A beautiful young girl describes her punishment under the birch and shows the positions she had to adopt over the birching block. By P.N. Dedeaux, adapted here and there by me: The birch, that clever instrument of corporal punishment, deserves, and shall have, a chapter of my modest memoirs to itself. For, if comparisons in the field of correction may well be considered odious, of all the items contrived to vex and cure me in those days I do declare it excited the most signal dread in my soul and skin. And my tutor Pelham was expert in its use.
The birch is a wood that absorbs and holds
water. Accordingly, the rods that I ‘put up’ each
afternoon were left to steep in long shallow glass
trays, on a sideboard in the library. The solution
was a concoction of the tutor’s, very vinegary, and it
toughened the twigs, in particular their buds,
considerably. These thin limbs imparted an
inconceivable sting, each one, and a single rod was
generally of five. Pelham never allowed more nor
seven, since they then tended to swing together and
dull the individual agony. The stone-hard buds,
with which each had to be furnished at the tip,
struck into the fat like fury, yet a good birch did not
bruise, though it cut and flecked and grazed the
skin intolerably. Perhaps it was a surface smart,
unlike the cane, and I suspect it died down more
rapidly than the latter. Even so, a protracted count
would soon be hellish, and any more than a dozen calculated to have the most hardened sinner howling. For this was an implement with which you could ‘go’ many, since it did not stun and dull.
My first ‘bill’ with Mr. Pelham was for fourteen
and the afternoon of the first Thursday I had ‘put up’
my rods, some five of them, I recall, under the
watchful eye of my tutor, who took me to the woods
and liked to keep his strength in by felling mighty
trees. To watch him with an axe, and then imagine
him using a rod on one’s person, was a trembling
terror in itself. Anyway, I showed him each limb I
cut for his approval, and he would hiss it through
the aching air, and nod, and say, ‘Good, but get
them longer if you can. More swing, and lash.’ Or,
‘If you cut me another without buds like this, young lady,
you’ll feel it round your legs.’ And I bound them at
the grasping end with stout twine, and laid them in
the trays so that all the sap should flow to the
tips. By a further knowledgeable refinement, the
two or three rods to be used of an evening would be
set to steep in buckets of boiling brine, some hour
before application, beside the block, in a further
toughening procedure.
All in all, in Lady B. Mildmount’s phrase of it,
the birch had ‘great charm’, and she liked to drop
by of a festive Friday evening, when my bill was
settled after dinner. The ceremony attendant on
these occasions was trying in the extreme, and
calculated to be so.
I would come down in a short blouse and stockings, otherwise quite nude except sometimes for a brief suspender belt, and stand outside the door of the library, situate at the far end of the mansion to The Squealery. There I would shudder a half hour or more till the company had had a sufficiency of port and nuts to please themselves to come along for my punishment.
Then they would enter past me, Lord Usher
carrying the black Demerit Book, Lady Julia often
with a playful pat under my blouse, behind, and
Pelham invariably without a word. The shut door
would again accuse my eyes, while the seconds
turned into great pangs of dread. My imagination
would run amok. I would see the block, the bent girl,the panther’s claws streaked across her base.
‘Come in.’
Mrs. Wilson it was who always opened that
door. The first and almost the only thing I could see
in that long, stately chamber was the block, and
the boiling birches beside it, at the far end, on a
small bare dais. For me they were all the furniture
it contained.
Lord and Lady Usher and my tutor would have
taken up comfortable poses in low chairs in front of
that dais, to which my trembling steps took me,
accompanied by the tartary housekeeper. Good
positions to watch the correction of a sinful girlchild.
Once facing them on the dais I would see Lord
Usher open the Great Book. He would read out my
fault, together with its date, and occasioning.
‘Commission of Insubordination’, he would
conclude. ‘Have you anything to say?’
‘No, sir.’
‘Do you wish to make appeal?’
‘No sir.’ I did not in fact know quite what this
constituted, but had been assured that a ‘failed’
appeal carried an aggravation of the dose. So never
tried it.
‘Fourteen strokes of the birch against the naked
buttocks’, he would continue easily. ‘Tardiness, late
for. . . .’ Etcetera.
