12 Ripping Yarns

A Collection of 12 Very Short Public School Stories

Each of the 12 stories below is told in a maximum of 350 words. They are unrelated and can be read in any order. They are not set in any public school in particular or in any period of history.  They are an utter antithesis of my normal, expansive writing style; with a maximum of 350 words per tale, every word must pull its full weight. 

History Repeats Itself

The first former knocked timidly at the door of the head-boy’s study

A shout across the closed door told him to enter. The head-boy sat at his desk, on which lay a vicious looking cane, which already said it all.

“You wanted to see me, Sir?”

“Yes I did; I saw you this afternoon down town, which, as you know, is out of bounds to first formers.  Moreover you were not wearing your cap. You have thus committed two beatable offences, each of which carries six strokes of the cane. Take off your blazer and stand behind that armchair. Drop your trousers and underpants, bend over the back of the chair, place your hands on its seat and do not move until I give you permission.”

The head-boy administered twelve swingeing strokes and then told the boy him to get up, dress and get out.

Five years later, a first former knocked timidly at the door of the head-boy’s study. A shout across the closed door told him to enter. The head-boy sat at his desk, on which lay a vicious looking cane, which already said it all.

“You wanted to see me, Sir,”

“Yes I did’ I saw you this afternoon down town, which as you know is out of bounds to first formers.  Moreover you were not wearing your cap. You have committed two offences, each of which carries six strokes of the cane. Take off your blazer and stand behind that armchair. Drop your trousers and underpants, bend over the back of the chair, place your hands on its seat and do not move until I give you permission.”

The head-boy administered twelve swingeing strokes and then told a tearful boy to get up, dress and get out.

In the first incident, the head-boy was Simon Havers and his victim was Jonathan Powers. In the second incident Jonathan Powers, now in his final year, was the head-boy wielding the cane and his victim was Nigel Havers, the younger the brother of the former head-boy Simon Havers. Fact is often stranger than fiction.

A Painful Appointment

“Headmaster, you sent for me, Sir?

“Indeed I did, Fordyce. Do come and sit down and let me offer you a glass of Port.” said the Headmaster, who was sitting in an armchair in front of a blazing log fire.

Fordyce had no idea why he had been summoned: “That’s very kind of you, Sir; but the school rules forbid boys drinking any alcohol.”

“Oh, there are occasions when an exception can be; and anyway you might shortly be in need of something to fortify you. So sit down and let me pour you a glass, before we get down to business.”

Fordyce could not help noticing that the old armchair, over which he had bent several time in the past when the Headmaster had beaten him, had been drawn into the middle of the room, with a vicious-looking cane lying across its arms. This, together with the phrase: shortly in need of something to fortify you, send a shiver down his spine; a shiver which turned panic as the Headmaster continued: “Perhaps, Fordyce, as head-boy, you would be good enough to explain to me why I saw you emerging from the King’s Arms hostelry yesterday evening at 10:30 closing time.

Fordyce knew that his goose was cooked; as he had been caught in flagrante breaking one of the most rigidly enforced rules of the School. Sure enough, after choking down the last drops of port, which now tasted bitter, he found himself bent over that battered armchair, arse naked, staring down at a tear stained cushion, to which he was about to add his own lachrymose contribution. The Headmaster, who was an expert with the cane, did not spare his head-boy as he applied twelve swingeing cuts of the senior cane to an inviting pair of muscular buttocks.

The Headmaster, having offered his head-boy an alcoholic drink, then, a few minutes later shredded his arse for frequenting a public house, seemingly did not find his behaviour inconsistent. Fordyce, meanwhile, was relieved to have escaped with a well-beaten arse but with his status as head-boy intact.

A Silver Lining 

At the start of the school year, in his remarks exhorting them to keep order in the School by regular use of the cane, the Headmaster had told the newly appointed prefects that they could give up to a maximum of six strokes to their schoolmates for any one offence. The head-boy, as senior prefect, was allowed up to a maximum of twelve strokes. However, what the Headmaster had intended to be maximum punishments, with that sadistic enthusiasm of the prefects for inflicting pain on their schoolmates, quickly became the norm.

