The Academy

by Arabella Knight

  Miranda sighed deeply and let slip a shallow moan. Emboldened, Jaya slipped her cream dripping fingertip between the firm cheeks once more, tracing the depths of the cleft that nestled between the heavy domes on either side. Domes of quivering flesh. Hot, punished flesh. Her fingertips paused and stopped their gliding motion, hovering tremulously over the tight anus, hesitated audaciously and then, gently, almost shyly, probed the warm flesh. Miranda gasped into her hard pillow.

  Withdrawing the finger with infinite slowness, Jaya bent down low over the glistening bottom spread softly before her and, pursing her wet lips, blew a gently healing zephyr of sweet breath over every tiny pore of the scorched flesh which was already healing under her tender ministrations.

  Miranda murmured her pleasure and relief. Easing herself up alongside Miranda’s prone, naked body, Jaya lay her own soft nude body face down on the narrow bed. They snuggled closely, shoulder to shoulder, hip to swelling hip, thigh to trembling thigh.

  ‘Sleep, now. Sleep,’ whispered Jaya with quiet authority as she stroked Miranda’s soft, blonde hair. Miranda strained to kiss Jaya’s sweet, wet lips and curled up into the warmth of the limbs beside her. On the very brink of drowsy sleep, she felt Jaya’s hand alight gently on the swelling curve of her bottom. The fingertips dappled on the dimpling flesh as though the cheeks were some musical instrument upon which Jaya played a silent tune. The fingertips ceased their butterfly dance, tensed imperceptibly then closed over the supple flesh, dragging the cheeks slightly apart.

  As Miranda tumbled in slow motion down into the eddying vortex of sleep, she sensed rather than felt the comforting warmth kindle within her as a questing finger probed, slipping up and remaining in the softness between her quivering buttocks.

  Immediately after breakfast, Jane was summoned to appear before the headmistress in the large study. Reduced to the rank of a mere greenband, Jane trod warily past those she had chastised and tormented with her leather strap during her brief spell of red-band tyranny.

  Miranda had learned of Jane’s treachery during the cross-country race, of how the running shoes of Zoe and Clare had been spiked and how Susie had been so ruthlessly ambushed, but what particularly rankled was Jane’s jealous sniping and bitter resentfulness. Miranda had given Jane no cause for such emnity. Other than her close friendship with the art tutor, Emily.

  Mrs Boydd-Black contemplated the situation and then decided to postpone Jane’s punishment. It needed, she opined, more fulsome consideration. A certain special something to match the wickedness of her actions. The ritual spell of the Chair had been broken. Utterly spoiled. Now, the headmistress knew, something else would have to be devised.

  Jane was assured in no uncertain terms that something would indeed be devised, and that Jane would be the very first to learn of it. To Mrs Boydd-Black’s credit, a fitting punishment was designed and delivered just before lunch. Each girl and every member of staff were marshalled in two lines leading up to the entrance into the refectory. The aroma of oxtail soup haunted the air, only slightly masking the sweeter smell of treacle pudding. Jane was instructed to slip out of her cotton vest and take down her shorts. She did as she was told, a sullen scowl of resentment twisting her usually pretty features.

  ‘Hands on head,’ came the crisp command.

  Jane obeyed, her breasts rising up and thrusting out as she performed the action. Proud, swollen, splendid breasts. It was not only the treacle pudding that made so many mouths water.

  ‘Take up your canes, everyone,’ the headmistress ordered in a tone of barely controlled excitement.

  Innocent greenbands and seasoned staff, the tentative and curious along with the expert and capable, all hands present picked up the short whip-py canes provided for the formal chastisement.

  ‘Jane will, when commanded to do so, sprint through our ranks at a brisk pace. Each of you will deliver one, and only one, stroke across her bottom.’

  The irony in the emphasis on the words one, and only one, was not lost on Jane. She gulped and cast her sorrowful eyes down at her white socks.

  ‘Canes at the ready, everyone,’ ordered Mrs Boydd-Black, slicing the air with her own length of supple bamboo. The canes rose and quivered in an instant salute to Pain, the goddess of discipline. The headmistress, High Priestess, nodded. The unholy ceremony commenced.

  Hands on head, eyes flashing resentfully, the votive offering scampered down between the lines of twitching whippy canes. Her thighs flashed white and her breasts bounced in their freedom.

