CHILDREN OF THE CHURCH [ part 2 ] Note: This story is a fantasy for adults only. The author utterly condemns any form of actual abuse – physical, sexual, psychological and emotional – to any person of any age. Author’s Note: People who have read this story elsewhere may notice some small changes in this version. I have added some bondage and slightly increased the humiliation of the main characters. I have also changed the sex of one of the child characters – Charles has become Charlotte. These amendments are aimed at making the story more suitable for this site by complying more closely with its policy. Also, I hope the changes may make the story more entertaining. Dashforth Discipline Rowena Dashforth sat on the bed in her room at her grandparents’ house in Wormsford St Cuthbert. She still couldn’t get over the astonishing scenes she had just witnessed at church. The four children of the vicar had been publicly stripped, spanked and caned by their father in order to demonstrate to his parishioners the desirability of beating sin from their children. Many of the congregation had taken his words to heart. Mr Wakefield, for instance, had held little Lisa under his left arm and spanked the seven-year-old’s tiny bottom every few paces all the way to from the church to his house, which was a considerable distance. The little girl’s yells had attracted attention and her bright red bottom had provided a literally glowing testimonial to the vicar’s words of wisdom for any non-churchgoers. And at that very moment eight-year-old Elizabeth Merchant’s mother was spanking her daughter with a hairbrush. This was bad enough for dear little Lizzie, but what was worse was that the neighbours, disturbed by the noise, had popped round to see if everything was OK and been invited in to watch. In fact, at various houses around the village children were being spanked slippered, strapped and caned on their bare bottoms – usually with an interested audience of family and friends. Rowena remembered the shock when the Reverend Daniel Shore had first stripped his children to their underwear and then removed even this protection before beating them. She had felt sorry for the two youngest children, Jonathan and Lucy, although she had been eager to see the ten-year-old’s little willy exposed, as being an only child she’d had few opportunities for seeing boys’ thingies. Lucy had not been so interesting as being a girl she knew just what to expect down there, but Rowena had been pleased to see the conceited Marcia, who was the same age as she was, humiliated – although she’d had to concede that the vicar’s daughter was more physically advanced than herself. But it was Matthew who had really stirred her emotions. Rowena had a considerable crush on the thirteen-year-old boy, although she supposed – erroneously – that he did not notice her. To see the boy of her dreams stripped naked was a fantasy she’d often had recently in the dark privacy of her bed as her long fingers caressed that newly discovered button of ultimate pleasure between her legs, but never in her wildest and most erotic dreams had she believed it would come true. But there he was, the good-looking athletic lad utterly nude at the front of the church. And she’d had an intimate view from the privileged Dashforth family pew. But she’d also felt a huge wave of compassion for the boy of her dreams especially when he had been soundly beaten by his father. But before then, she recalled, BEFORE THEN! Matthew had had an erection – a boner as some of the boys and girls referred to it. Rowena was not totally innocent – she’d had sex education for God’s sake! She knew a boy’s thingy could go stiff, but to see it suddenly rise so long, strong and hard! It was like magic. The very thought of it started again those strange sensations between her thighs. Her hand moved under her skirt to the suddenly lubricated crotch of her panties. * * * Downstairs, Colonel Dashforth was commending the Vicar’s methods. “Damned good chap, the padre. Certainly gave those kids of his what for – what! That Lucy’s got a sweet little arse on her – what! Glad to see that prude Marcia taken down a peg or two – damned toffee-nosed brat! My, but she’s becoming quite the little woman, isn’t she? Tits and hair, by Jove! Tits and hair!” “Yes,” agreed his wife, who was well used to her husband’s unconventional style of speech and even shared some of his eccentricities; “I’ve noticed her changing shape over the past few months. She certainly is a snooty little madam – I’ll bet there were more than a few there today who were pleased to see her get her bum basted! But what about the boys? That Matthew is a fine upstanding lad – what!” “Ha! Upstanding is the word! That’s the trouble with cocks, they stand to attention at the most awkward times.” “So I noticed,” smiled his wife dryly with a significant nod towards the front of his own trousers. “There was more than one man there with a stiff prick. And I detected our dear granddaughter was more than just dewy-eyed when she saw that lad’s cock crowing.” “Ha! Dewy down there as well, you mean! My, but she’s a pretty, little