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CANE ME... PLEASE!

by Stanlegh Meresith


Two fifty; ten minutes to kill.

Stomach fizzing with nerves, she asked herself for the hundredth time, Why, Emma? Why are you doing this? All she knew was the craving she couldn't shake off: like an insulted gentleman who'd thrown a glove at her feet, it demanded satisfaction.

She stood at the bus stop, heart pounding. It was a hot day, even for August. She wasn't sure how much of the sweat beading her forehead and sticking her blouse to her back was due to the heat, how much due to her fear. Her hands pushed down at her hips to smooth the creases in her tight grey trousers.

It was her school friend Claire who'd set it all in motion.

While Emma had gone off to university in Leeds, Claire had stayed on in their small town and got a job in a clothes shop. They'd lost touch for a while, but bumped into each other a few weeks earlier and arranged to meet.

They got together in a café in the High Street during Claire's lunch hour. Emma was relieved to find they still got on well. Since her move to the city, she'd begun to notice how provincial her home town was, and how limited some of her old schoolmates' attitudes. But Claire was alright.

"Do you still see any of the girls from St Angela's?" asked Emma over coffee.

"Yeah, quite a few. I still hang out with Miranda and Mary - they've both got jobs with the Council. And I see Susie around sometimes - Susie Henderson - she's at the Art College; as zany as ever. Quite a few went off to university like you." She paused. "Oh, and you'll never guess what! Charlotte Davis got married."

"No!"

"Yes! To a guy who was at the Boys' Grammar."

Emma lowered her voice. "Wasn't she the one whose dad beat her with a belt?"

"You remember that too? Yes. The weird thing was she never once got the slipper at school, let alone the cane."

"That's right. She was incredibly good, wasn't she?" Emma thought about the strict regime at St Angela's, and that last caning she'd received in the upper sixth. Making an effort to sound nonchalant, she asked, "Is... er... Miss Arkwright still Deputy Head?"

Claire leaned forward, her eyes bright with excitement. "Old Arky?" she said, casting a brief glance round the cafe. "No, and you won't believe what me and Miranda found out."

Emma leaned in too, interest piqued. Miss Arkwright was the teacher who'd caned her that afternoon two years before. "What? What was it?"

"Well, apparently Arky took early retirement the summer we left; all very sudden, and no-one knew why. Anyway, some of the goody-goodies from our year used to go and visit her; you know, to be kind. I guess they didn't see her as such a sadistic dragon." Claire laughed. Emma gulped. "I never went, but a few months ago - it was just before Easter - we were coming back from Miranda's gran's place, walking down Redfield Avenue, when Miranda said that was where Arky lived, and why didn't we see if she was home. 'Could be interesting,' she said. Well, I wasn't keen, not after what she did to you that day." She patted Emma's hand in sympathy. Emma tried to smile, but for some reason Claire's gesture annoyed her.

"So what did you do?"

"It was so weird." She lowered her voice. "We went up the garden path to the front door, and Miranda was about to press the buzzer - I mean, literally, her finger was like this - when we heard this sound. You couldn't mistake it." She paused. "You'll never guess what it was!"

"Um..."

Claire whispered excitedly, "It was someone getting caned!"

Emma stared. "No!" Heat rushed to her cheeks.

"Yes! Isn't that weird? There was a definite swishing sound and then a kind of... impact, like on skin, and it came from the front room."

"God!" Emma ran a hand over her face. "So what did you do?"

"We just stood there, staring at each other! I mean... gosh! Then we heard another stroke, and this time someone yelled - it sounded like a man - and we panicked and went back to the road. The curtains were drawn, so we knew we couldn't be seen from inside, but even so. It was so strange. That sound, you know? It took me right back to school!"

"I can imagine."

"Anyway, we wanted to see who came out, so we crossed the road and hid behind the bus shelter."

"And...?"

"We had to wait half an hour, then this guy came out. He was sort of middle-aged, a bit bald. Miranda got the giggles!"

"But how did you know he was the one? He could've lived in the upstairs flat or something."

"She owns the whole house. And anyway, wait for this!" She lowered her voice again. "Just before he got to the garden gate he stopped and rubbed his bum! There were hedges either side, and he must've thought nobody could see him. And that's not all!"

"What?"

"He winced!"

"Really?" Emma's heart raced.

"Yes, which totally proved it."

"Proved what? Why would a middle-aged bloke visit Miss Arkwright and get caned?" asked Emma.

"You don't know?" Claire's voice rose in surprise. Emma smiled awkwardly and shook her head. "Aww! You're so innocent, Emma! I guess they don't teach you everything at university." Emma shrugged. "He likes it, that's why! He's a masochist, and I don't need to tell you that Old Arky's a sadist."

Emma's mouth was dry.

"I have to say," Claire went on, "it's hard to imagine her in leather and stiletto heels! Maybe she just wears her black gown, like at school. But isn't it hilarious?"

