By Governess
liviaarbuthnot1@gmail.com
Copyright 2023 by Governess, all rights reserved
* * * * *Chapter 56
As he left to collect the tawse from the back of his bedroom door,
Cordelia’s thoughts wandered back to the time when her brother Charles
had started masturbating. He must have been about ten. The house had
been small and, as Marcel had frequent nightmares and called out in his
sleep, Cordelia shared the only other bedroom with her elder brother.
He had woken her early in the morning by his movements, and she had
listened to him playing and pleasuring himself beneath the sheets. She
knew what he was doing for she had overhead her mother talking about it
to Mrs Atkinson.
“I agree with you Alice. So far, I’ve not caught Charles abusing himself, but, when I do, I’ll know how to deal with it.”
It was only a few days later that Cordelia had alerted her mother to
Charles's wriggling and groaning in bed, claiming that he was
disturbing her sleep. He had been summoned and made to submit to a
shaming and probing inquisition. At the end, his guilt established, he
had been whipped, and the severity of the whipping brought home to
Cordelia just how grievously he had sinned. Afterwards her mother
explained that God had provided illness and even blindness as a natural
consequence of such sinning. Better by far that he should be punished
by his mother. But Charles found masturbation irresistible. Like the
moth that is burnt by the candle he returned with singed wings to be
burnt again.
Sharing a bedroom made it difficult for him to
hide his wickedness, and he would plead with his sister not to betray
him. Perhaps a week or more might go by and she would say nothing,
winding the spring of her sensuality to an ever-tighter coil. Then,
when she could contain herself no longer, she would tell on him and see
him punished for his abuse. Sometimes with a flogging hanging over him,
he would beg her to intercede on his behalf, and she would promise to
do so. But she knew any intercession would be fruitless; and indeed, a
remission of the penalty was the very last thing she wanted. But after
his punishment, she would go to his room to comfort him, being almost
grateful for the pleasure he had given her.
When Samuel reentered the room and handed the tawse to her. She took it, frowning.
“I really don’t know why we bother to hang this in your bedroom,
Samuel. It is there to serve as deterrent to bad behaviour but for all
the good it does it might as well be hung in the airing cupboard. Well,
its presence may not deter, but hopefully a further flogging will.”
"Please . . . I'm sorry. Please, not the tawse."
"And why not the tawse, Samuel?"
He hung his head.
"Be . . . because it hurts . . . it hurts so much."
"It is meant to hurt, Samuel. How do you think small boys learn how to behave? To avoid wrongdoing?"
He said nothing. She spoke more gently.
"Would you fear a punishment that didn't hurt, Samuel? Well, would you?"
His voice was low and barely audible.
"No, Mother."
"Of course not."
She paused.
"Sin is a dreadful thing, Samuel. Although it is sweet and tempting, it
makes us ugly in the sight of God. Children are born sinners. No child
has to be taught to lie. He lies naturally. No child has to be taught
to disobey. He disobeys because disobedience is in his very nature. So,
what God has done is to provide those who rule over children with a
means of making the sweetness of sin bitter. A boy may be desperate to
sin, but if he knows that the bitterness of punishment will be greater
than the pleasure of sin, then, he may think again and control his
sinful urges."
She put her arm around him.
"The Bible
talks of us enjoying the pleasures of sin for a season. That is for
just a little while. The pleasure of sin is not a lasting pleasure."
She placed the tip of her forefinger under his little penis.
"And when you play with this, Samuel, is it pleasurable? Do you enjoy it?"
His face was flushed and his eyes bright. He had the look of a boy
suffused with guilty fear. He looked down. His voice was low and
gravely.
"Yes, Mother.
"Yes, I am sure you do, Samuel. And you are not alone. All boys find it most enjoyable. But it is a sinful enjoyment."
She paused.
"And does it last long, that enjoyment? Does it make you feel full of
joy all day? Bright and happy? Or does it disappear? Slip away as if it
had never been?"
He nodded, hopelessly.
"Yes,
Samuel. The pleasures of sin don't last. That is why you are tempted to
sin again and again. Searching for that little fleeting pleasure.
Hundreds of little steps leading a boy to Hell."
Again, she paused. He was weeping now.
"I . . . I'm sorry . . . M . . . Mother."
"I'm sure you are, Samuel. But a boy needs practical help to keep him from sinning."
She ran the tawse through her hand.
"Yes, Samuel. Practical help. So that a boy thinks twice before abusing himself."
She smiled.
"But a boy never believes he'll be caught. Does he, Samuel? He always
expects to escape being discovered. But one day he'll have to face God
and be judged. And isn't it better to confess to his mother and accept
her gentler discipline and learn from it."
She paused.
"But a boy will seldom do that. He enjoys sinking his teeth into that soft delicious fruit."
She shook her head.
"But it's as deadly as the fruit eaten by Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, Samuel."
The boy shuffled miserably, his little member hanging limp and forlorn
before his mother's gaze. She reached out with the tawse and lifted it
gently.
"So, out of kindness, Samuel, whenever I catch you
playing with this, you will be flogged. And flogged severely. Some
mothers are reluctant to punish a boy as he needs to be punished. But
you will be pleased to know, I'm not one of those."
She paused.
“Tel me, Samuel, when you are in bed masturbating, what are you
thinking about. I noticed when you watched Elizabeth being chastised,
that your little penis stiffened and poked out of your pyjamas. Is that
what you are thinking about? Elizabeth twisting and writhing, as the
tawse cut into her soft flesh? Is that what you are imagining?”
