Reformatory Girls Ch. 04

"Please Miss McCloud," Ruth Bowers calls from the stall next to hers: "What has happened?"

"A girl has been taken sick," says Miss McCloud. "She is being attended to. Someone will attend to you presently."

With that Miss McCloud returns to Matron, Miss Bulstrode and the 'sick' girl.

Abi waits, still savouring her orgasm. The air is pulsing before her eyes, it is hard to stop her head lolling. She hears snatches of conversation, and what seems like whispered conversation. She is surprised at how long Miss Bulstrode is taking. The girls on second and third sitting, outside in the changing rooms with Miss Armstrong, must be getting impatient.

Then Miss Bulstrode does return, and plants herself in front of the six open cubicles, regarding the occupants. Abi waits for the instructions to wipe themselves.

"Stand up all of you," says Miss Bulstrode. Which is odd, thinks Abi.

"Have any of you girls wiped yourselves?" demands Miss Bulstrode.

The girls all answer in the negative. They know that is not allowed without supervision.

"Step forward all of you," says Miss Bulstrode.

Abi is puzzled: and with her puzzlement comes the first shiver of uncertainty. She starts to shuffle forwards, uncertain whether or not she is supposed to pull up her knickers and skirt. In the cubicle next to her Ruth Bowers has evidently attempted this, for Miss Bulstrode bellows at them to leave their knickers round their ankles. So the girls shuffle forwards like penguins.

"Now all of you stretch out your arms," Miss Bulstrode commands, when the six girls have shuffled just out of the cubicles.

Abi does so, whilst looking down the length washrooms where she can see Eve Thomas sprawled on the floor with Miss McCloud supporting her and Matron bending over her.

Miss Bulstrode goes first to Donna May. She takes Donna's right hand in her own, lowers her face and sniffs at it. She then does the same with Donna's left hand.

Abi starts to shake. Miss Bulstrode passes on to Ruth Bowers and repeats the performance, sniffing first at the fingers of her right hand, then those of her left hand.

Next it is Abi's turn. Miss Bulstrode takes her fingers and sniffs. As she leans down Abi can see the coarse grain of her cheeks, the open pores and the tiny broken blood vessels. She gives a slow nod as she sniffs at Abi's left hand, the one with which she has been masturbating. Her expression is growing grimmer by the second.

Kelly Watson and the last two girls also have their fingers sniffed. All three are shifting uncomfortably.

Then Miss Bulstrode steps back and regards them all.

"So," she says: "Six girls who thought they could get away with abusing themselves whilst my back was turned."

"No," says Kelly Watson in alarm: "No, I wasn't."

"Miss McCloud," Miss Bulstrode calls. "Could you come over here a moment."

Miss McCloud comes quietly towards them.

"Kindly sniff this girl's fingers and tell me what you can smell."

Miss McCloud takes Kelly's fingers and raises them to her nose. She sniffs carefully.

"I can smell a liar," she says.

Now all six girls, even Donna May, are trembling.

Miss Bulstrode extends her riding crop, and walks slowly along in front of them, running the tip of the crop over their bare thighs, like a pianist running fingernails over piano keys. The riding crop leaves as slight trace, a white mark across pink thighs, which quickly vanishes again. When Miss Bulstrode reaches Donna May she extends the crop between Donna's legs, and taps it upwards against Donna's vagina. Donna flinches: it does not quite hurt – it is done almost abstractedly, as though Miss Bulstrode is lost in thought - but it is not pleasant.

Suddenly Miss Bulstrode makes up her mind and takes a few steps towards Eve Thomas.

"Get up!" she commands.

Eve looks up uncertainly, looks across to Abi and the others then back to Miss Bultrode. She does not know what to do.

"I said Get Up," repeats Miss Bulstrode. This time she is rapping her left hand with her riding crop. "You've got three seconds."

Eve practically jumps to her feet.

"Remarkable," says Miss Bulstrode: "how quickly a girl who a moment ago was unconscious can get to her feet when I show her the riding crop. Now the rest of you – get out here and hold out your hands."

The five girls who were nearest to Eve come shuffling out of their cubicles. Each has hers fingers sniffed by Miss Bulstrode.

"Only two this time," says Miss Bulstrode. "Right: all of you: get into a line."

The girls, still shuffling awkwardly, form a single line.

