Back in the dark days of the nineteenth century, perhaps things had been different, expectations might have been different. Perhaps such an establishment could be imagined flourishing in the grimier grey-black atmosphere of ‘back-room’ psychological ‘research’, suppressed and sealed files and official denials and ‘play-downs’ that had flowed like a corrupt undercurrent of pseudo-science, pervading - and shaming - the pre-ethics-committee days of the 1930s and 1950s.
Certainly the latter impression came closest in atmosphere and intent, even given the glossy modern exterior she herself had been allowed to witness. The less ethical aspects, she knew, were kept buried deep, vouchsafed and well camouflaged behind all-encompassing learned diagnoses issued by two or three eminent consultants - none without their own vested interests, if truth be told - and not least of which was the redoubtable, good Doctor Anne Ecclestone. The place was a bygone horror of barred windows, corporal punishment, strict discipline and unethical psychological experimentation. It was an institution where ‘therapy’ was anything but therapeutic.
One section was run like a strict girl’s boarding school of the 1930s to 50s, a private establishment for ‘troubled’ or ‘delinquent’ young women governed under the firm uncompromising hand of a strict governess; in reality a hospital matron recruited from the parent hospital’s psychiatric nursing staff. The latter, as Dr Ecclestone had been only too keen to tell her, had been well known for her harsh views on discipline - of both staff and patients. In fact it was this woman’s somewhat over zealous approach to the implementation of so-called ‘harassment therapy’ within the latter group that had led to all that unwelcome controversy in the press, leading to the witch hunt which had, in its turn, uncovered Flora McBainstone’s activities within her own particular institution. This was a fact Anne Ecclestone had seemed somewhat proud of, almost as if she saw the woman as a ‘discovery’, a protégé of hers and a talent to be nurtured. And what with the woman being quietly seconded to the unit - effectively in private employ - she had both protected her protégé and the reputation of the hospital. With all those allegations of abuse flying far and wide, mud had stuck in the most surprising of places; but not at that particular establishment’s spike-topped iron gates.
Another section ran on the lines of a women’s prison. A third section ran on the grounds of a Victorian workhouse, its layout, regimen, discipline and rules modelled on an amalgam of what was known about the running of various correctional facilities and asylums of the Victorian era. Each section consisted of a self contained suite housing six to eight ‘inmates’. And all this was set within the framework of the secure, locked, wing of a private mental hospital. Or rather, it existed beneath that wing, in an even more secure, long ago walled-off, subterranean remnant of the hospital’s historical legacy as a Victorian asylum for the insane.
And so many off those delicious original features had survived the ravages of time: the long, deliberately labyrinthine corridors and passages intended to confuse and disorientate the would-be absconder, all bisected at regular and frequent intervals by padlocked iron security grilles; prison cell-like rooms sheltered behind stolid iron doors pierced by covered spy holes and guarded by sturdy pick-proof locks; interview rooms where padded iron-framed furniture stood bolted to the floor and perfect for one-to-one ‘counselling’ and ‘therapy’... And, yes... straightjackets...
There were straitjackets there too! And she didn’t doubt that in the right scenario they would be put to good use. After all; otherwise, why had her employer’s apparently ‘tame’ psychiatrist or psychologist - she was uncertain as to the distinction, despite having been referred to both through her unsavoury past - mentioned their existence? How horrible, how terrible?... yet how... DELICIOUS!
Both girls were being driven on and on by their teacher’s barked demands now. Sweating profusely they were being goaded by the sting of the woman’s whipping, slashing plastic riding switch or crop across their bouncing naked buttocks and the backs of their thighs into squeezing every last ounce of energy out of their exhausted aching muscles. Both girls’ complexions were flushed and their breathing heavy, as much through the confusion of the unwarranted, unrequited sexual arousal as through the sustained effort of workout. But both were set to have their cheeks inflamed further; and this time not those of their plump, bouncing behinds either.
