“Is it really true, Head, that we have a platoon of these colossal foot guards quartered nearby?”
“Yes, with the Fifteenth Dragoons?”
“It's not only true,” said Frau Grumkow, stretching back contentedly in her chair. “But the Count has told me these positive giants need strenuous servicing. I hope you ladies are game. I may be required to send a delegation.”
The mistresses exchanged glances. It was some days later, and this moment after dinner, in the Frau Direktrice's study, was always a pleasant, relaxed one for them all. Only the Duty Mistress for the day, and those taking special assignments in Hall and Prep, ate with the girls. The rest dined with their Head, upstairs, and they dined very well. After dinner, they repaired as now, with great brimming beakers of brandy, to her study to talk and smoke. The Duty Mistress alone was not allowed to drink during her day. On this occasion there were some six mistresses present and, after standing until their almost diminutive-looking Principal had first seated herself facing the fire, they all took low leather chairs around her.
She herself had on a tight, ruffled shirt and a becoming pair of stone-colored velveteen trousers, belted low. She smoked a thin, dark cheroot. Maria Theresa Daunitz, watching from a seat at the side, looked at her with a new respect. That chunky, cheerfully squared off face was really resolution personified.
“I want you to be particularly hospitable to the Fifteenth Dragoons,” she went on (and listening, Maria supplied-on pain of penalty, of course). “I have it from one of the highest families in Silesia- this is to be kept amongst us in total confidence- that our beloved Emperor is contriving a match for the Prince Royal.” She bowed her head in a little genuflection at the words, as did her listeners who thereafter burst into a buzz of excited questionings.
“What? Who is it to be, Head? Do tell us…”
Frau Grumkow stretched out her legs a little further. Karl's prick had really hurt last time. He had no respect for the, ah, weaker sex.
“A Princess of Brunswick-Bevern, that will have to suffice for the nonce,” she said crisply, cutting off their further queries. “The story is, as related to me by the Count, that before the Prince marries her, she will do a year at one of our ladies' seminaries…”
The eager buzz broke out again. They had caught the drift. If only the Schloss could be honored… imagine… a Crown Princess in their midst… baring her bottom for… oh Heavens, it was unbelievable…
“Are… we being considered, Frau Direktrice?” asked Fraulein Holz, leaning forward.
The Head nodded. “We are being considered.”
“Oh how wonderful!”
“What glory!”
“We are being considered,” she added dryly, “together with Wolfenbuttel.”
There were groans at the mention of their nearest rival, a rather larger school near Rostock.
“We are far stricter than Wolfenbuttel,” came one indignant interjection. “We are much more worthy than they.”
“Well, I want to win the honor,” said the Head tartly, puffing at her cigar. “It should be the goal of all of us this term. The decision will not be long delayed. It is for this reason I want each one of you to be on your toes; keep after the scum in particular. They shouldn't feel safe for a second. As a matter of fact, I have thought of increasing the Duty penalty this year.”
“That ought to cheer up the little dears,” said tall Luzie Rombau with a laugh. “I had Duty two days ago and I've never seen such a set of expressions.”
“Nevertheless, they must be kept up to the mark all the time, or they'll get slack. There's only been one birching this term, and that was the English girl.”
“All the same it made her jump a bit, Head,” added broad-browed Katte from her armchair.
“That was partly because you gave her such an admirable first dozen. After that, it was child's play. Is she out from Solitary yet?”
“Came out last night, Head,” said another voice, “distinctly sorry for herself.”
“Did you visit her the day before, Luzie?”
“Yes, Frau Direktrice. I gave her ten.”
“So did I,” said another. “And the bar?”
“Oh yes, she did the bar all right. Lord, how they all seem to hate that.”
“Yes, it's quite salutory. And the swing? Did you put her on that, too? Good.”
“She had one whole morning hanging in the cage and it was so funny, Head, she kept peeing through it.”
“I hope you corrected her for Incontinence.”
“I did,” said the grinning Fraulein Holz, one hand expressively rubbing a meaty hip. “Ten, also.”
They all laughed. Even Frau Grumkow joined in.
“Come to that, I've only had one of you flogged so far this term,” she added with a chuckle. Maria Daunitz stirred in her seat. “I seem to remember you got it twice last half, Holz.”
“I certainly did, Head,” came the equally cheerful reply, “and I can remember every lick.”
Maria's face had darkened at the allusion. She was aware that the Head was staring at her. She wished her friend Inge had been present, but she was on Duty today.
“And do you remember every lick, Daunitz?”
“Distinctly, Frau Direktrice,” she answered at once.
“Do you still have some marks?”
“I… I think so… a little.”
“Show them to us.”
“Certainly.”
Maria was learning. She stood up with alacrity, turned and bared her bottom, raising on high the soft leather skirt. There was a prolonged silence.
