From the Top Shelf - A Master of Discipline, part 16

Our story took a very dark turn last week, when Ruth awakened to find herself at the mercy of the students she had caned as well as the staff of Damocles Priory. Now the shoe is on the other foot and the young people are going to extract their revenge. There was also mention of sending Ruth to work in a brothel in Thailand, but first there are two canings to get through.

Ruth lowered her eyes from the vicious-looking cane. It was considerably heavier and more knotted than the one she had used on Nicky, and she recalled with a shiver just what her pupil's bottom had looked like at the end of her punishment.

"You both deserved what you got," she hissed defiantly at her tormentor. "That was legitimate school discipline; you deserved to be punished and the slate was wiped clean as a result. This is criminal kidnapping."

"I'm not going to argue with you. From what I saw and heard on Mould's video tapes, I'm launching you on a career at which you could excel. In fact, I may even be doing you a favour! Anyhow, you gave Nicky a total of eight stripes, so that's exactly what she's going to give you in return. Then we'll give you five minutes or so to recover, and then I'm going to give you back the six that your interference cost me. I'm going to imagine it's that scumbag Fullerton's scrawny backside I'm aiming at rather than your cute and shapely little bottom, so you can be sure there will be no mercy. Every stroke is going to count, believe me!"

As he finished his speech, Ruth tried frantically to wriggle free of her bonds. The memory of her birching at the hands of Reverend Mould was all too recent in her mind, and she could feel herself breaking out into a cold sweat as the sentence was pronounced. Pulling at the straps merely hurt her wrists and ankles and made her breasts swing uncomfortably beneath her. The restraints were far too effective for her to have any chance of escape.

Ruth's efforts to wrench herself free, and her concentration on Robin's words, left her unaware of Nicky taking up a position behind and to the left of her. Unused to her task, Nicky made no preliminary sighting taps on Ruth's buttocks. She just drew back the cane and delivered a stinging swipe, striking horizontally, making fortunate contact right across the central curve of her target.

Ruth was still struggling when the line of fire slashed across her upturned bottom. She had not even heard the warning swish of the approaching cane. The shock of the impact, followed a split second later by the burning sensation in her bottom, caused her to throw her head back, her mouth open, the air expelled from her lungs in a hoarse gasp.

"I-I'm sorry, Miss Jamieson, but you did hurt me a lot, and I didn't really deserve such a severe beating. I think you know that, don't you?" Nicky's voice was uncertain and apologetic.

"Don't tell her you're sorry! We've waited weeks for this. Now make the bitch squeal!" Robin snarled.

I'm damned if I'll squeal, Ruth thought, gritting her teeth as she heard the swish of the cane, warning her that the second stroke was on its way. Her determination was just sufficient to last out as Nicky inexpertly caned her bottom. After that first stroke, Ruth sensed that the youngster was not actually putting her full force into each stroke, but, nonetheless, the whippy rattan was more than sufficient to remind Ruth that she had indeed realised that her punishment of Nicky had been too severe. Again and again the rattan swished and cracked across her quivering bottom. Ruth tried to distract her mind from the pain by silently counting the strokes.

She had reached a count of eight when she heard the cane drop to the floor with a clatter, followed by the sound of running footsteps. This would have puzzled her had she not been too preoccupied with her own discomfort to think about anything else. Ruth allowed herself to go limp. It did nothing to relieve the smarting pain which seared through her bottom, but made her position just a little more bearable. The temperature of her bottom seemed to be still rising, even though the caning had ceased.

As she cautiously tried to work out which bits hurt the most, Ruth was thankful that Nicky, in her inexperience, had concentrated her efforts on the fleshier part of her backside. She was able to recall, all too easily, what it had felt like when the birch had worked its way down across the crease of her buttocks and on to her thighs. She did not think she could have maintained her silence if the heavy cane had made contact there. Nicky had placed her strokes in a random pattern all over Ruth's tightly restrained bottom, which now felt as if a blow-lamp had been applied to it. She felt a searing heat, with sharper individual pinpricks of pain where the welts had crossed one another.

A hard, rough-skinned hand brushed the inside of her thigh, reminding Ruth that, although Robin appeared to have left the room, the three Thais were still there, impassive and silent as ever. One of the men, she could not tell which, was behind her now. Fresh dimensions of horror churned in her mind as the hand relentlessly slid up between her widely spread legs. She squirmed and wriggled furiously, having exactly the opposite effect to what she intended, as the clenching of her bottom cheeks momentarily squeezed the intruding fingers.

"Master Robin was right." The heavily accented voice of Kim came from behind her. "She is enjoying her beating and becoming wet. This one will do very well in our 'house' in Bangkok."

The confirmation of her intended fate drew a sob from Ruth. Robin Henderson had sold her into some form of white slavery and she was doomed to end her days in a Bangkok brothel. For the first time since her abduction, fear took over from anger as her dominant reaction.

"Enough of that!" Robin had returned to the room. His voice was sharp, the edge of command still evident. "I told you - no handling the merchandise until I have finished with her. Then you can do what you like."

Ruth felt a hand under her chin, lifting her head, and found herself staring at her youthful tormentor.

"Now there's another score to settle," he snarled, his lip curling as he spoke. "Nicky has suddenly gone all squeamish and locked herself in her room. She says she doesn't want to see the rest of your punishment and even says to tell you she's sorry."

Ruth felt a small pang of hope. Perhaps Nicky might help her after all. If only she doesn't leave it too late, she thought, more to keep her spirits up than with any real conviction.

