Chapter 25: Second Helping

The next morning the same formal process of punishment was followed.

Martha started by saying to Jacqui, "You were sentenced to thirty strokes of the cane and you had three yesterday. Today's count, therefore, will start at four. If I think you can take more than three a day I'll carry on, so don't move until I say so."

'Christ on a bicycle, ' thought Jacqui as she lay over the whipping bench, 'She really knows how to torture someone. I still don't know how many I'm getting today. I was ready for three, but she might not stop at that.'

Martha was in no hurry to start and took a couple of practice swishes which sounded to Jacqui as though they were blows on the way and which caused her to clench her arse each time.

Hiss ... Nothing.

Hiss ... Nothing.

Hiss!! CRAACK!!!

Jacqui was not ready for this one to be real, as she suspected Martha had intended and the pain felt every bit as bad as the first one the day before. Her wild scream echoed round the room, but she did manage a strangled, "Four."

Hiss!! CRAACK!!!

Jacqui was still screaming and had not managed to say 'five' when...

Hiss!! CRAACK!!!

The third blow of the morning landed between the other two. Jacqui was still convulsing from the second line of agony imparted by the cane, so it was fortuitous that the third didn't cross either of the others.

Ignoring Jacqui's screams and the lack of a count, Martha hauled her roughly to her feet.

Martha had clearly been listening to someone's private conversation, because she remarked, "In case any of you are wondering, yes, I have been caned with this particular instrument and yes, the person who did it laid it on as hard as he could."

Turning to Jacqui, she said the one sentence which really frightened her, "Back on the whipping bench, you slut."

Jacqui was now shaking with fright at the thought of more visits to her tortured arse from Madame's cane, but she managed to lie down as instructed.

"Now you have finished your histrionic screaming, which doesn't convince me one little bit, you can do as you were told and count. The last couple were close together, but if you hadn't been so intent on screaming you had time to count."

Jacqui mumbled, between her shuddering breaths, "Five."

Then she realised that Madame might assume that the uncounted stroke really didn't count!

"And..." Martha put her out of her misery.

"Six, Madame. Thank you Madame," Jacqui's thanks were real and fervent.

"Try not to scream so much; then the count will proceed smoothly," said Martha.

Jacqui lay waiting for another cut of the cane, which she was now certain would arrive.

"Stand up," Martha said, casually, adding "And don't wear yourself out with Alf today. You'll need a lot of energy for Colin tonight because when he sees those stripes it will give him ideas in that line. I don't imagine you want a public flogging in the bar for not being the bright young thing he expects, now do you?"

"No, Madame," Jacqui replied, adding very cautiously, "I thought you said there were no cameras in the staff's private rooms? Is that only in the girls' rooms?"

"There aren't any snooper cameras in anybody's private room," replied Martha, "but there are in the corridors and I saw which room you went to yesterday."