“Ignorance is the road to nowhere,” ran the legend around the Saint Chad’s school coat of arms.

Roland D Denston eyed the noble words with a sense of pride. Of course the words were in Latin, and he doubted half the staff, leave alone the student body could read them. He sighed. In the old days they would thrash two dozen boys for failing a Latin test. That was before the school had admitted girls.

The head had tried to reassure him that because only the Sixth Form had girls, or young women as he insisted, that the school would not be compromised.

“We must change with the times Denston old boy,” he was given to saying.

Denston would only smile and say nothing in return.

With a nostalgic shake of his head Denston turned back to balcony overlooking the hall below. His hawk-like nose complimented his image of constant watchfulness as his steel grey eyes scanned ceaselessly under a harshly shorn rash of blue-black and white streaked hair. The black traditional gown only added to the picture.

Somewhere there was a commotion and he saw some grinning boys milling around below him all looking the same way; out to the entrance hall.

For a moment Denston considered intervening, but what was the point, it seemed there was always a commotion these days? Sooner or later any miscreant would come his way, if the situation warranted it.

He was about to turn away when he saw a rather harassed Miss Parish fighting her way through the gaggle of boys and trying to gain the stairs. The normally fierce woman was as usual armoured in tweed and grim of visage. However, just then she looked so out of sorts that she made no move to reprimand the boys but pushed on through heading Denston’s way.

“Mr Denston, oh Mr Denston,” she gasped when she saw him. “There has been a dreadful to do on the hockey field. The home team have got themselves into a dreadful row with the visitors. It took several teachers to separate them.

“Good God,” Denston spluttered, he had never heard of such a thing. If fact he hadn’t even known that they had had a hockey team. “Get these hooligans up here at once, all of them, my God if I don’t make them rue this day…”

“But Mr Denston I don’t think…” Miss Parish blustered.

Stupid weak woman, he thought, she was too soft, he didn’t wonder.

“All of them I say,” Denston snapped.

Miss Parish made to say more but then with a look of further consternation she turned back and scurried down the stairs to once again brave the melee.

“You boys,” Denston thundered from above, “Get to your classes.”

He did not need to tell them twice.

*

It was sometime later that he heard a knock at the door.

“Come,” he bellowed.

Miss Parish entered with some measure of composure and gave him an uncertain smile. “You wanted to… eh… see the hockey team,” she ventured.

“The rowdy brutes who have been roughhousing with a visiting team, was it?” he asked, in case there were two hockey teams in Miss Parish purview.

Miss Parish pursed her lips and nodded.

Denston shook his head and stood to straighten his gown. “A good thrashing all round will settle the matter,” he said.

“But…” Miss Parish started to say.

“Not going soft on me are you? You know how we do things? Or am I missing something?” Denston asked in a tone that didn’t expect a response.

“As you say,” Miss Parish sighed and backed out of the door.

Denston turned to his trusty rack of canes and ran his eye over each as he considered the best. Ordinarily he would match stick to boy, but a whole team required a one-size-fits-all type of affair. Six was too meagre for the offence, he pondered, eight at least or even 12. He reached for a medium cane that was longer than the rest.

The knock at the door was bravely done and confident.

“Come,” he intoned. Yes a dozen each he decided as he made his choice.

When he turned he was confronted by a young woman in a starched white polo-style shirt and a neat navy skirt extending demurely down her thighs. Her hair was dark blonde and mostly neat and tied up off her shoulder. For a moment he thought she must be a new games mistress, he had heard there was one. But what had she to do with the boys’ hockey team?

“You are…?” he began and gestured at her impatiently.

“Mason, Sir,” she said in a soft plummy voice. She stood at attention with her hands clasped behind her back.

“I haven’t had the pleasure,” he said, “Why…?”

“Mason, Sir, Captain of the Upper Sixth Women’s Team, Sir. As for why, Sir, they insulted the school Sir…” Mason said crisply and with some pride.

“Oh,” Denston said pointedly as the penny well and truly dropped.

