The Academy

by Arabella Knight

  ‘Come along, girl. Don’t make me have to hurry you. If you do, I warrant you’ll regret it bitterly.’

  Miranda responded quickly, fearing further punishment. Her naked breasts bulged as she stooped to wriggle out of her flimsy white panties. The briefs caught on her ankle and she had to steady herself against the wall as she hopped indecorously, breasts bouncing, to free herself of the wisp of silk. Mrs Boydd-Black turned, sighed impatiently, and closed the airing cupboard door. Striding towards the struggling girl, she placed one firm hand on a pale, naked shoulder and reached out with her free hand to smack the bare, joggling bottom three times.

  ‘Don’t… Smack …be… Smack… a silly… Smack… child.’

  Miranda stood, feet and hands together, head slightly bowed, in a passive, contrite posture.

  ‘And don’t squeal when you are being so deservedly punished. Stand still. Hands behind your back. Let me look at you.’

  Miranda rubbed her reddened cheeks ruefully and stood, legs firmly together, facing the headmistress.

  ‘Matron will be conducting a full medical tomorrow. I need to satisfy myself that there are no immediate problems.’

  Miranda squirmed slightly as the glinting pincenez flashed, raking her soft nakedness avidly. She hotly resented this intimate appraisal and her fierce pride burned intensely as the headmistress seemed to linger over the fulsome swell of her generous breasts before moving across the delightful sweep of her ivory belly and the shadowed delta between her tightly clamped thighs.

  ‘Turn around. No. Sideways, girl.’ The order was crisp.

  Obediently, but resentfully, Miranda turned the required quarter-circle in her bare feet. Her toes curled up in suppressed fury. Mrs Boydd-Black inspected her profile languidly before placing the controlling tip of her outstretched finger under her chin.

  ‘Head up. No slouching here at the Academy. Slouchers and slackers are soon licked into shape. Shoulders straight.’

  Miranda complied. As she did so, her breasts thrust forward in extended glory. So soft, so supple, so heavy with their trembling, potent promise.

  ‘Turn.’ The command was curt.

  Miranda, shivering, turned a further quarter-circle, presenting her freshly spanked bottom for her headmistress’s perusal.

  ‘Bend over.’

  Swallowing hard, she hesitated for a fraction of a moment.

  ‘Quickly girl. Quickly,’ rasped Mrs Boydd-Black impatiently in a tone thick with lust, ‘and clasp the backs of your knees.’

  Stooping down, Miranda adopted the prescribed position.

  ‘That is the First Position. Understand?’

  Miranda’s ensuing silence was rewarded with a sharp slap.

  ‘I said that is the First Position. Do you understand?’

  ‘Yes,’ murmured Miranda.

  Smack. The broad palm swept across the soft flesh of the rounded buttocks. A slight pause. The creamy flesh grew softly pink. Smack. Skin kissed skin. Smack. Again, the firm hand exploded against the juddering cheeks of the exposed, punished buttocks, now dancing fleshily with pain.

  ‘Yes, ma’am,’ thundered Mrs Boydd-Black. ‘Ido hope that you are going to try to settle down quickly at the Academy, girl. We have simple rules. Listen, learn and obey. Simple rules. Kneel.’

  Miranda dropped down onto her knees with alacrity.

  ‘Get your bottom up higher. Higher. Good. That is the Second Position. We insist upon it when administering harsher punishments for the more serious transgressions. Much more fitting for the cane or strap, I feel.’

  Miranda, both embarrassed and humiliated by the posture which rendered her utterly and completely exposed, clenched her teeth and screwed her eyes up tight.

  ‘The Second Position. Do you understand?’

  ‘Yes, Mrs Boydd-Black.’

  Smack. Smack. Smack. The searing spanks echoed along the length of the narrow corridor. Red palm prints appeared on the pale, ivory flesh like rapidly developing negatives.

  ‘Yes what?’ came the querulous demand.

  ‘Yes, ma’am,’ Miranda corrected herself, fearful of a further flurry of cruel smacks.

  The broad, cool hand rested gently on her warm bottom, paused upon alighting and then quickly delivered a final blow. Miranda yelped softly as the smack seared her scalded, satin cheeks.

  ‘Up. And remember. It pays to learn quickly. Listen, learn and obey. You will soon discover that the dull and the defiant suffer much.’

