A Frightful Friday at Frogmore

Supper was always a tense occasion on Friday evenings at Frogmore, a leading English public school for boys, located in a village of the same name, near York.  In the early 1900s, the period when the events recounted in this little drama occurred, Frogmore was one of those educational establishments where time had more or less stood still since the mid-nineteenth century. The school’s motto might as well have been spare the rod and spoil the boy, as along with a number of northern schools, the cane, and its companion, the birch, were never spared and were still in regular use; too regular, in the eyes of many of the pupils, who had for many years taken to referring to the school as Flogmore. Friday evening supper was always a special occasion as it was the only meal of the week at which the then Headmaster, a certain Reverend Dr. Marcus Sebastian Temple, partook of a meal together with his pupils in the school’s Great Refectory. The Headmaster sat at high table on a raised platform, together with some of his colleagues, remote from his charges. But other than the fact that general level of chatter was rendered less strident than usual by the presence of their lord and master – the Headmaster’s presence was always a dampening prospect, whatever the occasion – the meal progressed more of less normally.

But as ever, tension was in the air, as Friday evening, after supper, came the fatidic hour when the Headmaster dealt with those boys who, during the week, had received punishment notes in class from their teachers. These notes, which the unfortunate recipients were obliged to place in a box outside the Headmaster’s study, were then collected by his secretary, who late each Friday afternoon, posted a list of the not-so-lucky-lads who would be joining what was called the Penitents’ Parade to the Headmaster’s study later that evening.  To be a member of the Penitent’s Parade, was an absolute guarantee of going to bed that evening nursing a well-beaten arse, a commodity, which could be considered as the hallmark of Frogmore School. And when I say well-beaten, I really do mean that the recipient went to bed with an excruciatingly painful pair of buttocks, for the Reverend Dr. Temple on spite of his age, was no slouch when it came to delivering the goods with the cane.

Boys who had been issued with punishment notes already knew that their names would be on the list, so although those in that unfortunate position were understandably less at ease with their supper than was usually the case, they were, on the whole, resigned to their fate, which they saw as part and parcel of life at the school. The tension was not, however, limited to them, but was general across the entire school as the boys waited for the meal to end, to see if their Headmaster would address them. There was often a sting in the tail on Fridays, as the Headmaster frequently announced additional names of boys, who had committed some infraction, out of class, for which they too were to be taken to task later the same evening.  So there was always a degree of uncertainty in the air as to whether the Headmaster would invite other boys to join the Penitents’ Parade and benefit from his rather painful post-postprandial ministrations that evening. And when I use the word invite, let me say that the invitation was not one which the nominee could refuse.

The Headmaster rose from his chair and gazed, I wish I could have said, with a beneficent eye over his flock; but that was, alas not the case. Indeed, the converse was true; for the Reverend Dr. Temple was not one of those clerics whose heart pumped the milk of human kindness through his veins. In fact, quite the contrary, for, the Reverend Dr. Temple was one of those strictest of unbending, late-Victorian disciplinarians, an old-style headmaster, who subscribed heart and soul to the biblical concept of an eye for an eye. As such, in making the punishment fit the crime, he had no hesitation at all, in inflicting the most severe beatings on the bare backsides of any members of his flock whom he felt merited his attention, as many, in his view, did!  So invitations to visit the Headmaster in his study were not exactly sought after by the boys.

On this particular Friday evening, as the Headmaster rose from his seat, the gentle hubbub in the huge refectory stopped instantly as if the entire complement of over four hundred and fifty boys had been struck dumb. You could almost feel the electricity in the air as the tension mounted to breaking point and the assembled boys waited in silence, holding their breath, each praying that his name would not be called and that his arse would, therefore, not be on the line and subject to the painful depredations of the Reverend Dr. Temple’s cane later that same evening. The reason for the general nervousness among the boys was that no one had even the faintest idea whom the Headmaster might wish to see or for what reason. Frequently, it was because of unsatisfactory work in class, which had percolated through to the Headmaster. But equally it could be for other offences, both real and imagined, for which a master had reported a boy to the Headmaster; or then again, for boys whom the Headmaster himself had seen committing an offence. And let us be quite clear, At Frogmore, during the early 1900s, the offences which Dr Temple thought merited a beating, were legion. Dr. Temple was particularly heavy on boys whom he caught bullying their younger schoolmates, but dozens of other, less-serious offences, if detected, inevitably led  to a very painful arse for the perpetrator.

For whatever reason a boy was named, there was no public explanation of why he had been called and was condemned to join the Penitents’ Parade. But there was scarcely a Friday night on which the Headmaster did not add a few names to the punishment schedule prepared and posted on the notice board by his secretary prior to supper. Philosophically, the boys who received their invitations verbally from the Headmaster usually thought that it was better than finding themselves on the punishment note list. The end result was just as painful, but at least they did not have to wait long to get it over and done with. On the other hand, the lads, who had been given notes early that same week had the mental anguish of having to live through the week in the full knowledge that come Friday evening, as sure as night follows day, their backsides would be forced to mate with the the Headmaster’s cane.

So far, that particular Friday was no different from any other. As beatings were always event which aroused great interest in all members of the school, the entire assembly at supper that evening already knew that there were eight names on the list posted on the notice board prior to supper that fateful evening. So the whole school knew that, come what may, there were at least eight of their schoolmates whose bare arses were on a painful collision course with one or other of Dr. Temple’s canes before the evening was out. That fact alone had already sexually aroused many of the older boys who could barely control their hardening cocks as the Headmaster prepared to speak.  As ever, there was omnipresent, that prurient, vicarious curiosity, which all boys seem to possess to a greater or lesser degree, which kept every member of the entire assembly on a knife edge, hoping that his name would not be called for some offence he was only vaguely aware – if at all – of having committed, but at the same time taking secret pleasure from the fact that one or other of his schoolmates might be called, adding to the number of those to be executed that evening.  

Dr. Temple drew himself to his full height of six feet. He was a spare and bony man, dressed always in deepest black and in the style of the day, wore his academic gown over a long black coat.  He was one of those miserably faced people who always looked as if he had just lost a pound and found a penny.  He glared balefully at his assembled flock through an antiquated pair of round-lens, wire-rimmed spectacles which belonged to the previous century, if not earlier.

“Gentlemen, as is customary on Friday evenings, those of you who have been found wanting and have received punishment notes from your teachers during the past week will already be aware that your attendance is both requested and required on tonight’s Penitents’ Parade.   I see from the list, that this evening I shall have the pleasure of addressing eight of you. As usual, those of you involved will assemble yourselves in the corridor in front of my study, appropriately attired for the occasion, at precisely eight o’clock this evening.  I would stress, every boy involved must present himself, in the appropriate attire.  For the three new boys, the first-formers, whom I see on list, who have not yet had the pleasure of participating in one of these Friday night gatherings, your schoolmates will, I am quite sure, make you aware of what you should wear when you present yourselves to me this evening. I trust that I have made myself clear. So as there are no questions, I will move onto my supplementary list of boys I wish to see this evening.”

So there were other boys in the Headmaster’s collimator that evening. You could feel the entire assembly metaphorically drawing itself to attention and holding its collective breath as the names of the boys who would have the very doubtful pleasure of joining the Penitents’ Parade were called out out by the Headmaster. There were four additional names in all; all of older boys in the fourth and fifth forms.  There was then a long pause whilst the Headmaster squinted at a note which he had just pulled from his pocket. He held up his hand for silence and said:  “Now in addition to the four boys I have just named, I would also like to see Nigel Danvers from the upper sixth.  Danvers I would ask you to to be good enough to present yourself to me around nine o’clock after I have finished addressing the other younger boys.  Oh, and before I forget, to avoid any misunderstandings, may I remind you, Danvers, that you too should change into attire appropriate to the occasion before you come to see me this evening,”

 The school could not believe its ears.  The Headmaster had just named the school’s head-boy, Nigel Danvers, the senior prefect of the year, in his own way as hated as the Headmaster himself by the rest of his schoolmates for the frequent, vicious beatings he inflicted on his brethren.  And his death warrant had been signed, sealed and delivered in front of the entire school; and as he had been reminded to present himself to the Headmaster in the appropriate attire, which meant only one thing: the head-boy himself was to be given a naked arse beating. As the Headmaster left the refectory, the buzz of conversation among the boys, reached fever pitch as they discussed the implications of what the Headmaster had just announced. At Frogmore it had always been maintained by the Headmaster that all boys, from the day they entered to the day they left the school, were subject to the same rules.  And if anyone had doubted the veracity of that assertion, then today, the Headmaster’s surprise announcement had given them all the proof they could ever wish for. There could be no more positive confirmation of that assertion, which, frankly, had until now, fallen on many sceptical ears.  But there it was; the head-boy had been publicly named in front of the entire school and, along with the other twelve penitents, was to be beaten that very evening.  And to add insult to injury, the Headmaster had also reminded him that he too should present himself for punishment appropriately attired.  The whole thing seemed totally unreal and many boys asked themselves if they had been dreaming.

But before we go on and join the Headmaster exercising his unquestionable skill with the cane on the naked arses of the unfortunate members of that evening’s Penitents’ Parade, just a word about that much used practice of making the boys wear what was called the appropriate attire on such occasions.. The appropriate attire  worn by public school boys who were to have their arses beaten on the bare, as was the practice in most northern public schools at the time the events in this narrative are taking place, consisted simply of a pair of gym shorts and a gym vest and nothing else. Even a boy’s shoes were abandoned in favour of a pair of bedroom slippers. So boys presenting themselves for punishment, as many all too frequently did, were very scantily clad indeed.  The advantage was obvious; shorts could be dropped at a moment’s notice, giving immediate access to that key piece of anatomy essential to any beating: the boy’s naked buttocks.

Frogmore could not lay claim to being the originator of this idea. That distinction was attributed to a now long-dead, former Headmaster of another public school, Churston, near Hereford on the Welsh border.  Like the Reverend Dr. Temple, his late colleague had been another divine with the most apposite name of Dr. Mortimer Birch.  And true to his name, the Reverend Dr. Birch had no hesitation in applying his dreaded and much-feared namesake instrument of punishment, then in widespread use throughout the public schools system, to the naked backsides of any errant member of his flock. Many were the generations of boys, whose naked backsides had benefitted from such generous attention from the birch administered by the Reverend Doctor before he finally retired. But as you will probably have guessed, his actions with the birch like those of many other sadistic schoolmasters were always, according to him, motivated by the highest moral principles. He regularly deluded himself, as he roasted some poor lad’s bare arse, that what he was doing was, as ever, for the boy’s own good.