thing, though – what! I wonder whether we might not take a leaf out of the vicar’s book?” “I don’t see why not,” his wife smiled indulgently, “We are in loco parentis while Roger and Jill are away. I think Jill is much too lenient with her, and Rowena can twist Roger around her little finger. But don’t be too hasty, dear,” she added as the eager warrior jumped to his feet, “I think we should leave the business until after lunch.” “What! Why?” “Because we invited Jeremy and Sybil Welkin to Sunday lunch and they’re bringing their kids. If we are going to take a leaf out of the Vicar’s book we may as well follow chapter and verse and have an audience.” “By Jove! What!” * * * Rowena knew nothing of her impending doom. She had been spanked a few times in her twelve years of life – what child hadn’t – but what her grandmother said was true. Her mother was tolerant of her bad moods and generally ignored her misbehaviour. As for her father, she only had to open her big blue eyes so that they glistened and pull down her pretty, little lips and his anger melted. So when Mr and Mrs Welkin and their children David, 11, and Charlotte, 10, arrived for lunch she thought entertaining the guests was going to be just another boring chore. How little she knew! Halfway through lunch Mrs Dashforth brought the morning’s events into the conversation. The Welkins were new to the village and so far did not attend church. “Good Lord!” Jeremy Welkin said, “Do you mean he undressed them then and there and beat them?” “Exactly so” Mrs Dashforth smiled blithely, “and we are going to just the same to Rowena later.” “What!?” Four pairs of Welkin eyes swivelled in Rowena’s direction.” “Grandma! You can’t! I won’t! You shan’t. Don’t…!” “Don’t be impertinent child! That is just one of your many faults that your parents have left uncorrected. I can’t think what your father is thinking of not spanking you more often. We certainly spanked him and his sister regularly enough when they were children! Now, be quiet and eat up your pudding.” But poor Rowena had quite lost her appetite. After Rowena had helped to clear the table, the four adults and two visiting children arranged themselves around the drawing room and Rowena became the centre of attention. The ambitious Jeremy Welkin was eager for the support and approval of the locally influential Colonel, and his wife shared his social aspirations. As for David, he just wanted to see Rowena without any clothes. And even Charlotte, despite being the same sex as Rowena, was looking forward to the spectacle. Because Rowena was very, very pretty. She had long, bright blonde hair that was now caught in an Alice band, before streaming like a golden waterfall over her shoulders. Rowena was used to her blue eyes, perfect teeth, high cheekbones and dimpled chin attracting admiring glances wherever her feet trod. But today the gazes were rather less respectful. The two children, and even the adults, stared at Rowena’s fresh young body impatiently waiting for the moment when all would be revealed. Colonel Dashforth grasped his granddaughter’s wrist and pulled the young girl across his tweedy knees. He ran his right hand from the back of her knees above her white socks, up along her bare thighs, pushing up the skirt of her dress as he went. He revealed Rowena’s tight white knickers. He slid his hand over the silky smooth material, following the resilient roundness of her bottom cheeks and running his fingers along the indentation of her bottom crease. He enjoyed the sensation. It reminded him of happy times spanking his own children. His wife had always been a strict disciplinarian and had ruthlessly spanked Roger and Dirdre when he was away on army service, but she always made sure there was a long list of naughtiness by their two children when he began his leaves. So he always had ample excuse to soundly spank the boy and girl as soon as he arrived home. But today it was his pretty, little granddaughter whom Colonel Dashforth was due to spank. He took the elastic waist of her panties and slowly pulled them down while the embarrassed twelve-year old sniffled and squirmed with shame as her bottom was gradually revealed. The two Welkin children, and their parents, goggled at the flawless pale cheeks of Rowena’s rear. Once again, Colonel Dashforth pressed his palm against the rubbery rotundity, indenting the firm flesh with his fingertips. His hand moved. He used his thumb and forefinger to spread Rowena’s buttocks, opening the central crease to expose the dark puckered ring of her bum hole. “Wow!” David said. “Yeah great!” agreed Charlotte. Colonel Dashforth’s hand left his granddaughter’s bottom and was raised high above it. He brought his palm swiftly down in a sharp Smack! against the middle of her bottom leaving a red handprint, split by her crack, across her buttocks. “Ouch!” squealed Rowena. Her grandfather slapped again – and kept on slapping – giving his grandchild a sound spanking that soon had her crying. The excited children watched open-mouthed as the young girl’s legs flailed the air, giving them the most intimate views between her thighs. At last, Colonel