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INTRODUCTION
When you have been birched life is never the same again. I was told this many times by those older than me who had experienced the birch, but it was only when it actually happened to me, unexpected and electrifying in its effect, that I appreciated the full import of what I had been told. It happened like this: when school records showed still outstanding punishments due from the end of my time at the school, I volunteered to return and was given pupil status and disciplined by headmistress Miss Kenworthy, who regarded me and my friend Anna as “escapees” and ruled that we should both be birched. In my case this was done in front of witnesses, which greatly intensified the shaming effect of the punishment (for punishment it truly was).
Your relationship with those around you is deeply affected. You acquire an aspect of vulnerability that touches every glance, every thought, every exchange of words. There are those who know your secret, who see and treat you differently in response to a discerned defensiveness. Those who don’t know paradoxically present a greater challenge arising from an at times overwhelming urge to confess – “Yes, I am like this because I have been bad and have been birched”. Even sitting opposite an attractive and sympathetic person on a train I have desperately wanted to tell them my story, and at the same time sensed an erotic charge in their not knowing what I know.
(As for my relationship with my punisher, Miss Kenworthy, my feelings are too complex to describe and I can only hope that they will emerge naturally from my narrative.)
This feeling of vulnerability is constant. After my birching I spent some days quietly at home, deeply affected by my experience. I came to appreciate the fearsome reputation that the birch enjoyed and I reflected on my own experience of its pain trajectory, deceptively low during the first strokes, then climbing steeply after a few minutes until the sting became acutely intense. It had achieved its objective: I would not want to be birched again. Or so I thought. Anna has said the same although I have reason to doubt whether she will achieve this for long, or indeed whether I will. The profound shaming will live with me (and, I believe, with her) for ever, tempered with a sense of erotic ecstasy. For sure, our common experience established a strong emotional bond between us.
(Anna gave her own account in A Game of Bowls; I hope she will continue it.)
After a few days I visited my mother, now living alone after her divorce and always pleased to have company. She had encouraged me to report to Miss Kenworthy and to wipe the slate clean (as she put it). I told her that I had done so and had been disciplined and she seemed content just to know that. Then one morning I inadvertently left my bedroom door open as I stood admiring my marks in the mirror; they were fading but still told their story. I heard my mother walk by and I am sure she glanced in and became aware of my narcissistic self-regard. A little later as we were pottering about in the kitchen thinking about lunch, we exchanged knowing looks.
“You know, you can always come to me if you need …” The proposition hung incomplete in the air for a few moments. Then, “… if you feel the need for correction.” That was definitely the right word; what she had seen me looking at in the mirror were unmistakeably the marks of correction.
I looked down as she took my hand and squeezed it gently. She had discovered my secret, or had known it all along.
“You are not too old you know.”
“Thank you Mum, I will.” And I meant it.
…oooOOOooo…
Meanwhile I wrote to Miss Kenworthy suggesting a return visit on the anniversary of my birching and including Anna as well. Miss Kenworthy replied enthusiastically about the idea aàa rnd I thought it should be an annual event.
Later I received a text message from her.
“I am pleased that you and Anna are still friends and I would like to invite you both to a special event I am planning for next week. It is what I would call a ‘tasting’ and there will be some of the girls there too. It will be in the evening after the school day.”
It sounded like Drinks at Detention, but that was hardly likely in the strict atmosphere that Miss Kenworthy favoured.
I arranged to go and see Miss Kenworthy with Anna, later in the same week. She greeted us and took us to her private rooms, a rare treat. After a round or two of general chat, her expression darkened somewhat.
“Have you thought about my tasting, you two?”
Anna leapt in gushily, as she often does.
“I’d love to come to a wine tasting, if that’s what you mean, Miss Kenworthy. “But will the girls be allowed to drink too?”
“It’s not a wine tasting, Anna. Think of something else you have tasted recently.”
I chimed in with various other food and drink things that might be fun. I could guess what she was hinting at but it was definitely more fun to pretend ignorance. And Miss Kenworthy was enjoying this.
“No, silly, none of those. We might have some food and drink, but that’s not what this is about.”
