Alice Under Discipline, Part 1

by Garth ToynTanen

  Either way there was an aggressively confident cadence to this newcomer’s stride. Her high heels clicked menacingly, her dress rustled with a starched, almost Dickensian, no-nonsense crispness and her nylon-sheaved legs hissed together with serpentine intent, the dark rear seams and bottomless shadowing serving to augment calves already more shapely than they had any right to be. She moved briskly and efficiently, her every gesture reinforcing the point that she was the boss here.

  The right hand desk was pointed out with an impatient gesture as the woman made her way to the front of the ‘class’, hurrying her young charge along before her. This new young girl, Alice’s new companion, was quickly seated there, the girl immediately being admonished to “sit up straight” and to Alice’s horrified astonishment receiving a sharp slap around the face for her tardiness in doing so. Seconds later and with a sharp tug on her wrists - the woman’s grip unsettlingly firm, almost man-like - Alice found herself with her hands on her head. Despite her indignation she also found herself involuntarily cringing, lest she should receive the same remedy as her new companion in shame.

  Alice’s pretty face burned crimson with humiliation; In a matter of moments any objection, reluctance or defiance she might have shown or mounted had been overcome through sheer force of will and ‘presence’. Moments later and she felt her face flare brighter still as she caught her stepmother’s triumphant grin reflected in one of the mirrors that were set either side of the blackboard at the front of the ‘classroom’ and their eyes met. In the mirror Alice watched, frozen in horror and not even able to twist around, her body momentarily seeming to refuse to obey her will, as with arms folded in satisfaction and with a nod towards her stepdaughter that seemed to Alice to say ‘I’ve got you right where I want you now’ that hateful nemesis that was her stepmother slid from the room.

  The heavy oak door eased closed behind Alice’s departing tormentor with its characteristic dull, sodden thud even as, having reached the front and stepped up to the dais, the woman drew back the heavy upright chair, the nerve-jarring scraping of wood on wood making Alice jump as the woman took her place at her desk. Indeed, so rapid was the turn of events that the lock was still clattering and chattering with dispiriting finality behind Alice and her new companion’s backs as the woman cleared her throat to speak.

  Alice’s head was still spinning with all the quick-fire revelations the woman had run through almost as if by way of introduction. By far the worst of all this had been this thing about having to refer to her hated stepmother by the title ‘mother’ and having her family name changed to that of her stepmother’s maiden name. It was all ludicrous of course. And she was just about to say so and say how she had no intention of ever addressing that gold-digging horse-loving stable-tart as ‘mother’ - ever - when the woman seated at the desk up on the dais in front of her opened up with her follow-on salvo. And what a devastating second salvo it was!

  Already subconsciously resigned to conforming to the woman’s wishes to the extent of continuing to maintain her hands-on-head posture, almost as if such a state of affairs was so natural as to have slipped her mind, the words of defiance that Alice had been struggling to put together died unuttered on her lips. Psychologically outmanoeuvred and disadvantaged and with no prospect of any form of peer support from her clearly already hopelessly cowed fellow ‘classmate’ Alice could feel her self-confidence shrivelling with every word her new ‘school mistress’ uttered, like an over-cooked bacon rasher left untended in the pan or on the griddle - crisped to the point of crumbling apart.

  And little could have been more apt than that ‘griddle’ analogy right at that moment. Not only was her face as red as an overripe cooked tomato but already her bottom was paying the price of overhanging the narrow perch-like bench seat of the school desk she was seated at. What with the aftermath of the caning her stepmother had handed out earlier that afternoon, Alice’s bottom did indeed feel as if frying on a grill set over hot coals.