"So let's see what we've got," says Miss Bulstrode. "Twelve girl who concocted a scheme to deceive Miss McCloud and myself in order that they could break one of the cardinal rules of this Reformatory.

"Please Miss Bulstrode," pipes up Suzanne Clarke, "I wasn't a part of it – I refused to have anything to do with."

"That's true Miss Bulstrode," says Laura Marsh.

"Is it?" asks Miss Bulstrode. "Yet you knew of it: why did you not report it?"

"I – " begins Sharon. But what can she say? That you never snitch? That if you do your life will not be worth living? "I – couldn't."

"Couldn't or wouldn't?" asks Miss Bulstrode. "No, don't bother to answer." She holds up her hand to silence any further protestations, and runs her eye over the others. "Would somebody like to give me an explanation?"

Abi catches a look from Ruth Bowers: it is not a friendly look. Abi is still groggy from her orgasm, but the shakiness she is now experiencing comes more from fear than rapture. Nevertheless, she has to speak:

"Please Miss Bulstrode," she says. "It was all my doing. I was the one who planned it and persuaded the others to go along with it."

As she speaks Abi sways: she feels she is about to faint: the thought of what might be in store almost overwhelms her. But she explains: about the lots they drew; how it wasn't Eve's fault she had to feign sick; how Suzanne Clarke had wanted no part in it.

Miss Bulstrode hears her out. Then she delivers her verdict.

"Right," she says. "This is far too serious to be dealt with now. We are well behind time and other people are waiting. You will all be thrashed in the gymnasium, after afternoon lessons. The four girls who did not abuse themselves will receive six strokes: the rest of you will receive nine strokes. You Kelly Watson, will receive one extra for lying. And you Abi Morgan will receive three extra for planning this disgraceful subversion "

Abi hears the collective gasp of horror: she sees a pair of naked thighs, she doesn't know whose, start to shake and a jet of urine spurt from between them. Then her own legs give way beneath her.

The gymnasium is a grand term for what is essentially a hall with a few padded mats, a vaulting horse, a set of wall bars and some beams and benches. It is one of the beams, stretched between the walls bars and a climbing frame at right-angles to the wall, that engages the attention of the eighteen girls who are seated in two rows of nine on two of the benches.

The beam is set at about shoulder height. And attached to the beam, about five feet apart, are two straps with buckle fastenings.

The hall is still: the smallest sound echoes off the walls and high ceiling. Four Wardens stand just behind the beam. The air is full of tension.

Presently the eighteen girls hear the sound of a door opening at the back of the hall, behind them. They start to shift, to turn their heads: some catch a brief glimpse of Miss Bulstrode and the twelve girls who are to be punished - until they are told to keep their eyes forward.

They can hear shuffling noises. Then, led by Miss Bulstrode, and followed by Miss McCloud, the twelve girls, completely naked, walk in single file to the front of the gymnasium. There they form a line against the wall. Some of them are shaking.

Clare Davenport, watching from the second row of benches, screws up her face. Next to her Tina Dukes winces. Neither girl wants to witness this.

Miss Bulstrode addresses the 'audience' with a few remarks on the girls' crimes, and the way in which Hazely deals with such disobedience. If it is designed to strike fear into the audience it is successful.

The other Wardens all step forward. Miss McCloud is carrying her thin whippy cane: the other four carry standard canes.

It appears that the girls are to be dealt with in alphabetical order. Ruth Bowers is first. She is led forward by two Wardens and positioned in front of the beam with her arms outstretched. Then her wrists are secured in the leather buckles.

She looks as though she is about to be crucified.

Her legs tremble. Were she not held upright her legs might well give way beneath her. Despite the fact that she – like all the other girls – has just been to the lavatory, her bladder twitches, threatens to betray her. She notices there is a mop and bucket resting against the wall bars.

Miss Bulstrode adopts a position behind her; Miss McCloud stands to the side just in front of her.

"Ruth Bowers: Nine strokes," announces Miss Bulstrode.

Then the riding crop whistles through the air, and Ruth Bowers is screaming, her body twisting forwards, her hands straining at the buckles as she tries to make instinctive gestures to protect herself. The watchers, Clare Davenport and Tina Dukes and Karen Frayn and the others, all gasp: Ruth Bowers' screams echo through the cavernous hall. Then Miss McCloud raises her cane and swipes it across the front of Ruth's naked thighs.

Ruth screams again. This time she flexes backwards: only for her bottom to meet the vicious downswing of Miss Bulstrode's riding crop.