We put on puzzled looks.
“Silly girls.” She came up to us and whispered in our ears, each of us in turn – “it’s the CANE I mean.”
She stood back, her eyes darting between us with delighted glances.
“Well?”
“Of course, Miss Kenworthy. We will be there.”
I glanced at Anna, who nodded, although I sensed apprehension.
*****
The tasting was fixed for the following Friday. It might not have been a coincidence that Friday evenings after detention were the time usually set aside for formal punishments in Punishment Room 1, and I wondered if the typical sounds that could be heard then might form a strange aural background to our gathering. But then Miss Kenworthy could not do a birching while she was doing a tasting, could she?
She greeted us enthusiastically and whisked us along past PR1 (there was a notice on the door! – but I had no time to read it) to one of the “high security” classrooms that were better organised for the more difficult classes that called for more frequent use of corporal punishment. Along one wall was a row of hooks on each of which hung a cane. They were of various lengths and thicknesses and were all numbered.
At the end of the room a group of girls were chatting to one another. They did not appear all that much concerned and I don’t think, in retrospect, that they knew what was going to happen, but Miss Kenworthy’s arrival clearly affected them and they grew steadily more anxious as the evening went on.
Miss Kenworthy turned to us.
“We are going to use the bowls for this. We will need three bowls: one to pick a cane, another to pick a (what shall we say?) bottom, and a third to pick a number, – a slight pause – 3, 4, 5, or 6. I’m sure you know what that means – low numbers but several canes will be used. Oh, and we’ll need the punishment book. Everything will be recorded, each girl, each cane, each stroke of the cane, and best of all – each reaction. But we won’t need a fourth bowl, because …. can anyone guess why not? Miss Kenworthy looked around the room, taking in our little group and the large knot of girls near the window.
I piped up. “Because we won’t need to choose about clothing?”
“And why is that Flo?”
“Because we won’t be wearing any.”
“Excellent guess, Flo. You will be naked, from the waist down at least. You will all be caned on your bare bottoms. That is the only way to test canes properly. In fact it is the only way to administer the cane at all.”
There were audible gasps from the girls. Miss Kenworthy took up a position to address the whole room.
“You may all be wondering why you have been chosen for this little activity. It is not intended primarily as a punishment, although you have all deserved one. In fact you are all here because none of you have been caned despite some bad reports about you. We are going to hold a tasting with six fine canes. You will be chosen by lot from the bowls, except that Florence and Anna – who have been caned before of course – will be appointed to demonstrate our little procedure to the others. Those who are chosen will receive strokes from each of the canes, also chosen from the bowls. The numbers in the bowl range from 3 to 6. So you could in theory receive 36 strokes …” Here Miss Kenworthy looked meaningfully at me and Anna, reminding us that we had both been caned in exactly this way on a previous occasion.
“But that is unlikely.”
Anna’s laugh did not go unnoticed. What a capacity she has for getting herself into trouble. But Miss Kenworthy just went on.
“There may not be time to include you all but we will cane as many bottoms as possible. Then I want you all to record your reactions to each cane on the forms you will see in front of you, and to enter a score from 1 to 5 for its effectiveness. All the canes will be used and at the end of the tasting there will be a winner, the “cane of the evening” we’ll call it.
“Now, let’s make a start. Florence and Anna, come over here.”
My heart was in my mouth, and (as she told me later) so was Anna’s in hers. The girls were looking increasingly uneasy standing so close to the instruments of punishment.
There were multiple gasps when they saw the stool brought out into the room. It was an especially high one, leaving the victim perched over the top facing the floor on the other side, unable to dismount without help.
My name came out of the bowl first (undoubtedly by design rather than chance). My bottom (which already bore several “historical” marks – these aroused interest) was of course extremely vulnerable in this position. I received six strokes from the first cane, a familiar whippy one so the stings came as no surprise. The next was heavier and made a dreadful thwack, but hurt less than this led me to expect. (I yelped none the less; it always seems advisable.) The third cane was another thin whippy one that left distinct stripes.