  How long? Months? More? A sluggish caterpillar of unease crawled down Miranda’s spine. How long would this nightmare last? How quickly could she accumulate the merit points?

  The business in hand broke into her thoughts.

  ‘Here. Take your uniform. You must change twice a day. I insist upon the highest standards of personal hygiene here. And you must shower at least twice a day. More, if you are required for any special or specific punishment. I personally prefer to spank a freshly washed bottom. Clean and contrite. That is how I like my girls when I put them over my knee. Pristine and penitent if I am to cane them. Ha ha ha.’

  Again, the hearty laugh that irked so much. Miranda took her uniform and started to slip into the brief, white, cool cotton shorts.

  ‘Not now, girl. You sleep in the raw. Much healthier. Vest.’

  A simple white, long-sleeved vest with a scalloped neckline was handed over.

  ‘Socks.’

  Miranda took the short, white ankle socks.

  ‘And armband. To be worn at all times during the day and evening. As a reception pupil, you will wear beginner’s green. Now gather up your things and we’ll store them away in here.’

  Miranda stooped, gathered up and folded her own clothes and packed them in tissue paper. Mrs Boydd-Black boxed them, wrote her name, Lady G-G, on the box and stored it away in a tall cupboard.

  ‘Time for bed. No questions tonight. You will be fully briefed in the morning. Be sure to be up, showered and dressed by second bell. This means up and doing as soon as first bell sounds. Understand?’

  ‘Yes, ma’am.’

  ‘Good. Remain by your bed until a blueband comes along to take you to your breakfast.’

  Miranda, holding her simple uniform against her soft bosom, followed the imposing headmistress down the cool stretch of corridor. Her golden-crowned head was slightly bowed, her usually alert and perky mien now subdued if not actually tamed. Her large, rounded, beautiful bottom bore the blush of faint pink where both leather strap and naked hand had recently visited it. Like the prints of a robin on a snowy window ledge, the instruments of punishment had alighted to leave their discernible traces. Feeling vulnerable in her enforced nakedness, she shivered wretchedly as her bare feet padded silently along the uncarpeted stretch of corridor into which they had turned. It was, Miranda realised, the dormitory wing, at the very end of which Mrs Boydd-Black paused and opened a white door.

  ‘In you go, girl. Straight to bed.’

  ‘Good night, ma’am,’ Miranda murmured, quickly remembering to use the correct mode of address.

  ‘Good night.’

  Inside, a single cot bed waited forlornly for her. Three others lay folded up inertly on the cold floor. Without another word, the headmistress closed the door firmly. Miranda half expected to hear a key being turned in the lock. To her surprise, and relief, that did not happen.

  Gazing around the unprepossessing dormitory, her eyes took in the small, wooden locker, smelling of disinfectant, which stood by her cot bed. The cheap, yellowing door yawned wide open to reveal three bleak and empty shelves. There was no radio, clock or bedside reading lamp. Very spartan, Miranda thought grimly. She pushed aside the memory of her own bedrooms in London and Sandstones with their bright zebra rugs, stereo systems, television and videos, Fabergé carriage clocks, en suite baths. Above all, she shut out the image of her Kadinsky originals on the lemon walls.

  Remembering the velvet drapes at Sandstones and the chintz of her flat in town, Miranda shrugged as she pulled up the simple,
bottle-green roller blind. Behind it, to her sudden annoyance, she found that the original Queen Anne sash window could only be opened two inches. Wooden blocks firmly precluded any further movement, along with any hope of egress through it.

  Miranda suddenly felt trapped and confined. For a girl who enjoyed the utter freedom of diplomatic laissez-passer when abroad, and her own chauffeur-driven Audi when at home, this cramped, chilly dormitory was as much as a prison to her as the cell in which she had languished only the night before.

  Outside, an owl hooted its melancholy notes in the tall, dark elms. Shuddering, Miranda pulled down the roller blind and carefully arranged her uniform on a chair next to her cot bed. She picked up a fire drill notice, started to read it absently and sighed when, without any warning, the single light bulb was extinguished. Sighing, with an air of resignation unusual in one normally so self-assured and poised, Miranda peeled back the plain bed covers and eased her slightly shivering nakedness in between the cold linen sheets.

  Exhausted by all she had recently endured, she slept deeply, a sleep invaded by curious dreams of shameful inspections, in which naked bodies were ruthlessly and intimately examined. Of punishments. Prompt and severe punishments. Punishments in which rounded bottoms suffered.