It took him a moment to consider his options. He knew that strictly speaking girls weren’t exempt the cane, but usually, he supposed… he had no idea. He only knew that girls were not generally his province unless they sat at the back of one of his classes.

“How old are you Mason?” he asked in astonishment, genuinely puzzled by her lack of boater and pig tails. He wondered if the senior girls were permitted to paint their faces, but thought better of opening that can of worms or he would be there all day.

Mason eyed the cane in Mr Denston’s hands and drew in her cheeks with a small flush. She tried not to show any emotion, but she could hardly say she was surprised.

“I’m eh… 18 Sir… we are the senior team I am afraid Sir,” she made a face of regret and grimaced, “Should know better shouldn’t we? I… I’m sorry Sir, I know it was an awful dust up and all that, my responsibility entirely,” she said in an even voice.

Good for her, Denston thought, and nodded sagely as he might if she were a proper student and not a girl. Damn it all a breach of discipline was a breach of discipline. He had a job to do.

“All right Mason, any plea for clemency?” the master said sternly.

“No Sir,” Mason replied and drew herself upright.

“Alright, you know the drill,” he said and pulled a leather padded easy chair from the wall.

Mason shot the furniture a sideways look of horror and this time she swallowed. “Yes Sir,” she whispered, “Do I…?”

“Boys generally lower their pants and trousers and bend over the chair,” Denston suggested.

Mason’s eyes widened and she looked as if she was about to protest. Instead she said, “Yes Sir.”

As he watched the young woman removed her skirt, a wrap-around affair and folded it to place it on the seat of the chair. Then with only the barest of paused she thumbed her pants, thick tight shorts in style and the slid down her thighs to rest around her knees.

To avoid exposing her front she turned briskly and folded herself bottom upwards over the back of the chair.

A bottom is a bottom, Denston supposed, and steeled himself with detachment.

The bottom was round and firm. It was hard to equate it as belonging to a student at all. He stood forward and tapped Mason’s bottom twice with the cane and then he struck in the usual way.

The young woman gasped as stark white line on pale was drawn across her bare bottom. Then as the blood flooded the stroke mark it rose in a pink, then dusty red ridge. The pain with it, judging by the way she shook her bottom and made grimaced contortions with her face half visible from the side.

The second landed just under and made the girl grunt. Denston waited for two beats and the caned her again. He had decided on 12 and a dozen it would be. In any case the girl was taking it well and only the sudden panting breath belied any distress.

The caning was over in less than three minutes and then he invited the girl to stand.

“Yes Sir,” she sniffed, her eyes rimmed red and pooled with tears. She only made half a gesture to guard her front and Denston turned away until she repaired her dress.

“Let that be a lesson to you,” Denston said officiously.

“Yes Sir, thank you Sir,” Mason agreed and offered him her hand.

As tradition dictated he took it with a small perfunctory shake and bid her send the next girl.

*

Rugby being more his game, Denston had not quite realised that a full squad for Hockey had 20 or more girls in it and apparently they had all indulged in a brawl with the visitors. But there was nothing else for it as one after the other a parade of young women entered his office and lowered their underwear to bend bare bottomed over the armchair.

He marvelled at the variety of reactions each had. Although most indulged in hand-wringing reluctant to bare and bend, some were openly cheeky or even sullenly compliant, determined not to cry. One even made it and it was with a dry eye that one red head shook his hand.

Two begged and whined for a moment but soon yielded when he threatened to summon another teacher. The latter of these earned three extras, but she, as it turned out was the most gushingly grateful when it came to shake on it. She cried, sure enough, but was so slow in dressing herself that he had to scold her.

Smedley, she said her name was; and kept blathering, “Oh Sir, I am ever so sorry Sir, it won’t happen again,” all while shamelessly massaging her hind end.

He was still shaking his head in wonder as the cane-struck ninny blathered her way out of the door.

“Next,” she called once she was gone.

There was a long pause before the next girl came in and she had the audacity to be openly talking to Smedley over her shoulder as she entered.

This one reminded him of Mason, the first girl he had seen. Perhaps she was not as tall, but her chestnut brown hair was pinned up in a more mature style and again the girl was wearing far too much make-up in his opinion. Like Mason, she was also wearing the regulation school sport attire correctly, where so many had appeared slapdash.

