The Making of a Tyrannical Headmaster

CHAPTER 5

It may surprise readers to know that in spite of the long history, first at prep-school and latterly at St. Olaf’s, of the magnetic attraction which his backside seemed to have for the cane,  after that monumental, eighteen stroke beating by the Headmaster, Rufus did manage to keep out of trouble and keep his vow to himself. By some miracle he avoided ever being caned again during his senior years at St. Olaf’s.

Rufus had always been one of the brightest, if not the brightest boy in his class and was first or second in most subjects. And in his favourite subjects, Latin and Greek, he was head and shoulders better than the next best boy. To the sheer amazement of his teachers, by the time he was sixteen he could more or less translate at sight, any classical Latin or Greek text. His mastery of both the grammar and the vocabularies of  these two ancient languages was phenomenal. He was the only boy in the school who could speak coherent, grammatically correct sentences in Latin, a feat, which even the senior classic master found difficult to emulate successfully.

In spite of his rather stormy history until that fatal day when he had decided to reform himself, he was made a junior prefect when he was in the lower sixth form and then just eighteen years old. And that was the beginning of his active love affair with the cane; but this time, as a wielder and not a receiver. St. Olaf’s, as has been said, operated a two tier prefect system. Junior prefects, to which rank Rufus now belonged, were chosen from boys in their penultimate year in the lower sixth and then, provided that they did not blot their copy book in that position, they went on to become senior prefects in their final year in the upper-sixth form. As a newly appointed junior prefect, along with his co-prefects, Rufus was issued with a junior rattan cane by the Headmaster. The Headmaster himself, as a previous regular receiver of the cane in his own school career, was a great believer of the benefits of corporal punishment and in an introductory address to the new prefects actively exhorted them to use their newly acquired powers to keep their schoolmates in order.

“You must all be aware, as you have all been through the same mill yourselves, that given half a chance your younger schoolmates, especially those newly arrived in the first form, will test anyone in authority – masters and prefects alike – to the limit, to see just how far they can go: to see, in fact, what they can get away with. Well it is your duty as junior prefects to see that these younger boys learn to toe the line and are allowed to get away with nothing whatsoever. This school believes in the strict enforcement of the rules as many of you in the past have experienced to your painful cost, personally know (did Rufus detect a smile in his direction?) and the mandate to use the cane given to both junior and senior prefects is the key to enabling you to enforce the rules. This having been said, I must remind you that as junior prefects you are limited to a maximum of six strokes of the junior cane for any one offence.  However, your mandate does extend to correcting boys of all ages, but only with the junior cane.  Let me also remind you that if you have occasion to beat a boy for any reason whatsoever, the tradition here at St. Olaf’s, along with most other public schools in the north, is that the offender is caned on his bare buttocks and never ever on the hand, as is the case in most state schools.” 

“Now some new boys may initially resist this practice, but you must, nevertheless, insist on it: boys being beaten must be beaten on the bare. If any boy refuses to bare his buttocks for punishment then you must automatically refer him to me.  I think that you will find that the threat of a visit to his Headmaster will suddenly make him see sense. I am sure that I need not remind any of you of a fact which most of you probably already know from firsthand experience: a boy’s lower rear anatomy, which I understand you boys vulgarly refer to as his arse, is capable of receiving a very thorough and painful beating with no long term damaged done.  Gentlemen, the purpose of beating a boy is to teach him that he is responsible for his actions; there is therefore no point in beating him unless it hurts. So, in a word, when it comes to punishing a boy, pain is the name of the game. So I can but remind you of the old aphorism: spare the rod and spoil the boy. So I will conclude my remarks by saying I do not wish to see any spoiled boys here at St. Olaf’s. I hope I have made myself clear”

So there it was in a nutshell; they had each been given a cane and within the limits set by the Headmaster, had carte blanche to use it. He had said: “pain is the name of the game.”  And there was little doubt at all, that the new junior prefects, in the very best of the gentlemanly, but nevertheless brutal traditions practised in English public schools, were all more than ready to play the game; and  moreover, to play it wholeheartedly.

The role of the prefects at St. Olaf’s was twofold. During the school day, when boys were being taught, it was their job to see that the boys behaved properly when they were outside of the classrooms. The same was true on Saturday’s and Sundays, when there were no formal classes. The prefects, both junior and senior, acted as the school’s police force, maintaining law and order.  In fact, their power was more or less absolute, as they acted as judge, jury and executioner of any boy whom they caught in flagrante – in the act of committing a misdeed. 

In addition to their duties during the day, the prefects were also in charge of discipline in their individual houses, in the evening and at night, after lights out, in the dormitories. Each house, of which there were four, had two junior and two senior prefects, plus a Housemaster, who to a great extent, depended upon his four prefects, one of whom he nominated house-captain, too keep order in his house. So by day and night, the pupils at St. Olaf’s were under the watchful eyes of a total of sixteen prefects.

If a boy was caught by a prefect and sentenced to a beating, then that was that; there was no appeal as the prefects’ power was more or less absolute. As has already been observed earlier, power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely; so many boys, who had committed a very minor peccadillo, went to bed nursing an unwarrantedly sore arse, thanks to the excessive zeal of a prefect.  On many occasions their punishments were excessive and they could probably have complained. But no one ever did; they just took beatings as part and parcel of daily life at the school.

It was into this environment and general climate of abuse by the prefects, that Rufus Rothery, possessing what he himself already knew to be a hidden , but as yet undeveloped, sadistic streak and a desire to beat other boys’ arses, was let loose.  But with a junior cane now in his hand, this was the start of the road which would eventually lead to Rufus Rothery’s transformation into a tyrant. Each sixth former at St. Olaf’s had his own individual study- bedroom. Only the head-boy himself had a study separate from his bedroom, with a wash room in a short passage joining the two. And so, as was frequently the case, for the cane at St. Olaf’s never rested for long, boys were beaten either in the library, by the prefects, or in his private study by the head-boy. And in the houses, beatings were given in the house common-room or, as was very frequently the case with younger boys, in their dormitories. And so an appropriate selection of rattan canes was available in the school library and in the common-room of each house.

Given his own personal motivation and his innate desire to inflict pain, a fact he would never openly acknowledge throughout his entire career, Rufus Rothery was eager to find his first – let us call him – client, on whose arse he could lavish what he, with tongue in cheek, referred to as his tender loving care with the cane.  But chance – good good fortune for him, but misfortune, alas, for them – provided Rufus with not one, but two, reluctant candidates to what was to be his inaugural performance with the cane.

It was the Friday of his first week as a junior prefect and quite by chance, passing within sight of the main gate of the school, he saw two boys, neither of whom was wearing his mandatory, school cap, sneaking unobserved – or so they thought – back onto the school premises from what had clearly been an illicit excursion into the town centre.

That the two boys, who were obviously first formers, knew that they were breaking a cardinal rule of the school (first formers were not allowed to leave the school premises without a signed exeat from a master) was obvious from the rather circumspective way in which they re-entered the school grounds. It does appear to be a fact that boys of all ages, when they know they are in the wrong, somehow universally exude a halo of guilt by the furtive air and movements they unconsciously seem to adopt, even when they are not being observed. Add to this minor misdemeanour, the fact that neither lad was wearing his school cap, Rufus was beside himself with what was clearly a bumper catch. Not one, but two, backsides would provide a splendid baptism of fire for what would be his maiden over with his brand-new cane. And so, already metaphorically salivating at the thought of the little drama that would be enacted in the library that evening, Rufus had every intention of  making his mark as a junior prefect and leaving it – literally – on the backsides of each lad before he had even confronted them. The two boys were suddenly jolted out of their complacency when Rufus called to them as they re-entered the school grounds.  They seemed surprised that they had been caught, as until Rufus spoke, they had been totally unaware that they had been seen by a prefect.

“Where, if I might be permitted to ask, have you two young miscreants been? Why do I find you creeping guiltily into the school grounds and with neither of you wearing your school cap to boot?  Are you not aware that first formers are not allowed to leave the school premises without the express permission of a master in the form of a signed exeat? Perhaps the pair of you would be good enough to justify your excursion into town by producing your exeats for my inspection.”

The two lads, of course, had no exeats; they had simply decided to take a walk into the town centre.  By now flustered and totally tongue-tied at having been caught at the end of their first illicit adventure as new boys, they found it difficult to justify their actions. Nor could they explain the reason why they had neglected to wear their caps: a mandatory requirement for all boys when off the school premises. In fact, the only intelligible information to come out of this confrontation was that the boys managed to give Rufus their names: they were called Barker and Havers and were members of form 1A.

“Well, Barker and Havers, I will see the pair of you this evening eight in the library, immediately after supper, when we will put this matter to rest.”

The two boys looked glum at this. Havers, feeling that one of them had to say something, asked pitifully: “Why do we need to come to the library sir?”

“First of all Havers, you do not address me as sir, but by my surname, which is Rothery. Only the masters are addressed as sir. You address all your schoolmates, including the prefects and the head-boy himself, by their surnames only. However to answer your question, you will have to wait and see what your visit to the library this evening holds in store for you; let us just say for the moment, that it is to be a surprise. But just let me tell you that activities other than reading and studying also take place in the library, especially in the evenings: activities which frankly are much less pleasant; but activities in which your recent offences make you both eminently qualified to participate. So boys; do not be late; eight on the dot in the library; is that understood?”

Late that afternoon, Rufus went along to the library himself. He felt he already knew the place intimately as over his earlier years at the school, he had been regularly invited there by different prefects to sample the doubtful pleasure of experiencing the bite of the cane across his naked arse. So he knew that there was the full complement of accoutrements of punishment there for dealing with miscreant boys: a number of chairs with backs of different heights to accommodate boys of different ages and, of course, that sine qua non of such occasions: a good selection of rattan canes.

But this time it would be different; this time he would be the beater rather than the beaten.  And even though he desperately wanted to apply the cane to a naked arse, now, with the boot on the other foot and the goal in sight, he suddenly felt very unsure of himself. It was one thing being the passive player in the drama of a bare-arse beating, a role which he himself had played many, many times; but when it came to actually performing the act himself, of delivering unspeakable pain to a totally unprotected pair of bare buttocks, he suddenly wondered if, when push came to shove, whether he had the guts to wield the cane himself.  And what would he do if he made a hash of his first beating: of his first two beatings, in fact? He was looking over the various canes which were all bristling there in one of those large and hideous oriental pots beloved by the previous generation as umbrella stands.  Rufus had selected a cane at random and was swishing it through the air, thinking that he was alone in the place, when a voice said: “It look as though some lucky lad is going to have his arse warmed before he goes to bed this evening.”

