The Prussian Girls (16 page)

“You can hardly wait for it, can you?” said Maria, looking steadily at her friend. “Frankly, no. Can you?”

“I don't know.”

“Oh come on, confess it, Mary. You're intrigued, and why shouldn't you be? It's a just punishment. You're excited, say it. You're probably just as squidgy inside as I am, and you'll probably come watching it, too. Do you still have your marks, by the way?”

“Yes.”

“Still hurt?”

“I feel them, yes.”

“May I see them again?”

“Jacqui really slogged into you, didn't she? It must have hurt like absolute murder.”

“I thought so,” said Maria Daunitz. “Yet it was justice.”

The younger mistress sat up. “Yet it wasn't, Inge. I never knew that bit of bone was a gode at all.”

Incredulous, Ingeborg stared at her friend- “You… never knew? You're serious, Mary? Do you mean it? Why then…”

But a clanging bell interrupted them. Both leapt to their feet and filed in orderly fashion along the corridor outside. Their high heels made aggressive click-clock on the flagged flooring.

At an intersection three other mistresses, equally impeccable in black with their switches swinging, fell into step with them-Christina Holz, the gym mistress Frau Dick, and Fraulein Marit, a lively brunette from near Gentin who was fanning her face with a brand new Strafzettel. She rubbed her behind expressively, saying, “I'm afraid this is going to hurt someone else rather more than me.” All five mistresses looked bright-eyed to the point of girlish mischievousness.

“Have you heard the rumor?” said Christina Holz, as they strode along.

“What?”

“That the Privy Councillor, Count von Rantzau, has decided that it'll be either us or Wolfenbuttel for the Princess Elizabeth, and that the decision may well be made as the result of a sort of duel between our two academies.”

“A duel… how?”

“What is it, Kit? Explain.”

“I don't know, but they do say, the Directress may have requested it-well, a sort of representative contest in discipline!”

“Hm,” said one.

“Mistresses, too?”

“Why not?”

“Good old mistresses.”

“I've also heard,” said the chillier voice of Frau Dick, “that three of us are going to be sent to Count von Schmettau's Grenadiers some time next week.”

“Nine inches of sturdy gristle, I feel it in my guts right now,” said Wilhelmina Marit with a wink.

“Who?” asked Maria Daunitz quickly.

“I believe you're one… and Ingeborg…” But they had rounded the last bend and had to descend the big staircase in stately, awe-inspiring silence, five robust school mistresses each eagerly anticipating her share in the infliction of righteous castigation to come.

“Whee-whee!” whispered Ingeborg Untermacher in her friend's pink ear, imitating the whistle of the twigs.

The rows of girls in their respective classes who lined each side of Great Hall dropped like mown grass in curtseys, as the mistresses filed in and took their places on the dais confronting them. The space between the two ranks of Prussian maidens was eloquent of only one thing-corporeal fustigation of a severe sort. The black stone block had been installed centrally, and beside it, on a bench, several long birches lay steeping in flat glass trays of vinegar or brine, with other instruments beside. At the foot of the dais, on a level with the girls, stood in regulation costume the Duty Mistress of the day, tall Luzie Rombau, the Duty Prefect, whose name was Borcke, daughter of a Graf, and the Duty Maid. The Prefects stood like officers in front of their ranks, only they did so facing inwards-for it was their duty to see no girl took her eyes off the correction to ensue, little likelihood though there was of that. Almost at once Frau Grumkow came in, breeched, booted, and in three-quarter flared coat, looking immensely elegant and well bewigged, her monocle winking. The assembly sank to its knees, only rising on her word of command to do so. The stern Directress proceeded with the ceremony immediately, the mistresses seating themselves in a line.

“Barbara Mack?”

“Present, Ma'am.”

In the silence a girl marched out from the side and stood on the far side of the block, facing the dais.

“Monika Vorst”-another did so, by her friend's side.

“You two stand accused of the disgusting offense of unnatural practices, namely self-abuse. How do you plead?”

The two girls looked at each other-as if to say, who's to answer first? — then Barbara Mack called out clearly, “Guilty, Ma'am.”

