As my hand touched her naked bottom, she laughed, saying:
“Yon see I have prepared myself for the ‘rod’.”
“That’s right,” I said, sitting down upon a chair, and drawing her on to my knees. “We shall have some fun this afternoon in more ways than one. Now tell me what offences the children have committed.”
She replied: “Robert has been reported to me for persistent idleness, by the governess. She tells me he does not mind what she says to him. Dora has been saucy to me; and has also told me a lie, which is a fault I never pass over. I hate a liar, so I intend to make her bottom smart. She is inclined to be untruthful, and I have had to whip her twice for fibbing.”
“Do they know that they are going to be whipped? Where are the young culprits? I am longing to see Dora’s bottom,” said L
Frances smiled, and said: “They know they are going to be whipped, and they are waiting in the schoolroom. I always punish them there; but to-day I will bring them down here. No one will know what is going on. Miss Martin has gone out for a couple of hours; and the servants are all in the lower regions of the house. They know I sometimes whip the children; but I should not like them to find out that I had ever allowed yon to be present at the punishment” Then, laying her hand on the front of my trousers, she added, laughing: “I do believe that the very thought of seeing the girl’s bottom birched, has made your ‘thing’ stiff. What a man you are for the rod!”
“Well, I must say my thing «beginning to stir,” said I, with a laugh. She went on: “Now go into the alcove behind the curtains. You can peep between them; but be sure to keep them closely drawn, and don’t make the least noise.”
Then she jumped off my knees and left the room. I went behind the curtains, and held them closely together where they met, but I left a narrow little space, through which I could see everything, without being seen.
In a couple of minutes, Frances returned, leading by their hands the two young culprits. Robert, dressed in his black velvet suit, had a woeful expression on his face, but he did not show any other signs of fear. Dora was looking intensely frightened; she was whimpering, and the tears were trickling down her pale cheeks.
As I have before said, she was a charmingly pretty little girl, with long, glossy, — soft auburn hair flowing loose. She was handsomely dressed from head to foot, and the skirt of her black frock only reaching a little below her knees, showed her small, but well-formed legs clad in black silk stockings. On her tiny feet she wore smart patent leather shoes.
Frances locked the door; then going to a cabinet, she took out a short, slender little birch rod, tied up with scarlet ribbons; and though the rod looked like a toy, it was quite big enough to raise weals on a child’s bottom, and to make it smart sorely.
Both the children knew, by bitter experience, that the small birch could sting; and at the sight of the bristling twigs, Robert’s lips began to tremble a little, while Dora whimpered more loudly, and covered her face with her hands.
Frances, rod in hand, seated herself on a low chair which she had placed so close to the curtains that I could almost have touched her, by stretching out my arm. Then she ordered the culprits to come and stand in front of her. The boy at once obeyed; but the girl hesitated, and the order had to be sharply repeated, before she complied with it.
Frances now took hold of Robert, laid him over her lap, unbuttoned his knickerbockers and pulled them down to his knees; then she carefully tucked up his little shirt all round, back and front, at the same rime feeling his wee tool; and as she did so, she glanced up at the curtains, with a roguish smile on her face. She had seated herself with her right side tamed to the curtain, so that I had a full-length view of the boy as he sprawled over her lap, with his arms and legs hanging down; and I could see everything as plainly as if I had had the young culprit lying across my own knees.
She now lectured the boy on his idleness, and told him that she would whip him every time the governess reported him for not learning his lessons. And the whole time she was speaking, she stroked and patted the cheeks of his plump little bottom. Then she gave him a dozen slight cuts, which, however, striped his skin all over with red streaks; he winced at each cut, and wriggled about briskly, twisting his loins in pain, and crying loudly, the tears rolling down his cheeks. He certainly showed pluck while he was being birched; he never screamed, and he only once covered his bottom with his hands; but he instantly removed them, when his stepmother said sternly: “Take away your hands.”
