The Making of a Tyrannical Headmaster

PROLOGUE

It was the second Friday of the new term in early September. Rufus Rothery sat and waited, with eager anticipation, behind his heavy mahogany desk in the Headmaster’s study in the prestigious public school, Churton Academy for Boys. He was awaiting the arrival of the five boys who were to be the first of what would become to be known by the boys as The Friday Night Whack. Rufus himself favoured the more anodyne Correction Parade. But the boys’ designation for the much feared weekly event stuck, as did his own soon-to-be-coined nickname, The Whack.

Not that The Friday Night Whack precluded the use of the cane at other times; indeed, quite the contrary. For, as the boys were soon to find out, their new Headmaster, Rufus Rothery, was  an expert and  regular practitioner of the beneficial and educational effects of the rattan cane when applied to a boy’s naked bottom.  At Churton, any boy of any age, whose behaviour was found to be wanting, found himself being invited to visit the Headmaster in his study, from which the unfortunate lad inevitably emerged with a well-beaten arse.  The well-beaten arse, which, as we shall see, was a mild description of what the Headmaster visited on the bare bottoms of his charges, quickly became the dreaded hallmark of the school.

As he waited for the boys to arrive, he knew that at that moment the evening’s contingent of not-so-lucky lads were in the gym changing-room, discarding their cumbersome school uniforms for the flimsiness of gym-shorts and vests. Rufus’s first edict as Headmaster had been on the way he expected boys to present themselves to him for correction. Correction is such a mealy-mouthed word for what was to be visited on them, as all boys knew that it meant a sound beating of their bare buttocks to which a pair of easily-removable gym-shorts gave easy and immediate access to that vital part of any unfortunate lad’s lower rear anatomy.

And at Churton, the cane, which had traditionally always been used sparingly and applied to a lad’s  trouser clad bottom, was, under the newly appointed Headmaster, to take on an increased importance and become a painful part of daily life for the four-hundred-and eighty or so boys benefitting from the rigorous education the school offered them.

Rufus Rothery had for the previous five years occupied the post of senior classics master at Rigby College in Lincolnshire, which he had left with an unspoken cloud hanging over him. The Headmaster of Rigby had said to him in his final interview: “As Headmaster of Churton, Rothery, you will be lord of all you survey. You have attained, at the young age of only thirty, a position of seniority in our profession equivalent to mine and I am twice your age.  See that you use your authority wisely and justly.”

But today, as Headmaster, sitting behind his magisterial desk, he had already forgotten those words and their significance and even the circumstances which had led to their being said.  It is said that he who hesitates is lost. And Rufus Rothery had no intention of getting lost at Churton. The rattan cane, of which he possessed a goodly selection, was directed with unfailing accuracy at what it saw as any arse deserving of its attention, in much the same way as that forked-stick used by water diviners points to a source of water.

Rufus Rothery was what can best be described as a strict disciplinarian. As the school’s new Headmaster, he had every intention of establishing his authority as soon as possible. And there was no better way of demonstrating his authority than by the exemplary beatings he intended to visit on the naked arses of the five boys whose arrival he was now awaiting. He thought of these five boys as his ambassadors, whose well striped backsides which he would shortly create, would spread the message throughout the school that the new Headmaster meant serious business,

Rufus Rothery had, in his makeup, a strong sadistic streak, which had, throughout his professional career as a schoolmaster, manifested itself as a penchant for beating boys. So excessive had become his use of the cane, that he had left both of his two previous teaching positions under somewhat of a cloud associated with, among other things, his overzealous use of the cane. However, in so doing, it must be said, he had, each time, considerably bettered himself. And now as Headmaster of Churton Academy, he was totally free to run the school as he saw best without interference or subtle, critically negative innuendos from anyone.

The other things, murmured by his erstwhile colleagues above, were associated with the use of his own personal rod, that male appendage found between his legs; Rufus Rothery was a dyed-in-the-wool homosexual at a time in the history of Great Briton when such acts were forbidden by law and punishable by imprisonment. But he had the redeeming feature in that he never ever importuned any of the boys he was beating. This, in the case of some of the senior boys, who were young men of eighteen or nineteen and who, when arse naked, were bent across a chair, required almost unbelievable forbearance and control on his part.

But to his credit, he had always reserved his cock for a changing group of sex partners, all of whom were outside the school and all of whom were willing communicants. And to give credit where credit is due, it has to be said that he was as efficient with his cock as he was with the cane. His reputation as a sex-partner among the homosexual cognoscenti, whom he frequented, was second to none.

The word discipline has many meanings, only one of which is applicable in the present case: corporal chastisement.  And in Rufus Rothery’s capable hand, the vigorous and frequent application of the rattan cane to the naked bottoms of schoolboys for the slightest infringement of the rules was the hallmark of his career as a teacher. This is not to say that he was not a good teacher. Indeed, quite the contrary. As a teacher of two dead languages, Latin and Ancient Greek and the long gone culture associated with their one speakers, with their once speakers, he was able to imbue with a life what most boys thought of a deadly dull subjects. His classes were very popular and in spite of his over-fondness for the cane, he was, nevertheless, popular with the boys.

And so as he sat for the first time behind that splendid desk in the Headmaster’s study at Churton Academy, Rufus Rothery could barely wait for the arrival of the five boys on whose backsides he would etch the insignia of his new regime. As a new broom, he intended to make a clean sweep of all the bad attitudes which had been allowed to develop in the heads and general behaviour of the boys by the lax attitudes of his recently retired, superannuated predecessor.

To be fair to the previous Headmaster, he had stayed on well after the normal retirement age to keep the school going through the Great War of 1914-1918 and its aftermath. But age had taken its inevitable toll and manners and discipline had been allowed to run down. That was all now about to change with a vengeance, with the advent of Rufus Rothery as Headmaster.

CHAPTER 1

Rufus Adam Alexander Rothery, to give him his full name, was the only son and part namesake of his father, Rufus Jonathan Rothery, a very successful London stockbroker and his wife, Lady Millicent de Gore, daughter of some minor baronet or other.  Coming from a very rich background and being the only son of the union Rufus was given – perhaps better said, was subjected to – what was considered the best education possible for boys of his privileged background.

Living in a large house in Kensington, as the family then did, he and his only sister were looked after by a nanny and attended an exclusive, primary day-school to which they were taken and from which they were brought home each day by the said nanny.  As was often the case with children of upper class families, who see their parents but briefly each day, it was she who became a sort of surrogate mother to Rufus and his sister. Not surprisingly, he loved her dearly: a love which was, of course, reciprocated. In her eyes Rufus could do no wrong, whereas, in fact, from his earliest days, he was a disobedient and wilfully naughty child.

It is probably safe to say, that his nanny was one of the only two persons of either sex that Rufus Rothery ever truly loved in his life. He certainly did not love either of his parents. So his nanny became his surrogate mother, giving her charge, as is so often the case, all the love and attention which was lacking from his own mother. So Rufus Rothery only ever knew the love of one woman and that woman was his nanny. For as we shall see, given his yet-to-be-identified-and-to-be-declared sexual proclivities, members of the opposite sex never attracted him.

