He then responded to a ripple of amusement.
"Despite this young woman's appearance of arrogance, she may secretly hope that such commands are given. You may be sure that Lesley would respond to such an order with a show of repugnance and defiance. Her self-respect requires that. Several strokes of the cane would be needed. However greatly she may wish to do it anyway, Lesley will escape the ultimate self-humiliation, if she appears to yield only under the compulsion of the whip."
Like a conjurer, Dr. Jacobus stood before us with a china egg between finger and thumb. It was not quite large enough to tightly fit the necessary place, but it would not be easily dislodged. Lesley twisted her head 'round urgently to watch him, the light catching the fair, straight cut of her crop from its high crown to the severe cutting of it level with her jaw. Dr. Jacobus slid a hand under her, supporting her bare belly. He pressed the oval china egg between her buttocks, the narrower end foremost. There was a tensing of seat-cheeks, and a keening through wadded cotton, while the scholar's mouth set firm and the veins in his forehead stood out more prominently. Lesley's tight inward dimple yielded and closed again over the china oval as it passed up into her behind.
"Observe, gentlemen!" Dr. Jacobus stood back with a flourish. "See how hard and rapid the pulse beat in her throat is. Can it be sexual arousal at the thought of being chastised-or is it no more than a young woman's desperate fright? It matters not at all. Either emotion will generate a pitch of excitement. Lesley feels butterflies in her tummy, as the saying goes, and the flutter of panic in her bowels. The cheeks of her arse are no doubt crawling with such apprehension that they almost itch with it!"
Lesley gave a shake of her little-boy fringe in order to look back at him over her shoulder. It seemed as if the once-disdainful blue eyes were trying to ask a question she could not utter. Her clear, pale features were a study in the most fearful anticipation.
"Ah!" Dr. Jacobus smiled knowingly at her. "Lesley is tormented by a last doubt! Will there be any restriction on the instrument of punishment? Any limit to the number of strokes? I think she can already guess that the answer is in the negative!"
How Lesley tugged at her straps-and all in vain! How she turned her blue eyes and fringe urgently to the audience! Whatever disapproval one may feel for Dr. Jacobus, he had a good deal of reason on his side. Lesley is a mature young woman. Her hips and seat have that slight firming-out which enables her to undergo chastisements that would be unthinkable for a schoolgirl. She has endured regular penis exercise in the marriage bed, the labour of child-bearing, the demands of her lovers. Having willingly incurred such extremes of pleasure and pain, she was scarcely able to object to a whipped bottom as punishment for her infidelities. Indeed, by cutting her fair hair in a rather boyish manner, she was surely asking to be given the sort of thrashing well known in some boys' prisons.
"Presently you will be caned, Lesley," said Dr. Jacobus quietly, "but first I shall mark my personal disapproval of your marital treason by twelve strokes with a snakeskin pony-lash."
Lesley was truly frantic at this. She twisted her head and scanned about her, with blue eyes wide and desperate. In vain, she jerked at the restraining straps. The gag reduced her protests to the same shrill keening, but her pale seat-cheeks were tensing urgently.
Dr. Jacobus took the whip, which consisted of a handle and slim, woven- lash about eighteen inches long. He ran his hand briefly over the full moons of Lesley's bottom, smiling at the pale vaseline blobs between them and the peeping vaginal pouch between the rear of her thighs.
"You had your fun with your lovers, Lesley," he said gently. "Was it nice? Was it? Did you wriggle on the adulterer's penis until you almost swooned with the joy of it? Now you shall pay a cruel price for it, you young whore!"
His right arm went back and Ms lips tightened. The cheeks of Lesley's bottom shifted and squirmed uncontrollably. With an ear-stunning crack, the slim, black-lash snaked down, curling and clinging to the bare cheeks of Lesley's backside. A split second's pause was followed by wild mewing and buttocks contorting urgently to contain the naked smart of the leather whip. A scarlet stripe appeared, an S-shaped curve across Lesley's bum-cheeks, dotted by two ruby droplets. Lesley had the firm, young seat-swell of a Spartan soldier-girl. Perhaps it was this which caused such breathless excitement among the audience as she was whipped. Or perhaps it was merely the satisfaction of seeing the boyishly cropped wife punished for her promiscuity and for being an arrogant young bitch. Who can say?
Dr. Jacobus made the whip ring out repeatedly with a savage accuracy across Lesley's bottom-cheeks. Soon her pale buttocks were embroidered by plum-red loops and curlicues. Two! Three! Four! The strokes sang out like pistol shots, each stinging Lesley's arse with a scorpion viciousness. Even the fiery kiss of the leather whip was but a prelude to the swelling torment as the impact of the stroke searched her lingeringly for several seconds afterwards. Vainly she tried to take the strokes on her flanks to spare her bottom. But her hips were too well pinned down for that. She tried to turn each buttock uppermost in turn, but neither of them could elude the lash. She tightened them desperately, until her arse-crack was a thin, compressed line.
Dr. Jacobus put a stop to this by an upward stroke of the woven lash, catching the fatter under curve of Lesley's seat-cheeks just above her thighs. Frantic to writhe away the anguish, the promiscuous young wife thrust her rump out in a complete display of her rear anatomy. It was at this point that the eyes of Dr. Jacobus gleamed. He aimed the lash with vindictive precision between the cheeks of Lesley's bottom. No refuge was left to her as the whip cracked out again. Eight! Nine! Ten! All the self-possessed sophistication taught her at school and college was stripped from Lesley now. Twice the whip's command was printed between the cheeks of her arse. Neither this, nor the flooding tears in the blue eyes, moved the onlookers to intercede.
One must concede, of course, that Lesley was being punished for the great harm done to others by her conduct. To desert marital duty for illicit pleasures is a crime which law and custom has always punished in this manner. Almost every man-and perhaps most women-would have been pitiless with Lesley now. Under the long, fair parting of her little-boy fringe, Lesley's eyes-once so aloof and dismissive-implored her master vainly.
Smack! Whip-smack! Crack-smack! As the lash caught the inward curve of Lesley's bottom-moons again, every muscle in her thighs went taut and her toes curled with the intensity of the discipline. Once or twice Dr. Jacobus moved to block our view a little, and he paused. An Arab boy ran on and held something to the young wife's nose. The scent of ammonia suggested smelling salts. Who can say? During this process, Lesley's face was level with the boy's loins. Like us, she must have seen the scrap of his loincloth bulging with the stiffness inside. No doubt there was many a wicked smile and knowing whisper from the frisky boy, assuring her of his enthusiasm for seeing her punished.
Indeed, as I glanced up at the windows overlooking the scene, I could make out the faces of the Arab boys pressing eagerly at each one. Here and there a lad stood alone, the movement of his upper arm suggesting that he was busily polishing some object in his hand.
"The justice of chastisement is absolute," said Dr. Jacobus, as he finished. "Lesley has made others suffer in order that she might enjoy her lecheries. What she endures now is a modest retribution."
Lesley twisted her head wild-eyed in dismay, for now the Schoolmaster appeared, cane in hand. Already Lesley's bottom-cheeks blushed deeply, the whip prints raised in slight contours across her backside and the rear of her upper thighs. The boyishly cropped Venus-wife sprawled in her straps like an overgrown schoolgirl or page boy over the cushions of the teacher's sofa.