Chapter 1

 

"They're all good girls, of course, but they simply need frequent and sufficient correction to keep them in line. A good flogging concentrates their young minds and reminds them of duty and obedience for some time afterwards. The additional benefit of lingering marks of chastisement, particularly if the other girls can see them, embarrasses and humiliates them further, thereby showing the consequences of misbehaviour to all while at the same time serving as an ongoing object lesson and incentive for obedience and respect. And the paramount lesson we teach our girls here at Strapwell, the reason for its founding and existence, is to inculcate the irreducible rules of conduct and respect for proper authority and the responsibility to display proper feminine attitudes. The programme of instruction must therefore be stern and unwavering in purpose, purging body and mind of improper attitudes and demeanour while replacing it with utter compliance and unquestioned adherence to the objectives and goals of this institution. Our rate of success is demonstrated both by the appearance and attitudes of the girls when they graduate and the large number of our instructors who are former pupils.

"I've assembled you here at the beginning of another academic year to introduce our new instructors and show the novel facilities and installation of learning aids we have acquired as our student population continues to grow. Although we continue to give individual attention to the girls, it's our hallmark in the training of their young bodies and minds, the press of time requires we administer correction to small groups. Additionally, the usual fortnightly correction sessions will be held weekly and in new and improved premises that I think you will find more comfortable and functional. Now let me introduce our new staff members; all three are proud graduates of Strapwell."

The ritual pep talk to staff and management made each year as term-time approached was a pleasant task for Headmaster Bridewell. This was his seventh year at Strapwell and he was proud of the improvements and innovations he had instigated during his tenure. Twenty-four new students were to arrive in just seven days for early admission followed in three days by returning girls after their short summer holiday. In all, the halls of Strapwell would soon resound with the sweet young voices of nearly a hundred young girls. The fourteen and fifteen year olds on the verge of maturity would be comfortably settled before the upper form girls returned. Henry Bridewell looked forward to seeing their bright young faces and developing figures when they did. But for now, he had three members of the gentle sex to present to his faculty and staff. Their preliminary interviews and subsequent probationary engagement as junior instructresses having been happily concluded, it was time to welcome them back to Strapwell in their new role as staff members.

Fiona Wickersham and Francine Marleigh left Strapwell within two years of each other to read at University. Their school girl memories of Strapwell made them unfit for the mundane world of academe and commerce, drawing them both back to their old school with an inevitability etched in their psyches by the compelling experience of their unconventional training and education while at Strapwell. With a strange combination of enthusiasm and trepidation, they had both applied to Strapwell, giddy with the presentiment of circumstance that would obtain should they be accepted. Sitting in the front row, weak with the strange delight of their actually being there, they both shivered with a medley of emotions as Bridewell bid them forward to be introduced.

Roberta Morrison was a completely different case. She had graduated with honours fourteen years ago, long before Bridewell had become head. After being sent down from university, she had a successful career in the IT industry. Her headstrong ways, unacceptable in formal structured situations like university and corporate cultures, gave her the right psychological set to do well in rapidly changing, fluid environments like the heated IT industry. Removed from the UK to California's Silicon Valley, she made a fortune as head of three different start-ups in the halcyon days of dot-com enthusiasm. When all collapsed in a frenzy of changing sentiment and crumbling confidence, Robert was stripped of both wealth and self-esteem. She had to sell all of her tangible assets to pay her way to Briton where she slunk back with her tail between her legs. The good life was over for the nonce. The hubris of wealth and power accompanied by the end of a torrid love affair with one of her juniors precipitated a nemesis of crushing dimension ,forcing her to analyse her scanty options with depressing candour. The lessons learned and then dismissed after she left Strapwell came flooding back with an 'I told you so' vengeance, plunging her back to a time that was happier if not as comfortable as her later circumstances. She felt a strong impulse to return to that time and circumstance in a notion of self-punishment for her errant and arrogant wrong-headedness. All she had left was a good mind in an attractive, if not voluptuous body. Now, in her early thirties, she knew she was closer than she had ever been to losing her sensual form and figure, though she remained firm and youthful in physical aspect. She worried too about losing her mind, thrashing around in her limited options frantic to sort herself out for a bleak looking future that promised very little as far as she could see. She garnished all her assets in an attractive kit, sexy, sensual, but not overdone and went to the interview granted by Bridewell.

