The Making of a Tyrannical Headmaster

CHAPTER 21

Rufus felt a great deal better in himself, having calmed his need to use the cane on no less than six naked arses within the last hour.  He regretted that he had been forced to assuage his burning need to beat arse on a group of younger boys. Even though he had had the good luck to catch a group of six young lads, whose backsides he had proceeded to beat and leave his mark in his own inimitably vigorous way, he would still have preferred to have expended his efforts on the more muscular arse of an older lad. His ideal subject was a boy, or probably better put, a young man, from the upper-sixth, on whose bare, muscular arse he could give full and powerful expression to his expertise with the cane, in preparation for what he proposed to inflict on Tom Swires a few days later.

But, on the whole, older boys were wiser boys and were much more discrete in their nefarious activities. But when they broke the rules, as many of them did, they tended to do so with considerable more guile than their younger school-mates. And so they were much more difficult to catch in the act and were therefore less frequent visitors to that tabernacle of correction, their housemaster’s study. However, whenever any of them were summoned to see Rufus, like the younger boys, they shivered with fear, for Rufus had the reputation of skinning the older lads alive. Now that may have been an exaggeration, but whenever Rufus thrashed an older boy it was with unbridled vigour. Just looking at a set of muscular buttocks turned Rufus on sexually and once sexually aroused, his beatings were justifiably spoken of with awe.

But that evening Rufus had more or less abandoned all thought of lighting upon an older boy to thrash. And so it was that he made his way back to his quarters in a relatively relaxed frame of mind. Even though he had not found an older boy on whom he could exercise his undoubted expertise to the full, the fact that he had had beaten six lads in short shrift had gone a long way to tiding him over until his meeting with Tom on Tuesday evening.

But those often-invoked, mythical beings, the Gods, chose to smile on Rufus Rothery that evening, and as he walked along the corridor past the closed doors of the individual sixth former study-bedrooms, he suddenly became aware of the inimitable odour of cigarette smoke. It was faint, but definitely there in the corridor.  The thought of catching someone smoking, one of the seven deadliest of sins at St. Olaf’s, brought Rufus out of the comfortable reverie into which he had fallen, thinking of his immediate past accomplishments with the cane. Suddenly was alive and alert again, on the qui vive and raring to go. Someone in the sixth from was smoking and he intended to find out who it was.

Ha paced silently along the corridor, halting in front of each study door in turn, until he came upon one where from under the door he saw that the light was clearly still on.  The smell of the cigarette smoke was stronger and it was clearly emanating from this very study. He listened intently at the closed door and heard the soft murmur of voices within. So the occupant was not alone; he had company.  He looked at the name plate on the door; and then it suddenly hit him. This was Robert Turnbull’s room; Turnbull, one of the brightest boys in the school; now pushing nineteen and assured of  a place at Cambridge; an all-round sportsman and a stalwart of the school’s rugger XV; one of the most popular boys in the school;  who was idolised by all the younger boys on account of his sporting prowess.

But Turnbull was also one of the most disobedient and mischievous lads. He was one of those lads whose credo was that rules were there to be broken. And break them he did, as a result of which he was easily the most beaten boy in the entire school. But Turnbull was the true gentleman. He took his beatings in good part, part as he knew that he deserved them.  But did the beatings stop him ploughing his chosen furrow of disobedience? Of course not! 

So this evening, Rufus found himself in a position to attempt to teach this serial offender the lesson of his life.  As a relative newcomer to the school himself, Rufus had not until now had the chance embellish the arse of the redoubtable Turnbull with his cane. But now, taken in flagrante, smoking, as Turnbull was about to be, was the most golden of golden opportunities. This was truly manna from heaven, presented to him on a plate. Here was his ultimate dream, in the form of a mature, muscular, sixth-form arse, on which he could – and shortly would – exercise his undoubted skills with the cane.

But, from Rufus’s point of view, things got simply better and better, as when he flung open the door of Turnbull’s study, he found not only Turnbull but also two of his friends, Crompton and Sumner-Morris, all of them sitting there as bold as brass. And not only were they smoking, but they had a bottle of whisky on the desk and were committing another of the deadliest of sins: drinking alcohol. Rufus surveyed the scene he had discovered, fixing the three lads with an angry, and unforgiving, stony gaze.

The look on the lads’ faces, totally surprised as they had been by Rufus’s sudden entry, said it all. They all knew from the moment their housemaster had appeared, that they were – as schoolboy speak would put it – in for it.  And it in this case was most certainly to be very painful; but just how painful it was to be when administered by Rufus Rothery, they were to find out only the following day.

Rufus began with a somewhat rhetorical question. “What exactly, do you three miscreants think you are doing?” It was a plain as a pikestaff what they were doing but he nevertheless continued with yet another redundant question: “Are you not aware – they were of course – that smoking and drinking are are strictly forbidden in this school. The vices of smoking and drinking are sins second only to stealing, all of which  are viewed in this school with extreme gravity, so much so that they require that any boys caught in the act, as you three have been, be referred to the Headmaster. So boys, I am afraid you leave me no alternative but to inform the Headmaster of your appalling behaviour. It is for him and him alone to decide your fate, which will certainly involve a beating and possible expulsion from St. Olaf’s.”

Of course, Rufus was not truthful when he invoked the Headmaster, and the possibility of expulsion as there was no such requirement. And, given his fondness for the cane, he had no intention at all of sending three such muscularly mature and eminently beatable young arses to the Headmaster. He had caught the lads in flagrante; their arses, which certainly deserved to be roasted and as such, it was right and proper that he and he alone should have the pleasure of wielding the cane. But the very mention of the Headmaster and the possibility of expulsion had struck fear into the hearts of the three lads as the look on their faces clearly testified.  They were all in their final year and hoped to go onto one of the two older universities. So to be faced with expulsion was the last thing they wanted. 

They all knew that they were in for a very painful, unavoidable collision course with the cane. But the consequences of their action had to be limited to that. God forbid that Rufus refer them to the Headmaster with the potentially disastrous sequel that that might entrain. So Turnbull, in whose study this drama was taking place, quickly took the lead to limit what he saw as the potential damage to a beating.  He knew that it was a lost cause to try to talk their way out of the situation in which they, due to their own stupidity, they now found themselves.  But, like all schoolboys faced with the inevitability of a beating and potential expulsion from the school, he made a brave try, in mitigation of their act, to justify what they had been doing.

“Sir, I know that the school rules forbid what we were just doing, but  I feel, in our defence, that I must draw your attention to the fact that we are all over eighteen years of age and as such are legally allowed to both smoke and Drink. And moreover, sir….”

He was cut short by Rufus at this moment:  “Yes, yes, Turnbull, I know all that. But what you three gentlemen seem to forget is that you are still enrolled at this school and as such it is the school which is responsible for your well-being.  In term time you must obey the school rules. Just imagine what your parents would say if one of you, staggering drunk in the corridor, were to fall and break his arm. It has been known to happen you know and it could happen again, in which case the school would be held responsible.  No, no, gentleman, your actions this evening have been totally irresponsible and I am afraid as I have just said, I have no alternative but to refer the three of you to the Headmaster.”

At this, the second mention of being sent to the Headmaster, the three lads really looked panic stricken. Turnbull paused for a moment, pulled himself together and said: “Sir, we are all truly very sorry for what we have done and we promise never to smoke or drink again in term time. So please, sir, couldn’t you as our housemaster, on this one occasion, make an exception and deal with the matter directly yourself. After all sir, you do yourself discipline boys regularly and we would all be grateful if you could deal with us yourself and not send us to the Headmaster.  Please sir, the consequences of being sent to the Headmaster could ruin our future chances of being accepted at Oxford or Cambridge, sir.”

By this time Rufus could hear the panic in Turnbull’s voice as he pleaded the case on behalf of the three of them.  He paused for a few moments, as if thinking over the matter. But as we all already know, Rufus had not the slightest intention of handing the three lads over to the Headmaster and thereby depriving himself of the pleasure of beating three muscular arses. And so, after giving them the impression of grave consideration, he said: “Very well gentlemen. I will make an exception and on this one occasion deal with you personally.  Now first things first; you will all hand over to me here and now all the alcohol you have in any of your studies and all the cigarettes.”

Propelled by the fear of God put into them by the thought of expulsion, Crompton and Sumner-Morris each produced one open packet of cigarettes from their respective rooms.  Turnbull, however, was a different kettle of fish. In addition to the open packet of cigarettes and the bottle of whisky, he produced another two packets from his bedside locker.  So Rufus saw that the prime mover of this illicit party was probably Turnbull, who had tempted the others beyond the forbidden cigarette into the added delights of drinking.

But given the quantity of illicit goods that the three lads had among them, it was obvious that smoking and drinking were regular activities and that tonight was but one episode in what was a regular pastime. Rufus asked himself how many other lads in the upper sixth were indulging themselves in these two forbidden pleasures.

“Well gentlemen, now that I have your word that tonight will see an end to your smoking and drinking activities in term time, it remains to settle the day and the hour of retribution.  I shall expect the three of you, after lunch tomorrow, at three in the afternoon in my study, when I shall attempt to settle this unfortunate incident. Oh, and before I forget, let me just remind the three of you of the need to present yourselves for punishment suitably dressed for the occasion. Now, gentlemen, I bid you goodnight.”

Crompton  said: “But sir, tomorrow is Sunday, sir. You don’t mean, sir that you want to see us on Sunday afternoon and that we have to turn up wearing just our gym-shorts and vests. Sir, I know that we are all to be beaten, sir, but beatings are normally never carried out on Sundays, sir.”

“Crompton, I am well aware that tomorrow is Sunday and that punishments then are rare. But exceptional occasions demand exceptional measures. And I think you will all agree that finding three senior boys in the illicit activity of smoking and drinking at ten in the evening is a totally exceptional occurrence. And so, Crompton, the answer is yes; I have every intention of correcting the three of you tomorrow afternoon, even though it happens to be a Sunday. And exceptional though the day may be, I think I can safely promise you that the outcome for each of you will be the same as that on any other day.  So, gentlemen, until three tomorrow afternoon, I bid you, yet again good night.”

Sumner-Morris, who until then had not spoken a word said: “Good night to you to sir. And I think I speak for the three of us, sir, when I say thank you again, sir, for not referring this business to the Headmaster, sir. Sir, we truly could not be more grateful, sir.” And with that Sumner-Morris concluded his sir-peppered speech of thanks.

Had any of the three lads realised just what Rufus had in store for them the following afternoon, they might have been less fulsome in their gratitude. They were relieved that they had, as they quite wrongly imagined, managed to avoid being sent to the Headmaster, which had never even been considered by Rufus. So, unbeknown to them, the fact was that the fate of their backsides had always been in the very capable, not to say ruthless, hands of their housemaster. And given Rufus’s penchant for tanning boy’s arses, not one of them would have slept easily that night had they known what their housemaster intended to visit on them the following afternoon.

On Sunday morning, Rufus bearded the Headmaster immediately after the obligatory chapel service: “Headmaster, I wonder if I might, quite exceptionally, before lunch today, consult the personal punishment files of certain sixth formers in my house? I intend to correct the three boys in the upper-sixth after lunch today and I would like to see their, let us call it, individual track records, before I see them.”

“In fact, Headmaster, I have summoned them for punishment on a very serious matter. I quite accidentally came upon them smoking and drinking yesterday evening. Now as these lads are guilty of such a serious misdemeanour, before I decide on the severity of their punishment, I would like to see their individual punishment records to determine whether their appalling behaviour yesterday evening was just a one-off fling or whether it was symptomatic of a regular pattern of flouting some of the most stringently enforced  rules of the school.”

“You most certainly may consult the records, Rothery. Let me say that I am delighted that you, as assistant housemaster, take your responsibilities so seriously. Come along with me now and we will take a look at the relevant records together. Perhaps I can give you some pointers as I have known these older boys much longer than you.  But let us be clear about one thing. This is a very serious matter and whether just a onetime event or fling, as you called it, or  part of a regular pattern of smoking, all three lads must be very soundly beaten when you see them this afternoon; and as I am sure I do not need to remind you, the boys must be beaten on the bare You must make sure, Rothery, that when these three miscreants leave you, they all leave with that  traditional hallmark of  St. Olaf’s  which they would undoubtedly refer to vulgarly as a well-beaten arse.”

As we all know, Rufus did not need any exhortation from the Headmaster to lay on the cane to the maximum. They arrived at the Headmaster’s study and he said, as he opened the filing cabinet: “Now, Rothery, I think you said Turnbull, Crompton and Sumner-Morris, were the three lads involved.  Well here you have their individual punishment records, chapter and verse, since the day they entered this school.”

“As you can see, Crompton and Sumner-Morris have led what might be described as quasi-impeccable lives for the last two years: Crompton has not been beaten at all and Sumner-Morris was beaten just once, last term, by the head-boy, in fact, apparently for swearing on the rugger pitch when he failed to convert a tri; so there’s nothing very serious there.” 

“So the incident last night might be their first venture into the forbidden delights of tobacco and alcohol. But then again, it may well be not, as both Crompton and Sumner-Morris, you say, did have cigarettes secreted in their own rooms. So my advice to you is that they receive at least a thorough, twelve stroke beating in retribution for their offence. They do merit a short, sharp shock to break them from their habit.”

“However our friend Turnbull is quite a different matter. Just look at his punishment record; he has been caned, times without number, since his arrival here from prep school.  Turnbull is probably the cleverest and most intelligent boy we have with us a present, but the lad does not know how to keep himself out of trouble. Just look, in the last two years; he has been beaten, twice by me, by the two head-boys and by his housemaster before your arrival in this school, on no less than ten separate occasions. And I see that both his old housemaster and I myself  both beat him for smoking.”

“So Rothery, there seems little or no doubt that Turnbull is the motive force behind this smoking and drinking episode and as such he now deserves to be given the beating of his young life, in the hope that he can be weaned away from his illicit activities for good. The lad is clearly destined for greatness in his adult life, as he truly is an outstanding student. However, whilst he is here at St. Olaf’s, outstanding or not, he has to be made to toe the line.”

“And so, my dear Rothery, I suggest that you need to throw the book at him this afternoon.  You have my express blessing to give the lad hiding of his life.  You should aim to make his backside so sore that he will not be able to sit comfortably for at least a week. Hopefully, that will make him see sense and finally get his act together”

Rufus listened to the Headmaster before answering –  quite truthfully – that he would do his best. And with the blessing of the Headmaster, he felt completely sure of himself. The three poor lads did not know what was about to hit them that afternoon. I say the three poor lads out of sympathy. Certainly they merited a thorough beating as their offence was very serious and could not be tolerated. They all deserved  to suffer retribution and penance for their sins. But did any one of them merit the sort of beating which Rufus intended to give them?

There were beatings and beatings; but with the Headmaster’s encouragement, these were writ large, and were to be BEATINGS. The Headmaster, himself a great advocate of corporal punishment, had, quite unthinkingly, given Rufus carte blanche to beat the living daylights out of the backsides of these three lads. This afternoon promised to be an exercise in excessive zeal with the cane, to which no boy had ever been subjected, nor for that matter, should ever be subjected. It was an afternoon to which Rufus, with his sadistic streak, was looking forward with great pleasure. Even at lunch that day, he felt that barometer of erotic arousal hardening between his legs, just by thinking of the pleasures that the afternoon promised.

It was three o’clock; the appointed hour had finally arrived. Rufus had already selected the cane with which he intended to lavish what he himself like to think of as tender, loving care on the three defenceless arses which would shortly be presented to him. It is certain that the recipients of this tender, loving care would not have referred to the painful effects of the cane on their arses in such romantic and poetic terms. They would have thought of it as a bloody – or worse –  painful intrusion into their normal Sunday afternoon’s activities.

Rufus was, thanks to the rigorous, well-rounded education he had himself undergone as a pupil at St. Olaf’s, aware that the mechanics of beating a boy were governed by Newton’s Second Law of Motion, which states that the force is equal to the mass multiplied by its acceleration. And as motion is relative, acceleration is equal to deceleration and it is the more or less instantaneous deceleration of the mass, in this case the cane as it comes to a sudden stop against its target, in this case a lad’s naked buttocks, which produces the pain.

