Over the Knee (2 page)

Another agonising minute crawled by and then, at last, Mrs Willis told me I could go in.

I raised my clammy fist to the door and knocked timidly.

‘Come in.’

I took a deep breath, held it in for three seconds and let it out slowly. Showtime. I entered and stood before his desk like a criminal in the dock. He studied me, his fingers steepled beneath his chin.

‘What were you thinking, Harker?’ he asked gently. ‘That you wouldn’t be missed?’

‘No, sir, I just …’ It was hard for me to lie, but I forced the words out hastily. I’d rehearsed them the day before, saying them over and over to the mirror in as flippant a tone as I could manage. ‘I just couldn’t be bothered.’

He frowned and sat back a little in his chair. ‘I beg your pardon?’

With an audible swallow, I pressed on. ‘I didn’t feel like coming to school yesterday. I had better things to do.’ He raised his eyebrows expectantly and I added, ‘Sir.’

‘I see.’ He stood up and walked round to the front of the desk.

I began to tremble, already regretting my foolish endeavour. I was terrified, yet dying of curiosity at the same time. Even so, I remembered that no one – not even Dale Grisham, who’d thrown stones at the school windows and broken one – had ever been caned. I wasn’t a known
offender
, a troublemaker who was always being sent to the headmaster. This was my first offence, after all. My first
ever
. There was no real chance that he would cane me. But perhaps he would at least threaten …

Mr Chancellor crossed his arms and leant back against the edge of his desk. ‘I’m surprised at you, Harker. This isn’t like you.’

I was surprised he knew what I was like at all. Good girls never got noticed. They blended into the scenery while the bad girls took centre stage and got all the attention.

His expression softened. ‘Now, I know you’re a good student and I can only hope this is an isolated incident. But I want you to know that I’m very disappointed in you. I rely on girls like you to set an example for the other pupils.’

It was the killer. My eyes filled with tears and I looked forlornly at my shoes. This wasn’t the way it was supposed to go. He wasn’t supposed to be
nice
to me!

‘I’m sorry, sir,’ I heard myself say.

The rest of the interview was a disaster and I was thoroughly ashamed of myself by the time he handed me a tissue and told me I could go. Detention. No caning.

Disgusted with myself, I resolved to repeat my adventure. And this time I would be merciless. I wouldn’t break down and I wouldn’t apologise. I would give him a reason to raise his voice, to reprimand me severely, to tell me what I really deserved – and, with any luck, administer it.

Cruising the high street in my uniform, I boldly met the eyes of nosy passers-by who knew I was playing truant. Being bad was exciting. It was liberating. I could definitely get used to this. The disapproving looks gave me a cheap thrill, but no one said anything to me.

I loosened my top button and pulled my tie askew. I untucked my shirt. But I kept my blazer on so everyone could see the badge and know which school I was profaning. Representing the school so disgracefully was a grave offence as well. Someone was certain to report me. The pinch-faced old lady with the yappy Yorkshire terriers, perhaps. She glared at me, the delinquent schoolgirl. I
offered
her a sneer in return, silently daring her to ask me why I wasn’t at school. I would catch it the next day. Oh, yes.

Sure enough, Mr Chancellor didn’t coddle me this time.

‘Would you care to explain yourself, Harker?’ he asked severely.

‘Not really.’

‘Sir,’ he prompted.

I rolled my eyes. ‘
Sir
.’

He was unfazed. ‘I was told about your little display in town yesterday. And I’m shocked at your behaviour.’

He wasn’t even bothering with the guilt trip this time. He was really affronted.

‘I had trusted that you wouldn’t abuse my lenience, girl. But, as you clearly didn’t learn your lesson last time, you leave me little choice. I’m forced to adopt sterner measures.’

Here it was! A hot flush covered my face and throat. I raised my eyebrows, mimicking the look he had given me last time. ‘Oh yeah?’

‘Yes, Harker. You would normally be given a third chance, but your flagrant insolence leaves me no choice.’

I heard the last two words as a portentous echo.
No choice
. Was I mad? The cane would hurt. Terribly. It was meant to. But there was no way out now. Backing out was not an option. I held my breath as I waited for him to pass sentence.

