The Portrait of a Strict Disciplinarian

New readers should start reading this novel at Chapter 1.  The chapters do not stand alone, but are sequential components of an erotic novel in which there are 36 chapters in all, which are intended to be read in numerical order. T

Brad and DD went down to the punishment room early that evening to find the unfortunate David Travis, already showered, standing there in the corridor, naked apart from his punishment shorts, under the vigilance of the two guards and the Head Warder. To Brad’s relief, Travis, whom he had never met until now, turned out to be a macho-looking, muscular young stud, whose physique, which would obviously stand a thorough birching was obviously the result of many hours spent in a gym somewhere. At first sight, it was difficult to equate such a physically attractive young man with the perpetrator of the violent robberies in which he had been involved, resulting in his confinement at the School and a 12 stroke mandatory birching to boot. But appearances can be very deceptive, and Travis’s violent tendencies were revealed when Turner, the Head Warder, told him to take off his shorts, which he refused to do.

Turner turned to the two guards and told them to strip Travis, who immediately unleashed a torrent of foulmouthed invective at the guard, who was attempting to remove his shorts and hit the other guard across his face. But Travis, in spite of his muscular physique, was no match for two experienced guards, whose stock-in-trade was dealing with fractious inmates. In spite of his protests and a struggle, he quickly found himself stripped naked and strapped down, awaiting his punishment, across the first of the three beating horses. Once Travis was firmly strapped in place, Brad thanked the guards for their assistance and then asked them to wait outside. Clearly surprised, with disappointment written all over their faces by the fact that they would be deprived of watching the new inmate having his arse roasted, they were forced to leave the room:  “I will call you once I have finished dealing with Travis and then you can resume your normal post-punishment duties.”

Brad had initially been shocked to see Travis’s reaction; a shock, which quickly turned to relief; having now seen the lad’s violent nature exposed, he felt much more at ease in birching a young man, whom, at first sight, he would much preferred to have fucked – Travis was a very sexy young stud – rather than flog. But immobilised as he was across the horse, Travis displayed a splendid pair of muscular buttocks which were just crying out for attention.  As he admired Travis’s backside, which truly was a lusciously exquisite bubble-butt just begging to be fucked, Brad felt a pang of pity that the tender loving care which he was obliged, by law, to lavish on such a prospect, was in the form of a severe flogging rather than something more agreeable.

It was not to say that Brad derived no pleasure from beating arse; indeed, quite the contrary. Having seen how sexually attractive Travis’s arse now was, exposed as in all its naked glory, his ideal would be to birch Travis and then to go on and fuck him, as he had done countless times, under rather different circumstances, at the Brotherhood meetings. But this was not a consensual situation, where the arse he was about flog was freely offered for punishment by its masochistic owner; this was a judicial birching, where the last thing Travis wanted was to have his arse shredded by anyone.

DD, reading Brad’s thoughts like a book, said very softly into his ear out of the nervous Travis’s hearing: “I know exactly what you are thinking; and looking at the attractive potential in front of us, I can well see why. But keep your mind on the job to hand and your cock in your pocket and leave any post-operative care to the guards, who, I am sure, will give Travis’s arse all the supplementary attention that it deserves.”

Brad looked at DD and smiled his agreement as he reached first for the Headmaster’s patent conditioner.  The judicial sentence of 12 cuts of the birch, Brad thought of as the putative main course of an imaginary dinner, which would commence with an hors d’oeuvre of six swats with the Headmaster’s paddle as an appetiser for what was to come.  And the pièce de résistance of this figurative meal, the birching, would then be doubtless followed by a dessert provided by the two guards. And then, who knows what might happen to the unfortunate Travis, once the guards had finished with him and he was deposited in his dormitory with his new mates. They too might feel that it was their duty to make their new dorm-mate feel at home in his new home, which given the lack of female company, was most certainly a hotbed of buggery. Brad instinctively knew that come what may, whether or not the guards played their putative part in this affair, Travis’s super-attractive arse would soon be a main attraction and would never be neglected in the quasi-prison of Moulton Midmarsh.

