From the Top Shelf - Lucette's First Spanking

Here is an extract from what is thought to be a genuine Victorian classic, Souvenirs from a Boarding School. In it, a young Belgian school-girl Lucette, the narrator, receives her first school punishment.

After the severe punishment that Marguerite van Helz had received in front of all the students of the boarding-house, for several days I was kept in awe by what I had seen, and the same was true of all my terrorised playmates who showed good behaviour, more than exemplary.

But that which must happen always happens; nothing can prevent the fatality of certain things that are due, and that one which was to rob my bottom of its school virginity happened quite naturally, since the efforts of the teachers and the playmates only tended towards forcing me to undress and to show the interesting parts of my anatomy.

In the reformatory which Madame de Quirinodo governed, informing and telling tales was cultivated to the point of becoming a match to a civil institution.

A playmate, I know not which one, for I would have scratched her eyes out with pleasure, went and told Miss Elisa that I had spent all morning drawing caricatures showing her in postures not flattering to her self respect.

Miss Elisa immediately concluded, with just cause, that I had not had time to learn my lessons, and without hesitating she questioned me first on my geography lesson which had been prepared for that day.

I did not know my lesson and I had hoped that having been questioned all the week, in all the other lessons, and having received the very best marks, that I would be left in peace that day. But it was not to be thus, and no sooner had we seated ourselves than Miss Elisa turned towards me and called my name.

"Mademoiselle Lucette."

I was so little expecting this that I felt myself suddenly become quite pale. The authority of our teachers was such that the least remark, the least warning was enough to completely distract us.

I shall always remember the question she asked me. It was the bed of the River Danube that I had to draw on the blackboard indicating the position of the cities through which it flowed.

Feeling more dead than alive, obnubilated by the consciousness that I did not know the least thing about the question, I went to the blackboard.

The whole thing was lamentable. With difficulty I stammered some confused explanations, disconcerted by the ironic look of my teacher who looked at me, while I floundered, with visible joy.

At each of my replies, the giggling of the pupils made me forget everything and it was with nameless anguish that I heard Miss Elisa conclude thus:

"Mademoiselle Lucette, you do not know a word of your lesson, you would have done far better to open your book than to have made caricatures all morning. In short, I think it is high time to be less indulgent towards you; you are, besides, sufficiently well informed as regards the practices of this school, to be able to bear like your playmates the punishments which it is customary to inflict on those who are lazy and undisciplined. You shall therefore be whipped; come up here near my desk."

Then all at once I became a coward, I was so afraid of being whipped that I threw myself at my teacher's feet and, joining my hands, I beseeched her to forgive me.

"For this time," I said, "please Miss, let me be. I promise that I shall never do it again, forgive me I beseech you!"

"Lucette, I have already forgiven you at least ten times. Your punishment is merited and, as I hate all this useless grimacing, I shall ask you to turn your back to your classmates, to lift up your skirts, take down your drawers, and to show these other young ladies your big naked bottom, that they may clearly see the sound whipping that you will get...for your first time I shall be satisfied with spanking your naughty bottom with my hand..hurry up and be quick!"

Tears darkened my vision and prevented me from seeing, my ears buzzed and I could not hear, and the sobbing in my sore throat left me unable to speak.

A slap fell on my cheek before I could make the slightest movements to hinder it.

"Will you hurry up and obey me, girl?"

"Yes..oh..ye-yes Miss."

But I stayed as motionless as a dormouse. Miss Elisa slapped me two or three times making my cheeks turn the colour of vermilion.

She had taken hold of my hair and she was violently shaking me, while railing at me in a hoarse voice.

"Will you obey...will you lift up your skirts..drop your drawers...tender your bottom...Ah, Mademoiselle is ashamed. Mademoiselle does not wish to show us all her moon, Mademoiselle does not wish to lose her dignity and appear ridiculous...in that case, Mademoiselle had but to study her lesson!"

All these vehement comments were intersected by slaps..The pain that Miss Elisa was causing me in pulling my hair made me yell...I no longer knew what I was doing.

"Yes, Miss...I am obeying...there, see...please do not beat me any more...please I am obeying...oh la la!...my head!"

In fact I was obeying in haste but awkwardly.

My two trembling hands lifted up my skirts showing my stockings and my bottom imprisoned in drawers. Arrived at this point of the indecent undressing exacted of me, Miss Elisa, seeing that I hesitated to unbutton my drawers, railed at me again.

"Open the slit of your drawers and bend down to show us all your behind!"