  A shrill bell stole into her already turbulent dream-scape. Her brain stirred. Miranda opened a bleary eye, blinked in dismay, groaned inwardly and rolled over. Within a few seconds, having cursed the stupid bell, she was dozing heavily once more. Never one to be up before eleven, the scarlet and gold streaks of dawn against the cold grey of an early morning sky meant nothing to her. It must all be a vivid nightmare, she mused. Soon her Portuguese maid, pert in her crisp black and snow white uniform, would enter with a large breakfast cup full of her favourite Gunpowder tea. Comforted by the fond illusion, Miranda lapsed into a deep, dreamless sleep.

  The dormitory door burst open. Miranda sprang up in her narrow cot bed, rubbing the sleep from her startled eyes. The clamour of the shrill bell broke out for the second time.

  ‘Get up. We’re late. Come on!’ A tall, pale-skinned brunette bounded over to the cot and shook Miranda vigorously. ‘Get up. Get dressed. Quickly,’ the lissome girl half pleaded, half commanded.

  Miranda examined her, resenting the sudden intrusion. Her human alarm call wore the white, long sleeved vest and tight cotton shorts which were the basic uniform the Academy insisted upon. A king-fisher blue armband encircled her left arm just above the elbow. The close fitting vest accentuated her small, firm breasts and slender waist. The dark nipples peeped through the swathe of taut white fabric almost impudently in their bold shyness. The brief, tight shorts hugged the swell of her hips and thighs, snuggling deeply into the delta between. Miranda thought the little white ankle socks at the end of the girl’s slender, tapering legs perfectly sweet.

  ‘Up,’ commanded the blueband, who had replaced the note of panic in her voice with a stern smack of authority. Miranda sprang out of her bed and stood, splendid in her full nakedness, before the impatient brunette.

  ‘Get dressed. Hurry up. Breakfast will have started by now.’

  Dressing in her own vest and shorts in seconds, Miranda sat down on her bed to don the regulation ankle socks.

  ‘Forget about those. Put your armband on and come with me.’

  Down in the refectory, moments later, Miranda gazed at the long, low, oak-panelled room filled with dark polished tables with benches on either side. Some eighteen girls sat in silence as they ate boiled eggs, toast and marmalade, and sipped camomile and raspberry tea with little relish and less enthusiasm. From an austere lectern, a severe-looking woman with tightly braided hair was reading solemnly from one of Tennyson’s more dreary odes.

  Mrs Boydd-Black sat at the centre of the top table with four female members of staff, including the strap-happy Matron from the night before. Miranda noted that they were all tucking into bacon, sausage, eggs, kidneys and fried bread, helping themselves busily from silver dishes heaped with delicious fare perched on little spirit lamps to keep the feast piping hot.

  ‘Clarissa.’

  The tall brunette shivered as the headmistress spoke.

  ‘A very poor start to your duties as a newly appointed blueband. I cannot say that I am not a little disappointed.’

  The girl deputed to wake Miranda and deliver her before second bell bit her lower lip apprehensively.

  ‘Loss of one merit point,’ pronounced the head-mistress gravely.

  ‘Oh, please, ma’am…’ Clarissa murmured.

  ‘Silence, girl. You know the rules. Never question any decision I, or indeed any member of my loyal staff, deems fit to make. Do you understand?’

  ‘Yes, ma’am. I’m sorry, ma’am.’ The penitent girl bowed her head.

  ‘Jolly good. However, we are fair. Firm, but fair. Did the new greenband girl cause the delay? Was she not up and dressed as instructed, thus causing you to be so late?’

  Miranda looked straight ahead. The refectory fell silent. Matron continued to munch her fried bread dipped in runny egg, as if indifferent to the unfolding drama before her.

  ‘Oh, no ma’am, she…’ Clarissa refuted the accusation gamely.

  ‘If so, you may instruct her to assume the First Position and teach her the strict meaning of the term punctuality. Six, I believe, would suffice.’

  ‘Thank you, ma’am,’ the blueband replied. ‘It was not her fault, ma’am. I am to blame, entirely. I should have done my duty better. I promise to try harder.’