Brad had, as yet, not spoken a word to the unfortunate Travis, whose nervousness was naturally mounting as he waited for his punishment to begin. “Travis, in view of the violent nature of your crime, you have been sentenced by the court to receive a 12-stroke birching across your bare buttocks It is my painful duty (a horribly insincere expression, frequently trotted out to ease the conscience of the beater himself, even though he actually enjoys – as did many masters and prefects at boys’ public schools – inflicting pain on miscreants) to carry out this sentence However, I have to tell you that such a sentence does not preclude any supplementary punishments that may be deemed appropriate or necessary.”

“I am sorry to have to tell you that before the judicial birching is carried out, in conformity with the usual punishment methods practised in this School, you will be given six strokes of the wooden paddle across your naked buttocks, to pre-condition them to better appreciate the birch.  You will then be given 12 cuts with the four-millimetre senior birch, as your sentence requires. However, in view of your violent behaviour towards the guards, one of whom you struck, I have decided to award you an additional six, discretionary cuts of the reform school rattan cane, which will be applied to your naked buttocks immediately after the birching.  Do you have anything at all to say, Travis, before the sentence is actually carried out?”

Travis, who had remained sullenly silent since he had been strapped, across the horse, suddenly came verbally to life again and emitted a torrent of foul-mouthed abuse: “If you motherfuckers think that you can break me with your threats, you have another fucking thing coming to you.” And so he raged on for a full minute with his invective. What David Travis had not yet learned was that for a lad in his position, he was never going to win any argument, right or wrong, unless his captors allowed him to do so. He was now verbally digging himself still further into the already deep hole in which he found himself.

He was, mentally and metaphorically, fit to be tied – physically he already was, secured across the birching horse – and became fully enraged as Brad now said to him:  “Travis your violent actions towards the guards have already earned you six extra cuts with the cane across what will be by then your thoroughly paddled and birched arse. You, young man, have got to learn that words do have consequences in this School. In view of the foul-mouthed comments, which you have directed at me, I have decided that you would benefit from 12 cuts of the cane, rather than the six I mentioned earlier. In summary, Travis, you have by your own actions, turned a six-stroke paddling and a 12-cut birching into a 30-stroke flogging.”

“So, young man, you will, on your first day here, have made the acquaintance of all three of the implements of corporal correction used in this place: the paddle, the cane and the birch. Now before you have another outburst and face yet another increase in the pain I intend to visit on your arse, I would recommend that you reflect on the following: As you come here with a court order for an official birching, there is no limit to the number of strokes of either the cane or birch that I can apply to your arse. And so, if I hear another word out of you, I will have no hesitation in adding six or even another dozen cuts of the cane to your already generous allocation. I trust I make myself clear?”

DD, who had witnessed this entire scene, said quietly to Brad: “Brad, you are going to beat the living daylights out of this lad’s arse.” To which Brad replied: “And that is exactly what he deserves and what he is going to get. He has made his metaphorical bed and is going to have to lie in it; and in view of his violent nature, I intend to make sure that he passes a very uncomfortable night in his actual bed.”

The fatidic moment had finally arrived and Brad, paddle in hand prepared to administer what was to be the inaugural, first stroke of his career as Chief Disciplinarian at the School. Somehow the beatings he had given so far did not seem to count when compared with the three mandatory, judicial birchings, of which Travis was to be the first recipient. Secretly, Brad was pleased by the way things had gone. Travis’s bad behaviour and verbal outbursts had given him ample reason to justify increasing the lad’s punishment, which in addition to the paddling had doubled. And although the severity of the pain delivered by a paddle was not to be compared with that of either the cane or the birch, it was nevertheless a rather unpleasant introduction to the not-so-gentle-art of arse beating, as David Travis was about to find out.

