Chapter 2: Boss in Trouble

The Headmistress, who according to the sign above her door was called Mrs Cruickshank, was seated behind a large oak desk in a very old fashioned, oak-panelled room. She pointed to a chair in front of her desk for Mr Furzton to sit on and then turned to me:

“Tom, welcome to our school. I was really hoping to meet you in happier circumstances and welcome you properly into our community. I will have a chat with you in a minute - for now, would you mind waiting in Mrs Lodenheim’s office?”

As I was sitting in the secretary’s office, I could hear the mumble of voices from next door. After about five minutes, I could hear raised voices, particularly Mr Furzton’s voice. The door was yanked open and my boss stormed out and left, without even sparing me another glance. I then heard the crackling intercom on Mrs Lodenheim’s desk: “Mrs Lodenheim, will you please send Tom in now?”

Once I was seated in the chair that Mr Furzton had just vacated, Mrs Cruickshank turned to me, kindness personified:

“I am so sorry you had to witness that scene, Tom. This sort of behaviour is very rare here at the Hall. But Mr Furzton is under a lot of pressure. One of the pupils he punished this afternoon has lodged a formal complaint, and since her account of what happened is corroborated by a witness we have had to put Mr Furzton on paid leave until a formal hearing can be convened. You are likely to be called as a witness at that hearing, so that I cannot go into the events in question with you so as not to colour your testimony. However, the formal hearing is unlikely to be before next week so that we are finding ourselves in a little bit of a bind when it comes to discipline at this school.

So how have you been finding your first day so far?”

“Hmm, aaah, interesting. Challenging, too. Mr Furzton gave me some training on a dummy and trusted me to carry out my first real punishment once I had passed a test on the number 3 cane.”

“That’s good to hear!”, she replied. “As you will by now appreciate, we pride ourselves on our discipline regime in that it is fair, appropriate and, above all, swift. Its most fundamental aspect, however, is that punishments are administered not by our teachers, but by specialised discipline officers which you aspire to become. That way, we do not undermine the bond of trust between teacher and student, and we ensure that all punishments are carried out in a consistent and even-handed way. Finally, discipline officers are highly trained professionals, ensuring that none of our girls is injured or permanently harmed in the process.”

She seemed to have run out of things to say. There was a bit of an awkward silence.

“So, I have been considering my options for discipline. One way would be to let punishment slips accumulate. Another to ask a discipline officer from one of our sister colleges to come here for a temporary secondment. But none of them has more than one discipline guy on the staff at the moment. Which takes me to you.”

“Me?” I stammered, confused. This had been my first day!

“Well, yes. Mr Furzton seemed very taken with you and your skills. Of course, you would be limited to the number 3 cane, on safety and insurance grounds. However, there is no reason why you should be restricted to 10 strokes - the rules say nothing about the number of strokes, nor about how many layers of clothing the pupil is allowed to wear during the punishment. So, if you are amenable, I would simply instruct all our teachers not to prescribe any punishment other than with the number 3 cane and simply vary the number of strokes and layers of clothing in order to adjust the severity of the punishment to match the severity of the offence.”

“Hmm, that might work.”, I was forced to say, feeling very unsure of myself. “But I must admit that I have not really understood the escalation system - so would I simply ignore escalations?”

“I’m glad you ask - as it happens, Mr Furzton has been working on an escalation program for our new computer system to be rolled out in all our network of colleges. You enter the prescribed punishment and the level of escalation and the computer automatically calculates a number of alternative new punishments. You then ask the girl for a suggested escalation and if this exceeds the computer’s suggestion, well and good, that’s what she gets. If it does not, the computer will give you a number of additional aggravating options for you to choose from. How does that sound?”

“Fine, thank you. I have never used a computer before, though...” [It just occurs to me that I failed to mention that all this happened in the early eighties of the last century!]

“Oh, our computer officer, Miss Young, will show you, don’t worry. In fact, she can show you tomorrow morning, first period, so that you’d be good to go in time for the first recess.”

“Ok, then. I’m still a bit worried, though. I’m the same age as some of your girls - what if they do not obey me?” (or, worse, laugh at me or tease me, I was thinking to myself).

“Don’t you worry about that. They will. Anyone you send to me is guaranteed a much more severe, public, punishment.”

“Public?”, I asked, shocked.

“Yes, for maximum deterrence. Public punishments occur about four times a year, and can be prescribed by a properly convened disciplinary panel. They are carried out in one of the other schools in our network during a special afternoon assembly. We are doing it like that in order to minimise the disruptive effect it would have on learning if punishments were carried out in front of a pupil’s own peers. As you may know, our network consists of three schools for girls and three schools for boys - we punish the boys in one of the girls’ schools and vice versa. Very effective, I assure you!”

