom and to teach him a lesson, each boy would in turn urinate on him in the bath. She then looked down at Cleary.

‘And you, boy, will open your mouth and keep it open, for that’s where each boy will be directing his flow of water. And be warned if it’s not kept wide open, there are some other very unpleasant measures we can take with you secured like that. Do you understand?’

“You must appreciate, Miss Strang, that boys are not permitted to go to the lavatory after their first visit in the morning before breakfast and, as they are required to drink a glass of water at midday, each had a full bladder. And as we know, small boys take a particular pleasure in flaunting their little penises and indulging in unseemly games such as seeing who can urinate the farthest. And the prospect of urinating into another boy’s mouth was for many a source of amusement. Cleary choked and panicked as his mouth filled and he was forced to swallow the bitter stream of evil tasting liquid. But of course, not all the urine went into his mouth. Much streamed over his face and began to fill the bath. And as boy after boy emptied his bladder, so the level rose. By the end, it was lapping around his cheeks and he was gasping and desperately lifting his head.”

She paused.

“So, Miss Strang, that is what I meant when I said Miss Innes was a most imaginative girl when it came to punishing boys.”

As I listened, I wriggled against the bolster, feeling a strange pleasure as I visualised the boy Cleary, drenched in urine and humiliated in front of the other reformatory boys. But I also felt a cold creeping fear at the prospect of being in servitude to Mrs Innes and her daughter. Miss Strang stepped over to the birching table and gently stroked my cropped head.

“Well Livia, I trust you have been attending. You will go to Mrs Innes with a recommendation that at the outset of your service she should provide an appropriate punishment for your surly disposition and unwillingness to submit to correction. And who knows, perhaps she will ask Miss Innes to administer that.”

The door opened and the girl Susan returned with the saline solution. Mrs McLaughlan took it from her and with the sponge firmly wiped my wealed flesh. I gasped and squirmed.

“You will be sore for a number of days, my girl, and it will be painful when you sit. But the birch does no lasting damage, even if a child is repeatedly flogged. That is its beauty. Is that not so, Miss Strang?”

“Indeed, Mrs McLaughlan. It is one of God’s marvellous provisions.”

I was roughly towelled dry and then released and helped up.

Mrs McLaughlan handed Miss Innes a bundle of clothing.

“This was brought in by Rachel. It’s the clothing her mother wishes Livia to wear during her time in the household.

I removed my boy’s shirt and slowly dressed in a maid’s garb, black and unflattering.

“And I understand from Rachel, Miss Strang, that you will also be joining the Innes’s household for a time.”

“Yes, Mrs McLaughlan, I shall be assisting in the tutoring of the boys that are from time to time in their care. And I am greatly looking forward to the challenge.”

She smiled.

“And I will endeavour to be as equally imaginative as Miss Innes in the discipline I provide.”

(to be continued)

(The End)