Emma did her best to seem amused and astounded, but for the next ten minutes, before Claire had to go back to work, her thoughts were in such turmoil she scarcely heard a word - Miss Arkwright and her cane was all she could think about.

For two years, Emma had skirted round the fantasy of being caned again by the former Deputy Head, hardly daring to admit she even wanted it. Sometimes she'd managed to push the thoughts away for weeks at a time, but they'd always returned, if not consciously, then in her dreams. Claire's revelation brought her face to face with the tantalising but frightening possibility of making the fantasy real.

After six weeks of sweaty nights with cane-filled dreams, and exhausted days at her summer job in the library, finally, hollow-eyed and causing her mother concern, Emma plucked up the courage to call Miss Arkwright to ask if she could come round for 'some advice'. The familiar voice sent shivers down her spine, but her old teacher actually sounded quite amiable and genuinely glad to hear from her.

In the days leading up to the appointment, the scene of the caning that June afternoon two years before replayed obsessively in her mind...

She'd just completed her last 'A' level exam. With all the pressure and hard work finally over, she went to the park at lunchtime and got drunk on cider with some other girls who'd also finished. She'd never been much of a drinker, and certainly never that drunk before, so she didn't realise how recklessly she was behaving. While the others stayed on in the park, she returned to school during afternoon lessons, skipping down the corridor singing, "No more Latin, no more French, no more sitting on a hard wooden bench," at the top of her voice.

Miss Arkwright appeared suddenly, grabbed her by the ear, smelt the alcohol and marched her straight to the staffroom. Retrieving a cane, she led her to the Sixth Form Common Room where a group of girls were studying.

"This is what happens to drunken louts who think they can disrespect their school with impunity," announced the Deputy Head, whereupon she bent Emma forcefully over a table and gave her six, very tight strokes on the seat of her grey trousers, right in front of everyone, including Claire and some younger girls from the Lower Sixth. Emma was so overwhelmed with embarrassment and humiliation that she didn't fully register the strokes, though the vivid stripes on her bottom afterwards were proof enough they'd been ferocious.

Miss Arkwright stormed off, leaving Emma draped over the table in shock. The looks of sympathy on the other girls' faces when she got up just added to her humiliation. Wiping away tears, she ran out of the room and all the way home, her confusion and distress outweighing the pain in her bottom.

Sometimes she'd wondered if it was the way she'd blanked out the pain of the strokes that had caused the craving - did she need to repeat them to feel them? She'd been so embarrassed, with all her attention given to trying to preserve some dignity, she hadn't made a sound during the beating. Perhaps that was it? But another, more distressing, thought also occurred to her: that she was simply abnormal, a weirdo, a pervert, forever condemned to hide feelings no one would ever understand.

She didn't know.

But here she was, legs like jelly, in the same grey trousers she'd worn that day, approaching Miss Arkwright's house.

She checked her watch again. Five to three. She crossed the road and stopped outside the garden gate. Was it rude to be early? It was better than being late. She'd been slippered once in the third form for being late to school.

The front room curtains were drawn. As her finger paused over the doorbell, she thought of Claire's story again, of Miranda Watson's finger, poised as hers was now. She also thought, in those drawn-out seconds, about turning and running away. Arky didn't know where she lived; she'd never have to see her, or explain; never have to see her again at all. It wasn't too late to turn back.

She pressed the doorbell.


Helen Arkwright had risen rapidly through the ranks of the education system to achieve Deputy Headship at St Angela's in her twelfth year, by which time she was nearly forty. Here, however, her career had stalled. Despite numerous applications over many years, a post as Headmistress had eluded her and she'd remained at St Angela's.

The oversight and maintenance of discipline had been her main role, and she'd fulfilled it with such vigour and determination that St Angela's enjoyed a reputation for having the best-behaved, highest-achieving girls in the town.

It came as a great surprise then (to all but one of her colleagues) when she announced her resignation in July 1976. Speculation in the staffroom was rife, but only the Headmistress was privy to the truth of the matter.

A few days after the caning of Emma Johnson that June, Miss Arkwright was summoned to a meeting with the Headmistress, Mrs Corbett. Clearly embarrassed by the task, the Headmistress upbraided her for administering such a severe punishment in so public a manner. Helen was shocked. Whilst aware that she'd acted hastily in dealing with Johnson in that manner, the severity hadn't been excessive for such a senior girl, nor was it the first time a girl had been publicly caned; Mrs Corbett had herself carried out such punishments.

Helen's shock turned to dismay, however, when Mrs Corbett, whose trust she'd enjoyed for many years, informed her that her position had become untenable and that it would be best for all concerned if she resigned. She was offered a generous early retirement package, which, given the circumstances, she decided to take. But Helen Arkwright was no fool; she soon discovered the cause of her unexpected redundancy.

In the Sixth Form Common Room that afternoon had been a Lower Sixth girl named Mary Clarke whose father, Sir Ralph Clarke, was Chair of the board of governors and a major benefactor.



© Stanlegh Meresith
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