Ruled by the Rod (8 page)

We would each
wait in trepidation while our case was considered, for, though we
knew that anything that was decided would be for our own good, we
were sufficiently weak as to fear the inevitable searing of our
flesh, it being certain that we would suffer some scalding of our
buttocks, the only uncertainty being, to what degree, and with what
supplements of correction.

We could be
certain, too, that their exertions on our behalf, especially as
they were obliged to spend several hours cooped up in our close
vicinity, would aggravate the pernicious gatherings in their loins,
and they would have to call upon our services to relieve the
tumescence. Indeed, papa always took care that we came to the
court, our forks freshly washed, our crotch chains dangling between
our knees. Fortunately, our numbers exactly matched theirs, so none
of us was obliged to offer her rear opening more than once in the
evening.

Justice
Rodsham, and the good doctor, went to great pains to devise
additional disciplines that were exactly appropriate to specific
sins and shortcoming, and we seldom left a 'court' without
experiencing, or being promised, some new torment to curb our sorry
natures.

For example,
on more than one occasion it was remarked that Charlotte, although
she never rebelled against, or even questioned directly, the stern
regime under which we sought to become better women, she would give
an opinion where none had been asked, or ask for information
relative to our disciplines, beyond what was strictly necessary to
understand how they might benefit us.

The tribunal
discussed her case at some length on several occasions and, on the
last, the judge, drawing on his immense knowledge of judicial
punishments through the civilised world, recalled how, in the land
of the Scots, such questioning had been curbed by the scold's
bridle, or branks. The idea was taken up with enthusiasm, and the
doctor made an immediate examination of Charlotte's mouth and
teeth, prodding her tongue with his forefinger, while Justice
Rodsham held her jaws open, as horse dealers do in the market. He
took a number of measurements with his pocket rule, and undertook
to obtain the necessary device by the next meeting.

We did not
fully understand what a branks might be, nor its use, but it hung
over us as a considerable menace for the next four weeks or so,
since we had no shadow of doubt that we would not care for it and,
although it was being primarily obtained for the better curbing of
Charlotte's busy tongue, we had no hope that, once obtained, it
would be reserved for her use only, and thought it certain that,
whatever its woes, we would all know them shortly.

Nor were we
mistaken.

We approached
the next session of the 'court' with more than usual apprehension,
and took care to be on our best behaviour, and to appear in the
best state of dress we knew how, compatible with our status as
sinners. Our hair was washed and carefully combed, braided tightly,
and wound in neat crowns on our heads. Our accoutrements shone, the
steel of our bands burnished, the leather at collar, knee, and
waists, buffed up to a mellow gloss. Even the crotch chains, that
chinked between our knees as they touched the links of our fetters,
had been scoured clean. We were washed above and below, and our
gowns were pressed and fresh.

We stood along
the wall, facing the court, and waited, breathing lightly in our
rib crushing stays, their laces tensioned up to harp string
tautness. Our heads were held high by the tall and rigid collars
under our chins, but we kept our eyes cast submissively towards the
floor, so as not to challenge our guardians with our glances.

I hoped my
knees would not tremble so much that the clinking of their chain
would be remarked, and gritted my teeth, trying to still the
flinching of my buttocks, and the sick feeling in my belly.

We had no idea
what the branks might be like, but the pitiless cane was ever
present and, apparently, inevitable. And that thought alone, of its
deadly cuts in my tender flesh, the surging pain, the deep bruises
that ached and throbbed for hours and were sore to sit on for days,
was enough in itself to generate those expressions of the fear my
body was filled with.

Marion was
first to be called. She stepped forward to stand in front of the
desk, and awaited the usual catechism. No, she had nothing to
confess that our father had not already been made cognisant of.

'Do you submit
yourself to your corrections, so as to receive their benefit to the
full, making no attempt to mitigate their effects, before or
after?' enquired the doctor, watching her closely.