Bringing her two gasping trainees sharply to attention by way of a singly piercing blow on her whistle, the hard-faced gym mistress now prowled back and forth, tutting loudly, her hands tucked behind her back and her obvious displeasure audible above the panting of the two profusely perspiring teenagers. Turning suddenly on her heel and without a single word of warning she slapped first Angel and then Alice across both sides of their faces in turn, striking both her two terrified students extremely hard. Though restricting herself to using only her fingers rather than her full open palm, nevertheless the implacable gym teacher’s ferocity was evidenced by the stinging sets of reddened fingerprints embossed in outline across both girls’ already puffy sweat-sheened rouged cheeks.
This was something Flora McBainstone had always been particularly fond of, this inflicting of a face slapping as punishment. In her old, institutional establishment her habit had been to inflict this singularly humiliating consequence of raising her displeasure in front of the whole class, her ire only satiated when her victim’s cheeks burned with finger-patterned scalding and a girl’s teary eyes begged for mercy, her pretty tousled head hanging in contrite submission. There, more often than not, if they knew it was coming, her browbeaten charges would be crying long before the first slap landed across the first girl’s cheek. The slightest murmur, the slightest disturbance in class and she’d drag the miscreant out by her ear in front of the whole class, have her stand to attention, fingertips in line with skirt seams and pinching the hem between fingers and thumbs. Then the face slapping would begin with her alternating both hands across the girl’s cheeks, first one side then the other then back again, over and over and over.
It went without saying that she always ensured each and every slap was a resounding one and that each strike left a set of really dark fingerprints across a girl’s smooth, soft peach-bloomed cheeks. But she couldn’t deny that the prettier the girl, the harder and crisper those strikes tended to become. She had ever had a penchant for a comely, well developed teenager and god help any porcelain-complexioned, flaxen-haired prospective beauty queen left in her care.
Such a girl could expect to be treated to a thundering downpour of resounding slaps across her face for the most innocuous of mistakes, and not be sent scrambling back to her seat until her milky white cheeks had been turned to fire, the tears were flowing freely from her eyes and she wailed like a new-born. Such a girl - the haughty, ‘unmanageable’ sort, the type that thought they had the world in their hands or at the beck and call of long, come-hither lashes prettily fluttered - such a girl would leave her hands as cringing, timid and submissive waif, half terrified of her own shadow and incapable of meeting her own eyes in a mirror, let alone challenging the gaze of others. This Alice was such a girl, or as nearly so as to make little difference, just the sort deserving of her more... personal attention.
All those accusations of ‘inappropriate contact’ that had haunted her from her previous employ meant nothing here. It had been made quite clear from the word go that nothing short of permanent physical harm would be considered ‘inappropriate’ - psychological harm, permanent or otherwise, counted for little; it was only to be expected. She would divest everything from this girl - pride, dignity, self-confidence - everything. And what was left inside the dried husk once she was finished would soon be drained off by the Spartan conditions and rigorous discipline she had witnessed existed within that psychiatric clinic she had been shown. The thought excited her, it drove her on. Correctional physical training would be just the start.
Circling her two charges she paused behind Alice.
Stooping slightly, the gym teacher drew her index finger up and down the back seam of Alice’s leotard, exploring the welcoming warm depths where the elastic fabric fell deep between the girl’s resilient yet fleshy buttocks, experimentally plucking at the little rubbery feeling disc covering the girls anal sphincter at the point whereupon internally the rubber intruder melded with the neoprene lining of the gusset panel.
She grimaced as she felt the girl dare to twist away, Alice instinctively tensing her buttocks - this would not do. This would not do at all, this she would have to beat out of the girl, just as she had beaten the reluctance from so many others. Alice would have to be taught to be passive, just as Angel already was. But then there was something to be said for a little spirit remaining in a girl, a certain piquancy to be derived from coming up against a little initial defiance.