Even for the most piffling of offences, many of which hardly justified a beating, all prefects’ beatings became six-stroke affairs; the head-boy automatically always giving twelve cuts. By the end of the first month of the new term, the head-boy and his co-prefects had already established a reputation of being one of the hardest and most relentless groups of caners on record and were all heartily hated by their schoolmates.

First former, The Honourable Percival St. John Ibbotson-Smith, the eldest son of Baron Ibbotson-Smith, had been stupid enough to be caught running down the corridor: a definite no-no and always a beating offence. So when Percy knocked, with some justifiable trepidation, on the head-boy’s study door, he already knew that his arse was toast.

The head-boy revelled in the feeling of power that the plump, bare arse he was about to roast was that of a minor member of the nobility; it inspired him to a greater effort than usual. Twelve times the cane transmitted its agonising message to the unfortunate Percy’s naked butt, so that when he got up, he was sporting an artistically striped, excruciatingly painful pair of buttocks:  a truly well-beaten arse, but one which he could exhibit with pride as a trophy to his room-mates, who had hitherto thought of him as a toffee-nosed, upper-class twit. However, showing off his stripes to them room-mates changed all that. Percy had arrived and was finally accepted; he was now considered one of them.

So, flogged and flogger were, for quite different reasons, both content.

To beat or not to beat?

With apologies to Shakespeare for the pun: To beat or not to beat was never a question which crossed head-boy Hamilton’s mind, whenever the prospect of thrashing one of his schoolmates presented itself. No introspective soliloquy was ever needed to provide the answer, which can be summed up in another, this time, verbatim quotation from the bard: Lay on, Macduff, and damn'd be him that first cries, 'Hold, enough!’

The second quotation is particularly apposite, for Hamilton never hesitated laying-on the cane with a vigour, which had earned him the hated reputation he currently enjoyed throughout the School: that of a sadistic sod! He totally ignored any plea from his victims, who dared to say: “Please, please, Hamilton, no more; I’ve had enough!”

Flogging his schoolmates was one of Hamilton’s two favourite pastimes; I leave it to the reader to imagine what the other was. He had fully accepted that as head-boy he could not both run with the hare and hunt with the hounds; and so he sacrificed popularity among his schoolmates on the altar of sadistic self-satisfaction. Hated reputation, be damned; Hamilton’s sadistic streak always dictated his actions.

First former, Patrick O’Hara, a Liverpool-Irish scholarship boy, was today to have his hitherto virgin arse introduced by Hamilton to that time-honoured, painful practice of public school life: a thrashing on the bare. Patrick, from a working-class family, with his Liverpool accent, felt like a fish out of water, surrounded, as he was, by boys from richer, more privileged backgrounds who talked posh and who walked around naked in the dorm as if it was the most normal thing in the world to do.

His crime? Talking during prep; hardly enough to justify a beating at all: but enough of an excuse for Hamilton to indulge his own intrinsic sadism and lay on twelve swingeing strokes across the lad’s bare arse. But the pain was worth all the tea in China to Patrick, as when he limped back to his dorm he was welcomed as a hero by his dorm-mates. He was finally accepted as one of them.

Dicing With Death

Dr. Eustace De’ath – pronounced Dee Ath – known to his pupils as Dr. Death, had a justifiable reputation as being the hardest caner known to man; well, if not to all men, at least to the generations of boys he had flogged over the past 45 years: the last 30 as Headmaster. Visits to his study were always justifiably viewed as a fate worse than death, although needless to say his victims always survived their ordeal: generally referred to as dicing with death.

Not surprisingly, 18 year-old Stephen Johnson, the deputy head-boy, was nervous as he knocked on the door of the Headmaster’s study to answer for his latest sin.  He knew that his arse was to be roasted, as he had committed one of those many one things, which the Headmaster cited as he prepared to beat his current victim: “One thing I will not tolerate in a boy is….”

Stephen was kicking himself for his stupidity. He had uttered the forbidden word bugger, cursing himself for muffing a conversion kick in the rugger match. But he had been heard by the odious sports master, who had reported him to The Death for swearing. So he knew he was in deep shit with his arse on the line.

The Death played Stephen his usual recording: “One thing I will not tolerate in a boy is swearing. You will receive six cuts for swearing and another six as you are deputy head-boy and should know better.  You know the protocol, Johnson, so prepare yourself for retribution.”