Finally, there would be a long and, to my modest
mind, unnecessary lecture on my errors – ‘I am sorry
to see you in the bill so soon, Thomasina, but I am
certain you will already agree that the most
efficacious method of extirpating mistakes is to
make one dread their consequence. Which we shall
regretfully proceed to do. These fourteen stripes
will sit in your memory next week, and perhaps
help you to avoid their repetition by error.
‘Pelham’, he would say, with a foolish grin, ‘do we
have anyone here to birch a girl?’
‘I think so’, would come the reply.
‘Present’, said Lord Usher to me. And I had to
draw a rod from its bucket and ‘present’ it with a
curtsey to the tutor, saying, ‘I humbly request
correction, sir, for my great faults of Insubordination
and twice Tardiness.’
Then I would stand before the block until he had
doffed his jacket and rolled up his sleeves
sufficiently, and pronounced the gruff order, ‘Strip and go
over!’ – at which I would doff my blouse and Mrs. Wilson would delightedly secure me.
It was a beastly position for punishment. The block which Mr.
Pelham had so thoughtfully brought with him
that first day was properly black, but otherwise it
generally ceased to resemble the Eton version,
famous in fact and legend. It was bolted to the floor
in some manner. I set my knees on its sawdusty ledge
and bent right over.
The thighs were held vertical,
and strapped above the knees (slightly parted) to
the back – or was it the front? – of the horror. The
upper body then found itself lying fully forward,
the shoulders veritably on a level with the knees,
so strongly did the forward (or backward) slope
yield down. There was a belt at the waist, forcing
one over, two slender but effective straps that went
under the armpits, while the arms themselves were
strapped at elbow and wrist either side the base –
so that one had the paradoxical sensation of being
compelled to embrace this cruel and tormenting
lover. Needless to remark, all modesty must
perforce be lost to the sufferer, who found herself
fully on view; the twin hemispheres of her girlish bottom were nicely
separated, bottom hole on display, and set up for their whip.
The victim was in no mood to indulge such
picturesque semantical luxuries. Already the
longest birch had been picked out, dripping, having
been replaced there after its ‘presentation.’
Recognizable were the limber limbs one had culled
the day before, and seen slashed leather-hard into
a tree-trunk for testing and checking. Already the
tutor was drawing back, and instinctively oneself
was drawing in, and turning back a trembling face,
and
Hhhhhrrrppp!
‘One’ – from Mrs. Wilson, counting. (‘OH!’)
Hhhhhrrrppp!
‘Oh no!’
Hhhhhrrrruppp!
‘Oh no, sir … please … it’s … no, not …
NOOOOHHH!’
That man made me pay every second of each
count, until I was ‘taken down’, gasping and
grasping and grazed and ruddy, for he always
‘drew’ by a dozen or less. Many is the time that poor
shirttail was stained wet with my sins by bedtime.
And still I had to thank him on bended knee, after.
For each of us it is different, and to me the birch
was the most ‘profound’ of my punishments. Even
when all pain, or most, was strictly over, it left me
shuddering and trembling like a leaf with sheer
emotion in front of my mirror, terrified at my terror.
These would be the times Lady Julia would burst
impetuously in, her stride outlining her thighs
against the robin’s-egg velvet of her gown, her
high-heeled slippers clicking, while her own piled
hair, combined with the false, seemed almost as
tall as her bust was broad.
‘Poor Thomasina, all in a ruby dew, and no one to
comfort her. Diddums. Shall Auntie suck it better?’
Alas, it was one of her ‘comfortings’ later that
cost me one of my smartest ‘swishings’ of that
winter. For the birch-rod was not merely reserved
for Fridays. It could be called for at need, and was. I
was even ‘given’ the tormenting decision between
nine with the cane and fifteen with the birch. I was
birched a brilliant beetroot red for soiling my
clothes outdoors. I showed blue wales from the buds
and a blubb’ry face for failing to rise when Lady M.
came in.
I could get to six or seven of these stingy flicks,
but then it was all a steady agony of sin, of ‘Hou!’
and ‘Auee!’ and tattooing toes and tensening cheeks.