Brad first stood on Travis’s left, and applied three resounding swats of the paddle to the lad’s right buttock. On the first stroke, Travis took an audible breath but by the third stroke he was already groaning. Brad then changed sides and applied the remaining three pre-conditioning strokes to Travis’s left buttock, which left the lad whimpering with pain. He stood back to admire his work and saw with satisfaction that he had created a cherry-red field of raw flesh just perfect for birching. Brad now took the 4mm, senior birch off its hook on the wall. After swishing it through the air for a few seconds to alert the unfortunate Travis to the impending onslaught on his arse, Brad then gently laid the birch across the crown of the lad’s buttocks. Travis, who, trussed like a chicken across the beating horse as he was, could see nothing of what was about to be inflicted on him, automatically clenched his already sore buttocks as he felt the birch laid across them.

“Relax your buttocks boy and keep them that way until I tell you otherwise. Now, brace yourself, Travis, for what I shall do my very best to make the most painful experience of your miserable life to date.” With that warning, Brad then raised the birch above his head and brought the implement down with a movement, the speed of which deceived the eye; one second it was in the air and the next it was delivering the first verse of its painful message to Travis’s naked arse. The fineness of the individual strands of the birch and their tendency to separate from each other as they descended through the air, gave out an inimitable, high-pitched whine, which was the only intimation to the recipient of the pain he would experience a split second later.

The birch with its multiplicity individual sources of pain, at first sight, produces less visual damage than a well applied cane, which leaves a well-defined stripe at each stroke. But as the individual strands of the birch spread out on impact, the pain is distributed over a larger surface of the recipient’s buttocks.  The first stroke is, whilst not exactly pleasant, not excruciatingly painful either. But as stroke follows stroke, the pain gradually builds up and the recipient suddenly realises why a birching was generally considered as the ultimate of public school punishments. A well-birched arse is agonisingly painful for its owner; and utter agony is exactly what Travis was experiencing after Brad had delivered his 12th and final stroke. To Travis, his arse seemed to be on fire with a degree of pain he had never before known existed. By the time Brad had finished with the birch, Travis was sobbing uncontrollably. But his percussive ordeal was not yet over.

Brad remembered the Headmaster’s advice; to make haste slowly when giving a lad a beating. So, without saying a word to Travis, he allowed the lad to stew in his own juice for five minutes, strapped as he was, immobile over the beating horse, enjoying – possibly not the most appropriate word to describe Travis’s feelings at that precise moment – the bitter fruits of what he had brought upon himself. Meanwhile, he selected one of the canes from the wall and laid it gently across Travis’s inflamed buttocks, eliciting a groan of pain from the lad. Travis, realising that his already unbelievably sore arse was now to be subject to the rigours of the cane as promised, begged figuratively on bended knee, for mercy: “Please, Sir, no more; please, please, Sir, no more; I beg of you, Sir, please no more. Sir, I am truly sorry for what I did just now to the guards and for the way I swore at you, Sir but please, Sir, not the cane on top of the birch.”

Then sobbing, he went on with his plea for mercy: “Sir, I really am sorry for my bad behaviour, Sir. My bum is already just so sore with what you have already done to it, what with that paddle thing and then the birch. I know that the birching was by court order, sir, and that the rest I have brought on myself by losing my temper. But, Sir, I am honestly sorry for my behaviour; and, Sir, with the state my bum is in now, I don’t think I can stand any further beating. So please, Sir, could you please stop and not beat me anymore; and I do promise to be on my best behaviour from now on, Sir. Sir, you have already really taught me a lesson and I have already learned it, Sir.”

Brad listened stony-faced, to this sir rich plea from Travis and then turned to DD and said, so that Travis could hear him: “Well Mr. O’Sullivan, I really do seem to be getting through to this young miscreant.” And then he gave Travis an indirect answer to his plea for mercy, which he had of course never even considered accepting, by saying to DD:  “So I think you will agree with me, Mr. O’Sullivan, when I say that after receiving 12 supplementary strokes of the cane, with which I shall now further embellish his backside, we shall have beaten all the anger out of this rebellious young thug, who will then realise that if he again misbehaves, he will suffer the same painful consequences as he is now receiving.”

He then addressed Travis directly: “Young man, I alone will decide what is an appropriate punishment for your sins. And moreover, I alone will decide what you can and cannot stand by way of corporal punishment. You will take the additional 12 cuts of the cane as I promised you, as they are totally justified by your behaviour. Now brace yourself again, boy, as this is going to be very painful indeed.”