And then emerged from one of the reading bays where he had been hidden from view, the newly appointed head-boy of the year, Nigel Kingston.  As Kingston was in his final and Rufus in his penultimate year at the school, they had known each other throughout Rufus’s entire time at the school. Rufus also knew that the previous year, as a junior prefect, Kingston had quickly established a reputation for himself among the first and second formers as being one of the hardest caners in the whole school; to such an extent that he had acquired the nickname of the Killer.

“Ah it’s you, Rothery, I see, brandishing the rod of justice.”  He smiled as he reached over to the pot and extracted a long, slender, straight-handled rattan cane, which he handed to Rufus. “Speaking as someone with a certain modicum of experience in the gentle art of flagellation in this very place, if I were you, old boy, I’d use this cane rather than the one you have in your hand. Last year, as a junior prefect myself, I found that when correctly applied to the bare bums of our misguided and oft offensive younger schoolmates, it certainly gave them what, from their vociferous, let us call it, vocal expressions of appreciation for my efforts on their arses, what I took to be outpourings of the greatest pleasure.”

As he said this, he laughed at his own sarcasm before continuing: “Anyway, Rothery, congratulations on your elevation to the privileged ranks of those of us who are authorised to correct their errant, junior schoolmates by addressing their naked arses with the cane. If you take my advice you will use your first year as a junior prefect as what you should consider as a pay-back year for all the whackings you yourself had on the way up. I take it that like me, you were regularly whacked on your way through the mill of this establishment in the name of what passes for enjoying a superior education and you know, therefore, what a well beaten arse feels like. That’s what I myself did. If I caught them at it, as I often did, I didn’t allow any of the young blighters to get away with anything.  I whacked their plump, little arses well and truly hard. And I frankly admit, I enjoyed every moment of it.  I think you will find that once you get into the swing of things, literally and metaphorically when it comes to wielding the cane, hearing it crack down on a well-deserving, bare backside, is a great pleasure; that is; at least how it has been for me.”

Rufus listened in silence to this frank revelation of the satisfaction which the head-boy had clearly had from using the cane on his schoolmates. But he did find himself shuddering inwardly as he wondered what the obviously cane-happy Kingston had on his percussive agenda now that he was head-boy.

He finally said:  “Frankly, Kingston, I can tell you that I feel a bit nervous about tonight.  It will be the first time I will be beating a boy; to be strictly accurate, two boys: two first formers, in fact, whom I caught sneaking back into school after an unauthorised visit down town and with neither of them wearing their caps to boot. So I felt they needed to be corrected and so I have told them to see me here after supper at eight this evening. But now that I have actually got to perform the act myself, I feel very nervous about the whole thing.”

“Look here, Rothery, there’s nothing at all to be nervous about. You are just doing your duty as a prefect. I can tell you, if I had caught the two of them, they would be getting twelve each on the bare: six for going down town without an exeat and another six for not wearing their caps. But as a junior prefect, you will have to make do with just six; ah well, more’s the pity”

“Look, here’s my advice; don’t rush things; take your time; get each of them with his naked arse in the right position before you begin. Then lay the cane – the one I have just given you, as it’s a real cracker – on the exact spot where you want it to land, before raising it above your head to deliver the stroke.  And one tip: make sure you lay-on several strokes low down on the lads’ arses – on the so-called sit-spot – to  make it uncomfortable for the little blighters to sit down for a few days.”

“But listen, Rothery. How’s this for an idea?  Come around to my study at six-thirty straight after prep but before supper. I’m going to beat my fag this evening. He doesn’t know it yet, but his backside deserves its first little treat to show it what’s what; so I’ll be delighted to demonstrate to you first-hand, how to go about it.”

Rufus had mixed feelings about this offer. It brought back instantly to him the memory of his own first week at the school when he himself had been the head-boy’s fag and had had his arse roasted in retribution for his poor fagging performance in the selfsame study into which he was now being invited to be given a demonstration of how to use the cane.  And what made it even more unnerving, was the fact that this demonstration in the gentle art of flagellation was to be given on the backside of the present head-boy’s fag.

It seemed horribly like history repeating itself. However, like most boys, Rufus had that that prurient, inbuilt characteristic which leads most schoolboys to take a certain pleasure in the misfortunes of others. This, he knew, would dictate his acceptance of the offer.  It would only be the second time that he was actually to witness a boy being beaten.

His mind flashed back to that other fateful occasion when he, and his friends, Broscombe and Winters had each received a truly monumental beating from the Headmaster for drinking and smoking. That had been the last time he himself had been beaten. But that day, he had actually witnessed the cane being applied to the naked arses of both of his companions in crime.

On that occasion, to his secret shame, he found that he had truly enjoyed watching his two partners receiving their punishment. He had really taken in the finer points of the act of flagellation as practised by the Headmaster. And in spite of his own ragingly painful arse with which he himself later left the Headmaster’s study, he recalled how he had grudgingly admitted to himself  that he admired the Headmaster for his consummate skill with the cane.

He tried to convince himself that in accepting Kingston’s invitation to watch him beat his fag, he was motivated purely by the need of familiarising himself with the art of handling the cane. Of course he knew that that was only partly true, as he he would thoroughly enjoy watching the poor fag getting his arse striped. Oh yes, make no mistake, Schadenfreude – pleasure in the misery and misfortunes of others – was alive and well in Rufus Rothery’s makeup.

So six-thirty that evening found him sitting with Kingston in the head-boy’s study waiting for the arrival of the victim.  Cedric Munford, for that was the fag’s name, arrived ten minutes late for the appointment with his fag-master. If the poor unfortunate fag had not known the reason for the meeting until now, the cane lying horribly visible on Kingston’s desk spoke volumes. And his tardy arrival should have already made him extra-nervous.

Kingston began sarcastically: “Ah, Munford; nice of you to join us; and only ten minutes late for your appointment. There is a saying, better late than never, to which aphorism, I have to tell you, I do not personally subscribe. Allow me to tell you Munford, that when I say to my fag, six-thirty, I mean six-thirty and not six-forty.”

A, by now, very frightened-looking Munford ventured to reply:  “I’m sorry Kingston, but I simply forgot that you wanted to see me.  I really am very, very sorry; it won’t happen again; I promise you.”

“Munford, forgetfulness seems to be your forte! Has it crossed your tiny mind, that this week you have systematically forgotten numerous tasks which are part of your duties as my fag?  Twice you forgot to clean my shoes.  Twice you forgot to clean out the ashes from the fireplace and re-lay the fire. For all you care, I could have frozen to death. I have a strong feeling that forgetfulness seems to be an inbuilt part of your nature, Munford.”

On and on went Kingston, cataloguing the errors and omissions committed by his fag during the past week. He laid it on in spades. Nothing the lad had done was apparently right. By the time he had finished upbraiding his fag, he had reduced the lad to a trembling wreck. After he had finished listening to this over-the-top, verbal tirade of his performance, the poor lad must have thought that he had committed a capital offence.

When the verdict and sentence were eventually pronounced, Munford blanched visibly at the thought of what he was about to suffer. Rufus remembered how he had undergone the same sort of overegged, verbal battering all those years previously, when he too had been beaten by the then head-boy for whom he was fagging. Then came those traditional untruths, as Kingston set about justifying what he was about to visit on Munford’s arse.

“Munford, I am sure you will agree with me (a very doubtful premise) that I would not be doing my duty if I were to allow you to continue in your present ways without correcting you. And so I regret to say Munford  that it is with a very heavy heart and great reluctance that I have come to the conclusion that I have no alternative but to beat you. Now, Munford, as I am sure you will appreciate, I am only doing for your own good. In resorting to the cane, believe me when I say that I have only your own best interests at heart.” Nigel Kingston, like many prefects before him, trotted out all these platitudinous, bare-faced insincerities with a completely straight face.

“Take of your blazer, Munford, and go and stand behind that chair over there. Then drop your trousers and underpants to the floor and bend over the back of the chair. Put your hands on the seat of the chair and keep them there until I tell you to get up. And see that you hold your bottom well into the air as that part of your anatomy, along with the cane, is the key player in our little drama. As this is your first whacking by me as your fag-master, I shall be lenient with you and give you only six.”

“But be warned Munford; you have to improve your performance otherwise in the future you will again find yourself in the same unfortunate position over that same chair waiting for twelve. And Munford, in case I forgot to mention it, keep your hands of your arse until I tell you that you may massage yourself.”

Rufus admitted to himself that the felt rather sorry for young Munford; but he supposed the lad did need correcting as he had made a lot of mistakes. However, there is correction and correction and when in the hands of that arch-flagellator, which Killer Kingston turned out to be, the word CORRECTION is writ large. 

Kingston went across to the door where he unhooked the junior of the two canes hanging there, went across to Munford and laid the cane across the crown of the lad’s arse. He then looked and Rufus, smiled and said very quietly: “Now, Rothery, it’s quite simple; just observe how it’s done.”

Rufus was then treated to a text-book demonstration of how to treat a boy’s arse to a session of not-so-tender-loving-care from the cane. Having determined where the first cut was to land, he raised the cane and brought it smartly down. It landed, with a resounding crack, on the exact same spot it had just left from Munford’s naked bum. Munford let out a howl of pain as the therapeutic effect of the blow worked its magic on him.  Kingston then paused for a full ten seconds before continuing.  He then placed at ten second intervals the next two cuts upwards towards Munford’s lower back, before landing the final three strokes down towards the crease of the lad’s legs.

Rufus realised immediately that in Kingston he was observing a master at work. He proceeded slowly and methodically, placing each cut of the cane exactly where he intended it, leaving a good appreciation pause between each stroke. By the time he had finished, Munford was in tears and his arse was neatly embellished with six deep parallel stripes which were already a deep crimson red.

Turning to Rufus, Kingston said: “Well Rothery, there you are; as you can see, giving a boy a proper beating is really quite a straight forward – as easy, really as falling off a log. The key points are not to rush; to place each stroke exactly where you intend it to be; and to leave at least ten seconds between each cut to allow the lucky recipient, in the present case our friend Munford here, to appreciate the care and attention which, entirely for his own good, are being lavished on his arse.”