Dashforth stopped spanking Rowena’s bottom and told the girl to get to her feet. She danced around the room, rubbing her red bottom and howling loudly. But now Mrs Dashforth said, “Now you can take off all the rest of your clothes, Rowena.” “Oh no, Grandma! Please don’t make me!” “Do you never do anything without arguing, you disobedient child!” Mrs Dashforth answered angrily. She jumped up, grabbed the crying girl and swiftly stripped off her dress and tiny bra leaving her wearing nothing but her knee-high white socks and nylon knickers around her ankles. Utterly mortified, Rowena sent out new wails of misery at this indignity. The watching Welkins saw a pale body with small, freshly formed breasts and prominent pudenda unconcealed by the light growth of almost invisible blonde hair. Rowena tried desperately to hide her exposed genital cleft behind fine-boned fingers, but her grandmother callously slapped her hands away. “Wowee!” exclaimed David, gawping at Rowena’s private parts. “Yeah great!” agreed his sister, grinning at this virgin territory. “Put your hands on your head and step out of these knickers,” Mrs Dashforth said in the commanding tone of one her husband’s sergeant majors. Obediently, Rowena lifted her feet while her grandmother held the underwear. Mrs Dashforth’s lip curled in disgust as she looked at the panties. “Look at this,” she said to the other adults as she turned the knickers inside out to display the stained crutch, “the dirty little toad has been playing with herself. I’ll bet she’s been getting excited over seeing that boy Matthew Shore in church this morning.” Poor Rowena sobbed guiltily at the truth of this surmise while David tried to get a closer look at the damp marks on Rowena’s panties. His own underwear was sometimes stained with urine, but he supposed this to be different – a girly thing. But at this point, the ambitious and perceptive Mrs Welkin realised that if she and her husband were to rise in the Dashforths’ esteem they were going to have to take a more active role than mere spectators. Accordingly, she now turned on her own kids and said, “And you two needn’t sit there staring at Rowena like two little saints. You are both long overdue for a spanking!” “But Mum,” David foolishly protested, “I haven’t done anything.” “No, you haven’t tidied your room, you haven’t done your chores, and you have not done homework properly come to that, if what your teachers say is right,” Mrs Welkin declared and pulled him from his seat by the belt of his shorts. Jeremy Welkin was not slow to follow his wife’s lead and Charlotte too was hauled to her feet. The parents immediately began stripping their kids. Sybil Welkin quickly undid David’s belt and unzipped his flies and in seconds, the boy’s shorts were bundled around his feet. Jeremy slipped off his daughter’s dress and as she was far from needing a bra, had only to pull down Charlotte’s brief underwear to leave her all but naked, but Sybil Welkin was delayed because her son’s miniature erection was amusingly sticking through the slit fly in his underpants through which he normally poked his soft willy for weeing. “What’s this,” demanded his mother, taking the offending projection between her finger and thumb and wagging it from side to side. “Have you been excited by seeing Rowena without any clothes? You disgusting little boy!” “Mum!” squeaked David, his voice high-pitched in protest at his mother’s cavalier manipulation of that most personal part of his body. “Don’t you ‘Mum’ me, you filthy minded brat,” snapped his mother, jerking the lad’s penis this way and that as she unhooked his pants from that projecting peg. Sybil Welkin deftly finished stripping her elder child as her husband had already done the same to Charlotte. Sybil turned David round to face Rowena and her grandparents and, once again, Jeremy Welkin followed suit with their daughter. “There,” said Sybil to David, “you can confront the girl you’re so excited about.” Rowena had enough humiliation of her own to worry about the sensitivities of a little boy and set aside her misery long enough to stare avidly at the bobbing knob of naked lad. That made four cocks she’d seen today, including the boy switched in the churchyard. Rowena even spared a glance for Charlotte, who, she was pleased to see, was still very much the little girl, having only small breast buds from which her tiny nipples pointed and a completely bald vulva. But now David and Charlotte were put across their parents’ laps for a sound spanking on their little bottoms. Mr and Mrs Welkin were obviously enthusiastic spankers who had had plenty of practice over the years. Both children were soon yelling and kicking wildly as their cheeks turned dark red. Then Sybil paused. “Perhaps you’d like to finish off spanking the kids,” she proposed. “Well, thank you, Sybil,” the colonel said with alacrity, “Which would you like, m’dear?” he politely asked his wife. “Oh, I’ll have David and you can take little Charlotte,” she answered generously, knowing the ancient warrior would much prefer to spank the pretty little girl’s tiny cheeks. Accordingly, the crying