But the pain produced by the cane is a more complex thing than Newton’s law would lead one to believe at first sight; superficially, the heavier the cane the greater the pain.  Well in sheer quantitative terms that is, of course true. But pain has different qualities and in choosing a cane, the wielder, in this case Rufus, has to balance the effect of a larger diameter and heavier cane, which spreads the force over a larger area, to that of a more slender and lighter rod, which being more flexible and of smaller diameter, concentrates its admittedly lower force on a more limited area, but which nevertheless, in the right hands, produces greater pain. 

The classic slipper, beloved of physical training teachers is much heavier than any cane. But as it delivers its energy over a large area, although painful enough, it cannot be compared with the exquisite agony which well applied rattan cane can produce. In fact, many expert practitioners in the art of beating, pre-condition their subject’s arse with a slipper or the back of a brush, before going on to complete the job with the excruciatingly painful stripes of a well-applied cane.

And as pain is the name of gain when it comes to beating a schoolboy’s naked backside, the choice of the exact implement separates the wheat from the chaff in terms of schoolmasters. Boys quickly come to know the relative merits (if that is the right word) of beatings being administered by different masters. Some masters rapidly acquire the reputation of being weak or indifferent caners whose efforts are brushed off by the recipients being tantamount to flea bites. Others, to which group Rufus belonged – indeed one might sat headed – are acknowledged as killers and are universally feared by the boys. Rufus had already a sterling reputation as being one of the hardest caners in the school and today’s efforts were to raise him to the pinnacle of notoriety: the man to avoid like the plague.

Rufus had already decided that there was little point in ever using a cane more than 3/8 inches or just below of 1 cm in diameter and with a speaking length a full thirty-six inches long. The speaking length of a cane is that part below the handle. Rufus preferred the straight- handled cane with a tressed-leather handle, which added almost 6 inches to the overall length.

This formidable implement of punishment, an example of which which was lying on Rufus’s desk awaiting its three victims, was over 40 inches in length. The speaking length of 36 inches, coupled with the necessary flexibility and weight to marry itself on impact with the contours of a boy’s buttocks, ensured that both buns of a lad’s arse benefited from every stroke.

Applied with backhand, with extreme precision, a technique which Rufus had learned and perfected from his former mentor, Nigel Kingston, the then head-boy, he was capable of delivering extreme pain to the area he was addressing but without ever breaking the victim’s skin.  And this is exactly what he intended to do to the four, unfortunate lads this afternoon.

A timid knock came at is study door and Rufus, without rising from his desk, bellowed across the room the one word “Come.”  The three extremely nervous-looking sixth-formers, clad only in their gym kit, entered the room. Rufus told the three of them to stand to attention in front of him whilst he remained seated at his desk.  If the three lads had hoped for divine intervention to intercede on their behalf they were sorely disappointed as Rufus began.

“Gentlemen, I have this morning consulted your school punishment records from which I see that neither you, Crompton, nor you, Sumner-Morris, have ever been beaten before for smoking or drinking. Indeed you, Crompton, appear to have led an exemplary life as for the past two years you have not been beaten at all. And you, Sumner-Morris, have been beaten just once, for the piffling fault of swearing on the rugger pitch. So both of you appear to be regular observers of the school rules. I say appear to be regular observers of the school rules as this does not detract from the fact both of you had cigarettes in your possession in your own room. So I have to conclude that over and above the smoking and drinking episode you indulged yourselves in yesterday, both of you have, from time to time had what I suppose suppose you lads refer to as a drag, for which you have hitherto escaped unscathed.”

“Perhaps, Crompton and Sumner-Morris, you might like to confirm that my supposition, based on what I know to be the facts, is correct: that you both from time to time have a cigarette on the quiet; a surreptitious, forbidden act for which you have never been caught. Or is there another explanation why the two of you each had a cache of cigarettes in your rooms?  Come along, boys, speak up; am I or am I not correct?”

As he had been speaking, Crompton and Sumner-Morris had become increasingly nervous and embarrassed by Rufus’s analysis of what was patently true. As ever, Sumner-Morris, launched into what was clearly to become a long and complicated explanation of why he and Crompton had cigarettes in their rooms. 

But Rufus cut him short and said: “Sumner-Morris, I did not ask you for a long-winded explanation in an attempt to justify your possession of cigarettes other than those you were smoking when I caught you last evening. I want a simple answer, yes or no, from Crompton and you, whether you both, from time-to-time, surreptitiously and in the full knowledge that you were breaking one of the most stringently enforced rules of this school, smoked cigarettes. Come on boys; Yes or no: did you or didn’t you?”

Crompton and Sumner-Morris were both in a state of pre-panic, as it dawned them that their housemaster was intent on putting them through the wringer. Things were going from bad to worse as they were forced to admit, as they both now did, that they were regular smokers. The act in which they had been caught by Rufus the previous evening, was just the tip of the iceberg. Like so many lads who started with one fag, they had other become addicted to the delights of tobacco and were going to find it hard to break the habit.

“So, Compton and Sumner-Morris, we are agreed that the pair of you are habitual smokers and the act which I caught you in yesterday was just example of your of an unfortunate habit you have acquired. It is my duty to wean you away from this pernicious habit whilst you are still members of his school. What you do outside the school terms is your affair, but whilst you are here, you will, henceforth strictly obey the no-smoking and no-drinking rules. If you choose to ignore this order, then you will find that the punishment you are now about to receive will feel like a fleabite compared with the future pain I shall have no hesitation on wreaking on your backsides. You will each, today,  receive  a twelve-cut, four gated beating and you can thank your lucky stars that you are to receive only twelve straight cuts and that none of them are to be doubled.”

Whatever the two young-men thought of their sentence, which by no standards could be thought of as lenient, they both expressed their gratitude to Rufus, for his consideration in not sending them to the Headmaster.

Rufus now turned his attention to Turnbull:  “Well, Turnbull, you are a completely different kettle of fish to your two partners in crime here. So what have you to say for yourself young man? According to your punishment record, since the day you entered St. Olaf’s, your bottom seems to have shown an affinity for the cane, which, quite frankly, Turnbull, rivals that of a magnet for iron filings.”

“As far as smoking, and I suspect also, drinking, are concerned, you, boy, are serial recidivist: someone who, unfortunately practises the breaking of school rules at an astounding rate, so much so, that you have made a career of it in your time at this school.  How a boy as intelligent and clever as you, Turnbull, finds the need to flout the rules and takes the painful consequences for his actions, as you regularly do, escapes me.”

“However, Turnbull, last night’s episode went beyond the pale.  Although your two dorm-mates are, by no means, innocent babes in the woods, their offences fade into obscurity, when compared with you own continued delinquencies. So today, it falls to me, your housemaster, to make one last attempt to save you from your own self-destructiveness. And so, Turnbull, it gives me no pleasure at all (in fact, as we all know, given Rufus’s character, quite the converse was true) to inform you that you will  receive the most severe beating of your life in this school to date: Twenty strokes of the cane, delivered ten on ten.”

“I hope, Turnbull, that the extreme pain you are shortly to suffer at my hands, will convince you to mend your ways.  You, Turnbull, have a potentially glittering university career ahead of you. Do not spoil it by being your own worst enemy. On this occasion, you have escaped expulsion by a hair’s breadth. The next time, you will not be so fortunate. So let there not be a next time. Now if you, Turnbull and you, Sumner-Morris would kindly move back into the corridor, and wait outside, I will attend to the burning needs of Crompton’s bottom.”

The three lads looked at each other; a somewhat horror-stricken look on all their faces, by what they clearly considered was the severity of the beatings they were each about to receive. Turnbull then said: “Sir, I think that we would all like to remain together whilst we are being punished, if  that is all right by you sir.   So if you don’t mind, sir, could we all remain in the room, sir, whilst you beat us, sir?”

The two other lads nodded their agreement with what Turnbull had just said, So Rufus  said: “All right, then, if that is your joint wish, which I have to say I find rather unusual,  as most boys prefer to be punished  alone, you may all remain in the room whilst I cane you. So gentlemen if you would all strand against the wall over there, I think we are ready to begin.”

Rufus picked up the cane from his desk, swished it a few times through the air for effect and then looked across to the three very nervous sixth-formers. He saw that just the act of brandishing the cane had been enough to arouse the erotically carnal instincts which so often go hand-in-hand with beatings and that their cocks, hitherto on their best behaviour, were now straining to be free of their flimsy confinement. Rufus saw that all three lads were already sporting rigid erections and to judge from the degree of tenting of their shorts, all three of them were well endowed with that sine-qua-non element of male equipment.   

“Well, as you gentlemen have decided that you wish to remain present and watch each other suffer the well-deserved retribution for your joint actions last night, might I suggest that you all make yourselves comfortable for the moment, by removing your shorts. You all appear to have a problem in controlling your emotions and it shows. So, the three of you, take off your shorts now! I think that you will each find it more comfortable to allow that uncontrollable piece of your anatomy  between your legs to be free of any entanglement and express freely your erotic the carnal desires which are at present motivating its actions.”

“So quick about it, boys; take off your shorts immediately. And to avoid the temptation to touch the object in question, which is clearly demanding attention as it always does when it adopts its present status, kindly put your hands behind your necks and stay like that until I tell you otherwise.”

So there it was. Rufus was making them stand naked before him exposing their huge, totally uncontrollable erections, which they were not allowed to attempt to hide or touch in any way.  It was, for the three of them, an utterly humiliating and embarrassing position in which to be placed. It was one thing to see each other naked in the showers, as they did on a daily basis, or to take part in a joint wanking session, cloistered away from prying eyes in one or other of their studies. But it was quite different to be made to stand there, waiting to have one’s arse whacked, whilst being forced to expose their crown jewels in an incontrollable erection.  There are moments when a man is proud to show off his manliness; but this was certainly not one of them.

Turnbull attempted to intercede. He began, what he intended to be his lost cause plea, by repeating what all three of them had already understood. “Sir, you mean that you want us to take off our shorts and stand in front of you exposing ourselves in an unseemly manner whilst we each wait to receive our punishments, sir?”

“I see, Turnbull, that you have understood precisely my orders.  You have neatly summed up exactly what I require you to do.  However, let me just pick up on one word of our comment: unseemly.  I do not see what is unseemly about telling you to take off our shorts in anticipation of an act which will require you to present your bottom in its naked state to the rigours of the cane.  And also with your lower body unclothed, as it will shortly be, it will allow free reign to the uncontrollable activities of your manhood, which, as we all know, has mind of its own. So yes, Turnbull, I do want you to take of your shorts and, to use your words, expose yourselves.  So now, the three of you get on with it; get your shorts off at the double.”

“But sir, don’t you see, sir, it’s totally embarrassing for us to do what you say, sir. It’s one thing to have to lower your shorts as you bend over to be beaten, sir, but quite another to stand there half-naked, exposing yourself with your hands behind your neck. It would be bad enough to have to do that even if one were alone, sir; but together, sir, it’s just horrible thing you are telling us to do sir.”

“Turnbull, the three of you have broken two cardinal rules of this school.  And you, sir, in particular, are a serial offender when it comes to smoking.  You three have chosen to make yourselves a bed of nettles and now you must lie in it. Now all of you for the very last time before I decide to give each of you extra cuts for disobedience get your shorts off. And you, Crompton, I’ll deal with you first; get your bare backside across the back of that armchair in the middle of of the room and prepare yourself for the twelve cut beating which I shall shortly have the pleasure of giving you.”

Turnbull,  who had noticed the word pleasure just uttered by Rufus, was determined to have the last word in the argument, which by his actions as he spoke, he tacitly accepted that he had lost And so as he dropped his shorts and exposed his penis in all its erect glory, he could not resist adding: “Yes, sir. But you know, sir that what you are making us do is not right, sir.  You are quite right, sir, to correct us, which we all accept we deserve. But you should not humiliate us in the way you which you have chosen.”

“Turnbull, I don’t expect moralising from a boy like you who has more or less made a profession of  breaking the school rules. Now get in line with Sumner-Morris; and both of you get your hands behind your necks. And you, Crompton, get a move on lad, and let me see your naked backside that chair as I have told you. My patience is fast running out with all of you.”

As Crompton prepared to bend across the back of the armchair with Rufus standing there with the cane ready in his hand, Crompton turned to him and said:  “Sir, I’ve never been caned since I left prep school, sir, and I am very frightened that I will not be able to stand a twelve cut beating sir and that I might disgrace myself by behaving badly, sir I know after what I did that I deserve to be beaten but it’s just that it is so frightening.”

“Crompton, there comes a time in every public school-boy’s life, when he makes that cardinal mistake and has to accept the fact that he has to face retribution for his offence. And as you are well aware, retribution, in this school, as in most other public schools, is exacted from offenders, with the cane. Now, for you, Crompton, that moment of retribution as arrived; it is right now.  So the fact that you are afraid and you feel you might not be able to take a twelve cut beating, are totally irrelevant considerations. Your partners in crime, over there, are probably both feeling the same way. But the simple fact of the matter is that you, Crompton, are about to receive the undoubted benefits of a twelve cut beating and the sooner you accept that and get a grip on yourself, the better.”

“Now, Crompton, I would be remiss to pretend that a bare bottom beating is not painful. But there is no shame at all allowing yourself to cry out with pain if you cannot control yourself, or to shed a few tears, both during and after the punishment. In fact, if a boy whom I am correcting, does not shed a few tears, I always feel I have, somehow, not done an adequate job. Now, lad, the time for talking is over. Get a grip on your emotions Crompton, bend across the chair, put your hands on its arms, grit your teeth and keep perfectly still until I tell you otherwise. And remember, Crompton, I want no histrionics!”

So finally Crompton, the first of the three, was in position over the chair and as he saw the well muscled pair of buns he was about to roast, Rufus felt a surge of anticipative, erotic  pleasure surge through his body as his own cock moved into full overdrive mode. Crompton’s as yet undefiled buttocks were an ardent flagellator’s, dream; and to that category Rufus Rothery certainly belonged.  Rufus glanced at Sumner-Morris and Turnbull standing there displaying their own rock-hard cocks. Although they both knew that they were shortly each receive what they were about to observe visited on Crompton’s arse, that innate quality which so many boys have, of experiencing pleasure from watching one of their peer group being beaten, was by way of compensation for the pain that they too would shortly be experiencing.

Rufus positioned himself to the right of Crompton’s recumbent figure, placed the cane gently on the equator of the lad’s arse. Then, after tapping a few times gently on the same spot, he drew the cane well above his left shoulder before delivering his first stroke backhand at a speed approaching that of greased lightning. The cane landed with that resounding crack –  infinitely satisfying for Rufus; less so for Crompton – on the exact the place it had just left.  Crompton felt nothing at all for a split second after the impact, but then the full intensity of the pain which a simple rattan cane in expert hands could deliver was brought home to him in the form of the excruciating pain of that first searingly biting stroke

Rufus then placed two strokes above the first, reserving five of the straight eight he proposed  to administer for the lower part of Crompton’s anatomy towards the crease. As stroke followed measured stroke – Rufus never ever hurried things as he wanted the receiver to have time to feel the full effect of each cut – Crompton’s cries of appreciation, ever louder. After the third stroke the lad was already in tears and by the time the eighth cut had landed near to the top of his legs, his initial tears had turned into a veritable flood.

Rufus surveyed his handiwork: eight, strictly parallel stripes, already a livid red colour, were etched deeply into the flesh of Crompton’s buns. Rufus then embellished his artistic efforts by applying two gating strokes in one direction and, then, exceptionally for him, he moved to Crompton’s left side and applied the final two gating cuts forehand, thereby completing what he thought of as a twelve stroke  artistic masterpiece.

Rufus allowed Crompton to stay in position over the chair for a full thirty seconds, as he admired his own handwork. He glanced over to the two other two lads, both of whose eyes had been glued on the dramatic scene they had just witnessed. It is hard to describe the look on their faces: a mixture of terror at the thought of what they too were about to receive, conflicting with the satisfaction they had derived from watching Crompton’s suffering. As Rufus looked the two of them, he saw that Schadenfreude, pleasure at the misfortunes of others, was clearly alive and well at St. Olaf’s.