  Swish. Swish. Swish. Whack. Swipe, Crack. Jane squealed as, one by one, unerringly and inexorably, the short, supple canes cut through the air and swept down at an angle of 45 degrees to slice her rounded buttocks. The air throbbed with the whistle and slice of cruel wood across bunched cheeks. The rounded flesh, swollen and shaped by her long strides, was striped accurately, painfully and intimately.

  Swish. Swish. Swish. Like tyres in a rain storm, the sound of the strokes hissed as the wicked bamboo was brought down across the stinging, reddening flesh.

  Jane’s white-stockinged feet fluttered along the crimson and blue carpet as she dashed headlong between the ranks of her assembled punishers. Head down, her face scalded by tears of shame and pain, the punished girl ran headlong towards the sanctuary of the refectory door which gaped wide open at the end of the bamboo forest. Every pace meant a withering, slicing stroke across her hot buttocks.

  Halfway down the line of shame, Jane’s bottom was ablaze. Already her beautifully rounded buttocks, which symmetrically echoed her beautifully rounded breasts, were glowing, each cheek showing several pinkish stripes. Jane sobbed, lost her concentration and stumbled. Stooping, she proferred her gorgeous bottom upwards, perfectly formed for punishment.

  It was perfectly punished. A slicing stroke whipped the swollen rump. Jane squealed and staggered up onto her legs, pounding down between her tor-mentors towards the open door.

  She approached, and then came level with, Miranda. Yellow cane poised, Miranda judged it exactly. Swish. Slash. The lash kissed the convex curves of Jane’s bottom viciously. A scorching swipe. Jane flashed a look of pure, undiluted hatred at Miranda. Nearer and nearer the open door loomed. The quivering thicket of upraised canes thinned in density. Seven remained.

  Swish. Swish. She yelped, twice, the strokes now landing across the stripes of previous lashes, darkening the pink to burning red. Nearer. Five canes left. Swish. Swish. Swish. Her buttocks blistered, the invisible flames licking the glistening cheeks. Swish. A cruel cut that swiped the rump four square. A searing taste of agony. Only one trembling cane remained. It quivered in the raised hand of the headmistress. Instead of swooping down to savagely caress the ravished flesh it checked the scampering girl in the middle of her anxious stride, the tip firmly tilting back her chin. Jane stopped dead in her tracks.

  ‘On your knees, you wicked girl,’ seethed the headmistress.

  Slowly, disbelievingly, Jane sank to her trembling knees. The tip of the cane rested against the white nape of her neck. Passive yet potent. Under the gradually increasing dominance of the cane tip, Jane’s head bowed.

  ‘Down. Forehead on the carpet. Give me your bottom.’

  Shivering, Jane obeyed. Her breasts bulged as they swung, the nipples just grazing the carpet. Raised up behind her, her bottom presented its delicious rounded globes, the cleft widening noticeably. The cane hovered over the whipped bottom, then alighted on its crimson cheeks, tapping them three times. Jane shuddered. Anguish twisted her frightened mouth.

  ‘Kneel, head up, arms outstretched,’ the head-mistress thundered.

  Jane obeyed with alacrity, the tremulous cane only inches from her buttocks. Kneeling upright, she held out her arms as instructed. Mrs Boydd-Black addressed the assembled community.

  ‘We shall go in for lunch. Each of you will give Jane’s bottom one more stroke as you enter the refectory. Jane will collect the canes from you for your convenience. She will carry them around with her for the rest of the d
ay as a sign of her transgression and atonement. Proceed.’

  The file of uniformed girls and the staff walked towards the open refectory door. As each one approached the kneeling, penitent girl, they paused, raised their canes and delivered a single stroke across the clenched, suffering buttocks. As they stepped past Jane, having swished at her rump, they deposited the yellow whippy canes into her outstretched arms.

  The collection of canes grew heavy. Jane’s bottom grew redder and redder as the file dwindled down to the last five punishers. Miranda approached and cracked her length of wood down across the rounded cheeks, casually tossed the cane into Jane’s arms, and went in to take her place at the polished wooden dining table. As she sat down, she heard the concluding strokes.

  Swish. Swish. Swish. A rose of pleasurable satisfaction opened its dewy petals in her fluttering belly. She found the punishment deeply satisfying, appropriate and fitting. It was theatrical, ritualistic, humiliating, controlling and very, very severe. Miranda licked her lips at the prospect of the hot oxtail soup.Crack. The punishment concluded as the head-mistress delivered the final, withering swipe. The bamboo sang and sliced Jane’s perfectly rounded cheeks. Miranda thrilled to the sound of the cane kissing the scalded bottom, that delightful note of the liquid slicing ending abruptly in the lash of supple wood on taut, blazing flesh.

