Over the Knee (12 page)

‘Stand up.’

Shakily, I straightened up, wincing as the change in position aggravated the pain. My skirt slid back down and even its flimsy material felt like sandpaper against my backside.

Mr Markworthy held the cane in both hands, parallel to the floor. ‘Now, young lady,’ he said sternly. ‘You will stand in the corner with your hands on your head. You will think about your behaviour and how you were punished for it.’

I lowered my head in embarrassed resignation. He nodded towards the near right corner and I made my way there as though to the gallows. Obediently, I pressed my nose into the angle of the two walls, feeling far younger than sixteen.

‘Hands on your head.’

I took a step back and assumed the position.

I heard Mr Markworthy behind me and he lifted my skirt back up, before tucking it into the waistband to hold it in place. I whimpered softly at the exposure. I could imagine the picture I presented: a naughty little girl stood in the corner with her sore punished bottom on display.

‘While you are in the corner, Harker, you’re to reflect on your behaviour and how you’re going to improve it in future. Afterwards you will thank me for caring enough about your behaviour to correct you.’

His chair creaked as he sat down at his desk behind me. I didn’t dare turn my head to see if he was watching me; I was certain he was. The sense of vulnerability was overpowering.

There was some solace that my punishment was over, at least for now. As humiliating as it was, I would have stood there forever to avoid any more. Mr Markworthy told me sharply once or twice to stop fidgeting and I did my best to stay still.

Though the door to the room was closed, I could hear the clock ticking on the other side of the wall. I closed my eyes, focusing on the burning pain in my bottom. My head was swimming with the intensity of the scene and I felt thoroughly humbled.

It felt like an hour before he told me I could come out. I lowered my arms, hissing at the ache as the blood flow returned to them.

Mr Markworthy stood in front of me. ‘I trust this is a lesson we won’t have to repeat.’

Disoriented, I nodded. ‘Yes, sir.’

‘Right. You may adjust your uniform.’

I whimpered as I pulled my knickers up over my burning flesh and smoothed my skirt back down.

Mr Markworthy directed me to his desk, where a leather-bound ledger lay open. ‘Sign the punishment book and you may go.’

He held a pen out to me and I stared at the book before me. The left page was filled with columns containing several names, offences and the number of strokes administered for each. There were additional notes for some of the entries. The final entry on the right page was mine. ‘Harker, Angela,’ it said. ‘Out of bounds, disrespect, endangering herself. Cane, six strokes.’

I signed my name with a still trembling hand and set the pen aside.

‘Very well, Harker. You’re dismissed.’

Outside, I sagged against the wall, unable for the moment to leave the alternate reality. Peter appeared and his stern demeanour vanished. In its place was a welcoming smile. I sank into his arms. It was like hugging a fantasy made flesh. A month earlier I would never have believed there could be anyone so perfectly in tune with my bizarre needs.

‘Did you enjoy that?’ he asked.

‘Not a bit,’ I said honestly, still delirious from the pain and humiliation. I touched my scorching stripes with a wince.

His smile grew wider. ‘Good. Punishment is not meant to be enjoyed. At least not at the time. But once the initial sting begins to fade I think you’ll find that you relish the memory of it.’

He was right. It was a delicious paradox – loving to hate it. ‘I can’t enjoy it unless I don’t enjoy it,’ I murmured.

It was something I’d never been able to articulate before. Something I had never consciously understood, but knew instinctively. Something I never imagined anyone else could possibly comprehend, let alone provide.

Nine

PETER MARKWORTHY WAS
a true connoisseur and the house was a veritable spanking museum. He had amassed an impressive collection of spanking literature and paraphernalia over the years. I no longer had to lament the loss of my own meagre video collection; he had all of them and more. And books – the library shelves were crammed with books on our favourite subject.

There were many works of obscure erotica, including several I’d always wanted to read. I couldn’t help but laugh as I flicked through
The Rodiad
, an infamous epic poem about the joys of flogging schoolboys. I’d heard of it, but never actually seen it before. Flagellant poetry was in a class by itself and most of it was pretty dreadful.