“And of course, make sure that you use a really good cane: one that is rigid enough for accurate placement but flexible enough to bend itself across both of a boy’s buttocks when it mates with them. Finally, don’t stint on the force when you bring the cane down; it’s got to hurt; so make sure it truly does. A boy’s arse has got to be well striped when he gets up from a beating.”

These remarks were made with the unfortunate Munford still bent across the chair. “Right Munford, you may get up now and put back on your clothes and give your arse a good massage as I can see you are waiting to do; then off you go Munford. You can be proud of the stripes I have given you when you show them to your dorm mates in the showers this evening.”

CHAPTER 6  

As Rufus left the head-boy’s study, he saw the back end of what was obviously a new boy, disappearing at speed down the corridor. Now Rufus, having himself been caught and thrashed several times in his earlier years for running in the corridors, an act which was strictly –and I do mean strictly – forbidden, suddenly realised what a mine of opportunity the corridor was, for collecting what might be described as cannon-fodder for his cane.

In fact, although running anywhere inside the school buildings  carried a mandatory punishment of six strokes of the cane, boys still broke the rules regularly, were frequently caught in the act – usually by a prefect – and found themselves going to bed nursing very sore bottoms.

On the principle of strike whilst the iron is hot, Rufus called to the boy to stop and come back to face him.  He did not know the delinquent first former, who revealed himself to be one, David Osborne: Osborne minor, brother of Roger Osborne: Osborne major, a contemporary, but not a close friend, of Rufus’s. Osborne minor stopped dead in his tracks, turned around, walked back and stood facing Rufus with that guilty look on his face which testified to the fact that he knew full well why he had been stopped.

When Rufus started to tear a strip off him, he nevertheless protested his innocence. “Osborne, where was it that you were going in such haste? As you know running is strictly forbidden in the corridor or anywhere else inside any of the school buildings for that matter; so I think you need to explain why you found it so important to break one of the cardinal rules of the school.”

Osborne, of course, knew full well that he had been caught in flagrante, breaking one of the school’s fundamental, and justifiably strictest – and moreover, strictly enforced – rules . Nevertheless,  he tried to talk himself out of what he knew to be a sticky situation: “Well Rothery, I wasn’t really running; you see I just wanted to see someone in the junior common-room before supper and as time was short I was just, sort of, hurrying – sort of walking quickly – speed walking – if you see what I mean.  But if you think I was going too quickly, then I don’t mind at all slowing down Rothery; really I don’t.”

“Anyway, I’m sorry if you think I was going too quickly and I promise you, now that you have drawn my attention to it, I won’t do it again; really I won’t. So please may I now go, more slowly this time, to find my pals in the common-room?”

“Osborne minor, you have an amazing ability to confuse walking quickly and running. When one walks – even quickly – the soles of one’s shoes move more or less parallel to the floor. You young man, were not indulging in an exercise of what you fancily choose to call speed-walking, but were galloping down the corridor like a race horse. If ever a boy was running in the corridor it was you just now.”

“So now that we have established that you were, in fact, running and not walking at any speed, yes Osborne, you may run along – I speak figuratively you understand – however, not to the common-room, your original destination, but to the library a few doors down the corridor, where I shall give myself the pleasure of acquainting you with the realities of life at St. Olaf’s. Breaking one of the strictest rules of the school has painful consequences, as you are now about to find out.”

Osborne looked very nervous at what he had just heard, which certainly boded ill for him; “Rothery, do you mean I can’t go to the common-room as I wanted to, but have to go to the library instead?”

“Precisely so, my dear Osborne; your pressing visit to the common-room will have to wait until after your visit to the library. After you and I have finished our business there, then, if time permits before supper, you may go and see your friends in the common-room; otherwise you will just have to delay seeing them until you join them at table.”

Osborne still trying to prevent what he must, by now, have known was the inevitable, grasped onto the last straw, making a feeble, last-ditch attempt to save himself:  “But Rothery, I really did want to see my friends before supper in the common-room; they are all expecting me to be there and I really don’t want to let them down. I did tell them I would be there and you wouldn’t force me to break my word, would you?”

Rufus smiled inwardly as he listened to this last, futile attempt by Osborne to extract himself from what he knew were to be the painful consequences of his actions. But he had no intention of letting Osborne off the hook; the lad had been caught, fair and square, breaking the rules and Rufus had every intention on putting what he had just learned from the head-boy into immediate practice.  Osborne minor’s  arse was destined to be the first of a regular stream of boys that year who would be invited to sample what was rapidly to become Rufus’s undoubted expertise with the cane.   

“Osborne, supper is a mere fifteen minutes away and I fail to see that anything you wish to say to your friends cannot wait until you are all at table together. So young man, get a move on; shift you arse, boy, and go and stand in front of the library door, where I shall join you shortly.”

Osborne finally capitulated and went and stood outside the library door in nervous expectation of what was about to happen to him. Rufus entered the library to find three boys sitting there reading. Protocol required that he ask them to leave and he then invited the unfortunate Osborne to enter to meet his fate.

Of course the three lads, having been kicked out of the library, knew that their exiting and Osborne’s entry meant only one thing: Rothery, the new junior prefect, was going to beat arse; an arse that on this occasion, clearly was going to be furnished by courtesy of Osborne minor.

This piece of intelligence flashed quickly round the school so that by the time the boys sat down to supper everyone knew that Rothery had beaten Osborne minor.  And as Osborne and Munford, the head-boy’s fag, both chose to eat their supper standing at table, it was clear that not one, but two boys had just been beaten and it was still only the fifth day of the new term! The message was loud and clear: the prefects really did mean business; so caveat puer if you valued your backside!

“Osborne, as you may or may not be aware, running in the corridors, a forbidden act in which you have unfortunately just indulged, carries a mandatory punishment of six stroke of the cane in retribution for having broken one of the most important rules of this school.”

Then without asking Osborne if he had anything more to say, Rufus picked up the cane,  pointed with it to the chair and said: “Take of your jacket and go and stand behind the chair; then drop your trousers and underpants and let them fall to the floor around your ankles;  then bend across the back of the chair, place your hands on its seat and stick your arse well into the air and remain quite still in that position until I tell  you may get up.”

“I shall then give you the pleasure of experiencing the mandatory six strokes of the cane in retribution for your sins, during which time you will not, under any circumstances, attempt to touch your buttocks. Oh and one final point Osborne; during the punishment you will maintain your buttocks in a relaxed state. Do not clench them or I shall be obliged to recommence your punishment from the beginning. Is all that clear, Osborne?”

If Osborne had been seriously uneasy when told to go to the library, after listening to Rufus’s instructions, he was now terrified.  Osborne had been through the normal prep-school mill and, like most boys at that time, had had his bottom swished several times; but until now, never actually beaten properly on the bare.

And that was was precisely what Rufus Rothery was proposing to do to him: to cane his arse properly and completely naked. It was just too awful a prospect to contemplate.  And so he made one last ditch attempt to save at least something from the imminent disaster.  “Oh Rothery, I really am sorry for running in the corridor and I know that I have to be punished for it. But please Rothery, could I not at least keep my underpants on. You see I have never ever been beaten on my bare bum before.  So please Rothery, please at least let me keep my underpants on.”

It is not so much that the skimpy fabric of any type of underpants much alleviates the pain of the cane as it bites into a lad’s buttocks, but rather that the boy being punished is spared the embarrassment of baring his all to his tormentor. It goes without saying that Osborne’s plea fell on stony ground and was roundly rejected.

“Osborne, boys throughout this entire school, from the moment they enter the first form right through to the final day when they leave the upper sixth, are all beaten on the bare if they deserve it. And let me just tell you that not only does your arse deserve to be beaten, but it deserves to be very soundly beaten on the bare as tradition demands. So kindly do as I say and present to me your bare buttocks over the chair in the next ten seconds. Come on boy; move it; I don’t like to be kept waiting.”

A few moments later, Rufus found himself facing, for the first time ever, a pair of undefiled buttocks which he was about to stripe with the cane. And just for a moment he felt a resurgence of his earlier fear flash through his mind: that he would make a mess of performing his first beating. But then, reassured by the instructions and practical demonstration he had just been given by the head-boy, he pushed his doubts aside and prepared to give Osborne arse the first stroke of the cane he would ever deliver.

It was a unique moment for Rufus; never again would this moment exist; it was like losing his sexual virginity: a life-changing event which was which was still to come for him. In both cases whether being beaten for the first time on the bare or losing one’s own sexual virginity, one second one still had it and the next second it was gone, never to be retrieved.  Like so many things in life, as the cane mated with Osborne’s naked skin for the first time, with that inimitable crack of well-seasoned rattan on a boy’s bare arse, a howl of pain from the unfortunate recipient testified to its undoubted success.

Rufus, mindful of the lesson he had just received from the head-boy, then went on and gave Osborne five more swingeing, well placed strokes. By the time he had finished, Osborne’s arse was sporting six neat, deeply ridged, parallel cuts of the cane, which were already a deep-crimson red. The lad was clearly in agony and as Rufus stood there admiring his handiwork, he mentally chalked up his maiden beating as a success. How very easy it had been. And he hated to admit it to himself, but there was not getting away from the fact that he had thoroughly enjoyed the act of skinning Osborne’s bare arse. 

“It’s all over now, Osborne, so you may get up and put back on our clothes.  Let that be a lesson to you not to run in the corridors ever again. Try to look on the bright side of things. You will be the hero of your schoolmates when they see your magnificently striped backside. So you may now leave and go to the common-room or directly to supper as you wish.”

Rufus Rothery felt quite elated with the effective way in which he had handled his first beating. It had, however not escaped his attention that his cock, which had started to stiffen as he had watched the head-boy thrash his fag, had how now risen to the occasion and was fully erect, pushing firmly against the crotch of his trousers. This was the first real spontaneous intimation to Rufus, as was the case with many men – most men? – that the act of flagellation was sexually arousing.

His first feeling was one of embarrassment, as his large, hard member thrust itself to the fore; but this was followed by a feeling of immense pleasure accompanied by one of guilt, as he realised how much he had enjoyed that first experience with wielding that cane. And it was this acceptance of the fact that he had actually enjoyed inflicting pain on boys’ arses with the cane that was to condition much of his life from now on.