“Thank you. You can sit down.” Maria did so and confronted as it were head-on the bright eyes of the French mistress, Jacqueline Bellais, boring into hers. There was something in the expression that locked her own eyes… but the Directress was continuing, “So what did you think of your first birching?”
“Me, Frau Direktrice?” she answered, aware that they were all staring at her now; “I… I thought that, why, it was very severe.”
“Too severe?” The Head's blue eyes were no longer merry.
“No. Just that it seemed… er, a lot… for a little offense.”
Frau Grumkow struck her placid forehead, making her blonde wig dance.
“Good Lord! It's just occurred to me. Daunitz is new to us here, and she probably thinks I was extra-strict with Joyce because she was English.”
“That's heresy,” said Fraulein Katte softly.
“You would never do such a thing,” joined in another shocked tone.
Maria wanted to interject, such had not been in her mind, but the Directress went on at once: “Absolute justice is all we seek at Schloss Rutenberg. No idea of nationality existed or exists in punishing. Joyce was simply… someone to correct. Listen. Here's a wager. I'll send for the girl…”
“It isn't necessary, Frau Direktrice,” Maria murmured unhappily.
“… and ask her direct. If she thinks there was the slightest excess of zeal in her sentence, I shall offer myself in expiation. Yes, Wedell here will be instructed to give these,” and she tapped her tubby bum, “exactly what she gave you.”
Maria again tried to interrupt, but the little woman had tinkled a bell. A pretty maid, engaged in clearing off the dinner next door, appeared instantly. She was a lissome thing, inky-locked and succulently outlined in her short black satin uniform with its tiny apron and cap.
“You sent for me, Madam?”
“Yes, Resi. Fetch the English girl, Hall.”
“Very good, Ma'am.”
The maid curtseyed and left. Maria Daunitz had already learnt (to her own discomfiture, she was sure) that the maidservants employed at the Schloss were a special breed. They occupied a strange stratum in the local hierarchy, being above the girls yet in a curious below-above relationship to the mistresses. The latter could whip the maids, and did, though the whole servant staff came under the iron rule of the head kitchen maid or, as she was better known, the Raumpflegerin. But the maids, mischievous monkeys that they were, did not seem notoriously averse to corporal correction, and could, and did, report the mistresses for delinquencies to the Head. They maintained what Maria conceived to be an almost mockingly respectful demeanor to the teachers, however.
Having prostrated herself and been summoned to stand in the ring before the fireplace, Joyce Hall looked extremely frightened in her succinct gold tunic, or chlamys. She clearly imagined she was likely to be punished again and her sturdy bust wobbled unashamedly.
“Well, Joyce,” said Frau Grumkow, “have you learnt your lesson?”
“Oh yes, Madam,” the girl answered gratefully.
“How did you enjoy your Solitary?”
The girl bit her lip. How to answer properly? Her heavy lashes moistened. Finally she blurted, “It… it taught me a lesson, Madam.”
Frau Grumkow laughed shortly.
“You don't think I was unduly severe to you?”
“Oh no, Madam, no… not at all,” answered the big girl eagerly, albeit with a hint of tears at the edges of her orbs.
“And what would you expect if you repeated the offense?”
“Oh I would get even more, Madam.”
“That's right, you would, Joyce. You'd get four, or five dozen and then I think you'd really know you'd been birched. So you have no ill feelings?”
“Non, Ma'am.”
“Good. I'm glad to hear it. Now show your buttocks to Miss Daunitz. She is new here and might care to see how we treat casual offenders in Solitary.”
Maria had been accompanying her friend Ingeborg Untermacher on her rounds as Duty Mistress for the day. And one of the first tasks of such was to “inspect” any girls in Solitary. There had not in fact been any this day, but they had gone the rounds nevertheless. Solitary was paid off in subterranean cells, entirely bare, whitewashed, with short barred windows high up, at ground level. Entering one of these bleak chambers, with its ammoniac stench, Maria had received a profound sense of depression. So big, and bare, and barren. Some ringbolts on one wall, a hole in the floor for natural needs, and a bare board to sleep on, that was all.
The offender was kept manacled, on bread and water, so it seemed, employed during the day on purposely useless labor-such as scrubbing her floor over and over on her knees, or cleaning out the Groves till they glowed. Evidently she could count on a sound caning a day. Even so, Maria was quite unprepared for the sight that met her eyes as the English girl, skirt raised and knickers down, turned directly in front of her chair.
She had thought Monika Vorst well wealed, but this was something else again. The birch-marks had mostly subsided to decorative green and yellow tracery, though the signal efficacy of the “master's strokes” was still on display. But the big patient buttock had been blatantly beaten all over — the cane markings were in groupings, extending well down her legs.
“All right, do up your things,” came the order, and the girl quickly obeyed, only too glad to do so, it appeared. But her fingers fluttered as the Head drawled through her cheroot-“And what would you say if I said that to complete your lesson, Joyce, six with the switch might be in order?”