'I do refuse
any care that my sisters offer, if I feel that it is purely for the
purpose of easing the helpful throbbing of my welts, but I have
accepted certain creams that promote healing, even though they are
also emollient and soothing. I feel that it is incumbent on me to
maintain a healthy body, both to be ready for service and to avoid
being a burden on others.' She appeared to hesitate at this point,
and the doctor pressed her further.

'Yes, yes,
girl. What is it?' he demanded.

'There is one
other thing. After correction, my mind is usually in such a turmoil
that I cannot sleep...'

'And for that
you do what?'

She hung her
head as far as her collar would allow.

'I caress that
little bud that lies between my legs, until the tension bursts and
I can sleep,' she said.

The doctor
cast a look full of meaning at his fellow judges, but merely said
that he had no more questions at that time. Papa and the judge
exchanged significant looks, and the judge addressed Marion in his
turn.

'Do you
release your tensions in this fashion at other times, besides when
you have been wrought by your correction?'

Again our
elder sister hesitated, before replying in the affirmative.

'And how often
do you perform this action, would you say?'

Another pause,
then, 'Perhaps once or twice a week, sir,' was her reply.

The judge made
a 'tsk, tsk' sound with his tongue, and said something I did not
catch, to papa, who made an annotation in the leather-bound book,
in which he kept our disciplinary record.

Marion was
dismissed, and it was my turn to be called before the tribunal,
they seemingly having taken a prior decision to call Charlotte
last. Again I was asked if I had anything to add to my tally. I
racked my brains, searching desperately to see that nothing was
unconfessed, for the searing bite of that cane loomed nearer in my
mind, and I would have spared myself any cut I could, coward that I
was. But I could think of nothing, then, just as I was about to
declare a clean slate, it came to me.

'If you
please, sir,' I said, 'I too have been guilty of mitigating my
corrections, by frotting my female bud so that I might sleep the
quicker, once the tension had snapped within.'

The doctor
pounced at once. 'Do you, too, resort to this frictioning at other
times, and if so, how often?'

Much
mortified, I kept my eyes fixed firmly on a small ink spot on the
carpet, in front of papa's desk, while I replied.

'Sometimes
once or twice in a week,' I mumbled.

Again a
whispered consultation, and another entry in papa's register. The
whole proceeding had done nothing to quiet my apprehension, and I
could feel my belly churning, while the points of my nipples
hardened against the lining of my corset top. When I was dismissed
I stepped back to my place, and became aware that I had been
sweating so much my gown was sticking to my shoulders, and I could
feel the perspiration trickling down my armpits.

Now it was the
turn of Charlotte. She was put to the same interrogation, and made
similar replies. I had expected nothing less, since I knew that we
all caressed our little buttons to ease ourselves, and had done
since we first became women, and before. Most girls learnt the
trick quite early, and get much comfort from it when troubled.

After her
confessions had been duly noted between the covers of papa's
leather-clad volume, they then turned to other topics.

The business
outstanding from the last sitting of the court was the matter of
Charlotte's poor control of her tongue, and the doctor's
undertaking to secure a branks, or scold's bridle, which he now
produced for the approval of the company. That is, the males
present, the females naturally having no say in the matter.

I looked on,
appalled, as he set it on the desk. The branks consisted of a cage
of flat strips of iron, formed into an approximation of a woman's
head, though somewhat larger, since it was designed to contain an
actual female head within itself. The cage, for that is what it
was, was split vertically at about the ears, and hinged, so that it
could be put over the wearer's face and the rear swung closed and
locked, to trap her within, with no possibility of removing it
without the key.

A chain by
which she could be led about depended from a ring over the
nosepiece. Such a harsh and unyielding incarceration of the head
would be punishment enough, discouraging idle chatter, but what
made me catch my breath and my belly sink, was the cruel tab
affixed to the inside of the cage where a tongue might be, but a
tongue pointing inwards, not out. It was a flat piece of steel,
fixed with thumbscrews on the outside, so that its exact position
and angle could be adjusted to match the culprit locked within and,
worse still, the underside of this iron tongue carried rows of
short blunt spikes. Clearly it was intended to press down on the
wearer's tongue and, not only enforce her silence, but rip her
tongue should she nevertheless essay speech, merely gall her should
she not attempt it.