‘I’m suspending you for a week.’

I froze. ‘What?’

Mr Chancellor looked slightly bemused. ‘What did you expect to happen, girl? Anyone would think you were deliberately provoking me. Were you trying to get expelled?’

I gaped at him. ‘No, sir, not that, I just …’

‘Yes?’

Flustered, I shook my head. ‘Nothing. I’m … not myself. Sir.’

‘I can see that. So I suggest you make good use of your time away. Reflect on your actions and their consequences
and
see if you can get back in my good books when you return.’

I was shell-shocked. I didn’t know what to say. Not only had I failed to elicit the desired result; I’d earned a black mark on my record. And my parents would hear all about it. Not the imagined caning, six strokes of agony and no one the wiser.

‘You’re dismissed, Harker.’

‘Yes, sir.’

Disaster. Absolute bloody catastrophe. No survivors.

I winced at the memory. No, that hadn’t been my finest hour. I still thought about Mr Chancellor from time to time, wondering if he was still at Ravenscroft. I’d been tempted many times to go back and see him, to confess the real reason for my failed offensive. There would be no question of ethics or professional misconduct; we were no longer teacher and pupil. This time he could cane me without fear of the consequences. Or would he see it as a vulgar seduction attempt?

I was confident enough about my looks. I had a willowy frame with long athletic legs and small breasts. I had wide brown eyes and soft full lips. These feminine features were offset by the short pageboy cut of my gingery brown hair.

I knew how to dress to flatter my grown-up charms, but I had a penchant for girlish tartan skirts. An independent uniform fetish, I suspect. I rarely wore anything else. When people asked, I simply shrugged and confided that it made me feel more studious. They laughed it off as a charming eccentricity. They had no idea.

But, though I fantasised about it often, I never got up the courage to go back to Ravenscroft. And as the years passed, the preoccupation lost its urgency. University kept me busy and before I knew it I was buried in my thesis: ‘The Victorian Chat Room: Covert Sadomasochism in Nineteenth-Century Family Magazines’.

Victorian England was alive with deviant undertones. The sexual repression coupled with the harsh discipline of the period created an ideal environment for fetishes to
flourish
. There was a wealth of flagellant literature and I was certain that if I had lived then I’d have been writing my own as well. But the obsession with corporal punishment went beyond overt pornography. The ‘English vice’, it was called.

A group of enthusiasts infiltrated mainstream periodicals like
The Family Herald
and
The Englishwoman’s Domestic Magazine
, publishing spurious accounts of spanking and birching, rendered in obsessive fetishistic detail. There were accounts of the birching of young ladies by schoolmistresses. Floggings in monasteries and nunneries. Whippings administered by strict governesses. Discussions of whether it was decent for gentlemen to whip girls, ladies to whip boys. The disciplinary merits of such chastisement. And on and on.

But the most enticing aspect was the fact that these detailed letters were to be found sprinkled amongst the commonplace crises of etiquette. The moral implications of kissing before marriage. How to break off a tender acquaintanceship. Where one may purchase birch rods for the chastisement of unruly daughters.

Ah, the glorious hypocrisy of Victorian sexuality. The lengths to which they went to repress their urges. They staunchly refused to acknowledge that there was anything inherently erotic underlying their obsession with corporal punishment. Heavens, no – that would be perverse!

Many of the letters were obvious hoaxes, pornography masquerading as morality. Some of them purported to condemn the practice of corporal punishment. The moral outrage only lent further credence to the discourse, however.