She was a well-grown girl, with brown to tawny hair, and her mien suggested that she had resolved to face the worst with courage. Ingeborg Untermacher's description of her nether regions was, however, exact; the scant tunic seemed to hang loosely from waist until it espoused the very full center of the bottom, which clearly announced a prominent overhang. Monika Vorst the reader has met already and she stood less bravely, her cute blonde crop falling forward over tearful eyes, her liquid limbs shivering.

“Ger-guilty, Madam,” she said.

“Look up, girl, when you answer.”

Neither offender knew how many strokes she was to get; both had had plenty of time in Solitary to reflect on the count. Now the moment of sentencing was upon them, it was Monika who seemed to feel the occasion most obviously.

“We punish onanism severely at Schloss Rutenberg,” continued the Directress. “Have you anything to say why you should not be so punished?”

“No, Ma'am.”

“Ner-nothing to say, if you please. Madam.”

“Very well. Let this be a lesson to the whole school, in case anyone else present is so inclined. You will be stripped and publicly whipped on the naked buttocks with the birch-rod. You Monika Vorst, as the lesser offender, and mere accomplice, will be let off lightly. You will receive three dozen cuts, slowly laid on, and at full strength, with the birch, followed by seven Master's strokes. Furthermore, you will be reduced to the rank of scum for the rest of this term and, starting next week, you will report to Matron on rising and retiring for six strokes of the cane-for a period of five days, Monday through Friday.”

Monika Vorst's head fell. She visibly blanched. Next week, too! Allmachtiger Gott! An assured sixty cuts, outside any other correction she might acquire. She began to sob. How could she ever get through it?

“You, Mack, as the importer of the heinous object and instigator and corrupter, will be more severely dealt with. You will be scourged with the birch to the extent of sixty strokes-five clear dozen across your naked arse, to be followed by ten Master's cuts. You too will be reduced to scum for the remainder of the term, and you will do two weeks, of five days each, of a double six with the cane, on rising and retiring, from Matron.”

A gentle susurration, a sort of hushed gasp, ran through the assembly at this frightful sentence.

“Do you wish to appeal?” snapped the Directress.

This time Monika Vorst replied first, in nearly a wail, “Ner-ner-no!”

Suddenly, in a collected tone, adult for her years, Barbara Mack spoke out. “If I might throw myself on the leniency…”

“You wish to appeal?”

The words stood in the shocked silence a second.

“Against the rigor of the sentence, Ma'am, yes, if I might presume. It is more than required, for I did not commit the offense so very often. And am wholly remorseful for it now. I beg you to remit the second week of caning. I would willingly exchange it for another dozen of the birch, now, to be got over with at once.”

This sensible and mature address seemed to faze the Frau Directress a moment. Then she turned and consulted with her colleagues. There was a buzz on the platform, finally a rank of right thumbs turned down. Frau Grumkow came forward again, one foot slightly in front of and at an angle to the other.

“Appeal denied. What is the penalty for a failed Appeal, Duty Mistress?”

“In this case-six with the stick, Frau Direktrice.”

“Administer them.”

Lanky Luzie Rombau curtseyed and came leggily forward, almost mincing over the parquet in her gleaming boots. She selected a long whippy cane from the bench and drew Barbara Mack forward a few paces.

“Bend over and touch your toes.”

For ritual's sake she received the six across her knickers, skirt up, the snake-like stick eating into the taut material each cut. The last two made her clench slightly, but otherwise the girl took them very stoically, rising red-faced on order.

“Strip them,” came the next command.

For a public birching ritual required that the small chlamys be literally ripped off the body of the offender, panties following. Luzie Rombau effected this briskly and completely, tossing aside the miserable shreds of clothing; both girls were exposed in nothing more than tightly gartered stockings and high-heeled shoes. They created more than a quiver of interest in the girlish audience, not to mention several crossed legs in the row of seated mistresses. For both had been shaved. Monika Vorst's mons shone like some polished stone, demurely slit at the summit of her close thighs; Barbara Mack's mound had come out dark as a man's jowl, lumpy and vigorously cleft. She had smaller breasts, tiny buds, and a very narrow waist, but her buttocks swelled out almost to the point of distortion, the sulcus spreading right across them without break. Both pair appeared pinkened from the sandstoning they had received from the Matron, a preparation that made each feel she had spent a day uncovered behind in the scalding sun, and across Barbara's lower halves were now six lively purple weals.