When she had finished whipping him, she ordered him to go and kneel upon the seat of a chair with his knickerbockers down. He obeyed, and placed himself in position, with his red bottom exposed; then he rested his arms on the back of the chair, crying quietly, and occasionally rubbing his smarting little posteriors.
It was now Dora’s turn! While her brother was being birched, she had stood trembling and weeping, with her big, gray eyes fixed in a horrified stare on his writhing bottom. Frances told me, when all was over, that she had never before whipped the children in each other’s presence. She now laid down the rod, and took a handkerchief out of her pocket; then she seized Dora’s wrists and tied them together, the girl making no resistance; and in another moment she was placed in position across her stepmother’s knees, where she lay quietly, though wailing with fear. Frances then turned up the girl’s short skirt, rolled up her dainty little white petticoats, and tucked up her chemise; revealing the outlines of her childish figure covered only with a tightly-fitting pair of drawers, buttoned at the sides, and without a slit. Frances unfastened all the buttons, and pulled down the flap of the small garment, laying bare Dora’s bottom, and also the upper part of her thighs.
I had never before seen the bottom of so young a girl-she was only a little over twelve-and-a-half years of age-and I looked at the charming spectacle with great delight. It was a most lovely little bottom: plump, round, and perfectly proportioned, and also well developed for the age of the girl-a delicious morsel for the rod!
But her skin! What words can I use to describe the peculiar whiteness of Dora’s wonderfully beautiful skin? The ordinary terms such as: alabaster white; lily-like; milk-white; and snow white, will not do. The tint was extremely delicate, and quite different to anything I had ever seen: the tiny blue veins could be distinctly traced on the exquisitely smooth surface, and the whole skin was of such extreme fineness of texture, and so transparent, that it seemed almost to take a faint, pink tinge from the blood beneath it.
Frances glanced again at the curtains, smiling, and pointing to Dora’s bottom, as if to draw my attention to its rare beauty; but I noticed that she did not touch, or feel the girl between the legs, in the way she had felt the boy. I suppose it would have been no fun to her to handle one of her own sex.
She took up the rod-it seemed almost a pity to birch such a snowdrop of a bottom-and putting her arm over the trembling culprit’s loins, held her firmly down; saying: “Now, yon naughty girl; I’ll make you smart for telling me a lie!”
Dora contracted her muscles, and moaned in dread of the coming cut. The little rod hissed in the air for a moment, then fell with a swish on the delicate-skinned little bottom; both cheeks of which were instantly marked with red weals, and a number of small dots of a darker red colour. The girl plunged, threw back her head with a jerk, which tossed her long hair all over her face, and uttered a long, shrill squeal Swish! Swish! Swish! The rod, with its scarlet ribbons fluttering, rose and fell, raising more red weals on the quivering flesh of the young culprit, who screamed and writhed in agony at each cut. Frances did not, however, birch the girl with more severity than she had birched the boy; but Dora’s skin was far finer than Robert’s, and she felt the pain much more acutely! Swish! Swish! Swish! She squealed and wriggled, twisting her hips from side to side, and kicking her silken-clad little legs about in all directions. Swish! Swish! She turned her head round; and shaking the loose hair off her scarlet, pain-drawn, tear-bedabbled face, shrieked out piteously: “Oh! Mamma! Do do let me go!” Swish! “Oh-h! dear-Mamma!” Swish! “Yah-hah-ah-h! Oh! I-will-be-good!” Swish! “Ah-h-h! Oh! I-will never”-swish! — “Oh-h! — Ah-h-h! tell-a lie-again.” Swish! “Wan-hah-ah-h!” Swish! Swish! Swish! She yelled, and struggled, and bawled, and bounced; but Frances held her down tightly, and birched her slowly; while redder and redder grew her little posteriors under the flashing switch. Swish! “Ah! — Yah-hah-ah-h-h!!!” The last cut fell on the shrieking girl’s twitching flesh; and Frances threw down the rod. Dora’s delicious little bottom was now crimson, covered with weals, and speckled all over with purple clots. She had received eighteen cuts, and she lay trembling, crying, and writhing with the smarting pain.