“Up you get, Crompton. You took that well, in spite of your fears. Now go and stand alongside Turnbull. And keep your hands behind your neck until I tell you otherwise. Now, Sumner-Morris, if you would be so kind as to assume the position over the chair, I will attend to the needs of your bottom.”

A reluctant Sumner-Morris did as he was told and Rufus found himself looking at a second eminently beatable pair of buttocks to which he gave his attention with due diligence.  After twelve strokes, it was a tearful Sumner-Morris who rejoined his two classmates and stood there in agony, wishing, as did Crompton, that their housemaster would at least allow them to massage their ragingly painful arses. But Rufus was not in a relenting mood at the moment as he glared at Turnbull.

“Turnbull, please step forward. As you know, Turnbull, in view of your continued  flouting of the rules in general and the fact that you have previously been twice beaten for the offence of smoking,  your  punishment today will be exemplary in its severity in the hope that you will finally see sense and change your habits.  And so, entirely for your own good (that totally insincere phrase beloved and trotted out by generations of schoolmasters as they vented their sadistic spleen on the naked backside of some unfortunate lad) you will today suffer an eighteen stroke beating, which, to increase its painful message, will be given nine on nine.”

Turnbull bent across the chair, giving Rufus a look of disdain which clearly said: “Do your worst, you fucking sadistic sod; but you won’t break me.”  As stroke followed swingeing stroke and Rufus accurately overlaid each alternative cut on the previous one, Turnbull’s arse quickly became lined with deep, parallel ridges.  How no skin was  broken, was a miracle, as when Rufus had finished with him Turnbull’s  backside was a raw looking  mess of nine, deeply painful parallel welts. But the lad showed an iron determination not to be broken. He took the eighteen swingeing cuts without a murmur, much to the admiration of the two onlookers, Crompton and Sumner –Morris, whose subsequent account to their classmates of what they had witnessed raised Turnbull’s status to that of a hero.

Needless to say, Turnbull’s determination not to be broken did not much please Rufus, who felt that the lad’s defiance had partly stolen his thunder. And so he said to Turnbull as he stiffly stood up from his beating and joined his classmates: “Turnbull, take this beating as a final warning, If you give me any occasion to correct you for any offence whatsoever during this your final year at St. Olaf’s, make no mistake, young man, I shall give you the maximum punishment allowed by the school rules: A twenty-four stroke beating on the bare. Take this warning seriously for if the need arises, I shall have no hesitation in beating you in front of your classmates. So you hold the future comfort of your backside in your own hands.”

Rufus made the three lads stand there for a full ten minutes, with their cocks still hard and erect and their hands behind their necks, before allowing them to pull back on their shorts and leave to nurse their backsides and show their stripes to their classmates.  In spite of Turnbull’s successful show defiance, it had been, for Rufus, a very satisfying afternoon. He had had to steel himself against the urge to fuck any or all of the young men, whose freshly beaten, young arses were just so very inviting. But as ever, sense prevailed and he relieved his pent-up sexual tension by jerking himself off as soon as he was again alone.

It goes without saying that after such severe beatings, all three lads, were psyched up sexually as they went back to Turnbull’s study  where, with their shorts again off, they jointly wanked themselves  into oblivion. As they made a detailed examination of each other’s here badly bruised arses, they all realised that they had suffered excessively at the hands of their housemaster. But did they ever even think of complaining to a higher authority?  Of course not; no such thought ever entered their heads; it was just not the done thing. As Rufus had told them, they had made themselves a bed of nettles and now, like so many public schoolboys before them, they uncomplainingly lay in it.

But the severity of his beating and Rufus’s threat to him afterwards did have a beneficial effect on Turnbull. He turned over a new leaf, cleaned up his act and escaped, without his arse being beaten again until the end of the year. When he left St. Olaf’s to go onto Cambridge, he left as top boy of the year.

That evening in his bed as he practised what was then referred to   politely as self abuse, Rufus reflected on his caning achievements in the past few days.  Spurred on by his personal need to find some conveniently available arse to thrash to tide him over the barren days until Tuesday evening when he had agreed to introduce his lover, Tom Swires to the bit of the cane,  he had gone on a speculative fishing expedition around the dormitories of Plato house, which had yielded a catch beyond his wildest dreams. Not only had he found six junior boys whose backsides merited his attention with the cane, but he had found a prize beyond compare: the sixth-form triumvirate whom he had caught in flagrante, smoking and drinking.

It was a quite different kettle of fish to swish six young lads for playing a board game in the dorm after lights out, to the erotic sexual arousal which thrashing the naked arses of three young men always brought in its wake to men of Rufus’s sexual and sadistic inclination.  He regretted that his position as housemaster had not permitted him to take the sexual arousal he had himself experienced from thrashing the muscular arses of three eighteen-year-old young men, to what was the ultimate conclusion. 

But there were certain lines, such as the one between the pupil and the master, which, even when driven by sexual desire, Rufus never crossed..  However, as he fell asleep, he consoled himself that his dream of the ultimate erotic experience would soon be a reality. On Tuesday evening, he would fulfil his wildest dream. First, he would  have the pleasure thrashing Tom Swire’s delectable arse, before continuing on to consummate what had to be the ultimate erotic act, by fucking what he had just beaten.

CHAPTER 22

Tuesday finally arrived and all day Rufus was like a little boy waiting to look into his stocking on Christmas Morning, hoping that Father Christmas had not forgotten him.  But today it was he, who would play the role; it was he and he alone, who would dispense his bounty on the lucky beneficiary. He found he was unable to concentrate on the lessons he was teaching in class that day, as his mind remained fixed on the combination of pleasures the forthcoming evening promised. 

That ever faithful barometer of his state of sexual arousal, with that independent mind of its own, persisted in reminding him during the day of its true purpose in life. At one stage he was forced to pull the academic gown, which he always wore in the classroom, around himself to hide the obvious tenting of the crotch of his trousers made by his incontrollable manhood.

Luckily, on Mondays, he had the last period before lunch free and so he was able to lock himself away in his study in Plato house and assuage the demands of his ever insistent cock.  But during the two lessons that afternoon, he found it totally impossible to rid his mind of the pleasures which the evening promised, with the result that his cock, demanding action as it always did, became a total embarrassment. 

Finally the last class of the day was over and he was able to go back to his rooms and change his underpants, which were, by now, sopping wet with the exudations of pre-cum from his over-insistent member. Never could he recollect an occasion when he had been so totally aroused so long before the event and completely unable to control his feelings. But as we all know a man’s meat, so justifiably described as that piece of uncontrollable piece of flesh between every man’s legs,, has its own mind and one just has to live with it, inconvenient though it often might be.

That evening, Rufus could barely wait for supper to be over so that he could escape to what he anticipated was to be one of the most erotic and pleasurable occasions of his life. Immediately after supper, he put on his overcoat and pushed the very cane he had used to beat the unfortunate Turnbull up one of the sleeves to make it look less conspicuous as he walked over to Tom’s place.

Tom greeted him with open arms, as if they had been apart for years. “Have you brought the cane with you? Show it to me, please.  Is it the same sort of cane you use on the boys at at your school?  I want to be sure that you are not going to use a less painful model on me because of our relationship.” 

And so Tom went on and on reassuring himself that Rufus was not intending to short change him and go soft on his arse when push came to shove and the cane finally landed on its target. It is hard it convey Tom’s enthusiastic desire to have his arse properly thrashed, an act which any schoolboys would do is utmost to avoid. But there it was; Tom wanted to experience the cane for the first time in his life. So why deny him the right?

Rufus, who had initially been rather cool about the idea of thrashing his sex partner, had by now realised that as Tom saw it,  taking a beating from his lover, a public school master would, somehow, be a step up the social ladder for him.  And so his idea of allowing Rufus to beat him had come about as a means of improving his own self-esteem. At the end of the day, Tom, who had been the prime-mover in establishing their relationship, which, in spite of the differences in social class, had blossomed into a solid partnership, still felt himself inferior to Rufus.  And so, Rufus had reluctantly agreed to introduce his arse to the rigours of the cane to please him. At least that had been initially the case, but in the meantime Rufus’s outlook had changed.

After Rufus had beaten Turnbull, he had had to exercise the greatest of self-restraint to stop himself going the whole hog and have sex with the lad, whose well-beaten arse, stretched across the back of the armchair, was just so very tempting. It was at that moment that he suddenly realised that to beat an attractive young man and then to go on and have sex with him was probably the nec-plus-ultra of homoerotic experiences. And so he now did nothing to curb Tom’s enthusiasm for his first taste of the rattan cane across his arse. Rufus new full well that once Tom had taken his beating, he would automatically wish Rufus to continue as usual and fuck him. And that, of course, is exactly what Rufus intended to do – for starters, anyway!

Tom pressed Rufus to get on with things: “Come on Rufus, you have to tell me what I need to do; what position I need to adopt to be beaten. Rufus do please let’s get on with it as I’m absolutely dying to have my experience of a public school master’s beating on the bare.”  And there, in that final phrase: a public school master’s beating on the bare was summed up the whole raison d’être for Tom’s wish to feel the bite of the cane. If Rufus, an aristocratic, public school master, treated him in exactly the same way and with the very same cane as he treated his pupils at St. Olaf’s, Tom somehow had got it into his head, that he would take a step up the social status ladder.

Of course nothing was further from the truth. The relationship between Rufus and Tom was based purely on the deep mutual sexual attraction and compatibility which the two men had for each other.  When they first met at the Cumbria Arms, although neither of them had realised it at the time, their meeting had been a classic coup de foudre – lust at first sight – between two homosexuals who had never before met each other. Tom had known instantly that he wanted to have sex with Rufus and vice-versa. And the intimacy that they had since then developed and the mutual feelings they had for each other, made for an unbreakable bond between them, in which their difference in social standing played no part whatsoever.

And if Rufus was now more than willing to accede to Tom’s wish, it was because in so doing, he saw a means of intensifying their already solid relationship.  In embarking on a new act together, neither of them fully realised where it would ultimately lead, other than the immediate gratification of quite separate desires on both sides.  Rufus was sure of immediate personal gratification, in that he enjoyed leathering another young man’s naked arse and Tom would also have, what appeared to have become his most earnest wish granted. But as events turned out, the ramifications of their joint action that evening were to go much, much, further than a one-off act.

“So Rufus, you have to tell me what I have to do. I want you to use exactly the same procedure on me as that which you use on your pupils. I want to feel exactly as one of your pupils does when he is about to be given a beating. So tell me exactly what I have to do.”

“Tom, with the best will in the world you will never be in the same position as a boy at St. Olaf’s that I am about to beat. The fact of the matter is that you want me to beat you; you are offering me your own arse on a plate as a sort of sacrifice.  But any boy, who is about to be beaten, knows that he has committed some inacceptable offence for which he cannot escape punishment.  But although he knows that he  cannot avoid the bite of the cane, in no way is he offering himself willingly to the pain he knows he is about to receive. So you, Tom, are a willing candidate whereas yours schoolboy counterpart is anything but that; given half a chance he would opt out of the confrontation of his arse with the cane.” 

“However, now that you understand that important difference, I shall do my best to make your first taste of what is often referred to as the rod of justice as authentic as possible. Trust me, Tom; I’m a real crack when it comes to beating arse. You won’t, in the slightest way feel cheated. In fact, when I am through with you, you will probably ask yourself why you ever wanted to have your backside roasted in the first place. Believe me, Tom, fulfilment of your wish, as you are now about to discover, comes with a great deal of pain. Something tells me that once you have had the experience it is one, which you will not wish to repeat ever again.”

By now, Rufus had understood that Tom wanted to be treated exactly as a senior schoolboy at St. Olaf’s. So adopting the authoritative tone so beloved of schoolmasters when they address a boy they are about to correct, Rufus said:  “Swires, take of your trousers and underpants, bend across the back of the armchair over there and present me your naked butt for punishment.  As this is your first, offence, boy, I’m going to be lenient with you and give you a straight six.  Now, as you are unfamiliar with the protocol which governs beatings in this school, you will keep perfectly still with your hands on the arms of the chair until I have delivered the six cuts of the cane to which you have been sentenced.”

“During the course if the beating, you will not, at any time, attempt to clench your buttocks, which must remain totally relaxed throughout. The cuts will each be given at traditional ten second intervals to allow you adequate time to appreciate the quality of the service you are receiving.  After the final cut with the cane, you will remain in potion over the chair until such time as I tell you to get up.  Oh, and I almost forgot; you may not bring your hands to your bottom in an attempt to ease the pain at any time during the beating. And finally, boy, after you I have told you to stand up, you will shake my hand and thank me for having corrected you. I hope, boy, that that is all quite clear. Any disregard for what I have just told you, will result in additional cuts. Do you understand that, Swires?”

“Rufus, I just must ask you…”

Here Rufus interrupted Tom and continued playing the part of the schoolmaster: “Swires, how dare you adopt such a familiar tone with me, boy, when I am about to correct you.  What on earth possessed you to address me by my Christian name? The correct form of address, young man, until I tell you otherwise, is sir.  So perhaps, Swires, you would like to begin you question again, this time showing proper deference for the person in authority who is about to correct you.  I cannot do better that draw your attention to the old saying, manners maketh man. You, Swires, apparently still have a lot to learn in that respect; and so I suggest you think on the meaning of that aphorism and act upon it.”

“I’m sorry, sir, I do beg your pardon, sir. I really wasn’t thinking, sir. But sir, I just wanted to be sure that after you have beaten me we, that is to say you and I, will still be able to continue our relationship and enjoy the same degree of intimacy as we hitherto have done.”

“I think, Swires, I can assure you on that point.  Once you have taken your beating like a young gentleman should and which, knowing you as I do, I am sure you will, our relationship will remain remain totally unchanged.”

But Tom wanted a more positive confirmation that the two of them were going to have sex together immediately after the beating was over:  “So, sir, can I take it that our relationship will revert to its former state straight after my beating tonight, sir?”

Rufus smiled inwardly to himself as he saw that Tom wanted his assurance that nothing at all would change between them because of the beating, which he had asked Rufus to visit on his arse. And Tom’s insistence on the relationship reverting to its former state, straight after my beating, indicated very clearly that he wanted Rufus to go on and have sex with him immediately he laid down the cane. 

Rufus thought to himself as he listened to Tom seeking his reassurances, that wild horses would not draw him him away from an opportunity to fuck what would by then be Tom’s beautifully welted arse, of which he himself was the author. Tom simply had no idea of the unbelievable homoerotic passion occasion which his request for a beating had created in Rufus. This was an opportunity for Rufus to realise what had hitherto been a pipe dream to beat Tom’s arse and then to go straight on and fuck it. Wild horses would not be able to draw Rufus away from such a prize.

And so Rufus had no difficulty in replying: “I think, Swires, that I can safely assure you that our personal relationship will revert to its previous degree of intimacy, immediately after you have been beaten. Moreover, I give you my word that I shall do everything in my power to make your post-flagellation experience truly memorable.  Now, Swires, we have talked enough; get your backside over that chair and let me get on with the matter to hand.”

Finally reassured that the two of them would have sex later that evening, Tom bent across the back of his own armchair and offered his naked arse to Rufus for that painful attention which he craved for himself. Rufus looked at Tom’s beautiful pair of buns which in a hitherto totally different context he knew so well and wondered if Tom had any idea of just how painful the beating was going to be.  He had requested Rufus to lay the cane on just as hard as he did at school. And as he prepared his first stroke, Rufus thought back several years to to the many times when he himself was still a pupil at St. Olaf’s and had found himself in the exact same position as Tom now was.

On the one hand he shuddered inwardly at the excruciating pain he was about to visit on his lover. But on the other hand, he rejoiced in the fact that Tom’s request was giving him an opening to the realisation of a hitherto impossible dream.  And Rufus was also sufficiently honest with himself to acknowledge that Tom was offering him a unique, no-holds-barred opportunity to exercise his own sadistic streak and that he was going to enjoy every moment of every stroke he landed on Tom’s arse.  Rufus was about to beat a man for the very first time: a real man who was no longer a boy.

He mentally assuaged the guilty fleeing of pleasure he was was personally about to derive from inflicting pain on Tom, by the fact that he was beating Tom at his own request and that he would then go on and please his lover by giving him the best fuck of his life; but then on second thoughts he changed the word fuck into the plural; one single fuck would not be enough to square the circle tonight, as well he knew!