Even in his adult life, with his one permanent partner – another man of course – he initially enjoyed what can but be described as a purely physical sexual relationship, into which, intensely intimate though it was, love did not really enter at all. However, even Rufus found he could not do without his lover and eventually he did fall in love with him.  But we are getting ahead of ourselves as all that is in the distant future

As was the custom in upper class families, what comfortable home life Rufus had hitherto enjoyed cared for by his nanny came to an abrupt end when, at the age of eight, he was sent off to an exclusive school: St. Olaf’s Preparatory School for Boys. There he took  the first step in his education that would not end until some ten years later, when aged nineteen, he left the boys’ public  school, St. Olaf’s College, to go on to Oxford to read classics. His father himself took Rufus by train for his induction into the prep-school.  Whatever had possessed his parents to choose the St. Olaf’s duo for their only son’s education is a mystery.

The two schools were both located near Kendal in the Lake District, which, to say the least, was not exactly within easy reach of London. But among the smaller public schools, St. Olaf’s College for Boys, had a stellar reputation for academic success and regularly sent the majority of its sixth formers to either Oxford or Cambridge or launched them into a career in the upper echelons of the British Civil Service.

But more importantly – possibly most importantly, in the eyes of his father – both schools had the reputation for rigidly-enforced, strict discipline. Any boy stepping out of line was quickly beaten back into it by regular and vigorous use of the cane. Spare the rod and spoil the boy is a well known aphorism. Well let it be said here and now, that in both the St. Olaf institutions, the rod was never spared; nor were the arses of the lads’ on which the dreaded rod had an uncanny habit of descending regularly with eye-watering results.

Rufus Rothery had wept bitterly when he was told that life as he had hitherto known it, comfortable, cosseted and protected by his beloved nanny, was to come to an end. But even more disconcerting than being plucked from his home life, was the fact that, in his presence, his father had said to Mr. Roberts, the prep-school Headmaster, that his son, Rufus, had a mischievously rebellious streak in his character and that, if merited, the Headmaster should have no hesitation in sending his son to bed with a very sore bottom. 

“Headmaster, my son Rufus has led a charmed life so far and has been smothered to death by his nanny. But as of now, he has to enter the real world. So if my son steps out of line, you should have no hesitation in beating him. A well-beaten bottom never did a boy any harm and you have my express permission and blessing to skin my lad’s backside if needs be. Brook no nonsense from him; never give my son the benefit of the doubt, for if you do, you will surely come to regret it.  So, if in any doubt at all, whack the lad’s backside hard and make sure that it hurts”

And with that chilling recommendation as to the future treatment of his only son, Mr. Rothery left Rufus in the not-so-tender loving care of the Headmaster and returned to London. Rufus, who had never really cared for his rather remote father, whom he felt he barely knew, experienced a growing feeling of hatred towards him. Poor Rufus who had never had a finger laid on him in his life, had now been handed over – by his own father – to an unknown disciplinary force, against which he himself had no defence.

It is not surprising that on that first night away from home, feeling totally abandoned and more or less thrown to the wolves as he saw it, Rufus sobbed himself gently to sleep in his prep-school dormitory.  But had he been less preoccupied with his own problems, and paid attention to his dorm mates, he would have realised that he was not alone in his tears. He was simply experiencing what was par for the course in the education of most upper-class, young, English boys, who are wrenched away at a frighteningly early age from their home life in the interest of turning them into well-educated young gentlemen. Well, anyway, that was the general idea , which, for the wealthy, it still remains today.

Once over the initial hump of being abandoned at school, Rufus along with his co-abandonees, quickly settled down to a life which, apart from the ever present threat of getting one’s bum (that’s what all the young boys called their bottoms) swished, was not at all bad. But as Rufus found out, his first experience with the cane, never ever pleasant for any young boy, was especially so for a boy like him, on whom no hand of correction had, hitherto, ever been laid.

Whether Rufus was, in fact, as mischievous and rebellious as his father had told the Headmaster, he was certainly a disruptive chatterbox. And it was his incessant tendency to talk during lessons which led to his first taste of the very doubtful pleasure of the dreaded cane. That first swishing, which occurred at the end of his first week at the school, was what might be termed a double first. Not only was it Rufus’s first encounter ever with the cane, but he was also the first boy in his class to be swished.

His form-master, Mr. Norman, a youngish, and at first sight, a pleasantly agreeable man, nevertheless ruled over his charges with a rod of iron;  or perhaps better put, with a very swishy rattan cane.  He was a strictly-no-nonsense-teacher from the word go, who like most teachers of eight-year-old, new boys, taught them a wide variety of subjects at an elementary level. As such, the boys spent most of their time under his personal tutelage and he quickly came to know all of his charges and their individual foibles quite well.

To be fair to him, he had warned Rufus numerous times about his incessant chatter in class, which he found disruptive – which it was. The final straw came on Friday morning that first week of term, when after the third warning that very morning, Rufus was again caught talking. Mr. Norman told him to stay behind when the bell sounded for the lunch-break. He was soon to learn that when it came to dealing with disobedient boys, underneath that superficially affable exterior, Mr. Norman had a heart of solid stone.

Whether Rufus realised the significance of what was about about to happen to him, the rest of the class was agog with curiosity as this was the first time that one of their classmates had been singled-out to stay behind – and before lunch too. What was going to happen to him was the question on the lips of all his schoolmates’. The last lesson before lunch finally ended and the bell to signify the beginning of the lunch break rang. 

The bell rang at noon precisely, but the meal was not served until twelve-thirty to give the boys a half hour break during which they could fraternise with each other before lunch. And it was in that half-hour before lunch that Rufus Rothery’s backside made its first acquaintance with what, over the course of the years, would become its numerous, painful encounters with the cane.

“Come with me Rufus; you and I have some urgent business to attend to before lunch today.”  Mr. Norman called Rufus Rothery by his Christian name, as was the custom throughout the lower school until the boys reached the age of eleven when the use of surnames became de rigueur. Mr. Norman placed a hand behind Rufus’s neck and swiftly sped him to a small room down the corridor in which Rufus was now to make his first acquaintance with the cane, as indeed were also many of his classmates before the end of their first term at St. Olaf’s.  Rufus, who until they arrived at the room had still been totally unaware of the fate awaiting him, suddenly read the sign on the door: Correction Room. It then hit him like a ton of bricks: he was going to be punished; and like many boys in his situation, he found himself suddenly petrified at the thought of what was about to happen to him.  And like many before him in a similar situation of uncertainty about was was to be be inflicted on him, he suddenly felt an overwhelming urge to take a pee. However, allowing Rufus to take a pee was definitely not on Mr. Norman’s agenda at that moment as he opened the door and propelled Rufus firmly into the dreaded room.