All this had taken place with Brad holding the cane across Travis’s arse in preparation for delivering the first cut. As Brad raised the cane from contact with Travis’s arse and raised it above his head to deliver the first stroke, the unfortunate Travis suddenly realised that all his pleading for leniency had been in vain. As he felt the cane depart from its resting position across his buns, he nevertheless made once last cry for clemency. “Please, Sir, oh please don’t hit me with the……”  But before he had finished his sentence, he was stopped dead in his verbal tracks as he heard the inimitable crack of well-seasoned rattan mating with its naked target: his own already unbelievably painful, bare arse.

It is hard for anyone who is not himself a product of an English public school education and has never had his bare arse beaten by an expert headmaster, to imagine the intense, searing pain which even the first cut with a well-seasoned length of rattan is capable of inducing. Unlike the birch, the rattan cane delivers its full painful message from the word go; and as it mates with its target, it creates that first single furrow of many, of intense pain, comparable, some say, to having a red-hot poker laid across one’s backside. But for Travis it was much, much worse, for that first cut landed on a bare arse which had already suffered both the paddle and the birch. Not surprisingly, Travis could not control himself and let out a tremendous scream of pain. Had his outburst been confined to that, all would have been normal, as it was not at all unusual for a lad being punished to cry out in pain; but unfortunately for Travis it was not all! The lad could not stop himself vocalising another stream of foul-mouthed invective at Brad, calling him, among other things a bloody, criminal maniac and a cock-sucking motherfucker.

Any feeling of clemency or sympathy, which Brad might have had for Travis, whom he knew was already in great pain, vanished instantly: “Travis, you, young man, do not learn from experience. As I told you earlier, there is no limit at all on the number of strokes of either the cane or the birch that I am authorised to give you at anyone moment. So, thanks to your latest outbursts, you will receive an additional six cuts of this very cane I am now holding in my hand. You, Travis, are responsible for what is about to happen to your backside; the 18 cuts off the cane are entirely of your own making. So think long and hard, boy, before you say another word.”

Brad then went ahead and embellished Travis’s arse with 17 more particularly vicious cuts of the cane, knowing that he was making the lad pay an extremely painfully penalty for his verbal diatribes. He etched 12 deep welts, running from the bottom of his back to the top of his legs, into the lad’s already inflamed buttocks, before finishing off this exceptionally severe masterpiece of flogging with six diagonal, so-called gating cuts: three from the right and three from the left.  The word, embellished, is totally apposite, for Brad had created a minor, albeit temporary, artistic masterpiece on Travis’s arse. His whole buttock area was a bright pink made up of the myriad of small welts created by the birch. On this canvas was overlaid a series of 18 deep, parallel, blue-crimson cuts made by the cane, some of which were oozing spots of blood where the skin had been broken. The whole picture was completed by the six diagonal, cross-gating cuts.

Brad viewed the results of his inaugural flogging – it truly had been more than a simple beating – with great satisfaction. “My God, Brad,” said DD, “I really do take my hat off to you; you really do know your stuff.  If Travis has not learned his lesson by now, then he never will.”

Brad called the guards back in to take care of a totally deflated Travis.  When they saw the state in which Travis now was, one of them let out a low whistle before saying: “That, Sir, by any reckoning, is a fine example of what a well-beaten arse should look like. I’ve been here for five years and I have never seen anything like it. You really have taught this lad a very, very painful lesson Si; let’s hope than he learns from it.”

As Brad and DD left Travis in the care of the guards Brad said to them: “You fellows had better treat him tenderly as his arse looks as though it needs attention.”

“Don’t worry yourself any further about the lad, sir.  Me and my partner here have lots of experience in dealing with lads like this who have just been flogged.  We’ll see he gets all the care he needs, before he gets to bed OK in his dormitory.”

“I’m sure you will both do your very best for Travis as is usual in these cases.” Brad said drily, as he and DD departed.  The irony in his voice was probably lost on the two guards, who were almost salivating at the thought of the post-flogging care which they intended to lavish on Travis’s arse before tucking him up in his new bed for the night.

Continued in Chapter 24