That first, fatidic stroke landed on the mid-point of Tom’s arse, with a crack loud enough to awaken the dead. If Rufus had expected a reaction from Tom he was disappointed as he remained absolute still and did not make a sound; and so it was with each successive cut, Tom gave no reaction whatsoever to the pain he must obviously be feeling.  Rufus increased the ferocity of his delivery, intent on eliciting at least some form of acknowledgment from Tom for the effort he was making on his arse.  The final stroke was delivered, by which time Tom’s arse was neatly lined with six, deep, parallel stripes, from a few of which a few drops of blood were oozing,

Rufus looked at the results of his handiwork. He had beaten Tom – only six cuts – but he had been much severe with him than he had ever been with any boy – and there had been plenty – whom he had hitherto beaten.  Rufus had very mixed feelings about what had happened.  He admired Tom for the sang-froid and composure he had displayed during what had been, by any measure, a very hard beating. But at the same time he felt miffed that he, who prided himself on his ability to reduce even the most recalcitrant, dyed-in-the-wool of sixth-form, repeat-offender to tears by his fourth stroke, had not even raised a murmur from Tom. Tom was the exception which proved the rule.

As the beating had progressed, Rufus had felt his cock, which, of course, always stiffened whenever he beat a boy, getting harder and harder and also – at least that was the way it seemed – longer and longer.  By the time he had delivered the sixth and final stroke, he felt as though his cock, in its insistence for action, was about to thrust its way thought his trousers. His man-meat was as uncontrollable as a dog scenting a bitch on heat and was demanding immediate gratification.

Suddenly, the last scene of the little drama he was playing with Tom became unimportant. It had been replaced by the imperative sexual demands being issued by his cock. Like the dog scenting a bitch on heat, all he now wanted to do was to slide his rock-hard tool into Tom’s beautifully-inviting beaten arse and fuck him as hard as he could.  Unable to control himself, Rufus ripped of his clothes and stood stark naked behind Tom, who was still waiting to be told he could get up from over the chair. Rufus gazed down at his penis, which now free of clothing was standing proudly to attention at an angle of 45 degrees to his body.  He saw that indeed what he had just done to Tom coupled with the anticipation of what was to follow seemed to have had an exceptional arousing effect; his erection, never less than impressive, now appeared to be absolutely enormous.

His foreskin was stretched tightly over the distended head of his penis and the tip of the glans, already dripping with pre-cum, had pushed its way through that tight sheath enveloping it in readiness for penetration of its target. Rufus picked up the bottle of baby-oil, which was always on-hand when the two of them met for sex, and quickly oiled his member for action. As he applied the lubricant to his cock, he saw that its surface veins were extremely distended and pulsating with blood, characterising the super-aroused state in which he now was.

Rufus then turned to Tom, still in the same position over the armchair and told him to spread his legs a little more. Then, gripping Tom’s hips firmly in his hands, Rufus pushed the tip of his tumescent, cum-dripping member against Tom’s tight little anus. With one thrust, overcoming the initial entry resistance of Tom’s anal sphincter he slid his full length deep inside his partner.  Rufus realised that with his already high state of arousal, he risked climaxing almost immediately, before had been able fully to stimulate Tom.

However, he need not have worried, for just as he himself had  been exceptionally sexually aroused by what he had just done to Tom, so also had Tom too been equally aroused by the beating he had wished upon himself.  It is common for both parties to a beating – the beater and the beaten – to experience sexual arousal and Rufus had frequently seen that lads he had just beaten were sporting rock-hard cock when he finally told them to stand up and put back on their clothes. But the extreme state of sexual arousal in which both he and Tom now found themselves, was something, the like and intensity of which, Rufus had never before experienced.

For Rufus, was it because it was the first time that he had first beaten a man rather than a boy and then was going on on immediately to have sex with him? He had long known that he would have liked to have fucked the living daylight out of many of the gorgeously tempting arses of some of the sixth formers he had just roasted. But he had always been acutely aware – and still was, for that matter – that he could never ever realise his desire.

So although, whenever he beat one of the older boys – all essentially young men – at school, he always found himself in a state of sexual arousal. Any gratification he experienced from the act – and, make no mistake, he did enjoy beating naked arses – ended with that final stroke of the cane.  Any sexual sequels to such occasions were strictly limited to his post-beating jerking-off alone and in private.

Today, however, things were totally different. He had no reason to hold back and as he began to pump Tom’s anus with his cock, Tom moaned with pleasure. Then it all happened very quickly just as he had foreseen. He climaxed after very few strokes but, as ever, succeeded in bringing Tom to his own climax at the same time.  As they each ejaculated their sperm, it was, for both of them, the sexual experience of their lives. But Rufus, so thoroughly aroused, had now got the bit between his teeth and intended much, much more for Tom.

So after a brief moment’s pause, now having better control over what he was doing, Rufus pulled Tom up from the chair and made him lie flat on his back on the table. He then pushed Tom’s legs back over his body and prepared to give him what was to prove to be the hardest and longest fuck he had ever given anyone. Tom, with his legs forced forward over his body into a sort of letter “U” shape, knew instinctively what was about to happen and grabbed the side of the table with his hands to brace himself for what he sensed, from Rufus’s firm actions, was to be the fuck of his life.

Rufus pulled Tom bodily forward on the table that he had perfect access to Tom’s tight anus, which in spite of its recent submission to the authoritative simulations of Rufus’s cock, still looked in perfect shape and ready for as second onslaught. Rufus, with his cock still both rock-hard, glistening with baby oil and still exuding the last few drops of sperm from his previous orgasm, bent over Tom’s recumbent figure, placed his hands on the calves of Tom’s legs to hold them in place and prepared to offer his anus its next taste of his magnificent  erection.

Tom knew instinctively, from the position into which he had been forced by his partner that he was about to experience possibly the hardest and longest session of anal intercourse in his life. Rufus had specifically forced Tom into this position, as it allowed Tom, the passive partner in what was to prove a master-class in the art of seriously hard, anal copulation, to hold himself firm by gripping the sides of the table. But at the same time it permitted Rufus, the active, prime mover in this orgy of anal sex, to hold onto his partner’s calves and maintain his arse in what was a more-or-less the perfect position for fucking.

So with Tom immobilised with his anus totally accessible to his partner’s invasive man-meat, all was in place for Rufus to give Tom the best fuck of his life.  Now Rufus was naturally a sexually well endowed young man, whose cock, when erect and ready for service, measured about seven inches long. But today, as he had sensed earlier, the erotic arousal of caning his partner, coupled with the knowledge that he was, for the first time ever, to realise his dream of fucking an arse he had just caned, really had added an extra inch or so to his normal length. This could probably explained by an exceptional rise in Rufus’s blood pressure brought on by the erotic prospect of what was to happen, which had stretched the erectile tissue of his man-meat to the limit.

So now we have Tom in what, by any standards is a ludicrous position. But, looked at with an analytical eye, what copulative positions are not ludicrous: or if not ludicrous, at least inconvenient? One has to face the fact that the sexual organs of both men and women are not exactly placed for easy contact. But as people not only enjoy the act of copulation, but revel in it  and have to do it as a necessity to ensure the propagation of the species,  they put up with the most awkward of physical contortions to satisfy their carnal desires. Just think about it; the only sexual acts which are physically convenient for both parties are kissing and fellatio. Even rimming is inconvenient. So, at the end of the day, for men at least, the good, old-fashioned wank has a lot to commend it, especially as one gets older.

But today, with Rufus and Tom, we are not yet there and Rufus is just about to give Tom his second taste of what is probably the biggest cock he has ever taken up his arse to date. Now, with Tom’s arse in the perfect position for a really hard, no-holds-barred hammering and Rufus over the initial, uncontrollable euphoria of having been able to realise his dream of fucking Tom as soon as he had given him the last stroke with his cane, the scene was set for some serious hard-core sex.

Rufus pushed the tip of his penis against Tom’s anus, which was tightly closed in spite of its recent experiences.  Rufus playfully tapped Tom’s pucker in the same way as he had his arse with the cane before each stroke. And then, with one firm thrust of his cock-head, he overcame the resistance offered by the sphincter muscle and gave Tom the full eight inches of his of his meat.  As Rufus slid himself fully inside of his partner’s most private parts, Tom let out a moan of pleasure as he felt himself filled-out by this lover’s marvellous cock.

Rufus had already on many previous occasions fucked Tom in this same position, but as today was a very special occasion for both of them, both partners were determined to make the most of it.  For Tom, who as always played the passive role when they fucked, this meant maintaining his anal sphincter muscles as tight as possible for the entire time Rufus was serving him. This apparently insignificant act, was something Rufus adored in Tom, as it ensured that as he thrust his cock to and fro, the annular, muscle grip was maintained on his meat, thereby heightening the pleasure of the act.

Rufus, who, as ever, was, on this occasion, the prime mover, he systematically used his longest and most powerful strokes, almost withdrawing his cock from his partner on each stroke. But additionally, today, as this was a very special occasion for the two of them, when he sensed that Tom was ready to climax, he paused momentarily and allowed the incipient orgasm to pass, before beginning again to take Tom towards that much desired climax. This he did several times, taking Tom to the knife-edge of nirvana but each time stopping before the actual climax.  Finally, after the longest and physically most demanding session of non-stop, hard-core copulation either of them had ever previously experienced, Rufus took them both to the exquisite heights of simultaneous orgasm.

As they both pumped out seemingly endless quantities of their seed, both young men shuddered in those incomparable paroxysms of delight that only the climax of the sex act ever induces in man. After a minutes pause, Tom now took the lead as he extricated himself from under Rufus, took his partner by the hand and led him to his bed, where they lay entwined in each other’s arms, as only true lovers can

Tom gazed adoringly at Rufus’s face and said: “Rufus you really are something else when it comes to giving a guy exactly what he wants when it comes to sex. You know how to deliver in a way no other guy who has ever fucked me has ever done.  You have the uncanny knack of anticipating where I want to go and then taking me there. That was just the greatest sex I have ever had in my life.  Rufus, you are always the absolute tops when it comes to fucking. But today you just excelled my wildest dreams.  Rufus, I love you; I love you dearly. Don’t ever think of leaving me as I am sure that we two were meant for each other.”

Rufus, who always enjoyed fucking Tom, had also had a totally exceptional experience. The sex act, leading to the much desired orgasm, is always an agreeable and indispensible part of most men’s psyche. When a man wants to have sex with someone, be it with another man or with a woman, the natural urge to copulate is so strong that most men find it difficult to resist. But unlike animals, who have sex only to propagate their species, man is alone in having sex for pleasure. And not only does he have sex for pleasure, but regular sexual intercourse is a key and more or less permanent feature of most young men’s lives. And Rufus and Tom were both young men who liked to fuck; and fuck each other on a regular basis for pleasure is exactly what they did.

So although Rufus had had great pleasure in fucking Tom many times in the past, tonight had been for him, a very special occasion, the likes and intensity of which he could never remember. And now here he was lying in bed in a post-coital reverie, in a tight embrace with his partner who was telling him that he loved him.  Although Rufus could not live without regular sex, the concept of love had never before entered his head. For him, until now, sex had been an indispensible physical act which he needed to perform on a regular basis.

True he had always seen sex as mutual act. After his first introduction to sex with Nigel Kingston at school, he had always endeavoured to please his partner as much as himself. Was this because Rufus who was essentially always a top in any of his sexual activities, felt it was his duty to give his partner the same great feelings as he himself was experiencing? But now confronted for the first time in his life with a declaration of love, Rufus did not know what to say to Tom. The only thing he knew for sure was that he wanted the relationship they had established to continue. But was that love? Rufus did not know.

So without actually committing himself Rufus said: “Tom, I have no intention of leaving you. How could you possibly ask that after what we have just done together? Look Tom, I think we have both just had one of the greatest sexual experiences of our lives. And do you know what I think made it so great, was the fact that fact that you had insisted I beat you. Blistering your arse with the cane as I just did so turned me on sexually that I could hardly wait to get my hands on you. That is why I have just fucked you twice in quick succession with a greater intensity than I can ever remember”

Then to avoid having to make a return declaration of his love for Tom, about which he felt himself on dangerously uncertain ground, he quickly changed the subject: “Tom, you have to tell me how you feel, now that I have beaten your arse.  Frankly, I think it is a very painful thing to wish upon yourself as you did. I know that when I was at school, St. Olaf’s in fact, where I am now a teacher, on the many occasions over the years, when I had my arse beaten, I did not like it at all. But I have to admit to you, Tom, that now the boot is on the other foot, I do rather enjoy beating boys and I would like to think that I am rather good at it.”

Tom laughed and said:  “Well speaking as a plebe, with no experience at all of upper-class manners other than the whacking you have just given me, I would class you as an absolute crack with the cane.  You know, Rufus, and I know you might find it difficult to understand, but I really enjoyed what you just did to me; or perhaps I should say for me.  It might sound strange to you, but you and I are from such different walks of life, that I freely admit that I feel socially inferior to you. Of course, what you did to me hurt like bloody-hell. It was as if someone was laying a red-hot poker across my arse. But at the end of the day, you delivered exactly what I wanted and I really enjoyed having my arse beaten.  But what I need to tell you is that in treating me like one of the older boys at your school you raised my self-esteem no end.”

“And now that the first shock is over and done with and you have gone on and fucked me really hard, I feel like a completely new man. And by the way, in case you don’t already know it Rufus, and I am not saying this just to flatter you, you are as good, if not better, with your cock as you are with the cane.  God, Rufus, I don’t know if you truly appreciate that you just gave me the best fuck of my entire life. So, Rufus, you don’t have to worry about what you did to me. In fact, I don’t want you to take the cane back with you when you leave tonight.  I would like, from time-to-time, to have more of the same.”

  “The fact is, that the pain of the cane – and it really did hurt – turned   me on in a way that nothing before has ever done; and I think it did the same for you too, Rufus.  So why don’t we make it a regular once-a-month fixture? Look, Rufus, let’s both agree to call a spade a spade. It is obvious to me that you like to beat arse and then fuck what you what just whacked. And as I enjoy being whacked and fucked by you, why do we need to deny ourselves this mutual pleasure?  Rufus, in spite of our different backgrounds, you must see that you and I are just made for each other. So, let’s just accept that fact for what it is and make hay whilst the sun shines. But just let me say, Rufus that I do truly love you and I hope that one day you might feel the same way about me. So please, Rufus, don’t ever think of leaving me.”

Rufus found himself amazed at the perceptive depths which Tom had just displayed.  He might just be a working-class man with no great education, but he had a view on life which was surprisingly profound. Rufus saw that there was nothing superficial about Tom Swires and his views. He was at once flattered and nervous by the declaration of love which Tom had made to him. Tom had realised that Rufus had attempted to lead their dialogue in another direction but at the end of the day had come back to his declaration of love for Rufus; and moreover, a declaration of love for a man in whom he saw the faults.

Tom, in his observations had already shown that he knew how his lover actually enjoyed thrashing schoolboys’ naked arses. He sensed that Rufus had agreed to thrash him only after he saw that in so doing he could finally realise his long-held, but unspoken desire to fuck the arse he had just whacked. Although left unsaid, Tom had already divined that his lover had a sadistic streak which surfaced when he whacked the bare arses of the boys at school. But with all Rufus’s faults, these unappetising facts seemed unimportant to Tom when compared to what he saw as a sublime relationship between Rufus and himself. Love, it is said, is blind. And never was that aphorism more appropriate than now.

CHAPTER 23

For the next two or so years, the relationship between Rufus and Tom continued to deepen.  Rufus, who saw– actually fucked would be a better word –Tom about three times every week, quickly found that he too could not do without his sex partner. And beating Tom, albeit on an intermittent basis, became a permanent fixture of their relationship. Tom would indicate to Rufus that his backside needed further percussive stimulation from the cane, a fine example of which, as he had suggested, now resided permanently in his flat.