“Have you anything more to say?” asked the Directress. There was not a hint of irony in her tone.

“Nothing to say, Madam,” replied Barbara Mack promptly. And her friend joined in with a mumble.

“Proceed with punishment. Fraulein Katte, two dozen strokes for Mack, if you please. Take your time and let them be felt.”

With a frown and a curtsey the mistress came down from the dais, honored to open the ceremony. Meanwhile, the Duty Prefect, Anneliese Borcke, advanced to secure the culprit.

The Rutenberg block for birching was simple, but effective, and most girls seemed to find it salutorily ignominious. The girl knelt on a ledge of the black stone, as now, and had her knees strapped well apart. She then bent herself over it. The surfaces either side were inclined, so that the sufferer lay forward at an angle rather than completely vertical-this was found highly effective since the twigs could thus cut right under the seat; when the thighs were due for work, they were duly brought together. At the apex was a leather pad to which the waist was strapped, and to which was attached a perineal thong when necessary. Finally, the girl's arms were secured behind her with elbow-wrist cuffs which drew her shoulders fully back and meant that she fell wholly forward over the front side, her weight in that way being drawn forward so that she could really get no purchase with her knees, to move or flinch off her right side. And, alas, fidelity to historical fact make it incumbent to remark that Frau Grumkow had added a further refinement, since coming to the Schloss. This forward edge had been so serrated that it pinched and pricked the under-chest of the individual who lay on it. Consequently, a girl under birching tried to arch off this additional irritation, thus further cambering up her hips behind.

Barbara Mack's were thus on display. One might say that Prafekt Borcke left her “all buttocks.” The bottom was at its thickest at the lowest part, the gluteal zone firm and fatty. A bulbous if hairless mound thrust back, like a fist, between the spread legs, and a narrow saddle-strap spliced it painfully. Katte measured aim with her excruciatingly long and drippy verge, tough-budded at the tips. Then came the familiar, but ever thrilling high-pitched whine of air-zzzschlisk!

The five or six limbs snipped scorchingly into the meaty flesh low down. Their first smart made the girl gasp and jerk. The Duty Prefect called out a drawled, “One!” The birching had begun.

Fraulein Katte took her time, indeed, working to tenderize the most sensitive regions first. For it was essential to start a birching right. She cut upwards, fairly thrashing into the buttock cheeks which soon began to bound and writhe. The cane marks were quickly blent into the striations of the birch, as the mistress played cleverly upon this area. Until eleven Barbara Mack made no sound in the silence, however, and even her anguished “Oh!” of protest then seemed as much from the pain at her chest as she bumped down after the cut.

Katte changed the rod at thirteen and covered the buttocks with a network of purple with the last eleven.

“Vorst,” called the Directress, as the Prefect undid the stoic Barbara Mack. “Two dozen strokes.”

But Monika Vorst was in an agony of indecision. Her head hung, tears welled from her eyes; her hands twisted in front of her. For she had been unable to contain herself for fear and the titters of her nearest comrades were due to the little amber puddle that leaked at her feet. As Barbara Mack was helped off the block, her arms still bound behind her, Luzie Rombau strode forward angrily.

“What is this?” She took one look, then tugging the girl's ear bent her head down and rubbed her nose in the urine. Monika sobbed protestingly. The mistress stood up. “Filthy little thing. Get the rags from your knickers and wipe it up at once.” She called back to the dais-“Could not hold her water, Frau Direktrice.”

“Penalty for Incontinence?” snapped the Head.

“I should like to give her ten.”

“Then by all means do so. Hard.”

Monika suffered, touching her toes. Then she too took the first twenty-four of her count. Fraulein Marit was privileged to administer these across the tender white chubbies of the fifteen-year-old and elicited biting cries and yelps by the end.

Then it was the turn for Barbara's second installment, another two dozen. “Damn,” whispered Ingeborg Untermacher to Maria Daunitz on the platform as the Head chose Christina Holz for the task, “she's getting nice and tender on the right. I'd so like to have a fling.”