So firmly, indeed, did my poor feet beat on the floor
of that dais, after a dozen it was considered wise to
place a cushion under them there, whilst any
turning off of my right side only roundened it for the
rod. The very worst of all was when the tutor, at
Lady Mildmount’s thoughtful advice, ‘whipped in’,
the tips finishing between the cheeks. I sang most
lustily then, a song repeated I assure you on the toilet the following morning.
Masturbation and its Punishment
My usual ‘bill’ – if I was ultra-careful – did not
amount to more than twenty, but for masturbation I
was once adjudged thirty, and it was the stingiest
punishment I had had, until that time. It happened
this way.
There had been a Friday bill of sixteen and
somehow it had been singularly tight. Pelham had
cut me keenly and low and made me wait an endless
age for the last few stripes of the sum. Not to stain
my sheets (as I thought) I lay on my belly on my
bed, later, feeling my bloodied bum; for some reason
I had thrown myself down in my shirt with head
towards the bed’s foot. It was all I could do at first
to prevent myself rolling in pain. Whew! How he’d
hewed me.
That night there came a rattle at the door handle and in a
whispering rustle of perfume and lace Lady Julia
strode in; she had divested herself of her gown and
wore only her mules, stockings and a filmy Maline
slip that barely came to her thighs. She moved on
her magnetic errand with her usual emotional
speed.
‘Here, let me put some cold cream on them, pet.’
At once she was bent over me, breathing,
crooning, and humming, fingers sliding over my
streaked bum cheeks which she greased with needless
zeal, until they slipped around like bubbies in her
grasp. She was standing with feet astride at the
foot of the bed, over which she leant, to ‘comfort’
me, and by turning up my head I could see her rich,
fat, bushy twat. Then I buried my face in the
cushiony counterpane in order to concentrate on not
coming, for this voluptuous woman could bring me to
a climax quickly and as yet there was still too much
pain left in my flesh for me to reach that pure
pinnacle of pleasure only the flagellated can
fathom, from where it lies buried in the ocean’s
depths. All the same I was bucking up my arse and
generally heaving and moaning in response to her
feeling thumbs. What girl could have resisted
them, I wondered.
But after some apologetic and flushed cossetings, she
left me unsatisfied that night and as for me I could
bear it no longer; when she had gone the pain
had subsided enough to be purely provoking and I
squatted on the sheets and had at myself,long, liquidly and
unreservedly.
That this was the preface to one of the tidiest
hidings I ever had I was to know when prying Mrs.
Wilson entered The Squealery next morning with a
sheet over one arm – ‘Look at this, sir, look at this
now.’
Pelham considered the spot she showed him
with a look of distaste, while I pretended to be
immersed in my Livy.
‘What is this?’
‘Onanism, sir, It is nothing else.’
‘Girl, did you masturbate last night?’
‘Yes, sir.’ The evidence was too damnatory to
deny it.
‘We’ll soon put paid to that little habit’, my
tutor said grimly. ‘Cold bath and a birching last
thing tonight.’
‘Yes, sir’, said Mrs. Wilson with a satisfied tuck
to her lips.
It took place in my bedroom as ordered, and only
Pelham and the housekeeper were present. After
sitting in a tub of water, into which ice had been put
expressly, I was ‘horsed’ for the first time. Mrs.
Wilson took my two arms over her shoulders and
leaning well forward inclined me over with her,
placing her feet solidly apart to support and steady
me. I was buck naked and three birches steamed in
readiness. Furthermore, I was still tender at the
seat from the tight tanning of the night before, so
that atop my dangling legs it must be excused me if
my darlings were all in a dither.
‘How many, sir, how many?’
‘Further over, Mrs. W., and further still. I mean
to get under her.’
‘Yes, sir. Take your time, I can hold her like this
all night.’
‘How many, sir, please? Oh please not more than
a dozen.’
And then I wished I hadn’t asked – ’Thirty cuts
for playing with yourself.’
‘Thiiiiirty!’ I wailed, in despair.
‘Make it a round three doz, sir, I can hold ’er for
ye firm.’
Zzzzzsccch!
‘OW!’
‘One’, said Mrs. Wilson, breathing firmly.
