The Ingram-Lewis Chronicles Pt. 03

Roderick just laughed and shrugged the matter off as of no consequence. "We'll cross that bridge, Patrick, if and when we have to, but for now, just be a good lad and present your arse to me as I am simply dying to give you a return match. Come on, stud, how do you fancy it tonight, doggy or face to face? It's the last time this holiday so let's make the most of it. I'll drill you into the ground," he concluded with a laugh. And he did exactly that; he fucked Patrick's arse as if there was no tomorrow and both young studs collapsed in a climax of cum, which was a fitting ending to their holiday together. It would be two very different and sexually experienced young men who would return to Rigby in a few days time. And both young studs were wondering how they could exercise their newly developed sexual expertise on their schoolmates.

But Patrick had actually meant what he said, for if an occasion arose where Roderick deserved a beating, then as Head Boy,he would be obliged to deliver it, friendship notwithstanding. It worried him slightly, though that was life. With position comes duty, and doing one's duty can sometimes be painfully unpleasant.

CHAPTER 9

Patrick arrived back at Rigby, early as requested and announced his arrival to Mr Godber, with whom we now find him in conference. "Ingram-Lewis, I am delighted to see you. First let me congratulate you on your position as Head Boy. This is an honour which you richly deserve and I was pleased that the entire teaching staff agreed with my nomination."

"Now, down to business! The reason why I asked you to come here a little early is that I wish to affect a number of changes, many of which will concern you specifically. You may not know, but I shall be retiring at the end of his academic year, after no less than fifty-two years devoted to this school. I came here as a pupil in autumn of 1848, I think it was, if my memory serves me correctly and apart from the three years I spent at Oxford where I read classics, I have never left the school. After graduating I came straight back here as a junior master, from which post I worked my way up to Assistant Master and finally to Headmaster, a post I have now held for thirty years. So, as you can see, Rigby has been my life! So, Ingram- Lewis, both you and I shall be leaving Rigby at the end of this school year, you to pursue your future career in the wider world; I to retirement."

"Old age has crept up on me, I am afraid, and I have therefore decided that for this final year of my time at Rigby I am going to relinquish many of my disciplinary functions almost completely and hand them over to you as Head Boy and President of the Court of Prefects. To enable you to carry out the functions which I wish to confer upon you, you will not only hold the position of Head Boy, but that of Head Boy with powers "in loco domini". Acting "in loco domini", as I am sure you are aware, means acting in the place of the master, in this case, the Headmaster."

"Yes sir, I do understand the translation of the phrase, but I would be most grateful if you could enlighten me as to what its implications are in the present situation."

"Ah, Ingram-Lewis, we now come to the crux of the matter and the reason why I wanted some time together to discuss the new arrangements, which I intend to announce to the boys at the first Daily Assembly of the new school year. As you are well aware, the cane and the birch still play a very important role in the life of this school, and long may they do so! They are the two traditional implements with which we maintain discipline . Without them, the place would fall into chaos. They used to play much more important roles when I was a boy. Both cane and birch were in daily use and I think it is perhaps true to say that not one boy finally escaped a taste of both in those long gone days. Passage of time has attenuated their usage somewhat, too much to my mind, but we cannot always harp back to the past, for it is the future which counts."

"Anyway, Ingram Lewis, I no longer feel sufficiently physically fit to handle the punishment load which has become my lot as Headmaster, so I have decided that you and the Court of Prefects will more or less take over the whole of the corporal punishment element at Rigby, hence the role "in loco domini". This will give you the full authority necessary to perform this essential task."

"Now, the junior and senior prefects and the Head Boy have always had the responsibility of keeping order out of class and this will continue unchanged. That is to say that the junior prefects will still be allowed to apply a maximum of six cuts of the junior cane to the buttocks of any miscreants in the first and second forms, but must refer older boys to the Court of Prefects for correction. The senior prefects again have the right to apply six strokes of the cane to any boy whom they feel merits a beating, and may use the senior cane where appropriate. Remember, Ingram-Lewis, all boys including those in the upper sixth can still be subjected to the cane and the birch, no one is exempt: no one at all!"

"As you well know, any misdemeanours in the classroom have been notified to me via the system of punishment slips. I introduced this system many years ago as I had observed that certain masters were reluctant to beat boys at all whilst others who did wield the cane often did so half-heartedly. Now, as your own backside must testify to you, my philosophy is that if a boy is to be beaten, no matter what the reason, it has to hurt. He has to be beaten thoroughly, as hard as possible, without, of course, doing any physical damage to his anatomy, which requires a very judicious eye when placing the strokes and in the severity with which they are delivered. It goes without saying, of course, that all beatings are on the bare buttocks, which seem somehow to be god given for this very purpose. A boy's buttocks can take an enormous amount of painful punishment without any serious effects."

"Over the past several years, I have undertaken this task, single handed. I am not grumbling, as, frankly, there is a certain pleasure as I am sure you have found in your term as senior prefect, in roasting a boy's backside. But there comes a time, now, in fact, that I feel I can no longer do justice to such a work load, which is why, Ingram-Lewis, you are to be Head Boy "in loco domini". I want you to take over the major part of this beating load from me."

"Now here is what I propose. The masters will still send their punishment slips to me in the normal manner to arrive in my box by 5.30 pm each weekday. I will then look them over and select one or two particularly bad-looking cases which I will deal with myself in the usual manner, keeping my hand in, so to speak. The rest I shall hand over to you."