So that later that same evening when he was to beat both Barker and Havers, any feelings of technical inadequacy about handling the cane that he had previously harboured, had vanished; and, to his shame  he secretly admitted to himself that he found himself really looking forward to making the two lads suffer for their misdeeds.

But facts are facts and cannot be avoided and thus it was that the seed of tyranny was sown in the psyche of Rufus Rothery: a seed which over the years was to germinate and turn Rufus into a tyrannical headmaster. But we are still many years from that, so first things first.

That evening turned out not only to be the consolidation of Rufus’s initial embrace of the pleasure he got from using the cane, but also an introduction into what was to become his school sex-life. It was not so much the fact of seeing young lads half-naked which aroused erotic feelings in Rufus – turned him on, as we would say today – as the physical act of beating their naked arses, which aroused him sexually.

The simple fact of the matter was that like many boys, Rufus got considerable satisfaction from the painful misfortunes of his schoolmates. Schadenfreude – pleasure at the misfortunes of others – was a feeling Rufus had shared with most of his peers, whenever they had viewed the roasted arse of one of their number.

But the ability, legally to administer the pain leading to that sore arse, was given to only a selected few boys, the prefects, who were authorised to beat their schoolmates. And when the prefect had that inbuilt sadistic streak, as Rufus himself had, then it is easy to see how such boys were on the slippery slope towards tyranny.

That evening, Rufus had every intention of exercising his newly acquired authority to the full; he made Barker and Havers take of their trousers and pants completely and got the pair of them each bent across the back of a chair, each with his naked arse in the air awaiting his onslaught with the cane. Tradition dictated that when prefects were using the library for what was euphemistically referred to as correctional purposes, all boys, other than prefects, left the room. 

But on this evening, Rufus found himself, by chance, alone with the two nervously-unhappy, arse-naked penitents bent across the chairs. He was just about to give a trembling Barker his first of six cuts with the cane, when the head-boy, Nigel Kingston entered the room totally unannounced.

“Good evening Rothery; as you told me earlier that you were proposing to beat these two young miscreants this evening, I thought I would just drop in and see, in my capacity as head-boy, if everything was proceeding satisfactorily. But I see you are already well on your way; so do not let me interrupt you; please continue with your unhappy –  inappropriate choice of word, if ever –  duty.”

Rufus then went ahead and gave each of the two boys, six strokes of the cane. Under the watchful eye of his mentor, the head-boy, he followed, to the letter, the instructions given to him earlier that day.  However he alternated strokes between the two boys, which added a certain drama to the proceedings. The success of Rufus’s ministrations was confirmed by the regular howls of pain emitted by the two lads as the beatings progressed. 

By the time he had finished, each lad was sporting what was usually vulgarly referred to by the entire school, as a well-beaten arse. Rufus was just about to motion to the two lads to stand up and get dressed when the head-boy intervened.  “You two boys, stand up and face me and put your hands on your heads whilst I address you.  Correct me if I am wrong, but Rothery caught the pair of you sneaking back into the school after an unauthorised expedition into the town and neither of you was wearing your school cap.”

“In a word, not only were you were absent without leave, but in not wearing your school caps you were breaking two of the schools most sacred rules, each of which carries a penalty of six strokes of the cane. Now as Rothery is only a junior prefect at present, he is authorised to give only six strokes of the cane to any boy on any one occasion, a task, to judge from your expressions of appreciation during your beatings, I think you will agree, he has accomplished admirably this evening.”

“So the fact that you were caught in flagrante by a junior prefect has, due to a technicality, allowed you to escape from what by rights, should have been a twelve-stroke beating. However, since earlier this evening I learned of your offence quite by chance, in my capacity a head-boy, I have decided that I feel morally obliged to intervene: to right a wrong which has been forced upon Rothery due to his present status as a junior prefect. I have, therefore, decided that I shall myself give each of you a further six cuts of the cane, thereby bringing up your total to the mandated cumulative punishment for your two offences.”

The two boys first looked utterly dumbstruck listening to this orotundly officious, piously hypocritical, over-the-top oration; a look which quickly turned to one of terror when they realised what the head-boy had in store for them. Neither lad uttered a single word in protest as they silently obeyed Kingston’s order to bend across the chairs again. Rufus himself was totally surprised by the head-boy’s announcement, as he had had no idea at all of his intentions when he entered the library. 

In fact, neither he himself nor the two young offenders had ever even imagined that anyone would come back on what they had just endured and increase the severity of their punishment. But as Rufus reflected on the head-boy’s nickname, the Killer, a name he had earned due to his brutal efficiency with the cane as a junior prefect, it was not surprising that he now fully intended to use the almost unlimited power that came with his present position as head-boy over his schoolmates. 

Unfortunately, the hierarchical system which reigned at St. Olaf’s (and at many other northern public schools at that time) gave the head-boy carte blanche when it came to discipline.  Just how appropriate the head-boy’s nickname, Killer, was, was now illustrated graphically in the way he administered those six additional strokes to each of the lads’ already blistered backsides. 

Alone the fact of an additional six was bad enough; but he systematically doubled every stroke which Rufus had made. With consummate accuracy he placed each of his stinging additional strokes, precisely on one of Rufus’s original cuts.

So at the end of the day, the two lads were sporting ostensibly six cut arses, which were hurting like the fires of hell, as each of the six, visible stripes was the result of two strokes of the cane.  Not surprisingly, the two lads hobbled off to bed in a flood of tears to show their super-well-beaten-arses to their schoolmates. If ever two lads had earned a lesson the hard way, Barker and Havers surely had on that fateful evening. 

CHAPTER 7

“Well Rothery, I think we can safely say that that was a job well done.  If they have any sense, which is doubtful, that pair of miscreants will think twice before going into town without an exeat.  I think you can can chalk up your first week as a junior prefect as a great success as I hear that you beat yet another boy shortly after leaving my study this  afternoon, which means you have beaten three boys in your first week as a junior prefect.  That, my friend, is some record to beat; no pun intended!”

“You are doubtless familiar with the mock Latin expression: illegitimi nil caborundum, of which an apocryphally incorrect translation is: don’t let the bastards grind you down. Well I think for prefects in our position of authority in the school, a more positive version of that sentiment is more appropriate to the disciplinary actions we are expected to visit on our schoolmates. Latin is not my strong suit, but it seems to me that parvi illegitimi carborundum, which in my translation reads: grind the little bastards down, is a more appropriate maxim to invoke when dealing with our young miscreants.” 

“In my view it is the job of each junior prefect to see that the young blighters in the first and second forms are kept in order and if they break the rules – as they, thankfully, frequently do – to whack their pert, plump, little arses for them.  I thank God for the regular supply of beatable arses that the first and second formers, by their continued misdeeds, present us. We prefects are in a privileged position in that we have the back-up of the cane to aid us in exacting retribution from our schoolmates for their sins.”

“So, as exhorted by our Headmaster, we prefects should not hesitate to use it: I know I never did last year when I was just a junior myself and I cannot but recommend you, Rothery, to do the same.  For myself I find that thrashing a boy’s arse has a remarkable therapeutic effect on me; a therapy of which I require regular recourse. However, I suspect after your performance today, that I am preaching to the converted.  I have to say that you do seem to have got off to a cracking good start – no pun intended!”

 “I take my metaphorical hat off to you, Rothery, as with three beaten arses under your belt in one day, you have outdone even my performance in my first week as a junior prefect.  Clearly, young man, you have a great year of arse whacking ahead of you. And just think, next year as a senior prefect, what the future holds for you. In a word, Rothery, the next two years at St. Olaf’s are your oyster.”

It is not difficult to see, how a man with the inherent, but hitherto un-awakened, sadistic tendencies of Rufus Rothery, listening to the blood-thirsty exhortations of a head-boy of similar, if not even more pronounced inclinations to whack boys’ arses, should allow himself to succumb to his worst instincts and inflict punishments of unjustifiable severity on his classmates whenever the opportunity arose.

And that is, of course, precisely what Rufus Rothery did. It goes without saying that the six strokes maximum, the limit imposed on junior prefects, was the generally accepted norm for any offence committed by anyone, whichever junior prefect was involved.  No junior prefect ever gave less than six strokes however slight the offence.

Not surprisingly in view of the friendship which developed between Rufus Rothery and Nigel Kingston, the then head-boy, two young men who shared a similar sadistic streak, and the willingness of the latter to intervene and give supplementary strokes on request, Rufus Rothery rapidly developed the reputation of being the new junior prefect to steer clear of; six cut beatings by Rothery, had a nasty habit of unexpectedly turning into something much worse, thanks to the frequent and willing, topping-up, interventions of the killer head-boy. 

Under Nigel Kingston’s verbal guidance, Rufus rapidly established for himself a terrifying reputation when it came to the nightly dormitory inspections, a task which he shared with his co-junior prefect in Plato House, the house to which he himself had belonged since entering the school aged thirteen. Plato House, had two dormitories for each year’s entry, each sleeping ten boys. So in all, Rufus and his co-prefect were responsible for keeping order in four dorms, two for first year boys and two for second year boys: a total of forty boys in all, all whom were looking to make mischief  and create their own little chaos whenever they thought they could get away with it.

Rufus kept the cane he had been given by the Headmaster in his own study bedroom located in Plato House. Lights-out was at eight-thirty for the first formers and nine for the second formers, by which times all boys were supposed to be in bed. Any boy caught out of bed after lights out by a prefect on dorm duty that night was liable to find himself going back to bed nursing a blistered backside acquired in full view of his dorm-mates.

As Nigel Kingston pointed out to Rufus, the two first year dorms  were a great potential source of cane-fodder for the attentive junior prefect. What usually happened was that the duty prefect saw that the boys were in bed with the lights out at the ordained times.  But the secret was to trawl back down the corridor a little later to see if anything was stirring in any of the dorms with a view to catching the occupants red-handed at some illicitly nefarious activity or another.  The aim of course, was to collect a few backsides to thrash there and then.

Over the course of Rufus’s first term he was regularly able to find some boy or other who had chanced his luck after lights-out and got out of bed to do whatever it is that young lads do if left to their own devices. But whatever the offence, the result was always the same same. The lad in question was made to put his pillow at the foot of the bed, take off his pyjama trousers, bend across the pillow and take six on the bare for his pains.

