The Academy

by Arabella Knight

  She offered up the striking side of the bat to Clarissa’s trembling lips. A single teardrop glistened, welled up in Clarissa’s eye and spilled down with a liquid splash onto the hot, dimpled latex. Miranda shivered slightly as she resumed her place among the punishment squad. Not a tear shed in pain, she consoled her miserable conscience, but a tear spilled in shame. Miranda was fond of Clarissa, the girl who had gallantly tried to protect her on that dreadful first morning at the Academy.

  Crack. Crack. The fifth girl, a redband, administered her two strokes of the bat without pause or apparent pity. Clarissa mewed like a rain-soaked kitten. Miranda sighed deeply with relief. It was over.

  ‘Position Two,’ snapped Mrs Boydd-Black harshly.

  To her horror, Miranda watched as Clarissa slowly eased herself down from the awkward posture across the high back of the Chair, stood back briefly and then reapproached the cruel throne. This time she insinuated her head and shoulders underneath one arm rest, crawled belly down across the broad seat and emerged, head, shoulders and outstretched arms, beneath the other arm rest. She now lay, breasts squashed down into the polished wood, glowing buttocks upturned for punishment, effectively pinioned by the twin arm rests beneath which her supine body lay stretched out at full length.

  ‘Proceed,’ instructed the headmistress.

  The first girl, the blue armband, approached the Chair. Her buttocks bulged as she knelt down on both knees, steadying herself by gripping on to the left arm rest. Raising the bat up she swiped it down, twice, in rapid succession. Splat. Thwat.

  It was a slightly duller, less sharp sound as the latex seared the passive, joggling cheeks. Clarissa bucked and writhed, but trapped in the almost cage-like structure of the Chair, she could not escape the searching blows. The bat was presented for the kiss, then withdrawn.

  Crack. Splat. Again, the exposed cheeks bounced under the double strokes. Again, Clarissa’s sensuous lips were pressed unwillingly against the warm latex skin that sheathed the cruel wood.

  Matron approached. She knelt down on one knee, unlike the first two punishers, and cracked her bat down right across the twin orbs of the double dome. Miranda watched wide-eyed and dry-mouthed as the dark cleft between the buttocks widened and deepened as it spread under the impact of the harsh strokes.

  Miranda swallowed to lubricate her throat. It was her turn once more. She approached the Chair. The two cheeks of Clarissa’s bottom were now ablaze, a fierce scarlet blush spreading across the tender, ravished globes. Suddenly, as she knelt down closer to the beautiful, but punished, bottom, Miranda was gripped by an intense desire. She yearned to place the cool palm of her hand on the hot, curved flesh. Just gently ease the heat with her soothing hand. Perhaps spread a little cold cream on the scalded, satin hillocks. Unconsciously, she found herself rubbing the tip of her index finger against her thumb as if a blob of cold cream lay in between them.

  Or kiss them. Yes! Miranda surrendered to the brief but overwhelming desire as it transfixed her. To kiss the scalded, quivering bottom slowly, tenderly and lingeringly, feeling her full, moist lips pressing into the scorched satin skin and then slowly peeling away.

  ‘Proceed,’ barked the headmistress harshly.

  In a flurry of panic, Miranda raised the bat up high and cracked it down vehemently on the exposed bottom. She again unwittingly succumbed to the sheer momentum and overpowering impulse of the occasion, thrilling to the dark, unbidden pleasure of being given licence — indeed, being commanded — to punish this beautiful young woman’s adorable, naked rump. At the same time, a part of Miranda’s turbulent thoughts recognised the sense of regret at the suffering and humiliation Clarissa must be enduring.

  A distinct and growing tingle developed in Miranda’s moistening labial folds as she greedily took in the sight of Clarissa’s tousled hair spilling down over her pale, slender shoulders onto the surface of the proffered bat as she strained to kiss the dimpled latex yet again. In a delicious yet confused daze, Miranda retreated to her appointed spot and heard the final flurry of strokes being delivered vertically down onto the horizontal buttocks.

  ‘Position Three. Final position,’ Mrs Boydd-Black barked.

  Miranda nearly swooned. Was there no end to this delirious nightmare? This dark nightmare with the inner core of scarlet, seductive light that beckoned Miranda onto the shores of wicked wantonness.