But this gentleman, who was totally devoted to the birch, had seen that due to the rather cumbersome school  uniform which the boys wore at Churston, gaining naked access to that all-important part of a boys’ anatomy was, to say the  least, an awkward business. And so he had come up with the idea of making the boys, whom he was about to beat, change into their gym strips before presenting themselves to him.  This simple idea was one just short of genius, as the shorts easily came down, giving immediate access to that indispensible part of the lad’s anatomy: his naked arse! For some twenty or so years in the late nineteenth century this mode of dress was practised only at Churston. But on his retirement, the Reverend Dr. Birch wrote an article which was published in a now long defunct magazine called The Public School Teacher.  Entitled: A Suggestion for the Appropriate Attire to be Worn by Public School Boys who are to be Beaten. How the Victorians loved their long descriptive titles! But long or not, the suggestions in this widely read article were adopted by a large number of public schools throughout the north of the country. So, the expression, appropriate attire, slipped into general public school speak, meaning gym shirts and gym vest only to be worn when a boy was to be beaten.

We will leave Dr. Temple after supper in his study, in his preparations for dealing with what was a bumper haul of no less than twelve boys, all of whose backsides were already twitching with horror at the thought of what they would shortly suffer at the hands of their Headmaster and consider for a moment the unfortunate position of the head-boy, Nigel Danvers, the unlucky thirteenth member of that Friday’s Penitents’ Parade.  To be named head-boy at Frogmore was an honour indeed, as the head-boy, the senior prefect among a total of eighteen across the six houses of the school, had almost the status of a master.  He occupied a suite of two rooms in the School’s main building, at the other end of the corridor from the Headmaster’s study and had a spacious study and a separate bedroom reached by a short corridor in which was a small private bathroom. But his elevated position was not just one of title, as he was in charge of the other prefects, who, in turn, were responsible for maintaining a semblance of order when the boys were out of class. And in common with the then general practice in public schools, all the prefects were authorised to beat their younger brethren when the need arose, which, it goes without saying, it often did.  And so, although the Headmaster’s use of the cane was concentrated on, but not exclusively limited to dealing with members of his regular Friday night Penitents’ Parade, the cane, in the ever-ready hands of the prefects and head-boy, was alive and well at all times.

But the head-boy’s position in this hierarchy of young flagellators was very special.  Frogmore practised the demerit system, common to several other schools. Each boy carried on him in his  jacket pocket,  a small demerit notebook, in which both masters and prefects could enter demerit marks for those little peccadilloes, which individually did not merit physical correction for the lad in question, but which when added together did promise a mandatory beating. And so when a boy had accumulated a total of ten demerit marks, he was honour -bound to present himself voluntarily to the head-boy on Friday evening after supper, wearing only the appropriate attire for a mandatory, no-questions-asked beating. The Headmaster had defined the tariffs: six cuts of an appropriate cane for a first visit, nine for a second and twelve for a third visit in any one school year, all of which  the head-boy dispensed with that customary, sadistic vigour, which one so often associates with a prefect’s beating.  So at one end of the corridor each Friday evening the Headmaster dispensed what passed for justice to the boys on his Penitents’ Parade, whilst at the other end of the same corridor, the head-boy received and dealt with those boys who had crossed the threshold of ten demerit marks during the preceding week. The difference was that the Headmaster had a defined list of subjects requiring his attention, whilst the head-boy had no idea at all until the relevant boys presented themselves at his study after Friday evening supper, how many arses he would be required to beat on any particular Friday evening.

In the event, on this very Friday, the head-boy found a bumper crop of six lads requiring his attention with the cane, assembled in front of his study door. So the two groups, twelve boys to see the Headmaster and six to see the head-boy, stood in their gym shorts and vests at opposite ends of the same corridor, waiting nervously to be called in to have their arses roasted. Opinions differed among the boys as to who was was the harder caner: the Headmaster or the head-boy.  However, a few cognoscenti who had had the doubtful pleasure of experiencing both the Headmaster’s and the head-boy’s flagellation abilities, reckoned that there was little to choose between them, as they were both absolute bastards when it came to laying on the cane. Like most prefects, the head-boy, Nigel Danvers, was an enthusiastic practitioner of the rights which went with his elevated position. In a word, he really enjoyed skinning the naked arses of his erstwhile school-mates, from whom by virtue of his position he was now somewhat estranged. And this Friday, with a bumper harvest of six arses to beat, he should have been in seventh heaven. But, of course he was not. The fact that he himself had been publicly summoned to see his Headmaster at nine o’clock that evening and told to present himself wearing the dreaded, appropriate attire to boot, made one thing and one thing only quite sure: he too was to be beaten; but for some as yet undefined  reason. It had to be serious for the Headmaster to take the unheard of step of naming him in front if the entire school and specifying that he should arrive appropriately attired for the occasion.  The entire school had been made aware of the fact that their head-boy was going to be beaten by the Headmaster. And from the way it had been publicly announced, the Headmaster clearly wanted to relay a message to the school: no boy, whatever his position, was above the law.

So that Friday evening, Nigel Danvers, found himself in the uniquely invidious position of hunting with the hounds and running with the fox. He himself as head-boy was about to carry out his duty and beat the boys waiting outside of his study, holding their demerit books in their hands. And then, he himself was to change into the skimpy, appropriate attire and report to the Headmaster, who was clearly intending to roast his arse for an as-yet-unknown reason; at least it was unknown to him, although the Headmaster clearly must have a reason for him to make such a stunning, and, for his head-boy, humiliating, announcement in front of the entire school.  He somehow hoped that it was all a dream; some horrible nightmare, from which he would suddenly awaken. But as he walked along the corridor and saw the six lads standing there at his study door, demerit books in their hands, nervously awaiting his arrival, he knew it was real.  When he had finished dealing with the six of them, as he fully intended to do, he knew he would himself have to change into that same, skimpy, appropriate attire, walk back along that same corridor and face his Headmaster. It was not that he feared having his arse beaten, an act which he had experienced many times in the past, but not one for which he would have readily volunteered. It was the fact that he had been summoned to visit the Headmaster in front of the entire school; and not only summoned, but told to report wearing the appropriate attire, which was just so humiliating. He had been cut down to size in front of the entire school in a most demeaning way.

But thing were as they were; so as he entered his study, he collected the demerit books from the nervous assembly of boys on whose naked arse he was shortly to lavish that not-so-tender loving care for which he was famous. Of the six boys assembled, five were first-formers.  It seemed to be a fact that new boys accumulated demerit points more rapidly than their older brethren, possibly because they were less aware of the myriad of piffling rules over which they could stumble as they settled down to life at Frogmore. But he saw, with some satisfaction, that the sixth candidate for the cuts, which as head-boy he delighted in dispensing to Friday evening demeritees, was one, Andrew Thompson, from the upper sixth, a boy of his own age and in the same form to which he himself belonged. Although Nigel Danvers had no objection at all to lavishing his care on younger boys, it was when the occasion arose, as it now had, to thrash someone of his own age, that he achieved the maximum personal satisfaction.

As he sat for several minutes at his desk, looking over the demerit books, it was a strangely surreal and disconcerting occasion and wondered if this was to be the last occasion when would exercise his powers of fustigation on his schoolmates. Whatever the Headmaster was holding against him, it had to be serious for him to have called out his head-boy in public. So not surprisingly, Nigel Danvers was totally ill at ease with himself as he sat there wondering whether he would still be head-boy of Frogmore in an hour’s time. But for the moment he was still head-boy and as such he had his duty to do. And moreover it was the single aspect of his duty, which gave him the greatest pleasure. Although he would never admitted the fact to a living soul, like many young men in the privileged position of prefect in public schools throughout the country, he revelled in he act of inflicting physical pain on his school brethren.  So with uncertainty looking him starkly in the face, he decided that he that he might as well make hay whilst the sun was still shining and make his potentially last act as head-boy one one to be remembered by all participants.

He opened his study door to face the five trembling first formers, whom he motioned to enter, leaving Andrew Thompson standing alone in the corridor. He closed the door and again installed himself behind his desk, with the five young lads lined up in front of him. Nigel Danvers put on his sternest face as he addressed the highly nervous boys in front of him who had hitherto no experience of the ways of Frogmore.  There was no need on these Friday evening demerit occasions, to discuss the misdemeanours which had led to each of the lads reaching the fatidic total of ten demerits which automatically qualified them for the mandatory six cuts of the cane administered by the head-boy.

“As you all probably know,” he said, addressing the young boys for the first time, “You are here today because each of you has accumulated a total of ten demerit marks, which as you all know means that you will each receive an automatic six stroke beating, administered by me as your head-boy.  I regret to say that there are no mitigating factors which can be considered and so, unless any of you has anything you wish to say before I proceed to beat you, I suggest we get on with things and that I put the five of you out of your mental misery.” He did not mention the fact that their mental misery would soon be replaced by a very painful arse.

One boy, Robert Williams, stepped a half pace forward and said in a trembling voice: “Danvers we all know that according to the school rules we have to beaten, but I have never ever been beaten before and I am terribly frightened that I will not be able to stand the pain. Will what you are going to do to us hurt a lot?”

“Is there anyone else among you who has never been caned before? I have to say that I am surprised that Williams here has never had the pleasure of having backside polished with the cane.  I would have thought that you would all have been swished at least once at your prep schools. I know I was; and quite frequently I might add, before I come to Frogmore. So hands up any other boys who has never been caned before.”

 Quite exceptionally, two others of tonight’s five first-formers had never been caned before coming to Frogmore. So in what might be his swan-song as head-boy, Danvers was to have the pleasure of introducing no less than three maiden arses to the  rigours of the cane. On any other occasion it would have been a delightfully erotic prospect for him to introduce three unsullied arses to the cane; but with the uncertainty of the Sword of Damocles hanging over him, the occasion was, to say the least, slightly tarnished. But one had to make the best of any situation. In that spirit, as he saw no point in allowing what might happen to him later that same evening to deter him from his duty as head-boy, he now stood up, went across to the door of his study, where hanging from a hook were his two canes. He took down the junior cane, which he swished menacingly through the air a few times. The five young lads winced visibly in fearful anticipation of the pain which that slender rod was shortly to deliver to their backsides.