What took place in the room became immediately clear. On one wall hung a selection of rattan canes of various calibres, beneath which stood a table on which were sitting a number of squat, square, rigid, kneeling cushions of varying thicknesses.  Against the facing wall were standing three wooden chairs with backs of different heights, each with a leather padded top rail and stiffly padded leather seats. Although Rufus had never seen any of such implements of corporal punishment before in young life, he nevertheless saw that here was a place where boys were caned: but even more to the point, a place where HE HIMSELF was now about to be caned. Viewing the range of equipment available, it was obvious that whoever had conceived the place had arranged matters with considerable foresight so the boys of all heights and ages could present their nether anatomy in the perfect position for punishment.

Then that awful, fatidic moment arrived, as Mr. Norman said to him: “Rufus, I don’t know how many times I have told you this week to stop talking in class and disrupting the lessons. You boy, are here to be educated; to learn something; but that is never going to happen if you continue in your present ways.  This morning I told you three times to shut up, but you chose to ignore me. It is said that a cat has nine lives; well, Rufus, you have already used up your quota of the human equivalent twice over and you must now face the consequences of your continued disobedience. Rufus Rothery, kindly take of your blazer and shoes and step out of your shorts and underpants as I am now going to swish your bare bottom with one of those canes you see on the wall over there.” 

Rufus, in spite of his his naivety, was not a complete dope and had already realised that fate – or better put, his own disobedience – had   decreed that he was destined to be swished and that one or other of the canes was shortly to mate with his bum. That was a fact that his young mind had already, more or less, accepted as inevitable. But the fact that he had now been told by Mr. Norman to take of his shorts and underpants was something he had not reckoned with. He was now faced with the blood-curdling prospect of being swished directly on his bare bum.  To be swished at all, was an unpleasant prospect; but to be swished on the bare, as he subsequently learned was the expression used to describe the barbaric act to which he was about to be subjected, did not bear thinking about.

Not surprisingly, Rufus did not react immediately to Mr. Norman’s order to denude his lower body of all its clothing. “Sir, you don’t mean that you are going to swish me on my bare bum sir, do you? Please sir, at least let me keep my shorts on; please sir, not on my bare bum.  And sir, I just wanted to tell you that as I’ve never ever been swished before sir, I’m terribly frightened.”

“Rufus, when I give a boy an order, I expect it to be obeyed. You my boy, are already in enough trouble due to your constant disregard of my warnings to stop chattering in class. Now do as I say and take off both your trousers and underpants and let me see your bare bum – as you choose to call it. And yes I am going to swish you on the bare, as that is the way things are done here at St. Olaf’s.” Mr. Norman’s voice was becoming ever more stentorian as he went on: “So you had better accept that fact right now that here in this school all swishings are given on the bare. And just let me tell you that if you do not mend your ways, you will find that your bum and my cane will be on a regular collision course with each other. Come on, boy, get your shorts and pants off and let’s get on with it before I get really cross with you.”

By now, Rufus was totally terrified  of what  was about to happen to him and fearing that things might get worse he hastily shed his lower garments and like all boys in a similar position, waiting to be told what to do next, stood there embarrassed by his semi-nakedness.  Rufus was a normal sort of size for an eight-year-old boy and having sized him up, Mr. Norman pulled forward the lowest backed of the three chairs and told Rufus to kneel on its seat and bend over the padded back rail. Then seeing that the young lad’s bottom was still rather low, he selected one of the hard cushions, made Rufus stand up, placed the cushion on the seat of the chair and then told Rufus to kneel on it again.  With the extra height provided by the cushion, Rufus’s bum was stretched across the top rail of the chair back and in the perfect position to be swished.

The perceptive reader of this story will have noticed that the word swishing is being used to describe the act of flagellation about to be inflicted on poor Rufus’s naked bum. I say poor Rufus, as one has a certain degree of sympathy with any boy, whatever his innate character, who has just been thrust into an unknown and foreign environment and is faced with his first taste of the cane.  However due to his continued disobedience Rufus is solely to blame for the predicament in which he now finds himself. 

But it is important to note that Rufus is about to be swished and not beaten, by Mr. Norman, who will use only a very light cane on the eight-year-old boy in an attempt to inculcate a sense of responsibility for his own actions into the lad.  So although his punishment will sting quite a bit, it can in no way be compared with sort of beating regularly practised on older boys in English public schools, when absolutely excruciating pain was regularly delivered on the bare, with heavier calibre canes. The classic six strokes of the cane which Mr. Norman is about to give Rufus, will certainly bring tears to the lad’s eyes and will sting like hell for the rest of the day; but by the following morning, the lad will have be totally recovered from his ordeal.

Of course, once the boys reach the age of eleven, heavier canes will be used and punishments will become more severe as boys are gently prepared for what can but be described as the brutality of the upper school, a place where the Headmaster, the housemasters, the head-boy and the prefects all wield the cane with considerable vigour on a regular basis. And make no mistake; prefects beating one of their schoolmates on the bare – as they very often and, sad to say, willingly an eagerly, do – is usually an unbelievably painful experience.

But let us come back to Rufus whose naked bum is still stretched across the chair waiting for their first ever kiss of the cane.  The fact as we now know, that he is only going to receive a light swishing, is still unknown to him. For Rufus this is easily the most horrible moment in his young life to date. And as one can see, his two buns are twitching with fear as Mr. Norman taps his chosen cane across the two plump, as yet undefiled mounds of naked flesh.

Rufus automatically tenses and braces himself for his ordeal; and make no mistake, for him – as for any boy for that matter – it truly is an ordeal to have his naked bum swished by a cane for the first time ever. The cane suddenly descends to mate with a sharp crack with its target and what seems to Rufus like excruciating pain flashes through his bum; and as stroke follows stroke the lad cries put with pain until suddenly the nightmare is over and he hears Mr. Norman telling him to stand up and put back on his clothes and go to join his classmates for lunch.

His classmates clamour around Rufus, who is the first of their number to have been swished. In the fifteen or so minutes remaining before the boys are required to go to table, they rush Rufus to the lavatories where he is made to bare his bum yet again, to allow them to inspect the damage. Then, as young boys inevitably do, they hoo and ah over the faint stripes left by what, in reality was just a light swishing and express their sympathy, accompanied by crocodile tears, whilst simultaneously secretly savouring the misfortune which has befallen their classmate. Oh yes, make no mistake, the concept of Schadenfreude – pleasure at the misfortunes of others – begins early in the English public school education system.

It goes without saying that Rufus’s classmates are all hoping at the same time that they will never be invited by Mr. Norman to enjoy the same experience. Nevertheless, even as first formers at prep-school, the innate prurient and salacious curiosity of schoolboys of all ages and the ever hidden,  omnipresent, but never overtly acknowledged pleasure of seeing one of their number suffer, already arouses them in ways they do not yet understand.

In spite of his aching bum, a gently sniffling Rufus found that he was able to sit down to eat his lunch, which gives you an idea of the relative lightness of the punishment he had just received.