The great eyes welled. Suddenly something profoundly affecting-at least for Maria Daunitz-occurred. The seventeen-year-old burst into tears, gulping sobs she clearly tried to check and stifle. For there had been a greedy clicking round the room, as the mistresses all menacingly unclipped their switches. She dropped clumsily to her knees before the Frau Direktrice and lowering her blondish head kissed the toes peeping from the trousers there. No words could possibly have been more eloquent. And at this exact same moment Maria Theresa Daunitz felt a pressing pang in her chest.
Gazing at the bent bottom practically splitting the golden knickers as the girl kissed and licked the leather, she knew she wanted to see it whipped. She would have liked to cane that proud posterior herself-and it was the first time she had felt, or acknowledged the feeling, to herself.
“Don't be silly, Joyce, Stand up and answer my question. Well, then… what would you say?”
“I would say… I would, say, Ma'am,” stammered the still crying girl, “that if you ordered it, then it must be right, and I should hope and try to profit from it all I could.”
“A truly Prussian reply,” retorted the Headmistress with satisfaction. “I couldn't be more proud of you for that, Joyce, than if you were one of ours. Well done. You may have a Credit.” (Thus excusing her, Maria knew, of three cuts at the next beating.) “You may leave now. And if I were you, I should keep those bottoms out of trouble for a little while.”
When the girl had gone there was an excited tension in the air. The Frau Direktrice lit another small cigar.
“There's one erring child who won't steal cakes in a hurry, I think,” she said, drawing on the dark weed with satisfaction. “Amazing how the rod imposes its rule.”
“Do you remember that truant, Head, two years ago, whom you ordered ten days of Solitary and six of the best each morning and evening?”
“Heavens yes,” laughed another mistress jovially, “she didn't take her eyes off the ground for the rest of that term. The mere sight of a stick set her shaking like a jelly.”
“You could do anything you liked with her.”
“And doubtless you did, Luzie.”
Luzie Rombau giggled. “I must say I gave her one of the last of those beatings just as hard as I've ever hit. I have a soft spot at the very memory.” They laughed together as the mistress rubbed her center indicatively.
“Do you required my presence any further, Frau Direktrice?”
The Headmistress looked at the mouth-watering morsel of black silk and satin for a moment.
“Have you had it recently, Resi?”
“Unfortunately I have, Madam,” said the maid, roguishly enough, and looking at the ripe curve of her cheeky can Maria Daunitz again felt that abduction of her breath-yes, she would like to see this tender little Dienstmadchen well whipped too, no doubt about it. She would like to see her bent, and bared, and… and…
“Any reason why you shouldn't have it again?”
“None at all, Madam,” replied the maid promptly.
“Resi,” said the Headmistress, stirring her limbs and changing-somewhat-the conversation, “I need to give someone another salutory birching, in front of the whole school. You don't happen to have a candidate, do you?”
The maid's green eyes twinkled. “There have been some odd stains, yes in the sheets, Frau Direktrice, coming in from Dormitory 'D.' We are looking into it, Ma'am.”
“A vicious little onanist is just what I require,” concurred Frau Grumkow with a chuckle. “Fifty cuts in front of the school, after having masturbated publicly first. A week of solitary, with regular canings to cool her off.” The Head was working herself up, it was plain. “But come, Resi, let's show the new mistress the servant kiss. Nice and deep. The scum buss.” The little woman turned. “You know what that is, Daunitz?”
“Yes, Head.”
“What?”
Maria hesitated but fractionally. “Up the… arse.”
Frau Grumkow shook her braids reflectively. “Tongue up the anal canal, deep. Is there anyone here who feels she could come?”
“I could,” said several voices in unison.
“Frau Dick,” the Headmistress gravely selected, and the well-fleshed gym mistress duly arose.
“Thanks, Head. After seeing Joyce's bum I was frankly just about to burst.”
(And so was I, Maria realized hectically. So… am I!)
“Do you think you can do a 'dry' for Daunitz?”
“I'll try, Head.” She added, grinning- “All that brandy!”
Frau Dick had the wide face of her race, though hers was set under a mousy crop of thin soft hair cut short as a German schoolboy's. It set off in curious sensuality her look of a well-fed mare, her brows of a water-carrier, and generally wanton eyes. Above all, as she came forward now, did it contrast with the thick black furze that fanned out up her belly, above the well-seamed slug of her sex.
For the gym mistress had stripped with expert address and advanced nude but for her boots below the waist, thoughtfully licking the last crumbs of a Savoy cake off her fingers. She stood with feet apart, her back to the fire and facing the principal. The quiff of her bush-hair curled in two furry crimps at the very base of her body and when she curiously parted a little the strong spongy lips of her cunt a red bud, like a velvet cap-ribbon, stuck out, shiny in the light of the triple-branched sconces.
“Right up, Resi. Or it's a dozen on the legs.”
