EMMA AT SCHOOL 27

Woke up this morning....

The alarm woke the three girls up at eight o'clock on the fateful morning. It was a beautiful day, in terms of weather, a large orange sun rising drowsily over the school playing fields. But the girls were paying scant attention to the outside world.

They were to have breakfast after Deborah's beating, so there was nothing to do but bathe and prepare. The former they did together once again (it was, after all, one of the few places in school they were unlikely to get caught), Emma and Amanda making a point of giving their colleague as much pleasure as possible now, in advance of her pain.

Then with more than five minutes still to go, Deborah hoisted herself up onto the punishment horse and allowed the others to secure her firmly in place. It was an absolute requirement that the girl to be birched be prepared before the headmaster arrived, and none of the girls was going to be responsible for failing to fulfil that responsibility.

Emma stroked her lover's naked body lovingly, surprised by the extent of her arousal at having Deborah nude and opened for her, but held there by leather straps rather than by choice. Then, as eight thirty neared, Amanda and Emma left Deborah and took their places at the end of the room furthest from the door, facing their companion.

Mr Critchley unlocked and pushed open the door at precisely half past eight, all three girls shuddering as the key scraped its way around inside the lock.

Deborah shuddering most. She heard the shared gasp of the other two as she sensed the man enter the room directly behind her and guessed, correctly, that this was a response to their first ever glimpse of a birch. Yet the headmaster was not planning on depriving her of the same level of anticipation.

He walked around to stand in front of her, betraying no shame as his eyes drunk in the young, naked femininity that filled the room. The birch hung from his right hand, a collection of some twenty or thirty long, slender twigs, bound together in leather at one end, yet free to move individually at the other. None of the girls thought they had ever seen anything so terrifying.

"This is a birch," Mr Critchley explained, dropping it in the copper bin to allow the salt to seep into the wood and harden it a little. "And it is what I use to punish those girls whose misbehaviour has become intolerable... like yours, Deborah."

"No! I will be good - I promise," she shouted, her fear dominating all other emotions now.

"Yes, I certainly hope that you will," he agreed. "And I hope that what happens here this morning helps you in that quest."

There was no more from Deborah, except the start of a gentle sobbing which would continue until the first stroke.

"Emma," Mr Critchley said quietly. "Open the window, and then come and hold her."

While there was no need for restraint, the old straps performing this role more than adequately, it was traditional that the girl being birched had a friend at her side, literally, during the punishment. Emma shivered a little as the cool morning air handled her naked body roughly, and then moved over to stand by Deborah's right shoulder, where she would not disrupt the headmaster's swing, holding her trembling hand.

After what seemed like an age of waiting, Deborah heard the dripping sound of droplets from the birch twigs falling back into the bin as Mr Critchley lifted the bundle from the water, and then felt the cold, stringy wetness of them upon her flesh. It would all begin soon, which meant, she told herself, it would soon be over.

There are, of course, some things in life that one cannot prepare for. Or, at least, that one cannot choose to prepare for. After that morning, Emma and Amanda would have been fairly well prepared had they ever had to face the birch themselves - although (and we cannot discount the influence of that preparation) neither ever did.

Deborah, however, had no way to prepare, which was possibly just as well. If someone had been able to explain to her how horrid the first stroke would be as each twig engraved its identity on her young skin, she would probably have tried to escape, leaving Emma and Amanda to get her onto the horse by force, a much worse scenario for all involved.

Yet now, with no possible escape available, as the white heat of pain sped through her naked body, Deborah was ready to give almost anything to avoid the nine to follow - yet she knew arguing with Mr Critchley to be pointless and, beyond the long scream which she just could not hold in, she said nothing.

Emma's face was white, the headmaster noted with pleasure as he prepared for the second stroke. James Lindon had told him about the girl - how she was easily led and could do with a timely reminder that there were good reasons for behaving oneself - this would help, he thought.

CRACK!

Deborah's bare bottom was already a mess of lines after the first two strokes and the third brought an exceptionally powerful cry from Deborah as it crossed those pre-existing marks.

Amanda thought back to the two or three occasions when James had threatened to birch her, but had "let her off" with a severe bare bottom caning. She wondered whether he would be more or less likely to use the ultimate punishment on her after this morning.

"Noooooooo!" Deborah screeched as number four landed, almost surprised to still be conscious, so great was the pain. She imagined rivulets of blood running down over her thighs, though the external results of the birch were not really much more severe than those of the cane - some headmasters still consider a caning a more serious punishment than the birch, especially when applied to the bare bottom, but Mr Critchley was not one of them.

There can be no real doubt as to which way Deborah would have voted if asked to pick the worse of the two. By the time the fifth stroke had landed, thus marking the half-way point of the beating, she was beginning to wonder whether she should beg for expulsion even now with fifty percent of the damage done.