Rufus, who always enjoyed thrashing arse, and also enjoyed fucking his partner, really looked forward to the occasions, perhaps once a month, when Tom would request another thrashing.  Like that first time, sex after he had beaten Tom’s arse, was, to make a pun an unbeatable experience. The intensity of post-beating orgasms which Rufus managed to induce in both his partner and himself were so much more intense than those generated from what I suppose is a straight, cold fuck.

Not that normal anal intercourse, without the prelude of consensual corporal punishment, was anything to be sneezed at. It is the norm in most such relationships. But that added phase of beating was an amazing catalyst to what followed. And in choosing the word catalyst to describe what the pre-sex beating did for them, that is exactly what the cane brought to their relationship. A catalyst is something which facilitates or enhances a chemical reaction without itself undergoing any change. And that is exactly what the cane did for Rufus and Tom; it heightened their mutual sexual experience, whilst remaining totally unchanged itself.

But whilst things were going swimmingly on the sex front for the two protagonists, things back at school started to go less well for Rufus.  He could not restrain himself, when it came to beating boys, which he did with gay abandon. Not the slightest misdeed he detected among the boys in his house went unpunished.  On on a number of occasions his beatings were severe enough to break the lad’s skin and give rise to a few spots of blood.  But over and above the sadistic way in which Rufus treated the boys, there was a growing undercurrent of disapproval of Rufus among his colleagues. Nothing was ever said to his face, but he sensed that many of his colleagues had become reluctant to be alone in his presence.

By now everyone knew that Rufus had a working-class boyfriend in the town. Rufus had endeavoured to keep his liaison with Tom Swires under the wraps. But, as ever, he had been seen several times going into Tom’s flat above his employer’s premises and tongues quickly started wagging. Thus, by innuendo, Rufus eventually saw that he was being socially marginalised by his colleagues.  And as word eventually got around that his friendship with a working-class man, in itself something unheard of in a person of his social-class, was anything but platonic, his social isolation from his colleagues at school became more or less complete.

Whilst his colleagues never intimated to him by word that they disapproved both of his excessive zeal with the cane and his – in their eyes – unorthodox and undesirable friendship with Tom Swires, matters were brought to a head with the rudely outspoken remarks of one of his sixth-formers. Jeremy Anderson. 

Jeremy Anderson, an extremely well-built and handsome young man, with excessively-long, blond hair was captain of the school’s rugger team and fancifully saw himself as a demi-god, who deserved the adulation of the younger boy, which, to some extent, he enjoyed. However, Anderson was an arrogant young man who, riding on the crest of a wave of his sporting popularity thought, mistakenly, that he could do as he wished.

One evening Rufus caught Anderson and another sixth-former, Clive Docherty, smoking and drinking in his study and, quite correctly, decided that both lads deserved a severe thrashing – which they did.  When told by Rufus to hand over any un-smoked cigarettes, Anderson made matters worse for himself by truculently telling Rufus to find  them for himself. By waving this metaphorically verbal red-rag in front of his housemaster, Anderson, poured fuel onto a fire which was already raging and risked engulfing him. Rufus, by now seething with rage, told both lads to go and stand outside his study and await his arrival.

Rufus then made a thorough search among Anderson’s possessions, where he found not only an unopened packet of cigarettes, but also an  packet of condoms from which several were missing.  Pocketing both, he returned to his study, where he quickly despatched Docherty back to his own study-bedroom nursing a nine-stroke, bare-arsed beating. He left Anderson waiting in the corridor to contemplate his fate for a full ten minutes after Docherty had made his tearful, limping exit.

Docherty left his partner in crime still awaiting his call to face his housemaster, with the not-so-comforting-words:  “God help you, Jeremy. He’s really hopping mad and I hate to think what my arse looks like. That’s easily the worst whacking I’ve ever had. Boy, does that bastard, Rothery, know how to lay it on! He has just given me nine and from the way it feels right now, I won’t be able to sit down in comfort for a week. You know I think the bloody sod has actually drawn blood. Anyway, the best of luck, but let’s get together later and compare arses.” 

But then Docherty, unable to stop himself, added with a malicious a touch of gallows humour: “That’s always assuming that you are still able to walk after he’s finished roasting your backside. Oh and if I were you, I would avoid getting your arse near anything inflammable when he’s through with you: you might cause a fire!”

“Ah, very funny, Clive; why don’t you just bugger-off and fuck yourself.  I don’t need you to comfort me right now. So just fuck-off and leave me to it. Just go and find someone else to admire your arse if you can’t wait until I limp my way back to the dorm and you feel the need to show off your wounds. It’s bad enough having to wait out here, knowing I’m in for the high-jump, without listening to your fucking inanities. Go on, just bugger-off and leave me to it. I’ll try and see you later, if, as you say, I am still able to walk.”

Some ten minutes later, Jeremy Anderson, entered his housemaster’s study to meet his fate. If he was nervous, he certainly did not show it, for he had a truculent look of contempt on his face, which he made no attempt to hide as he stood facing an obviously irate Rufus across his desk.

“Anderson, as you will no doubt recall, I have already had occasion to beat you no less than five times in this, your final year, at St. Olaf’s.  In fact, boy, in this, your last term, I have already taken the cane to your backside on three occasions, on two of which your offence was smoking cigarettes. Anderson, you seem totally incapable of reform. This very evening, I find you and your partner in crime, not only smoking but also quaffing an alcoholic beverage.  And to make matters worse, I find when I search your room that not only did you have a cache of cigarettes but I also found these.”

With these last words, Rufus threw down the opened packet of condoms on his desk. “Perhaps, Anderson, you would like to explain yourself.  As you well know not only are smoking and drinking strictly forbidden in this school, but so also are all sexual activities. It is evident from the fact that several condoms are already missing from this packet that you are indulging in some sort of forbidden sexual activity, evidently with a person of the opposite sex.”

“The only thing positive thing about your appalling disregard of one of the most important rules of this school is that you had the good sense to use a sheath to avoid getting your partner pregnant.  At least that is what I assume you did, as as several condoms are missing from the packet, which I can but presume that you used yourself. Explain yourself, boy! You have my entire attention.”

Anderson swallowed before speaking; but he then went on and, as the expression has it, burned his boats. It was as if the young man had a death-wish; as if he just wanted to make matters worse for himself. Let’s face it, smoking and drinking were enough to justify a monumental beating. But Anderson’s truculent attitude and the contemptuous way he now spoke to his housemaster, as he must have know, were to guarantee him the hiding of his life.

“Sir, I am eighteen year old age and legally permitted both to smoke and drink. And as for my sex life, well I consider that my own private affair.” Having said that, he now went on and in the most insulting and derogatory tones, with a look of utter contempt on his face, he knocked the final nails into his coffin as he said:  “And I have to say, sir that as far as my sex life is concerned, I copulate with members of the opposite sex – he stressed the word, opposite – who are from my own social class, which is more than some people do.  So don’t think, sir that I am having sex with some working-class girl I have picked up on the street somewhere. I’m very choosy when it comes to women, sir.”

If anything had been designed to raise Rufus’s blood-pressure, already high, to the boiling point, these unbelievably rude and insulting remarks by Anderson had done the trick. Were they calculated so to do, or were they simply made, off-the-cuff and without thinking by a young man exerting what he saw as his rightful independence. Whatever, the young man’s motivations mattered not one wit. Anderson’s behaviour had departed severely from the norms of the very class to which he saw himself belonging. He even managed to make that final sir sound contemptuous.

Rufus, already seething, saw little point in remonstrating further with Anderson and so he limited his response by saying:  “Anderson, you are quite right when you say you are of the legal age to do the very things we are discussing. However, whilst you are still enrolled as a pupil at this school, the school rules take precedence over the law of the land and you will obey them. I trust I make myself clear. So Anderson I think you know only too well what is now the appropriate action on your part.”

Rufus picked up the senior cane from his desk, pointed it first at Anderson and then at the armchair standing invitingly in the middle of the room, like an execution block waiting for its next victim. He then motioned with the cane to Anderson indicating that should assume the appropriate position.  Anderson, who had probably expected a verbal tirade, was somewhat taken aback by the lack of words from his housemaster and stood there immobile for several seconds as if not understanding what he was supposed to do.

“Come on Anderson, move yourself, boy. You know the protocol as this is not the first time you are to be given a beating. So, jump to it, boy, so get your trousers and underpants off and present your bare backside to me by bending over the back of that armchair and put your hands on the arms. Anderson, as an habitué of the cane, you know the drill, so I don’t need to spell out what happens if you move or try to put your hands to your bottom whilst I am beating you.  Come on, Anderson, quick about it now; assume the correct position and let’s get on with it.”

“Oh, forgive me, Anderson, for I seem to have forgotten one very important detail. You will receive six cuts with the senior cane for each of your offences: smoking, drinking and illicit sex. So as a bright lad, I am sure you have already calculated that your backside will have the benefit of eighteen strokes in all.”

With some reluctance, Anderson removed his lower clothing and then positioned himself over the chair in the desired position, which was not at all new to him. As Rufus advanced to the chair and looked down on the muscular buttocks of the eighteen-year-old, he felt his cock already hardening at the pleasure he was going to derive from thrashing such an insolent, insulting and rude young man. If ever a boy deserved a thrashing for his actions, it was Jeremy Anderson that day.

“Anderson, I suggest you think on the following two aphorisms whilst you take your punishment.  “Actions speak louder than words” and “Make haste slowly.” As I think you will see, the action of the cane, as it bites into your naked bottom, is much more effective than any words I might say to you.  And as you are now about to experience, you will see that I have mastered, to perfection, not only of making every stoke of the cane bite, but also the art of of making haste slowly, so that you will have ample time to enjoy the full benefit of each and every one of the eighteen strokes with which I now propose to embellish your posterior.”

“Oh, and Anderson, before you begin to feel badly-done-to by me,  let me just say that if I were to send you to the Headmaster for your offences, you would certainly receive a twenty-four-stroke beating in front of the entire sixth-form and risked being expelled from the school. You, Anderson, are a recidivist: a habitual offender.  So before you start feeling sorry for yourself, thank your lucky stars that I am dealing with you myself.”

There is a saying: “Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.” Well, although referring to a woman rejected in love, this same sentiment describes perfectly how Rufus felt after the insolent and hurtful aspersions cast on his character by Anderson. He had been scorned by one of his pupils because of his liaison with a working-class man; looked down on; reviled for his homosexuality; and this by a sixth-form boy whom he had caught in flagrante, breaking two of the school’s strictest rules, not to mention the sex. So it is not surprising that Rufus intended to ensure that Anderson would get up from his punishment with a definitive version of the traditional, well-beaten arse.

Of course, what Anderson had not yet realised, was just how hard his housemaster intended to thrash him.  Rufus had already beaten him twice for the same offence and he had shrugged them off as just another whacking.  What Anderson had failed to see was that his housemaster was seething with anger at the insolence and rudeness of his sexual innuendos and that this time was to be different. 

Unbeknown to Anderson, who, had he known what is housemaster had in store for him, might well have preferred to have been referred to the Headmaster., this was to be the definitive beating: a beating like no other: the be-all and end-all of beatings: the beating which would go down in the annals of the school and be spoken of in bated, fearful breath by boys for year to come.

“Now, Anderson, kindly bend further over the back of the chair and stick your posterior well into the air, so that the hound can see the hare, so to speak.  Remember also, boy, your hands must remain on the arms of the chair and you must not jump about or stand up at any time during your beating. Any deviation from these rules will earn you additional strokes of the cane. But then, from your considerable past experience you already know all that, don’t you? So forgive me, if I forgot that I was preaching to the converted.”

“Oh and finally. Anderson, please refrain from clenching your bottom muscles during the beating, otherwise the cane will bounce on impact and I shall have to repeat the stroke.  So, boy, your buttocks must remain relaxed throughout. And remember; no hands on your bottom until I am finished with you. Now, Anderson, brace yourself, as this is going to be a very, very painful experience for you.” Rufus allowed himself to stress the words, very.

The moment of truth had now arrived and as Rufus prepared to deliver the first of the eighteen strokes, he appeared outwardly totally calm. Inwardly, however, he was still boiling with anger and intended to beat them wretched Anderson’s inviting arse as hard as possible. As he laid the cane on the lad’s naked bottom for the first stroke, he felt his cock harden fully, in anticipation of the sexual satisfaction he himself was about to get from administering the thrashing.  It has to be said that as a key member of the rugger team, Anderson, a very muscular young man, had an arse, which presented as it now was over the chair, was just crying out to be thrashed. Rufus had, of course, every intention of satisfying that silent cry for discipline, which he did with his first stroke.

Rufus had decided to treat Anderson’s arse to a dose of metaphorical tender loving care, administered with his favourite extra-long, senior cane. This formidable, thirty-nine-inches-long implement had the straight tressed leather grip, which Rufus preferred over the more usual, classic, crooked punishment cane. Slightly under a half inch in diameter and with its growth nodes perfectly sanded out by the specialist supplier, this supple length of rattan was capable in the right hands – and any boy who had experienced Rufus’s prowess with the cane would have agreed that he the right hands – of inflicting the most excruciating pain on its target arse. And this was exactly what Rufus now intended to do to Anderson.

As the first stroke landed on Anderson’s naked backside, the lad knew immediately that this was to be a beating like no other he had ever experienced in the past. As regular communicant who had sacrificed is arse to the taste of the cane throughout his entire career at the school, Anderson had become what one might describe as a connoisseur of pain.  His arse was intimately familiar with the techniques of the various members of what he thought of as the flagellation community of the school. 

He knew which masters were hard caners and which of them were feeble when it came to administering corporal punishment on their flock.   Although he had already been beaten twice that term by Rufus – a hard caner if ever there was one – he knew instantly that this time things were different.

And as the beating progressed and stroke followed swingeing stroke, the significance of the homilies made by his housemaster: “Actions speak louder than words” and “Make haste slowly,” suddenly took on significant meaning to Anderson.  Never before had he felt the excruciating pain which each stroke seemed to deliver in ever greater intensity; nor had he ever experienced a beating which was administered at such a leisurely pace.  Rufus placed the strokes at intervals of some fifteen to twenty seconds, so that he barely delivered four cuts a minute. By the time he had given Anderson’s arse the tenth stroke, the lad had already been half-naked over a chair with for well nigh three minutes, which is a hell of a long time when someone is whacking your arse as hard as he can with a cane.

Anderson’s truculent manner had soon given way to howls of pain as Rufus steadily and ruthlessly applied the cane and gradually built up the pain. After the tenth stroke, he stood back to admire his handiwork: a neat series of evenly placed, deep welts, which were already bright crimson and would soon become tinged with the blue of bruising. Anderson was already in absolute agony and was crying like child as his housemaster announced that they would take a pause of ten minutes before continuing.

Already reduced to snivelling shadow of his former cocky, insulting, braggadocio self, Anderson now, metaphorically on his knees, pleaded for mercy: “Please sir, please stop now, sir. My bottom is just so very painful sir, I doubt that I can stand any more  I am very, very sorry for what I did and what I said, and  do really apologise for insulting you, But please, sir, please stop now, sir; the pain is just unbearable, sir.”

“Anderson, get a grip on yourself, boy, and stop your snivelling. You have made your bed and must now lie in it.  So pull yourself together stop behaving like a common coward and face up to your punishment, which you know you richly deserve.  Behave as you think of yourself:  a young gentleman, who has unfortunately run off the rails and who knows he has now to take his punishment, which is fully justified by his actions.  Show a bit of back-bone Anderson, as you are going to take the full eighteen I promised you. You are just going to have to grin and bear it. And if you can’t grin, then you will just have to bear it!”

“I told you that you were to receive eighteen strokes, six for each of your three very serious offences. So you still have a further eight cuts to look forward to. And I can but say, that if ever a boy merited an eighteen stroke beating, it is you today, Anderson. After the pause, during which I shall fortify myself with a glass of port, I shall have no compunction at all in completing your punishment. I am glad that you find being beating painful, for you, young man, deserve to suffer extreme pain for what you have done and said. I am afraid that when a boy deserves a beating, as you most certainly do, pain is the name of the game, as you are in the process of finding out.”