CHAPTER 2

During his entire career at the prep-school Rufus found himself regularly in trouble of some sort or another and, accordingly his bum was subject to frequent encounters with the cane. Moving on to the end of the summer term when Rufus was thirteen years old and would next term, in September, move to the upper public school, St. Olaf’s College, he received what was jokingly referred to by the boys as an invitation from the Headmaster to attend what was universally referred to by the boys as the ETT – The End of Term Treat.

An invitation to attend the ETT was not in any way an invitation, but an unwelcome command, which any boy who received it disregarded at his peril. The ETT, far from being a treat, was a very painful occasion that took place in the Headmaster’s study on the penultimate day of each term. To be invited to attend the ETT struck fear in the heart of every boy who was unfortunate enough to participate in the event, for the Headmaster’s performance with the cane at any ETT was legendary.

All boys who, during the term, had had their bottoms swished by a master at least three times, automatically received an invitation to the ETT. The Headmaster, in his wisdom, had decided that such young miscreants deserved what he called a top-up-swishing to send them on their way home the next day when term ended.  It was intended as a reminder to the unfortunate invitees that they needed radically to improve their behaviour and/or their performance, otherwise they would again find themselves in the same boat at the end of the coming term. 

Headmaster’s swishings were usually more painful than the regular, relatively light canings the boys received during the term and were much more severe for older boys. The ETT was a sort of sting-in-the tail – metaphorically and literally – which ensured that any unlucky participant in the event enjoyed a less than comfortable journey home for the holidays. But what was in its own way as bad – or possibly even worse than the swishing when it finally came – was the seemingly interminable wait in the corridor with the other invitees, before being called individually into the Headmaster’s study to meet one’s own fate. 

This was the one occasion in the school term at which the Headmaster required that the boys, who were to benefit from his largesse, were required to present themselves what the Headmaster termed appropriately dressed for the occasion. This was an idea that he had borrowed from the senior school, where boys were always required to change into their gym-shorts and vests before presenting themselves at the Headmaster’s study for punishment.

For Rufus, his last invitation to attend an ETT, was at the end of his last term at the prep-school. Given his penchant for mischief, it was not the first time that he had received an invitation to this event and in common with many boys who were swished quite frequently, Rufus had become rather blasé about the additional caning he was about to receive. After all it was just another swishing. He had suffered it all before and anyway this was his very last time; so who cared? But he reckoned without the fact that Headmaster saw matters rather differently.

So, Rufus, wearing only the mandatory shorts and vest, found himself the eldest boy in a line of some ten lads ranging from first formers through all the age grades of the school. A smarmy, thirteen-year-old monitor, one of Rufus’s own classmates, was in charge of the line-up and told them, officiously, to arrange themselves in ascending order of age as the Headmaster dealt with the boys in order from youngest to eldest. So as the senior boy on this his final occasion to be invited to the ETT, Rufus was to be the last boy to be called in to face his Headmaster. The Headmaster, as ever, did not rush things and so Rufus was obliged to stand there for a full half hour, which seemed more like a day, as boy after boy was called in to meet his fate. The crack of the cane mating with naked buttocks resounded through the closed door and Rufus witnessed a procession of sobbing boys leave the study vigorously massaging their stinging bottoms.

Finally Rufus was called in to face the music:  “Rothery, I seem to have seen – a euphemism for swished – you more than any other boy during the course of your time with us. And now looking through your file, I see that each year, if not the most swished boy of your form, you have always been among the top few postulants for that ignominious honour.  One would have hoped by now, young man, after all the correctional care that your masters and I myself personally have lavished on your backside each year, that you would have seen the light and mended your mischievous ways. Alas that does not seem to be the case. It is not, Rothery, that you are delinquent in your studies; indeed quite the contrary, for you are regularly top of your class in most subjects. But academic excellent alone is not enough.  You cannot go on making mischief and disrupting lessons the way you seem determined to do.”

“So, young man, there comes a moment of reckoning, when – even in a prep-school – disobedience finally merits serious retribution. I am sorry to have to tell you, Rothery that that unfortunate moment has now arrived for you. Next year you will no longer be with us but will be enjoying life in the upper school. Just let me tell you, young man, that the swishings you have received during your years with us this school, will seem like flea bites compared with the beatings which you will receive in the upper school if you do not mend your ways.”

“I would be remiss in my duties to allow you to leave this school without drawing your attention to the dangers awaiting you in the upper school if you continue on your present trajectory, which, given all the evidence before me, seems eminently probable. And for that reason, I have decided, as this is your very last visit to my study before you leave us forever, to make the occasion truly memorable for you. I do this with great reluctance, but I feel that forewarned is forearmed and that you deserve to know what you might be facing next term.  And so, Rothery, it is with great regret that the traditional end-of-term the top-up swishing , which as ever you richly merit as you have already been swished no less than four times this term, will, this time, be replaced by a proper beating on the bare with a true junior cane. It is my sincere hope, Rothery,  that this quite exceptional step, which, allow me to assure you, I undertake with a very heavy heart and is purely with your own best interests in view. I sincerely hope that it will convince you to improve your behaviour. If not, then what you are now about experience will, I regret to say, become a regular feature of your life in the upper school.”

It was not until the Headmaster came almost to the end of his long, wordy lecture and said what he actually intended do to him as he uttered the fateful words,  a proper beating on the bare with a true junior cane, that Rufus finally grasped what was about to happen to him.  As the impact of the words resonated though his body, Rufus felt as though he had had a ton of bricks thrown at him.  His blood ran hot and cold with the thought of what he was to experience in the next few minutes. The difference between a swishing, with which he was very familiar and which he nonchalantly shrugged off almost as a non-event, was to be replaced with a true beating. His backside was about to be moved into unknown territory and he was terrified. Certainly the boys at the prep-school knew that things were different in the upper school. But the upper school was in the future and what might happen to them there was pure conjecture. So why worry about something which might never happen? But to be told that right now he was to be given a sample of what might be in store for him next term seemed totally unjust. Why had the Headmaster suddenly decided to give him a foretaste of what might happen to him in the future when, if he behaved himself, it might possibly never take place?

The Headmaster did not ask Rufus to comment on anything he had said as he picked up from his desk a much heavier looking cane than Rufus had ever even seen before, let alone felt on his backside. His thoughts flashed back to that first time he had been swished, when as a new boy, aged just eight, Mr. Norman had taken him to the correction room and introduced his bare bum to the doubtful delights of the cane. He had been terrified then, but over the years he had become a regular visitor to the correction room and had become inured to what was really nothing more than a gentle, but nonetheless unpleasant, sting from the very light canes used. But now, faced with a proper bare-bottom beating with what looked to him like a vicious rattan cane, he was again just as terrified as he had been that first time. But terrified or not, that was what was now going to happen and he had no alternative but to grin and bear it.

“Rothery, if you would be so good as to take of your shorts and bend across the back of the chair over there, I think we are ready to begin.” When Rufus did not react immediately to the order to offer up his naked bum for punishment, the Headmaster said: “Did you hear what I just told you to do Rothery. I expect my orders to be obeyed immediately; so come on boy; get a move on and let me see your bare bottom held high over the back of the chair so that we can get on with things.”