  ‘Gather up the canes, Jane,’ Miranda heard Mrs Boydd-Black instruct the kneeling girl. ‘You will carry them with you wherever you go for the rest of the day. Should you give displeasure or even the slightest offence, they will be redistributed and all will be invited to chastise you once again, singly and severally. Now go on in and sit down. Luncheon is served.’

  It was shortly after tea, when the late November afternoon had crept up and surrounded the mellow Queen Anne manor house in gathering darkness, that the inevitable confrontation between Miranda and Jane spluttered, ignited and flared up into a fierce conflagration.

  Miranda had been gathering fir cones and acorns, delicate fronds of fern and interesting samples of dried bark. She had carefully arranged them into a delightful still life which she hoped would excite Emily’s pencil and inspire her artistic mind. Holding the delicate still life in both hands, she was making her way along a narrow corridor towards Emily’s green baize door. Halfway along the confined passageway, she encountered Jane.

  ‘A little love token for her?’ snarled the sullen girl, still burdened by the twenty or so yellow whippy canes, her visible mark of public shame.

  Miranda ignored the taunt, electing to pass by in dignified silence.

  ‘Silly old tart,’ mocked Jane. ‘Apple for teacher?’ she smirked.

  Miranda paused, her loyalty to Emily pricked. Her eyes narrowed dangerously. She placed the delicate burden carefully down at her feet.

  ‘I’m getting pretty sick of you, Jane. Sick of your spiteful, cheating tricks and petty jealousy. Just keep clear of me from now on. Keep out of my way, understand?’ Jane scowled and took a threatening step closer. The canes rattled in her arms.

  ‘You think you’re so damn clever, don’t you?’ she hissed. ‘I’ll get you back for this,’ she growled, thrusting her newly awarded greenband into Miranda’s face.

  ‘That?’ Miranda replied, shrugging impatiently.

  ‘You’ve only yourself to blame.’

  ‘Get lost, stupid bitch,’ Jane hissed, lashing out with her foot petulantly at the still life. Miranda’s painstakingly assembled little offering shattered into forty pieces.

  Like feral cats they sprang, grappling, clawing and scratching wildly. The canes clattered to the floor. Miranda held Jane firmly in a tight headlock; Jane replied by pulling at her opponent’s fine golden blonde hair. Panting, they sank down onto the cold lino, rolling over in a short burst of fury. Jane’s teeth bit into Miranda’s shoulder; Miranda threshed in surprised pain and snatched at Jane’s vest. It ripped from belly to throat, spilling out the proud, firm breasts. Miranda pushed her hand up under Jane’s chin, forcing the frenzied face back, and almost had the advantage when Jane’s knee jerked into her belly and winded her. Miranda lay gasping on the cold, hard lino. Jane straddled her, pinning her arms down between her knees, pinioning her body down beneath the weight of her soft buttocks and spreading, straddling thighs.

  ‘Now, bitch,’ Jane leered, bending down to gloat into Miranda’s anxious face. ‘Suffer.’

  Her rounded breasts, shiny and bouncy ripe, spilling out in their freedom from the split in the tight cotton bondage, almost brushed Miranda’s lips as Jane struggled to yank up the vest she straddled. Dragging up the soft cotton, she exposed the heaving bosom beneath. Miranda tried to struggle, causing her naked breasts to wobble and shudder fleshily, but she was firmly pinned down beneath Jane’s expertly placed knees. Resistance was futile. She sank back beneath the dominating victor. She was at Jane’s mercy — a quality she knew to be in distinctly short supply.

  Jane took Miranda’s exposed left nipple in between her finger and thumb and squeezed it, twisted it savagely and then tugged at it, pulling the pale pink flesh at least an inch from the creamy breast. Miranda choked on her scream of pain. Jane slapped the face beneath her. Miranda blinked with surprise.

  ‘Shut up, you bitch. Take your medicine,’ Jane hissed.

  Jane clamped her vicious fingers over the right breast, pinching and clawing the soft, tender flesh. Once more the cruel pincer closed over the vulnerable, quivering nipple. Once more, the elastic skin was painfully tweaked, pinched and stretched. Miranda cried out. Jane slapped her face, twice.

