Chapter 8: St Cuthbert’s Punishment Ceremony

The girls arrived in a mini-van later that morning. I was supposed to welcome them to St Cuthbert’s along with Sue. Sue told them to get a shower in the gym showers and then get into fresh school uniforms. I then had to take them, through the theatre (which I, too, saw for the first time and which was certainly impressive in size), to a utility room behind the stage. Here, I had to give them a copy of the ‘programme’ each. I still remember the look on Nicole’s face as she was scanning the pages of the programme ... but then the door fell shut and I locked it, leaving them by themselves for the next few hours. I had to get into a suit (provided by the school, and a bad fit), and then met up with Sue to go and see Dr Gove who was in the theatre overlooking the preparations. The student orchestra was rehearsing in what I could not believe was an actual orchestra pit, you know, like you get in opera houses. This was a seriously well-funded school!

Dr Gove was walking up and down the auditorium, checking that all was clean and orderly while wincing whenever the orchestra produced another dissonance that Elgar surely could not have intended. I felt sorry for the girls - surely, being beaten in front of a theatre full of adolescent and pre-pubescent males was bad enough - why did they also have to be subjected to the torture of this alleged music?

“I think we’re going to put on a decent show,” Dr Gove said, more to Sue than to me. “Having young Tom here do his first punishment ceremony adds a certain spice to the whole affair. Is the nurse ready for after? Yes? That’s good. Well, it’s all arranged then. Doors open in fifteen minutes ... break a leg, everyone!”

As he walked off, I lingered for a while with Sue.

“I’ve been wondering, is what we are doing here legal?”

“Well,” she said with a grin, “corporal punishment is certainly allowed in private schools such as this one - it was only banned in state schools. Our schools’ joint legal department takes the view that, as long as parental consent is given when the student is enrolled, we are safe as far as the law is concerned. Nevertheless...” She hesitated. “Let’s just say that we don’t like journalists around here, and any that appear quickly disappear again...”

“You mean, they are killed?”

She laughed out loud. “No, of course not, this is not the Mob! But they are certainly encouraged not to print their stories. The schools have a special fund to buy stories on us only to bury them ... the Heads take the view that the disciplinary regime is what makes our schools attractive to the sort of parents whose children we want here...”

As we were chatting, the doors opened and school-uniformed boys in their hundreds streamed in, trying to get to the best seats. The first two rows, however, were marked ‘reserved’. I found out later that night that the school invited alumni to attend these ceremonies in return for a donation, the expectation being that this be no less than £10,000. I was beginning to understand why the school had no financial problems...

The orchestra was, as far as I could tell, now playing Gilbert and Sullivan selections ... I’m not a fan, normally, but that day I felt sorry for poor old Gilbert and Sullivan...

As the orchestra shrieked to a close, Dr Gove walked onto the stage, holding a microphone.

“Welcome to the first punishment ceremony of this academic year. As you all know, the schools in our network assist each other in discipline matters. Today it is our turn to assist our sister school, Chatterley Hall. Three of their students will tonight be subjected to well-deserved discipline and punishment, administered by our own disciplinarian, Miss Lockwood, alongside Chatterley’s newly qualified discipline officer, Mr Danvers. However, we are a community, and we all help each other in all things. For this reason, some of you will also be expected to help and assist in tonight’s ceremony. I will explain how this will happen at the appropriate juncture in the proceedings. First of all, let me introduce Mr Danvers who, though no older than some of you, has already finished school and has now started his first job as the in-house disciplinarian at Chatterley Hall. Sue shoved me onto the stage and I stumbled out, to a spattering of applause. I suddenly had this picture in my head, replacing Dr Gove with Kermit the frog introducing a new act, wiggling frantically while shouting ‘applause, applause!’ I shook my head to get rid of the image.

“So, Mr Danvers, you must be a bit of a child prodigy to have finished school while so young?”

Trick question. I had left after my O-levels, not having been good enough academically to allow me to stay on to attempt my A-levels, which would have opened the door to university and the professional world. But I just grunted affirmatively.