“And harbour no false illusions, Anderson, of my motivation. I have every intention of doing my duty and seeing that you leave this room tonight with what, in vulgar terms, is known as a well-beaten arse. In fact, if I do my job properly, which I shall, of course, as ever, endeavour to do, you should have the distinction of leaving tonight with an extremely-well-beaten arse, which will make its painfully unpleasant presence felt for several days. It is my intention, Anderson, to teach you the most painful lesson of your life in the hope that you will mend your ways.  But I have to say, that given your track record to date, I have severe doubts in my mind that I shall be successful.  However, I can but do my duty and try.”

Anderson remained silent during the time he was obliged to wait for the second half of his penance. But if any perceptive observer had had the pleasure of reviewing Rufus’s efforts so far, he would have seen that Anderson was already in absolute agony with the excessively effective strokes he had just been given.  Rufus’s ten stroke beating had turned the lad’s arse into a visual masterpiece of parallel cuts.  Of course, Anderson himself was not yet in a position to see the damage to his backside, but he certainly felt it! Had there been a scale of one-to-ten to judge the quality of Rufus’s efforts, at what was only half time, then he would surely have secured an eleven! 

When Rufus took up the cane again to complete what he himself secretly saw as his greatest masterpiece ever, Anderson trembled visually as the cane again touched his throbbing arse; at first only gently, as if to decide on its future objective, but enough to fill him with fear that he would not survive the final eight cuts of his beating. Anderson was now weeping freely as he braced himself for the next onslaught. And when it came it was as bad as he had expected as Rufus again slowly and methodically placed the final eight strokes diagonally across the full extent of Anderson’s backside.

He first stood to the lad’s left and administered four diagonal strokes, evenly space spaced from top to bottom of his arse. He then moved to Anderson’s the other side and delivered the four final strokes in the same way. So when he had finished, Anderson found himself sporting an excruciatingly painful, but visually, highly artistic, welted arse, composed of ten parallel strokes, criss-crossed by eight, deep, diagonal cuts. If there had ever been a competition between public schools to decide who was the top beater, Rufus would have won hands down. Anderson rose from his beating with what by any standards, both artistic and painful, was a backside which was a masterpiece of flagellation.

It was not without a certain feeling of satisfaction that Rufus watched a tearful Anderson limp away to nurse his wounds and, presumably, to share his profound misery with Clive Docherty, his partner in crime.  Both young men had been thoroughly beaten for their offence. But as Docherty said to his friend, Anderson, when he viewed his damaged arse: “My god, man, Rothery really took you to town today. Lord only knows how you survived such a beating without fainting.  I know I surely would have.  You, my friend, will not be able to sit down in comfort for a week or more.”

Rufus felt justified in being extra-severe with Anderson in view, not only of his offenses, but also of his rude insolence alluding to his housemaster’s sexual orientation and his crude innuendos about the company he kept to satisfy his sexual urges.  Such remarks had been totally inadmissible and unforgivable and anyone would have agreed that Anderson merited a very sound beating.  Whether Rufus had been justified in being quite so severe, is a moot point. But what was done was done and could not now be undone.  Both Rufus and Anderson had to live with the consequences. Of course there never were any consequences as Anderson never even thought of complaining about what had happened to him.  He may not have followed the motto, grin and bear it, as the cane descended on his backside; but now he had no option but to bear it.

But Rufus, by general innuendo, had come to feel that he was no longer a welcome member of the staff at St. Olaf’s. It was not that any of his colleagues ever actually said anything to him; they just seemed generally began to avoid his company so that he quickly began to feel isolated. In a word, they gave him the cold shoulder whenever they could. Certainly being seen alone with him became a definite no-no. What did they think he would do to them? Rape them? So even though nothing was ever said, he decided that he would leave St. Olaf’s and seek greener pastures elsewhere.

CHAPTER 24

This change in Rufus’s life occurred some three years after he had joined the teaching staff at St. Olaf’s. As he had met Tom Swires more or less immediately after his arrival at the school, their sexual relationship had developed to the stage that neither could do without the other. Tom had, quite early on in their liaison declared his love for Rufus, but Rufus had studiously avoided making Tom a reciprocal avowal. However, as time had progressed, their sexual relationship had become ever stronger, so much so that Rufus now knew that he could no more separate himself from Tom than fly to the moon. 

So he was now faced with what, at first sight, appeared to be an intractable problem. He felt he had to leave St. Olaf’s and make a fresh start elsewhere but at the same time he could not envisage a life without Tom. In short, declared or not, the two of them had become what in modern terms is known as an item.  It is a simple fact that public schools – and there was no question that Rufus would waste his considerable talents as a teacher of classics at some state-school – are not littering the English countryside and any new post that Rufus might find would, inevitably, mean a move elsewhere.

Lying together in Tom’s bed, after a particularly intense session of sex, Rufus told Tom that he was considering applying for a teaching post elsewhere and explained his reasons for his decision: “Tom, my position at St. Olaf’s has become almost untenable; there are unspoken innuendos about my liaison with you – God alone knows how anybody knows about us, but they do – and I have become sort of a pariah among my colleagues.”

“Add to that, the invidious insinuations about my sexuality and our liaison made by a sixth-former called Jeremy Anderson, whom I have soundly thrashed for his remarks, by the way. But I have the impression that he has a vindictive nature and could cause both of us a lot of trouble with the police if he broadcast his view. You do know, don’t you Tom, that what we do together is strictly illegal under the present benighted law of this land in which we live? If we were we were caught having sex together, even in private, we could be sentenced to gaol for it.  So Tom, I find myself between a rock and a hard place. I know that I have to leave St. Olaf’s and this area.  But what is to become of us, Tom, if I do?”

In their relationship, Rufus had always physically been the dominant partner. He was the one who fucked Tom, who, by nature, wanted to be dominated. In fact, in the three years they had been together, Tom had not once penetrated Rufus, preferring to be fucked rather than to fuck himself. But as Rufus always ensured that he took Tom all the way to orgasm each time they had sex together, Tom was sexually totally satisfied.  In fact, Rufus was as expert in the act of anal coitus with Tom as he was in beating boys’ arses at St. Olaf’s.

And as their somewhat unorthodox relationship had blossomed into one where Rufus regularly stimulated Tom’s arse – always at his request – with the cane, before going on to fuck him, the two of them were totally content with things as they were. Where else were there two young men, one of whom liked to have his arse beaten and then fucked, whilst the other like to beat arse and then fuck what he had just beaten? If that was not a match made in heaven, then what was?

Both parties to this rather unique relationship counted themselves lucky to have found a partner who totally satisfied his needs, so the thought of having to go their separate ways again, was an anathema to both of them. So although Rufus dominated their sex life, when it came to life beyond sex, it was Tom who inevitably took the lead. Tom Swires, the working-class bricklayer, was a quintessentially practical man when it came to life in general and had a solution to every problem. It was he, who now came with a solution to the dilemma posed by Rufus’s declaration. If ever Rufus had demanded proof positive of Tom’s undying devotion to him and their relationship, what Tom now proposed proved it beyond a doubt.

Calling a spade a spade, Tom said: “Look Rufus if you really feel that you have to leave St. Olaf’s that is entirely your call, as I have no idea at all what your life is like at the school. But don’t let me stop you; just go ahead and find yourself another post. Given your desire to work with boys, on whose bare arses you can exercise your undoubted sadistic expertise with the cane, and please don’t deny the fact, as I can testify from my own experience you do enjoy using the cane, I suggest you start looking for post in another public school.  After all St. Olaf’s is just one among many and with your qualifications and experience, you should easily find a new teaching post in a school where the cane is in regular use.”

“Hold your horses right there my friend. May I remind you, Tom Swires, that it was you who asked me to beat your arse and not the other way around? OK I admit I do enjoy beating the bare backsides of schoolboys and beating you does have the added attraction of sex straight afterwards, which I do not have at school. But please don’t imply that I suggested it in your case. It was entirely your own idea, Tom. Oh and don’t think even for a moment, Tom, that I ever have sex or ever have had sex with any of the senior boys I teach. The simple fact of the matter, Tom, is that from the first day we met, I have fucked only you; and that is the absolute truth.”

“Tom I cannot think of breaking up our relationship. So if I get another job at another school in another place, probably far from here, what becomes of us?  What do we do? Tom, I just can’t think of life without you.  You told me several years ago that you loved me. Well, Tom, I love you too. For me, and I hope for you too, our relationship is just too important for us to part.”

“For the intelligent and highly educated man that you are, Rufus, there are times, my friend, when you can be very dim and this is one of them. I shouldn’t need to spell out to you in words how important to me our relationship is. Actions speak louder than words and if you think for a moment that I would allow you to do the things that you do to me if our relationship were not important, you must be blind.  Of course I love you – sadistic sod that you are – more than ever and I would never ever do anything to throw away what we have together.  So forget our breaking up if you move to another job; it just will not happen. In fact, I will not allow it to happen.”

“But what are we going to do if I move away from this place; how can we possibly continue?”

“The answer is obvious and is looking you in the face. There are times Rufus Rothery that educated though you may be, you are an utter simpleton. If you move, then I move with you; it’s a simple as that.”

“You mean you would throw up your job and give up this flat and move with me? You would do that for me?”

“Well, unless you can think of a better solution, if we are to remain together which we are, then I don’t see any other way.”

“But if you move with me, what about your own job; what will you do?”

“What will I do? Oh, Rufus, there are times when I think I am talking to an utter dimwit; and this, my friend and lover, is one of them.  What the fuck do you think I would do?  The answer is staring you in the face; I would get another job. Look, Rufus, I’m an expert tradesman, a qualified bricklayer and builder, and so I can work more or less anywhere in the country. Don’t worry about me; I can look after myself anywhere. So just you bother about getting yourself a new teaching post. As far as I am concerned, it can be anywhere in the country and I will come with you and we shall continue our life together uninterrupted. I only wish that we could live together as I have reached the stage, Rufus, where I cannot do without you.”

To say that Rufus was touched by what Tom had just said would be the understatement of the century. He was totally overwhelmed with emotion at the devotion of his partner. Any doubts about their feelings being mutual were banished forever.  Rufus suddenly realised that he somehow just had to thank Tom for what he was willing to do for him and what better and more appropriate way to show Tom the depth of his feelings, than in one last, good-night fuck before he returned to the school.  

Rufus stood up from the bed, pulled Tom to his feet.  He then pushed Tom flat on his back onto the table, pulled him forward so that his entry port was easily accessible to his rock-hard, rampant cock, which was already dripping pre-cum with anticipation of what was about to happen. He then lifted Tom’s legs over his own shoulders and held them vertical by putting his arms around his thighs and in that vertical position, thrust his cock as deep as he could inside of his partner. Rufus then proceeded to give Tom what must have been the best and hardest fuck of his life.

He thrust and withdrew himself, time and time again as he moved at lightning speed, as if he was a man possessed; it was almost as if there were to be no tomorrow. And when the climax arrived, both of them, wracked by paroxysms of that unequalled pleasure which only sexual orgasm ever brings to a man, ejaculated seemingly endless spurts of sperm, smothering each other in the extraordinary abundance of their emissions.

Rufus withdrew himself from Tom pulled him up and led him by the hand and back to the bed, where they lay entwined for another hour, during which Rufus, in an act of pure love, kissed Tom’s body from top bottom until Tom was again quivering with desire.  So Rufus then took Tom’s cock in his mouth and very gently brought him to his final orgasm of the day. With consummate skill, Rufus took Tom to the brink several time, before, each time, he withdrew his mouth before Tom could climax and shoot his load. Finally, in this act of loving fellatio, Rufus took Tom to the height of sexual pleasure and increased his efforts, thereby bringing Tom to what was obviously a cataclysmic orgasm. Tom jerked out an unbelievable amount of his thick, creamy sperm, most of which landed on Rufus’s face.

A little later, Rufus and Tom found themselves embracing in the shower to wash away the sticky remnants of their coupling. And as the soaped each other down, Rufus, with his cock still as hard as bone, simply could not resist giving his lover’s anus a few last, goodnight thrusts. That night night as he walked back to the school Rufus had a peace of mind which he had not expected. Yes he would leave St. Olaf’s; and yes he and Tom would stay together.  In a euphoric frame of mind, he asked himself if life could get any better than it seemed to be at that moment.  But surprising things do happen and that final fuck in the shower was not the cherry on the cake of the evening.

As he entered the school grounds about nine that evening, Rufus saw the shadowy figure of two boys walking furtively towards Plato House, the very house of which he himself was the assistant housemaster. It is a strange fact that when boys have been up to something, even when they are not being observed, somehow take on a guilty look. Is it because they know if they are caught breaking the rules they know that they will be punished. However, on this occasion neither lad saw that their housemaster was behind them.  The rude awakening to the fact that they had been seen came as they entered Plato House with Rufus close on their heels.

“Well boys,” said Rufus, with a sudden jolt, bringing them back to reality, “Well, well, well! What, I wonder, are you two fine specimens of young manhood doing outside the school grounds so late in the evening?  And not wearing your school caps either.  Shall I tell you what I think? I think the pair of you have been down to the Cumbria Arms in search of a beer.  Am I right boys? Come on out with it?”

The two lads, both in the lower sixth and aged seventeen, Roger Parsons and Andrew Timmings by name, turned round, as if shell-shocked, to face their housemaster. Neither of them had seen that they were being followed as they returned from their nocturnal adventure. 

“I think boys you had better go and change into your pyjamas and then present yourselves at my study in fifteen minutes time, when we shall endeavour to get to the bottom of what you two boys were doing wandering around town at night, a pastime which, as you both know, is strictly forbidden.”

Some fifteen minutes later it was a pair of very nervous looking seventeen-year-olds who were standing facing their housemaster in front of his desk.  For the occasion, the pre-ordained outcome of which Rufus was looking forward to as, come what may, he was to have the pleasure of beating a pair of senior boys across their naked arses, Rufus had arranged his face with his most solemn and chillingly disapproving look.  “Well, come on the pair of you; start talking and give me an explanation of why I find two of my senior boys out of bounds at night and not wearing their school caps. Come on boys; I’m waiting for an explanation and it had better be the truth.”

“Well sir,” Parsons began speaking for them both, “It is quite true, sir that we did go downtown, but not to the Cumbria Arms, as you thought sir,  but  to another place called the Ploughman’s Rest, sir. But when we got there we didn’t actually have anything to drink sir, and that is the absolute truth, sir.”

Rufus now laid it on in spades as he theatrically said: “So perhaps Parsons, you would be good enough to acquaint me with the incredible fact, that having entered a public house, the two of you managed to show extraordinary restraint and refrain from slaking your doubtless raging thirsts by imbibing a glass of the alcoholic beverage, commonly called beer, which is the main beverage served in such places.”

By this time, the two lads were ready to crawl up a tree, as the full story of their failed mission came out.

Listening to what had actually happened, Rufus found it difficult to keep a straight face, as the full misery of their failed drinking mission was revealed by Timmings, who took up the sad story.

“Well sir, and this is the absolute truth sir, Will – I mean Parsons, sir,  – and I had never before been in a pub and when we got there, in the public bar that is, the landlord asked us what we wanted. So we told him we would like two pints of beer, sir. He looked us over, sir and told us to sling our hook sir, as he did not serve children.  So you see, sir, in the event, we did not actually drink any beer, sir, as the landlord chucked us out of the place.  And then we came straight back here sir, which is when you saw us sir. And and that is the absolute truth of the matter sir. And, sir, neither Parsons nor I have ever previously been into a pub, sir.  Nor have we been drinking beer in our rooms, sir. Truly we haven’t, sir.”

Listening to this sad story of their failed mission, Rufus found it difficult to refrain from laughing aloud.  But he, nevertheless, adopted a severe disapproving look.  At the end of that day, their failed mission had been a serious breach of the school rules and they had to be punished for their failed adventure. He decided first to make them squirm for their misdeeds before passing to something more painful than words.

“So boys, as I understand it, the two of you decided to leave the school grounds by night, without an exeat permit signed by a master. You then went into town, not wearing your school caps, where you went to a local hostelry and ordered beer. Then, when you were quite rightly kicked out by the landlord as being under the legal age to be served alcoholic beverages in a public house, you decided to cut your losses and sneak back into school hoping to be unobserved.   Does that accurately describe your little adventure boys?”