  ‘A pretty little speech, Clarissa. I am so glad that you are evidently so resolved to improve your ways. And, my girl, I admire your sense of loyalty and your protective instincts to the wretched new girl. It does you some credit. You shall not lose the merit point —’

  ‘Oh, thank you ma’am,’ the brunette gushed.

  ‘Silence! No demerit for Clarissa, Matron. Please note my revised decision. But the new girl, the greenband, will not benefit from being protected and shielded from the harsh realities of her life here at the Academy. She must learn, and learn her lesson quickly. Painfully, if necessary.’

  Miranda’s mouth went dry. She swallowed awkwardly.

  ‘New girl,’ the headmistress said.

  ‘Yes, ma’am,’ Miranda replied softly, as if in a dream.

  ‘Adopt the First Position.’

  Miranda looked at Clarissa questioningly.

  ‘Bend over,’ hissed the brunette promptly.

  Suddenly remembering, Miranda bent down, presenting her bottom up for discipline, her hands clasped behind her knees.

  ‘Clarissa, it is your duty to teach this wayward girl her responsibilities. As her mentor for the first few weeks, you must discharge your duties well. She has signally failed to obey a simple instruction and so she must be chastised. Six, I think, was what we agreed. Carry on.’

  ‘Shorts off, ma’am?’ Clarissa spoke, clearly and slowly.

  Miranda felt the crimson blush of shame ignite her worried face. To her momentary relief, she heard the headmistress reply, ‘No. Shorts on, my dear. But make it good and hard.’

  With what seemed to be her final comment on the proceedings, Mrs Boydd-Black popped a finger of golden toast between her perfect white teeth.

  Clarissa walked slowly over to a large mantelpiece beneath which a huge, empty fireplace had been filled with dried autumnal flowers and feathery fern leaves. From the deep shelf of the mantelpiece she picked up an eighteen-inch dull yellow bamboo cane. Miranda, head bent down, her anxious face framed by the curtain of thick, blonde tumbling hair, heard the soft footsteps of her chastiser padding back towards where she waited passively and submissively in the First Position. The stern voice of the severe-looking woman who had been reading from the works of Tennyson at the lectern trailed off into silence. A silence loud and almost tangible in its intensity.

  Swish. The thin, supple bamboo sliced the air and bit deeply, almost lovingly, into the tight white cotton shorts stretched tautly across Miranda’s bunch
ed, rounded cheeks. Miranda blinked, but sensed that it was not the withering swipe it could well have been had Clarissa put a little more venemous enthusiasm into the matter.

  Swish. Miranda blinked again. Once more, the springy cane savagely caressed her taut buttocks. Swish. Swish. Two more strokes in rapid succession as the bamboo stung her plump rump with a double Judas kiss. Swish. Miranda’s thick blonde hair tossed and tumbled as her body jerked responsively to the implacable stroke.

  ‘Buck up. Last one,’ whispered Clarissa soothingly, softly.

  Miranda looked up and saw, upside down as if through an old-fashioned camera viewfinder, the lithe brunette who wielded the short cane gazing down with a half smile of reluctant tenderness on her full, generous mouth.

  Swish. The last stroke was a mere token, an affectionate tap of love-play rather than a severe measure of correction.

  Miranda remained in the First Position. The brunette paused, the tip of the cane resting quietly in the open palm of her left hand. A chair scraped as its occupant rose. Miranda focused her eyes and saw the strong brogues of Mrs Boydd-Black stride into her field of vision.

  ‘That was a somewhat half-hearted effort, Clarissa. Give me that cane one moment. Thank you.’

  Miranda swallowed and shivered expectantly, her thighs clamped firmly together. The tip of the bamboo rested lightly on the upper curves of her buttocks. It remained on her proffered bottom like a delicious, potent threat.

  Swipe. In a twinkling, the cane flickered through the dust-spangled sunbeams and cut down across the stretch of white cotton. A cruel, intimately searching stroke. Miranda squeaked her surprised pain.

  ‘There. That is how one canes a naughty bottom, Clarissa. No shilly-shallying. Lift the cane to shoulder height. So. Judge both the angle and the distance of the descent. Yes? Very much like golf, one must keep an eye on the green, not the ball. Then down she comes…’ Swish. Miranda yelped.

  ‘Like so. Sharply, mind. And see to it that you strike both cheeks.’

  ‘Bravo,’ cried the stern lector, thumbing her Tennyson frantically. Mrs Boydd-Black executed a mock bow, and then shouldered the cane.