“How long have you been at Chatterley?”

“I started my apprenticeship just over a week ago.”

“Wow, and you are already in sole charge?”

“Well, let’s say that things did not happen as everybody expected, including myself.”

“And how many punishments have you administered so far?”

“Hmm, I have lost count. Certainly more than thirty, though. And I’ve been trained by Mr Furzton and now Miss Lockwood.”

“That sounds great. Well, good luck for your first punishment ceremony!”

Again, the Kermit impression as I left the stage.

“Now, what we are looking for are four strong lads from the upper sixth to basically be our stage hands tonight. We will need to move punishment frames onto and off the stage, secure the girls to it using leather cuffs, sometimes, if necessary, using force, and generally be helpful round the stage. Who would like to volunteer?”

Quite a few hands went up and Dr Gove selected four young men that had clearly worked out or rowed or something - their sinews were as iron bands if you know what I mean, and I would rather not encounter any of them in a dark alley...

The orchestra was now playing the introduction to the National Anthem, and as they massacred John Bull’s tune, Sue shoved me towards the utility room to get Anna. I got underway as the whole school broke into discordant song...

I unlocked the door and looked in. The girls were sitting in different corners, sullenly.

“Anna, it’s your turn. Please follow me!”

Anna sighed and got up. She followed me onto the stage and I told her where to stand - right centre stage, next to Dr Gove.

‘God save the Queen’ over, everyone apart from Dr Gove, the four helpers and Anna sat down.

“Let me introduce Anna Shylock. She is fifteen years of age and in Chatterley Hall’s Lower Fifth. She is weak academically and gets punished for that reason on a regular basis. However, she has never been punished during a punishment ceremony until now. She was asked to witness the punishment of one of her fellow students, Miss Culwether, whom we shall meet later on. When Miss Culwether went on to make outrageous allegations against the discipline officer in question, Miss Shylock backed her up. It was later shown that both students’ testimony was false, warranting their appearance here. Still, out of the three she is the least blameworthy and the sentence of the Panel was a mere 20 cane strokes followed by 20 whip lashes. I have decided that the cane will be applied to her panties, her skirt being lifted for this purpose...”

The audience groaned, having expected full nudity...

“ ... followed by 20 whiplashes on her bare back. I have asked her to take off her top facing the auditorium.”

Finally there was applause and cheering!

“I will now hand over to Miss Lockwood and her helpers!”

Two of the helpers were carrying a heavy stool onto the stage. When Anna failed to move toward it, the other two helpers stepped behind her and escorted her to the stool, pushing her upper body over it so that her waist came to be supported by it. Sue now lifted her skirt, revealing a pair of regulation white cotton panties. She raised the rather heavy number 4 cane and struck, using her usual, forceful technique. This immediately elicited a scream from Anna, drowned out by the cheering crowd. Sue waited for the tell-tale red line to form on those portions of Anna’s behind that were not covered by her panties before she struck a second time. By the time she was done, the skin around Anna’s panties was red with purple welts. Sue was the right woman for the job.

Now I was up. My heart was beating hard in my chest. Stage fright or excitement? Stage fright, I think. As I walked onto the stage, I caught the disapproving glances of some of the old men in the front row, the paying alumni. Two helpers were now righting Anna up and put her centre stage. She knew that she was now expected to take off her blouse and bra, but clearly could not bring herself to do this in front of all those leering eyes. Dr Gove coughed suggestively. She moved her left hand to her top button and froze.

“This disobedience calls for an escalation of five additional lashes”, commented Dr Gove from off-stage. “Will Miss Shylock please disrobe!”

Anna was still frozen.

Two helpers now moved behind her. At that threat, she started to unbutton her blouse and was soon just dressed in her skirt and bra. When she stopped again, Dr Gove ordered the helpers to take it off her by force, and they did, two holding her while a third slipped off her bra. They then secured her hands to cuffs that were dangling from the ceiling.

