Over the Knee Read Free Page A

conducted to the schoolroom, when she has to pay 6d. to the governess, who inflicts the amount of punishment awarded. A wooden horse, covered with soft leather, is the medium of castigation. The delinquent subsequently thanks the governess! kisses the rod!! then thanks the superintendent, and retires to her own room, to appear no more until prayer-time the next morning.’ Our correspondent says the ceremony has more effect than the punishment. The young ladies are in other respects tenderly dealt with. Even the horse has a soft cushion.
    The letter had the same effect on me as on my predecessors. The extravagant ritual was a form of protracted foreplay and the detached mannerly voice only heightened its eroticism. It was all perfectly proper and above board. And all in the name of old-fashioned English discipline.
    My supervisor hadn’t batted an eye when I’d proposed my thesis title. Dr Morrison was a humourless, asexual pedagogue who was oblivious to my personal interest in the subject. The irony was delicious; the vanilla readers of
The Family Herald
didn’t realise they were watching fetishists at play either.
    My academic life was steeped in erotica, but my reality remained steadfastly bland and boring. At twenty-four, I was getting desperate for sympathetic company. I’d had boyfriends, of course. But none of the guys I went out with could measure up to my fantasy of Mr Chancellor. They completely missed the hints I dropped. But I couldn’t spell it out for them. They had to be the ones to initiate it.
    I had no trouble attracting vanilla boys; the trick was finding the kinky ones. There was the Net, of course. But I was wary of visiting dubious sites from the university library’s computers. There were strict regulations about that. If I were caught, the humiliation would be too much to handle. Then again, perhaps it would be worth it.
    There was a wealth of material about the spanking fetish – so much that I could never hope to read it all. But I tried. Naturally, the Victorian offerings were my favourites. I was fascinated by the harsh class division and the wicked things the upper classes could do to the lower. Power was hot, but power
abused
… well, that was something very special indeed.
    One of my fondest fantasies cast me as a maid for a prurient gentleman who punished me when I didn’t perform my duties as he expected. I had no option but to submit to his touch as well as his correction. It was that or be cast out on to the streets. No choice. No responsibility. No guilt.
    My favourite book was the Victorian classic
Frank & I
, the story of a girl who disguises herself as a boy and lives with a strict guardian. When the guardian orders ‘Frank’ to take down his trousers for a birching, he discovers her secret, but keeps it to himself. Frank must continue being a boy, unaware that her guardian knows full well she is a girl. And her guardian, a self-proclaimed ‘lover of the rod’, delights in finding fault with his young charge and administering sound punishments for every offence.
    Of course, there is nothing more traditional, more quintessentially English, than the cane. A short sharp shock. Skirt up, knickers down. Six of the best in the headmaster’s study. But, even more than the implement, it was the ritual that obsessed me. There were prescribed conventions that I saw played out compulsively in both my fantasies and the stories I read. The English had made an art of discipline.
    But all things considered, I couldn’t imagine anything more intimate and humbling than an old-fashioned bare-bottom, over-the-knee spanking. The exquisite embarrassment of being treated like a child, my clothing adjusted just enough to expose my bottom for smacking. My ears would burn as my disciplinarian scolded me, telling me what a naughty girl I’d been and how I deserved punishment. He would bring his palm down on my pale cheeks, turning them pink and red while I kicked and squirmed over his lap. Perhaps