“You girl, what is your name?” he bellowed.

The young woman gaped for a second and then shook herself into a smile. “Coolhurst, Amanda Coolhurst, but you can call me Manda, everybody does.”

“I most certainly will not,” Denston snarled, “Your behaviour was an outrage.”

“God yes,” Manda winced so that she was biting at the air and crinkled up her eyes, “So sorry.”

Denston glared at her for an awkward amount of time until finally he supplied a “Sir, you will call me Sir.”

“Oops, yes Sir,” she added a “sorry” and put an embarrassed hand to her mouth.

“Right, you know the drill,” Denston relaxed and took up his cane.

“The drill?” Manda said crisply and with puzzlement affixed to her face.

“Lower your under things and bend over the chair,” Denston ordered her.

“You want me to…?” Manda pursed her lips and eyed the door. Was it too late go back out and come in again? She had come to apologise but she hadn’t counted on this. Her parents had warned her that these provincial public schools had some funny ideas.

“Bare your bottom girl and bend over that chair,” Denston said in a slow firm tone.

Manda gulped and shot a look of horror at the chair. “Is this… I mean…” she became deflated and groaned, “Really?”

“Do you wish me to write you up and send for the headmaster? I might even call your parents,” he said, knowing he would do neither. No one ever defied him.

Manda remembered her last meeting with the head and had no wish to be on the carpet there again. That might very seriously impact her school career. As for calling her parents, what an odd notion, but God forbid they should hear about this debacle. They already had very definite views about her coming to this school in the first place.

“Nooo,” Manda said reluctantly. She looked uneasily at the cane and back to the chair.

“Then bare your bottom and bend over,” Denston said sharply, now steadily losing his patience.

“Can I ask… is it… is it usual to cane…?” Manda began.

Nothing was usual about this, he wanted to shout but instead he said, “Is it usual? Apparently so,” Denston growled “Now one last time, bend over.”

Manda gave a pained look and sighed. Then with a lick of her lips she turned to face the chair and reached under her skirt. The shorts came down with some effort and with a final roll of her eyes she lifted the skirt and bent over the chair to direct her bare bottom at the ceiling.

The feel of the leather pressed into her hips and she was acutely aware of the light chill on her bare skin and his as they must be, albeit professionally, scanning her naked bottom. She blushed until her ears burned.

Meanwhile watching Denston almost choked, good God, this girl was very much the young woman and recklessly careless of her modesty too, he thought with discomfort.

“Heels together a little more,” he coughed as he took up position behind her and to the side.

“Yes Sir,” she whispered and fixed her eyes on a particular spot on the wall. This was so embarrassing.

The cane tapped her twice across her proffered cheeks and she braced herself, her eyes not leaving the spot on the wall she had picked. It was an old trick learned from many previous sessions with the cane, although this was her first experience of bare bottom drill with a man.

The first swish and crack landed with a line of pain akin to a cut and her eyes almost popped out of her head. If this was a schoolboy caning then you could keep it. She was still rolling with it when the cut sawed in and became sharper.

“Oh, ah, oooh,” she whimpered. She had forgotten.

The second cut her across both bottom cheeks just below the first. Damn the man, he had waited until she had just got to handle the first stroke. This was worse and she barely held on to her tongue.

The third stroke completed the group and he waited a double pause before starting on the next set of three right where she sat, or still hoped to afterwards.

Denston tried to remain detached but there was something very… distracting about the six neat ridges that now emphasised this fully matured woman’s bare bottom. He needed to get out more, he decided, and he was suddenly disconcerted by the unfamiliar arrangement in his trousers. Maybe I should have delegated this job, but dash it all… he tugged at his collar and wiped his forehead.

Manda herself was panting like she had just come off the hockey field and had given herself over to inelegant mouth-breathing and tried not to cry. Big girls don’t cry, she told herself. But maybe she wanted to, she made a pout.

The next stroke cut higher again and taken by surprise, she yelped.