Clare clasps her hand to her mouth. This is what is known as a 'back and front': something she has heard other girls speak of with fear and reverence, but has never herself witnessed.

Ruth's body no longer knows which way to flex. When she shies backwards she meets the crop, when she shies forwards it is Miss McCloud's whippy cane. The pain seems to be everywhere in her lower body: her thighs and her bottom are both screaming out. Yet still it goes on, stroke after stroke, each one compounding her agony. Her bottom and thighs are a mass of red lines, she has lost all control of her bladder, her screams echo from the walls and merge into fresh screams. When the nine strokes are over she is just a writhing, howling, almost inhuman figure of suffering.

The straps are undone. Ruth Bowers is led away, and immediately collapses onto one of the padded mats, where she is allowed to writhe, clutching at her thighs in a desperate attempt to clamp down on the pain.

Miss Barker mops up the pool of urine impassively.

The girls in the line, horror-struck at how much worse the punishments are in reality than they had been in their imaginations, are each and every one of them shaking.

Fay Dudley is strapped to the beam and her punishment announced. Her head lolls around: her eyes are staring but seeing nothing. There is something forlorn about her nakedness, her small, shaven, frail little pudenda.

This time Miss Armstrong and Miss Barker administer the punishment. It is 'only' six strokes: but by the time Fay Dudley is released to collapse on the mat her screams have practically deafened the onlookers, and the insides of her thighs are sticky with urine.

Three more canings follow. Laura Marsh, the third of them, flails her legs up into the air, clinging to the beam by her wrists alone in a desperate attempt to escape the lashings. The result is that she is struck haphazardly, across the insides of her legs and thighs, bringing screams to her lips and tears to her eyes.

At the sight of Laura crying Tina Dukes puts her hands over her eyes – until she is ordered by Miss Bulstrode to remove them.

Then it is Donna May's turn. Donna is pale, but of one thing she is determined: she is not going to wet herself. She steels herself as her wrists are confined, and tightens the muscles around her vagina.

It is Miss Bulstrode and Miss McCloud again. There is no hint of softness about the latter now, as she swipes her cane across the front of Donna's thighs. Donna gasps at the pain, but she doesn't cry out. Her bottom feels as though it has been slashed with a knife as Miss Bulstrode's crop lashes down across it. This time Donna cannot repress a cry. Then as the blows come thick and fast her throaty, strangled cries give way to screams. She has been caned before, but nothing as ferocious as this: her hands clench: she feels a wild savagery take over her, she wants to hit out, to lash back at the people who are doing this too her. But her wrists are bound fast: in desperation she kicks out, much as Laura had done, her legs flailing wildly towards Miss McCloud: with the result that the blow which was directed across her thighs lands squarely between them, on the top of her pudenda. She screams fit to bring the gymnasium roof down.

"Keep still you little wildcat," orders Miss Bulstrode. But Donna has lost it completely and is kicking out so violently that Miss Armstrong and Miss Barker are called to suppress her. Each takes a leg: now Donna is held fast by her wrists and by her legs, which are clamped open. Miss Bulstrode continues to thrash her backside, but it is not clear how Miss McCloud will get at her thighs. Miss McCloud solves that problem by directing her last two stripes onto the insides of Donna's thighs as Miss Armstrong and Miss Barker hold them open.

Donna's whole demeanour is so savage and potentially dangerous that Miss Bulstrode is loath to release her. Instead the Wardens pause, and let Donna stand there – to 'cool down" as Miss McCloud puts it. But Donna is gasping for breath: quickly the savagery leaves her, her cries of anger become cries of pain and distress. Miss McCloud releases her and she hobbles away to collapse onto the mat, barely registering the fact that despite everything she has been through she has somehow, miraculously, managed not to wet herself.

"Abigail Morgan," Miss Bulstrode announces. "Twelve strokes."

Abi steps forward like someone going to the gallows. Indeed, she wishes she could die, now, of a stroke maybe or a heart attack.

But she is not going to die. And, like the others, she has been warned that if she faints she will be revived – as she was in the washrooms – and her punishment will continue.

Her wrists are strapped to the beam, and she gazes out at the faces of the girls on the benches, aware of her nakedness, afraid of what she might do, how she might further disgrace herself.

As she is the self-confessed ringleader, each of the six Wardens will play a part in her punishment.