She felt his body tense up. And he began to cry.
“No need to cry, Samuel. The works of darkness need to be brought into
the light. Only then can they be confronted and overcome.”
And
overcome they would be. Clearly the hissing serpent of sexuality was
beginning to arouse and that needed to be held in check. A training in
continence and self-control was urgently required. The unhealthy
imaginings needed to be confronted and the boy weaned off masturbation
before it become a debilitating habit.
“Now listen to me,
Samuel. I am here to help you control yourself and to resist
temptation. And there is only one sure way of doing that. And that is
to punish you, and punish you severely every time you succumb to
temptation and abuse yourself. And if you are serious about that, you
will confess every time you even slip your hand inside your pyjamas.”
She paused.
“So, what do you think would be a sufficient punishment to stop you
masturbating? What sort of punishment would deter you, Samuel?”
“Please, Mother, don’t punish me. I don’t need to be punished. I’ll never do it again. I promise. Really. Please, Mother.”
She smiled.
“Samuel we both know that isn’t true. A boy who’s discovered the
delights of masturbation isn’t going to stop without help. It provides
a pleasure like nothing else. And once it’s is over, he can’t wait to
do it again. And soon his hand wanders where it shouldn’t and he holds
his little penis and rubs it until it becomes stiff and he explodes
with pleasure. And soon it become a dreadful habit from which he can’t
escape. No Samuel, unless a boy is punished, he will never desist,
never stop. And that’s the truth.”
The small naked boy wriggled in his desperation to escape. But he was lost for words.
“So, tell me, Samuel, what punishment do you think would deter a boy from masturbating.”
He realised that there was nothing that would persuade his mother not to punish him.
“I . . . I suppose a spanking . . . Mother.”
“You think a spanking?”
He hesitated.
“B . . . but not a very hard spanking. Enough to tell him that what he
was doing was wrong. To let him know he mustn’t do it again.
His mother smiled and lifted her eyebrows.
“But Samuel you already know that it’s wrong and that you have been
forbidden to do it. The point is that even though you know it’s wrong,
you still do it and want to do it again and again. And I don’t think
that a ‘not very hard spanking’ is going to change that. Well, is it?”
He bit his lip and cast his eyes down.
“Samuel. If a boy loves chocolate and has been told not to help
himself, but knows that all that will happen will be a little slap on
the wrist and a warning not to do it again, do you think that would
deter him? Of course not. And why would that be?"
Samuel looked down and said nothing.
"The reason, Samuel, is that he didn’t fear the consequences. The
punishment needed to be so painful, so unpleasant, so dreaded, that
even the thought of chocolate would make him feel ill. And I think
you’ll agree that a boy finds the thrill and delight of masturbation
far sweeter and more tempting than any chocolate."
He looked up at her. His eyes were brimming unshed tears.
"P . . . Please, Mother."
"I don't know what you think you are pleading for, Samuel, but it
should be for a beating so severe that the very thought of a repetition
fills you with such dread that you are frightened to even sleep with
your hands under the sheets."
She paused.
"Well, have you anything to say."
“Please, not the tawse. Please.”
His mother said nothing for a moment. And then smiled. She spoke with a warm reassuring voice.
“I suppose on this occasion you might be spared the tawse, Samuel. Is that what you want?”
“Please, yes, Mother. Yes. Thank you.”
His relief was palpable.
“And . . . and, I promise to be good. I really will be. Truly, Mother.”
His mother smiled and bending down kissed him. She handed him the tawse.
“You had better go and hang this back on your bedroom door, Samuel. And
let us hope just by being there it starts to act as a deterrent. And
helps you keep that promise”.
“Please, Mother, may I put my clothes back on?”
“No, Samuel. Not for a moment. Off you go.”
She was touched by his evident relief at being spared the tawse and
smiled at his promise to be good. She saw by his look that having to
remain stripped and bare worried him. She sat on the chaise longue and,
when he returned, beckoned to him.
“Sit here beside me, Samuel.”
She spoke with a soft gentle voice.
“Well, you have been spared the tawse. But that leaves me with the problem of how I am to punish you.”
She felt him stiffen.
“I hope you didn’t think you were going unpunished. We’ve already
decided that a boy who abuses himself needs a strong incentive to stop
and that can only be provided by a severe beating. A beating every time
he is guilty. And on top of that you lied to me.”
She paused.
“And you know what I think about lying.”
The sense of well-being that had returned to him and that had put a
bounce into his step as he had run upstairs, drained away, leaving him
heavy with anxiety.
“So let us first deal with the self-abuse.”
She stood up and positioned the upholstered stool for the work in hand.
This was the stool that from time to time she used as an alternative to
the chaise longue for punishing a child. Not so long-ago, William had
received his first caning kneeling over it. However, Samuel would not
be kneeling. She went to the drawer where the soft leather strap was
kept. She pointed to the stool.
“Lie on the stool, Samuel. On your back.”
He looked up at with a hot nervous face as she ran the strap under the
stool and up over his body buckling it across his chest.
“And now pull up your legs and put your feet as close to your bottom as you can.”
As he did so, he knew what she intended.
“No, Mother. Please no. I’ll never do it again. Never. I promise.”
She smiled.
“I’m sure you mean that, Samuel. But it’s only punishment that is going to help make that possible.”
She took a small cushion and pushed it under his bottom so that it was
nicely elevated; and then she stepped across and picked up the smaller,
lighter martinet. She ran it through her hand. Then she reached down
and placed her left arm behind his legs and swept them up.