The neat maid knelt directly behind the woman. She hesitated a second, summoning a look of concentration to her foxy muzzle of a face, then drew apart the hanging bottom ovals with her fingers. Her tongue licked once at her lips, a cat's before cream, then she pressed her mouth into the divide behind.
Dick hissed as the tongue slid up her. Her cheeks flushed as she bent further forwards, widening with her fingers the silken purse of her pussy.
“Ach… like that… yes, Resi, yes…”
To Maria, watching bemused, the amazing was occurring-the clitoris twitched or kicked! Yes it stiffened in sudden erection, an hypertrophied angry-looking stub of gristle, standing out from the vulva like a thumb, wet and red. The mistress was stretching the quaking thing out further by distension of her lips and breathing pleasurably now, “Hah… komm… suss… come on you little bitch, shoot… she's doing it to you…”
“Heavens, it's a cock,” laughed Katte from her chair.
But the Head said sternly, “You'll eat shit if she doesn't come, Resi. I'll see that you get twenty at the triangle, too. Get it-in-deep!”
Verily, Frau Dick's crotch seemed to be steaming. The stiff wet tube, half as long as a finger, was sticking out horizontally, a furious thing-yes, surely about to burst.
“She's got it,” gasped Dick, sucking in her breath; and the morsel of femininity literally spasmed before them, sweating its dew in driblets to the carpet.
“Holy Mother!” panted the mistress, straightening and looking about her with an undefined, slightly muzzy expression, while the maid withdrew her face, and licked her scummy lips. Froth still seeped expansively from her slit. The Head was according this performance a critical eye, hand at her own crotch, when there came a rap at the door.
Ingeborg Untermacher came in and curtseyed. She was brilliant in the dazzling white of the Duty Mistress's skimpy tunic and she held the black Demerit Book in one hand. Her auburn hair cascaded down her back. Maria Daunitz found herself looking at her friend and mentor with curiously beating heart, as the young woman bent for the Directress to affix her signature to the day's rote of “Duty” offenses. The wrinkleless, clingy material, softly gathered at the skirt by the wide leather belt, proclaimed rather than hid Inge's solid body beneath. Her boots shone in the firelight, cutting into the creamy thighs.
“Only three?” Frau Grumkow was saying, looking at the little list of penitents with a frown; “I doubt if you'll even get warm.”
“I expect they will, Head,” Katte chuckled.
“If I have anything to do with it,” agreed the Duty Mistress of the day, grinning.
“Well, you have one nine; see if you can make her 'come again.'”
“Who's that, Head?”
“Steffi Nagel,” answered Jacqueline Bellais promptly. “My report in Hall.”
“Well, well,” sighed the Frau Direktrice. “A niner can always be a bit uncomfortable. Still, think of the good you are doing to her soul, Untermacher. Lay on-and don't forget what I told you after, will you?”
“I won't, Head.”
As Maria curtseyed and prepared to follow her friend on her punitive mission, the last in the day for the Duty Mistress, she heard the maid inquire in a new and anxious tone, “Is there anything else you require of me, Frau Direktrice?”
“Well, since you're here,” they heard the reply before the door closed behind them, “it might be as well… you could profit from a little switching, Resi, that is… if we have anyone here… who…”
The two mistresses paced the corridors hand in excited hand, Inge carrying the big black Book under her right arm. Before they rounded the last bend, however, Ingeborg stopped and looked at her new-found friend.
“What were you doing in there tonight?” Then, without waiting for reply, she hurried on in a whisper, “It is thrilling, isn't it? Oh admit it, Maria. You've never seen a 'Duty' before, and you must realize it's intended to be absolutely deterrent. No pity at all. You do understand that? I hit for all I'm worth and if I didn't, they wouldn't respect me a jot. If that Nagel doesn't get up by nine, my right arm isn't what it used to be.”
“And if she does,” said Maria Daunitz, sinking into the same accomplice's whisper, “she goes back to the end of the line and gets them over, plus what she didn't take first time round.”
“If I could get her to stand by seven,” mused Ingeborg with a sensual shudder, “then it'd be eleven over the desk, after. It doesn't do to think about it, does it?”
It was indeed a wretched rank lined up one side of the Duty Room door that greeted the two on arrival there. Facing them, on the other side, stood the Duty Maid of the day, who had assembled the culprits and who, judging by the sly smile on her face as she curtseyed, had been indulging in the favorite pastime of such, namely terrifying the troop verbally. The girls bobbed in unison as Ingeborg and Maria strode in past them without a word.
The room was well lit this time, a flag presiding behind the Duty Mistress's table desk on which Inge plonked the great book, and on which lay two long penal canes. One of these she took up and flexed between her fingers with a dreamy smile.
“Lovely. They put out the number three that I wanted. A little thinner than the others. Some of us like to use the thicker ones, but I find that sometimes they just bruise. Ugh. These bendy beauties sting like fiends.”
“I know,” said Maria. “You seem to forget that I got ten with one.”