Anna followed me on the stool and the bowl yielded a sequence of canes slightly different from mine, with two thudders and one stinger. So she came away somewhat less sore than me. She winked at me as she came past, and gave my bottom a pinch which made me squeal.
During the game I spotted the girl who had held my hand when I was being birched a few weeks before. I went over and talked to her and she told me her name was Suzette. She was gorgeous and I took to her instantly.
The girls got through their ordeal with commendable bravery, especially Suzette. As Suzette got herself into position over the stool Anna nudged me and whispered “lucky girl” in my ear; she was right, as a deep red blush across the lower half of her bottom showed. This was the especially tender “sit spot”, always vulnerable in a bare-bottom punishment. So Suzette had recently been spanked, and only one person in the room can have spanked her so effectively. Would her name be in the Punishment Book? Or will it have been too private? I hoped to find out.
Miss Kenworthy looked pleased with the results of the tasting. She paused, then smiled her special smile.
She spent a few minutes reading over the girls’ forms and doing some simple arithmetic, then picked up the winning cane and held it up triumphantly.. it was the thin whippy cane that had met my poor bottom many times before.
”And now for the ‘cane of the evening’. We will pick a name from the bowl, and that girl will be given twelve strokes with the winning cane.”
Suddenly a thought occurred to her (it had already occurred to Anna and me). “I think we should include Anna and Florence in this last round, don’t you?”
There was a ripple of approval from the girls.
Of course I suspected that this ballot would be fixed, but fixed for whom: for Anna or for me?
“Flo, as the eldest, you will pick the name.”
What a responsibility. My hand trembled as I put it into the bowl and plucked out a slip. To my horror I saw the name of Suzette before me. I could not prevent myself in time from glancing at her, and from this glance she knew her fate.
But I could not pass the dire sentence on this lovely girl who had befriended me before and had already felt three canes. Quickly I made the decision: I announced my own name and dropped the evidence back in the bowl. Apart from the ever-canny Miss Kenworthy, and possibly Anna, and Suzette herself of course, no one can have been aware of my deception.
I went straight to the stool, lifted my top, and leaned over. It seemed an even longer way down on the other side than it had an hour or so earlier.
“Usual rules, Florence. Hold on to the bar, penalty if you lift it. And count.”
The strokes, and my litany, began.
“One, Miss Kenworthy, two Miss Kenworthy, three Miss Kenworthy, …”
At number six an especially sharp cut made me lose my balance; my hand slipped off the bar and I used it to straighten myself. This was always a hazard with the stool, but it breaks the rule and the penalty is applied; do it a few times and the punishment is effectively doubled.
“There will be a penalty of one stroke.”
“Seven, Miss Kenworthy, eight, Miss Kenworthy, …
… twelve, Miss Kenworthy.”
“Now the penalty stroke, extra hard.”
“Thirteen, Miss Kenworthy.”
“Oh, that’s unlucky. … One more stroke.”
That last stroke echoed around the room, as did my shriek.
…oooOOOooo…
more to come…
Asa’s Note
Quite beautiful isn’t it? Full of sensitivity and understanding of spanking and spanking relationships. Trust, sacrifice and the actual spanking and pain, all done beautifully.
My favourite bit..releasing her hand from the bar, a simple action but what an effective way of demonstrating how much stroke number six (how apt) hurt.
Well done Robbie, what with you, Maestro, Brigitte and Jean Marie, I think I have the best contributing people any spanking site has. It is just a shame how heavily censored I am, and how visitor numbers suffer because of it. It is as the Emporium is some kind of sordid beast of a man to be kept shackled in the shadows, out of site. I have no idea why?
Yet we all know differently don’t we? I am a nice enough bloke, I know it, you know it…..fuck em! The Emporium is our secret
Peter Birch a friend of mine and a prolific write of spanking books once said to me, “I thought I was heavily censored, but you? It’s a wonder anyone ever finds you!”
So in a funny way it suits me fine, being censored so much, a niche site, hidden away, and treasured once found. Not many of you go once you have found me.
Our Emporium Band of Merry Spankers, a blushing pink secret!….lol
Asa