Agree a minute’s silence, Parsons said: “Well, sir that’s more or less right, sir, except we did not actually drink any beer, sir. So, sir, I don’t think we really broke the rule forbidding us to drink alcoholic beverages, sir.”

Rufus again smiled inwardly to himself at this forlorn attempt to minimise their liability and mitigate the punishment which they knew was coming. “Yes, Parsons, I know you didn’t achieve your objective. But that was thanks only to the eagle eye of the landlord.  Had he gone ahead and served you as you had requested, you both would have certainly have drunk the beer you ordered. Would you both agree with that statement?”

The two lads looked very sheepish as they then agreed with what Rufus had just said. It was now sinking in what a pickle they were in and that their young housemaster was intent on making them jump seriously through the hoop in retribution for their illicit actions.

“So, before we go any further, boys, let me just resume for you the situation in which you now find yourselves. You broken three of the cardinal rules of the school. First you leave the school premises at night without an exeat. Second you do not wear your school caps. Third you go into a public house with the intention of drinking beer, but are frustrated in your mission thanks to the vigilance of the landlord. Would you say that is a faire summary of your activities tonight?”

Having obtained the agreement of the two boys, who were now looking increasingly nervous, Rufus went on: “Well boys, I think under the circumstances, I have little option but to send you to the Headmaster first thing tomorrow morning. You have broken two of the cardinal rules of the school and it is the Headmaster himself who deals with such serious offences.”

Rufus, of course, had absolutely no intention of referring the matter to the Headmaster, thereby renouncing the delightfully satisfying prospect of thrashing the naked backsides of the two, muscular sixth formers himself. Parson and Timmings were, however, totally unaware of this fact and their faces became panic stricken at the very mention of the Headmaster.  Mr. Hamilton, the Headmaster, had a well deserved reputation of being a strict, unbending disciplinarian himself and the thought of the birchings he would probably give the boys, not to mention the possibility of expulsion for the school, put the fear of God into the two lads.

Parsons said: “Oh sir, please reconsider, sir. Couldn’t you deal with the matter yourself, sir, here and now, rather than send us to see the Headmaster, sir.” Then looking at Timmings, his partner in crime, for moral support, he went on: “Both Timmings and I, sir, would be forever grateful if you could keep this business inside Plato House, sir.”

Timmings nodded his agreement to what Parsons had just said before nervously adding: “Yes, sir, I agree with Parsons, sir. It would be better to kept this inside of Plato, sir.  After all, sir, it was you who caught us and you have the power as our housemaster to correct us sir. So, sir, won’t you reconsider and deal with us yourself, sir rather than send us to see the Headmaster?”

Rufus was secretly amused by the way the two lads were begging him, almost on their knees, to thrash them himself, which was of course what he had always intended to do. However, he went on with the little drama, before finally agreeing to their request.

“Well boys, such serious infractions as the ones of which you are both guilty, are normally dealt with by the Headmaster himself. However, as you have both had a reasonably good track record of obedience until now and as you have not contested your guilt and are willing to accept the inevitably, rather painful consequences for your actions, whether administered by me or the Headmaster, I will grant your request.”

“So, on this one occasion, and, I stress, on this one occasion only, I will deal with the pair of you myself. Any further offences by either of you, then you will go straight to the Headmaster. Now, as there is no time like the present, we may as well get the whole business here and now.  I am afraid, boys that you are each going to have a very uncomfortable night.  But that will be that and we shall say no more about it. Now Parsons, if you would be so kind as to go and wait in the corridor, I will deal with Timmings first.”

What neither Parsons nor Timmings had realised was that in persuading their housemaster to deal with them personally and not send them to the Headmaster, which was, of course, what they believed, quite mistakenly, they had done, they had jumped from the frying pan into the fire. Had they realised just how proficient their housemaster was with the cane, they might have thought twice before adopting an attitude equivalent to that of turkeys voting for Christmas. However, the die had now been cast and the two of them were shortly to find out just how painful a bare-arsed beating could be.

“Well, Timmings, shall we get it over with a quickly as possible?  Take of you dressing gown, lad, go over and stand behind the armchair over there, bend over the back of the chair to present your bare bottom to me for punishment. Oh, and put your hands on the arms of the chair and keep them there until I tell you otherwise.”

Timmings did as he had been told, thankful for the fact that he had not been told to drop his pyjama trousers. Alas, the naïve young lad was dreaming; living in cloud cuckoo-land; counting his chickens before they were hatched, as he was very soon to find out. Whilst Timmings was adopting what is usually called the position, Rufus selected a suitable senior cane from those he kept in a large oriental pot at the side of his desk. To add to the drama, he swished the cane menacingly through the air a few times; music to his ears but enough to make poor Timmings shudder at what was to come. The fateful moment had now arrived and Rufus approached Timmings’s muscular buttocks, the full potential of which was still hidden by the presence of his pyjamas.

“Oh, my apologies, Timmings; I see that I have absentmindedly forgotten to tell you how many cuts you are to receive in retribution for your offences. I am going to give you twelve parallel cuts placed from the bottom of your back to the top of your legs above the crease.  That’s six cuts for each of your two major offenses, both of which are really very, very serious. Then, for the relatively minor offence of not wearing your school cap, which nevertheless normally carries a mandatory six, I will be lenient with you and give you only three additional, diagonal, gating strokes.”

“So there you are Timmings; you will take a fifteen stroke beating for your misdemeanours, which will inevitably be rather painful.” Given Rufus’s prowess with the rod of justice, that was an understatement if ever there was one!

Rufus now prepared himself to deliver the first stroke, but before that could happen, Timmings’s backside had to be divested of the little protection that his pyjama bottoms still provided. As anyone who has ever had his arse beaten at public school will know, one flimsy layer of cotton cloth between the naked flesh and the cane offers little, if any,  protection at all. In fact there is little difference in the degree of pain delivered by beating a boy on the bare or with his pyjamas or underpants on.

But making him remove those last vestiges of his clothing and expose his genitals to his tormentor has an important psychological effect; the act robs him totally of his dignity; he is in a position of complete submission.  It renders him both mentally and physically totally vulnerable. Somehow when a lad’s naked buttocks are exposed to the ravages of the cane the sense of humiliation is complete.  And that is the state in which Timmings was now about to find himself.

Rufus reached under the lad’s pyjama jacket, tugged on the waist cord and down came his pants in a pool around his ankles. Timmings, who had not expected this, was horrified and protested, begging Rufus to allow him to keep his pants on.  But it was to no avail. Beatings at St. Olaf’s were always on the bare; that was the way it was always done; and on his bare backside, Timmings would now be beaten.  As he looked upon the lad’s bare arse, Rufus felt himself hardening in his pants as he prepared to place his first stroke.

What he had hitherto only seen veiled by pyjamas, proved to be one of the most alluring and attractive pair of buttocks Rufus had ever thrashed.  Timmings had an arse which was just crying out for a taste of that not-so-tender-loving-care, the likes of which only a well seasoned and well applied rattan-cane can deliver. And if ever there was a person who knew how to exploit the potential of the cane, it was Rufus.  Rufus now proceeded in his normal unhurried, methodical way and placed stroke after swingeing stroke on Timmings’s hitherto virgin looking buttocks. I say virgin looking as Timmings had clearly not been beaten for quite some time, for there were no traces of previous stripes still visible.

By the the third stroke he had reduced Timmings to tears and at each successive stroke the lad howled loudly.  But it was to no avail. Rufus ruthlessly delivered stripe after stinging stripe to the lad’s naked skin.  It did not take Timmings long to realise that he and Parsons might have made a grave mistake in begging their housemaster to deal with them. As he suffered each successive stroke from Rufus, he ask himself if a beating by the Headmaster could have been any worse than what he was now enduring. Well we all know the answer to that, don’t we? By the time Rufus had finished embellishing Timmings’s arse with his cane there was one thing the lad knew for sure: their housemaster had turned that well-known aphorism on its head; his bite was much, much worse than his bark.

Rufus was, of course, well aware that he had been very severe with the cane.  But then, when did he not give of his all when it came to beating a boy’s arse?  It gave him immense satisfaction and as long as no one complained, well, why not beat the living daylights out of the lads if they misbehaved?  As he looked at the twelve cuts he had already delivered to Timmings, he felt a great sense of personal satisfaction.  He looked at the neat, parallel, obviously extremely painful stripes the cane had made, without ever breaking the lad’s skin. He then completed Timmings’s punishment by placing the three additional gating stripes across the lad’s arse, before telling him he could get up from over the chair.

Timmings’s punishment had taken the best part of fifteen minutes, during which time Parsons had been left standing in the corridor. As he had no idea what lay in store for him, he listened intently at the door of the study in an attempt to hear what was going on within. After a few minutes silence, he heard the first inimitable crack of a cane mating with naked flesh of his friend’s arse, followed immediately afterwards by a howl of pain.  He counted five further strokes, applied after what seemed like interminable intervals.

Then there was a longer silence, which Parsons took to mean that the punishment was over. He sighed mentally with relief that they were only to be given six cuts each for their disobedience.  But as we already know; how wrong he was! The crack of the cane soon took up where it had left off and he finally realised the full horror of what was in store for him: a fifteen stroke beating.  Parsons probably suffered more than Timmings had done, as he was subject to that fifteen minutes wait in the corridor, during which the full extent of what he was about to suffer became evident to him. Not to minimise what Timmings had undergone, awful though it had been; but he had been spared the mental anguish of the wait.

The door of the housemaster’s study opened and a limping Timmings, tearfully emerged, again wearing his pyjamas and dressing gown, with both his hands furiously massaging the pain raging in his arse.  The door closed behind him and the two boys were left together in the corridor to commiserate with each other.

“So how was it?”

“Absolutely bloody awful,” he sobbed. “He gave me fifteen cuts, all real stingers and I can tell you, if my arse looks anything like it feels then it will look fucking awful too. The man applied the fucking cane as if he wanted to beat the living daylights out of my arse. I have been caned many times in my time at St. Olaf’s by various other masters and prefects; but this guy is in another league; he’s an absolute killer.”  At that moment, the study door opened and Parsons was called in to meet his fate. “See you later.”  He said, trying to smile, as he entered the study, to face Rufus, with the cane already in his hand.

Later that same evening a very humbled Parsons limped his own way to Timmings’s room where he found his friend lying face down on his bed, with the full glory (gore?) of his bruised backside exposed. Parsons looked sympathetically at the state of his friend’s lower anatomy and said:  “If it’s any consolation to you, Andrew, right now my arse feels like yours looks.  Have you seen the state of your backside? It’s a mass of blue-red bruises.  You are dead right when you say that Rothery is a killer. Boy, if anybody knows how to lay on the cane, he certainly does. You know, I wonder now, if we should have taken our chances and let him report us to the Headmaster. Surely he could not have done any worse than that fucking maniac of a housemaster has done to us.”

Meanwhile, whilst the two lads were quite justifiably, feeling painfully sorry for themselves, Rufus went to bed and fell very contentedly asleep. The evening had been one of the most agreeable in his life. He had first beaten Tom Swires and then fucked him no less than three times. But then, the cream in the cake had been catching Parsons and Timmings and giving himself the extreme pleasure of beating their bare arses.

CHAPTER 25

Having taken the decision to leave St. Olaf’s, Rufus immediately set about trying to find himself another teaching post elsewhere. And it was whilst scanning through the latest issue of the monthly publications, Public School Master, in the staff common room, that an advertisement caught his eye. And how could it not have done so, for it was a quarter page spread. It read as follows.

RIGBY SCHOOL FOR BOYS:  SENIOR CLASSICS MASTER AND HOUSEMASTER

Rigby School, a prestigious public boarding school for boys, located near the village of Ditchfeild (sic) in rural Lincolnshire, wishes to appoint a senior classics master.  This post, one of the most important in the school, will become shortly vacant due to the forthcoming retirement of its present, long term holder.  In addition to an attractive salary, the post also offers the successful applicant generous living accommodation on site as he will also become the housemaster of York House, one of the six houses of the school. It may, therefore, be particularly attractive to applicants who are unmarried and dedicated to teaching and residential life in a public school environment.

Applications are invited from suitably qualified candidates. Ideal qualifications are a first class honours degree in Latin and Greek from one of our two oldest universities and considerable teaching experience. Experience as a housemaster at another public school would be an added advantage as York House has some eighty boys in residence.

Rigby is a strictly traditional public school which uses traditional teaching methods. It is also a place in which the school rules are sacrosanct and where discipline is strict. Its mission in life is to turn out well educated young gentlemen who are capable of assuming the highest position in public service and industry.

Written applications should be addressed to:

The Headmaster

Rigby School 

Ditchfeild

Lincolnshire

All applications will be acknowledged.

Rufus read and re-read this advertisement several times. It seemed directed exactly at him as he had all the required qualifications. But he just asked himself as he was now only twenty-five years old  with only three years of teaching experience, whether that would be enough.  He himself knew that he could handle both the teaching side and the running York House as its housemaster.  But would he be able to convince the Headmaster and Board of Governors of his suitability?  He wisely decided to tell his present Headmaster, Mr. Hamilton, that he was thinking of leaving St. Olaf’s; to better himself  was the way he put it to Mr. Hamilton.

Now, it has to be remembered that Rufus had been associated with St. Olaf’s, since he was eight years old, first at the preparatory school then at the senior school as a pupil and where he was now himself a teacher. His only break had been his three years at university. But even then, he had returned three times a year, during the vacations, as Vacation Tutor. So between the ages of eight and twenty-five, his present age, he had been associated with the school more or less continuously for over seventeen years.

Mr. Hamilton had been Rufus’s greatest champion. However, of late, he too had begun to have misgivings about the excessive beatings Rufus handed out. Nor was he ignorant of the somewhat unsavoury rumours of his sexual relationship with a working-class man in the town.  So all in all he himself was beginning to have second thoughts about Rufus as a long term member of the staff of St. Olaf’s.

“After all,” he reasoned to himself, “St. Olaf’s is a prestigious school, whose boys were essentially from the upper classes of English society if not from the aristocracy itself. As such the parents of its pupils, who were paying eye-wateringly high fees to see their sons educated to a high standard, were entitled to expect that the staff would be drawn from the same upper-classes to which they themselves considered they belonged. So what might they think if they thought that the man, who was teaching their offspring classics, was cavorting around the town and having an illegal, and for them, an unspeakably unsavoury, perverted, sexual relationship with a man from the working-classes?  It could be disastrous for the school.”

So based on nothing more than the vaguest of rumour and innuendo and the growing realisation that possibly Rufus was too ready and brutal with the cane, the Headmaster, hitherto one of Rufus’s greatest champions, convinced himself that it was a good thing that Rufus of his own volition, prodded by no one and with not a single overt stain on his character, was looking for a post elsewhere. Having decided this, the Headmaster then saw that it was in his own best interests to help Rufus meet his goal and speed him on his way.

He was rather surprised when he learned which school Rufus had in mind as is next port of call.  Rigby was not only a bigger school than St. Olaf’s, but was also one of the most prestigious of the public schools located in the north of the country.  He was – to say the very least – astounded when he learned that a junior master at his school, aged just twenty-five  with only three years of teaching experience under his belt, should have the confidence to be applying for the post of senior classics master at such a renowned establishment.

But far be it for him to stand in the way of progress, especially if it rid him of a potential problem. So Mr. Hamilton decided that he would do everything in his power to help Rufus leave St. Olaf’s. And if that could be achieved by shipping him off to a more senior position in one of the country’s best schools, then so be it.  Caveat emptor – let the buyer beware – he thought as he set about composing a glowing and totally unsolicited reference for Rufus.

He extolled Rufus’s undoubted teaching capabilities, his devotion to strict discipline – also undoubted – and the way, as assistant housemaster to Plato House, his efforts had proved invaluable to his immediate superior, the ageing housemaster himself. No hint was made of the rumours of Rufus’s homosexuality, or his rumoured taste for lower-class men or the more concrete fears about his excessive use of the cane.

Rufus himself was surprised to receive a letter inviting him to Rigby for an interview, together with a first-class travel warrant and a note informing him that he would be met off the train at Lincoln Station and driven by taxi to Ditchfeild, where the school was located. And what was he to read into the fact that he had been invited to stay the night at the school? This seems to be an excellent sign in his favour. But why should he be invited to spend the night at the school before even his first interview? But then he saw that the train times were not at all favourable to a one day visit. So perhaps he was reading too much into it..