children were transferred across the room and soon they were again being spanked. “Do feel free to spank Rowena, both of you,” Mrs Dashforth offered airily, pausing briefly from stinging David’s roundly muscled bum. The Welkin couple took full advantage of her generosity. First Sybil stretched Rowena over her lap and slapped her young bottom, and then Jeremy held the struggling pubescent girl across his knees and soundly smacked her bouncing buttocks and threshing thighs. When it was decided that the children had had enough spanking for the time being, Mrs Dashforth said airily, “We are going to cane Rowena later after tea, if you’d care to stay. Rowena’s aunt and uncle – that’s our daughter, Deirdre and John, our son-in-law – are coming. They have a little boy of nine and a girl of seven so it will make a nice audience for the naughty girl.” “Well, thank you, we’d love to stay,” Sybil said, “but may we take advantage and ask that you cane our two as well. They’re in need of a dose of the stick.” This conversation brought redoubled wails from all three kids, but the adults were resolute. “I’m going to stand Rowena in the hall until then,” Colonel Dashforth said to Sybil, to whom he had taken a considerable fancy, “would you like to bring your two out there too?” Sybil agreed with a dazzling smile – she knew which side her bread was buttered – and soon the juvenile tearful trio stood – still naked – in the hall with their hands on their heads awaiting further instructions. Colonel Dashforth lined up his granddaughter with the ascending staircase. “Stand on your toes and stretch your hands above your head,” he instructed gruffly. The sobbing Rowena obeyed. The colonel adjusted her position until her wrists were level with the bottom of one of the posts supporting the banister. He then left her, went to an oak chest in the hall and selected a short strap. Now he went up the stair to the level of Rowena’s wrists and strapped them tightly together so that she was secured in position. He grinned down at Sybil. “A little dodge I used to use with my own two kids when they were young,” he explained. Sybil Welkin clapped her hands with admiration that was not entirely false. “Oh, do please do my two as well,” she begged, her eyes wide. “Delighted, ma’am, delighted,” agreed the old soldier happily. He lined David up alongside Rowena and Charlotte beside her brother, and then he strapped their wrists to the stair posts. All three children were very close together and their hips squashed intimately against each other. Once again, Sybil Welkin appreciated the need to make a contribution of her own if she, and by association, her husband, were to rise even higher in the influential colonel’s esteem. “Do you mind if I use a little dodge of my own, Colonel.” She asked demurely. “Certainly, m’dear, certainly,” beamed Colonel Dashforth. Sybil went back into the drawing room and returned with three pairs of underwear – David’s underpants and the two girls’ knickers. She took the daisy-patterned pair and pulled them over her daughter’s head and face. “Aha! Capital! Capital!” Dashforth exclaimed delightedly. Thus encouraged, Sybil put the others over her son’s head and finally Rowena’s stained white panties over hers. After which they left the three children – their sobs now somewhat muffled – straining on tiptoe in the hall while they went back to the comfort of the drawing room. * * * A couple of hours later the doorbell finally rang to let in John and Deirdre Mill and their children Anthony, 9, and Emily, 7. The children – and adults – went wide-eyed as they saw the three bare bottoms displayed in the hall. “Well I suppose that’s Rowena’s face under her knickers,” commented Deirdre, “although I’ve not seen her bum in a while, but who are the other two?” “Oh just the children of some people we had over for lunch, dear,” replied her mother. “We had to spank Rowena and Jeremy and Sybil decided to join in with their own two. We are going to cane the three of them after tea.” “Well I wish you’d do our two as well,” Deirdre answered heartlessly, “They’ve been little pests ever since they got up this morning and they’ve done nothing but squabble on the way here.” “Certainly, dear,” agreed Mrs Dashforth and led her other two, unpleasantly surprised, grandchildren into the drawing room by their ears. “What ho! What’ve you two been up to,” demanded their grandfather jovially, as his wife pushed little Emily in his direction. “They’ve been a pain in the bum, Daddy,” Deirdre said as her father slipped little Emily’s dress over her head. She felt no pity for her small daughter. She remembered all too well the awful anticipation of this preparation. She had been denuded for a spanking by her father many more times than she could recall when she herself had been a child. Sometimes it had happened in front of other people. She remembered the embarrassment as well as the pain of punishment and the discomfort afterwards, but she didn’t believe it had done her any real harm. She looked on without concern as her father took Emily’s flower fairy panties down. Her mother had already stripped Anthony. She