And so it begins. Pain sears through her buttocks. Pain sears through her thighs. Pain sears through the backs of her thighs. She gasps and yelps and howls because she cannot help herself, nobody could help themselves. She writhes and struggles and screams because she can do nothing else, all her reactions are involuntary. And each time she is struck she is amazed at the pain: she had never known such pain could exist, let alone that anybody could deliberately inflict it. But she endures it because she has no choice: nothing, absolutely nothing, can stop the Wardens from thrashing her. And though she cries out, No – Please – No, these are not real pleas, not issued with any expectation of success, but just involuntary vocalisations.

When she is let down she collapses to her knees, and has to be helped away to the exercise mat.

Miss Barker, impassive as ever, mops up the puddle of urine Abi isn't even aware of creating.

Eve Thomas is strapped to the beam, and the Wardens take their positions. Eve gazes out over the two rows of girls who all have their eyes fixed upon her.

But what of them, these eighteen girls who are witnessing these vicious punishments?

Their faces tell that they are appalled. Clare Davenport and Tina Dukes can hardly bear to watch, and would not watch were it not compulsory. The other girls too: though some have been hardened by life in Hazely, they are all humane girls, they understand and can empathise with suffering. If asked, they would deplore and condemn what is happening. There is not one of them who would not put a stop to it all, if they had the power to do so.

But look a little deeper: look at what is going on invisibly, beneath the surface. Inside the brains of these girls, complex neurons are firing, complicated little circuits of electrical pulses are being activated. And some of these electrical pulses are carrying messages which translate into excitations, activating circuits which are experienced by the girls as pleasure; arousal; and sexual stimulation.

They watch the cane land on poor Eve Thomas's naked bottom. They hear her cry out: they see her breasts wobble and her thighs shudder. They gasp: they almost feel her pain. It is cruel, they think: it is brutal.

But a frisson of sexual excitement steals over them.

Look closer. Glide like an invisible ghost along the rows of benches, glide up under the girls' skirts, look at their thighs, plump and white, look at the tight stretch of their prison knickers, look at the little patches of dampness. Look behind the tight stretch of their knickers, see how the blood flows into their labia, how their clitorises have swollen, see how moist they are around their openings. Some of them are scarcely aware of these changes, these excitations. They are too caught up with the moral dimension of the punishments, and too empathetic towards the victims. Others are aware of them but try to suppress them: they feel it is wrong to be aroused by another girl's suffering. But some, perhaps half, of the audience are prepared to enjoy these sensations. Surreptitiously, of course. Outwardly they mime horror. But as they see girls strapped helpless to the beam, hear them scream and watch them writhe, witness their humiliation as urine sprays from between their legs, they cultivate the little shivers of pleasure that swell their sexual organs and moisten their vaginas.

Some of them even fidget a little on the benches, trying to enhance their sensations. Look closer at one girl in particular: Sienna Sharples. Sienna has been wriggling surreptitiously for the last three quarters of an hour: ever since Miss Bulstrode's riding crop first put a stripe across Ruth Bowers' bottom. Eve Thomas has now been thrashed and released, and Kelly Watson has replaced her. There is something about Kelly's shape which Sienna finds particularly arousing. Kelly is like two mismatched halves of the kind you get in that children's game. If you looked at her big arse and her sturdy thighs you would guess that she had cleavage to match, 40 double D at the minimum. But if you looked at her flat little tits you'd imagine she was as slender and insubstantial as a switch of willow. When Sienna sees the cane fall across those strapping thighs and watches that big-boned ungainly girl struggle and gyrate, neurons somewhere in her brain begin firing up a hailstorm of sensation.

Look at Sienna's shapely legs under her skirt. Look at the damp patch spreading over her crotch. Look at how her labia swell; look at her soft, small tummy rising and falling under the waistband of her knickers, and listen to her breathing, growing increasingly shallow and rapid. Sienna is so aroused by the canings she is on the verge of an orgasm. She cannot quite get there, but the punishments are nearing the end, they will not go on indefinitely. She wriggles and fidgets as much as she dares: she is trying to get some friction against the cotton of her knickers. She thinks she knows how to do it: taking a chance she reaches behind her back with one hand, and through her skirt she grabs the waistband of her knickers and pulls. Her knickers tighten under her legs: she withdraws her hand and pushes, forwards and downwards, with her hips. Her clitoris makes contact with her knickers and a little friction is established.