The man whipped me with a will. For the first
ten agonizing slices I confined myself to little Oh’s
and Ah’s and throwing out of my legs. At ten he
changed his birch and went lower, changing his
tempo and bringing me up to sixteen very fast. My
squirmings merely spread me better for the twigs.
I was now making fish-like leaps about Mrs.
Wilson’s back, her fingers digging firmly into the
flesh of my shoulders now. My own, I freely confess,
wandered freely; used as a rule to scratching and
writhing at the sides of the block, they now felt
firm flesh and I believe I occasioned my ‘horse’
some strange moments as I helplessly palped her
big breasts with my hands.
‘Uuuugh ... owww ... nooooh!’ And so on.
He went to twenty-three with this birch, which
he changed again. I was then in VERY HELL! The
last cuts were accorded at amazing intervals, each
one tighter than its predecessor, while I heard Mrs.
Wilson’s whispered commentary in one ear – ‘Yes,
sir, that’s how … twenty-four … yeees, that’s how
to give it to her, so!’
Whether she excited herself to
ecstasy I know not, but when it was over and I
danced an unstately sarabande for their
delectation, she was very red in the face indeed.
That night I slept with my offending hands
manacled to the head of the bed behind me and
when I awoke the lower sheet was stuck to my
bottom on the right. It was not a correction I cared to
repeat. Forty-six cuts within twenty-four hours. I
assure my gentle readers that such induces a most
malleable spirit in the recipient thereafter.
My Knickers
To save time it had sometimes been Pelham’s
recent habit to cane me clothed – that is, over my
tightly stretched thin knickers – of a morning.
Theoretically, material modified the cuts I
received but I do not think my gossamer covering
did so. There were even times when I truly
considered that birch or cane bit and stung into one
worse when knickered. The flesh was held firm;
the cuts ate in like fiends. Furthermore, unbuttoning
had to be careful and considered. The command
‘Take down your knickers’ at meant freeing
twenty pearl buttons with plenty of time for
reflection, before peeling the fabric from the loins.
Knickers could be examined at any time, and often
were, and any soiling, before or behind, meant
punishment.
To say this style of girlish knickers were
skin-tight would be an understatement. They were
absolutely ones skin, and entirely but only covered
the swelling cheeks. The sulcus was not shown,
except at the side of the thigh of some especially
fatted girl. The ‘leg’ ribbons were taut and tailoring
and tension were such that the cleft of the cheeks
was completely followed. They made the buttocks
stand out separately, in fact, firming and ripening
their surfaces for the juicy cuts of the rod. These
could indeed be clearly seen through the thinly
textured covering.
Of course the wearing of knickers for punishment did
offer one advantage, that of not having my bottom hole put
on display as it invariably was when I was bared. The humiliation
of having this my most private part exposed to the gaze of my tutor
was a part of my punishment regime that I remember with
embarrassment to this day.
One morning, ordered an eighter for Idling (plus ‘Idle
Excuses’), I surreptitiously tucked a small ladies’
pocket handkerchief – kept for ‘blubbing’ into – up into
the right side of my knockers. Of course this stood out clearly against the splittingly tight fabric after I had bent. Lo and behold, the offending protection.
‘What’s this? Padding? Were you thinking of
padding, child?’
I burst into tears. ‘Padding’, it seemed, was
considered among the most heinous of offences, in
the young. It never carried less than double the
original count, plus a lively dose of the briniest
birch as a ‘reminder’.
The Ushers heard of the mortality of my crime
at luncheon, after I had suffered a simply scalding
eight. That afternoon, in their presence, I had an
excoriating two dozen of the birch at the block and,
all quivering and cut into behind as I was, had to go
over the schoolroom punishment desk for a final
eight, this time with the ashlar. It was a terrible
correction and left even Lady Julia without a word,
at sight of me after. I simply rolled on the floor of
The Squealery, moaning, while Pelham looked
down at me.
‘That was quite a tight ’un, Plum’, came Lord
Usher’s verdict, also subdued.
The tutor was breathing hard. ‘No pity. It is
important to show no pity’, was all he would say
and, staring pitiably up at him as I now sat at his
feet, holding my blazing bum, I saw the immense
cock-head for which he was known at school, it
seems, rampant up one side of his trouser leg.