Inge's face went solemn. She gave her friend a baleful look.
“I'd love to thrash you, darling,” she said gently.
Maria gave a nervous laugh. “Fortunately you're not going to be able to do that.”
“I wouldn't be so sure,” said the other steadily, then went on quickly-“I'll take Nagel last, when my eye is in. The first girl, Hannelore Weg, is a Senior and pretty experienced. Shouldn't worry too much over six. The other sixer is a Junior called von Brandt.”
“I know her,” said Maria, remembering the pert blonde from a Science class.
Ingeborg Untermacher swept the stick through the air with a voluptuous slice. “God, these things were made to cut young girl-flesh, weren't they just? Most efficient instruments.” She bent elastically and thumbed off her underpants. Catching Maria's eye she explained with a loose grin, “More ease of movement like that. And… and… by the way, if you catch one of them lowering her eyes, for a look, don't hesitate to… Mary darling, I suggest you stand over there… yes, by the bars, that way you can see their faces as well… do you want to masturbate, by the way? We don't usually, during.”
“No, of course not,” Maria Daunitz replied with a quick flush.
Ingeborg gave her a rather roguish wink and with a twirl that lifted the skimpy silk off the slab of one sulcus, turned to the door with her stick- “Let's just go out and frighten them a bit first, shall we, I always like to.”
They went out. The three girls waiting their turn for punishment looked extremely solemn. The first, directly across from the door facing the maid, was Hannelore Weg, a tall, slim, rather short-sighted brunette with silky straight hair. She stared straight ahead of her. Helen von Brandt, next in line, was visibly trembling, with traces of tears on her long lashes. The last, as arranged now by the maid on Ingeborg's order, was the “niner,” Steffi Nagel, a rather ordinary-looking brownette with an expressionless face. The first wore gold, the two others green.
Ingeborg Untermacher stood back with feet astride, flexing her cane across her sturdy thighs, and looked at the trio with a well-stimulated dislike.
“You three are going to be caned as hard as possible across the bottom, so you might as well make up your mind to it,” she said sternly. “Let's see good comportment under the rod. Bend tight and hold on hard to the bar. Tell yourselves what silly idiots you've been to get into the Book in the first place. It's still early in the term and there's plenty more of this waiting for you if you want it. You,” and she tapped under Steffi Nagel's broad rump with her rod, “it's only Thursday and if you get put in the Book again this week, it's twelve, remember?”
She turned and led the way back in, the maid smilingly closing the door on Maria, following. She felt wrought-up, tense, dry-throated. Once inside the room again Ingeborg sat down behind her table and said calmly, “Send in Hannelore.”
Maria went to the door, opened it, and called out loudly, “Weg.” She closed the door on the rapidly marching girl. Her heels make a lot of noise on the black floor. Hannelore Weg stood in front of the desk, her eyes straight in front of her.
“Hannelore Weg?” she was asked, after having taken her oath to the flag.
“Fraulein.”
“Accused of being Idle in class. Report of Fraulein Rombau. You plead?”
“Guilty, please.”
“Have you anything to say?”
“Nothing to say.”
“Do you wish to appeal?”
“No.”
“First Order. Six strokes,” said Ingeborg Untermacher, writing in the Book. “Thank you, Fraulein.”
“Strip.”
The girl's fingers fled. Off came her knickers, to be folded neatly and placed on the desk, just by the dreaded Duty Book. Then her skirt was tucked into her belt, which was ordered higher, almost under her ribs. Ingeborg knowingly inspected the sleek, liquid little bottoms thus put on alluring display, fingering them for old bruises. But the girl had not been beaten this term.
“Do twenty squat-bends,” she was told coldly. After which she had to touch her toes as many times. “Now bend over. I'm going to give you them nice and low, so you can look forward to a good lesson in self-control.”
The well-practised girl went to a set of bars, horizontally set about three foot high, in front of the yawning, though empty, fireplace of the room. Placing her toes under a small brass bar, she had another rail along her ankles behind, while yet another pressed at the top of her shins, and another thighs, in front. She bent over in a lissome arch and grasped the bar at her toes, holding it tightly in her fingers.
Maria could see what an admirably disciplined position it was. The girl could not kick back; the knees and legs were maintained wholly braced and no slightest relaxation of their rigidity could be permitted without leaving hold of the bar with her hands-which constituted getting up. If an offender did this she had to “come again.” It was what made “Duty” (as the girls called it) so dreaded.
First “order” in a week was six, second nine, and third twelve-but it had been a long time since any twelve had been inflicted. Nine was usually more than enough, administered in the manner it was. The system was such, too, that it discouraged any girl giving up should she know early on in her correction that she could not take her dose. A count of nine, for instance, a truly fearsome score for a youngster, abandoned at, say, five good swipes would mean taking over the nine plus the four not received the first time-thirteen in all, fastened over the infamous Punishment Desk. No wonder Hannelore's hemispheres were shivering.