Bridewell read women like open books. He was chosen as head of Strapwell for these singular talents. When Roberta Morrison sat before his desk as demurely as she could in her short skirt and blouse unbuttoned in front by one, maybe two buttons too many, she wondered if she hadn't revealed too much of her shapely legs and bosom pushed up in creamy conspicuity by her wonder-bra. She sat quite still and attentive while Bridewell quizzed her about what she had done since leaving Strapwell years before. He didn't miss her internal turmoil and, despite her outward calm, he noted well her mental squirming and pathetic desperation from the expression in her eyes and silent subtle keys of body language that made her a perfect candidate for probationary instructress. The kernel of Strapwellian propriety disciplined into her as a young girl had not withered on her now quite mature vine. Bridewell knew he could nurture and resuscitate that innate, natural propensity found in all women. He decided to test his theory and the mettle of the woman seated before him.

With some embarrassment, Roberta recalled how easily manipulated she had been during that interview. On the flimsy pretext of reminiscence quietly used as rationale by both interviewed and interviewee for the purpose of domination and submission and the firm establishment and acknowledgement of that relationship between them, Roberta regressed to the sixteen-year old school girl she had been. At his suggestion and with her reluctant acquiescence, she modelled some of the subservient postures and decorative poses drilled into her so many years ago. She sank within herself in helpless subjugation to her thorough training though she hadn't thought of them, much less performed them for over a decade. She knew she should have her blouse buttoned higher as she leaned forward in her chair. As when called into the head's office when she was a girl, Roberta crossed her ankles, moved her knees wide apart and leaned far forward in the chair, holding her hands together palm to palm in the small of her back. She raised her head looking into the disapproving eyes of the headmaster. Her breasts were close to spilling out over the lacy top of her bra and her skirt, stretched tautly across her thighs, was rucked up high enough to reveal a pale narrow band of her bare thighs above the dark of her stocking tops. She knew too that, as when she was a girl in her short school skirt, her parted knees and wide thighs permitted a good view of her knickers between her legs. She wished she'd worn a longer skirt and buttoned her blouse more modestly. But she wasn't done.

"We have modified that particular position since you were last here, Miss Morrison. As you may remember the reason for that symbolic posture was to concentrate attention and pose the body in a position of acceptance. We still require it, of course, usually as a precursor to correction or more severe punishment as circumstances require."

Roberta remembered very well, memory flooding back with the same flush of embarrassment and trepidation as when she was sixteen. She trembled slightly now as she had then.

"If you would, please, uncross your ankles and raise your feet up, hooking the heels of your shoes over the pegs projecting from the back legs. You will necessarily have to move your knees wider in order to reach them. You may have to raise your skirt a bit higher. "

Roberta had to raise her skirt more than a bit higher to hook her heels on the pegs. Once she did, her knees clasped the front of the chair seat at its sides, holding her thighs wide open and her skirt at her hips. She offered more than a glimpse of her silken white knickers between her widened thighs, but leaning far forward once more with her hands held in the prayerful 'behind the back' attitude required, her breasts threatening to leap from her bra, she raised her head expectantly. She partially hid the bulge of her vulva by leaning forward, but she couldn't conceal her flushed cheeks, crimson in humiliation and shame. She felt little girlish pangs of helplessness and fright as she looked into the gaze of a man who had mastered her with soft words, prying her will to resist from her weak grasp as if she were a girl once more. She recalled the dressings down she had been subject to so long ago. She half expected to be corrected or punished next, but it didn't happen. What did happen was in a subtle sense a tacit pact between the two that she could and would be corrected or punished for her slightest peccadillo at his will. She showed him how at his request.

Show me, if you can remember, how girls mounted themselves on a chair for minor attitude adjustments when you were a student.