The most famous flagellant poet of all, Algernon Charles Swinburne, was responsible for such classics as
The Flogging-Block
and ‘Charlie Collingwood’s Flogging’. He made no secret of his love of the rod, having often been birched himself at Eton. For years after leaving the school he pined for the block, begging a photograph of it from a friend to refresh his memory. Sure enough, Peter had his biography.

Swinburne was a frequent contributor to the flagellant correspondence columns. He wrote a particularly delightful letter to the pro-flogging
Morning Post
, extolling the virtues of corporal punishment and declaring himself all the better for his school experiences. He signed it ‘One who has been well swished’.

Peter shared his collection with me like a proud curator, pointing out books and periodicals he knew I’d especially appreciate. I was thrilled at last to see original issues of my beloved
Family Herald
, elegantly bound and preserved.

‘You’re a modern Henry Spencer Ashbee,’ I said admiringly.

Peter’s eyes lit up and I saw that he appreciated the reference.

Ashbee was an eccentric book collector who published a vast survey of pornography in the late nineteenth century under the pseudonym Pisanus Fraxi. Much of his writing focused on flagellation. He was dissolute and arrogant in the extreme, and many believed him to be ‘Walter’, the author of the notorious memoir
My Secret Life
. Tedious and repetitive, the book chronicled hundreds of encounters with lower-class girls willing to do anything for money. While painfully monotonous, ‘Walter’s’ escapades did appeal to my class-inequality kink. Peter had all eleven volumes.

‘If you like the library,’ he said casually, ‘then I imagine you’ll like the schoolroom.’

My eyes widened hungrily. ‘Schoolroom?’

An antique blackboard dominated one wall and a teacher’s desk stood off to the side. Another wall displayed ancient maps and old learning charts – heraldry, Latin declensions and the Periodic Table. In the centre of the room were four old-fashioned wooden school desks, complete with inkwells. I stroked the scarred surface of one desk, examining the names and graffiti etched into it. When I lifted the lid the musty odour of antiquarian books wafted out. Several slim Victorian volumes were stacked inside, along with various exercise books.

‘I prefer the classics,’ Peter explained. ‘I find they challenge a girl more.’

I paged through a battered nineteenth-century Latin grammar, ponderously written and heavily reliant on quotations from Ovid and Caesar. Yes, this would be an eye-opener for any modern student. But it was the spelling book that really astounded me. Published in 1877, presumably
for
children, it contained words like erysipelas, cicatrice, phthisis, usquebaugh and bdellium.

‘I’ve never even heard of half these words,’ I said, baffled. ‘I wouldn’t know how to pronounce some of them, let alone spell them!’

Peter took the book from me and replaced it in the desk with a sly grin. ‘Yes, I must give you a spelling test sometime. It will be most salutary.’

That was a truly frightening thought. But the idea that he’d done this before – taught lessons to nervous girls in this outdated schoolroom – thrilled me to the core.

Up on the wall behind the teacher’s desk, I noticed a display of school canes and tawses. On the desk rested a paddle, along with a wicked-looking acrylic ruler. I wasn’t keen to open the drawers; I was sure they contained yet more implements.

As I cast a final glance around the room, my eye fell on a familiar object. To the uninitiated it could have been a set of small library steps or a mounting block. But I recognised it at once. It was a birching block.

I stared at it in disbelief for several seconds. ‘Where did you …?’

‘I had a cabinet-maker friend construct it for me,’ he said with a modest smile.

He was certainly no amateur.

‘Would you like to see my masterpiece?’ he asked.

The girl stood in front of the tree, her eyes fixed pensively on the switch. On the screen all that was visible of the man beside her was his shoulder and arm. In the next shot the girl was bending over the stone wall next to the tree, her cutoffs down around her ankles. The third picture was a closeup of the switch against her unmarked bottom and the fourth showed a thin pink stripe across her cheeks. The sequence was artistic and well composed, clearly the work of a professional.

But it was the second photoset that really shocked me. It showed a different girl, a lanky brunette with pale-olive skin and an impish smile, standing naked on a tourist
overlook
at what could only be the Grand Canyon. I gaped at the pictures as she posed and pouted for the camera, showing off her flexibility. A few shots later and she was upended over the knee of a faceless man, her bottom reddening noticeably as the sequence progressed.