But Maria Daunitz felt the same heat behind her eyes again, as she saw yet another bottom bared, bent, and waiting to be thrashed, cut into by the pitiless length of yellow cane, now held in Ingeborg's hand several paces away from its eventual target. The fluid texture of the flesh promised extreme vulnerability. The smoky stockings were gartered high, in red, and a thick dry slot of bush showed back, at the top of the thighs. The silence was practically deafening.
“I'm going to thrash your behind,” said Ingeborg thoughtfully, if unnecessarily, as she stared judgingly at the well-divided flesh.
Whrrrppp!
As always, the first thudding cut, given with a run, seem to strike like lightning, writing its inky weal across the fruity flesh. It did so low down, wobbling the bottoms. But the girl said nothing.
A long pause. Two… three… there was a gasping pant, the silken knees fretted at the bar.
Whrrruppp! Four. Maria Daunitz drew a hand across her brow. It was moist. She was sweating under the leather. The weals were short but tough, purplish and raised, close hued on the right. She was intensely excited. She looked away.
Five!
Still averting her gaze she heard Ingeborg walk back to lengthen her run, heard the pause for the pain to sink in continue, and continue-finally an exclamation. She turned and looked, and what she saw stung her suddenly, in the center if her flesh, like a bee-sting in her vitals.
The tall brunette, her hair falling forward, had arched up; stiff as a bristle she stood, speechlessly grasping her flaming underbuttocks, what was visible of her face hopelessly twisted. She had stepped back from the bars and seemed in some extremity of agony.
“A rotten performance for a Senior,” said Ingeborg with satisfaction in her voice. “Go to the end of the line, Weg, and I'll deal with you later. It'll be seven, really hard.”
“I'm s-sorry, Miss,” hissed the girl hopelessly. “I'm out of, out of… practice.”
The moment was golden. Watching the tall brunette writhe her way to the door, striving to retain some shred of deportment as she tugged down strands of her skirt and curtseyed stiffly, Maria Daunitz felt molten lava in her loins. In the silent emptied room, too large for its human purpose, she stood staring at her friend fixedly.
“Well caned,” she said at last.
“It was unexpected,” returned Ingeborg, equally levelly and artificially. “Hannelore ought to take six in her stride. Did you notice what a deep-set sphincter she had?”
“I didn't,” said Maria.
“Sure you don't want to masturbate… a little bit… right now?”
“No,” said Maria smiling, “do you?”
“I feel nothing, during, but you must confess it's heaven to watch them like that… when it's over.”
There was a knock at the door. Helen von Brandt came in, visibly crying. She had had a good beating only that morning and now got another, across her plump, pugnacious little buttocks which still held fat when bent. She took the count stoically, though gasping and panting a lot throughout, and finally leaving the room with stricken face, holding herself and moaning. It was the turn of Steffi Nagel, the “niner.”
Ingeborg Untermacher took particular care over this correction, which was clearly, for her, a challenge.
The girl had a dewy, heart-shaped little face, thin sloping shoulders fashionable at the time, yet a buttock, when disclosed, that went outward into a surprisingly full and heavy base. She had had her six at Duty on Tuesday and the lines still showed well. When bent, she was broad and placid behind, the central seam of her twat tucked in. Ingeborg took a long run, and Maria held her breath; she knew in her soul she wanted her friend to win the duel, she wanted to see this firm, meaty flesh lashed into agony.
The air soughed… fffffttt!
The first strokes smacked home viciously. The girl began to gasp at once.
“Au weh, aaaah… o Gott, wie das tut weh… mein Gott, liebe Fraulein…”
She was a loquacious victim but despite her imprecations (“Ach, das halte ich nicht aus…”) absorbed the whacking stripes like a sponge. Four, five, six, seven… Ingeborg was not going to “win.”
“Bend right over… tight, tight.”
The girl gave a long crying moan. Her thighs rubbed together and the split plum of her sex showed suddenly, a winking wound. Her puckered sphincter seemed to swell a second, dilate and withdraw. The right cheek was splodgy with welts, one of which appeared to be oozing.
“Ooooh… auuuuuu…”
Ingeborg Untermacher stood behind her victim, chest heaving, an eager, almost exasperated expression on her face. She seemed to be wondering- how was it possible to cane anyone harder?
“Turn in your toes, Nagel. I want those fat hams absolutely separated for these last two.”
The eighth and ninth whunked into the buttery flesh at the very bisection of hip and thigh. Steffi cried out loudly each time, but did not rise. The mistress let her stay so a long time before the “Permission,” and then said, “All right. Get your knickers on. Hardened little slut, you ought to be caned like that every day.”
Maria mused on the difference in reactions to extreme pain as the girl, her panties up, half-hobbled to the door, holding her riven buttocks and moaning loudly and slowly still.
“Have the Matron see to that place where I broke the skin.”
“Ja, Fraulein. Th-thank you.”