  The latter chastisement, Alice now realised at some level, had been largely levied in preparation for her introduction to her new school mistress - aimed at insuring ‘good behaviour’ and encouraging the right mind set from the outset - though it had been awarded in the guise of ‘correcting’ some deficiency in the way she had cleaned and polished the rubber boots her step-mother wore around the stables. This was a task only recently added to Alice’s ‘household chore list’, and one she found particularly humiliating. It jarred on Alice’s sense of what was and was not ‘fair’ and ‘justifiable’ that her stepmother should set such great store in practically being able to see her face in the glossy rubber Wellingtons she favoured when they were only going to be re-presented perhaps an hour or so later - sometimes sooner - to again be cleaned and polished to the requisite mirror finish having been dragged and trudged through the effluent mire of the stables.

  Had Alice known how privileged her use of the brush, cloth and polish had been in carrying out that singularly unpleasant task for her stepmother compared to what that woman now had in mind then her sense of outrage at the memory of her earlier correction might have been tempered somewhat. As it was, outrage, humiliation and physical discomfort were beginning to merge into a continuum of hate for her stepmother that was overcome only by her instinctive respect for the authority of the woman seated up on that dais and presently lecturing her.

  Everything about this new predicament screamed torment - and after such a short interval of time too. The edge of desktop was squeezed against her abdomen, her knees very nearly came up against the desk’s underside with her feet flat on the floor, while an ornate cast iron crosspiece running between the iron uprights at around mid-shin height - ostensibly there to lend lateral stability to the structure - limited, practically to the point of being non-existent, her ability to stretch out her legs. Taken together with the high-backed design of the seat - the latter consisting of two uprights conjoined by a horizontal polished wood board running across at about shoulder height and another at around mid-back - the result was an enforced extreme upright and attentive posture with the knees kept smartly right-angled and the feet kept together and flat on the floor. The thing really was a disciplinarian’s dream - and Alice’s nightmare.

  The only respite for aching legs in the absence of any scope for stretching them out in front - as Alice had already discovered in the short time she had been seated - was to ease them back carefully beneath the seat. But the seat was set relatively low, thus necessitating an acute bend be taken up by the knees in order to attain that position, which in turn placed strain on the muscles of the upper thighs, which quickly became unbearably fatigued as a result. Similarly, due to the relatively high-mounted desktop, the edge of which tended to impinge on the uppermost part of the abdomen, any sort of slouching of the upper torso could only be accommodated by that self, same manoeuvre of the legs. This, in addition to the aforementioned muscle strain, had the unfortunate side effect of further augmenting the overhang of Alice’s buttocks at the rear of the seat.

  The result of all this was that much of her knicker-clad bottom tended to bulge out through the broad gap between the seat and the lower edge of the seat back, her brief school skirt having little to say in the matter.

  The seat itself, a narrow hard-edged square section beam of dark brown polished wood, was set some way forward from the seat back at about the point that would roughly coincide with the centre of a more conventional bench seat. This, though, was not any conventional bench seat but rather was at best perhaps a third or even a quarter of the width that would have made it sufficient to provide for a modicum of comfort. The result of all this was that however Alice might shift her weight, her buttocks and thighs were just too substantial to be accommodated by the width of the seat, with the result that the seat edge always bit either into the backs of the thighs or the buttocks themselves.

  The wide open gap between the seatback and bench together with the te
ndency of Alice’s and her companion’s buttocks to overhang and protrude at the rear left much scope for the application of the cane, without either girl as much as rising from her seat: It was an up-and-under swing that Daphne Larkspear had already become some adept at, through anticipatory practice - as both girls were to discover in due course this very afternoon. Daphne had every intention that they both would - even her beloved Angel - she just needed the excuse; it was important psychologically that it shouldn’t appear to the girls as gratuitous as in truth it would be.

  This Alice needed to be ‘mastered’ from the outset. As for her Angel; after two full years under her thumb the girl, to the uninitiated at least, did indeed look to have been fully tamed. But she, Daphne Larkspear, was more perceptive than that. She could see something different - or at least perhaps she imagined she could. That young trollop couldn’t pull the wool over her eyes.