Given time and a little patience Alice would come to welcome her touch, even to crave it, as she would come to practically live for accepting and returning, even initiating, affection with Angel. The latter was a change Angel herself would be instrumental in bringing about. It seemed a shame that good, compliant, submissive little Angel should have to suffer for the reluctance of her soon-to-be bed partner, that both girls should suffer for the shortcomings of one, but there it was - there was just no way she could put up with such insulting - yes, insulting - defiant reticence.
The tyrannical physical instruction mistress’s face was almost as flushed red with unadulterated Sapphic lust as her two pupils’ faces were from exertion by the time she brought her whistle up to her lips. Taking a deep breath, simultaneously slapping her riding crop against her thigh with a loud crack that actually made her wince, she bellowed:
“Right! Squat-thrusts next... Begin! Faster, faster... I said faster, you slovenly, flabby pair of mental cases!” The irony of that last part being strictly speaking incorrect made her smile: No they weren’t... not Yet!
A so-called callisthenic movement, squat thrusts were a great way of building up the muscular endurance in the lower limbs while working the cardiac and circulatory system along the way. It was important to perform this particular exercise at a high repetition rate if one was to maximize its effectiveness - and the riding crop was the perfect adjunct to ensure that condition was met. Tiring in the extreme, the exercise also came with the advantage of requiring a girl to thrust out her bottom at the perfect angle should a little ‘encouragement’ be called for from that quarter, the muscles taut and the flesh drawn drum tight.
Actually there were two phases of the movement ideal for the application of the cane, strap or riding crop - the second gave perfect access to the back of the thighs - and she tended to use both for timing purposes. The trainee squatted, positioning her palms on the floor in front of her feet. Then the feet were thrown explosively backwards so as to come into a push-up position,. Then, equally explosively, the trainee was required to retract her feet back, tucking the knees in to the chest in the process, so as to regain the squat position in preparation for straightening to her full height.
The cane or crop could be swiped up and under the tender overhang of a girl’s bottom at the conclusion of the press-up phase, ensuring a sharp, snappy return to the standing phase. Alternatively, the implement of correction could be slashed across the back of the thighs at the conclusion of the standing phase to discourage any tendency a girl might have to pause before dropping back down for the next repetition. That shot across the backs of the thighs also came into its own when adding in a jump at that point if required to increase still further the intensity of the exercise. The riding crop landing across the tender flesh at the top of the backs of the thighs could really make a girl leap for the sky!
Flora McBainstone tended to gravitate towards applying a little encouragement at both phases, switching her attention back and forth between the two girls so that each could expect to feel the mistress’s riding crop or cane across her bottom and thighs on every other run-through of the movement. When one girl was nearing exhaustion she would concentrate on that girl, redoubling her efforts to drive the girl on, whipping her riding crop across the girl’s bottom and then attending to the backs of the thighs in a cyclical fashion throughout each and every repetition.
When finally the inevitable happened and the poor thing could no longer draw herself up from the floor and was lying prostrate and weeping, she would have earned herself six good solid strokes of the cane or crop landed squarely across her bottom while in that position, unless she could then pump out some undisclosed number of press-ups. Of course a girl would rarely meet the quota - especially as she would not be told what was required beforehand - though mistress McBainstone always ensured that on occasion she would, and be spared further correction. It was important to provide incentive to get the most from a girl. And by getting ‘the most’ she meant leaving a girl on the gym mat a blubbering collapsed mess of foetal-position jelly.
It might seem that the other trainee (or trainees, as it once had been) will have been given an easy time throughout this phase of the session, but of course that would not be the case, even in theory. Throughout she would be aware the mistress would have one eye on her. She would know that the slightest pause or loss of ‘form’ would be noted mentally and accumulated in the mistress’s mind to become some sort of tariff to be awarded when finally she returned her full attention to her.
A trainee might well be ordered to halt, told to stand with her knees locked out, bent at the waist and with her hands grasping her ankles, to receive four, five or even six stinging strokes of the cane across her bottom before returning to squat thrusting - this time with the full attention of the mistress! In short; throughout what some might see as a reprieve she would be constantly aware that her hopelessly weeping, broken-hearted companion was merely a vision of herself in the very near future.
