From the Top Shelf - The First Time

I enjoy reading spanking stories that are written in a creative manner. Last week the story by John Undermeyer took the form of a diary. This week, Undermeyer is back with You Never Forget the First Time, an interview in the year 1909 between a journalist from the Gentlemens Gazette and a Professor D.S.W. McKay who has recently retired from his post as Principal of a young ladies' finishing school in St.Moritz, Switzerland. Wealthy British parents sent their girls, aged 18 to 20, to board at the school for two years to learn etiquette, protocol and other social graces prior to being married off to an appropriate suitor

Professor McKay's conversation moves from the academic curriculum to the sensitive matter of discipline.

Gazette: Was discipline strict during your time as Principal, Professor?

McKay: No more than at other finishing schools. On occasion I felt we were more lenient than some. Girls were always consulted about any decision to cane - they had to agree the sentence was deserved, and consent to it taking place.

Gazette: And did they consent?

McKay: Almost always. Part of being accepted as a student was they could not be exempt from discipline. We talked to their parents and usually a parent explained carefully to her daughter that this was a condition of coming to St. Moritz. Once they understood that, girls came to us knowing and accepting our condition.

I should add that discipline was important at all finishing schools. Girls were a long way from home and we acted in loco parentis.

Gazette: They had brothers at Eton, Harrow and other British public schools so the girls must have known that the cane was used there.

McKay: Of course, and that made matters easier for us. Moreover it was rare to have to cane a girl more than once.

Gazette: Quite.

McKay: When a girl came before me, I could usually tell if it was her first time to be punished, because although she tried to, she could not hide that slight trace of defiance. Perhaps defiance is too strong a word, it was really a veneer of forced casualness, to protect her self esteem. She had her pride and did not want me to think she was a coward.

Girls never rebelled, for that would simply have made matters worse. In fact they were brave, agreed to be caned but did not agree to be cowed, or to subjugate their will to mine. They would be true to themselves throughout whatever happened - or so they thought before their first caning.

Gazette: Did you cane only on the bottom? Or on the hands too?

McKay: The bottom only, never the hands, legs or thighs. If you cane hands, the girl cannot write for a day or so and to cane the other parts is to over-egg the pudding - the posterior is deeply fleshy, made to take the cane.

NB. It is worth informing the reader that girls always removed their bloomers in a side room adjacent to Professor McKay's study and were taken through to the punishment chair by Matron or the Gym Mistress. Professor McKay never watched the girls dress or undress, nor was he ever alone with them.

Gazette: How did you make the punished girls stand?

McKay: They did not stand at all. I had them bent in an inverted 'U' over a chair. The chair had a high back, the girl reached down with both hands and held the seat, which pushed her bottom up, ready to receive just what she deserved.

Gazette: What other symptoms did you see in girls to be caned for the first time?

McKay: They were more self-possessed; tense and anxious, yes but not disturbed. Calm is a strange word to use but compared to a girl who has been caned before, a cane-virgin saw she was in a difficult situation, accepted it and consoled herself by thinking that the end would, finally, come. A second-timer acted very differently - heart in her mouth, a hole where her tummy ought to be, almost hyperventilating, very panicky.

Gazette: Why the difference?

McKay: Because the first timer had no idea what she was in for, had no idea how devastating a caning is, and imagined she would be able to endure it with her self-respect and dignity at least partly intact. Whereas a girl who had been caned before had no illusions as to what she must face. She knew the effect of a well laid-on cut of the cane and the terrible pain it produces.

Gazette: Did you keep the girls waiting long before you gave them the cane?

McKay: Oh, not at all. Some of my colleagues believed in giving the guilty party a day to think things over. This does mean a girl remains apprehensive for a day which can be considered part of the punishment. For myself I preferred to chastise immediately.

Gazette: Tell me about the chair you used.

McKay: It had a high back, topped by a padded roll. The girl reached over, her tummy resting on the roll, and held onto the seat. The roll prevented the chair back from digging into her too much. I insisted girls pulled hard on the seat and forbade them to let go of it. The stretching meant their buttocks were proud and firm, and the skin taut.

Gazette: Is it possible for a girl to suffer such an ordeal and continue to hold the seat all through chastisement?

McKay: As you would expect, girls forgot my instructions and their hands flew upwards and outwards. Some even began to try and get up. All this is quite understandable of course, but it usually meant the stroke being disallowed.

Gazette: I take it that you caned hard?

McKay: I know of no other way. Since newcomers to the cane did not know this they were not very afraid, whereas a girl who had experienced my cane before was often in deep fear.

Gazette: Did she still have to pay for her misbehaviour?

McKay: When I laid the first stroke onto a 'new' girl there was always a fraction of a second silence. The girl - shocked beyond belief - fought fiercely to subdue the pain. She tensed every muscle in her body, brought all her strength of mind to bear, struggled to control her emotions and movements and hide from me the effect the stroke had had. But I well knew the effect it had. I had my own share of punishment at public school. The bent young lady refused to show her feelings and battled against the growing pain, even though it worsened as every second elapsed.

Gazette: She was still trying to be brave, then?

McKay: That was one of her thoughts, but it wasn't long before another took its place. If my first stroke was so hard to bear how would she endure the strokes to come? Because there was no answer to that, she forced the thought away, deciding despite the odds that she was brave enough and had the strength of will to take whatever I gave her.

Gazette: You knew your girls well.

McKay: Oh yes, of course. Determined to resist she summoned up all her courage and self control - then I caned her again. Always I placed the second stroke as near to the first as I could, in fact right on top of it if my aim was true. I was well practised and achieved my aim nine times out of ten. That changed the whole picture. Pain exploded across her bottom with terrible effect. Her hips jerked forward, her head swung up and her knees sagged. Then I invariably heard a gurgled cry despite her determination to remain silent.