Rufus was a bit miffed to miss out himself on what was a sort of royal flush of arses to beat, when his co-prefect caught the whole of one of the second form dorms in a pillow fight half an hour after lights out.  Retribution was immediate and painful as he thrashed all ten lads on the bare before sending them all tearfully back to bed to nurse their roasted arses. Rufus fund himself getting hard just at the thought of what he had missed out on. Just think of it: ten naked arses to thrash; six strokes each; sixty resounding cuts, one after the other.  It truly was the stuff legends were made of!

But Rufus too had the occasional triumph which led to his thrashing of half the dorm. One evening he heard noise well after lights out in one of the first form dorms. He saw under the door that the light was on. He opened the door and entered, cane in hand, a habit he had adopted on his inspection trips. 

To his surprise he found four boys sitting together on one bed, bold as brass, playing some board game or other. No one else was actually asleep, but only the four engaged in the game were out of their beds.  This was typical of what happened. The lads thought that the nightly inspection was over and had risked it, putting back on the lights to play whatever game it was they were at

“The four of you, pyjama pants off, put your top pillow at the end of your bed and I want to see all four of you, arse naked, bent across it before I can count to ten.”

But now came the great revelation: quite against the rules that all boys wear only their pyjamas in bed two of the lads were wearing their underpants.

“You two, get your underpants off immediately. Don’t you know that sleeping in your underwear is firstly very unsanitary and secondly strictly forbidden in this school.”

At that moment Rufus wished that he had more than the statutory six cuts to give the two boys in question, but as he had not, he decided to make their punishment as painful as possible by doubling the strokes. So all four lads got the customary six cuts, but two of them really came off much worse. As anyone who has had the misfortune to have his backside beaten, with one stroke doubled exactly by a second, knows the pain is utterly excruciating. Just imagine how the two lads who were treated to three doubled strokes by Rufus felt by the time they were told to get up and get back into their beds.

But then it occurred to Rufus that if two of the lads had been wearing underpants to sleep, was it not also possible that among the other six boys who were still in their beds, watching their dorm-mates being beaten with that prurient, vicarious interest aroused by that innate, latent element of Schadenfreude which so many boys possessed, might also be breaking the same rule.

Acting on this thought, Rufus said: “The rest of you boys, out of bed and, all of you,  drop your pyjama trousers and let me see your arses.”

To his delight, he discovered that no less than five of the ten occupants of the dorm had been sleeping wearing their underpants.  Pointing with his cane at the three newly discovered offenders, whose panic stricken faces already indicated that they knew the fate their arses were about undergo.

“Well, you three, I think you all know what is to happen now, so put your top pillow over the bottom of your bed and get your deserving arses across it. Come on boys; jump to it; I want to see three arses ready and eager to keep their well- deserved assignation with the cane in five seconds.”

The three new offenders were obviously horrified by what was about to happen to them, but they had no alternative but to obey Rufus’s order.  And so yet again the whole dorm echoed to the crack of the cane as Rufus unrelentingly gave each lad a three on three beating. When he finally left the dorm that night, it was to the music of seven boys sobbing themselves tearfully to sleep.

Having put the first of the two new-boy dorms to rest, Rufus, with the bit now firmly between his teeth, decided to investigate the second of the of the first year dorms. As he opened the door he saw at the light was still off, but he sensed that the occupants were all still awake, having heard what was happening to their neighbours in the adjacent room. 

He switched on the light and said:  “Right boys; this is an arse inspection. I want the whole lot of you out of bed immediately. Stand to attention beside your bed and lower the trousers of your pyjamas, so that I can see your backsides. Anyone I find wearing underpants in bed under his pyjamas is for the whack,”

The boys obeyed; but four of them were very hesitant in dropping their pyjama bottoms. Their guilty faces said it all as they were each wearing underpants beneath their pyjamas. So the remaining occupants of the second dorm were treated to the spectacle of seeing four of their dorm-mates have their arses shredded by a very determined and ruthlessly efficient Rufus.

One thing was sure however: Rufus’s actions, motivated partly by his own desire to whack as many backsides as possible that evening, did have a salutary effect on the behaviour of the younger boys, all of whom realised as a result of the beatings in the two dorms, that they either toe the line and obey the rules or find themselves regularly attempting to get to sleep accompanied by a very painful arse.

By the end of his first term as a prefect, Rufus had already gained a formidable reputation as being the most ruthless of the junior prefects in his treatment of the younger boys. Both in his daily life in the school, boys whom he caught breaking even some minor rule, found themselves summoned to the library where their backsides were soundly thrashed.

And it was the same in the evenings in Plato House. Never had there ever been a junior house-prefect, who so assiduously carried out his duties of seeing that the first and second formers toed the line. 

As that first term ended for the Christmas holidays, Rufus felt very satisfied with what I suppose one might well call his caning average: the number of boys he managed to beat each week.  His victims, who for many of them their piffling crimes did not warrant the severity of punishment which Rufus regularly dispensed, seized upon his name and with that typical flight of alliterative imagination so common amongst schoolboys, nicknamed him, most appropriately, Ruthless Rufus.

So by the end of that first term it is safe to say that among all the prefects, both junior and senior, Rufus was the most feared and most hated by the majority of the first and second formers at St. Olaf’s. But also by the end of that first term, the duo, Rufus Rothery plus Nigel Kingston, the gruesome-twosome as they became to be known, were totally feared by the entire school. 

Nigel Kingston, the head-boy, was considered by all and sundry as the absolute, quintessential bastard when it came to using the cane. Add to the beatings he dispensed his own right, those top-up strokes he regularly added to the beatings performed by Ruthless Rufus, the whole school sighed metaphorically with relief when the end of the school year arrived and Nigel Kingston left St. Olaf’s to go on to university, taking with him the doubtful distinction of being the most hated head-boy in living memory.

Alas when the new school year dawned, the boys realised they had counted their chickens before they were hatched.  To their horror, the Headmaster announced at the first daily assembly of the new school year, that none other than Rufus Rothery, Ruthless Rufus, was to be head-boy for the present year.  The announcement was met with a deafening silence as its significance sank in and the boys realised that in losing the hated Kingston, they might somehow, just have gone from bad to worse

In replacing Kingston as head-boy, Ruthless Rufus already enjoyed – if that is the right word – the reputation he had developed in his first year as a junior prefect. His caning skills were already legendary throughout the school and his willingness to wield the cane made him the most feared of any of the then prefects, juniors and seniors included  He was reckoned, by a good margin to be the strictest of disciplinarians and the hardest of hard caners among the prefects and masters.  Only the Headmaster himself was viewed with greater fear than Rufus Rothery; and that was before he was named head-boy!

At the end of the previous term, Rufus had already been apprised by the Headmaster of his elevation to this, the highest position of honour, not to mention power, available to boys in the school.  He had been as stunned as the rest of the boys were to be, when he had been told by the Headmaster of his elevation to the top position in the hierarchy of prefects. 

But given his own penchant for severity, he had every intention of using his elevated position to indulge himself and make his final  year at St. Olaf’s a memorable one, both in terms of the self-satisfaction  he got when wielding the cane and the Schadenfreude he felt when he imparted pain to his classmates. The Headmaster had, quite unknowingly, provided Rufus with another step in his progress towards tyranny.

CHAPTER 8

But to come back for a moment to that conversation between Rufus and the head-boy immediately following the beating of Barker and Havers in the library, Nigel Kingston had had other things on his mind concerning his fast burgeoning relationship with Rufus Rothery. And as will now be revealed, what was to result from the growing friendship between the two young-men was to have a very profound influence on Rufus’s future life.

Nigel Kingston said to Rufus: “Well Rothery, as I already observed to you, you did very well this evening.”  But then he introduced a totally new note into the conversation: “I would say from observing you as you wielded the cane, that you were really enjoying yourself, shredding the arses of those two, well-deserving, young miscreants, Barker and Havers. But not to put too fine a point on it, I saw from the way your cock was tenting the crotch of your trousers as you wielded the rod of justice that you were completely aroused by what you were doing.”

“Now don’t’ think  that I am  criticising you, for I have to admit that I felt exactly the same emotions myself. In fact, to be honest, I find myself sexually fully aroused every time I beat a boy’s naked arse. But I wonder how you feel now, right after the event.  Don’t you feel the need to get physical with yourself to relieve the erotic tension which has built up? I know that I do, after those additional cuts I have just given.”

Rufus was taken totally off guard by this very direct question. He was still acutely aware that he still was sporting more then the remnants of the erection he had developed as he thrashed the two lads, which had been intensified as he watched – with that customary element of the ever present Schadenfreude – the head-boy deliver his additional cuts. So he saw immediately that Kingston’s analysis of the situation was correct.  Rufus was acutely aware that he desperately needed to jerk himself off to relieve the tension which had automatically built up as he had thrashed the two lads and which had been been intensified by Kingston’s additional strokes.

He also knew that the last few times he himself had been beaten, when he was fifteen or so, that he had finished up standing there totally embarrassed in front of the Headmaster with a rock-hard erection which he had not been able to conceal. The Headmaster, with a hit of a smile and looking directly at Rufus’s boner, had then remarked that he thought Rufus needed to go off and attend to that. And so Rufus had then gone off to the nearest lavatory to try to assuage the raging pain in his arse and to relieve his feelings by jerking himself off. 

So as he could now see from his own personal experience, the act of being beaten and the act of beating someone else both had the same erotic effect on him: he finished up with a rock-hard erection and needed some sort of sexual relief. Like most lads of his age, he regularly masturbated in his bed, taking care to catch his emissions in what was generally called a wank rag. In his case this was a series of handkerchiefs which he then put in to be washed with his laundry.

He also knew that what was obliquely referred to as self abuse was frowned upon by the powers that be. But pretty well all the boys in his dorm wanked under the bed-clothes on on a regular basis. So, on this occasion, with his cock demanding immediate attention, without any encouragement from the Headmaster, he would have gone off anyway to his own room and jerked himself off with a vengeance.

All such traditional sexual activities, typical of boys of his age, public school or not, Rufus had hitherto performed strictly in private. All boys, in any dorm, knew what everyone else was doing, but there was no communal wanking. It was just too dangerous, as dorm inspections were religiously and rigorously carried out by the prefects and any infractions detected – as they frequently were – led to immediate, on-the-spot, bare-arse roastings. In fact, Rufus, as a junior prefect had looked forward to his dorm duty with the opportunity it offered him to beat arse on the spot.