  The girl might well appear the epitome of domesticated puppy-dog devotion on the surface but more than once of late she had fancied she had seen a certain look. It was not something she could exactly put her finger on and she would have been the first to admit she would have been hard-pressed to describe it if asked. Nonetheless it was something concrete; she was sure of it. It was not something overt, and certainly nothing one could divine through any part of the girl’s behaviour or attitude to her authority. It was more something hinted at, hidden deep down in the girl’s eyes; a certain sporadic sparkle most would have missed or glossed over as imagination.

  To Daphne Larkspear it was as clear as day; it spoke volumes. Her darling Angel, the waif she had taken and so lovingly had moulded to her will, whom she had personally broken down, crushed and rebuilt in her image of perfect domestication, this acme of re-educated loving dedication, was, deep-down, steeped in betrayal. The girl wanted nothing more than to one day break away from her, despite her best efforts to eradicate that last ember of defiant independence from the girl - and Daphne Larkspear had to admit to herself that at some level she actually felt hurt by that notion. And yet, although superficially still possessed of greater scope for self-determination than Angel and never having been subject to such expertly refined measures of psychological domination as she had evolved over the years, this stepdaughter of her ex-pupil - an ex-pupil she had never truly tamed - was already far more dependent and potentially less able to break away than her Angel would ever be. She would have to see whether she might not be able to take a leaf out of that book.

  Perhaps a word with her ex-pupil and new employer was called for; see if an introduction to that tame doctor of hers mightn’t be arranged. After all, poor Angel did seem a little ‘nervy’ of late, a little highly strung; she would probably benefit from something to calm her down a little, perhaps help her sleep at night. Sure the woman was a specialist with a private practiced based somewhere in the Harley Street area of London and commanded a scale of fees that matched the lofty social scale of her patients. But from what she already knew it seemed likely that the good doctor’s professional integrity was not quite as impeccable as her qualifications and sparkling address. And then there was that private clinic she was connected with: She had overheard Karen Lamberton-Marchment, her employer and ex-pupil, threaten her stepdaughter with that several times now, when the girl was being particularly recalcitrant. More than once she had heard her telling Alice that “I wonder if we should take Dr Ecclestone up on her offer to put you up in that clinic she works in for a while, if you hate it here so much” and “I know Dr Ecclestone would love to have you under her roof for a few months”. It always seemed to do the trick.

  Alice had become particularly petulant about having to wear the cap and apron for her ‘domestic training’ lessons the first time, throwing the things back in her stepmother’s face, but the mention of that clinic had had her scurrying quickly enough to tie that piny around her waist. Then of course she had to be told to bend for a couple of strokes of the cane for having disobeyed in the first place - and of course she refused; then pleaded when two became four. The threat of four had become six by the time she did bend and grasp her ankles - and she stayed down for the full six, although a couple did have to be repeated when she jumped up prematurely, shocked with pain. And what had got her in that position, in the end, was her stepmother’s comment: Something along the lines of “...you know I’ve been talking to Dr Ecclestone again? She was saying that she thinks you really would benefit from being included on that clinical trial she has been working on - she can be very persuasive, it’s getting very difficult to dissuade her otherwise. Of course if you become too much trouble here, then perhaps a few months...”

  She had been interrupted at that point by the sight of Alice bustling into position, flicking up her little school uniform skirt, tugging down her knickers and grasping her ankles, knees locked out, taking up a stance likening to a hairpin. She had stepped back and let the girl’s stepmother wield the cane and she had to say that her ex-pupil had done so with no little zeal. The girl had been in floods of tears by the fourth stroke, begging for mercy by the fifth, when told she would have to have that stroke again after having bobbed up and crying like a baby by what turned out to be the eighth in effect.

  Of course, personally, she always ‘caned to tears’ as she liked to put it. She, Daphne Larkspear, didn’t personally believe in awarding any particular tariff beforehand - that gave a girl hope. A caning or strapping at Daphne Larkspear’s hands was only ever terminated when she was satisfied that the weeping it inevitably eventually produced was both genuine and uncontrollable. And that much she would tell a girl beforehand. She had experimented and it was amazing how much difference that knowledge made to how quickly a girl would break down that first time, even a stubborn, determined girl like her Angel had been once.