Alone once more, the two stared at each other. Ingeborg sat back on the edge of her table, panting like a runner. Her mouth was wide, there was a quick tawny flicker in her eyes, that of an unsatisfied animal. She parted her legs, the thin stuff of her tunic draping conspicuously over the butting mound of her mons.
“Shall I bring in Weg again?” Maria asked.
The other crossly shook her head. “No, no. Of course not. The maid. For the desk.”
Maria Daunltz paused. Her friend had spoken in rushing gasps. “You don't have to talk to me like that, Inge,” she protested gently.
“I'm sorry… it's just that afterwards…” Her glowing head went back, she sucked in breath again. “Well, look.”
Lifting the limp material from her front, Ingeborg bared her burning cunt. Unlike Frau Dick, she did not even have to part her hairy lips; the tough tail of glistening gristle stuck up through them like a ready tongue.
“Good Lord,” said Maria, not without a certain reverence.
“We… we… some of us… this special operation… Matron does it… uh, with pins… agony, absolute murder… elongates th-th-au Gott! I'm going to go off with you just looking at it like that, let alone a touch, and I want to keep completely horny for Hannelore. Here.” She thrust out the cane with an imperative gesture. “Give me a couple, really hard, to drive it down.”
Maria took the willowy wand hesitantly. “Me… you?”
But Ingeborg had turned and placed her palms on the table top, her legs widely parted.
“Quick, quick.”
“Wer-won't they hear?”
“What does it matter? They know we get walloped.”
Maria Daunitz raised the little flap of silk onto her friend's back and, after a pause, lashed the firm rounds twice, low down. Two thick weals leapt up, reddening to black. Ingeborg rose, thoughtfully.
“Thanks a lot,” she said at last. “Now let's get that delicious little Dienstmadel in to set out the Desk. After which we can make Hannelore wish she'd never been born with a bottom. Seven of the absolutely most Imperial. God save her skin.” For a second she put her hands behind her. “Heavens, you really hit me, then. Drove my come down, however.”
“It didn't mine,” said Maria.
Ingeborg looked at her with close on a leer. “You don't have my clit, dearie. The mere touch of material would have, sent me off just now. But you're feeling nice and molten down there, eh?”
“Sopping,” she confessed, hot-cheeked. “I don't know when I've been so sexually excited.” Suddenly she gritted her teeth-“Cut the can off this one, Inge. Please, please. In little portions. Slowly.”
She turned to the door for the maid.
Two minutes late a very scared-looking Hannelore Weg, her dark blue eyes moist and her chest heaving, was shown in. A heavy pulpit desk had been ring-bolted to the floor. It was provided with ankle-stocks and adjustable wrist-stocks on its front side. There was a leathern boss on the forward slope of wood.
“Strip,” said Ingeborg coldly.
When the girl was in no more than stockings and heels this time, the mistress came forward ruminatively, her chain of office chinking. She lifted the warm satiny chubbies behind, at the top of the long smooth thighs.
“Still sting?”
“Yer-yess,” said the girl unsteadily. Then added, “I'm very sorry I got up like that just now, Miss. I never have before.”
“Well, you're going to be a lot sorrier in a moment. I'm going to take an even stronger cane to you, Hannelore, and give you seven you'll remember for the rest of this term. Fraulein Daunitz will position you.”
With a blind turn the girl went to the desk. Maria followed the trim, liquid movement of the peach-halves with beating heart. She fastened the girl over.
There were adjustments to make. The ankle-stocks kept the legs about a foot apart; the wrist holes had to be pulled down for a tall girl, ensuring her weight well forward. There was a belt to be tightened across her lower back, assuring a pelvic camber upward as the leathern boss snugged under the furry and well-fatted mons.
To the five aching purple wales across the tender underbum seven excruciating slices were added, with a murderously whippy cane. Ingeborg took her time and cut slightly upward into the cringing sulcal skin at intervals of no less than quarter of a minute each. The girl first panted and blew, then frankly yelped, head back, as the tip bit into the right buttock like a brand. Released, she bounded about, regaling the mistresses with some helpless, hectic kneading of her upper legs and hips. Left alone again at last, they exchanged looks. Ingeborg closed the book and turned her back.
“I now have to give this to the Head,” she said thoughtfully.
“I thought you caned that kid beautifully,” Maria said, passing a tongue over her lips.
“Beautifully?”
Maria laughed. “What I mean is… I wouldn't have liked to be in her place.”
“Unfortunately you're going to have to be.”
There was a long heavy silence. Maria felt her heart beat up.
“What do you mean?” she asked at last. Her friend was still standing with her back to her, her scant tunic rucked in her cleft and showing the end of one of the weals Maria had just given her. As if sensing Maria's thoughts, indeed, Ingeborg ran a finger over this hot line.
“The Head said I was to give you a training caning,” she said rather hollowly. “I'm sorry, but I have to. Don't make it difficult for me. If I report you took it well, it may be the last.”