“Well gentlemen, I think the time has come for me to put you all out of your misery.  Take off your slippers and shorts, all of you, and stand in a line one behind the other on the centre of the room and leave some some space between yourself and the classmate in front of you so that the dog can see the rabbit.” 

The head-boy watched as the five young lads, all terrified by what was happening to them, reluctantly did as ordered.  As they were getting themselves ready for what was to be a mass beating, Williams said:  “Danvers, do we really have to take off our shorts as if we do as we have nothing on beneath them, we shall all be standing there with our bums bare. So please could we keep our shorts on?”

“Williams I have told you all quite clearly what to do and it is not for you to question my orders. For your information, all beatings in this school, from your first day to your last, from the first form to the upper sixth, are given on a boy’s bare bottom; so get a move on the lot of you and do as I say; all of you get your shorts off completely and get into line, otherwise I shall have to consider increasing the mandatory demerit strokes from six to nine and I am sure that none of you would want that. Do not think I am joking as I am not; so get into line, bend over, clutch your ankles with your hands to present your bare bums to me; and remain that way until I have finished caning you.  If any boy moves whilst I am tending to the needs of his bottom, then I shall start again from the beginning with that boy. Is that clear? Now, boys, I will not pretend that a traditional bare bottom beating is a pleasant experience, as it most certainly is not. Nor is it intended to be, as its aim is to teach a boy a painful lesson. Indeed the purpose of the pain of a well-beaten bottom, which is what I now intend to give to each of you, is to make a boy understand that he has to mend his ways unless he wishes to spend most of his time at this school unable to sit down comfortably. And believe me, boys, I shall not fail you in leaving each of you this evening, with a bottom so painful that you will barely be able to sit down to breakfast tomorrow morning. You will all go to bed this evening bearing the painful hallmark of Frogmore School, school: a truly well-beaten arse.”

It is doubtful if any of the boys had realised until push came to shove as it now had, that they would be caned on their bare bottoms, or that the cane would be applied with such unrelenting vigour.  Although a pair of thin cotton shorts provides practically no protection against the bite of a well applied cane, the very fact of having to bend over naked is, to say the least, an embarrassing and humiliating act to inflict on any boy who is being punished. But that, as in many other public schools,  was the normal procedure at Frogmore. Add to that what was by no means normal procedure, the fact that the head-boy had sadistically lined up all five young lads to be beaten with their bottoms naked, rendered the overall anguish of the proceedings more dramatic. It is not, therefore, surprising that before the head-boy had delivered the first of his total of thirty strokes, several of the boys were already on the verge of tears. The head-boy positioned himself to the left of the last boy in the line. After the customary tapping around with his cane to position the first stroke, he raised the cane over his head and brought it down at lightning speed to mate with a resounding crack with the bare bottom of its unhappy owner. The success of that first stroke can be judged by the loud cry of agony which the unfortunate owner of that particular arse let out.

The head-boy then moved on, with  an appropriate pause between each stroke, delivering his first cut to each lad in turn. Then, the first of the six, mandatory cuts having been delivered, he returned to his starting position applied a second cut to that first arse, whose unhappy  owner had been waiting in agony for what seemed like an eternity for the punishment to continue. But as any connoisseur of the fine art of flagellation will tell you, the way to deliver a truly well-beaten arse, apart from of course an ability and the willingness to wield the cane, is to make haste slowly, placing each cut accurately and delivering it with the maximum force, which stops just short of breaking the skin. And that is exactly what the head-boy did that day. As he moved five more times at a leisurely pace down the row of bare arses, by the time he had finished with them, he had delivered a total of thirty strokes of the cane, leaving each lad with a text-book version of what is usually referred to as a well-beaten arse: six arses each with six, deep, angry, parallel, crimson welts across them.

No boy at Frogmore had ever experienced a more excruciatingly painful introduction to the discipline of the school than had those five first formers that Friday. As the five of them limped back to their dormitories, they all vowed to themselves that this first time would also be the last.  Not in their wildest dreams could they have imagined that one man with his slender cane could do so much damage and deliver so much pain to their backsides in such a short time.  But of course, vows are easier to make then to keep and the five of them, as normal schoolboys, their lives at Frogmore were, over the years, punctuated with other altercations with the rattan cane, which invariably emerged as the winner. Beating, as they quickly learned was part and parcel of daily life at the School; a favourite pastime of the Headmaster, the six housemasters and the numerous prefects all of whom wielded that dreaded rod with gay abandon. The school really did merit its nickname of Flogmore.

But what of the sixth boy, or rather young man, Andrew Thompson, who had been left standing there alone in the corridor, whilst the head-boy dealt with the five first-formers. He had wondered what was afoot, when the head-boy, had ushered all five boys together into his study.  This in itself was unusual, as when boys were beaten, they usually faced their nemesis alone. But as he already knew, along with the rest of the school, tonight was a very special occasion for he had heard the Headmaster make his announcement about the head-boy. In his view, Nigel Danvers’s days as head-boy were numbered and indeed would probably come to a painful end at his publicly announced visit to the Headmaster’s study at nine that very evening. So it seemed to Andrew Thompson that he himself might be in the unique position of being the very last boy, whose arse would be treated to a dose of that legendary, not-so-tender  expertise with the cane, for which the head-boy was already justly notorious. And so, as he stood there awaiting his own fate, the undoubted unpleasantness that he was about to experience, was tempered by the fact that the head-boy, who was shortly going to shred his arse, would shortly afterwards, find himself too on the receiving end of a cane, being thrashed by the Headmaster.

However the situation in which he found himself was further complicated by the fact that both the head-boy and he were in the upper sixth.  Although they both took some of the same classes, as they were both on  the arts side, with Thompson studying history and English, whereas the head-boy concentrated on classics, they had never been the closest of friends.  But they did, nevertheless fraternise somewhat in the sixth-form common-room, which had rendered the present situation even more delicate, by the fact that along with several other sixth-formers, he and Nigel Danvers had indulged in the sort of experimental sexual activities for which public schools are notorious. Not to put too fine a point on their relationship, they had, a few months ago, when they were in the lower sixth, both experimentally fucked each other. And so, it was with all these thoughts churning around in his head, that Andrew Thompson awaited his fate in the corridor.

With that understandable, insatiable curiosity to know what was happening in the study, like any other boy, Thompson glued his ear to the door.  He heard only the faint murmur of the head-boy’s voice as he addressed the five first-formers, doubtless apprising them of their fate. Then there was a brief period of silence after which the characteristic crack of the cane mating with a boy’s naked arse, accompanied by howls of pain was clearly audible across the closed door.  Andrew Thompson had no idea that the head-boy was in process of beating all five lads together. But as the rhythm of the strokes continued one after the other with no discernible pause after the first six strokes, it became obvious to him that all five lads had been bent over simultaneously and were now having the needs of their arses resoundingly met; it was obvious that the thirty strokes were being delivered as an unbroken series as the cane passed one stroke at a time from one boy to the next.  It seems to Thompson that Nigel Danvers, who was himself under a severe threat of losing his position as head-boy, was intent on making what might prove his last opportunity beat his schoolmates, into a memorable occasion. He had evidently decided that if he was going to be sacked, then he would depart with a bang and not with a whimper. As he waited there to be called in to face the head-boy, not surprisingly Andrew Thompson shuddered to think what the head-boy had in store for him.

But if Andrew Thompson felt nervous about being confronted by his classmate, the head-boy, the feeling was mutual. Nigel Danvers was feeling very nervous himself about confronting one of his classmates of the same age and moreover, one with whom he had, in the relatively recent past, had cordial, if somewhat tentative sexual relations. So not surprisingly, when Thompson was finally called in to confront the head-boy face-to-face, both young men were more or less walking on eggs. But needs must and the head-boy knew he had to grasp the nettle firmly. Whatever the relationship which had existed or, indeed, which still existed between the two of them, it could play no part in what was to happen next. The head-boy’s actions were dictated purely by the school rules, which by virtue of his position, he was obliged to carry out. The facts were clear and simple and not open to negotiation. Thompson had accumulated ten demerit points and like all boys in the school, irrespective of age and position – the rule also included the prefects – he had earned a mandatory beating of six cuts on the bare and he knew it was his duty as head-boy to administer that punishment.

The head-boy, finding himself in the unfortunate position of having to punish a close classmate, wisely decided that he would handle things quite formally to avoid their joint emotions getting in the way of the unpleasant task, which he knew, come what may, he was obliged to perform. In the sixth-form, the boys had adopted the habit of calling each other by their first names, whereas in the lower-forms, surnames were absolutely de rigueur.  But as he prepared to address Thompson, Nigel Danvers suddenly realised that in spite of his fears, things would probably work out alright. Thompson had already obeyed the rule and had presented himself, in the appropriate attire for punishment, to him, the head-boy and classmate with whom he had had a previous sexual relationship. So he knew full well that his position was non-negotiable and that his arse would be shredded by the very guy with whom he had previously had sex.

And so acting decisively, the head-boy said: “Well Thompson, you have, as the school rules require, presented yourself voluntarily to me with ten demerit marks, which, as you know, means you will be you have earned an automatic six cut beating on the bare, which I, in my position as head-boy, am obliged to administer.” 

Thompson played the game and showed himself in his best light as the young gentleman he truly was and said: “Look here, Danvers, I am sorry that it has had come to this between you and me, but I realise that you are just a cog in the greater works of this place and you have to do your duty as head-boy. So could we please get on with things and get this horrible business over and done with as quickly as possible.  I know I have broken several, piddling rules, which is how I came to accumulate ten demerits. As a result, I know that you are obliged to give me six on the bare. But please believe me when I say that I bear you no ill-will at all for carrying out your duties and if it makes you feel any better, if I were in your place, which I am happily not, I would do exactly the same. So, Danvers, where do you want me? Where is this painful act to take place? Over the back of that old armchair, I wager.”

The head-boy breathed a great mental sigh of relief that Thompson was taking things so well and was not trying to argue himself out of his punishment. But of course, he was quite right. He had broken the rules and had just seen five younger boys thrashed for exactly the same reason, so to have tried to talk himself out of his beating would have been invidious. So Danvers took down his senior cane from from the door and motioned Thompson towards the fateful armchair, over the back of which hundreds of boys had, over the years, been invited to bend and submit their naked backsides to the rigours of the cane.

