From the Top Shelf - Rule 28

This is a story written in the early 1980's by Evadne Richards. and is about a time long gone,  when English girls left school and went to secretarial college. Although they were nearly adults, usually sixteen or more, the disciplinary standards were quite strict; reports were sent back to parents if there was persistent lateness, and girls were kept back working overtime - a form of detention - if their work was not up to par. They needed a diploma to get a job so they put up with it. Whether any were actually corporally punished is doubtful but certainly the atmosphere was such that the possibility of it makes a credible story.

There was a notice pinned to the door which said 'KNOCK THEN ENTER'. Judith did so.

The Principal of Tupperwell's Secretarial Academy, a large ruddy-complexioned man in his early 50's, was seated at his desk checking stock lists. He was in his shirt-sleeves. It was a hot, airless day and the wireless had forecast thunderstorms by the afternoon.

Apart from the sheaf of invoices the only other objects on the well polished oak desk were an in-tray and an out-tray, blotting pad, paperweight, and a small stand-up calendar with the day's date displayed, Monday, September 12th, 1950.

Judith stood before the Principal's desk, politely waiting for him to look up from his labours and acknowledge her presence.

The minutes ticked by. It seemed like an eternity to Judith. She felt tired and listless; she'd hardly slept a wink last night for thinking about it.

She hoped she'd remembered to do all the right things that morning. She'd polished her black court shoes furiously, ensuring that the backs of them were properly done; she'd put on her nicest knickers and checked that her seams were straight. Had she forgotten anything?

At last the Principal put down his pen and looked up. He remembered Judith was a new girl. Maybe she hadn't heard of Rule 28. Would he have to put her in the picture? He cleared his throat.

Judith listened attentively as he extolled the high standards of the college, and the need for a system of strict discipline to ensure their continuance.

Judith, he said, had begun her college career disastrously. So far she'd been nothing but a bitter disappointment both to the Academy and to her parents. He pointed to a letter on his desk. Judith recognised the notepaper and the handwriting. It was from her dad.

"I have here, Judith, a communication from your father, fully authorising me to implement Rule 28. Are you fully acquainted with Rule 28? Would you like me to read it out to you from the college prospectus?"

His keen blue eyes studied the comely, well-groomed girl nervously fidgeting before him.

Judith already knew about Rule 28. The other girls had warned her what a ten o' clock appointment with the Principal invariably meant. But she had no choice in the matter. He was going to read it to her anyway, whether she liked it or not.

He put on his reading spectacles and drew out a prospectus from the drawer:

For absence without parent's note, persistent unpunctuality, gross negligence with office equipment, idleness, disobedience and insolence... corporal punishment may be administered at the discretion of the Principal.

He put down the prospectus and sighed patiently.

"I'm sure you're not a bad girl at heart, Judith." His stony features softened slightly and Judith managed a sickly smile in return.

"But," he went on, "your work is sloppy, sporadic and erratic. You've badly damaged one of our best typewriters, quite apart from dropping it on Mrs. Bridgewater's foot. Your father is of the opinion that you're just downright lazy and careless, and I'm inclined to agree with him.

"Well here at Tupperwell's we have developed an excellent way of dealing with lazy, careless girls!" A new hardness entered his voice. "A short sharp remedy, distasteful to many, painful and embarrassing for certain, but always effective!"

His fingers drummed a tattoo on the desk. He looked at his watch. Better get cracking, he thought. Two more to deal with after this one!

Judith hung her pretty head, too frightened and ashamed to look him in the eye. Her mouth was dry and she suddenly felt weak at the knees. She felt like a condemned prisoner about to face a firing squad.

He strode over to a cupboard by the window and extracted a whippy rattan cane. He tapped the top of the desk, indicating where she should bend.

Tears were already beginning to glisten in her eyes as Judith stretched herself awkwardly, apprehensively over the shiny wooden surface, gripping the far edge of the desk so tightly that her knuckles turned white.

She smelt the sickly aroma of wax polish. Her father's letter lay inches from her nose. With one eye she could just about decipher '...my full permission to punish her as severely as you...' she couldn't make out the rest of it, but it was as she'd feared. Her father had indeed given him carte blanche. She could expect no mercy.

She gasped in horror when he hoisted her full skirt and petticoat up to her shoulders. Her bottom, encased in the filmy nylon of her brand-new polka-dot panties, suddenly felt very exposed, sickeningly vulnerable. Her tummy did a double somersault and she clenched her buttocks tightly together in the hope that it would somehow prevent him seeing all there was to see...

She wished now that she'd worn an old pair of cotton knickers - at least they weren't so revealing. But she'd wanted to look grown-up, and she'd only been allowed to wear nylon ones since leaving school, seven and a half weeks before.

Her white suspenders dug painfully into the fronts of her thighs where the edge of the desk moulded the arch of her body - she was terrified they were going to snap. It reminded her unpleasantly of a popular joke on the wireless, the punch line of which was 'You should have used stronger elastic!' She was worried too, in case she laddered her new stockings, her pride and joy. Fully fashioned with seams, One shilling and eleven-pence halfpenny, from Lewis's.

But most of all she was just plain scared. Scared of the Principal, scared of the cane, scared of having to submit to this dreadful ordeal...

Softly, she began to cry.

The Principal surveyed the girl with wry amusement.

"Well, well, what have we here?" he chided, in the manner of addressing a child. "A big cry-baby, eh?"

That did it. Judith broke into loud sobs that shook her whole body, making her plump little bottom wobble appealingly.

"Just think of it like going to the dentist, Judith," he offered, helpfully. "Just hurts even more, that's all!"

