Chapter 1

The first time I whipped my maid was after the cook and the gardener proved to me that she had been stealing food from my pantry. I wanted to just give her a warning and tell her to never do it again since a little bit of rice that cost a few rupees was hardly worth the trouble of a whipping. My other servants, however, insisted that that she should be punished. To show her mercy they said would only encourage her to steal even more from me in the future. In the four years I had been in Burma, the natives I dealt with on a daily basis had been more troublesome than I had ever anticipated. In order to play my role in the order of things, I often had to do things that I would rather not, and punishing the maid was one of those things.

Finally, in order to keep peace among the servants in my household, I called the maid into the drawing room to question her about the theft. The cook and the gardener were in the room to provide evidence if needed. She must have known there was no use in denying what she had done, and she freely admitted the theft. The gleeful looks on the face of the other servants troubled me because it was obvious that they were looking forward to watching when I punished the maid. The cook offered to fetch a rattan cane for me to use on her, but I told him that my belt would be sufficient for the task at hand. The downcast look on his face showed his disappointment that I wasn't going to cane on her bare bottom.

Once the punishment implement was decided, I told the maid to remove all her clothing. As she was doing that, I unhitched my thick leather belt and drew it through the belt loops. Once she had stripped, her naked body made her look much younger than the age of 20 that she claimed to be when I hired her. Based upon the smallness of her breasts and her thin hips, one would have judged her to be in her early teens at the latest if she had been an Englishwomen. The only thing that gave any credence to her age was the delta of thick pubic hair between her legs. I told her to lie over the arm of the sofa against the wall. Looking at her tiny buttocks, I was happy for my decision to use the belt. A cane would have been much too harsh for a woman with a small backside as small as hers.

I told that I was going to give her twelve lashes with my belt, and that if she was ever caught stealing food again, I would double the number of strokes the next time. The room was silent, and I could hear her breathing quicken as she anticipated the pain that she was going to suffer once the lashing began. The excitement evident on the faces of the cook and the gardener was unseemly, but I didn't see a way of depriving them of their entertainment since they were the ones who had reported her treachery. I resolved to keep a close eye on them in the future and cane them severely if an opportunity presented itself.

I drew the belt back and delivered the first blow which left a long red stripe about three inches wide on her left hip. The next lash landed on her right hip and left a matching mark on that side. As I continued the lashing, she showed no reaction, and her willfulness angered me. Therefore, I delivered the last few blows with as much force as possible in an effort to break her spirit. When it was over, her entire backside was crimson, and in a few areas where I had lashed her the hardest I could see bruises that were beginning to darken. She was also crying by this point, and I felt satisfied with my handiwork as I surveyed her backside and listened to her tears. The next day, she thanked me profusely in her soft, lilting voice for using my belt on her instead of the cane. She said that when her sister had been caned by her employer, her backside had looked much worse than hers had after the belting she received the day before. It was only then that I began to feel shame for my decision to punish her at all.