I shuddered
for my poor misguided sister, with her unruly tongue, but also for
myself, for try as we might, papa still found reason to reprimand
us for our remarks from time to time, and I doubted not that each
of us would taste that hideous tongue before long.

For now,
though, it was Charlotte who would have to wear that bitter bonnet,
and the doctor came round the desk to fit his fearsome millinery
over her delicate features. He ordered her to open her mouth,
reinforcing his instruction with a prod of his finger, and lifted
the front part of the open cage into place, the plate, with its
horrible spikes, penetrating her soft mouth and bearing down on her
small pink tongue. She kept her hands resolutely behind her back,
as was the requirement, but her eyes bulged at the horror of what
was happening to her, and she made nasal whines of protest as the
rear of the cage was swung shut, forcing the iron tongue, and that
of female flesh, into firm and painful contact.

The judge
addressed Charlotte again.

'In order to assist you learn to curb your tongue, you will
wear that bridle for the rest of the evening. One of you will come
for the key when you are ready to retire. Meanwhile,' he went on,
'there is the matter of the solitary vice to which you are all
prone...' It came to me that in confessing our usage, we had
omitted to tell them that it was by no means always solitary. On
the contrary, we more usually expressed our sisterly love for one
another by bringing about those soothing and relaxing spasms one
for the other. 'Such practices are not to be encouraged, and
stripes will be added to your tally each time it is indulged. Three
if confessed at once, four if it is only volunteered under
questioning, and six full cuts if caught in
flagrante delicta
.'

More stripes!
I cringed at the thought, and wondered if, in the comfort of my
room and with my buttocks racked with pain from a whipping, my anus
aching from rough distension, I might be tempted to take the relief
there and then, and pay later with my hinds. But the judge was not
yet finished.

'Moreover,' he
said, 'we deem it so necessary that you enjoy the full benefit of
the lessons imprinted in your buttocks by the rod, that you must be
denied the chance to exercise that soothing manualisation, and on
such evenings you will keep your beds with your hands secured
behind your backs, where they will be unable to reach those seats
of Satan between your thighs.'

Oh! What
doleful news. It needed no imagination to visualise the discomfort
such bondage would cause us, but we tried to face it without
showing our fear, for was it not all done with only our best
interest at heart?

Now the judge
was speaking again.

'Since each of
you has only confessed to this sin under direct questioning, the
law demands that you receive four strokes each.' He looked at
papa.

'Undoubtedly,'
agreed our mentor, 'I propose that each of us should deal with one
miscreant, and afterwards, while she is suitably positioned, reduce
that tension that I, for one, feel building so painfully in my
loins. Do you, judge, take Marion, doctor you may judge best how
Charlotte should be handled in the bridle, and I will attend to
Annabel.'

And so it was
done. Marion took her four strokes with her usual stoicism, and
after, brought the judge off with her now expert sphincter muscle.
It was not possible to gauge properly how Charlotte reacted, since
the sounds she made may have been on account of the interference
with her normal breathing of the cage on her head, and the cruel
blade pressing on her tongue. However, her whining and choking
gasps did not indicate that she was insensible of the doctor's cuts
to her buttocks, nor his ravaging of her fundament.

Finally I
found myself mounted on that fearful chair, yet again. My nether
cheeks cringed with a terror all their own, I could not control
them. Though I knew I would only have to take four strokes, the
long overture to this performance of the flogger's opera had sapped
my courage, and I was as much undone by the four searing stripes
papa laid on my bottom as by a full dozen on other occasions. I was
much ashamed, and could only sob miserably as he reamed my anus,
voiding his injurious juices in my bowel.