Trembling with fear of the unknown, Rufus finally did as he was told and felt the Headmaster lay the cane across the middle of his buttocks before raising it into the air for the first stroke.  Then he heard that characteristic swish as the cane descended at high speed to land in the exact middle of his two buns. The cane was sufficiently flexible to adapt itself to the contours of its target and Rufus suddenly felt a searing pain right across both buns of his naked backside.  That first stroke, with what is usually referred to as a junior cane, was far, far worse than anything he had experienced in his entire career at prep-school to date.  It moved what was commonly euphemistically referred to as the act of correction into an excruciatingly painful new sphere. Experienced as he was in the punishment of boys, the Headmaster did not in any way rush things as he applied, with suitable appreciation pauses between each stroke, no less than twelve stinging cuts to Rufus’s bottom. Rufus was in absolute agony, when after the twelfth stroke, which had been delivered low down in the crease, he was finally told to stand up and put back on his shorts.

From what he had just experienced, he saw that Headmaster had not been joking when he had said the numerous swishings he had received during his many years at the prep-school would seem like flea bites compared with the beatings which he would receive in the upper school.  From the age of about ten, Rufus had managed to stop himself crying when he was swished. But today was something totally different and by the third stroke he was already in tears and begging – in vain of course – the Headmaster to stop. But now it was all over, and with his backside on fire, a sobbing Rufus hobbled way back to his dormitory where his friends with whom he had spent his entire school career to date were as eager as ever to view his war wounds, for that is what the lads called the stripes of any swishing.

No one, Rufus included, had known what the Headmaster had had in store for him when he had gone off to join the end of term ETT contingent. Everyone assumed that it was just bad luck that Rufus had qualified for an invitation, as had many of them too in the past. But when Rufus told them what had happened and showed off his backside with its twelve livid-red welts, they all shuddered with fear at the thought that the same thing could happen to any of them when they moved to the upper school next term. The boys were viewing, for the very first time, with that conflicting mixture of pleasure, awe and fear, what was vulgarly referred to by the entire school as well-beaten arse. Rufus Rothery as a boy of eight had been the first boy of his year to be swished by his form-master. And now, at the end of his prep-school days, he had been the first boy of his year to receive a proper bare-bottom beating with a serious cane.

Whether his beating could be justified or not, it had happened and it taught the young Rufus one important lesson: that the Headmaster of the school seemed to be answerable to no one when it came to punishing  his charges. He had exercised complete authority when he had give Rufus what was, by any standards, a very severe beating for a thirteen-year-old boy. Had Rufus wished to complain, there was no one at all to whom he could turn.  A Headmaster, as Rufus was rapidly learning, was more or less the lord of all he surveyed.

CHAPTER 3

When his prep-school Headmaster had given Rufus his final ETT supplementary punishment in the form of a proper, twelve-cut beating rather than a top-up to the customary prep-school swishing, he had not been joking when he said that the swishing that Rufus had endured during his prep-school years would, in retrospect, feel like fleabites when compared with what he would receive when he moved to the upper school.

At the prep-school, swishings had been limited to either the form- master or the Headmaster and had always been given with a very light cane.  But here at St. Olaf’s College, the upper, public school, where Rufus now found himself, danger seemed to be everywhere. The Headmaster, the four housemasters, the house-captains, the prefects and the head-boy himself all wielded the cane on a regular basis. To the boys, who were the unhappy recipients of their flagellative excesses, they were all reminiscent of set of trigger-happy cowboys  shooting to kill.  And to a last man, they were all ready to use the cane, the inimitable crack of which as it mated with some poor lad’s naked butt, was a familiar sound throughout the upper school.

At St. Olaf’s, as in many other public schools, the cane was frequently used to excess and often rather abusively. So generally accepted and practised had the excessive use of the cane become at St. Olaf’s that some young wag had coined the name St. Hell-Holes, which in a way truly reflected the general correctional ethos which reigned in the school. No infraction, however slight, if detected by any of the numerous cane-toting set, went unpunished. So this, in a nutshell, was the correctional environment in which Rufus Rothery now found himself. 

And as if things could not have been worse, he also found that he was fagging for the then head-boy, Jeremy Sefton, a stunningly handsome young man, just nineteen and in his final year at the school. Sefton, as Rufus was soon to find out for himself, under a superficially charming outward veneer, was a totally unpleasant type. Not to mince words, Jeremy Sefton was a bully with a strong sadistic streak in his make-up. To be quite frank, the head-boy was an absolute shit when it came to dealing with his younger schoolmates, over all of whom, his fag included, he ruled like an autocrat.

Rufus’s first meeting with his head-boy fag-master was superficially all sweet light, as Jeremy Sefton handed him a detailed hand-written list of what his duties as his personal fag would be: “So Rothery, provided that you address the tasks as laid out on that list and execute them correctly, I see no reason why you and I should not enjoy an agreeably collaborative year together.  For you, it is your first year at St. Olaf’s, whereas for me it is my final year. Anyway, for our year together, I want you to think of me as a friend whose ever-ready and experienced hand will guide you through the vicissitudes of your life at St. Olaf’s.  One of my main duties, both as your fag-master and head-boy of this school, is, of course, to see that you obey the school rules generally and discharge your fagging duties satisfactorily.”

“And so I am sure you will understand and agree with me that it may well become necessary from time to time that I shall need to correct you. We all make mistakes and have to take the responsibility for them, which can often be rather disagreeable. I am sure that you will take such correction, which as you will realise I only ever undertake for your own benefit, in good part, as any true gentleman does. It should not, in any way, alter the happy relationship between you and me, which I, for my part will endeavour to see is maintained throughout our year together. Now I do not intend in any way to be unfair to you and so I think it would be useful if, when I draw your attention to any failing on your part, you yourself make a note of it in the booklet I have placed on the mantelpiece.”

The head-boy still had an open coal fireplace in his room and one of Rufus’s more onerous tasks was to fetch the coal for it, clean out the previous day’s ashes and and re-lay and re-light the fire each day, this being the only means of heating the room.

“Then, as I wish to be scrupulously fair with you, we will meet here each Friday evening after supper, when we will together review your week’s performance. On that occasion, in the light of the facts, we will jointly decide whether you need to be corrected or not.”  He left unsaid what would happen to Rufus if the answer to that question, which as Rufus had already divined, was destined to be yes.Rufus had listened with an ever increasing degree of uneasiness to this long and ponderous and pompous speech from such a young man.  He had no idea at all what Jeremy Sefton meant when he talked of vicissitudes. What on earth were vicissitudes and what did he mean when he said: his ever-ready and experienced hand will guide you through the vicissitudes of your new life? But Rufus Rothery, aged only thirteen, was nobody’s fool and having listened to these the first, self-important utterings of his fag-master, and seen the hard glint in his eye, he had already realised that what you saw and heard, which was all very agreeable to both eye and ear was, very likely, not what you got; and of course he was so very right.