Now, it is a well documented fact that beating of any boy’s naked arse usually arouses sexual feelings in the fustigator. After having just thrashed five boys, the head-boy was already highly sexually aroused, with his cock rock-hard and pushing against the crotch of his trousers. In fact, so insistent was his cock, that on any other Friday, he would have left Thompson cooling his heels a few more minutes in the corridor whilst he himself went into his bathroom and relieved his sexual tension by jerking himself off. But on his very special Friday evening, in view of his own mandatory meeting with the Headmaster at nine o’clock, that was not what happened. As Thompson approached the chair, he turned and faced the head-boy, smiled and pulled down his shorts to reveal his sizeable endowment, with which he knew the head-boy was already intimately familiar, fully erect and already at the pre-cum stage of sexual excitation. Then, having more or less thrust his erection into the head-boy’s face, without saying a word, but still smiling he  bent over the back of the chair, placed his hands on  its arms and said: “Well there you are, Danvers; I’m all yours; just do your worst and let’s get it over and done with.”

At the sight of Thompson’s erect penis, with which he was already familiar under rather different, more congenial circumstances, Nigel Danvers felt an increased emission from his own cock which, by its uncontrollable actions, indicated its desperation to be liberated from the constraint of his trousers. There was nothing unusual about an older boy – a young man, in fact – becoming sexually aroused when he was about to be beaten.  Danvers had seen this several times in the past, when he had had occasion to beat any older boy. But never had he seen such an overt display of sexuality as Thompson had just paraded in front of him. It was as if he had wanted to brandish his cock in front of the head-boy in defiance of the position in which he found himself. It was almost as if he were saying, “Look at me; look at my magnificent sex – it was a truly magnificent sight – beat me as hard as you wish, but you will not tame my cock however hard you try.” Danvers took a moment to pull himself together having been subject to what was a passive act of defiant braggadocio and then advanced to address Thompson’s naked arse with his cane.

As he gazed down upon Thompson’s gorgeously sexy, muscular body, he felt his own cock becoming  harder still, if that was even possible and the dribbling emissions of his own cum increased so much that they created a damp patch in the front of his trousers. Highly embarrassed by the turn of events and aware that he was attempting to control what was uncontrollable, he just prayed that he would get though the caning and be able to get rid of Thompson before he himself exploded fully into a highly erotic spontaneous orgasm of sperm. He looked down on Thompson’s undefiled buttocks which he was about to shred and then went straight ahead and gave him six ferocious parallel cuts with his senior cane. So viciously did he attack his target that when he had finished, the six stripes he had etched into Thompson’s naked arse, were all oozing droplets of blood. Only God above knows how, but Thompson managed to maintain his self-control and dignity throughout the entire horrible process, during which he did not make as sound.

Danvers breathed an internal sigh of relief that it was finally all over and that he had sexually not totally disgraced himself by having a full orgasm in his pants.  But as he gazed down on on the results of his handiwork, he was appalled by the damage he had wreaked on his classmate’s arse. Noted and feared by the entire school for the harsh beatings he delivered, Danvers had never before been so vicious as to break a boy’s skin and draw blood. And so feeling totally guilty for what he had just done, the anger, which had led him to excess, was immediately replaced by concern for Thompson and the severe pain he had inflicted on him. No one in his right mind, other than an utter sadist, could ever think that what he had done to Thompson was a just and reasonable punishment for a demerit beating. In an attempt to make amends and somehow to palliate the results of his actions, he went to his bathroom where he kept a pot of Aloe Vera ointment, an unguent much used by boys to ease the sting of the stripes left by the cane and in which the local chemist’s shop did a brisk trade with the boys of the school.

“Andrew,” he began, using his victim’s first name now that the painful formalities were over, “Believe me I am truly sorry for what I just did to you, which I now realise was way over the top, So why don’t you stay as you are, over the back of the chair and let me apply a little Aloe Vera in an attempt to ease the pain, which I know must be unbearable. I don’t know what possessed me to attack your arse in the way I did and I do, most sincerely, apologise to you.”

 Andrew Thompson, who had not made a sound until now, said: “Nigel, I have to accept part of the blame myself for what just happen. Look, I went out of my way to goad you on when I flaunted my cock in your face. We have both been beaten on the bare several times before today, and we both know that under such circumstances, no one has the slightest control over his dick, which has a mind of its own and does exactly whatever it wants. So the fact that I had a boner as you prepared to cane me was something over which I had no control whatsoever.  And I saw that you too had the same problem, except that yours was kept inside of your trousers.  I saw from the tenting of your crotch and the damp patch that you too were mightily aroused by what you were about to do to me. But what I should not have done, which I freely admit was a mistake, was to stick my erection in your face. A guy cannot control the state of his dick, but he can control what the does with it; and what I just did, sticking it more or less to you, was, frankly, wrong.  And so, Nigel, although you gave my arse an absolutely unbelievably painful roasting – the worst I have ever experienced – I accept that I too must bear part of the responsibility for my present, painful state and I bear you no ill-will for what you have just done to me. If our positions had been reversed, then I might well have done the same to you. We all allow our rage to get the better of us sometimes and do things which we later regret. Well let’s just say that this was one of those occasions.”

Whilst Thompson was saying his piece, Danvers went on massaging the Aloe Vera cream into his arse. He suddenly realised that he was enjoying what he was doing and that he himself was still sexually fully aroused. So as he and Thompson had had tentative sexual relations in the relatively recent past, which for no good reason had been discontinued as each of them had moved on to other partners in the insatiable quest for sex which motivates most young men of their age, it is not at all surprising that Danvers’s massaging fingers began to stray nearer and nearer to that all important entry port for a rampant male shaft.  Danvers, by now, saw that his initial motivation of mercy with the Aloe Vera was rapidly transforming itself into lust.  Looking and fondling, for that is what his initial application of the ointment had by now become, Thompson’s beautiful arse – in his eyes, more beautiful than ever, perhaps because of the livid stripes he had created – had now become an object of intense sexual desire to him. He could feel his cock, still confined in his wet underpants, insisting on being liberated and being allowed to perform what was its natural duty. If ever Danvers had felt in need of a fuck, it was right at that moment. And as it was at present, Thompson’s beautifully inviting arse was just crying out for a dose of the true sort of tender loving care, which Danvers would be more than happy to supply.

Nigel Danvers’s application of the Aloe Vera cream had been done in complete silence, during which time his desire for sex was mounting exponentially.  But as Nigel’s exploring fingers moved ever closer to that all important entry port, Andrew Thompson realised what was happening and that, although as yet unspoken, his erstwhile fustigator, by his overt actions, was grooming him for the sex act.  As the saying so neatly puts it: it takes two to tango. But already with the more intimate way his arse was being explored by the head-boy’s probing fingers, Andrew Thompson knew that he would be a willing partner to what now seemed an inevitable by Nigel’s cock. It just remained for one of them to take the bull by the horns and say what they both knew they wanted.

So as Nigel Danvers, the head-boy, was the prime mover in what was obviously going to happen, he said: “Andrew, I think we both know where this is leading and I think we probably both want the same thing. But you are free to tell me to stop what I am doing right now if you don’t want to go any further.”

Andrew Thompson decided to play coy and tease him. So he replied: “Perhaps it would be best if you told me exactly where you think this is leading? Nigel, not to put too fine a point on it, you have just taken my arse to hell and back with your bloody cane and you are now trying to ease my pain by applying some ointment to the results of your handiwork, so what do you expect me to say?  You are in charge of the proceedings, so just say what’s on your mind now. Go on, Nigel; speak up; what are you proposing? I’m all ears.”

So the head-boy, faced as he now was with a direct question, went on: “Andrew, I don’t know if you are thick or are just being bloody obtuse; probably the latter. You know as well as I do where things are heading from here. But just to make it all clear, let me spell it out for you directly. Do you or do you not want us to indulge ourselves in sex and have a quick fuck before I present myself to the Headmaster at nine o’clock when I appear to have a strong chance of having my own arse skinned by him for some as yet, to me, unknown reason?  So, yes or no, would you like me to shaft you before we call it a day?”

Andrew, who was as sexually aroused as was Nigel himself, replied: “Keep your shirt on Nigel, I was just needling you a bit to get my own back in some small way for what you have just done to me. But I can tell you that your generous offer to share that massive erection which you were having difficulty keeping in your pocket before you dispensed your generous bounty on my backside just now, would probably prove a soothing diversion and take my mind of the pain which I am experiencing, thanks, entirely, to your sterling efforts with the cane. I really feel I should congratulate you for sharing with me the boundless propensities for creating pain with the cane, which you seem completely to have mastered. I feel privileged and honoured to have had an experience vouchsafed to so few of our classmates. After all it is not every day that one has the opportunity to experience the fustigatory talents of the head-boy at their very best. And so I feel highly honoured to be among that select few on whom you have graciously bestowed that privilege. And now to have your generous offer of sharing the talents of your more personal rod, whose pleasure giving properties I know from past experience are, in a totally different way, equally exhilarating as those which I have just had the pleasure of experiencing, I feel I should go down on my knees and thank you for the bounty which you are so generously offering to bestow on me.”

“So yes, Nigel, I would really welcome what you so succinctly describe as a quick fuck; a small mercy, with which I suppose I shall have to be both grateful and satisfied, in view of your own pressing engagement with our revered Headmaster.  I have to say, I don’t envy you at all in what will be your post-copulative appointment with the Headmaster. I have not had the pleasure of having my own arse addressed by him since I was in the fourth form, but I hear from recent beneficiaries of his largesse that in spite of his rather – how shall I put it – antediluvian appearance, he is still on top form? So, Nigel I don’t think that you will leave his study this evening feeling that you have been cheated out of your just deserts. In fact, quite the contrary; I am sure that the old boy will do his very best to see that you, as his head-boy, leave his study with an arse which you will not dare to touch for fear of burning your fingers. However, as you have most kindly offered to assuage my own pain by the ever gratifyingly soothing act of anal copulation, I hope that when you emerge from your flagellative meeting with the Reverend Dr. Temple that you will allow me, in my own humble way, to offer you the same comfort as you are now offering to me.”

Nigel Danvers listened to this amazing, off-the-cuff piece of mockingly sarcastic persiflage in complete silence. He marvelled how Andrew had managed, on the spur of the moment, to spout, such a load of pretentious – and let’s be honest – amusingly articulate claptrap. It could have been a speech from a play – but it wasn’t. And what made it all the more remarkable was that Andrew was making light of matters, for he was still enduring what was, by any measure, an excruciatingly painful arse. He had turned the whole thing into a piece of light hearted banter, which it certainly was not. It was a serious occasion with two very serious parts: an excessively vicious beating to be followed by an act of illegal, homosexual sex. 