The website was englishvice.net: ‘a celebration of spanking al fresco’.

‘These are incredible,’ I said, clicking on another set of pictures. This one showed two girls bending over a railing with their bottoms bared. The white sails of the Sydney Opera House gleamed behind them.

‘I’m rather proud of that set,’ Peter said. ‘The ferry terminal was swarming with tourists.’

I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. Some of the photostories were in everyday outdoor settings, but most were in highly recognisable locations – Westminster Abbey, the Arc de Triomphe, Charles Bridge in Prague.

‘So which one are you? The headless spanker or the photographer?’

‘Usually the spanker. But some were sent in by other people. I buy the really interesting ones for the website, especially if there was clearly some risk involved in getting the shots. My customers like the iconic location shots best. It’s what we’ve become known for.’

I scrolled through the thumbnails, marvelling at some of the images. ‘Good heavens, is that Chatsworth?’ I laughed.

‘It’s remarkable what you can get away with in a few seconds. Though you’d be surprised at how deserted these places can be. Sometimes you can only get a single shot.’

He stood up, offering me the chair. ‘Here, why don’t you sit down?’

‘No thanks. I think I’ll be more comfortable standing.’

His eyes glittered. ‘Then I definitely want you to sit.’

With a wince I lowered myself into the chair, the hard wooden seat making my stripes throb. I hadn’t changed out of my school uniform and the skirt was itchy and unkind to my tender skin. I could tell he enjoyed my reaction. ‘Don’t you have anything softer?’ I complained, secretly loving the sensation.

‘Sorry,’ he said, not sorry a bit.

‘Where did you get the idea for the site?’

‘Well, I always enjoyed taking spanking pictures in interesting places. And I know a few girls willing to risk it. I travel a lot for work, you see.’

‘One might suspect you use the university’s travel opportunities to subsidise your pervy hobby,’ I said archly.

‘Quite. I’ve no doubt that’s how my employer would view it. That’s why I don’t show my face. I can’t afford to have some first-year with nothing to lose stumble on to the site and recognise me.’

‘Scary thought.’

‘Someone introduced me to a fetish photographer at a spanking party and we started the website together. His girlfriend has modelled for us a few times – Courtney.’

I turned back to the screen, admiring a photo of a girl in school uniform touching her toes in front of one of the New York Public Library’s stone lions.

‘Have you ever been caught?’

‘Oh yes. A few times. But it’s generally just some unsuspecting tourist who blunders on to the scene. They’re usually too embarrassed to say anything. We did some nude pictures once in Yellowstone and a Japanese tour group just thought it was a glamour shoot. The men watched for a while and then started taking their own pictures.’

I could just imagine the scene and the stories the Japanese men would be telling back home. I suppose if it looked artistic rather than pornographic most Brits or Americans would let it take its course, and watch rather than report it.

‘I’ve been asked to leave places too,’ Peter continued. ‘There was a pretty stroppy security guard at Downing Street with no sense of humour.’

I laughed. ‘Does your photographer friend ever show his face?’

Peter clicked on a group of photos taken in a vineyard. ‘That’s him – Shaun.’

The man spanking the redheaded girl among the grapes
was
in his mid-thirties, with mischievous blue eyes and dark-blond hair.

‘You’ll like the name of the wine,’ Peter said, scrolling down to another picture, a closeup of a wine bottle.

I couldn’t believe it. The label showed a boy bent over a man’s knee, being spanked on the bare. The name read ‘
Kröver Nacktarsch
’. I blinked at it and looked at Peter for help.

‘Bare bottom in
Kröv
,’ he translated. ‘Though some people claim it’s a corruption of “nectar”.’

I shook my head in amazement. ‘How do you
find
these things?’

He stood behind me, so close I could feel his breath on the back of my neck. ‘The same way I found you.’ He reached around me and opened another set of pictures. On the screen a corsetted goth girl presented herself, knickers down, against a familiar ruined abbey.

‘What – stalking?’

He kept his right hand on the mouse, scrolling through the images, his arm pressing into my side. The sleeve of his schoolmaster’s gown hung nearly to the floor. ‘No. Research.’ He leant in close to me. ‘Single-minded, meticulous research.’