Stephen knew full well there was no point in explaining that he had sworn at himself for his ineptitude in the match. So he dropped his trousers and underpants and bent across the armchair and waited for the onslaught.

And when it came, in spite of his age, The Death showed that his reputation as the hardest caner ever was still intact. So it was with a very sore backside that Stephen finally escaped, feeling lucky that he had not been reduced to the ranks and that he was still deputy head-boy.

Beaten for Doing Nothing 

It was more than a week since the Headmaster had flogged a boy. As an inveterate flogger, who secretly enjoyed inflicting pain on his charges, he was suffering from severe withdrawal symptoms from his favourite pastime. A week devoid of any arse to beat was more than he could bear; never had he felt quite so deprived.

But things looked up, as he saw out of his study window, Roscoe,  a beefy fourth-former and a habitual bully, whose backside was no stranger to the cane, laying into a first-former half his size.  But when he observed four sixth-formers, obviously enjoying the spectacle, egging Roscoe on to do his worst, he felt that uncontrollable piece of flesh between his legs stirring in anticipation. Today, the gods were with him!

An hour later, Roscoe and the four sixth formers were standing, justifiably nervous, in front of the Headmaster. “Roscoe, you were bullying a boy half your size; and you four were just looking on, obviously enjoying the fracas.  The five of you, take of your blazers, trousers and underpants and go and stand with your hands on your heads and press your noses against the wall over there. Realising they were all to be flogged, one of four ventured: “But sir we haven’t done anything.”

“Exactly! The four of you did nothing, when as sixth formers you should have stopped Roscoe bullying a boy half his size. So, in retribution for your moral weakness, you will each receive twelve cuts on the bare.  However, one thing I will not tolerate in a boy is bullying  and you, Roscoe, are an inveterate bully; as such you will suffer twelve cuts of the birch followed by six of the cane, in the vain hope of curing you of your unfortunate habit.”

The Headmaster lived up to his reputation as the hardest of hard floggers and ensured that the five lads all left his study in utter agony. Five well-deserved beatings had given him the shot in the arm necessary to carry him forward until someone else needing his attention turned up.

The Worst of the Housemasters 

Housemaster Commander Thresher, whose nickname, The Thrasher, was well merited, was the only housemaster in the school to use the birch in addition to the cane; and use them both regularly he certainly did. No grass grew under his feet when it came to correcting – his word – members of his house. From first-formers through to the upper-sixth, boys dreaded the ominous order, to present themselves at The Thrasher’s study, always at bedtime, wearing only their pyjamas. Such visits inevitably presaged a painful night ahead for the unfortunate boy concerned.

No matter how trivial the offence, The Thrasher was always generous and never gave less than twelve cuts of the cane, always on the bare. Over the years, Thrasher had honed his technique to perfection and always sent a boy away, whatever his misdeed, with an arse so well-beaten, that the pain transcended the imagination of the bearable. Boys inevitably left his study in agony, bearing that classic public school hallmark: the well-beaten arse. But no boy ever complained; it just was not the done thing.

Thrasher’s basic, everyday, run-of-the-mill flogging was a dozen swingeing, evenly spaced, parallel strokes with a senior rattan cane, applied from the bottom of his victim’s back down to the highly sensitive sit-spot in his crease. But there are more ways than one to skin a cat. At the other extreme end of the pain-scale, were twelve cuts applied in two sets of six, to two well-defined, narrow areas of a lad’s arse. The victim emerged visually with only two stripes, each of which was the product of six precisely positioned, excruciatingly-painful strokes landing in exactly the same place: an exceedingly painful, blood-letting experience.

Between these two, painful alternatives, Thrasher had devised a series of graduated permutations, of which the ultimate horror started with six strokes of the birch, followed by twelve strokes of the cane:  a bloody – often literally – hideously painful experience for the recipient. There was no doubt that Commander Thrasher justified his reputation among the boys as the archetypal sadistic public school housemaster: a reputation he not only relished but burnished.