The then Headmaster of Rigby, a certain Dr. Clarence Edward Wilton-Smith, himself a strict disciplinarian, was a typical example of the sort of man, who unflinchingly ruled the senior English public schools in the early part of the twentieth century with that metaphorical rod-of-iron. Like so many so many of his contemporaries in the profession, the Headmaster was a Doctor of Divinity from nineteenth century Oxford but who had never taken holy orders, received Rufus in his vast study.

If Rufus had been impressed by the scale of the school buildings and grounds as he arrived at Rigby he quickly saw, from the size and luxurious appointments of the Headmaster’s study, that he was here in a school on a different scale, both in size and opulence, to that of St. Olaf’s. Rufus’s eagle eye noted with satisfaction that a large, cylindrical oriental pot, that classical, public school repository for punishment canes, stood behind the Headmaster’s desk, its contents on full, bristling display.

He also sensed, from the look of him, that the Headmaster himself was a regular wielder of the cane.  Dr. Wilton-Smith was a man, clearly approaching retirement himself, in his early sixties. He had one of those lined, disapproving faces, with hard unsmiling eyes, framed in a pair of antediluvian, round-lens, wire-framed glasses, which said it all. Rufus was quite sure at first sight that Dr. Wilton-Smith was a martinet, used to being obeyed by the boys and, judging from the array of canes on display, a regular practitioner of the gentle art of flagellation.

Rufus outlined his career to date, to which the Headmaster listened attentively.  The Headmaster then referred to the glowing letter of reference, which he had independently received from Mr., Hamilton, and said: “Well, Rothery, your academic and teaching qualifications and experience seem to be excellent and your present Headmaster, Mr. Hamilton, who has known you for the past fifteen years, has provided you with this glowing reference, which also mentions your achievements as assistant-housemaster at St. Olaf’s.  And this brings me to another important and indispensible aspect of the post we are at the moment trying to fill: that of Housemaster of York House, here at Rigby.”

“This was mentioned in the advertisement to which you replied, but it is, in its own way, equally as important as the teaching of classics. The present senior classics master, Mr. Rawsthorne, who is to retire at the end of this school year and whom you would be replacing if we were to offer you the post, is also housemaster of York House, a post he has held for nigh on thirty years. Now, strictly between us and what I am telling you is in confidence, not to be repeated outside this room, Rawsthorne’s powers have been in severe decline for the past several years, both in terms of his his teaching  and his ability to run York House.”

At this surprising display of confidence from the Headmaster, Rufus’s hopes of success rose considerably. Why tell him such intimate details of school-life if he were not to be offered the job?

The Headmaster continued, “Now I am sure I do not have to tell you, as someone who has spent his entire life since he was eight in the English public school system, that if boys lack discipline and see that they can get away with things, then they will inevitably do so. A boy spends a good part of the year at school and the house to which he belongs and to which he usually becomes utterly loyal, is a surrogate home for him.  So if, tradition, routine and, dare I say it, discipline  break down in that place, then the effects on its members can be devastating. And that, my dear Rothery, in a nutshell, is the state of disarray in which York House, at present, finds itself. Poor Rawsthorne is not longer up to it, I’m afraid things over in York are pretty bad.”

“I have to admit that I am myself partly to blame for this lamentable situation, as I argued successfully with the Board of Governors, that Rawsthorne’s tenure should be extended for a further five years beyond the usual retirement age sixty five. Unfortunately, Rawsthorne’s wife died at the young age of only sixty, the year after we granted him a five year extension in his tenure, Subsequent to that sad event, the poor man has simply fallen to pieces. In retrospect, what I did for an esteemed colleague and hitherto excellent teacher and housemaster, has proved to be a grave mistake. The poor man is today but a shadow of his former self and his faculties have been ravaged by the loss of his wife from which he has never recovered.”

“So there, Rothery, you have the sad situation in which we find ourselves at the moment. Now I would stress that Rigby is a school where discipline and the school rules are taken seriously and are enforced in the traditional way.” As he said this, he waved his hand at the selection of canes visible behind him. “Any boy, who is caught breaking any rule whatsoever, finds himself being corrected with the traditional rattan rod in the normal painful way.  Here at Rigby we do not hesitate afraid to beat a boy on the bare if he deserves it. And boys being boys, many frequently do deserve to be beaten, so that the cane is in regular use.”

“Now, strict discipline is maintained in the classroom via a system of punishment chits, which are handed out by the masters, referring the offender to me for correction.  Boys are never caned in the classroom in front of their classmates. They are always referred to me to be beaten. I think it right and proper that the Headmaster should be involved in the day-to-day disciplining of the boys so that they know that a visit to his study will end in a painful experience, which, allow me to assure you, is not to be taken lightly.”

“But in addition to this, each boy has his own Demerit Book, a small pocket sized diary which he carries with him all the time.  Masters and prefects note down the demerit points they award to boy for those small transgressions which individually do not merit a beating, but  which over time, if allowed to go uncorrected, become pernicious. Once a boy has accumulated ten demerit points, he is honour bound to present himself with his Demerit Book to the head-boy, who then takes care of the needs of that lad’s backside.  So as you can see, Rothery, we keep strict tabs on a boy’s progress and do not allow him to stray from the straight and narrow for long.”

“I make no apologies for the fact that here at Rigby we have no hesitation in applying the cane to the bare bottom of any boy who merits it. It is the traditional public school way of dealing with things and I think its merits are universally acknowledged. At Rigby, we always cane on the bare, by the way, as I presume you do to at St. Olaf’s.” As he said this, he motioned again towards the pot of canes, behind his desk, thereby emphasising the point for the second time.

So Rufus was right, the old boy was a devotee of the cane and from his dwelling on the subject of the cane, probably had that same, sadistic streak running thought his character as Rufus himself had.

The Headmaster continued: “I see, Rothery, from your Curriculum Vitae that you were first a prefect and then, in your final year, head-boy at St. Olaf’s.  I also note that during your university career you were regularly what is described as vacation tutor at St. Olaf’s and that you subsequently joined the staff of the school as junior classics master but that at the same time you were given the job of assistant housemaster of York house a post which you still occupy.”

“Now your present Headmaster, Mr. Hamilton, speaks very highly of your teaching ability, but also remarks that you are a very strict disciplinarian. As I have just explained to you, the man who takes over from Mr. Rawsthorne, will have his hands full pulling York House back from the brink of disastrous disorder into which it has so lamentably fallen.  It will require a man of iron will to rectify matters, which have been allowed to slide for so long that they have come to be the accepted as the norm. So you can understand my concern, Rothery, that this is not a job for a man of squeamish nature.  So perhaps you would like to elaborate on that last point; that you are a strict disciplinarian? A strict disciplinarian is exactly what York House now needs?”

“Well, sir, on joining the staff of St. Olaf’s three years ago, I was also appointed as assistant housemaster of Plato House. By a strange coincidence, Plato House mirrors, or perhaps I should say more accurately, mirrored, your own present problems with York House here at Rigby. I say mirrored, in the past tense, rather than mirror in the present, as I would like to think that under my direction the laissez-faire days of Plato House are now well behind us.”

“Mr. Jarvis, the present housemaster and my immediate superior, is much like your Mr. Rawsthorne. He is a somewhat prematurely aged, frail and elderly man, now on the verge of retirement himself and house standards and discipline had been allowed to slip – seriously I might add. However, Mr. Jarvis welcomed my appointment as his assistant and for the last three I have functioned as de-facto housemaster of Plato House. Mr. Jarvis was, I think, relieved, to be able to hand over all day-to-day matters to me.”

“So, more or less from my first day as assistant housemaster, it is I myself, assisted, of course by the house-captain and prefects of the day, who has been in total charge of the day to day running of the house.  And allow me to assure you, sir that I am a strict enforcer of the school rules. I do not let the boys run wild, as they had been doing prior to my arrival. I can assure you, sir that in Plato House, under my direction, the old maxim:  Spare the rod and spoilt the boy, is taken very much to heart.  The cane, sir, is never spared in Plato House, if, as is often the case, it is needed to keep the lads on the straight and narrow.”

“I am personally a firm believer that a sound beating is the surest way of bringing home to a boy, the error of his ways.  And I think I can safely say, sir that whenever I have occasion to beat a boy, which at St. Olaf’s as here at Rigby, is always on the bare, the recipient goes away with a very painful, long-lasting souvenir of his misdeeds. Headmaster, I believe, that the cane, when firmly applied to a boy’s bottom, is the most immediate, the surest and certainly the quickest way of bringing a boy to book for his misdemeanour and making him realised that painful retribution is the inevitable sequel to his misdeeds.”

“In my time at St. Olaf’s, sir, both as a prefect, as head-boy, and now as assistant housemaster, I have beaten countless boys.  I think that most the boys know that they have to accept punishment as retribution for their misdeeds and prefer to get it over with as soon as possible. Most boys accept that a beating, although a painfully unpleasant experience, is an immediate means of answering for and purging their sins. It is a very attractive means of getting things over and done with quickly. I know that I myself was of that opinion, when I was schoolboy.”

“And I can tell you sir, that I was myself regularly thrashed in my schooldays at St. Olaf’s by the prefects, head-boys and house-captains of the day and even on two, very painful occasions by the Headmaster, Mr. Hamilton, himself. It never did me any harm, although I have to admit that at times the pain was absolutely excruciating.  But of course, imparting pain is the purpose of beating a boy.  It is only later when he sits nursing his pain that it comes home to him that his misdeeds have truly unpleasant consequences. So whenever I beat a boy, it is always thoroughly; I never give less than six cuts and for repeat offenders, frequently more, as I firmly believe that a boy has got to suffer severe pain in retribution for his misdeeds.”

“Ask any boy at St. Olaf’s who has been punished by me, and he will probably say that I am the hardest caner he has ever experienced. But I never hear any complaints as I am always scrupulously fair. I never beat a boy without just cause on an imaginary trumped up offence for the pleasure of administering a beating.  Some of the prefects, who feel that it would be fun to thrash one of their underlings, invoke imaginary offences to justify beating a boy, of which the most common is that the victim has the wrong attitude.”

“Such prefects deserve to be beaten themselves for misuse of their authority.  In fact, just last week, I beat one of my own house-prefects who had done just that to a first former.  So should the cane be in regular use? Most emphatically yes; but only when there is just cause. Then a proper, hard beating that makes the recipient think again before committing the same misdeed is, I believe, not only totally justifiable but also very beneficial to the recipient. In fact, sir, I see little point in beating a boy for his misdeeds unless it really pains him.  My view is that if a boy deserves to be corrected then he should get up with his bottom feeling like a raging fire has been at it. And, Headmaster, I think I can safely say that that I usually achieve that objective.”

The Headmaster has sat silently whilst Rufus was speaking. Knowing what we already know about Rufus, what he said about his career as assistant housemaster of Plato House was quite true. However, what had been said clearly glossed over the fact that Rufus himself had that ruthlessly sadistic streak in his character, which lurking there in his psyche, always exerted its malign influence on what he did. 

Yes, it was quite true that Rufus never ever beat a boy without just cause.  But equally he never ever allowed a boy caught in the act of breaking even the most piffling of the school’s rules, to escape with his arse unscathed. Even the most superficial of misdeeds was punished with what any impartial observer would have seen as excessive severity; Rufus was, without any doubt, an arch-purveyor of the well-beaten arse. In a word, Rufus Rothery, although he would never admit it to any of his colleagues, truly enjoyed the act of beating a boy’s naked bottom.

Whether the Headmaster, himself a very strict disciplinarian, whose legendary caning prowess was feared throughout Rigby School, had read between the lines of what he had just heard or not, is beside the point.   But like many inveterate school masters of his generation, he was a wise old owl and saw that in Rufus Rothery he had a man with that relentlessly ruthless streak needed to rectify matters in York House. And as he had both brilliant academic qualifications and a stellar reputation as a teacher of classics, according to the glowing written reference of his present Headmaster, Dr. Wilton-Smith had more or less made up his mind that Rufus Rothery was the ideal man to fill the post which was soon to fall vacant.

Dr. Wilton-Smith had already interviewed a short list of five candidates before even receiving Rufus’s application.  But Rufus’s declared devotion to the rod of justice had convinced him more than anything else that he was the right man for the job.  He hesitated only a few moments in his own mind when he considered Rufus’s young age for the post.  But the hesitation had been only momentary. Certainly, Mr. Travis, the present junior classic master, ten years older than Rufus and eight years at the school, would have his nose out of joint when he learned that he was not to be promoted when his superior, Mr. Rawsthorne, retired at the end of that term.

But as Dr. Wilton Smith saw it, Travis, who was an excellent teacher, had neither the iron will nor the determination to take on and cure the problems besetting York House. So although it would be a bitter pill for him to swallow when he learned that he was to play second fiddle to a new recruit, a man ten years younger than himself, he would just have to put up with it. The demands of the post went far beyond Travis’s capabilities.  So with sentiment and empathy brushed aside in the best interests of the school, Travis would just have to lump it! Anyone who had looked into Dr. Wilton-Smith’s unsmiling eyes through those totally unflattering, old-fashioned, steel-rimmed, round-lens glasses he wore, would have seen that the milk of human kindness was in short supply in in his veins. Dr. Wilton-Smith was just as ruthless as was Rufus.

Having made up his mind, the Headmaster saw no need to delay telling Rufus that he was offering him the post.  The Board of Governors of the School had see fit to place the new appointment entirely in his hands, so he saw no reason to delay or to discuss or seek the opinion of any of his senior colleagues with the appointment. It was in his gift and so he could act totally alone, which is what he now did.  And no one was more surprised than Rufus himself when the offer came so suddenly.

“Rothery, I have listened most carefully to what you have just told me about your philosophy as a housemaster and the work you have done over the past three years at St. Olaf’s to put to rights matters in Plato House, which mirrored exactly the problems now facing us in York House in this school.  This is a splendid recommendation in addition to the excellent reference from your present Headmaster, who says you are an exceptionally good teacher of classics and one of the most popular teachers in the school, in spite of your penchant for strict discipline.  I can tell you. Rothery, that I sincerely take my hat off to anyone who is capable of raising the enthusiasm of most boys to the study of two dead languages and the culture of two ancient peoples. That smacks of real brilliance.”

“And so, my dear Rothery – Rufus immediately noticed the use of the word, dear before his name – it is with the greatest of pleasure that I am offering you, here and now, the post which I sincerely hope you will accept.  You, young man, are the only one, among the six candidates whom I have interviewed for this post, who combines the required teaching ability with the proven experience of running a house full of school boys. And not only running a house inhabited by a bunch of rambunctious boys, but of taking on a run-down house and putting it to rights.  You Rothery are exactly what this school needs at this moment. You, Rothery, are a very impressive young man.”

After Rufus had scraped himself, metaphorically, off the floor where this totally unexpected offer had thrown him, he collected his thoughts and said very simply: “Headmaster, I thank you for the offer, which I pleased to accept.”

Dr. Wilton-Smith replied: “Excellent! Now I see that it is nearing five, so I think tea would be in order, don’t you?”  Sitting behind his desk he pressed one bottom on a pad and a few moments later a man in full butler’s dress entered.

“You rang Headmaster.”

“Yes, Bates, indeed I did. Would you kindly make us a pot of tea for two, please? And if there is any of that delicious fruit-cake left please bring it with you when you return with the tea. Oh and Bates allow me to introduce  you to my guest, today, Mr. Rothery, who will be joining us next term as senior classics master and housemaster of York House. This, Rothery, is my faithful butler, Bates, without whose manifold services I should be lost. Oh, and I do beg your pardon, Rothery. I completely forgot to ask you what kind of tea you preferred. We have Lap-Sang, Earl Grey and Indian, I believe.  Myself, I stick to Indian with milk and no sugar, but take your pick. Bates will then do the necessary; and you can, of course, have lemon rather than milk if you wish.”

“After tea, Bates will show you to your room for tonight and tomorrow morning we will see the bursar together and get the formalities of the paper work completed so that you can return to St. Olaf’s with a contract, signed, sealed and delivered in your pocket.”

To be continued..