I now understood why the threat to be sent to the headmistress had always produced the desired result earlier that afternoon. I seemed to have run out of excuses.

“So, it’s agreed, then. Miss Young will fetch you from your room tomorrow morning to run through the escalation program with you - you are then expected to be in the discipline room during all break times. Good luck and have a good rest tonight!”

I wasn’t so sure about my prospects for sleep. First, the bed had looked seriously uncomfortable. Second, my head was full of pictures of clothed, semi-clad and naked girls being punished, and expectations of having to do the same on my own the next day. Third, I was wondering whether my mum had packed any tissues - I had a feeling I would be needing them later that day (I was right, as it turned out, and she hadn’t - I smuggled some loo paper out of the lavatory).

I had had some sleep the next morning, even though the bed turned out to be every bit as uncomfortable as it looked! I got up at six and had a quick shower in the girls communal shower room. Obviously, at that hour, I was alone. Freshly showered I got dressed in my uniform and went to breakfast - this was served in the main refectory. Although I sat at the staff table (known as the ‘High Table’, as I found out later), I was the only one there for breakfast. Somebody, one of the house mistresses, I assumed, had been there before me but, when I arrived, I was the only one there, attracting stares and giggles from the assembled girlhood. My uniform did not help - they knew what my role at their school was to be.

I was back in my basement room by 8:30 - first period began at 8:40 and at 8:45 Miss Young knocked on the door. I wasn’t really surprised she was a very young teacher - the older ones probably wouldn’t know one end from a computer from the other - but I was surprised that she was very pretty indeed. A real stunner. She introduced herself and then accompanied me into the discipline room. The computer terminal was sitting in a corner. While I had played games on my brother’s old C64 and my own Commodore Amiga, I had never used a network computer before. You had to give it commands - if you didn’t, all you got was a blinking arrow. Miss Young, or Carol, as she asked me to call her, showed me how to enter ‘escal’ and wait. The screen now asked: “No Strokes?” - Carol entered 10. “Implement?” Carol entered ‘Cane 3’ (she had been told that was all I was qualified to use, clearly). “Layers?” Carol entered 3, but the computer rejected this. It was either 2, 1 or 0, apparently, which made sense (panties and skirt). She entered 2. Now more text appeared: “Please enter the dates of the pupil’s last three attendances” and a diary showing the last calendar month. Carol selected one date three days previously and today’s date. A message appeared:

Based on your input the pupil appeared twice before in the last seven school days and once before today. Is that right?

“Oops, that’s not what I meant!”, said Carol. “It seems that it does not mean the current visit, only visits in the past. So better remember that!” She entered ‘y’ and the screen really came to life.

Based on your input the pupil is due four escalations (one for the second appearance within one week, two for the third appearance within one week and one for appearing twice in a single day).

Strokes: 10 + 3 (I); 13 + 4 (II); 17 + 6 (III); 23 + 8 (IV) = 31 STROKES

Implement: 4 (I); 5 (II); Paddle (III); heavy whip (IV)

Clothing: Panties (I); bare (II); bra (III); nude (IV)

“I still don’t really understand how this works in practice”, I worried. “I mean, I am meant to ask her what escalations she suggests - how do I know if this is greater or lesser than what the computer says? There are so many options - really very complicated.”

“Calm down,” Carol said in an irritating, soothing voice. “It’s really very simple. Say she were to suggest 20 strokes. That would get her only to the second escalation. We don’t have a choice when it comes to implement, so that there are two escalations to go, plus one extra for falling short in her suggestion. So you could give her 31 strokes plus one third, that is, er, 41. Or the 20 she asked for in her bra. But the starting point is the 20 she asked for, so you can’t start from scratch and give her 13 in the nude. But don’t worry, the computer has all this programmed in!”

She hit return, and the computer asked:

Pupil suggestion?

She entered:

20, 3, skirt.

The computer:

41, 3, skirt 31, 3, panties 23, 3, bare 20, 3, bra

“So that shouldn’t be too hard, right?”, she asked, with a knowing smile and a furtive glance at my crotch area. It must be admitted: I was visibly aroused. This flustered me.

“Hmm, yes, that should be fine, thanks.”

“Ok, I’m off to teach a Pascal class. Good luck!”

And she left. On my own in the discipline room I had another good look around. It was going to be an interesting few days!

During the first recess, or break, as it is known this side of the Atlantic, I could feel my heart rate go up as I was waiting for that knock on the door. But it never came. The break bell sounded again before I knew it. Another 90 minutes of anticipation - for, who knows, maybe again nothing!