"I'm not a bit sorry, though, and I'm going to enjoy hearing you scream. You kept quiet when Nicky was caning you, but now you're dealing with a different proposition. I'm going to make you squeal, believe me. You'll be travelling to Thailand standing upright with your arse burning like a coal fire when I've finished with you, you'll see!"

"Do take care, Master Robin," Madam Karabengse spoke. "Take care not to damage the merchandise in your enthusiasm or we will have to reduce her price."

Ruth felt a hysterical desire to laugh at the sudden concern for her welfare.

"Don't worry, Madam K. I am only going to give her the traditional English six of the best - but I'm going to make them bloody good ones! We've been dishing that kind of treatment out to our better-off kids for centuries and nobody died! She's going to be pretty damned sore all right, but nothing worse."

He gave a cynical laugh as he moved round behind Ruth. Feeling the cane resting lightly across her bottom, Ruth willed herself to relax. She knew that what was coming was going to hurt and, with that knowledge, butterflies began to flutter inside her tummy and a surge of electricity coursed between her legs. She could feel a film of perspiration forming all over her body. The only thing she could do was let herself go limp, take what was coming, and try to let the tension escape. This time there would be no gritting of teeth; far better to let the yell come out.

The volume of sound as she screamed startled even Ruth. Robin must have learned his lessons extremely well from watching the Reverend's videos. His first stroke had landed low down on Ruth's bottom, exactly where her thighs and cheeks met. He had judged the swing perfectly, so that almost the entire length of the cane had made contact at the same instant, and her bottom cheeks had been lifted by the impact, before dropping back into place. The pain sank in, like a wave rolling up a shingle beach, gathering force as it came. It started as a localised pain at the point of impact but, as the seconds ticked away, its effects began to spread through her entire body.

Fully twenty seconds later, the fierce crack of wood on plump flesh, followed by another piercing scream, echoed around the high ceiling. Ruth broke down into sobs as she felt her buttocks quiver with the aftershocks of the second stroke. Although this phase of her torment only lasted for another eighty or ninety seconds, it was the longest and most agonising minute and a half of Ruth's life. Robin Henderson was very young, strong and fit, and his aim was near perfect, as was his timing. He placed each stroke just a fraction above the preceding one, so that each individual cut was felt, but, during the agonising wait between each blow, the sharply defined bands of fire blended into one throbbing, burning ache.

Ruth tried to count the strokes, to reassure herself that it was nearly over, that there were only four left, then three, then two, but it didn't help, and in any case she lost count after three. Had she not been so securely restrained, she would surely have fallen from the bench, the frantic threshing of her body being strong enough to make the wooden legs squeak on the polished floor.

"Now then, you bitch, try and sit down after that, if you can." Robin's voice was triumphant. "I'm going to leave you with Madam K and her brothers now. You should think yourself lucky. The good news for you is that we are going to let you have some Moon Balm on your bottom, a benefit Nicky and I never had after we got caned. The bad news for you is that tomorrow we are going to do this all over again!"

Ruth slumped, as much as her bonds would allow, her body wracked with sobs. The pain in her bottom was intense, but her mental agony was even more acute. The fact that her abuse had been carried out by her own former pupils made her humiliation all the more complete. She had been determined to retain at least some composure, preserve some shreds of dignity, so that when the worst was over she could retain her own self-esteem. But even that had been denied her. Robin had been strong enough, and expert enough, to break down her barriers of self-control completely. There was nothing left.

For several minutes, Ruth was left alone with her thoughts, the fire in her buttocks gradually subsiding from the level of fierce flames to a sensation akin to glowing coals. Then she became aware, dimly, of movements around her, and of voices speaking in an unfamiliar language. A hand touched her bottom and she flinched as the contact sent a new tongue of flame darting up the nerves of her spine. Madam Karabengse was bending over her, rubbing, massaging and Ruth was gratefully aware that the agony in her buttocks was being soothed away.

As the incredible ointment did its work and the pain in her backside ebbed away, Ruth became aware of other sensations, suppressed while the immediate effects of the caning had held her attention, but stimulated now by the housekeeper's deft fingers massaging her bottom, working the unguent into her throbbing gluteal muscles. The memory of Kim's finger probing the outer edges of her pussy returned. At that point, before Robin's sadistic beating had driven all such thoughts from her mind, Ruth had known that Kim's observation on her state of arousal had been correct. The shame of that knowledge returned to her now, together with the realisation that, as she had bucked and squirmed under the cane's metronomic stimulus, she had been grinding her pubic mound ever more firmly into the rough material of the padding which supported her. She could feel that her clitoris was as hard as a walnut, and she cursed her own body for betraying her so disgracefully.

Suddenly, Madam Karabengse's hand was no longer at Ruth's bottom.

"You are ready now, I think, for training." Madam Karabengse's voice was in her ear again.

What follows next in the original is a graphic description of several sexual acts that are not at all consensual, although Ruth does seem to enjoy them very much. I will leave them to your imagination and resume when the activities have concluded.

The intensity of her climax must have been the final straw in Ruth's weakened state for she blacked out. When she came back to her senses, she was being carried, unceremoniously, draped over the shoulder of one of the brothers, towards the bedrooms which she and the others had occupied on their first visit to Damocles Priory. She allowed herself to be dumped on the bed, and did not betray the fact that she had come round, fearing further assault. She need not have worried for Kim, whom she recognised through half-closed eyes, turned abruptly, left the room, noisily locking the door behind him.

Alone at last, Ruth turned face down on her bed and began to cry.

White slavery? Oh dear, that is definitely not something that I wish to discuss here on this blog. Let's hope that she will manage to escape that fate. Somehow, I think she will find a way.