“Steady on,” she gasped, “That hurt.”

“That hurt,” he growled, “What?”

“Ah… I mean, that hurt Sir,” she blinked back the first trickle of water at her eyes.

“I mean, it is supposed to hurt, isn’t it?” he said pointedly.

“Yes Sir, thank you Sir,” she parroted. It seemed the right thing to… doooo! The eighth stroke was a bitch. No amend that to a ffffffffffff… “Bitch,” she grunted aloud.

“What did you say?” Denston snapped.

Manda sniffed. “Nothing Sir,” she replied.

“Three extra,” he told her.

“Ooh,” she whimpered.

By the time the next four strokes played out on her exposed behind she was crying and her bottom was on fire in lines of pain from the top of the cleft right down to where the thigh met lower curves of her seat.

“Now your three extras,” he told her and tapped her tender bottom with a little more force than she could quite handle. She hissed and wriggled under the faux assault.

At the next cut she screamed and quickly offered a “sorry.” That was a shock.

“Two more,” he said as he lay on the next.

Manda rolled with it but it was all she could do to hang on. The pain was killing. She was still hanging on when the final stroke made her let out one long groan.

“Jeeze,” she gasped.

“Up you get,” Denston sighed. “Are there any more waiting?” he added.

“Anymore?” she sniffed. Her face was red and wet from leaking eyes. Pulling up her tight hockey shorts was worth another two strokes. For tuppence she would have left them down. She executed an undignified jig as she smoothed down her skirt.

“Are there any more students, your team mates if you will, waiting for a swishing?” Denston asked irritably.

“Students?” she sucked in air and let it go as she massaged her bottom for England.

“Hey stop that,” he ordered.

“You think I am a student?” she gaped.

Denston stopped mouth open as if he were about to speak. Then he did. “Aren’t you?” He suddenly felt the walls of certainty crumble around him.

“I told you, I am Amanda Coolhurst… the new games mistress,” her words crashed into a heap as she realised his mistake a beat after he did.

“Oh Bollocks,” he said and closed his eyes so he would not see his career in pieces on the floor.

She looked at him open-mouthed for the longest second as she continued to claw at her tortured rear end. Then finally she managed an “Oh,” but her lips also found a smirk and suddenly she was on the edge of laughter.

“I thought…” he offered his arm in a placating gesture and shook his head as he trawled his personal lexicon for something more adequate than sorry.

“So I gather,” she blurted, laughter preventing anything more.

“I am so sorry,” he said, not thinking of anything else.

“No, actually I am sorry, my girls were outrageous, I…” she looked down at her attire and winced. At only 23 and dressed in school colours… the reason for his mistake was obvious. Then laughter overtook her. “Serves me right,” she giggled, “At least now I know the school isn’t completely mad. I wondered what the hell you were doing.”

“Miss Coolhurst, are you alright?” he said as he moved forward solicitously but then held back without touching her.

“I am fine. It was hardly my first rodeo, although it has been a while,” she laughed again.

This time so did he.

“What a way to meet,” he said tentatively. “I shall of course inform the head at once and take full responsibility.”

Manda stopped laughing. “Well…” she drawled, “About that… do you think we could keep this between ourselves?”

“Oh I assure you, the head is the soul of discretion. There is no chance that this will…” he protested.

“Not that so much,” she said in a brittle voice. “I haven’t exactly got off to a good start this term. Being new… I have already been on the carpet more than… if we could… maybe steady the ship about this afternoons events? And I promise I will try to keep better control.”

“Ah,” Denston said sagely, “I see. Yes I think…”

“Anyway with the threat of you I think the upper six might toe the line in future,” Manda laughed again.

“Right you are, anything to be of service,” Denston chuckled. “And any advice I can give you regarding… well you know…” he added.

“Right oh and thank you,” Manda said, then with an exaggerated extended arm she made to shake his hand.

He matched the gesture.

“Thank you Sir,” she said cheekily.

“Any time,” he responded and then realised what he had said.

Manda nodded and moved to the door. Then as she opened it she turned and said, “I might just take you up on that Sir,” and she winked.