Oh she hated herself for making a noise, it showed weakness to the enemy. You would hear the sound of breath sucked in through the teeth and blown out again through the opened mouth. Part of this was because she was angry, absolutely furious, incensed that I could treat her this way. Another part was simply to relieve the hurt. Sometimes a girl's fingers would splay and one of my staff would rest a hand on the small of her back, as a reminder that she must not rise.

Gazette: That is two strokes delivered.

McKay: Sometimes girls were riven by a shudder that ran right through them. At this point some started to think irrationally of revenge, how they'd like to get their own back on me. Silently they damned me to the fires of Hell, to burn forever. Hatred began to ooze out of their bodies, invisibly but totally tangible.

The defiance was still there, stronger now, but due to become weaker very soon. Defiance soon disappeared and anger was dissolved as soon as I caned for the third time. Often the third stroke was the watershed. Most of the girls roared in protest, their screams often deafening, then dissolved into tears. This was partly due to the pain but also the humiliating realisation that there was no way of surviving this with dignity and even the idea of holding onto self-esteem was a foolish one.

Gazette: Mmm, submission after three strokes. Interesting.

McKay: Any idea of remaining still, enduring with stoicism, was banished and girls could see how stupid it had been to have nursed such false hopes. Now at last they knew what second-timers understood and feared, that a caning at St. Moritz was a terrible thing and the effect lasted long after I'd put down my cane. They cried because flames engulfed their bottoms and secondly, because they were now on the edge of hopelessness.

Gazette: Approaching total despair I would imagine.

McKay: Oh yes. They howled loudly for a while, then usually the noise quietened to a snivel, punctuated by jerking shoulders and gulping air. But I have known girls who wailed for the rest of the session, heads tossing about all the time, faces distorted, tears cascading down wet cheeks, mouth wide, noses glistening. I could see their minds at work. Will this go on much longer?

Gazette: It sounds quite fearful.

McKay: Since the school never sentenced girls to a caning lightly, but only after a hearing where they could properly defend themselves and since they'd agreed that the punishment was just and they would accept it, it had to be fearful. Defiance could not and would not be tolerated, nor resentment allowed to linger in the mind. Fear had to hold sway, fear that these girls would never hold their heads up in public again.

Gazette: Strong words, Professor.

McKay: They are, and the fact is I never had a girl, punished by my rod, who ever came away from punishment with her spirit intact. Not to cane hard is to wound a tigress and then leave her free to roam - one day the wounded creature will turn and attack you. Any girl at this age, punished so shamefully in this way, entertains thoughts of vengeance. Punishment must destroy such thoughts so that when she recalls her caning later she remembers it was so hideous that it destroyed her will to endure another. The immutable authority of the caner must be seared into her mind.

Gazette: Why did you cane? What were a girl's worst faults?

McKay: Sexual promiscuity. Now I've said that you understand I took my responsibilities seriously. Eighteen-year-old girls have a healthy interest in matters sexual; at the same time they must have no opportunity to indulge in intercourse, or even the stages leading up to intercourse, in case they fall pregnant. Throughout my career I never had to tell a parent their daughter was to have an illegitimate child although there were Principals of my acquaintance who were not so fortunate.

Deep kissing, fondling, heavy petting and especially touching the sexual organs led a girl directly to the caning chair and they knew as much before coming to us.

Gazette: May we return to a girl's behaviour under the rod?

McKay: Yes, of course. By the time the third stroke was absorbed, the girl had no doubt about the nature of corporal punishment and from this stage she was often deeply submissive, the only thought in her mind being how to lessen the pain. Unhappily for her that was impossible and by now she wished she were anywhere but in her own body.

Gazette: Tell me about the fourth stroke.

McKay: I looked closely at the culprit. She gripped the chair hard, which may have been a sign of submission, or just as much because she was struggling to keep her balance. I kept her so that her head almost touched the seat. I raised the cane and made the cut, this time on unlined flesh. If her knees began to give I tapped them gently, a touch to the insides kept her taut for the remaining two strokes.

Gazette: You usually caned six times?

McKay: Six strokes, yes. Any fewer and the girl still harboured thoughts of rebellion. Any more and I was caning a girl already conquered. The fifth stroke was interesting...

Gazette: In what way?

McKay: When they'd had four, most girls could resist no longer; the sly bravado shown when they first bent over was destroyed. In fact some of my staff believed I should end punishment at four. But I continued, because although every girl wept blindly by now, some still harboured a nub of hatred. The fifth stroke reached into the deepest reserves of resistance, found the last vestige of courage and rendered the rebel hopeless. I laid-on especially hard, to scour all remaining strength away.

Gazette: How did the caning end?

McKay: That depended whether the fifth stroke was really the end of the matter and generally it was.In such cases the sixth stroke could be quite perfunctory, my task was over and the girl truly repented whatever she had done wrong.

There were rare times, however, when I was dealing with a real tigress and if I suspected, even given the writhing and weeping, that submission was not total, I made sure that last stroke came down hardest of all, with all the authority and strength I could muster.

I looked at her bottom to see how tightly the cane had been laid and almost always the stripes were in a narrow reddening band. I aimed directly at that band and laid that sixth stroke hard across one or more of the first five. The 'doubling-up' heightened the pain so much that this was invariably the last straw.

With my tigress caned I allowed the Gym Mistress and Matron to take the defeated girl to the dormitory. I need not tell you of the chattering and inspecting that went on when the girls went to bed. Everyone wanted a look and some girls were very excited by the sight. However the severe marks taught them never to attempt sex while in my care. The cane always won the day.

Gazette: Professor, thank you for your time. It has been most illuminating.