was so ruthlessly efficient whereas her father always had liked to take his time. She knew he enjoyed it – well, they both did – but she did not think that mattered particularly. She quite enjoyed spanking the kids herself! Colonel Dashforth pulled his little granddaughter over his knees and playfully patted her tiny bottom. “It really does seem too cruel to spank such a wee thing – what!” he remarked cheerfully. Little Emily squirmed forwards enterprisingly, hoping to wriggle free. “Whoa!” Deirdre laughed, grabbing her daughter by a flapping foot and tugging her backwards. “Granddad isn’t really letting you off, you silly girl. Now, just lie there quietly and take what Granddad’s going to give you.” “Let her off!” chuckled the colonel, “Never heard of such a thing – what!” And demonstrate the absurdity of that idea he slapped Emily’s bottom hard, making her yell loudly. It was the first smack – and yell – of many. Rowena, David and Charlotte were still naked and with their hands firmly attached to the stair posts, but with their underwear now removed from their heads so that the newcomers could see them. They had had listened without sympathy to the abrupt disgrace of the two newcomers, but they were now brought back into the room by Jeremy and Sybil Welkin. Sybil had rather amusingly led her son by his little dangling penis and her daughter by one immature nipple, whereas her husband had ushered Rowena through the door by placing his hand on her bottom and pushing firmly while painfully pinching her inflamed cheeks between his thumb and forefinger. Now released at least from these humiliations, the children stood in a line watching Anthony and Emily being spanked. They did not enjoy it as much as they might have done what with the pain in their own bottoms and the promise of a caning to come, quite apart from the fact that there were two more adults added to the witnesses of their shame. Because Deirdre and John Mill made no secret of their curiosity. John Mill, uncle to Rowena only by marriage, closely examined her nude form. “My word, Rowena,” he said, “the last time I saw you in your birthday suit was when you were just two years old having a bath. You’ve grown a lot since then! Nice little titties coming and I believe you’ve even got hair down there.” He stooped with his nose only inches from his niece’s groin and stared hard. “Yes,” he decided, “although it’s so fine, fair and faint you can hardly see it. You are growing up. You’ll be having periods next – unless you are already, that is.” “Well, Rowena,” snapped her grandmother, “answer your uncle – have you started your periods?” “No,” Rowena whispered, her face ablaze with shame at such a personal question “Speak up!” ordered her Grandmother. “No,” Rowena said loudly. “Don’t be so rude, Rowena, ‘No, Uncle John’ is what you should say. I can see you still haven’t learned any manners. Perhaps Uncle John smacking your legs will teach you to improve them.” “Oh no,” moaned Rowena, but John Mill need no more encouragement, as he repeatedly slapped both the fronts and back of Rowena’s thighs while she stood twisting and turning desperately though making sure to keep her feet firmly rooted to the carpet for fear of further reprisals. All of which was most entertaining for the spectators. A bit too entertaining for poor David whose penis stretched and stiffened again in response to this. “Oh I say,” Deirdre said to Sybil, “your little boy has got a hard on.” “Yes, he’s a disgusting child. If you’d like to give him what your husband is giving Rowena it might do some good.” Deirdre needed no second invitation. She quickly crossed to where the naked lad was standing with his hands on his head and began smacking his legs hard. Like Rowena, he wriggled and writhed, which in his case made his willy wag comically, but not being allowed to move from where he stood he could do nothing to avoid the stinging slaps that soon turned his thighs bright red. The punishment must have done some good because his erection eventually began to sag to a small drooping finger of flesh. By this time, Anthony’s and Emily’s spankings were done and the two nude children were allowed to hop howling around the room clutching the little red bottoms. “Hm, another session in the hall, I think,” Colonel Dashforth said, “and then we’ll move on to the canings.” So the children - now five in number – were lined up in the hall with their wrists attached to the staircase, but this time without the indignity of having their underpants on their heads. They descended alternately girl, boy, girl, boy, girl, so that their heads went down in steps and their bottoms diminished in size from Rowena’s swelling cheeks to Emily’s cute little bum. The adults returned to the drawing room where they drank tea, ate scones and discussed how many strokes of the cane to give the kids anxiously waiting outside the door. It was decided that even little Emily should have a sample two strokes, then her brother, Anthony, four, Charlotte Welkin six, her brother, David eight and the Dashforth’s elder granddaughter, Rowena, a full ten cuts with the cane. This decision