"Oh Miss, I cannot!"

"Well, and why not?"

"My drawers are closed ones."

"Stupid girl...then lower them and bend right over this table!"

I undid the ribbon and felt very embarrassed. All my refinement of a young virgin shattered by the affront I was about to receive. I felt the frail garment slip down my legs and twist itself around my ankles.

"Now bend down and lift up your chemise!"

"Oh Miss...please, you do it! I cannot. It-it is too shameful!"

"I require you to expose your own bottom...you yourself...now do it and bend over!"

I obeyed and first lay down over the table resting on my stomach, the points of my feet just touching the floor, in a posture tendering my bottom in a shamefully provoking manner.

"Now lift up your chemise!"

Miss Elisa stood next to me, my hands gripped the frail garment which veiled my posterior charms and I raised...the curtain. The cold air tickled my naked flesh...the cup of satisfaction was drunk to the dregs by my audience.. I was showing everything to my playmates who were giggling at my shameful exposure.

Miss Elisa did not hurry to spank me, for she was enjoying the beautiful sight that I was granting the class. I can say 'beautiful sight' without false modesty, for at that time I knew I was beautiful physically, as I had admired myself from all angles in front of my looking-glass, privy to my coquettishness.

After having scrutinised the ivory roundness which it was her mission to turn to bright red, Miss Elisa encircled my slim waist with her right arm, spread my chemise and my skirt as high as she could over my shoulders..and the merry dance began. She beat me in a painful and ridiculous manner, as they beat very little girls, with the flat of her hand. And yet I assure you that the pain was as burning as it could be; after the first slap I pressed the cheeks of my bottom together as tightly as I could to diminish the surface rendered, and to avoid the play of the thighs which would have shown the audience more than it was necessary to show.

Flac! Flac! Flac! The characteristic noise of a naked bottom that is being slapped rang in my ears and made me cry out "Oh, la, la!" each time that the stiff and nervous hand of my teacher came violently into contact with the satin skin of my bottom.

I felt the burn in my fleshy parts, that I soon spread out in all its roundness, despite my good intentions. The frantic dance that my bottom executed at each slap must have been a most amusing and revealing sight, if I was to judge from the choking laughter of my playmates.

The pain of the punishment was not sufficiently violent to prevent my hearing the whispering amongst my fellow students; their little laughs exasperated me; in spite of my pain I wished that Miss Elisa would beat them all too, to punish them for laughing at me. Oh how happy I would have been to see the bottoms palpitate and jump beneath the slaps or beneath the blows of a whip.

Now the sensation of burning that had seemed at the beginning quite tolerable, so that I had been thinking "So this is a spanking?" became quite frightful, and the screams that I had held back till then escaped me, although I did all I could to bravely bear this beating, which was to initiate my bottom to the delights of flagellation.

My supplications did not differ much from those of my playmates when they were in similar postures. We were all like little girls, and the only words that we could utter were exclamations of pain or cries of supplication.

My bottom, during this beating which was the first but far from the last in my life, was slapped some forty times. My flesh was now so painful that when I was sent back to my seat I felt that I was sitting on a red hot iron, inasmuch as Miss Elisa had not allowed me to pull up my drawers...I had been obliged, skirts lowered, to take my seat, my ankles enclosed in my drawers whose fine linen trailed lamentably in the dust.

Once seated I dare not raise my eyes as I felt the looks of all my playmates fixed upon me. I sat with head lowered, tears of mortification filling my eyes.

Suzanne Lance, who sat at my right hand, maliciously touched me with her hand.

"Why it's warm down below!" she whispered.

I blushed but did not reply, yet more tears formed on my lashes.

Georgette, who was my left hand neighbour, comforted me in a low voice, while the teacher corrected another student's copy book.

"My poor little thing..you are suffering..tonight I have something with which to open your door...I shall come and comfort you...to nurse you, yes?"

The bell rang for recess.

Humbly I turned to Miss Elisa:

"May I pull my drawers up now, Miss?"

"Yes you may do so...you have been sufficiently punished this time."

The pain of my bottom lessened and I did justice to the tea and bread and butter which we got at tea-time.

Then that night...I infringed on the rules of the school. Georgette found means of opening the door of my room although Miss Elisa had locked it.

Georgette, Georgette, in writing these lines, I think of you who were so loving and kind, and although the threat of the whip is no longer there to frighten me, I still blush at the memory of certain things that passed between us.

We can only guess what went on between Georgette and Lucette after lights out.