A HATER OF THE SYSTEM (our old friend) writes to inform us that even she does not disapprove of flogging, but only indecent flogging; and she says that in the most aristocratic schools flogging is of daily occurrence. She describes the system pursued in one near Edinburgh, where the terms are 120 guineas per annum. ‘A book of offences is kept by one of the young ladies,
in
which every fault is regularly entered. There is a graduated scale of punishments, the highest of which is corporal. When an offence of sufficient magnitude takes place, the culprit enters it in the book herself, and carries the report to the lady superintendent, who writes under it the amount of punishment. For the first offence, the delinquent is prepared for punishment, but generally pardoned. For the second, she is whipped privately. For all subsequent delinquencies the punishment takes place in the schoolroom, on ‘the horse’; and, in addition to the pain it inflicts, it costs in money about 1s., paid in fees. The system is as follows: 1st. She proceeds to the housekeeper, to procure the rod, a leathern thong. She pays 2d. for the use of it. 2nd. She has then to be partly undressed by the maid, and this costs 2d. 3rd. The culprit has then to walk barefooted to another part of the house, to be robed for punishment, a peculiar dress being used, to add to the disgrace. It is a long linen blouse, short cotton socks, and list slippers, all of which each offender has to provide for herself. The young lady, thus costumed, now proceeds to the drawing-room, to be exhibited to the lady superintendent. Having been approved, she is then conducted to the schoolroom, when she has to pay 6d. to the governess, who inflicts the amount of punishment awarded. A wooden horse, covered with soft leather, is the medium of castigation. The delinquent subsequently thanks the governess! kisses the rod!! then thanks the superintendent, and retires to her own room, to appear no more until prayer-time the next morning.’ Our correspondent says the ceremony has more effect than the punishment. The young ladies are in other respects tenderly dealt with. Even the horse has a soft cushion.

The letter had the same effect on me as on my predecessors. The extravagant ritual was a form of protracted foreplay and the detached mannerly voice only heightened its eroticism. It was all perfectly proper and above board. And all in the name of old-fashioned English discipline.

My supervisor hadn’t batted an eye when I’d proposed my thesis title. Dr Morrison was a humourless, asexual pedagogue who was oblivious to my personal interest in the subject. The irony was delicious; the vanilla readers of
The Family Herald
didn’t realise they were watching fetishists at play either.

My academic life was steeped in erotica, but my reality remained steadfastly bland and boring. At twenty-four, I was getting desperate for sympathetic company. I’d had boyfriends, of course. But none of the guys I went out with could measure up to my fantasy of Mr Chancellor. They completely missed the hints I dropped. But I couldn’t spell it out for them. They had to be the ones to initiate it.

I had no trouble attracting vanilla boys; the trick was finding the kinky ones. There was the Net, of course. But I was wary of visiting dubious sites from the university library’s computers. There were strict regulations about that. If I were caught, the humiliation would be too much to handle. Then again, perhaps it would be worth it.

There was a wealth of material about the spanking fetish – so much that I could never hope to read it all. But I tried. Naturally, the Victorian offerings were my favourites. I was fascinated by the harsh class division and the wicked things the upper classes could do to the lower. Power was hot, but power
abused
… well, that was something very special indeed.

One of my fondest fantasies cast me as a maid for a prurient gentleman who punished me when I didn’t perform my duties as he expected. I had no option but to submit to his touch as well as his correction. It was that or be cast out on to the streets. No choice. No responsibility. No guilt.

My favourite book was the Victorian classic
Frank & I
, the story of a girl who disguises herself as a boy and lives with a strict guardian. When the guardian orders ‘Frank’ to take down his trousers for a birching, he discovers her secret, but keeps it to himself. Frank must continue being a boy, unaware that her guardian knows full well she is a girl. And her guardian, a self-proclaimed ‘lover of the rod’,
delights
in finding fault with his young charge and administering sound punishments for every offence.

Of course, there is nothing more traditional, more quintessentially English, than the cane. A short sharp shock. Skirt up, knickers down. Six of the best in the headmaster’s study. But, even more than the implement, it was the ritual that obsessed me. There were prescribed conventions that I saw played out compulsively in both my fantasies and the stories I read. The English had made an art of discipline.

But all things considered, I couldn’t imagine anything more intimate and humbling than an old-fashioned bare-bottom, over-the-knee spanking. The exquisite embarrassment of being treated like a child, my clothing adjusted just enough to expose my bottom for smacking. My ears would burn as my disciplinarian scolded me, telling me what a naughty girl I’d been and how I deserved punishment. He would bring his palm down on my pale cheeks, turning them pink and red while I kicked and squirmed over his lap. Perhaps then he would move on to the hairbrush, the most domestic implement of all. The polished ebony would elicit cries of pain and promises of better behaviour from me.