Realising, by now, that he was filled with admiration for Andrew, Nigel said: “Andrew, I don’t know from where you got that pretentious piece of pompous clap-trap that you have just spouted. But let me summarise what you said.  You do want me to fuck your arse right now and you have offered to extend me the same courtesy when I return later from my meeting with the Headmaster bearing my own putatively beaten arse. So less I have misunderstood you, stay exactly in the position in which you are at present and I will do my humble best to satisfy both your and my own carnal desires.” 

Nigel went into his bathroom, where he took from the cabinet a small bottle of baby oil he kept there for just such occasions as the present.  Having prepared Andrew’s anus for penetration he wisely, locked his study door, before shedding his own clothes and preparing to shaft his partner.  Now not to put too fine a point on it,  both he and Andrew were equally well-endowed sexually; they both had sizable cocks. Andrew’s still rampant member was  sandwiched between his belly and the padded, leather back of the armchair, but was still as ram-rod hard as when he had, inadvisably, flaunted it in front of Nigel, thereby so infuriating him, with the consequences we all know.  But Nigel’s own dick, now released from the confines of his trousers, against which it had long been straining for freedom, now jumped immediately to attention, dribbling a more or less continuous stream of pre-cum indicating its readiness for purpose. 

After applying a little oil to his own rampant member, Nigel pressed his cock-head against Andrew’s tight anus and, with the smooth, confident movement of someone who knew exactly what he was doing – which he did – overcame the firm resistance of Andrew’s anal sphincter and slid the full seven inches of his erection into his partner.  The whole act was accomplished without any preliminaries, as Nigel was so sexually aroused that he was barely able to control himself. In many ways, his actions were reminiscent of those of a dog,  which scenting a bitch in heat just throws itself – as nature intended it to do –  upon the receptive female, so great is the inbuilt imperative for reproductive sex among all living creatures. What makes us humans unique when it comes to sex, is that we appear to be the only living creatures who indulge in sex as a pleasurable pastime as distinct for reproductive purposes. And when one looks at the act of anal sex in which Nigel and Andrew are about to indulge, reproduction does not enter into the equation at all; it is all just lustful pleasure.  In fact, if you think about it about it, with all the contraceptive devices man has invented, most sex, both hetero and homo, is probably for pleasure. Let’s face it; sex is as addictive as are narcotics and once a taste fo rit has been acquired, it is is toy which never fails to please.

But as he thrst his rampant cock into Andrew’s welcoming arse, Nigel was now totally incapable of controlling himself. So much so  that on only the third thrust with his cock, he could not prevent himself from climaxing prematurely and pumped his entire, orgasmic load of sperm all over Andrew’s naked arse. So the deep welts left by cane, were now bathed in layer of Nigel’s creamy spunk, in addition to the Aloe Vera cream which Nigel had just applied.  Whilst this was a moment of great personal gratification for himself, Nigel knew that by prematurely climaxing, he had robbed his partner of the steady build-up towards his own orgasm, produced by  less frenetic cock action, thereby cheating him out of his share of what should have been an equally satisfying sex act for both participants. Whilst he was still ejaculating his sperm which seemed to go on forever, Nigel was already feeling guilty at having let his partner down. Nigel had wanted to have sex with Andrew, not only because his cock was demanding it from him, but also because he wanted to try to make amends to Andrew for his excessively hard use of the cane and the livid mess he had made of his arse.

“Andrew, I am so, so sorry; really I am; but I simply could not stop myself climaxing like that; I had no control over what I was doing; please believe me.  But here, let me try to make it right for you and this time I promise I will take you right through to your own orgasm, in an attempt to compensate and make it up to you for all the pain I have just inflicted on you.”  

Nigel went to his bathroom and fetched a towel with which he very gently, in view of their parlous state, wiped his own copious emission from his partner’s buttocks.  His own cock was still hard and clearly ready for another onslaught on Andrew’s anus. If anyone had been present as he fucked his partner for the second send time in five minutes, he would have thought he was watching an experienced anal copulator at work.  However he would have been wrong, for although Nigel along with many other of his classmates in the upper sixth had made tentative efforts at the sort of hesitant sexual relationships so common among older public school boys, it was not until now, as he was fucking Andrew Thompson that it all felt so very right. And so, with that innate sense of sexual drive given to all men when push comes to shove, he now fucked his partner as if he was a routine act, which he performed on a daily basis. So he started with long slow strokes, each of almost the full length of his hard cock and then gradually as the feeling built up in both of them, he increased both the speed  and strength of his thrusting, until, in those final frenetic moments when one loses control of oneself  before climaxing into orgasm and shooting one’s wad, he did what was to become the hallmark of his own copulative technique; he withdrew his rampant member completely from Andrew’s anus and after a moment’s pause with his cock held ready in the air, thrust his full length back inside his partner with great force, bringing both of them to orgasm.

For a young man, relatively inexperienced in the finer points of anal sex, what Nigel had just done by instinct, was an absolute triumph of a fuck for both of them. As he pumped and pumped, in a series energetic, ejaculative jerks, what seem like an endless stream of his own into Andrew’s arse, he felt that in fucking Andrew and giving him what he was later to learn was his first true copulative orgasm, he was well on the way to redeeming himself for his earlier excesses with the cane. Whilst he could not take back the pain he had inflicted on Andrew’s arse, he had royally made amends in the way he had just given his partner a totally unexpected experience beyond his wildest imagination. But then, in the middle of this joyous sexual coupling, he suddenly remembered that fatidic nine o’clock appointment with the Headmaster: an appointment for which he dared not be late.  So what should have been been a pleasant after-glow of a highly satisfactory act of sex for both of them, came to a hurried end as both young men pulled on their skimpy attire of shorts and gym vests, Andrew to go back to his own study-bedroom and nurse his still painful arse and Nigel to his fate with his Headmaster, the Reverend Dr. Temple.

It was exactly nine o’clock as Nigel arrived at the Headmaster’s study to see that the red engaged light was still burning. Evidently some poor lad was still in there, having his arse roasted by the Reverend Dr. Temple. His suspicion was confirmed when a few moments later he heard, across the closed door, that sharp, inimitable crack of a cane as it delivered its painful message to some poor sod’s bare arse. It is quite amazing how different circumstance make one see things differently. As a regular, enthusiastic wielder of the cane himself, Nigel Danvers, had always rather enjoyed hearing the crack of his cane as it landed on its naked target. But now, as he stood there waiting to be called in to face his own fate with the Headmaster, it suddenly hit him that in a few minutes it would, in all probability, be his own naked flesh mating with the cane which would be emitting that crack, which now had suddenly become distinctly less appealing. And as the realisation of what was likely to happen to him sank in, he became more and more nervous and, frankly, scared for his immediate future.  As he stood there listing to the steady cracks as the cane descended repeatedly on some unknown arse, he still had no idea why he had been been summoned to see the Headmaster or whether he would still be head-boy at the end of the evening. In those few minutes, before he entered the lion’s den, Nigel Danvers experienced a feeling of impending doom, the likes of which he had not had for several years, but one which he shared with countless other boys in the same position as he now was. The wait is almost as bad as the punishment itself.

But then there was suddenly silence as the Headmaster, evidently concluded beating the last of the twelve boys on his list. A few minutes later, one, Stephen Dobson, a fifth former whom Danvers knew quite well, limped tearfully out of the study, the door of which was firmly closed behind him, leaving the two of then – the beaten and the to-be-beaten – standing together in the corridor. Danvers did not dare to announce his presence to the Headmaster, who had left the engaged sign on and had closed the door with such finality that it would have been a brave soul who dared to knock on the door. In a fleeting moment of fantasy, Danvers wondered if the Headmaster had forgotten that he had that thirteenth element of a baker’s dozen of boys – himself, of course – whose whose candidate arse was available in the corridor just waiting to be skinned. But given his devotion to duty with the cane to which the Reverend Dr. Temple invariably adhered when it came to punishing boys, he knew that this was just wishful thinking on his part. As he looked at what might best be described as a shell-shocked Dobson, who was tearfully massaging his arse with both hands in a futile attempt to attenuate the pain he was obviously feeling, Danvers could see that look of undisguised, misery on the lad’s tearstained face.  So, even though he himself, as we all know, enjoyed nothing more than beating arse, on this occasion as a future kindred soul to Dobson he said gently: “So it was that bad, was it?  By the look on your face, I divine that our Headmaster, the Reverend Dr. Temple is on top form this evening.”

“You can say that again,” came the reply.  “That fucking old goat started off by giving me nine and then because he said I had attempted to touch my arse whist he was shredding it, he added another three for good measure. And let me tell you that the old boy really still knows how to lay it on when he tries. That bloody bastard has just given me twelve in all; and he doubled every stroke; six on six id what he gave me; so, as I can feel,  my arse is well and truly shredded. I can tell you, Danvers, that the way I feel right now, I doubt that I shall ever be able to sit comfortably again. That was early the worst beating I have ever had; and let me just tell you that I have had plenty in the past, but nothing to compare with what he just did to me. Frankly, I feel sorry for you as we all wonder what you must have done as head-boy to be called out in front of the entire school for a Friday night meeting with our dear Headmaster, dressed as you are, which means your arse is on a collisions course with the Reverend Doctor’s cane.  We all wonder, I can tell you, whether or not you will still be head-boy tomorrow morning. Anyway, Danvers, I wish you the best of luck” And with that, Dobson limped off down the corridor to what would be a very uncomfortable night in bed.

As he stood again alone in the corridor, Danvers asked himself the same questions that Dobson had put to him and to which he still had no answer. What had he done to merit being called out in such a brutal way on front of the entire school? That his arse was forfeit and going to be beaten was self-evident in the the light of the appropriate attire he had been told to wear. And he too asked himself if his evident fall from grace meant that he would no longer be head-boy of Frogmore when he left the Headmaster’s study later that evening. He thought of the way Dobson had sworn when had referred to the Headmaster.  On  any other occasion but the  present, as  head-boy, he would have felt duty bound to punish Dobson for speaking of his Headmaster in such a vulgar way and would have had no compunction whatsoever in thrashing Dobson for his use of bad language, which was a definite  no-no at Frogmore. But these were not normal times; and as he himself silently echoed the sentiments about the Headmaster to which Dobson had given voice, he had allowed the matter to pass without taking him to task for swearing.  And so he stood for full ten minutes more, contemplating his navel as the saying goes, becoming ever more nervous about his fate.