In reality, the nearest most of the lads ever got to group sexual activities was when one of their number showed them the stripes on his blistered arse after a beating.  This passive act for the observers nevertheless had the effect of simulating them sexually. Most of the boys who gazed in awe and wonder, coupled with that omnipresent element of fear that their own arses might meet the same fate, found that their cocks had, somehow, automatically become erect and were demanding immediate attention.

This was first intimation to most of of them that here was one part of their body – and a very vital part – over which they had no direct control. And that was exactly the state in which Rufus now found himself. His cock, exercising that mind of its own, had remained resolutely and defiantly hard despite his wish to the contrary.

Rufus, having no experience of anything even vaguely smacking of sexual intercourse with another person, was somewhat of a loss in knowing what to say to Kingston in response to his question. What exactly did he mean by getting physical? But Kingston had been so direct: referring to Rufus’s cock tenting his pants and his own sexual stirrings, it was clear that he had some joint activity in mind; but what? 

It has to be said that in the earlier part of the twentieth century where this story is set, all the sexual activities, about which we today talk freely, were cloaked in discrete mystery.  In fact, cloaked can hardly describe the total lack of information on the simple facts of life, let alone the various sexual practices based on the basic sex act: practices that were just as common then as they are today, but which were then never spoken of in polite society. 

So teenagers at that time were much less well informed of the facts of life and of sexual practices in general, all of which we today, a century later, take for granted. The lack of sexual knowledge, other than wanking, which seemed to come automatically as an act pre-ordained by nature, was then the norm. What was evident was the fact that Nigel Kingston, one year older than his protégé, for that is how he already secretly saw Rufus, had somehow extended his knowledge of sex and was now intent on initiating Rufus him into the unbridled joys of sex beyond solo masturbation. 

Having obtained no clear answer to his question to Rufus about his need to get physical, Kingston took the proverbial bull by the horns and said: “Come on, Rothery, don’t dither. Let’s go to my study and have a wank together, followed by a fag and a drink together before bed.”

Rufus was somewhat taken aback by the baldness of the head-boy’s suggestion. It is quite true that left to his own devices Rufus would have gone off and jerked himself off in private as he was fully aware of the pleasurable orgasm that his personal, five-fingered lover would generate. But he was a bit shocked to hear the head-boy’s suggestion that they go off and wank together and that they then go on to break two of the most sacred rules of the school. Both smoking and drinking were strictly forbidden and any boy caught indulging in either act was subject to a monumental beating by the Headmaster and possible expulsion if caught. 

But when Rufus expressed his fears, Kingston said: “You are quite right, Rothery, the dangers are there. But breaking the rules is exactly what makes life exciting and the secret is not to get caught at it –whatever it might be.  Look at it this way; if we caught any of our schoolmates at it, then it would be our duty as prefects to shred their arses. But when we do that we are not, in fact, punishing them for what they were doing, whatever that might be. We are simply punishing them for being stupid enough to allow themselves to be caught in the act.”

“Look, what the eye does not see, the heart does not grieve. So the art of breaking the rules is to make jolly well sure that you don’t get caught. So come on, Rothery, live dangerously for once and enjoy life. We are both over eighteen years of age and I always feel like a good wank after I have whacked someone. Alliteration apart, whacking followed by wanking seem to go hand-in-hand to me.”

“So as I have already said, I can see from the way your trousers look that you are desperately in need of a wank yourself, so why don’t we enjoy a wank together?  Look, no one is going to catch us at it behind the locked door of my study. And anyway, there is always a certain thrill in knowing that you are breaking the rules and the possibility of dire consequences if you get caught. But have no fear; we shall not get caught. Come on, Rothery, you know that you need a wank just as much as I do. So put your fears aside and let’s do it together.”

And that was how Rufus, aged eighteen had his first introduction to the banal sexual act of masturbating with another man, an act which takes place all the time among older boys, all of whom are really young men, who are starved of female company in public schools.

He and the head-boy began their joint effort by each of them jerking himself off behind the locked door of Kingston’s study.  But the head-boy, who had taken a great liking to his younger homologue, had no intention of stopping there, now that he had seduced – for that is exactly what he had done – Rufus into lowering his guard. So in no time at all, Kingston had Rufus and himself naked together and in, what was, for Rufus, his first true sexual encounter.

Kingston, who, unbeknown to Rufus at that moment, was actively gay – as we would say today – desperately wanted to have sex with his younger protégé. He began by holding Rufus close to him and, quite boldly kissed him full on the mouth.  Then he gradually descended with his lips down Rufus’s naked body, visiting both nipples on his way, until he arrived at the first of his first principal objectives: Rufus’s cock. By this time, Rufus was again fully erect with all the attention his body had been receiving.

Rufus, by now totally in the thrall of his first sexual encounter,  offered no resistance as his first-ever sex partner knelt in front of him and took his cock into his mouth. As Kingston gently sucked Rufus’s cock, Rufus, new to sex as he was, quickly climaxed and gave Kingston his creamy load of sperm full in his face.  But now, totally seduced as he was by Kingston, Rufus allowed himself to be led docilely to the head-boy’s bed without truly realising, even then, what was about to happen to him. 

Kingston, who was himself a fully-experienced operator when it came to anal sex, quickly flipped Rufus onto his stomach and applied a generous dose of baby-oil to his partner’s anus. Then, with no hesitation whatsoever, he spread Rufus’s legs, knelt down between them and pressed the head of his cock against his anal entry. And that is how, within seconds, Rufus took his first, ever cock up his arse and lost his anal virginity to the head-boy, Nigel Kingston.

As Kingston thrust his sizeable tool into Rufus’s anus, Rufus felt a sharp stab of pain as he took the full length of the hard, invading phallus inside of himself. He let out a slight moan of pain, but Kingston pressed on regardless.  But once Kingston started his thrusting, giving Rufus his first ever anal fuck, Rufus found that in spite of the pain, he was actually enjoying the experience of what was to prove the first of many sexual couplings between Kingston and him that school year.

Things had gone at break-neck speed from what had been really little more than a rather distant, casual acquaintanceship as schoolmates, via complicity in beating two boys, to full sexual intimacy.  As they lay there together in Kingston’s bed Rufus found himself luxuriating in his new-found state. He had long known that he found other men more attractive than women. But now that he was in bed with – to coin a name – his lover, he knew that the die had been cast and that his life would never be the same again. Like many hitherto latent, homosexual young men, in his own heart, he already knew, after this one experience that his sexual future would lie with other men.

Rufus lay there with his own cock still rock-hard, looking longingly and, it has to be said, somewhat lasciviously, at the naked figure of Kingston, the man who had just relieved him of his anal virginity.  He had been totally carried away by the way Kingston had fucked him without any preliminary discussion of his intentions. And now as he looked at Kingston, admiring his athletically muscled body, he felt in himself the urge to continue and complete the experience, which he realised was not yet complete. 

At that moment, Rufus was still in what might best be described as a state of suspended, aroused, sexual readiness. He knew he wanted something else to happen as he did not want his first true sexual experience to end there. But as a newcomer to sex he really had no idea how to take the next step. He had been the passive partner in what had happened so far in that he had been fucked.  But was that to be it for now? Was the business over as far as Kingston was concerned or did he want more action and if so, what?

Kingston came to his rescue by suddenly saying: “Well, Rufus, go on then. Do it!” This was the first time he had called Rufus by his first name a fact which indicated a change in their relationship. “You know you want to do the same to me. Just look at your cock. It’s is telling you quite clearly what it wants to do. So why deny it its God-given purpose in life, which is to fuck. So go on. Fuck me. That’s what your cock is there for! You know you want to. And frankly, Rufus, I’m really in the mood to have my arse fucked.”

Kingston then continued quite brutally: “You know, Rufus, I often feel like getting my own hole shafted after I have just fucked someone myself.  So go on, Rufus, take the plunge, live dangerously for once. I know you want to fuck me; you know you want to fuck me; I have just told you that I would like to be fucked; so what more do you need? Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth. I’m offering you my arse on a plate, so just go ahead and fuck it. So for Christ’s sakes, man, go ahead and fuck me!”

Kingston then stood up, picked up the bottle of baby-oil, which he handed to Rufus before lying down on his back, spreading his legs to expose his vital port of entry and saying: “Well, go on then, Rufus, you know the drill. Just lube my hole up well and then away you go.  And, Rufus, by the way, in case no one has ever told you, you do have a very desirable piece of meat between your legs. So don’t hesitate; just stick it to me and give me as hard a fuck as I have just given you. Go on Rufus; everyone has to have a first time and your first time is right now. So just go ahead, stick your cock up my arse and fuck me as hard as you can.”

If ever a man had called a spade a shovel, it was Kingston at that moment. And so, encouraged by Kingston’s brutally explicit exhortations, Rufus did exactly as he had been told. And it was all true; Kingston had summed it all up exactly. Rufus knew now that he desperately wanted to fuck Kingston just as much as Kingston wanted to be fucked. So the two of them had one hell of a return bout of anal sex, as Rufus surrendered his final vestige of virginity to Kingston by thrusting his cock into his partner’s inviting, and well-lubricated anus.

Like so many young men, nervous as hell as he prepared to penetrate another man for the very first time, Rufus found that initial penetration somewhat intimidating. He felt Kingston’s tight anus resisting the head of his penis as he thrust himself against the resistance of a muscular anal sphincter.  For a moment, it seemed to him that his partner’s entry port was refusing him entry.

But then, Kingston, ever ready with advice,  told Rufus to thrust harder which he did and suddenly Rufus found his cock sliding smoothly into the innermost depths of his partner. The sensation he experienced was utterly delightful: quite beyond anything he had ever felt sexually in his lone wankings. For a few moments he luxuriated in that moment of domination and feeling of intense satisfaction which the fact of being deep inside of his partner gave him. His momentary idyll was broken by a brusque order from Kingston.

“Well, Rufus, now that you have managed to shaft me, do please get on with it and give me really good, hard fuck, as that is exactly what I need right now. Come on, Rufus, don’t keep me waiting any longer.”

