From the Top Shelf - Ellen's Civil Disobedience

Another excerpt from the novel Ellen's Story, by Anonymous. Ellen is now 18 years of age and is employed as a trainee teacher by the same headmaster who caned her in a previous chapter. She is now a responsible professional, but that doesn't stop her from getting into hot water.

Ellen finds out about a proposed plan to cut down several old elm trees that stand in a nearby meadow. She loves the trees and wants to save them, so with the help of her good friend Rachel she devises a plan to thwart the woodsmen.

At just after eight o' clock that morning the three sawyers arrived to the accompaniment of hobnailed boots, jingling harness and cheerful whistling. They were fully laden with a multitude of tackle, ropes,ladders, axes and saws.

Little did they know, but at that very moment Rachel and I were gazing insolently down at them, perched in the topmost branches of the tallest elm.

The 'Gaffer', a beetle-browed, bull-necked, ferocious looking fellow in his forties, strode up and down beneath us, leisurely 'sizing up the job' prior to directing operations. His second in command, a thin, ugly, gypsy-like man, busied himself with laying out the ropes and tackle while the third member of the crew, a gangling fair haired boy of about my own age, shrugged off his jacket and commenced limbering up exercises by leaping, ape-like, into the lower branches of a nearby elm and darting in devil-may-care manner from bough to bough. I noticed with some pleasure that his slim build was quite deceptive. Beneath his grimy shirtsleeves were powerful muscles- likewise his thighs!
"Hey! You up there!" the Gaffer bellowed angrily, catching sight of our purple and green frocks and our flowing manes of hair, half hidden among the leaves. "What in hell's name be you two lassies a-doin' up that there elm? Come down this instant afore ye break yer necks!" he roared with a face as black as thunder.

I stuck my tongue out at him defiantly as I sat alongside Rachel on an overhanging bough thicker than a man's thigh. We gazed down with amused complacency at the gesticulating Gaffer, his face red with anger. We dangled our legs nonchalantly and felt pretty pleased with ourselves...

Again, the gaffer - Clem we discovered his name to be - yelled peremptorily at us to come down. Again we shook our heads vigorously and stuck our tongues out in defiance...

"Are ye comin' down - or do we 'ave to come and get ye?" roared Clem like an angry bull.

"You harm these beautiful trees over my dead body, you stupid oafs!" I screamed, once more exulting in the foolhardy, dangerous game I was playing, despite all my growing fears.

Clem swore a great oath then turned to consult with his men. At his bidding the boy, with a long rope around his waist, was despatched to climb our tree. He was being sent to fetch us down. Rachel clung to me and began to whimper in alarm. Within seconds the lad was a foot or two below our perch, grinning like a monkey and gazing blatantly up our skirts. Before Rachel could move to a higher bough in time to prevent him, he neatly lassoed her right ankle with the looped end of his rope, and, tugging gently but firmly, compelled her to make an ignominious and careful descent to the ground.

Rachel is in for it now, and Clem prepares to spank her.

Before he carried out his threat, Clem glared up into my tree and wagged an admonishing finger, shouting "An' after I've tanned your little friend's bum, then it'll be YOUR turn next, Missy! You're the REAL troublemaker, I can see! So whatever I gives yer friend it'll be a double dose for you! Understand?"

Then, for the immediate future, I was ignored. All the men's attention was directed at Rachel who, to her utter distress, found herself slung unceremoniously over Clem's broad lap, he having seated himself on a fallen bough. She shrieked and kicked her legs in terror and indignation as he hoisted up her skirts and petticoats, disclosing a beautifully plump round bottom decorously clad in white cotton knickers - but not for long! Rachel squealed in horror as, tugging impatiently at the waistband, Clem dragged her knickers down to her knees.

I felt consumed with pity for the poor mortified 18 year old girl as the bare white cheeks of her bottom were closely inspected and admiringly praised by the three men. From where I was perched I had a birds-eye view of Rachel's private parts and it was apparent from his expression that Clem was feasting his eyes greedily on the same area. I grew sick at the thought of a similar fate befalling me, yet at the same time that peculiar prickly excitement which I had experienced on similar occasions began to irresistibly invade my loins.

"Ooooh ow! Oh please stop!" Rachel howled in shame and misery as Clem's great slab-like palm descended speedily again and again in a blur of motion upon her quivering, blushing buttocks... For what seemed like ten minutes, Clem delivered the soundest spanking that the luckless Rachel had ever, I am certain, suffered in her life...

To make matters worse for Rachel, towards the end of the painful and lengthy chastisement, Clem ceased to belabour her scarlet bottom and turned his attentions to the soft delicate area of her naked thighs above the tops of her stockings. "Oh no! Please, I beg you, not there! It hurts!" she yelled at the top of her voice, kicking and scissoring her dainty legs indecorously - her black stockings alternately stretching and slackening in time to the frenzied jerking of her limbs.

When at last Clem decreed that Rachel had had enough, he allowed her to struggle up from his lap, weeping profusely. Shamefacedly replacing her undergarments she tottered off home amid hoots of derision from the men, and with never a backward glance in my direction.

When the boy came after me with his rope I led him a merry dance all over the tree but he was nimbler than me and eventually had me cornered in the top most branches. "Come down 'ere and take your medicine, you little minx!" he gasped breathlessly, slipping his rope around my ankle. I was as obstinate as a mule and refused to budge until he reached out both hands and pulled me down by my legs.

As ill-luck would have it, my skirt and petticoats became caught in one of the upper branches and, in the ensuing struggle, both garments ripped from waist to hem, so there I was kicking wildly and screaming insults dressed only in my thin blouse, knickers and stockings...

While Simon held me captive by my wrists, I watched in sullen despair as Clem walked across to a nearby birch tree and soon returned, stripping the leaves from half a dozen whippy wands of about 18 inches length which he proceeded to bind together at one end with a piece of twine. My mouth went dry and my heart began to pound as I realised his intention.
"Oh! You're not going to birch me, are you? You can't! You mustn't! It's wrong and shameful to birch a young girl!" I wailed piteously, all my angry resistance suddenly collapsing.

Next week it will Ellen's turn to be punished for her willful defiance.