Flexing the cane expertly, he addressed it to her well-spread, stuck-out bottom, with her flimsy knickers disappearing up her virginal cleft - delicate tracery of dark pubic hair peeping shyly through.

He tapped the broad swell of her out-thrust cheeks; slowly he drew back the cane...

SPLAAT!

It sped down like greased lightning and caught Judith right across the crowns of both buttocks, the tip of it viciously biting into the fleshy contours of the far cheek.

"Yeeeeowww!" she protested urgently.

"Relax your buttocks, Judith." the Principal advised. "It won't sting quite so much then."

Still battling with the outrageous smarting, Judith was mewling and spluttering, her immaculately varnished finger-nails scrabbling furiously all over the desk top. But she overcame her modesty, unclenched her bottom-cheeks, and they broadened and softened invitingly. Her polka-dot panties tautened and stretched to accommodate the greater spread.

He could see the bright red weal forming beneath the diaphanous nylon...maybe he should make her pull them down in case they split under the onslaught of the cane. He usually caned girls on the bare bottom anyway, unless, like Judith, it was the first time. He decided it would be unfair to make an exception so her knickers would have to take their chance!

THWAAACK!

Judith tried frantically to swerve and dodge the stroke. The end result was that her left buttock cheek alone took the full force of the impact, causing her considerably greater pain than if it had landed on both.

However, her wriggling annoyed the Principal so much that he despatched the third stroke immediately to the backs of her thighs before she'd even had time to draw breath.

THWAAACK!

There was a deathly hush then Judith found her voice and emitted a loud soprano wail - loud enough to be heard over half the college.

Betty Sugden and Dawn Fairweather, awaiting their turn outside the Principal's office, nearly wet themselves in fright

"Who's he got in there, anyway?" Betty demanded, biting her lip, all the colour draining from her cheeks.

"One of the new girls, Judith Marriot, I think," Dawn replied gloomily. "Talk about initiating her, sounds like he's thrashing her black and blue!"

The three thick, ridged tramlines on Judith's poor bottom were of such a vivid hue they looked as if they had been painted on.

But they were real, alright. Judith fingered them in horrified incredulity. She just couldn't believe this was happening to her. She would have to cancel her date with Colin tonight - that was for sure. Sitting down for any length of time was going to be out of the question, let alone three bum-torturing hours stuck in the back row of the cinema.

What would Colin think of her if he found out she'd been caned? Probably think she was just a big kid. He might even ditch her for the bitchy blonde in his office who fancied him, Judith thought glumly.

"Now keep still for the last three, Judith," the Principal berated her, "or I shall get very cross and add more strokes!"

He was so cold-blooded about it all. His patent unconcern at her plight intensified her feeling of abject humiliation a hundred fold. She thought what a comic spectacle he'd made of her, with her skirt and petticoat flung up to her shoulders, her pretty new knickers all twisted up in her pussy-crack, her bottom pushed out at a vulgar, indecent angle - bearing those shameful marks of the cane. All in all, she felt like a branded calf.

Her tears splashed down her cheeks, ruining her make-up. She knew she must look an utter mess.

THWAAAACK!

Judith's body jerked convulsively as the cane landed yet again, higher up this time. It buried itself in the thin fabric of her drum-tight panties but still they miraculously stayed intact. A shriek was drawn from her throat.

Her hands instinctively sought the fresh flash-point of pain, but the Principal tapped them away impatiently with the cane, warning her he was going to finish the job off there and then. He hadn't got all day to waste on her!

THWAAACK! THWAAACK!

The two final agonising strokes were laid on criss-cross fashion, goading the four other weals back to life with such a vengeance that Judith's bottom seemed to erupt into one great mass of pain.

"OH! OH! OH!!!! OHHHHHHHHHH!" she yelled at the top of her voice, hot bitter tears cascading down her face.

Betty and Dawn shivered and quaked outside the door. "Poor cow!" Dawn exclaimed and that said it all.

Minutes later the door opened. Judith, still sobbing hysterically, pushed past them and tottered down the corridor.

"Next!" the Principal snapped, cane in hand. Clutching protectively at the seats of their skirts, Betty and Dawn edged their way in. Both girls were practically in tears already.

At lunchtime the Principal was informed that Judith had vanished during the mid-morning break. No one had seen hide nor hair of her since. The Principal uttered a mild profanity under his breath and rang Judith's parents in order to cover the college legally.

Judith spent the remainder of the day feeding her sandwiches to the ducks in the park. She'd lost whatever appetite she once had. How she hated that beastly college! She vowed she would never go within a mile of it again. She would run away from home... if only! She'd tried to sit on a park bench but when that proved painfully impossible she lay on her tummy in the grass where the sunshine soon lulled her into a deep sleep.

"Where the hell have you been, Judith?" was the explosive greeting she got from her mother when she arrived home that evening. The clock showed ten past six. She'd been asleep for hours. "The Principal phoned us hours ago! Whatever possessed you to run away from college like that? We've been worried sick!" Mrs. Marriot cried.

"But Mummy, I've had a terrible day!" Judith wailed, "I've been given the -"

But at this point, her father, face as black as thunder, stuck his head round the door.

"Not another word out of you, young lady!" he bellowed angrily, "Just get up those stairs to your bedroom. Then you can wait for me to come upstairs. I'm going to give you the hiding of your life, young lady!"

"But Daddy!" she sobbed frantically,"I've already been -"

"NOT ANOTHER WORD!" he roared.

Sniffing and snuffling disconsolately, Judith made her way slowly upstairs. Life, she reflected, could be very cruel!

Very cruel indeed!