It goes without saying that nothing he did for his fag-master that first week was satisfactory. And so each day, Rufus was obliged to enter in detail all his little peccadilloes in that horrible, little book on the mantelpiece. It was therefore not surprising that he presented himself to his fag-master, in a justifiably nervous state, at the fatidic hour of eight that Friday evening for the first of what was to become his regularly Friday night appraisals. With mincing precision Jeremy Sefton picked over every detail of Rufus’ notes. As time passed it was obvious that he was becoming more and more disgruntled with his fag’s work until he finally threw down the book.

And then, without having given Rufus, who had sat there silently listening to the litany of his faults, any opportunity to defend himself, he said:  “Well Rothery, after that review, I think we both agree that your performance this first week as my fag has been less than satisfactory and calls for immediate action.  It would be a dereliction of my duty as your fag-master if I allowed things to continue as they stand. You need to be taken in hand seriously before your evident innate tendency to sloppiness and inattention to your duties as my fag become a habit. And so, with your best interests at heart – that time honoured,  but totally insincere sentiment – I  am afraid I have no alternative but to beat you, which as I am sure you will be aware, in view of your dismal performance this past week, you truly merit.”

Rufus’s heart had fallen as he listened silently to Sefton’s diatribe as he had systematically picked holes in everything he had done that week. But when the axe finally fell and he learned that he was to be beaten at the end of this, his first week at the school, his blood ran cold in his veins. But he recognised that here again he was in a situation where his fag-master exercised absolute power over him and he could do nothing to avoid the punishment. Power corrupts: absolute power corrupts absolutely; and it was patently obvious that the sadistic Jeremy Sefton was enjoying exercising his undoubted power over Rufus.  Rufus already saw that he was probably in for a stormy passage in his first year as the head-boy’s fag.

“Well now that we both agree that you need to be beaten – Rufus had agreed to nothing as he had not yet said a word – perhaps you will be good enough to pass me the left-hand cane which is hanging behind the door. That’s right Rothery; that’s the one: it’s what we call a junior cane, although as you are big for your age, perhaps we might soon consider the other one: the senior cane. But as it is your first week at school, I think we will stay with the junior cane for the moment.” The head-boy took the cane which Rufus had unhooked from the door, flexed it a few times under Rufus’s nose. Then as Rufus winced at what was to come, his fag-master swished it down through the air a few times before saying: “Yes, I think this will do very nicely for your first time Rothery.  Now, take of your coat and pull that chair over there into the centre of the room and stand behind it.”

Rufus did as he had been told and stood coatless behind the chair, waiting for what he knew would be the next, inevitable command.

“Now Rothery, drop your trousers and underpants, bend over the back of the chair, put your hands on the seat and keep perfectly still whilst I correct you.  Do not clench your buttocks or the cane will bounce and I shall have to start again. Also, keep your hands firmly on the seat of the chair until I tell you to stand up.  And, Rothery, kindly note that if you allow your hands to stray to your arse whilst I am beating you, then I shall be obliged to start again. Rothery, as this is your first week your week at St. Olaf’s and the first week as my fag, in spite of your disastrously bad performance, I have, however, decided to be lenient with you. So you may count yourself lucky that I am in a generously forgiving mood this evening. I shall therefore give you only six cuts with the cane instead of the customary twelve I normally give all junior boys, whatever their offence.”

“You should take to heart the punishment you are about to receive in retribution for your dismal performance as my fag this week and let the pain that you will undoubtedly feel, inspire you to do better next week.  Let me just tell you Rothery, if you do not wish a repeat performance of what you are about to receive, I expect to see a vast improvement next week as I will not tolerate another week of your incompetence. The solution Rothery, is entirely in your own hands. Now brace yourself boy, as this experience, although very necessary for your well-being in this school, is inevitably going to be disagreeable for you.”

What Rufus Rothery thought of this longwinded preamble to what he now saw was to be a six-cut bare arse – he had noticed that Sefton had referred to his bum as his arse – beating we shall never know.  But what Rufus had already realised was that under that charmingly handsome exterior, Sefton had a heart of solid stone. Here was a young man who took  systematic, sadistic enjoyment in using, to the full, the powers of office granted to him by his position as head-boy. Jeremy Sefton clearly saw himself as God Almighty and intended to behave as such. Before the first stroke landed on his naked backside, Rufus was already shuddering inwardly, not at the thought of what was unpleasantly and painfully imminent, but what the future of fagging for Jeremy Sefton portended. He was fagging for a young- man whom he had already correctly sized up as a sadistic, petty tyrant.

Rufus close his eyes and prayed that he would be able to bear the pain which he knew from that final, end-of-term, top-up-beating at prep-school was to be a very painful experience.  He wanted desperately to be able to get up from his first beating by his fag-master without a tear in his eye; and in the event, he did just manage to do that. The first stroke cracked down with tremendous force and landed accurately where Jeremy Sefton had first tapped his naked bum with the cane. And as stroke followed stroke, each precisely placed in strictly parallel lines from top to bottom of his arse, guided precisely by that every-ready and experienced hand of his fag-master, the pain became excruciating.

But finally the sixth stroke had been delivered and Rufus was told to stand up.  Jeremy Sefton told him to pull up his pants and trousers and to put back on his coat.  With his blistered arse on fire, but with not a tear in sight, Rufus stood in front of the young man for whom he was already developing a feeling of hatred: a feeling which would only intensify as the year progressed.

“Well Rothery, I am sorry – he wasn’t sorry at all in fact – that our first week together had to end in such a painful experience for you. But I am sure that you will appreciate that it would have been remiss of me to have overlooked your disastrous first week as my fag and allow you to continue thinking that everything was satisfactory, when the opposite was the case. So I am sure you agree with me when I say that the best thing for everyone, especially for you, is that you learn to face up to your responsibilities and accept retribution for your mistakes right away. A short, sharp shock, such as the beating I have just given you, is worth ten thousand words. It brings home to the offender in a very immediate way, what will happen if he does not change his ways and improve his behaviour. And having been corrected just once has a remarkable, curative effect on the recipient, who usually shows a very immediate improvement.”

Jeremy Sefton then turned on his dazzling smile and said: “Well Rothery, now that that unpleasantness is behind us, be a good chap and go and make us both a cup of cocoa in the boys’ kitchen. Away you go Rothery; and when you get back we can sit down together, enjoy the cocoa and discuss your duties for the coming week.”

Rufus hobbled in agony to the boys’ kitchen where three second formers were just about to leave. Seeing the parlous state Rufus was in, they insisted, as boys always do, in surveying, there and then, his seriously damaged arse, which they pronounced pretty bad. When he told them that he was the head-boy’s fag, he received the comforting news that his fag-master, Jeremy Sefton, was generally considered a shit and a killer with the cane. 

St. Olaf’s, in common with a number of public schools in the north, practised the two year prefect system.  Junior prefects were chosen in their penultimate year from the lower sixth with the right to use the junior cane on first and second year boys only. Then, in their final year they became senior prefects with full beating rights across the entire school. Now most prefects with beating rights at English public schools tend exercise them to the limit – if not beyond. But according to the three lads in the kitchen, Jeremy Sefton, as a junior prefect, had been the worst of his year’s lot and was generally feared, especially by the younger boys, for the ferocious way in which he used the cane. So caveat puer – boy be aware; handle Jeremy Sefton very carefully indeed, preferably wearing kid gloves, as, to turn a well-known aphorism on its head, it was generally considered that his bite was much worse than his bark.

