Miss Strang Chapter 52
By Governess

liviaarbuthnot1@gmail.com

Copyright 2009 by Governess, all rights reserved

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This story is intended for ADULTS ONLY. It contains explicit depictions of sexual activity involving minors. If you are not of a legal age in your locality to view such material or if such material does not appeal to you, do not read further, and do not save this story.
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Chapter 52

There was a long pause.

"And how would you deal with such a boy, Mrs Claxton? A boy who constantly argues and cannot obey simple instructions."

I felt Mrs Claxton's eyes upon me.

"Well, Madam, I think the answer is to be found here."

She picked up one of the canes to emphasise her meaning, and then dropped it back on the counter. There was a dry rattly sound as she did so. Miss Strang nodded.

"Oliver, I asked you to select a cane that you judged suitable for teaching you better manners and an obedient disposition. Please do so."

I looked at the five or six canes before me. All had crooked handles. Several were quite slim and whippy. And one looked very similar to the cane Miss Strang had in her desk. But there was one that was a darker colour, very straight, and probably half an inch thick. It must have been about three feet in length. It was a cane that looked capable of crushing the rebellious spirit of any older boy who was in need of exemplary punishment. I looked up at Miss Strang.

"P . . please, Miss Strang, do I have to choose one?"

"You see Mrs Claxton what I have to deal with. Yes, Oliver. I thought I had made that abundantly clear. You will select a cane that you consider will teach you to submit to instructions without argument."

I felt hot and sticky in my new boy's clothes and resentful at being penned into such a corner by Miss Strang. I narrowed my eyes and with pursed lips made my choice.

"Perhaps this one, Miss Strang."

She picked up the cane I was pointing to.

"This one, Oliver? You truly believe this cane is capable of breaking your defiant spirit and rendering you submissive and compliant? Is that right?"

Already I was regretting my choice.

"Ye . . . yes, Miss Strang."

"But I would use a cane like this on a boy just out of the nursery. Even for a boy of four or five it is unsuitable. Is this your idea of a joke, Oliver?"

"N . . no, Miss Strang."

"Then I must ask you to choose again. And this time bear in mind that you are a boy who is nearly thirteen. A boy who is defiant, rude, and disobedient. A boy with a vicious habit. A boy on whom a cane needs to raise such thick and throbbing ridges that he will not sit comfortably for several days."

She paused.

"So, Oliver, please choose again. And this time use a little commonsense."

I knew that there was only one cane to choose. Reluctantly, I pointed to it.

"Hand it to me, Oliver."

I did so. It felt heavier than I had expected.

"Have you experience of this cane, Mrs Claxton? Do you consider it fit to do the job required. To humble this boy. To reduce him to a sobbing and pliable child of half his age?"

Mrs Claxton smiled.

"Oh yes, Madam. This is a smoked dragon cane. It is heavier and straighter than ordinary rattan. You told the young gentleman that he was to choose a cane that would raise thick ridges on his bottom Well a good dozen strokes of this cane, well laid on, will certainly do that. Without any shadow of doubt. Afterwards, when you run your finger over his bottom it will feel like a washboard. And look like one, too, when the ridges turn black and blue."

Miss Strang smiled.

"That sounds entirely satisfactory, Mrs Claxton. As the Bible says, 'the blueness of a wound cleanseth away evil.'"

"Please, Miss Strang, I don't deserve to be punished like that . . . Please."

But there was something about a pleading child that Miss Strang disliked. And any such appeal was futile. The divine order had set adults to rule and judge children and the decision of an adult was quite beyond challenge. The restive sprit of a child that refused to accept that divinely constituted order needed to be subdued.

"Well, Mrs Claxton what would you do with a stiff-necked child like this?"

"Mrs Claxton smiled.

"Well, Madam, I was about to suggest that you take the cane on approval, as it were, and test its effectiveness for yourself. If it is not satisfactory then it may certainly be returned and your money refunded."

She paused.

"But, should you wish, you may certainly try out the cane now?"

Miss Strang nodded.

"That is an excellent notion, Mrs Claxton. We have just come from the gentleman's outfitters across the street. So that Oliver could try on some clothes, Mr Wilberforce closed the shop for a short while. Perhaps you could do the same?"

"Of course, Madam."