  Clarissa wriggled her body out from beneath the arm rests, her buttocks now as shiny red as polished apples. She scampered, tearfully, around to the back of the Chair. The final position clearly required her to adopt a posture which left her facing the room, belly and breasts squashed up against the hard wooden back of the grisly Chair, hands gripping the upper head rest, legs and feet splayed out behind. It was as provocative as it was perfect for perusing, appreciating and punishing the delectable bottom left so fully exposed and nakedly vulnerable. Forming a precise geometrical hemisphere, the twin rounded globes of her red bottom hung in passive suspension as they awaited further torment from the swooping wood.

  ‘Continue.’ The command crackled crisply.

  Crack. Crack. Kiss. Crack. Splat. Kiss. Thwack. Splat. Kiss.

  The litany of discipline rose and fell sonorously as the chastising inexorably unfolded. Then it was Miranda’s turn once more. Stumbling slightly in a mesmerised trance, she approached the Chair for the third time. As she neared, she saw the muscles on Clarissa’s forearms spasm as they tensed to absorb the punishment. Miranda suddenly knew how fiendish this humiliating punishment truly was.

  What was the history of this Chair? Fashioned by some devilish hand hundreds of years ago, what brute lusts and shameful passions had it witnessed? Surely no ease or comfort could be found on its hard seat, rigid back or spindling arm rests. And just as surely, she thought, nothing but shame and sorrow could be enjoyed by anyone directed to it by Mrs Boydd-Black. The complete and utter exposure, the humiliation, the scalding pain.

  Miranda had never seen a naked, properly punished bottom in such close proximity before. Never had she actively participated in the beguilingly and seductively pleasurable process of administering punishment. Her pulse raced fiercely and she physically buckled under the burden of the temptation to squash her cool breasts down onto the blazing cheeks. She steadied herself and then applied the bat.

  Once. Again. Then came the delicious moment when Clarissa, tears sparkling in her large, sorrowful eyes, was forced to press her lips in penitent submission against the hot, dimpled latex.

  Miranda, to her shameful joy, her dread and delight, was quite wet by the end of the Quarter Exercise.

  Outside in the cool, dry autumnal air, Miranda sought the privacy of a quiet, secluded spot in the thick bushes bordering the edge of the kitchen gardens. She strode past a pile of golden leaves. The heap was speckled with orange, tawny, green and brown, all neatly stacked into a nearly perfect pyramid. A thin plume of yellowish white, pungent smoke curled up into the air to hang like a spreading veil in the still calm of the late morning. Little gold and crimson tongues flickered hungrily at the outer leaves. The fire had taken. Soon it would be ablaze.

  Miranda strode on, hurriedly. Between her thighs an invisible flame licked hungrily up into her belly. A fire she knew she must quench, a fire kindled by the punishment she had just witnessed and ignited by the pain she had just dispensed. Soon she was in amongst the heavy, waxy screen of shoulder high rhododendrons.

  Within their cool, dense thickness she squatted down, her bare knees pressed into the cold clay. Her trembling hands eased down her tight white shorts and then paused, the tips of her forefingers searching blindly, finding, and then delicately parting her sticky labial folds. A fragrance, the perfume of excitation, bewitched her flaring nostrils. The cool autumn air played like a healing zephyr on her hot, turbulent membranes, but not even crushed ice could quench the fierce, inner heat. A probing fin-gertip found the delicious spot within the sticky folds of tender flesh. It probed and found that tiny pink sliver of shining tissue
that sheathed such potent delight when unleashed.

  Slowly, savouring the unhurried moment, Miranda dragged her fingertip up and across her quivering clitoris. It responded immediately. With increasing pressure, her eyes now clenched shut, she pressed down, harder and harder, slowly tracing small, concentric circles on the tiny stub of delicious tissue. A flood of exquisite tingling washed over her, thrilled her, illuminating her inner being with an electric charge. Almost unsupportable in its inten sity. Never before had it been quite like this. Never, never before.

  She paused, gulped for air, then fluttered her sticky fingertips up to her taut nipples that burgeoned beneath their tight sheath of stretched white cotton. Impromptu pincers of finger and thumb teased the hardening buds, causing waves of sheer delight to break in her belly and between her glistening thighs, from where liquid warmth oozed from her open wound like nectar from a split plum on summer’s hottest day in some secret, bee-tormented orchard in paradise.