The three lads all agreed; his beatings were over the top as Rufus’s blistered arse testified to his cost. And having made these encouraging observations facts about his fag-master to Rufus, they left him attempting to make the two mugs of cocoa.  I say attempting, as many of you will know just what an awkward product cocoa powder can be for the uninitiated user, which Rufus most certainly was. That wretched powder simply refused all his efforts to incorporate it into the boiling water which he poured onto it. And then when he added milk, great, agglomerated gobbets of the dark-brown cocoa- powder persisted on floating on the surface and successfully resisted all his efforts to get them to disappear into the liquid. The two mugs of cocoa were a sorry sight as Rufus, with justifiable trepidation, carried them back to Jeremy Sefton’s study.

Rufus knew instinctively that he was in for another round of biting criticism in presenting an unpleasant- looking drink to his fag-master, whom he was already thinking of as his task-master.  But he had not reckoned on the volcanically explosive reaction which he got from his fag-master when he handed him the mug of cocoa.

“What, in God’s name, Rothery, is this foul looking mess supposed to be?  Are you capable of doing anything properly, boy?  I asked you to make each of us a cup of cocoa and this is the mess you produce. Well, if you expect me to drink that evil-looking brew, you can think again. I see now that I was too lenient with you earlier this evening Rothery. Get your naked arse across the chair again right now boy and I will again attempt to inculcate a sense of responsibility into you.”

Rufus attempted to protest: “Oh please, Sefton, please no more this evening. My butt is just so sore already, so please no more. I don’t think I can take any more; so please Sefton, please no more.”

Needless to say, Rufus’s pleas were like water off a duck’s back when it came to shifting Sefton from his stated objective. He reached up to the canes hanging behind door, but this time selected the heavier of the two. Then turning to his terrified fag he said: “Rothery, correct me if I am wrong, but I thought a moment ago I told you to get your naked arse across the chair again. So perhaps you would be kind enough to favour me with an explanation as to why you are still standing there fully clothed.  You Rothery, are trying my patience beyond the limit that any man should be forced to endure. Now boy, get your coat off, drop your pants and underwear and let me see your bare arse again across that chair there in double quick time. Come on boy: jump to it or it will be the worse for you.”

Poor Rufus did as he had been told. Jeremy Sefton gazed, a look of self-satisfaction across his face, at the six, deep, parallel welts adorning his fag’s backside, which were now turning from their original livid red colour to the rich purple hue as they matured.  Rufus trembled with fear as he waited for the second onslaught on his arse within half an hour, praying fervently to a God, in whom he had little faith, that he would not break down into tears.

Sefton after surveying his earlier handiwork, finally decided to embellish what he himself now thought of as an unfinished masterpiece of the art of flagellation, by placing three, stinging strokes with the senior cane he held in his hand,  diagonally across the existing welts, thereby completing what, to his eye, was a harmonious whole. As the cane descended three times more across Rufus’s already blisteringly painful arse, he could no longer hold back his tears, nor could he manage to remain silent. And so as each stroke landed, it elicited an uncontrolled cry of pain and reduced the lad to a flood of tears. As Jeremy Sefton surveyed his finished masterpiece of flagellative art with a certain degree of satisfaction, Rufus Rothery, still bent over the back of the chair, was in absolute agony.

If ever a boy had had an introduction to the severity of life at a typical English public school it was Rufus Rothery at that first Friday evening at St. Olaf’s. His experiences at prep-school had not been altogether without pain. But if Jeremy Sefton’s performance with the cane reflected the ethos of St. Olaf’s, then he knew he had taken that metaphorical jump out of the frying pan into the fire; or better put, as he had had no choice in the matter of the move to the upper school, he had been tipped from the frying pan into the fire. But whether jumped or tipped it made no difference at all. As he limped back to his dormitory, he knew that his backside was on fire: it was hurting like hell. He had learned with a vengeance the difference between a swishing and a beating, which he did not like one little bit.

CHAPTER 4

Having experienced what can but be described as a baptism of fire at the hands of the then head-boy, Jeremy Sefton, Rufus’s first few years at St. Olaf’s were punctuated at regular intervals by altercations with the cane wielded – in his first year – by the said Jeremy Sefton, but also as time progressed, by subsequent head-boys and prefects, his housemaster and on one horribly painful occasion, when he was just fifteen, by Mr. Hamilton, the Headmaster, himself. It was subsequent to that, his first and only beating by the Headmaster, that it suddenly dawned upon Rufus that his backside always came off the loser, whenever, as he frequently was, invited by one or other of the many cane wielders, to present his naked buns to them for correction.

But that awful evening – and it truly was the most excruciatingly painful of any beating he had received  – when he had been invited, along with his two other partners in crime, to present himself wearing just his gym-shorts and vest at the Headmaster’s study, was the deciding factor in Rufus’s reformation.  Rufus together with two of his dorm-mates had been caught by one of the junior prefects, drinking beer and smoking and reported to the Headmaster.

Now breaking of any rule at St. Olaf’s led – if caught in the act – to an automatic beating for the offender.  But there were rules and rules and the two concerning the prohibition of smoking and drinking were writ large. They and were what might be called RULES, any infraction of which led automatically to a mandatory visit to the Headmaster with all that that implied.  And so it was not without a severe feeling of trepidation that the three trembling miscreants lined up in the corridor outside the Headmaster’s study that evening awaiting their fate.

All of them knew that they deserved the punishment they were about to receive. That their arses were forfeit was for sure; but none of them quite appreciated the gravity with which the Headmaster viewed their delinquency. However, to their infinite regret they were soon to find out with a vengeance the seriousness of their situation. The Headmaster allowed them stand around, stewing in their own juice in the corridor for nearly fifteen minutes where their nervousness mounting to the breaking point with each passing minute. After some fifteen minutes, he finally  called all three of them together into that holy of holy’s, his study, to meet their private Waterloo. 

I was the first time any of the three lads had actually been inside the Headmaster’s study. The great man himself, looking as grim as death, sat behind his desk in front of which the three condemned lads were told to stand to attention. First came the usual review of their recent sins, which, as the Headmaster droned on, seemed to go on forever, at the conclusion of which the three lads felt they had committed a crime whose seriousness verged on murder. Then the axe finally fell and their fate became known.

“In view of the extremely serious nature of your joint delinquency in flouting two of the most important and inviolable rules of this school you will all be punished very severely. In fact I intend to make an example of all three of you as a warning to the whole school of the wages of sin. Broscombe and Winters, (the names of Rufus’s co-sinners) you will each receive a twelve-stroke beating with a senior cane across you bare buttocks.”