She went to the door and shot across the bolts, top and bottom, and then turned the sign around to closed. I felt a similar panic as before, like an animal that has stumbled into a trap. A hopeless, indescribable pain welled up inside me and spread throughout my body. I could feel a tingling in my limbs and I shivered.

Miss Strang swished the cane through the air. It made a deep and ominous whooshing noise.

"And I suggest, Oliver, that you offer your full co-operation."

She pointed with the cane.

"Stand facing the counter. And take off your jacket."

I slowly slipped it off.

"John, hold Oliver's jacket for him."

My brother white faced and nervous, biting his lower lip, took it from me.

"Now slip off those braces and drop your trousers. And now your underpants."

There was something strange in divesting myself in this way. It was quite different from having to raise a dress and have my knickers taken down. A boy's clothing provides a greater degree of protection, particularly to the legs and buttocks. When a boy has to lower his breeches, there is a greater formality and intention about the exposure and an increased sense of vulnerability. I have to confess that this first experience of being stripped for punishment as a boy, and publicly, was both arousing and alarming. I stood facing the counter with my trousers and pants in a dejected heap around my ankles.

That Mrs Claxton should propose to Miss Strang that she should try out the chosen cane on my own person and in her own shop was even for those times unusual. However, there was, then, not only a readier acceptance of the value of such punishment but also a more basic approach to children and their discipline. The respect and modesty between adults and the reluctance to expose bare flesh was most certainly not extended to children.

Just as a great medieval baron inhabited a different world to his serfs, so did adults to children. A child owed an unquestioning obedience to the adults who ruled him. He was subject to their discipline. And had to submit to whatever punishment they deemed appropriate. As completely as did any Russian serf who laboured under the threat of the knout or pleti. That a child needed to be bared for the rod was a matter of simple practicality to render the flogging effective. It might be shameful, but that was no cause to spare him. A child was without rights and subject to the will of those who ruled him. That was the humiliation of which flogging was but the confirmation. As with crucifixion in the antique Roman world, the humiliation inhered in the institution itself. The baring of a child's flesh and its laceration by cane or birch merely brought home to a him, in a very necessary way, his subservient status. So for Mrs Claxton to propose that a rude and disobedient child should be stripped and caned publicly to test out the effectiveness of a new cane merely reflected that truth.

And as I stood there, I could feel the little serpent flicking his tongue between my legs. I shivered with fear as I anticipated the cuts of that half inch thick, yet flexible, length of crook-handled rattan, dark and shiny in Miss Strang's hand. Cuts that would raise thick, throbbing ridges of agony on my soft bottom flesh.

She rucked up my shirt and my under vest and knotted the shirt tails to ensure they remained clear of my buttocks. I could feel the front of the counter cold against my belly.

"Well, Mrs Claxton. What do you think of that for a young boy's bottom?"

"I must say, Madam, it's wonderfully plump and round. Almost a girl's bottom."

"You are right, Mrs Claxton but I have governed several boys with such a bottom. But then I probably have the advantage of having seen more boys' stripped bare for the rod than you have."

She tapped the cane across my bottom.

"But it is certainly a bottom for a cane like this. This cane for example . . . "

she placed the dragon cane back on the counter and picked up a more slender and whippier cane and swished it through the air,

". . . . this cane would be excellent for breaking in a boy of six or seven, but when a boy has reached Oliver's age something more substantial is required."

She placed her hand on the nape of my neck.

"Tell Mrs Claxton how old you are, Oliver."

"I . . I'm nearly thirteen . . . Mrs Claxton."

"My chest was tight and I could hardly breathe.

"Yes. And a boy of thirteen needs more that just a little tickling with the rod. Is that not right, Oliver?"

I hung my head. I could feel my face burning with shame.

"Well?"

"Ye . . . yes, Miss Strang."

She picked up the dragon cane again and turned to Mrs Claxton.

"A few years ago, I was engaged to govern a boy of eleven. His father had sought me out in preference to a tutor. He believed rightly that the shame of being subject to a woman would be beneficial. Not only was intensive coaching required but the boy needed to be licked into shape before going up to school. And his father insisted on the cane. His previous tutor had birched him but to little effect. Frankly, I doubt whether the birch had been applied with the necessary judgement and skill. But nevertheless I was instructed to use the cane. And I used it regularly, consistently and vigorously. It was a cane very similar to this."

Although I was facing the counter and Miss Strang was out of my immediate vision, in my mind's eye I could see her pausing and running her hand appreciatively down its length.