Birched then Caned

Upper-sixth-formers Blandford and Tremayne, had been caught red-handed by their housemaster, a dedicated, sadistic flogger, not only smoking, but also quaffing whisky in Blandford’s study bedroom, where the pair of them had felt safe from detection behind a locked door.

They had reckoned without their housemaster’s investigative zeal when it came to finding a victim on whose naked buttocks he could assuage his immediate desire to thrash a senior boy. That very evening, he had been prowling around the corridor, where the upper-sixth study-bedrooms were located, in the hope finding a sixth-former breaking some rule or other which would justify a beating.

For the housemaster, a day without a flogging was as unsatisfactory as meal without wine. So, that evening, he was looking for a suitable candidate on whose bare arse he could exercise his universally-recognised skill with the cane. When he scented cigarette smoke escaping from behind a locked door, his spirits rose. When he found not one, but two boys, not only smoking, but drinking as well, he knew that he had struck gold. Two backsides were shortly destined to experience the expert attention from the cane for which he was justifiably feared.

It was with well-founded trepidation that one hour later, Blandford and Tremayne, presented themselves, appropriately attired in gym shorts and vest, at their housemaster’s study, in the fearful expectation that their backsides were in for a completely justified, first-class roasting. They were not disappointed as their worst fears were realised when they found themselves, arse-naked, tremblingly facing each other across the backs of two chairs.

The housemaster, as ever, generous to a fault when it came to dispensing pain, first gave each young-man twelve, skin-breaking strokes of the birch, followed by six hard cuts with a senior cane, leaving them both in excruciating agony, each with six bleeding welts across his already well-birched, naked buttocks.

When they were finally allowed to leave to nurse their wounds, their housemaster, luxuriating in that sexually erotic arousal which frequently accompanies a flogging, permitted his personal five- fingered lover to complement what had been, for him, a perfect evening.

End of Term Treats

At the end of each term, the Headmaster saw – a euphemism for flogged – those boys, whose school work had been deemed unsatisfactory during the term. And when the Headmaster flogged a boy, always on the bare, pain was the name of the game: a game which he knew how to play to perfection. The boys concerned knew that their backsides would be on the firing line for what was generally referred to as the ETT, the End of Term Treat, which left the recipients with an agonisingly painful bottom for their journey home the following day.  

The only consolation was that one was never alone whilst waiting to face the Headmaster; there were always several other boys in the same boat.  Gallows humour abounded, as each boy waited to be called in to meet his fate. The procedure was always the same. At the appointed hour, the condemned boys assembled in the corridor outside the Headmaster’s study, wearing only their gym shorts and vests and were called in to be dealt with individually in ascending order of age.

It was the end of the end of the school year in late July. Among those waiting was a bone-idle, first-former Anthony Tillet, in line for his third ETT that year. He had already had his arse whacked by the Headmaster in the ETT at the end of the preceding two terms and was now justifiably apprehensive about his fate; and with good reason. The Headmaster had decided, in view of Anthony’s continued aversion to work, that the time had come for the ultimate punishment: a kill-or-cure, twelve stroke birching followed by six cuts of the cane.

As Anthony bent across the chair, waiting for the first stroke of his maiden birching, he suddenly remembered the ominous warning of his martinet of a father, Major Tillet, that he would give his son’s backside absolute hell if he received another bad school report for idleness. Major Tillet was a strict, no nonsense military man who kept his word. So Anthony had another thrashing to look forward to once he arrived home.

An Invidious system

The sword of Damocles, in the form of the rattan cane, hung perpetually over the denizens of the school. It was bad enough to be told to report for punishment to one of the many individuals who had the right to beat: the Headmaster and the six housemasters, of course: the eighteen prefects, (three per house) most of whom espoused the duty to keep order devolved upon them with a degree of zealous application, pronounced admirable by the Headmaster, but considered excessive by the boys on whose bare arses the cane landed.

Finally there was Halliday, the head-boy: a peerless disciplinarian:  the chief keeper of order when the boys were not in class. Like many prefects allowed to thrash their schoolmates, Halliday dispensed floggings at the drop of a hat and was considered the hardest caner of the year, as any boy who was unfortunate enough to be called to his study could testify.