Dr Gove now gave voice again, struggling to make himself heard over all the cheering:

“This repeated disobedience calls for another escalation. There are two options that I am going to put to the vote: 1. Miss Shylock is stripped completely and then given 25 lashes on her back while facing the auditorium; 2. Miss Shylock is given ten additional lashes on her breasts. Show of hands for option 1, please!” ]

Anna was not exactly a looker, but these boys did not really get to see many girls naked (until very recently, I had been in exactly their position and knew what it was like). I was therefore expecting option 1 to win. I was surprised when hardly any hands went up to see Anna totally naked. Option 2 won hands down.

Dr Gove came over to where Sue and I were seated at the edge of the stage. “As young Tom isn’t qualified to whip her breasts, he’ll start on her back and Miss Lockwood will take over, ok?”

“Ok”, we both agreed.

And so, I had to ‘step up’. I grabbed the whip and stepped onto the stage. Anna was facing the auditorium, so everyone could see her breasts, but for the punishment she was supposed to be facing the other way. I was not sure how to bring this about. I need not have worried, however. The sophisticated stage equipment actually lifted her physically off her feet, turned the ropes around but then left her dangling, her feet just off the stage boards. She now presented me her white, somewhat pimply, back. I thought back to my lessons two days previously, pulled back and let her have it across her back. A loud ‘crack’ filled the auditorium. I glanced over at Sue. She was smiling broadly. Though I could not see it, Anna certainly wasn’t. She was screaming. And although some of my lashes did not land as successfully as that first one, she did not really stop until I had landed the twenty-fifth with another loud ‘crack’, followed by thunderous applause.

I stepped back into the shadows, watching, fascinated, how the ropes again did their magic and turned her body around, so that her breasts were now facing the audience again. I handed the whip to Sue who stepped onto the stage in hushed silence. Anna was by now sobbing and crying uncontrollably. Sue’s face was set hard. She took aim, raised the whip and pulled it through both of Anna’s breasts. An angry red line formed immediately. The next lash followed, and the next. Ten in all. Sue stepped back into the shadows, but the crying Anna was left to hang, facing the audience, her breasts covered in thin red lines.

And then, horror of horrors, the orchestra began to ‘play’ again! An ‘Enigma’ if ever there was one, why such a well-funded school had such an awful orchestra!

As the scraping finally came to an end, the ropes finally came down and were taken off Anna’s wrists. She was then not led off-stage, as she might have hoped, but downstage where, I only noticed now, there were six leather cuffs attached to the wall. Two of them secured her up against the wall, arms up as if she was holding them up. Her breasts and even the fine red lines on them were clearly visible to anyone in the auditorium.

The boys in the audience began chatting among themselves as nothing more appeared to be happening. Everybody was waiting for the next girl to be brought in. Then it occurred to me that the reason why this wasn’t happening was that I was the one who was supposed to fetch her! As I raced towards the utility room I actually tripped and fell, hurting my knee quite a bit, and causing great hilarity in the audience.

I quickly unlocked the door and called Nicole out. Head bowed, she followed me onto the stage.

Now Nicole was a beauty. Still is, as a matter of fact. But a picture of unblemished, innocent youth back then. The auditorium fell silent. The moment was somewhat ruined by Dr Gove’s misguided attempt at humour:

“Welcome, Miss Bielefeld, welcome! Or should I say ‘Willkommen’, as they say in your home country? Don’t be afraid - this is going to hurt me more than it’s going to hurt you! Only kidding, of course, it’s not going to hurt me at all and you quite a lot!”

A few toadies laughed, but other than that, the joke, such as it was, fell flat.

“Ok, be that as it may. We must get on. Gentlemen, this is Nicole Bielefeld. She has repeatedly got into trouble at Chatterley, collecting so many escalations as to make a Disciplinary Hearing inevitable. At the same time, she was deceitful and disrespectful to Mr Danvers on his first or second day in his new position. So she thoroughly deserves the punishment that is going to be visited upon her. Miss Bielefeld, please move into the auditorium and pick one young man who will accompany you onto the stage to take off your blazer!”