Roberta flashed back in memory and emotion to the days at Strapwell when she had clambered up on a wooden chair, kneeling up on the seat, bending over the back presenting her broad bottom for the tawse or cane. Attitude adjustments were the least punitive corporal punishment given to girls in her day. To be sure, they hurt, but were usually brief and didn't have to be taken on the bare like more serious corrections and punishments.

Bridewell brought a sturdy captain's chair out from against the wall. He put it beside Roberta and asked her to mount it as she had done as a student. Gathering herself, straightening her legs and lowering her skirt, she rose, biting her lip while looking at the all too familiar chair. She seemed to have seen it offered just days before. It was as if she had never left Strapwell. Different teachers, a different head, but the same chair, or one just like it had been in this very office all these years. From the peculiar marks of wear, where one wouldn't expect to see them from normal use, she assumed correctly that it was the same chair of vivid memory where she had knelt up and bent over as a girl for her many attitude adjustments while at Strapwell. Everything was so familiar, including her mental state. Self-consciously she hiked her skirt up and placed first one knee and then the other on the seat. Moving forward until her knees were against the spindles at the back of the chair, she hoisted the hem of her skirt up to her waist. As she began to lower herself over the back of the chair, bending at her hips, Bridewell stopped her.

"Adjust your panties correctly in back, please, Miss Morrison."

She had actually forgotten an important and mandatory part of the ritual procedure. Although not required to take it on the bare, with panties at half-mast around the thighs, lowered to the knees, or even worse, completely removed, the cheeks had to be fully revealed by pulling the inside rear of the leg openings high and tight into the cleavage between the cheeks. The complete availability of the nates was facilitated, offering no protection at all from the sting and cut of whatever instrument was used for castigation. A modicum of modesty was preserved though the plump bulge of the vulva showed plainly in the white pouch clinging snugly to its prominent contours between the legs. Roberta gripped her panties, pulling them tight between her well-rounded cheeks, baring them in near totality, burying the thin silky strip of fabric deeply between their broad ample conformation. When she bent forward her buttocks flared and broadened in vulnerable presentation, melding smoothly into the milky fullness of her thighs starkly pale above her stocking tops. She gripped a rung of the chair between the back legs and gritted her teeth in anticipation of hearing the crack of leather or bamboo across her perfectly presented bottom. She hissed in shock at the touch of Bridewell's warm hand in the small of her back. She really hadn't thought he would stripe her bottom at an interview and before she knew whether or no she was on staff.

"That's fine, Miss Morrison. I can see you have remembered a good deal of the lessons learned while you were a student. But some improvements can be made. Should you be accepted as a junior instructress you will go through a short refresher course to bring you back to our usual high standards. For now, please move your knees out to the sides and arch your back. You may recall the obligation to submit yourself in maximum exposure and optimum availability and accessibility for correction. The effect of cane or tawse must be thoroughly experienced for the correction to be useful. Don't ever forget that lesson, Miss Morrison."

She moved her knees out and arched her back, presenting the broad rounded surfaces of her bottom cheeks in proper and correct form as she had done years ago. Nothing changed here at Strapwell, she mused, wondering how she had strayed from the comfort of being controlled and disciplined in the stern and severe comfort of responsibility and obedience to the plainly drawn rules and regulations promulgated by her unique alma mater. Her humiliation and shame, the feeling of being a little girl again felt more than vaguely familiar. She whined softly in the warm comfort of her feelings as she remained in position for the wished for and, she hoped, soon to be administered condign thrashing for her arrogance. It was good to be back at Strapwell. She liked the masterful approach of the new head as well. She wished desperately that he would accept her application for employment.

"That's better, Miss Morrison. You can resume your seat now and we will conclude this interview. Or better yet, can you remember the roll-call stance you assumed at the beginning of each class? We haven't changed that requirement."

Roberta rose from her vulnerable position draped over the chair back. She was slightly flustered by her surprising response to Bridewell's bizarre interview. She was only slightly disappointed he hadn't reminded her of the crack and sting of having her bottom painfully striped. She remembered one of the maxims posted in the dining hall. 'Women and girls, like ships, should be steered from the rear.' That adolescent saw clung in memory like the fabric of her panties wedged between her clenching cheeks. She straightened herself up again, adjusting her clothing, buttoning her blouse a button higher in the process. She blushed furiously, noticing Bridewell seeing her belated attempt at modesty. Once she was sorted out Bridewell asked again if she remembered roll-call stance. She didn't.