Eventually the door opened and the Reverend Dr. Temple stood there inviting his head-boy to enter. “Danvers, I feel I must apologise for keeping you waiting for what as you must realise is, for both of us, a very important appointment. However I had some urgent business to attend to before I felt I could deal adequately with what as, you have, by now, probably realised is a very serious matter.”

Danvers’s fertile mind boggled at the thought of the urgent business which the Headmaster had had to deal with before he could even contemplate seeing his head-boy. But after having skinned the naked arses of no less than twelve of his pupils in the past hour, it does not require a great stretch of anyone’s imagination to divine the nature of the business that the Reverend Doctor had discharged during those ten minutes. Like most men of any age, the Reverend Dr. Temple was still subject to the spontaneous, erotic, side-effects, which always seem to accompany the administering of corporal punishment, over which even the most dispassionate of fustigators, to which category the Headmaster would have stoutly maintained he numbered, has absolutely no control. In fact, passionate rather than dispassionate would have been a better word to describe the Headmaster’s approach to the use of the cane. As he entered the Headmaster’s study, the head-boy had to summon up all his sang-froid as he steeled himself to remain calm in the face the absolute certainty of what was shortly to happen to him. One thing, at least, was certain; in view of the skimpy clothes he was wearing: he was going to be beaten. But what was unclear was his future position as head-boy. Was he going to leave the Headmaster’s study stripped of his rank or not?  

Danvers had been many times in the Headmaster’s study, but not for several years under such unnervingly trying circumstances as now. Where accommodation was concerned, Frogmore treated its masters very well indeed; and the Headmaster was, of course, no exception. He had a large and luxuriously furnished study, the first of several rooms of his spacious apartment, for as a bachelor, he lived on the premises. His study, where he conducted his daily business had an open fireplace – the sole source of heating – in which, as it was already early November, a fire was cheerfully burning. The first impression one had on entering was of a comfortably furnished sitting room, for a sofa and several armchairs were arranged invitingly around the fireplace and a decanter of port and several glasses on a side table added to the agreeable picture of an evening reading a favourite book whilst sipping a glass of delicious wine in front of a blazing fire.

But first impressions can be very misleading. Although immediately seduced by the obvious attraction of a potential chat and a glass of wine, sitting comfortably around the open fire, the more observant eye would have rapidly realised that there was a less agreeable, more sinister side to this room. There, lying  on a massive old desk was a selection of rattan canes and in the middle of the floor was standing an adjustable beating horse with a padded back over which countless generations of boys had been forced to bend and submit their bare buttocks to the painful ministrations of the Headmaster. And the truly observant eye, which the head-boy undoubtedly had, would have discerned a large discoloured patch on the carpet directly in front of the horse, where the tears of countless boys, including those of the twelve lads whose arses the Headmaster had just flogged that very evening, had left their inedible testimony to the flagellation ability of the various Headmasters.

Since what might fancifully be described as the beginning of time, successive Headmasters had done what they saw as their duty and beaten the bare arses of their pupils on that very spot.  And as if to emphasise the immutable permanence of what many boys, the present head-boy included, thought of as the scaffold on which they were to be executed, a large, threadbare patch in the carpet in front of the beating horse caused by the shuffling feet of countless boys, was yet a testimony of its permanent position as a key element in the room’s accoutrements. As Nigel Danvers took in this dichotomy of a room, where pleasure and pain made uncomfortable neighnours, he could barely repress his own shivering at the thought of bending, half naked, across the beating horse and allowing the Reverend Dr. Temple to take his bare arse to hell and back, which was doubtless what was going to happen.  However, the fatidic moment when Dr. Temple’s cane and the head-boy’s arse would make their first acquaintance that evening had not yet arrived, for the Headmaster had the obvious intention of drawing out his head-boy’s mental agony as long as possible before putting him out of his mental misery.

“So, head-boy, once again, please accept my sincere apologies for making you wait so long in the corridor; but needs must and I had an important task to attend to before I could see you.  However, better late than never; so do come in and sit down in one of the easy chairs in front of the fire whilst you are still able to do so comfortably and let me offer you a glass of port by way of compensation for the delay.”  Listening to the Headmaster making his excuses yet again Nigel Danvers allowed his imagination to run away with him as he saw in his mind’s eye the Reverend Dr Temple jerking himself off to ease the erotic sexual tension that had built up inside him as he shredded the arses of twelve of his pupils in quick succession.

But the sting in the tail of the Headmaster’s initially pleasantly attractive reception had sent a chill down Nigel Danvers’s spine as he realised that his bonhomie was purely superficial and that his arse and the beating potential it offered were almost certainly the main things occupying the Headmaster’s mind at the moment.  Anyway, there was little he could do but accept the invitation; so he sat down in a comfortable chair in front of the fire and accepted the glass port which the Headmaster handed to him.  As he tasted the wine, deliciously sweet though it was, he suddenly felt like the legendary condemned man offered the choice of food for his last meal before he was hanged.  The Headmaster’s cryptic comment confirmed the head-boy’s foregone conclusion that he was to be beaten. Moreover, taking the Headmaster’s words at face value, it appears that he was intent on leaving his head-boy with an arse which would be so tender as to ensure that he would sit nowhere comfortably for quite a while. But then, when did the Reverend Dr. Temple ever hold back when he dispensed justice to his flock? The fact that he he was destined to leave the Headmaster’s study with a well beaten was a given; par for the course, so to speak.

With the two of them, to all intents and purposes going through the make-believe motions of enjoying each other’s company over a glass of port in front of a blazing fire, the Headmaster then embarked on what was to prove, for the head-boy, a spine-chilling discourse, during which all was made clear as to why he had been summoned to appear before the Headmaster in such a humiliatingly public manner. Almost from the first chilling words uttered by the Headmaster, Nigel Danvers knew that his goose was well and truly cooked.

“Well Danvers, I trust you are enjoying your wine.  I always think that when a sixth former, unfortunately in this case you, Danvers, is to be severely punished,  that he merits a stiff drink to enable him to face up to the inevitable vicissitudes of life and accept the painful consequences of what he knows he deserves.  Now, Danvers, I think you know as well as I do why I have summoned you to see me this evening and the inevitable, painful consequences of your actions which I feel is my duty as your Headmaster to visit upon you.”

The head-boy, listening to these orotund, pompous words, was still no wiser as to the reason why he was in the Headmaster’s study. The only thing which was now clear was that his arse was in line for a severe beating. And so he said: “Sir, the only thing I know is that having been told to report to you wearing only the appropriate attire for such occasions, I assume that I am going to be beaten. But, sir, I honestly have no idea what I have done to merit such a beating.”

“Come, come Danvers, you must know when I summoned you, the head-boy of this school, to see me in the way I did, in front of the entire school that you had committed a severe breach of one of the school’s cardinal rules; in fact, to make matters worse, more exactly, that you had broken several of the school’s most important rules. The reason for what I am sure that you see as my brutal announcement after supper this evening, is that I wanted the entire school to see that here at Frogmore, everyone, the head-boy included, is expected to obey the rules and to understand that if he strays from that straight and narrow path of obedience, as you have done, then irrespective of his age and position, he will suffer severe and painful retribution for his actions. Danvers, you claim that you have no idea why you are in front of me this evening, facing a severe beating which, let me tell you, is richly deserved. Well, young men, kindly allow me to enlighten you.  Let me take you back to last Tuesday evening when at around nine in the evening I happened to be in the High Street and, quite by chance, saw a young man leaving a public house on the other side of the street; The King’s Arms, if my memory serves me correctly.”

Nigel Danvers realised with a sudden surge of adrenalin sending shivers down his spine that he was the unfortunate figure whom the Headmaster had fortuitously seen leaving The King’s Arms. He had had no idea until the Headmaster lobbed this bombshell at him that he had been observed leaving the public house that evening by anyone at all, least of all by his Headmaster. In fact, he had totally forgotten that he had sneaked out that evening into the town to have an illicit beer, a common practice of many lads in the upper sixth, who aged eighteen as they all he were, were not breaking the law of the land, although they were breaking one of the most strictly enforced of the school rules. But in spite of the dire and painful penalties which they would incur if caught, the excitement of breaking the rules was often an incentive rather than a deterrent to forbidden behaviour. Had the Headmaster been more inquisitive and entered the King’s Arms that evening, he would have found that his head-boy had left two of his co-prefects still propping up the public bar. But as he did not enter the pub, the head-boy was his sole catch on that occasion; but what a catch it was; one of which he could make an example of in front of the entire school. Hearing that the Headmaster had seen him leaving the King’s Arms, Nigel Danvers’s blood ran cold, as he knew that he had no argument with which to defend himself against what, as sure as night follows day, was about to happen to him. However, serious as things already were, they became steadily worse as the Headmaster tore strip after verbal strip off his head-boy before even picking up his cane to address his arse.

“Danvers, I am very disappointed in finding that you, my head-boy, on whom I rely to keep order in this school, should himself break one of the most stringently enforced rules of the school. I place drinking, along with smoking, directly below stealing, as the two most sacred rules of this school, It is bad enough when boys bring illicit alcoholic drinks into the school which they then secretly consume in their studies; but to indulge in drinking in a public house is beyond what can even vaguely be viewed as acceptable behaviour, least of all from my head-boy.  But I also saw that you were in mufti for your illicit outing, as you had chosen to abandon your school uniform in favour of an anodyne sports jacket, presumably to avoid being recognised by the townsfolk at the bar as a boy from Frogmore School. And that, Danvers, is another rule which you ignored. As you well know, when outside the school grounds, all boys , you included, Danvers,  must always be correctly dressed which means that you should wear your school uniform and your headgear, in your case, your head-boy’s mortar-board, which was also conspicuously absent from your attire that evening. And to add insult to injury, in going into town in the evening, you were also fully aware that you were breaking another golden rule.”

“The school, which acts in loco parentis for all its boys during term time, cannot allow them to go off willy-nilly whenever they wish. Just supposing that you had had an accident during your clandestine outing the other evening, the school would, quite rightly, be held legal responsible. I am very disappointed in you Danvers; very disappointed indeed! A head-boy, who, I understand from the murmurings which have reached my ear, has already established a reputation with the cane which rivals my own, but who, due to a lapse in his judgement, now finds himself a candidate for a painful encounter with that same rod of justice. I am deeply disappointed that a young man, whom I had hitherto seen as a model of moral rectitude, a firm enforcer of the School Rules among his schoolmates, who, this very evening has himself corrected with the cane, those of his schoolmates, who have had the misfortune to collect ten demerit marks, should now find himself subject to the same punishment due to his misdeeds.”