Smiling at that latter thought, the flame-haired gym mistress treated the nearest of her two trainees, Alice, to a short crack of the crop across the back of her thighs. Moulded by the skin-tight shiny black stretch leotard the girl’s hips flared out into a real heart-shaped confection of a bottom, the majority laid bare and bulging out like two over-inflated beachballs kept divided by the high-cut garments abbreviated narrow strip of a back-seam. The fabric at that point was little more than sufficient to cover the anus and a couple of inches to either side and tended to pull deep within the well defined cleft in any case.
Lasciviously licking her thin lips Flora McBainstone watched all that resilient flesh bounce and quiver as Alice, instinctively reacting to the sudden stinging shock of the riding crop, sprung up on her toes before dropping to the floor like a stone, the squealing girl plummeting straight into the classic squat thrust. Stepping forward she brought the riding crop whipping down and up in an arching movement that terminated with a resounding crack. The timing was perfection itself, the stroke landing squarely across the centre point of the girl’s tightly stretched buttocks at the very instant her knees had drawn back prior to her again rising.
The cruel gym mistress grinned with pleasure as the taut skin rippled, the resultant line rising, swelling and reddening even as the girl sprung smartly to her feet. A subsequent shot across the backs of the hapless girl’s thighs sent the girl rocketing into the air, fulfilling the requisite jump phase tacked on at the end. Alice’s soprano yelp cutting through the air at that last insult was so sharp as to actually compete with the gym mistress’s insistent whistle blowing.
Twisting at the waist, deftly shifting her stance, Flora McBainstone turned her attention to the other girl with a whistling crack from her crop and a blow on her whistle; in the background a teary-eyed Alice was already dropping into the next repetition, driven by her fear of the gym mistress’s horsewhip.
This was how it would go on - to exhaustion, to the point both lay quivering and useless on the floor. This was real punishment PT. Today would be different. They were getting too good, these two, too
well adapted to the work rate, the energy expenditure. Today she would stop the action in a moment or two, buckle the weight bands she had recently purchased round their wrists and ankles. Then her shiny new plaited-leather riding crop would have some real work to do!
CHAPTER 5
A SOMNOLENT JOURNEY TO CAPTIVITY
Just how many months had it been now? One punishment PT session had soon enough merged into another. Day after un-ending day in the classroom writing lines, learning and reciting nonsense, now merged into one long purgatory - but that, too, had come to an end. And all that had been so long ago now, or so it now seemed to Alice - now that she had escaped.
Reaching the car, and clambering in to the driver’s seat the doctor reached down into the door pocket. The girl eagerly took up her proffered place in the passenger seat beside her. Briefly Anne Ecclestone consulted the road map. They were presently facing south, so it was a matter of turning right, then heading west-north-west, skirting Chichester.
“Chichester first” She announced, cheerily. “You can have a doze if you like and I’ll wake you when we reach that point - there’s an all-night cafe just outside there.”
It hadn’t taken too much persuasion this time. This time Alice had agreed to go with the doctor quite freely, though she had been astute enough not to have agreed too readily, taking care to outwardly feign quite acute reluctance; prune-faced tears, pouting lips pensive foot-stamping and all. But she had to be clever to cover her tracks, careful not to implicate the doctor in any of this.
Dr Anne Ecclestone made for a strange ally, an unexpected ally. The strikingly featured psychiatrist had often come across as the very root of her stepmother’s hold over her - in one way or another, the ultimate wellspring of every indignity, degradation and humiliation heaped upon her. Indeed, all those penetrating, invasive, question-and-answer-sessions, standing there under the doctor’s analytically critical gaze and feeling more-naked-than-naked in her open-backed paper hospital examination gown, had been the epitome of structured humiliation.
Alice Under Discipline, Part 2 Page 7