Yet, as Mr Critchley replaced the birch in the copper bin to rest his arm, the only sounds which came from Deborah were the sounds of the tears of a naughty girl part way through being very soundly punished.

Away from the birching tower, as dictated by tradition, the school had paused to ensure each young lady, and the few young men, of the establishment joined with Deborah in learning this particular lesson. Pupils and teachers alike stood still, listening as the whistle and thud of the birch, and the screams of girl receiving it, echoed around the main quadrangle and reached out into the furthest corners of the grounds.

Nor did anyone begin to talk or move when the sounds ceased for a little over two minutes. Everyone knew how many strokes were to be delivered, and that the tableau should not broken before then.

In School House, adjoining the tower itself, the sounds of Deborah's beating seemed particularly fierce to a fifteen year old girl named Stacey Lemington. Without doubt her current position, draped as she was over Stuart Clarkeson's knee with her skirt pulled up and her knickers around her thighs, acted to amplify the terrifying noise, as perhaps did the prefect's hand as it moved gently over her reddened buttocks.

As one of only two male school prefects, Stuart possessed the enviable right to spank the girls in School House upon their bare bottoms legally (as has been noted already in this history, girls who fagged for boys also often had to pull their knickers down for punishment) and he was well practised in the art of making his punishments count.

The table tennis bat with which he had already delivered seven sharp, stinging whacks to Stacey's firm behind lay discarded on the sofa beside him now; the remainder of her punishment would be given with his hand - after the girl had been able to picture herself in Deborah's situation, and thus created a few more tears.

He liked to finish up a girl's spanking with bare hand on bare bottom, it seemed to give that "personal touch" so revered in the modern service oriented society. And, surely, he was providing a service, making sure that naughty girls were justly punished for their misbehaviour - a service he was more than happy to provide. He felt the teenager tense under his hand as Deborah's shrieks began to ring through the study hall once again, and smiled to himself.

Across the main lacrosse pitch, in Elliott House, two sixth formers heard the anguished cries with similar empathy to that of Stacey. They had unwisely been caught smoking the previous evening by their housemaster, Peter Dunstable, for the third time in two weeks and his words to them had chilled their bones.

"I must admit that if the head wasn't tied up tomorrow morning, I'd have been tempted to ask him to birch the two of you," he had told the awe-struck eighteen year olds. "I expect better of sixth-formers, and to have caught you smoking again after what I said last time... well, I don't know quite how to explain how angry I am."

He had then lifted a long, thick cane from an umbrella stand behind his desk and looked sternly at the two girls, saying quietly, "To be honest, one of the reasons you're not getting the birch is because I'm so cross with you I want at least to have the satisfaction of punishing you myself."

He had swished the cane through the air menacingly, causing the more timid of the two girls, Tamsin, to gasp loudly. His next words had caused her to start crying properly.

"I'm going to cane you both, on the bare bottom," he had said. "You will receive ten strokes each, in my office tomorrow morning. Be here at eight twenty sharp - or else!"

Now, as they listened to the final strokes of Deborah's birching being sternly applied by the headmaster, they waited for the remainder of their own punishments.

Both girls were naked from the waist down, skirts and knickers discarded on the floor. As Mr Elliott had only one punishment horse and he wished to conduct both beatings simultaneously, he had asked the girls simply to stand next to each other and bend over, threatening extra strokes should they break from their position without being told to.

There had been time for only the first two strokes before eight-thirty came, and the teacher surveyed the two bottoms with satisfaction. He had managed to raise a pair of good strong marks on each of them, and knew that the stinging pain would still be very much present as he counted the final stroke of Deborah's birching and picked up the cane once again.

Back in the birching tower then, as the punishments of Tamsin, her accomplice and Stacey resumed after the short respite, all was finally quiet, save for the droning sobs of the beaten girl.

The headmaster, having dispensed justice, had no desire to prolong Deborah's suffering and so retired from the room, leaving Amanda and Emma to release their house-mate from her bondage, careful not to touch the scores of thin, irregular and painful-looking testimonies to her suffering which covered her nether cheeks.

Deborah had been advised by the headmaster beforehand to bring a loose fitting dressing gown to the tower and she stood wrapped in it, shivering but grateful for its gentleness, while the other two girls dressed, each somehow more aware of their nakedness now than at any time in the preceding hours. Finally, Emma walked her friend back to Bronte House, Deborah leaning heavily on her arm.

Both girls were excused lessons for the day, and Emma put her friend to bed tenderly, dressing her face and neck with tender kisses and cradling her lovingly in her arms. It was an experience she would have avoided for anything in the world, yet in a strange way she suspected it would make the bond between them even closer.

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