For a moment Rufus hesitated, but then he discovered, as do most young men when they indulge in their very first act of copulation, whether gay or straight, that he needed no further urging. Nature told him instinctively what he had to do; and so, he set about doing it with considerable vigour. For a totally inexperienced young man, who had, been thrown, completely un-warned in at the deep end of his first sexual experience, it has to be said that Rufus showed an amazing aptitude for the task in front of him.

I use the word task purely figuratively, for as Rufus quickly discovered what he was required to do to satisfy his partner came quite naturally and was a real pleasure rather than a task. And as ever, the act of copulation quickly led him that all-too-short moment of exquisite, orgasmic pleasure as he suddenly exploded deep inside of his partner. He began with a few, tentative, gentle, in-out thrust with his cock but then quickly settled into a rhythm of forceful strokes which became successively ever longer as he went 

To his great credit, he practically withdrew himself completely from  Kingston’s anus before making that last powerful thrust which brought him to his first experience of an orgasm which he had not induced by wanking himself off. For Rufus, this was probably the greatest and certainly the most pleasurable moment in his life to date.

As he lay there on top of Kingston, his cock still deeply embedded in his partner’s arse, Rufus felt totally fulfilled.  All the more so, as that final thrust which had given him his own orgasm, had also brought Kingston to his own climax. With his own cock still deep inside of his partner in what we know today as the mission position, he suddenly found himself bathed in a mini-tsunami of sperm which Kingston ejaculated with considerable vigour over himself and Rufus.

Rufus had suddenly acceded to his manhood in a totally unplanned manner, but found he had loved every moment of it.  But he already knew, after that first fuck when he had given his own penis its maiden experience with another man, that he was destined to be what we today would call a top. That inbuilt streak of sadism in his nature was already dictating to him that he must be the dominant partner in any sexual relationship. 

And to dominate his partner, he must always be the one who fucked and his partner, whoever that might be, must be someone who was willing to be fucked. OK, from time to time if needs must and the occasion demanded it, Rufus saw that he had to allow his partner of the moment access to his own anus. But basically he just knew that he had to dominate his partner in any sexual context. In a word, Rufus had to be the top: the guy who did the fucking

“Well, well, well, Rufus! Still waters run deep, as the saying has it. You know Rufus, after that performance it is hard to believe that that was your first fuck ever: that you were exercising your cock on another man for the very first time. All I can say, Rufus, is that I take my hat off to you. You have a natural aptitude when it comes to copulating with another man and I promise you that I enjoyed very moment of what you have just done to me as I can see that you yourself did.”

“So why don’t you prove my diagnosis correct and that what you just did to me is not a fluke, by giving me a repeat performance? Come on, Rufus, how about it? Are you up to fucking me again right now?”

Of course, the challenging words: are you up to, would have aroused the mettle of any man and Rufus was no exception. And so he snapped at the bait and Kingston’s arse took a monumental, second beating from Rufus’s cock, during which any doubts that Rufus was not up to it, were laid to rest.

“My God, Rufus, you really have got the bit between your teeth. In my view you have little more to learn about butt fucking: Frankly, you’re a natural; and I really do mean that; I am not saying it to flatter you! So there you are. You have now tasted, and I am sure appreciated, what is, without any doubt, the greatest pleasure known to the human male. It is often described as the toy which never fails to please, which means that it is one of those rare acts which will give us pleasure throughout our entire lives.”

“Just let me say, Rufus, that I am delighted to have had the privilege of showing you the light. I can but hope that you have enjoyed yourself as much as I have and that we can look forward to a year of – how shall I best put it politely – frequent and intense copulation?”

Well, as you might well imagine, given the affinity which the two young men had not only for sex but also for wielding the cane, Rufus  Rothery, the newly appointed  junior prefect and Nigel Kingston, the head-boy, fucked each other on a regular basis through the three terms of that school-year.  Rufus took every opportunity to beat arse and by the end of the year, under his nick-name, Ruthless Rufus, a sobriquet which the vigour of his actions with the cane amply justified, he had achieved the distinction of being the most feared and hated of the junior prefects.

His reputation as being the hardest and most frequent caner among the junior prefects was considerably enhanced by the regular supplementary interventions of the head-boy, whose arm was ever ready to supply additional strokes above the six allowed by a junior prefect.  This was a limitation, which in Rufus’s view, cramped his style.

As for Nigel, well his reputation with the cane had been already well-established at the beginning of the year. When he left St. Olaf’s at the end of the school-year there was a general, silent sigh of relief from the boys that he was finally gone. But as already mentioned earlier, the relief was short lived when the whole school learned that the dreaded and universally hated Rufus Rothery – Ruthless Rufus – was to be the new head-boy for the coming year.

CHAPTER 9

The new school year dawned in early September. Rufus Rothery installed himself in the spacious suite of two rooms which the head-boy of St. Olaf’s was accorded. Each sixth former had his own study bedroom, but as head-boy Rufus had the large study with a fire-place, a bathroom and a bedroom. He was already totally familiar with the generous accommodation in which he would spend his final year at the school.

After all, his first experiences with the strict discipline, which rules at St. Olaf’s had been as a first-year new-boy fag to the then head-boy, Jeremy Sefton, who had mercilessly beaten Rufus’s naked arse on the flimsiest of reasons on many, many occasions, in that selfsame place.  But then just last year, thanks to his liaison with the then head-boy, Nigel Kingston, his closest friend and immediate predecessor,  he had been a regular frequenter of the head-boy’s quarters, usually for illicit sexual assignations. 

As he looked around the study – his study! – with which he was so very familiar, he saw the old oriental pot, bristling with canes, the legacy of countless of his predecessors, standing menacingly beside his desk. His eye lighted on the ancient, low-backed, leather-covered armchair, over whose back countless boys, himself included, had, over the years, bent, offering their naked arses to the tender loving care of the head-boy of the day’s cane. 

As he looked down at the tear-stained cushion on the seat of the chair, he promised himself that he would, in the coming year, add his own legacy to that permanent, historic record. Now that he was indisputably in charge of the discipline dispensed by the prefects, he would see to it that the tear-stained area increased considerably in what he fancifully thought of as the coming golden age of the cane which would occur under his tenure. The boot was firmly on his foot and as head-boy his word was more-or-less law. He had every intention of carrying out his duties to the letter. 

No misdeed, however minor, which came to his attention, would go unpunished. The school rules would be obeyed to the letter; by his schoolmates, of course. There would be a regular stream of young miscreants presenting their naked arses to him for correction over the back of that armchair and he already found himself stirring in his trousers at the thought of just how hard he would thrash those buttocks, deserving or not!

Rufus was already aware that he had a stellar reputation – if it can be called that – gained during the previous year as a junior prefect and that he was probably hated by every boy in the school.  But that did not matter to him at all. As a junior prefect and now as head-boy, he had been given a job to do: a job which he secretly liked as it gave him power over his classmates: but a job which also set him apart from the other boys of his age, together with whom he still sat in class each day. 

But even as a junior prefect, he had taken on board the Headmaster’s advice and distanced himself from his classmates. He knew that he was no longer one of them; that he could not both run with the hare and hunt with the hounds. And so, ensconced in the head-boy’s study – his study! – flush with the power which he now had,  Rufus looked forward to a year when, as head-boy, he would, quite literally, leave his mark on a large number of his schoolmates in the form of that public school speciality: a well beaten arse.

Of course, as head-boy, he had a fag.  The general practice of allocating a fag to all upper sixth formers had been stopped by the previous Headmaster, other than for the head-boy himself and the house-captains. So Rufus Rothery had what might best be called a whipping boy at his disposition for the whole of his final year at St. Olaf’s. As he sat there thinking about the power he possessed, his mind went back to his first year at the school when he had had the misfortune to be the fag of the then head-boy,  Jeremy Sefton, who had  thrashed his backside times without number.

In retrospect, it had been Jeremy Sefton and his fondness for the cane that had probably awaked that latent streak of sadism in Rufus’s character. Of course, Jeremy Sefton had not been the only prefect in the course of Rufus’s career through the school to roast his backside. But looking back on things, it was Jeremy Sefton and his expertly painful expertise with the cane who stuck in Rufus’s memory.

Without even knowing the identity of the first former who had had the misfortune to be assigned to Rufus, as his fag, one can already feel sorry for the young lad, who would quickly find out that he had a strict martinet as his fag-master. In fact, throughout the course of his final year, Rufus more or less treated his poor fag as a backstop: someone for whom he could easily find – or possibly invent – an excuse to beat if no other deserving backside was in view.

But Rufus Rothery had greater aspirations, given his power as head-boy. Already unpopular and considered by those who had known him as junior prefect as an absolute sod, he had every intention of burnishing that doubtful reputation until, at the end of his school career, it shone like gold. It is doubtful if those who considered Rufus a sod in the general vulgar sense of the word, realised what an apposite description of Rufus’s proclivities the word truly implied. Given Rufus’s sexual proclivities and his general sadistic tendencies towards his fellow schoolmates, the word, sod – short for sodomite – most aptly summed his character. 

Rufus had the knack of seizing upon even the slightest peccadillo and turning it into a beatable offence. In a word he was an expert at making a mountain out of a molehill that inevitably led to a well-beaten arse for the poor lad concerned.  His reign of terror, for that is how it rapidly came to be viewed by his schoolmates, began the very first day of the new term at lunch time. Rufus did not allow the grass to grow under his feet when it came to discipline!

CHAPTER  10

In the refectory the boys sat at long tables grouped by their year. First-formers sat at their own series of separate tables, each of which was supervised by a prefect. Of course, one of these tables was under the eagle and eager eye of the head-boy, just waiting to pounce on seize on the slightest whisper of anything which smacked of a fault.  Rufus sat at the end of the table with boys seated on benches facing each other, down each side of the table. As this was the first day, the boys did not really know one another and Rufus did not yet know the names of any of the first-former lads he was supervising.

As lunch progressed, Rufus saw that the boy who was sitting in third place on his left was shovelling his food into his mouth, his fork held in his right hand like a shovel, whilst his knife languished, untouched, on the plate. Rufus saw this as an opportunity not to miss and set about building this slight lapse of what were then considered to be good table manners, into a monumental misdemeanour.

“You there, the third boy on my left, what on earth do you think you are doing at table?”

The poor youth startled at the brusque question posed by a person who was obviously in charge replied: “I am just eating my lunch, sir.”