On and on went the Headmaster, until he finally came to the crux of the matter:  “And so, Danvers, you will understand that I could not allow you to escape unscathed from your unfortunate lapse of judgment, which is why, I decided to make a verbal example of you in front of the entire school. In summoning you to appear before me in such an overtly brutal and public manner as I did earlier this evening and in specifying publicly that you would present yourself to me appropriately attired, I made the entire school aware that all boys, the head-boy included, were subject to the same rules, which if they broke, as you did, would incur the same punishment. So, Danvers, the entire school knows that its head-boy is about to beaten by its Headmaster. I am sure they would all like to know what sin you committed to incur my wrath; but I see no reason at all apprise them of your misdeeds.  It is enough for them to know that their head-boy can be beaten and, indeed, has been beaten, thereby establishing beyond doubt of the doctrine of equality of treatment of all boys at Frogmore School. And so, my dear Danvers unless you yourself choose to reveal to your schoolmates the reason why you are here this evening, they need never know and you can continue with your duties as head-boy as before. I have to say, Danvers that in spite of your present mistake, I still consider I made an excellent choice in naming you head-boy and I understand that your reputation for maintaining order is first-rate. And so, Danvers, let us put this unfortunate lapse of judgement behind us and allow you to continue gong your excellent work as has hitherto been the case.”

Listening to this long-winded speech, Nigel Danvers was amazed to hear that he was to emerge from his ordeal still holding the post of head-boy  with nothing worse than sore arse to shown for his escapade. However, there are sore arses and sore arses; and this was to a very, very, sore arse. His blood ran cold once he had heard what the Headmaster had in store for him.

“So Danvers, unless you have anything to say in your defence, I think the time has come for me to substitute something more positive for the present mental anguish which you are doubtless experiencing. Alas, in so doing, as I am sure you are aware, I am afraid that you will have to suffer the indignity of taking the cane across your naked buttocks.  I regret to say that it cannot be otherwise, if justice is to be seen to have been done. Now, Danvers, I do not wish to appear unduly severe, but as I am sure you are aware, your offences are serious and do merit a very sound thrashing.  I would, therefore, suggest that you prepare yourself mentally, for an eighteen stroke beating, which, in view of your elevated profile and the seriousness of your offences, is the minimum I feel you deserve. I did consider giving you the maximum of twenty-four stokes, which are allowed under the School Rules, but in view of your hitherto unblemished career and conduct, I decided eighteen cuts would suffice to teach you enough of a lesson. I know that it will be a very painful few minutes for you, but when it is over, I think that you too will realise how lenient I have been under the circumstances. And you know, Danvers, in a way I think I should thank you for having provided me with an opportunity to bring home to the entire school, the equality of treatment which all boys at Frogmore can expect. It is not every day that a Headmaster has an opportunity to beat his head-boy. And so, Danvers, in many ways you are serving as a splendid example of the ethos of this School to all its members; a fact of which you can and should be justifiably proud.”

It goes without saying that Danvers did not consider an eighteen stroke beating in any way lenient. Nor did he care much for the fact that his arse was apparently viewed by the Headmaster as a beacon of light which testified to the equality of treatment all boys of the School.  He, drained the last drops of the port which he had been sipping, in the forlorn hope that the effect of the alcohol he had just consumed might attenuate somewhat  the pain  which the Reverend Dr. Temple was about to inflict on him. Then he stood up from the  the easy chair in which he had been sitting listening to the Headmaster’s concluding peroration of his long-winded remarks and moved, as he had been motioned to do, over to the dreaded beating horse, which stood there, like the guillotine during the French revolution,  ready to welcome its next victim.

“Danvers I think you are sufficiently familiar with the horse, so I leave it to you to make the necessary height adjustments to ensure that you are comfortably installed with your buttocks held high, for what I am afraid will prove a very painful few minutes for you, during which I shall correct you in the traditional way with the rattan cane for your misdemeanours. Oh, and I am sure I do not have to tell you that before adopting the appropriate position you should discard your shorts as your buttocks must be bare. But I am sure that you know all that as you are accustomed as head-boy to beating your schoolmates, which I am sure you always do on the bare as tradition at this School demands. So you must excuse me for preaching to the converted.”

As Danvers took off his shorts and bent over the horse, offering his bare arse to the rigours of the Headmaster’s cane, he just wished the old goat would shut up and get on with it. He had been put through the wringer of being educated at Frogmore and as a normal boy he had committed a normal boy’s misdeeds for which he had duly had his arse thrashed many times in the past by a variety of prefects, house-captains, head-boys and, on several occasions, by his housemaster. But only once had he been beaten by the Headmaster himself and as he stood there today, bent across the beating horse waiting for the first crack of the cane to deliver the beginning of its painful message to his naked arse, the full horror of that one occasion now came back in greatest deal as if it were yesterday.

It had been a salutary experience when he had been in the fifth form and he and his team mates in the junior Rugby team had become involved in a fisticuffs with the opposing team at another school in an away-game. It goes without saying that all thirty lads went to bed that night with well-beaten arses provided by courtesy of their respective Headmasters.  But the way it was done that Saturday evening at Frogmore was little short of a bloodbath. The Reverend Dr. Temple was obviously hopping mad and seething with rage, at the behaviour of fifteen boys from His School, as he thought of it. That they should have demeaned themselves by engaging in a fist fight with members of their host team was not anything which could be tolerated.

It was possibly the occasion when the Reverend Dr. Temple, showed himself at his fustigatory best – or worst for those on the receiving end of the stick – burnishing his already legendary reputation of being an expert with the cane, as he etched eight excruciatingly painful stripes into each of fifteen naked arses. As soon as the team arrived back at Frogmore, they were marched immediately to the gym changing rooms, where, under the eye of their sadistic PE instructor, a certain Mr. Bateman, they were all made to strip off completely and don just a pair of gym shorts, which had appeared as if from nowhere. They were then ushered, barefoot and practically naked into the gymnasium itself, where the Headmaster, with that wrath-of-God look on his face, which said everything, was awaiting their arrival, brandishing a vicious length of rattan.

“Gentlemen, you should be happy that I still address you as such, in spite of your appalling behaviour earlier today.  I am totally disgusted that a team of boys from this school should allow itself to become involved in a brawl with its counterparts from the host side.  I cannot and will not allow your bad manners go unpunished, particularly as the incident occurred in another School in which you were guests.  You, gentlemen, have made your bed and you must now lie in it; and allow me to assure you, that I intend to make that a very uncomfortable bed for all of you this evening. Mr. Bateman, if you would be good enough to line up these miserable wretches in alphabetical order, I shall do my very best to make sure that they rue the day when they entered into a fight with their host team. Now, gentlemen, so that you are aware of what is in store for you in the next few minutes, you will each receive eight cuts of the cane across your naked bottoms: six parallel strokes drawn together two diagonal gating cuts.  Mr. Bateman, over to you, sir; please get these boys in order.”

The look on Bateman’s face told the whole story of how much he was enjoying his role in the proceedings:  “Right, boys, you heard the Headmaster. Get yourselves in a straight line over against the wall, arranged from left to right in alphabetical order of our names. And when you a have done that, take of your shorts, put your hands on your heads and stand perfectly still until called forward by the Headmaster, when you will step forward to receive your punishment.”

At these words, the whole team looked panic stricken. To be told to stand there stark naked with their hands on their heads, as they watched each of their team-mates being beaten in turn by the Headmaster was unheard of. It was one thing to stand around naked in the showers as they did every day, but quite another to be made to stand in line with your hands on your head and your genitalia exposed to the full view of anyone and everyone present. But as there was no choice, the boys did as they had been told to do by the sadistic Mr. Bateman, who looked on with obvious pleasure written all over his face at the mass execution he was shortly to witness. And as was totally predictable given the erotic effect that bare-arse-beatings always appear to arouse in all concerned – the beater, the beaten and any observers – each boy suffered the extreme embarrassment of seeing his uncontrollable manhood, with that mind of its own, rapidly rise to the occasion. Within one minute of stripping off, all fifteen boys were sporting rock hard erections.  It would be fare to say that they were all were dying with embarrassment at the totally undignified and humiliating position which they had been forced to adopt, not to mention being terrified of the punishment which was about to be visited on them, made even worse by the fact that they all were being made to witness each other having their arses skinned.

The Headmaster pointed with his cane at the first boy in the line: “Ashley, kindly step forward. Bend over and grip your ankles firmly with your hands and remain in that position until I tell you to stand up.”

The other boys looked on in horror as the Reverend Dr. Temple then proceeded to apply his cane with unbelievable vigour to Ashley’s naked rump. In spite of the number of boys requiring his attention that evening the Headmaster, made haste slowly and applied every single stroke to Ashley’s arse with careful deliberation. He paused for at least ten seconds between strokes to allow the unfortunate recipient fully to appreciate the pain to which he was being subjected.  Carefully and in precisely targeted positions, from the bottom of the Ashley’s back to the top of his legs, that very sensitive area called the sit-spot, the cane descended repeatedly with that inimitable, characteristic crack of well-seasoned rattan mating with the bare flesh of a boy’s backside. The Headmaster paused after delivering the sixth of his parallel strokes to admire the precision of his handwork, which was, as usual, perfect: six deep furrows  each a livid red colour and each oozing the odd drop of blood where the cane had broken the skin. He then applied the last two strokes as crossing diagonals, thereby leaving Ashley with what, by any standards, was a text-book example of a perfectly well-beaten, eight-cut gated arse.