  Sharp, vivid snapshots of the Chair suddenly flickered into focus against the retina of her inner eye. The dimpled latex bats. Clarissa undressing. Bending. Assuming the demeaning postures. Exposing. No, she thought, trying to deny the pleasurable images. No. Not that. Please, not that!

  Her purblind fingers returned to her semi-erect clitoris, teasing out the tiny morsel and tweaking it. The fierce joy threatened to spill over into molten cascades of joy at any moment now. She was close. Almost there. No! No! Not that. No, she moaned softly, now only half resisting the sudden recognition that Clarissa’s punishment was both fuelling and inflaming her tumescent excitement.

  Yes! Clarissa’s white bottom, pitifully bared for the pitiless strokes.

  Yes! The softly rounded buttocks, now pink, soon red, squirming and writhing as the strokes rained down. Yes! The pliant flesh and its fulsome beauty enhanced by the wriggling and bouncing caused by cruel bat-kissing, suffering skin. Yes!

  Her fingers were now strumming her innermost secret flesh like a frenetic flamenco guitarist possessed by the music. Yes! Clarissa kissing the hot latex. Yes! Miranda’s scrabbling, sticky fingers were now a mere blur, webbed and heavy with her own wet dew. Yes! Yes!

  Clarissa. The strokes. The punishment. Yes. The striped and blotched glowing, bouncing buttocks, the writhing, the squirming. Yes. The wide, sorrowful eyes. Teardrops. Yes. The naked bottom. The bottom. Those beautiful, rounded cheeks…

  Miranda cried out softly as a sudden surge of heat, liquid and pulsating, flared up inside her loins and scalded the smooth flanks of her thighs. Never before had she buckled beneath such a molten paroxysm, such a tremendous, tumultuous orgasm. Again and again the warm pulsations coursed like quicksilver through her entire being, pushing her to the utter limits of consciousness. She collapsed, her face pressed down into the cool, damp moss. Her body arched up, held in a frozen shudder of delight. Her splayed buttocks were thrust up behind her in a feral, purely animal exhibition of total abandonment. From her gaping mouth came the soft moans of a wounded vixen.

  ‘Miranda? Are you ill?’

  The concerned voice of Jaya whispered fiercely from the nearby bushes.

  ‘Huh?’ Miranda replied in a distant voice thickened with lust.

  ‘What is wrong? Are you unwell? I watched you coming into these bushes. What is wrong with you?’ Jaya insisted anxiously.

  ‘Nothing,’ Miranda replied almost dreamily. ‘I’m not ill.’

  ‘Then what is the… Oh!’ Jaya had stepped into the small clearing between the dense rhododen drons. She saw all. She understood everything. ‘Sorry. I didn’t realise…’ she whispered shyly.

  Miranda felt no shame. No embarrassment. At last she had faced and discovered the true nature and identity of her inner feelings and desires. She looked up into the wide eyes of the Asian girl and smiled.

  ‘I had to come here. I had to… I can’t explain.’ Miranda said in a still, clear voice.

  Jaya shrugged.

  ‘This place. The Academy. It opens up our eyes and minds to strange emotions, new feelings, hidden desires. I too…’ Jaya faltered, tugging her long, beautiful hair nervously.

  ‘Clarissa?’ Miranda whispered hoarsely.

  The small dormitory was dark and still. Miranda could just make out a narrow bed in the gloom. On it, naked and face down, lay the recently chastised girl. Miranda stole softly across the cold lino and gingerly sat down on the side of the narrow bed. Clarissa, her face pressed into the pillow, turned her tear-stained face up towards her visitor.

  ‘You shouldn’t be here, Miranda. If they catch you they’ll…’

  ‘Sh. Don’t worry, nobody will catch me. I had to come. Are you… are you…?’ Miranda hesitated, unable to finish her question.

  ‘Yes. I’ll survive. I hated it, though.’

  In the darkness, Miranda blushed. She had enjoyed it.

  ‘Not the bat. The shame,’ Clarissa said slowly. ‘I felt so ashamed.’

  ‘Is there anything you want? Anything I can do?’

  ‘No, but stay a few minutes if you can. I am so lonely, so empty. You don’t happen to have a cigarette?’

  Miranda raised her eyebrows in surprise.

  ‘No, I don’t,’ she said, shaking her head apologetically.

  ‘Never mind. Just a long shot,’ Clarissa sighed wearily.