Rufus did not let even this trivial, verbal faux-pas pass as he went on and corrected the boy: “I am just eating my lunch, Rothery.  You do not address any of your school mates ever as sir, which is the way you address a master.  However, perhaps you would now explain to me why you are holding your fork in your right hand and using it as a shovel to feed oversized gobbets of food into your mouth, whilst your knife lies unused on your plate. Young man, in polite society, one holds the knife in one’s right hand and the fork in one’s left.  And the fork is used to spear the food – that is what the prongs are for – and never as a shovel as you are doing at the moment.”

“There is a saying: Manners maketh man. Well, young man, all I can say after seeing you at table today, is that you have no table manners at all.  What is your name, boy, and in which form are you?”

By now the young lad was totally embarrassed and flustered by this unexpected verbal onslaught from the head-boy: “My name is David Patterson, sir. Sorry, I mean Rothery.”

“Are you aware, Paterson, that in polite society, one does not eat in the way you were doing just now?”

“Yes, Rothery, and I am sorry, it won’t happen again.”

By now the table had fallen silent as Rufus continued his haranguing interrogation of the unfortunate Patterson.  “Stand up, Patterson, and let me take a good look at you.”

Patterson extricate himself from the communal bench on which he was stating and stood there totally embarrassed by what was happening to him.  Rufus looked disdainfully at him before saying: “Patterson, I see that you have as much regard for your appearance as you seem to have for your eating habits. Just look at yourself, boy; the top button of your shirt is undone and the knot of your tie not in the place it should be, which is between the tabs of your shirt collar. And I see also that you evidently forgot to clean your shoes this morning as they look as though you have just come in from a field.” 

This was a blatant exaggeration as Patterson’s shoes, although not gleamingly polished as the school rules dictated, were not all that bad.  Patterson was just one of those boys, who, come what may, would probably always look a little dishevelled. But Patterson’s table manners and his less than perfect attire were all the ammunition Rufus needed.

“Patterson, I think you are seriously in need of guidance as to how boys are expected to behave in this school. See me in my study immediately following lunch when I shall attempt to set you right on a number of things.  Now, sit down, boy, and finish your lunch.”

Any appetite Patterson had had, had, by now, vanished and his half finished plate remained untouched. Needless to say, after this rather unnerving incident, the whole table finished the meal in total silence.  All the boys at the table were first formers and new to the school. But the ominous way in which the head-boy had spoken to Patterson and the order to see him in his study said it all.  The whole table already knew that Patterson was going to get his arse whacked before he grew much older.

Rufus arrived at his study before Patterson, his first victim as head-boy and installed himself magisterially behind his desk. And make no mistake, David Patterson was a victim of Rufus’s desire to whack arse, come what may. There was no way that the co-called offence he had committed merited any form of corporal punishment, or for that matter any punishment at all, other than a possible, gentle, verbal reprimand to mend his table manners.   

A timid knock came at the door and after a slight pause, Rufus shouted, through the closed door, to the boy to come in. A very timid and nervous-looking Patterson entered the study and stood, visibly trembling, before the head-boy. With the oriental pot bristling with punishment canes to his right, and a stern look on his face, Rufus made a frightening impression on the young lad who had no idea at all what was about to happen to him.

“Patterson, I would be failing in my duty as head-boy of this school if I allowed you to continue with your appalling table manners. Your parents have sent you to this school to benefit from an education which befits a young gentleman and your manners are anything but those which are expected of you, even as a new boy.  And then, just look at your general appearance; you, Patterson, look as though you have been dragged through a hedge. The school rules are quite clear on dress but, for some reason, you seem to have chosen to ignore them completely.”

Rufus went on and on, until he had reduced the young lad almost to tears by his verbal onslaught.  And so it was almost a relief to the lad, when the axe finally fell and Patterson learned of his immediate fate.

“And so I am sure that you will agree with me, that I would be remiss in my duty as head-boy if I were not to attempt to correct your obvious misconception of the way boys are expected to behave in this school: to bring home to you in a very immediate way, what is considered acceptable and what is definitely not.”

“So, Patterson, it is with great reluctance that I am afraid I have no alternative but to beat you. You will appreciate that I will take no pleasure at all in what I am about to do to you, which is done only with your own best interests at heart.  But I have to say that it is amazing what an immediate beneficial effect a sharp and, I regret to say, painful dose of the cane applied to a boy’s posterior, has on his behaviour.”

By this time, Patterson had become resigned to his fate and said nothing. How he felt on his very first day at the school that he was going to have his arse whacked for what was hardly an offence at all, we shall never know. But offence or not, it was sufficient to allow Rufus to indulge in, what had the previous year as a junior prefect, one of his favourite pastimes.  As if to confirm Patterson’s fate, Rufus rummaged around among the canes in the pot at his side, finally selected one and held it up for Patterson to see.

Then, as if to show the lad that it was fit for purpose, he bent the implement of punishment more or less into a full circle before allowing it to spring back and  swishing it dramatically down through the air a few times,. Not surprisingly, Patterson flinched when he saw what the head-boy had in store for him.  But the full impact of what a beating by the head-boy at St. Olaf’s really implied for the unfortunate recipient, was yet to be brought home to the young lad, who not surprisingly after the dramatic demonstration he had just witnessed, was now trembling with fear of what was to come,

“Take off you blazer, Patterson, lay it on the table over there and then go and stand behind the armchair over there.”

Patterson did as ordered and stood there waiting the next instruction.

“Now, Patterson, drop your trousers and underpants and bend across the back of the chair and place your hands firmly on the arms of the chair. And make sure that you get that key part of your anatomy, your backside, high into the air, boy;  the dog has got to see the rabbit.”

This was the horrible moment of truth for Patterson: the moment when he finally realised what Rothery had in store for him. He had resign himself to being whacked, but had not reckoned that he was going to take the cane across his bare arse.

He started to protest: “Oh please, Rothery, you are not going to whack me on my bare bum, are you?  Please Rothery, not on my bare bum. Couldn’t I at least keep my underpants on?  I have never ever been whacked before and I am terrified of what you are about to do to me. So, please, please, please, Rothery, not on the bare, I beg of you. It will just hurt too much.”

“Patterson, when I give a boy and order, I do not expect to be questioned on it; I expect it to be obeyed and obeyed immediately. So kindly do as I have just said, lower your trousers and underpants and present to me you bare bum – as you call it – for punishment.  Patterson, as you are obviously unaware of the way things are done in this school when a boy is caned, it is always – I  repeat, always –  across his bare buttocks, And that, young man, goes for all of us, from first formers to sixth. Such matters are not, as you seem to think, open for negotiation.”

“Incidentally, for your information, here at St. Olaf’s, we, the boys throughout the school, always refer to our bottoms as our arses.  Vulgar, I grant you; but that is the way it is. So after your beating, you will be sporting what is usually referred to as a well-beaten arse. And just so that you are not disappointed, allow me to say, that I am an expert at providing boys with well-beaten arses.”

“Also, although I am head-boy and in which capacity I am authorised by the the Headmaster to cane miscreants such as you, I too am subject to the exact same rules. If I break a rule, then even my status as head-boy will not save me from punishment. Believe me, Patterson; the Headmaster would have no hesitation in beating me on the bare if I merited it,  just as I have no hesitation at the moment in beating you. So now that we have got that straight, get your bare arse across the back of that armchair and let’s get on with things.”

Patterson, looking ever more nervous and clearly on the verge of tears, finally complied and presented what was a plump and undefiled  virgin  arse – virgin, every sense of the word – to Rufus.

“Patterson, before I begin, I think you should be aware of what is considered acceptable behaviour for a boy whilst he is being beaten. As ever there is a certain traditional protocol that young gentlemen such as you, who are being punished, are expected to observe.  I am telling you this before I administer the first of the six cuts of the cane, so that you do not stray from what is acceptable behaviour as you are being punished. That way, you will know how to behave in the future on what, I have no doubt, will be similar occasions.”

Now at least, Patterson knew, for the first time, exactly how many strokes he would have to bear.

“Firstly, Patterson, you must keep perfectly still with your hands firmly on the arms of the chair. Under no circumstances may you allow your hands to stray to your buttocks in an attempt to diminish the pain that you will be experiencing. And make no mistake, Patterson; have no false illusions; your buttocks will be very painful after I have finished with you. Pain, Patterson, is the name of the game when it comes to correcting an errant youth such as you. Moreover, you must keep still and under no circumstances attempt to stand up during the course of your beating.”

“So let us be quite clear, Patterson, as to what will happen if you do not follow the simple rules I have just outlined. There are no ifs and buts; quite simply, the punishment will be started again from the beginning. So, young man, if you value your arse, I suggest you obey the rules and take your punishment in the way a young gentleman should. Break the rules and your backside will suffer even more.”

“Patterson, the cane, and its regular application to the bare arses of boys who misbehave, is a permanent feature of life in this school. So just accept the fact that if you are caught breaking any of the school’s rules you are putting your arse on the line; it will be beaten; and make no mistake; it will be beaten hard.”

“Oh, just one final point before we move on to the practical side of our meeting today. You may make as much noise as you wish. Beatings are painful events and there is no shame in crying out with the pain you will shortly be enduring or in shedding a few tears. No one will think the less of you for expressing your feelings. My own view is that if a boy stands up in tears from a beating I have just given him, I have done a good job. Well I think that is all, Patterson. So shall we initiate your arse into one of the key activities of the school?”

Patterson had had to endure this long-winded homily from the head-boy whilst in the uncomfortable position of being stretched, arse naked, across the armchair

By this time, the poor lad’s buttocks were quivering with the thought of what the head-boy intended to visit on him and it was all he could do to not to piss himself. Resigned as he had, by now, become, to having his bare arse shredded with the cane, he just wished that Rufus would stop talking and get on with the job to hand. He, quite rightly, considered that the beating he was about to be given was totally unjustified, which it was. But as many who gone before him and who would doubtless pass after him he realised that he had absolutely no means of avoiding it. Poor Patterson was in the grin and bear it mode.

And so, as Rufus Rothery finished his remarks, David Patterson, closed his eyes, gritted his teeth and prayed he would not disgrace himself as he waited for the first stroke of the cane to mate with his bare arse. The lad was justifiably nervous, as he had never before felt a cane across his bottom.  But the seemingly interminable wait was still not over. Suddenly the head-boy, who had been tapping the cane across Patterson’s bare arse, positioning his first stroke, stopped what he was doing.

To be continued.