  It was all patently clear in her mind: A girl must learn that she can’t ‘tough it out’, that it’s impossible to ‘take it’. A good hard caning was not about teaching a girl to “tough it out”. It was the complete opposite; it was about educating a girl, bringing her to realise that she can’t tough it out, under any circumstances, no matter how strong her will might be. She had always been in love with that concept, the concept of leaving a girl with nothing to push back against, as it were. There could be no holding out to the last stroke, simply because in essence there was no last stroke. There could be no last stroke, not until all that ‘holding out’ had been overcome - the whole thing was open ended and essentially up to the subject herself.

  The lesson she aspired to teach a girl was a triple-whammy affair: the first part and most important was for a girl to come to realise that she would break eventually, no matter what. The next part followed as naturally as night follows day; the realisation that the sooner she broke, the sooner she gave in to the inevitable floods of tears and the entreaties for mercy, the less physical suffering she would in actuality endure overall - the psychological damage was something else entirely, of course. The final part, the conclusion, was as inevitable as it was bitterly and ironically logical; it was better to aid in overthrowing her own defiance than to mount a fight-back.. By the time a girl had reached that last phase she had the poor thing so browbeaten she was essentially breaking herself. Once a girl learned that lesson she would start to break down sooner and sooner, until eventually she became a complete milk sop who would burst into tears at a single sharp slap around the face or even a cutting verbal admonishment.

  The latter, though Daphne Larkspear often said it herself was a particular forte of hers. She could reduce a sensitive girl to tears with a few well-picked words even without the work of the cane or strap - and even some who were not so sensitive. Given a girl made to stand naked before her, no matter how attractive, and she would leave that girl a psychological and emotional cripple. She would walk slowly round and round, circling; a comment here, a gentle poke there, perhaps a disdainful or ironically amused look - that’s all it usually took. Then have her stand in front of a full
length cheval mirror for an hour or so with her hands on her head to contemplate her failings. Perhaps she would follow up with a session with the girl squatting over a mirror - she’d had a section of mirrored flooring installed in her home for the purpose - a little enforced self-examination could be a very humbling thing.

  Even more denigrating was to photograph the view in that position or have the girl bend with legs parted and take a shot with a close-up lens then have her discuss the resulting artwork or sit naked at a school desk, the work spread out before her, and write a descriptive and honest account of what she sees. Of course there the cane and strap would once more come into their own; a torn up rejected essay, a good hard caning across the bottom, then have her retake her seat and start over. Alternatively, return her to her room, have her stay there a few days in lonely silence with only the blank white walls to contemplate and with those new concerns planted in her mind eating away at her, and then bring her back to start anew.

  Yes, it was true that in a few minutes and with a few carefully chosen comments she could leave a girl so that she would never again let herself be seen naked by any man, nor even venture out in a bikini but she liked to repeat the treatment over several sessions, each reinforcing the previous. In her home she had a room set aside for just this, equipped with all the necessary paraphernalia and yet to the untrained eye all fairly innocent, if a little odd.

  There were no canes, straps, whipping stools and the like here. In fact it was a little like a bathroom, in that there was a shower cubicle in one corner, a cylindrical, clear Plexiglas structure. There was the cheval mirror of course and the square section of mirrored flooring and a toilet pedestal that, rather oddly, had been installed way out in the centre of the room as if once there had been a dividing wall that had since been removed. But then there was the school desk, a Victorian iron framed thing with an attached seat that looked rather like the two desks in her new employer’s school room other than for its wooden top - the schoolroom desks having been resurfaced in Formica. And behind that there was a large floorstanding blackboard and a full length wall mounted mirror along side which was fixed a frame capable of taking a life size photograph. Some example of feminine perfection would usually take pride of place in the latter, typically a catwalk model or some silicon-enhanced men’s magazine icon, preferably topless. It made for a salient lesson for a girl to have to stand and make self comparisons there, one eye on the photograph and the other on the mirror.