  Miranda climbed gently onto the bed and pressed her soft warmth along the length of Clarissa’s nakedness. Tenderly, she rested her hand on Clarissa’s hair, then slowly began to stroke the sadness away. Soon the fingertips were straying down along the furrow of the passive girl’s cool spine, pausing at the base of the gently swelling curves of the recently ravaged bottom. Palm down, Miranda slowly massaged the scalded cheeks, soothing their tormented flesh with a healing touch.

  ‘Mmm,’ purred Clarissa. ‘Yummy. Yes, please.’

  ‘Nice?’ whispered Miranda.

  ‘Nice,’ echoed the ecstatic girl. ‘Not ’arf, mate,’ she added in her street-Cockney joke voice. ‘One fing missin’, int there?’

  ‘Wassat, me old mucker?’ Miranda took up the game.

  ‘Couldn’t arf go a fag, girl.’

  They both giggled and hugged one another, melting sublimely into the ensuing embrace. Kisses followed.

  ‘Well, well, well. I’m not altogether sure that this is the sort of behaviour I approve of, girls.’

  Miss Frobisher was standing in the doorway. How long had she been watching them? Miranda wondered anxiously.

  ‘Long enough to see enough,’ the fey, gentle art tutor answered the unspoken question.

  Miranda, blushing deeply, sprang guiltily up from the bed. Clarissa scrabbled down under her bed-clothes, peeping out from them with large, frightened eyes.

  ‘I’m sorry, Miss Frobisher. I only meant to see if Clarissa was all right…’ Miranda murmured.

  Miss Frobisher, who seemed to be engrossed with her leather belt, looked up.

  ‘After a Chair and Quarter Exercise I’m sure the poor girl is far from all right,’ she replied. She returned to concentrate on her slim waist. From her belt a supple leather strap dangled, tapping her slender thigh whenever she moved her svelte hips. Her eyes fixed on the length of cruel leather, Miranda felt cold fear crawl up into her stomach.

  ‘Stupid belt. Keeps working loose,’ Miss Frobisher frowned. ‘I must get it fixed. There. That’ll do for now,’ she beamed, adjusting the belt with her beautiful hands.

  Miranda relaxed immediately, sensing that the threat had passed.

  ‘You’d better scoot, Miranda. I’ll close my eyes and when I open them I expect to find you’ve gone for your lunch.’

  ‘Thank you, Miss Frobisher,’ Miranda said, smiling warmly before scuttling out of the forbidden dormitory with a huge sigh of grateful relief.

  As she left she heard Miss Frobisher say, ‘As for you, young lady, how goes it with that poor little bottom of yours? I’ve brought you a cigarette. And some chocolate. Is it very sore? Let me see…’

  Chapter Four

&n
bsp; Miranda knew that Miss Frobisher smoked. She had seen the distinctive packets of Camels buried deep inside the bursting hessian shoulder bag which accompanied the fey, affectionate art teacher wherever she went. Miranda also knew that Clarissa really needed a few cigarettes after her ordeal on the Chair. It was a typically headstrong, generous though very dangerous impulse but Miranda weighed the odds and thought them in her favour. All she had to do, she reasoned, was to watch and wait for the opportunity. She knew where Miss Frobisher’s room was located, and resolved to slip into it and pinch a handful of Camels when the coast was clear. All it needed was common sense, split second timing and a firm resolve.

  Miss Frobisher had a bright yellow ankle length coat. She often donned it when taking her customary meditative afternoon stroll in the secluded grounds that surrounded the Academy. When Miranda had completed her washing up duties, she slipped away from the hot kitchens and sprinted up to the first floor bathroom at the back of the mansion and opened the small window. To her delight, she saw in the distance a figure, draped in the long yellow coat, pacing slowly among the dismal black-currant bushes. Good. Miranda calculated that she had at least eight minutes. Plenty of time.

  Quickly and stealthily, she walked towards the furthest part of the West wing, into forbidden territory, up another flight of stairs and along a carpeted landing. Miss Frobisher’s room, her private quarters, lay beyond a green baize door. It was a perfectly proportioned, high-ceilinged, square room. Shining black coals were waiting patiently in the Adam fireplace, dormant until a flaring match brought them to vivid life. Two Renoir prints, of nubile bathers sporting playfully by their sun-dazzled pool, graced the cool, buttermilk walls.