“Because I didn't 'take it' well enough from Wendell, I suppose,” Maria said bitterly. “Oh damn and hell, this is ridiculous. It would have to be you.” But already her fingers were flipping undone the bone buttons of her belt to which the tops of her silk knickers were secured. She had undone sixteen when Ingeborg said, with still averted face, “Mary, I do have to do this, I'm sorry. I also have to report if you get up, during.”
“If you don't?”
“We're watched all the time here. It's uncanny. She'd know.”
“What instrument am I to be flattered with?”
“The cane I've just used.”
“Oh naturally.” Tossing aside her leather skirt and half in tears already, she turned her proud and stalwart bottom-bared for the whip. “Come on, let's get it over with, then. Do your damnedest.”
Ingeborg advanced with a gloomy expression, flexing her stick. She stood in front of her friend, the gold letter on her breast catching the light.
“I'm actually going to enjoy this very much, Maria. I won't hide it from you. I've longed to thrash your behind from the first day I saw you.”
“Please,” said Maria in a new voice, her eyes dropping to the pitiless length of wood. “Don't draw it out.”
Ingeborg jounced the profile of her friend's rump with the swollen tip of her stick. “Why not? Don't you feel yourself living now? I'm going to give you as much pain as I possibly can, until, until you're reduced to a thing of pain… like that girl there.”
“How many?” said Maria curtly. Then wished she hadn't asked.
“Ten.”
“Ten! But that's… it's…”
“What you're going to get. Here. Stand over here. Can you put your palms on the ground?”
“You mean… bending over?” said Maria sickly. “I used to be able… but in these heels…”
With her legs together she bent like a hinge, doubling her bottoms and stretching their skin. Ingeborg stood well back and with a sudden thudding rush pranced on her fleshy prey-to cut.
Huhuwhu-the cane seemed to hew the air interminably until it completed, meatily-uiclk! Determined not to show a sign before her friend, Maria merely gasped, albeit driven off balance a moment.
Ingeborg had cut low, into the very tenderest part of her whole integument, it seemed, and the flame of pain waved over her, drenching her hips.
“Aaaah!”
Maria got to four. Five was a filthy beast of a stroke and she heard her own quick whine of protest.
“Christ! You might at least hit me on the bottom. That last was on my legs.”
“How are you enjoying it, by the way?” asked upside-down Ingeborg, taking a rest on her table for a minute. “You're marking beautifully, and you've only had half.”
“Please… Inge… c-cut me up higher. Not on the thighs.”
“No, you're really nice and tender there. Am I coming about right for time? I mean, when the pain's at its peak.”
“I… yesss,” Maria hissed, in no mood for academic discussion.
“I'm going to continue to work just under the cunt.”
The sixth sang into the stretched meat. The seventh. Eighth.
“Chrissst! Inge… pleeeease.” Nine… ten!
Stay down, she had to stay down… Maria counted, panting. Ingeborg was standing right behind her. “All right,” she heard and jacked upright in agony-to find Inge's arms grabbing round her waist, Inge's furred cunt thrust, tunic-less, into her plump and maddened right buttock; yes, she even felt the slippery stub of flesh there, as Inge hissed, and heaved, and cursed, and buried her face in Maria's hair, wriggling her clitoris into ecstasy on the powerful mound of whipped round womanflesh of her friend.
And five minutes after this, reordered, if not restored, they were presenting the completed Duty Book of the day to the Head in her study.
The mistresses had gone; they had been replaced by a tall, raw-boned officer in loose shirt and pale-blue trousers. Presented to the well-wined Colonel Karl von Dessau, the two young mistresses curtseyed.
Elizabetha Grumkow, still in the same chair, smiled at them cheerfully-“Did she take it well, Ingeborg?”
“Admirably, Frau Direktrice.”
“Show the Count your bottom, Daunitz,” came the next instruction and already Maria found she could obey this order without the slightest hesitation. “I want him to spread the word how strict we are, so that we may be honored with the royal presence. Karl, this is the new mistress I was telling you about.”
“These two will do for my Grenadiers,” the man murmured, feeling at the front of his trousers. “Gad, that's a good pair. And well marked, too. Use a cane, did you?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Well, you two can run off and console yourselves,” said Frau Grumkow, eyeing the Count's growing bulge. She was a jealous woman, and in the mood for cock.
On the way back to her room Maria Daunitz stole a look at her friend. Strange to say, she felt no resentment. She was fast slipping into the sense of discipline, the mystique of destiny, at Schloss Rutenberg. And when Inge squeezed her arm and said softly, “I'm sorry if I did cut rather low, but you must admit it hurts more there,” she was able to answer with a touch of admiration, “You caned me terrifically well, Inge. It hurt horribly.”
“And that,” said her friend, with another comforting squeeze, accompanied by a mischievous wink, “means it's going to be much, much nicer in a minute.”