But over and above the regular beatings which were accepted by the boys as being a painful reality of school life, the school had a system of cumulative demerits. All boys carried a small demerit diary, on each on each page of which was a series of 10 demerit boxes. Any boy being awarded a demerit handed over the diary to the prefect or master concerned who simply ticked one of the boxes and added the date and his name. There was no record of why the demerit had been awarded.

Once a page was complete with 10 demerits, the next Friday at five o-clock, the unfortunate boy was honour-bound to present himself voluntarily to the head-boy to receive a six-cut, no-questions- asked beating on the bare.

Needless to say, as the school had 500 boys, there was a regular stream of casualties waiting nervously each Friday to receive this somewhat percussive expression of tender-loving-care to their bare arses, which Halliday generously dispensed with the cane. Halliday saw it as one of the most agreeable moments of his week; the boys being beaten less so.

Mass Slaughter in the Dormitory

The housemaster had remarked in September to his three newly appointed prefects that he thought it might be no bad thing – his very words – if the entire house intake of 20 new boys had their first encounter with the cane by the end of their first term; the sooner the new boys faced up to the painful reality that the ubiquitous rattan-cane, would be their constant companion throughout their entire school career, the better.

The three house-prefects, each with the power to beat their housemates, decided that they would ensure that their housemaster’s wishes were fulfilled and looked forward, as boys in power often do, to beating the bare backsides of all 20 new boys before the end of term.

The new arrivals were housed in two, 10 bed dormitories, imaginatively called D1 and D2.  The concept of a whole dormitory beating was not new and the prefects intended to ensure that the occupants of D1 and D2 would all experience the bite of the cane across their bare arses before the end of term.

D1 met its fate at end of the first week. The duty prefect had switched off the lights himself at 8:30. An hour later another prefect, conducting a spot inspection, saw the lights were back on and found the occupants out of bed engaged in various recreational activities. A few minutes later all ten occupants found themselves over the foot of their beds, having their arses introduced to the painful bite of the cane.

A week later, the ten occupants of D2 suffered the same fate. They were all caned, stark naked in the showers, where they had been caught by a prefect in the forbidden act of flicking each other with their towels.

The head-of-house, in his weekly meeting with the housemaster, reported that the prefects had had to flog the occupants of D1 and D2 to teach them a lesson. The housemaster simply said: “I suppose it was inevitable.” Even though he did not say it, he secretly saw it as a job well done. 

The Head-Boy’s Dilemma

The Headmaster had unfortunately slipped and sprained his right wrist. Not wishing to deprive the Friday night’s contingent of boys on the punishment list from their just deserts, he delegated the task to his head-boy, a dedicated practitioner of the gentle art of arse-beating.

Head-boy Alastair Wilson, who that Friday had only two first-formers to beat, was initially delighted. However, delight turned into dismay when he saw that his co-prefect, upper-sixth former, Martin Fletcher, was listed to receive twelve cuts of the dragon cane.

It would have been difficult for him to beat any sixth-former; but Martin and he, both dyed-in-the-wool gays, had been regular sexual communicants since the lower-sixth. So he was confronted with an unenviable problem of flogging an arse on which he regularly exercised himself sexually.

Friday evening arrived; the head-boy dispensed his painful justice on the naked backsides of the two first-formers and on the first five lads on the Headmaster’s list. Martin Fletcher, waiting patiently outside the head-boy’s study, was finally called in.

“Martin, the Headmaster has unknowingly placed me in the invidious position of having to flog my closest friend. What the fuck did you do to merit a Headmaster’s flogging?”

“Old Hutchison (the head of the mathematics) was riding me and I just lost my cool and told him to go and fuck himself. So that’s why I’m here.”

“No, Martin; you are here in my study, because the Headmaster has sprained his wrist and delegated me to thrash, among others, my best friend; he has even lent me his dragon cane, specifically to use on your arse. How the fuck do you think I feel right now?  Look, Martin, there is no way I can get out of giving you a proper flogging; but I will make it up to you afterwards.

Later, Alastair’s post-flogging, sexual ministrations to Martin’s arse, confirmed to both of them the well-known, synergetic relationship between corporal punishment and anal sex. Neither of them had ever experienced such intense orgasms as Alastair’s efforts induced. Indeed, Martin felt that perhaps the beating had been worthwhile after all.

The End