This was a bit silly. Only a few hands went up, and rather than point at someone, poor Nicole had to walk through the rows and take the relevant boy by the hand, asking him politely to come to the stage with her to take off her blazer!

But then things got more interesting, of course. She lost her blouse next, and had to walk quite a long way through the quite narrow rows of seats to pick the boy she had chosen to take off her skirt. When she had lost her bra, someone tripped her up as she was making her way through the row, and she fell across the boys’ legs (and groping hands). But then, finally, she was naked. She got to take off her own socks.

“Please now turn away from the audience and bend down, grabbing your ankles!”, Dr Gove ordered. “Your bottom does indeed look rather tender. Probably best to avoid option 1, involving 50 whacks with the paddle onto that very tender, or should I say tenderised, ha ha, flesh?”

Not only were the red and purple welts, inflicted by me, of course, very visible, her position also meant that both her holes were visible to the audience.

“Please remain in that position while we hear the first speech in favour of each option!”, ordered Dr Gove. Who would like to go first for option 1?

A pimply youth in the fourth row raised his hand and was chosen to speak.

“I say that Option 1 is by far the most painful, particularly given the state of her bottom. I have an almost scientific interest in what that bottom is going to look like after whacks with a paddle! Wow! And cane strokes on palms, soles and thighs must be exquisitely painful ... She clearly deserves punishment, and this would be it. Particularly if the whole thing is rounded up by an astonishing 70 whiplashes with the BULLWHIP! Please, gentlemen, I urge you to vote ‘Option 1’!!’

A smattering of applause.

A tall, thin boy aged at least 17 got up to speak in favour of option 2:

“I hear what my colleague is saying and agree that those buttocks need to be punished - however, I am also interested to see those breasts whipped. And I agree that palms, soles and thighs need to be caned, too!”

Not very convincing, I thought. The third option had lots of potential advocates, and Dr Gove had to pick one, a rather overweight boy, maybe 15, with glasses:

“Option 3 is simply the most elegant. And it is fair: the bottom has had enough. It’s the turn of the other body parts!”

“Ok”, said Dr Gove. “That’s round one done. Miss Bielefeld can now get up and stand on the edge of the stage, hands by her sides, please.”

Nicole, relieved, got up, but quickly realised that standing on the edge of the stage was not ideal, either, from her point of view. There she was, small, on her own, naked. Her small breasts, her flat stomach, the reddish-blonde hair covering her sex - all in the glare of the 1200 male eyes in the auditorium.

“Round 2”, announced Dr Gove. “Who would like to speak for Option 1? No takers?”

Finally, a 16 year old blonde boy got up.

“I support Option 1 because I want to see the bullwhip at work! And because the paddle on that bruised bottom will hurt like hell!”

“Ok”, said Dr Gove. “Option 2?” But nobody seemed to want to speak for it.

“How about Option 3?”

Many hands went up. He picked a smallish boy with glasses. His voice had not broken, but he said, confidently:

“Her little bummy’s had enough, it’s time to strike some other bits; Her little cunny might be tough, let’s also have her boobs some licks!”

I did not think this was exactly poetry, but it pleased the crowd. Nobody else came forward to speak, Option 3 won (it wasn’t even close) and Dr Gove had no choice but select the boy with classes, David Green, as his name turned out to be, as the best orator (while admonishing him for using bad language).

As David was getting out of his seat and climbed, broadly smiling, onto the stage, two helpers had guided Nicole to the centre of the stage and cuffed her to the ropes suspended from the ceiling. Like Anna before her, she was pulled up by her arms until she was herself suspended from the ceiling, with her big toes only just able to touch the stage boards.

Sue was giving young David some advice on how to use the whip just off-stage, and this caused some delay, while Nicole was hanging by her hands.

After a few minutes he stepped out to applause, looking rather less confident than before. I knew why - whips are tricky things!

It turned out that David’s trepidations had been warranted - his attempt at whipping Nicole’s back was a disaster. When he did connect, he did so with so little force that it would not have hurt at all. There was just one lash that cracked, and a red line immediately showed on Nicole’s back.