“But as for you Rothery, in view of your hitherto continuous history of mischievousness and flouting any rule which you have hitherto felt you could get away with, you, young man, will receive a truly exemplary punishment in the form of an eighteen stroke beating, also on the bare. And just before you even think of complaining about the injustice of the system, I think you need to thank your lucky stars that I am not giving the full twenty-four cuts, which, allow me to assure you, are permissible under the school regulations.”

In fact, in spite of the severity of the sentences, which could have been much worse – they could have been expelled – the three lads were sort of relieved that they were each to escape with just another blistered arse.

However, the sting of the Headmaster’s words was in the tail as he added:  “I intend to make this an occasion which none of you will ever forget, and therefore I intend to beat each of you twice.  So you, Broscombe and Winter will each receive a first round of six cuts each, whilst you, Rothery, will have the dubious privilege of taking nine initial strokes. Then each of you will, in turn, offer up your bare backsides again, when I shall be delighted to exercise what I understand is referred to on the grapevine by the boys that have experienced it, as my legendary skill. I shall give each of you your complement of strokes, each of which will double the initial cuts you will already be wearing.”

Once the horrible significance of what the Headmaster had just said sank in, all three boys paled visibly; it was his declared intention to place each of the second-round of strokes directly on the first series of welts he had raised with the cane. So to the examining, post-beating, superficial eye, of which there would be many, at first sight a twelve stroke beating would look superficially as if only six cuts had been given. But closer examination would show from the depth of the welts that each had been the object of two successive strokes of the cane.  Can you imagine much pain the unfortunate recipients of such a beating would be in or the inhibiting affect it would have on the observers?

It was bad enough to contemplate this happening just once; but six – or for Rufus, nine times – was beyond belief. As the implication of what the Headmaster had just said to them sank in, the prospect of what was about to happen to them jumped up from bad to terrifying. The degree of pain they were about to experience for their misdemeanour had just ratcheted up from 5 to 9.5 on the 1 to 10 scale of an imaginary Pain Delivery Index, thereby moving it up from bad to well nigh unbearable. But unbearable or not, they would have to bear it!

“It is not my custom to beat boys together and to allow them to observe their classmates’ being punished. However in this case as the three of you have, together as a group, broken two of the most sacred rules of this school, I propose to allow the three of you to be present throughout this sad, and for the three of you, unforgettably painful  moment, in your school careers.  You will thus be able to transmit in the post-operative viewing by your classmates of what I understand are usually called your war wounds, the agonisingly painful retribution which you have harvested for your sins and thereby, hopefully, warn off other potential offenders with the fear, that if caught, they will receive the same. I always think that viewing of a boy’s well-beaten, naked backside by his classmates, acts as a powerful deterrent to the morbid curiosity of the prurient viewers.”

Standing up from behind his desk, he went across to a cupboard, opened it, rummage around in it for a few moments before turning around to the three lads holding a formidable looking rattan cane in his right hand. “Well young sirs, shall we put my theory to the test? Stand in a line against the wall and take off your shorts and then place your hands your heads.”

The three lads looked at each other aghast at what they had just been told to do. To stand there with their genitalia totally exposed to the Headmaster whilst he thrashed them was something none of them had bargained for. Like most lads of fifteen, they were well into puberty and all three of them were well equipped with those fundamental elements of masculinity, which in the future, if they did not already do so, they would treasure as their most precious possessions. To see one another naked in the showers each day, as they did, was one thing; but to stand there naked, hands on their  head with their sex organs exposed under the grim, penetrating gaze of the Headmaster was quite another.  And, of course, to make matters worse, those totally incontrollable appendages, their cocks, had decided to do their worst and had stiffened to attention. Not surprisingly, the three of them were already dying their first death of the evening brought on by their total embarrassment, before the first kiss of the cane delivered its painful message to their naked arses.

The Headmaster pulled a chair into the middle of the room, pointed to Broscombe with the cane and said: “You first, boy; over the the back of the chair, put your hands on the seat and keep them there until I tell you to stand up. Come on, boy, jump to it and get your backside well up so that I can see what I am doing.” 

Broscombe unwillingly did what he had been told to do and the Headmaster started on the first leg of his six round marathon of flagellation.  Rufus, who was what one might call a connoisseur when it came to being caned, had never, in fact, actually seen a boy being beaten as was now the case. He was fascinated by the systematic way in which the Headmaster applied those first six strokes to Broscombe’s arse. The beating was performed systematically, with no undue haste and with a ten second appreciation pause left between each stroke.  Prior to each stroke, the Headmaster laid the cane in the exact place where he intended it to mate with Broscombe’s naked backside, before raising it into the air and bringing it down to land with that inimitably satisfying  crack – for the deliverer and not the receiver, of course – of  well-seasoned rattan mating with naked flesh, exactly on its intended target. When he had finished his first round of embellishing Broscombe’s buns with the cane, the lad was told to stand up, place his hands again on his head and stand in line again to await  the second round of his beating.

Rufus observed that his friend had now a text-book, beaten arse, with his six, evenly-spaced and strictly-parallel cuts reaching from top to bottom of his posterior. The Headmaster really did know what he was doing. Rufus realised that he had witnessed a true expert at work, and although he knew he was shortly about to suffer the same fate – or actually even worse – the Headmaster did nevertheless have his grudging admiration.

Next Winters and then, finally,  Rufus himself underwent the same painful procedure, before after a five minute pause, which seemed to the boys more like an hour, during which they were made to stand there, hands on their heads and forbidden to touch their blistered backsides, the second awful round of their punishment began.

It was Broscombe who was again the first of the triumvirate to have his arse re-addressed by the cane. And now, as Rufus watched his friend receive a further six agonising cuts, each overlaid with exact precision on the first six, in spite of the fact he knew he himself was to suffer an even worse fate a few minutes later, what had initially been fascination at the Headmaster’s precise delivery, now turned into sheer admiration as he watched the expertise with which the Headmaster wielded the cane. 

The legendary skill of which the Headmaster had spoken, where the word legendary implies a certain unauthenticated, oft imaginary  assertion, turned out, in the event, to be very real. The old boy really was a crack with the cane and justified his reputation. As the three boys, all in tears, hobbled back to their dormitory to be greeted by their dorm-mates for the post-execution viewing, Rufus swore to himself that never ever again would he allow anyone else to address his arse with the cane.  Bearing, as he was, nine livid, excruciatingly painful, doubled cuts, he did not know how to ease the pain, which he knew would be with him for several days. If anyone had learned his lesson that day, it was Rufus Rothery.

But I spite of the extreme pain in which he found himself, Rufus found he still admired the Headmaster for his technique. He admitted to himself that he had actually enjoyed watching the Headmaster exercise the tools of his trade with such consummate expertise on the backsides of his two friends even though he himself had then suffered the same fate.

He knew that deep down inside of himself, he wanted to be able to inflict pain on a schoolboy in the way he had just seen the Headmaster do.  This was the first conscious awakening and acceptance, aged just sixteen, as he now was, of the innate sadistic streak with which he had been endowed at birth; a streak of sadism which was to condition his future career.

To be continued in Part 2