  ‘You’ve been begging for this, your ladyship, and now you’re going to get it.’

  Both nipples were ravished with searing pain. Miranda writhed, thrusting her bottocks up off the hard lino in a desperate effort to dislodge her abuser. Jane teetered but remained intact, her squatting buttocks spread firmly over Miranda’s belly. Jane bent down and clutched the fine blonde hair in a fierce grasp. Now she controlled the head of her victim, and could savour her cruel domination. She bent closer, gripping the hair more firmly.

  Miranda’s head was jerked back. She stared up into the hate that brimmed in Jane’s spiteful eyes. Suddenly, lunging forward, ignoring the searing pain caused by her trapped blonde hair, Miranda nipped her teeth at Jane’s left nipple. Jane squealed and relaxed her clutch. Miranda seized her moment and bucked her hips upwards. Jane, nursing her savaged breast, toppled over. Miranda was astride her in a flash.

  The positions were now reversed. Jane now lay panting between Miranda’s firm white thighs. Miranda slipped her hand down over Jane’s belly and reached down into her tight shorts. She wove a strand of her victim’s pubic hair around her finger and pulled. Jane gritted her teeth but her scream was still shrill. Miranda pulled again.

  ‘You have given me no alternative. I am going to teach you a lesson your jealous little heart will never forget. Never,’ Miranda whispered, inches from Jane’s contorted face. Miranda’s tone was cold and even, free from rancour and revenge. It was the firm voice of controlling discipline. Strong, steady and cold. The sober tone of stern retribution, not the hysterical, cruel excitement that had sullied Jane’s spitting lips.

  ‘Bitch,’ hissed Jane, squirming like a cornered cobra.

  Miranda rolled her helpless victim over onto her belly, squashing the ripe breasts down into the cold lino. Gathering up a yellow bamboo cane, Miranda pressed it firmly against Jane’s face, as if in an attempt to quell and tame the demon of rage that twisted her beauty. The cane was applied firmly across Jane’s full, wet lips.

  ‘This,’ Miranda warned, tapping the cane, ‘is for your own good. Believe me, Jane, you will thank me for what I am about to do to you. Not now, perhaps. But one day.’

  Miranda jerked down the tight shorts and fondled Jane’s creamy buttocks. Jane bucked and threshed, stung into fresh paroxysms of fury by Miranda’s words. Miranda tapped the writhing rump.

  ‘Keep still and quiet while I beat you, Jane,’ she said, and raised the cane.<
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  ‘Stop. Stop it at once. What do you think you are doing? Get up at once, Miranda. How dare you bully that poor girl.’

  It was the shrill, sharp voice of Miss Eaddes.

  ‘But she —’ blurted Miranda, anxious to explain.

  ‘Silence, girl. I will not tolerate bullying. Jane. Get up. What has been happening here? Come along, speak up.’

  Jane detected the note of concern and craftily seized her chance.

  ‘She attacked me,’ Jane sniffled, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand, determined to milk the situation. As she rose, her foot trod on an acorn. She winced painfully and was suddenly inspired. Not encumbered by Lady Miranda Gordon-George’s sense of fair play, she honed her cunning.

  ‘I was bringing you a little gift. Just a little thank you for teaching me geometry so well. You make things so clear and easy,’ Jane lied artfully.

  ‘Miranda smashed it.’

  Stooping, Jane gathered up the pathetic fragments.

  ‘I made this for you, Miss Eaddes. I called it ‘Autumn Rumours’. It was just a little present…’

  ‘She’s lying!’ Miranda shouted hotly.

  ‘Silence, Miranda. Silence. I will not tell you again,’ Miss Eaddes thundered. ‘Carry on, Jane,’ she murmured encouragingly.

  Jane managed a passable sob of sorrow as she told the vain maths tutor how Miranda had supposedly smashed her token of esteem out of jealousy. Miss Eaddes swallowed the lie completely, vanity clouding her better judgement. She refused to countenance the possibility that Jane could be saying anything other than the simple truth. Besides, she reasoned to herself, what could be more perfectly natural than for this pretty, charming girl to express her affection in the form of a little love token. And, she considered sententiously, her ego now quite bloated, it was equally natural for another pretty, charming girl like Miranda to flare up with jealousy. Miss Eaddes felt momentarily dizzy with delight. To have two such beauties wrestling and fighting for her favours was heady stuff indeed.