having been made, the adults filled their time with idle chitchat to allow a proper period of apprehensive reflection for the five children. Eventually, though, they were untied and taken inside one at a time, but now starting with little Emily. Colonel Dashforth had quite a collection of canes and for his seven-year-old granddaughter he had selected a light, curly-handled rattan that he had often used on his own children when they were small. In fact, Deirdre, sitting on the sofa, felt her own bottom tingle from the memory – although she also recalled how much harsher were the thrashings she received as she grew older and graduated to more severe implements. Emily was bent over the arm of the chair. The colonel took aim. He seemed only to flick his wrist to land the stick squarely across Emily’s tiny cheeks, but the red weal and Emily’s squealing squirming reaction was evidence enough of the efficacy of the colonel’s technique. After a short pause, a second streak was laid alongside the first after which the crying child was allowed up, but only to stand facing the wall with her hands on her head. Anthony came in looking scared. For him the colonel selected a slightly longer, thicker cane that he intended to use on him and the two Welkin children. Anthony bent his naked body over the armchair vacated by his sister and presented his little red bottom for the stick. The colonel took his time caning his grandson and delivered a measured four swishing strokes to the little boy’s tender bottom that had him howling. After that, he joined his sister along the wall. Charlotte entered nervously. Her bum already felt horribly sore and now the stern military man she had come to fear was waving a whippy length of rattan through the air making it whistle threateningly while pointing at a leather armchair. Charlotte got the message and bent across it for six of the best that made her yell loudly. She then tearfully went alongside the two Mill children. Outside in the hall, David and Rowena had listened to the proceedings with ever increasing alarm. They were not stupid. They could count that every child’s punishment increased from that of the child before and guessed that this sequence was set to continue. Plus, the whistle of the cane through the air and the crack as it hit the skin was growing louder in each case. Sybil Mills came and called in her elder son, leaving poor Rowena waiting fretfully alone in the hall. David had felt the cane across his bottom a good few times in his eleven years of life, both at home and at his private school, but never before on top of such severe spankings. He tried to be brave. but he couldn’t help sniffling as he confronted the colonel and the other adults. They looked at the little lad. Above his knees, his legs were still bright red from where Deirdre had given them a good slapping and this accentuated his little bag of balls and slack willy dangling before. “Ha! Not so bold now,” commented the colonel, lifting the little limp penis with the tip of his cane. David’s sniffs increased. “Bend over that armchair boy,” commanded the colonel ruthlessly. Eight times the cane whistled through the air to crack across David’s bottom. David yipped and yelled, wriggled and writhed and several strokes before the end he burst into tears. Outside in the hall, Rowena jumped and shuddered at every stroke – not from sympathy for the luckless David, but in fearful trepidation of her own ordeal to come. “Rowena!” The summons came from her grinning Uncle John. “Your grandfather is ready for you now.” His eyes leered at her naked form as she turned – hands still stuck to her head – to enter the room. She blushed hotly once again, though she soon had more important things to worry about than being looked at, as she entered the room and saw the four other children wailing against the wall, each bare bottom decorated with its ration of cruel red lines. Her grandfather, meanwhile, was rummaging at a bundle of rattan canes. He produced one, cut the air making a terrifying whistle. I think this’ll do,” he muttered and then turned to Deirdre and said, “You remember this one?” Deirdre shuddered theatrically – though her response was not entirely play-acting. “Boy – do I!” she said. She pulled a face of mock sympathy at Rowena. “It may not look too thick,” she told the doomed girl, “ but it’s long and incredibly whippy, and stings like a swarm of hornets.” Rowena began to cry. “I’ve never been caned before,” she wailed. “More fool your father!” Colonel Dashforth snapped heartlessly. “Bend over that armchair and stick your bottom out.” Miserably, Rowena obeyed. Ten times that whippy length of rattan whistled down to impart its kiss of pain on the pubescent girl’s buttocks. Ten times Rowena shrieked. Ten times her hips rolled on the padded arm of the chair and her coltishly long legs kicked wildly wide. The audience of adults enjoyed every moment of the spectacle. Eventually Rowena joined the other crying children against the wall. The colonel looked at the well-punished line of bottoms and harrumphed in satisfaction. “A damned good afternoon’s work,” he observed. |