"Yes. It was probably a little longer than this but not by very much. And also about half an inch thick. And despite its thickness, wonderfully flexible. It pounced like a cat on its prey. A cane of that length would normally be difficult to control But not that cane. And how young master Roderick feared it, Mrs Claxton! As I am sure Master Oliver will this one."

And again I sensed her running her hand affirmatively down its length.

"So straight and true."

There was a deep whoosh as she swished it through the air.

"I will ask Oliver to stretch his arms across the counter, Mrs Claxton. If you would be so kind as to hold them there and restrain him that would be excellent."

I reached over the counter. It was of a height that bent me forward hardly at all, and effectively I was standing upright. But then I felt Miss Strang gripping my waist and lifting me so that my body was flat on the surface and my legs hanging over the edge.

"Now I seem to recall, Oliver, that you said a moment ago that you did not need to have thick throbbing weals raised on your bottom. Is that right?"

Pressed down upon the hard unyielding counter I found it difficult to speak.

"Please Miss Strang. I'm sorry. Truly I am. Please don't cane me."

"I have no doubt that you are sorry, Oliver. And you will be even sorrier in a moment I intend to make sure of that. A boy of your age must learn to govern himself. And if he does not, then he must be taught. And at your age a boy cannot expect concessions or uncovenanted leniency."

The cane was again tapped against my buttocks.

"As you are about to discover."

Again I felt the sharp tapping of the hard rattan.

"And no clenching, Oliver. A soft accepting bottom please or you will be even sorrier than I intend you to be."

Later, I was to see many boys punished with such a cane and would cane them myself. And each time I did so, my thoughts always returned to that caning in Mrs Claxton's shop.

"And John and Simon, I suggest you watch closely. You are still at an age when a governess extends a modicum of leniency. In a year of so, that will no longer be the case."

Again the cane was tapped across the crown of my buttocks.

"Hold him firmly, Mrs Claxton."

Never had I been so frightened. I waited on a pinnacle of frozen time. And then there was a sudden deep whoosh and an impact that thrust me forward, pressing the tops of my thighs against the counter's edge. For a moment nothing; and then it was as though my bottom flesh had been split open. I screamed a deep throaty roar of agony and tried to tear my arms away from Mrs Claxton's restraining grasp. I kicked the base of the wooden counter with my feet, and felt the breeches around my ankles slipping off.

"Oh no, young man, you stay put where your governess wants you."

I want limp, sobbing and heaving.

"Well, I am most impressed with the cane, Mrs Claxton. Most impressed. A cane to persuade the most recalcitrant boy to mend his ways."

I felt her hand on my head, her long fingers running through my soft, recently cut hair.

"Is that not right, Oliver? But there is no need to reply. I can see that an impression has been made. A red inflamed half inch impression across both bottom cheeks."

I winced as she ran her hand over the stripe.

"And already beginning to swell. A hot, throbbing ridge that by tomorrow will have turned a dark bluish black. A reminder for the nest few days of the need to obey and not to argue."

There was a pause. I wriggled and clenched my bottom, trying to squeeze away the agonising burning smart.

"No clenching, Oliver. And ready for the next stroke, please."

I was desperate.

"No, Miss Strang. Please . . no more."

"But Oliver, your surely do not think that a boy of your age can be satisfactorily disciplined with a single stroke, even from an excellent cane such as this. Oh no. At least another three strokes. Hold him firmly, Mrs Claxton."

There was a deep vibrating hum as the cane cut through the air. And another surge of agony, as the pain flooded through me like water forced through a gully. I screamed, tearing the lining of my throat, all inhibition cast to the wind. It was as though a hot knife was being used to slice into my flesh. Miss Strang waited. And then, another stroke was given. And then a fourth stroke. I was beside myself, screaming, writhing, and kicking, struggling to find some release from the pain that was spreading from my welted rump, invading and penetrating my whole body. I was racked in torment.

"Let him go, Mrs Claxton."

I collapsed in a heap on the floor, howling and twisting like a two year old having a tantrum. Nothing was said, and as the agony subsided, I was overcome by shame and embarrassment, and struggled to my feet.

"Pull up your pants and breeches, Oliver."

I did so and noticed the white, drawn faces of Simon and John still watching intently. Shocked by what they had seen, and aware that in a few more years they, too, would be subject to such a regime.

(To be continued)