Before he was invited to step forward to offer his own arse to the not-so-tender mercy of the cane, Danvers had to witness four more of his team-mates being beaten with the same vigorous efficiency and dedication to purpose which the Reverend Dr. Temple always showed. Now, as we already know, Danvers’s arse and the cane were acquaintances of long standing, as he had been beaten more or less regularly, at least twice a term, throughout his entire school career. But never had he experienced anything like the intensity of the pain which the Headmaster now delivered with his cane.  From the first to the last, like a man possessed, he delivered all of his eight promised strokes with his maximum force. It was as if he was on a mission from a wrathful God to teach all members of the Rugby team a lesson they would never forget.  When Danvers was finally told to stand up and rejoin the line with his hands on his head any earlier embarrassment he had felt standing there, with his cock still erect and now dripping a few drops of pre-cum, had been subsumed into the excruciating, throbbing pain he was experiencing in his arse.  But of course he and his team-mates were forced to stand there stark-naked for a full half hour and watch the Reverend Dr. Temple systematically shredding the arses of each and every one of them, with an efficiency and vigour which belied his age. And so it was not until the Headmaster had delivered a total of one hundred and twenty swingeing cuts with the cane that the rugby team members were finally dismissed and allowed to return to their respective houses where they passed, as the Headmaster had predicted, a very uncomfortable night in their beds.

Danvers, still prostrate across the beating horse in the Headmaster’s study, was suddenly awoken from his thoughts of that first and, hitherto, only time when he had had the unfortunate  experience of enjoying the Headmaster’s skill at delivering pain, by that inimitable sound of the sharp crack of a cane mating with its target. This audible intimation that the Headmaster had delivered the first cut of what he had promised was to be an eighteen stroke beating, was followed a split second later by that  searing pain, so characteristic of a expertly applied rattan cane, when mating with the naked flesh of pair of well-rounded buttocks. Awakened from his thoughts which until that moment had been elsewhere, by that first bite of the cane, the head-boy knew instinctively that this was to be a very special beating. That first cut had been delivered with a force, the like of which he had never before experienced and had taken his breath away. And in is usual style, the Headmaster made haste slowly and spaced the next five strokes at ten or even fifteen second intervals – an age for Danvers, the unfortunate owner of the arse being punished – to allow his head-boy to appreciate the care with which each cut was being applied. And cut, was truly an accurate description of what the cane did to the head-boy’s buttocks that day, as it bit deeply into his bare flesh, breaking the skin each time and raising a few spots of blood.  Those first six cuts were spaced evenly from top to bottom of the head-boy’s arse and were delivered with such unbridled vigour, that by the third stroke, the Reverend Dr. Temple had reduced his head-boy to tears.

The Headmaster had told Danvers that he was to receive an eighteen stroke beating to emphasise to him the seriousness of his misdeeds, but he had not been told of the very painful method by which the Headmaster intended to deliver what was, by any standards, in spite of the Headmaster’s declaration of leniency, a very severe beating. After a pause of that interminable minute, which felt like an hour to Danvers, the Headmaster continued his punishment marathon. To Danvers’s horror the Reverend Dr. Temple had no compunction whatsoever, in doubling his first six strokes with the second round of six. And so, already in unbelievable pain thanks to the Headmaster’s unstinting generosity with his first six cuts, Danvers’s suffering was increased to what might have thought were the limits of endurance as the cane bit deeply six more times into the initial six welts. But it was not yet over, as worse was still to come.  After another minute’s pause, the Reverend Doctor went with unabated vigour and overlaid the final six cuts on the same six original welts, completing a text-book example of what was technically an eighteen stroke, six on six on six beating. By the time Danvers was told told by the Headmaster that he could stand up and pull back on his shorts, he could barely put one foot in front of the other, so great was the pain that the Headmaster had delivered.

“Danvers, I have been relatively severe with you today – the understatement of the century – as I felt it necessary to bring home, to you in a very painful way that I expect better behaviour from my head-boy in future. Danvers, you are in a very privileged position in this School and as its present head-boy you have considerable power over all your schoolmates. As such I expect you to set an example to your contemporaries, on whom you have both the permission and the power to exercise the same sanctions with the cane as I have just exercised on you.  No one, in this school is above the law; you broke it and have suffered in spite of my leniency – that mot inappropriate word yet again! – an exemplary punishment for your sins. I hope that the pain you are now experiencing will have taught you a lesson which you will not wish to repeat. But make no mistake, Danvers; if you step out of line once again, what you have just experienced will seem, in retrospect, like a light breeze across your nether regions compared with what I am capable of delivering when I am truly annoyed.”

“Now, as head-boy of this School, I urge you to think hard on what has happened to you today when you deal with your schoolmates in future. I expect the best behaviour from all pupils of this school and as head-boy I expect you and your team of prefects to maintain discipline in the traditional way. The boys must all understand that they if caught breaking the rules, then they will suffer painful retribution for their sins.  I have just shown you, by way of an example, alas to your cost, the way that a major misdemeanour should be punished. However, no misdeed, however trivial must go unpunished and I expect you and your co-prefects not to shrink from using the cane whenever it is called for. I have, throughout my entire career worked on the principle that given an inch the average schoolboy will take a mile.  So do not hesitate to use that indispensible backbone of the Frogmore disciplinary ethos, the cane, especially on the younger boys who tend to allow their high spirits to get out of hand. Remember, a well-beaten bottom never did any boy any lasting harm.”

Danvers was thankful finally to be allowed to escape from the Headmaster’s endless pontificating and to find that in spite of his misdeeds, for which his arse was now suffering in a way that he had never before experienced and never again wanted to repeat, he had not been demoted from his post as head-boy of Frogmore.  Indeed, listening to the remarks of the Reverend Dr. Temple, he saw that he had been encouraged to use the cane, in the persuasive, corrective power of which, the old boy was obviously a true believer. He made his way gingerly back to the head-boy’s study where he made a futile attempt to calm down the pain throbbing in his backside by sticking his arse under a cold shower before gingerly patting himself dry with the towel and lying face down on his bed. He did not bother to cover himself at all, leaving his naked arse exposed to the air, as even the touch of a sheet was too painful to bear. And there he lay until he finally dosed off after about an hour.

It must have been midnight when he awoke with start. The bedside candle was burning and by its dim light, a naked figure was kneeling on the bed beside him massaging some of his own Aloe Vera ointment into his exposed arse. And then it suddenly hit him, Andrew Thompson, true to his word had come back to fulfil his promise to render to him that same service; Andrew had come back, as he had promised, to fuck Nigel.  As he finished applying the soothing cream, Andrew held the candle over the prostrate figure on the bed, and said:  “My God, Nigel, what the fuck did the old boy do to you? Your arse is in a dreadful shape.”

So then, happy to have a sympathetic ear to listen to his sorrows , with Andrew lying naked on the bed beside him  he told his erstwhile sex partner, whom he himself, not two hours ago, had just beaten, the whole story of what had happened to him in the Headmaster’s study. “And you know what, Andrew? At the end of the day, the old goat did not relegate me to the ranks as I had feared he would and I am still the head-boy; albeit a head-boy with an excessively well-beaten arse, in the best Frogmore tradition. But I am still head-boy nevertheless: and moreover with a verbal mandate from the Reverend Dr Temple to go out and thrash the naked arse of any boy who is caught even breaking the most piffling of rules. You know, our revered Headmaster is a devout believer in the benefits – to the receiver that is – of a well beaten arse. Frankly, Andrew, it would not surprise me one bit, if we were to learn that he kneels each evening in front of that altar to flagellation of his, that bloody beating horse he has standing there in the middle of his study and gives thanks to the Almighty for the regular supply of cane fodder to which the School give him access. Make no mistake Andrew, our Reverend Headmaster is an absolute sadist. Oh and just one thing before we move on to pleasanter pastimes times,  what I have just told you, Andrew, must go no further; that you must promise me. The whole school knows the head-boy has been beaten and I suppose they will think that a new head-boy will be nominated to replace me. Well as you now know, they will be so very wrong.  And they will soon find out that I am alive and well and able to exercise my functions as head-boy, when I tickle some poor sod’s arse with my cane as I certainly intend to do next week. But they need know nothing else.”

Andrew looked lovingly at Nigel’s lacerated buttocks by the dim light of the candle, before saying: “Well Nigel, you know what I promised to do for you after you had seen the Headmaster, but if you don’t feel up to it right now we can take a rain check on it and do it when you are feeling a bit better.”

But as we all know sex is such a driving force that Nigel, who was still in agony from the caning, nevertheless wanted nothing more at that moment than to have the pleasure of Andrew shafting him. However, as Andrew had done with him, he now acted coy with his putative lover and said: “You know, Andrew, I am not at all  sure that I understand what you were getting at when you you said: if you don’t feel up to it right now we can take a rain check on it; if  I don’t feel up to what exactly? What is it that you are proposing that I might not feel up to right now? You know I believe in the saying that there is no time like the present. So what is it I exactly that you are proposing? Could you perhaps be little more l more specific as to what it is that I might not be up to so that I can give you a better informed answer? After all, Andrew, if I don’t know what it is you are proposing, how can I decide whether I feel up to it or not? It might surprise you to know that in spite of the parlous state of my arse at the moment, I am not a total invalid and might indeed welcome what it is you are proposing if only I knew what it was.”

By this time Andrew realised that Nigel was sending him up and he said laughingly “Nigel, did it ever cross your tiny mind that you sound like an absolute arsehole at times. Well let me just tell you, my friend, that this is exactly one of those times and that you are behaving like an absolute arsehole. However as you clearly need it spelling out to you, do you or do you not wish me to fulfil the promise I made you earlier this evening, which was to fuck you after your visit to the Reverend Dr. Temple as a thank you gesture for the similar service you rendered to me after you had beaten the living daylights out of my arse? Is that clear enough? So yes or no? Do you want me to fuck you right now?”

“Andrew, there are time when you sound like an utter prick. Of course I want to have sex with you right now, but just go gently.  To say the very least, my arse is in a somewhat delicate state at the moment and like a fine bottle of old wine, requires careful handling. If you can believe it, Andrew, and it is perfectly true what I say, whilst the old goat was doing his worst to my arse with his cane, the one thing which kept me sane during his onslaught – and it was an onslaught, believe me – was the fact that you and I would have sex again together after it was all over. So yes, Andrew, please do go ahead and fuck me. But just try to be gentle. Try, if you can to make it an act of love rather than one of carnal lust.”

That final remark made by Nigel was to lead further than either of the two young men could have even vaguely imagined, as they had sex together for the second time within a few hours that night at Frogmore. In 1960,  more than half a century after the events of that Frightful Friday at Frogmore had taken place, Nigel Danvers QC, now retired and Sir Andrew Thompson,  still active as High Court judge –judges are like actors in that they do not seem to retire but continue in office until they finally drop – were still together as a couple, quite  illegally under the then Law of the Land, but  as much in love with each other then at their advanced age of eighty-five years as that night when Andrew had taken to heart the comment made by the head-boy and had truly made love to him.

THE END