"I'll remind you for now. But I can see that a refresher course would be beneficial should we take you on as an instructress here at Strapwell."

"The position is simple and comfortable and shows a willingness to learn compliance and obedience at the beginning of each lesson. It has become a venerable and integral part of our teaching techniques, settling the girls down and preparing them for the lessons to be learned, whether geography, history or desired feminine comportment. It's the first thing our new girls learn, setting the tone and precedent for later heuristic techniques of self-discovery. If you would, please stand with your legs spread wide holding your hands with fingers interlaced at the back of your neck."

Roberta had to raise her skirt to move her legs open since it was too tight otherwise. When she did, her bare thighs, suspenders and the crotch panel of her white panties once more were placed on view. Moving her hands behind her neck, her raised arms lifted her breasts attractively, jutting them forward pleasingly. Pleasing to the head, embarrassing to Roberta. That's how she remained until her employment interview ended. Bridewell had a good look at her the while. She had an attractive figure, well-formed breasts, narrow of waist and broad of hips in a sensual shapeliness that set off her gorgeous legs which, beside the sloe eyed beauty of her face and thick blonde mane of hair, were her most striking and exquisite physical assets. Roberta had great legs and she knew it. Hence her propensity for short skirts and high heels. Her gratuitous display of well-turned ankles, curvy calves and opulent thighs got her into more doors than otherwise would have been the case. Her erudition and expertise in computer languages and concomitant software, since she was a woman, might well have been ignored or overlooked if she hadn't been able to gain access with her sensual good looks. It certainly opened doors for Bridewell and of course, she was an alumna as well. Her credentials were impeccable as far as he was concerned; academically, physically and emotionally, her quiet excitement and docile obedience gave her the characteristics Bridewell looked for in students, faculty and women in general. Her great legs were a help as well. He didn't tip his hand however, but enjoyed his unobstructed view of her widely parted, nylon clad legs and the upward lift of her breasts as she stood in the prescribed posture of display he ordered. He thought he spied a wisp of hair between her legs at the gusset of her white panties. He'd have that seen to. But for now, it was better to leave her in doubt as to her acceptance at Strapwell. The uncertainty she would endure would put her in the right frame of mind, ensuring gratitude and strict obedience once she was in the fold. He looked forward to seeing her again and to seeing a great deal more than her legs and bottom. Monthly inspection of female staff and faculty promised to be revealing. He was thinking ahead as he dismissed her and concluded her interview.

"You will receive our decision as to your suitability as a faculty member by post. Should be in about two or three weeks. Thank you, Miss Morrison."

He scheduled her hiring for three weeks hence and put her name on the list for a clinical evaluation and the associated preparation for employment mandatory for all female teachers and staff at Strapwell. The door hadn't closed when he stopped writing. He caught a delightful glimpse of her retreating derrière moving in liquid smoothness under her skirt as she departed.

Roberta was on the shorts and desperately needed the job. She was living on her wits and wrote a thank-you note to the headmaster for his interest and time, adding how much she enjoyed seeing Strapwell again after her long absence. Short of pleading for the position, she intimated her willingness to participate in a retraining programme to 'get in harness' as she put it, alluding to posture training devices she had worn when a student. Bridewell smiled when he read her note. 'We'll have you in harness soon enough, Miss Morrison,' he mused quietly.

 

Roberta was startled from her dark reverie when she heard her name. The activities of the last two weeks had her confused and off balance. Once she had received the letter of acceptance, puzzling over some of the terms and conditions of employment, she was elated at her good luck. Three days later, she was at the gates of Strapwell with her meagre possessions in a portmanteau. After settling into her quarters, Spartan but adequate, she slept peacefully until morning. After breakfast, she reported to the clinic first thing. She had a busy schedule, including ten days of familiarisation and retraining before term-time. The clinic, not surprisingly at a girl's school, was primarily devoted to gynaecology. When she was a girl, the doctor in attendance had been an elderly German gynaecologist.