"With this added complexity introduced into the system, I have decided that boys will be punished immediately after supper on the evening of the day following their citation. I shall post two lists each day one list will show the boys who must report to me and the other those who must report to you. These lists will be posted on the general notice board each morning and all boys who have received a citation will be required to check the lists immediately after morning assembly to see to whom they are to offer their arses for correction. Pardon my vulgarity Ingram-Lewis, but I imagine that is the word you lads use among yourselves. I know we did in my days!"

"I shall leave it up to you to decide when and where to administer the punishment. So you can see in your role "in loco domini" you will have much greater involvement in the day to day punishment of boys than before. My suggestion would be that you administer all canings in the prefects' common room, for being a larger room than your own study it will more readily accommodate several miscreants at a time. As for the timing, well I think that the hour immediately after supper each day is a very convenient time, no need to rush and there is the advantage of sending the corrected lads off to bed with nicely warmed backsides". The Headmaster said with a laugh, before concluding.

"One final point I would like to make about disciplinary actions. There will be sixty new boys entering the school tomorrow, all of whom are totally unaware of the way Rigby is run. Rigby Rigour, if I may make a pun, will be new to all of them. My advice to you is to try to make sure that you roast the arses of at least one third of the entire new intake during the first month of this term, rising to about half of all the new boys by the middle of term. I would like to think that every new boy has had a good taste of the cane by the end of his first year."

"It's not a bad idea either, to give the odd lad a taste of the birch so that they all know that Rigby is a place which lives by the rule and punishes every misdemeanour. Give these youngsters and inch and they will take a mile, so make sure that they are reined in from the word go. Beat their arses at every opportunity: iIt makes for a well run school and turns out the sort of young men, like you, Ingram-Lewis, of whom the school can be proud. And don't go soft on them. Once you get their bare bottoms over a chair, make sure that you beat them hard. Let them howl and weep. A well beaten arse will do them no end of good and turn them into fine young men."

Patrick listened in total silence and amazement to this exposition by the Headmaster. The old boy was clearly very attached to beating naked arse, a pastime dear also to Patrick and was, moreover, exhorting him to use the power he was giving him. Never in a month of Sundays would Patrick have dreamt that such a golden opportunity would be offered to him. Here he was, the new Head Boy, with three full terms of non-stop beating of bare arses in front of him. This was truly manna from heaven. And the Headmaster had mentioned the birch. Did he intend that Patrick should use the birch? It certainly sounded so.

"Headmaster, I am totally overwhelmed by the confidence which you clearly have in me and the extraordinary powers which the status "in loco domini" confers upon me and I give you sir, here and now, my most sincere assurances that I shall endeavour to carry out my extended duties to meet your every wish, so that on your retirement you can be certain that you are leaving to your successor a well run and well disciplined school of which you can be truly proud. In fact sir, you can rightly be seen as the the creator of the present-day school, in view of the lifetime of service you have given to the place. One might well say sir, if you will forgive a little joke, God made heaven and earth but Godber made Rigby!" The Headmaster roared with laughter. " But sir, if I might ask you, is it your intention to endow me with the power to use the birch on errant boys, if I deem it appropriate?"

"My dear Ingram-Lewis, but of course! "In loco domini" gives you full power to use both cane and birch as and when you see fit. I have already informed the head gardener, Mr Paterson, who has made the birches for me for many years now, that he shall as of now, make them to your order. And you will have your own key to the punishment room, for it is there and there alone that birchings are administered. If you take my advice, you will be well advised to nominate a couple of your senior prefect colleagues to assist you on the occasions when you intend to use the birch. But, Ingram-Lewis, if you deem it necessary, then just do not hesitate to use it. You know from your own painful experience what a wonderful corrective instrument the birch is. After all, just think what your last birching did for you. Without it, I doubt you would be where you are today. It finally made you see sense!" stopped to draw breath with yet another laugh.

"Now, before I forget, there is just one more thing. I know that each senior prefect has his own two regulation canes, but I wanted to give you, in your new position something a little special with which to tickle errant arses. Over the years, I have accumulated quite a selection of canes, many of which are now twenty or even more years old. They are over there in the large oriental pot, where I keep them. Let me select a few of particularly good ones for you. These are very whippy examples and I believe that they are capable of inflicting the most exquisite pain on any target. These old canes have something that the modern new stuff seems to lack." The Headmaster selected what he deemed to be eight of his choicest specimens and handed them to Patrick.

"Well, I think that concludes our formal business and so I will let you run along and settle into your new study. However, Ingram-Lewis, I would be happy if you would do me the honour of dining with me this evening. We shall be quite alone and my cook produces and excellent dinner. We can also enjoy a little fine wine together, as I still have an excellent cellar, running back some thirty years or so. It will give us an opportunity to relax together and get to know one another better. After all, you are now my right arm. So might I suggest seven o'clock when it will give me great pleasure to entertain you, the new Head Boy."

Patrick was overwhelmed by this invitation, for to the best of his knowledge no boy had ever been invited to dine with the Headmaster. He wondered where all this was leading. But what the hell, if the old boy wanted to wine and dine him, then who was he to say no, he thought as he left.

CHAPTER 10

Mr Godber was a bachelor and had a very spacious set of rooms. He offered Patrick sherry and then red wine to accompany a very excellent dinner and as was the tradition at the turn of the century, port and dessert were placed on the table by the Headmaster's butler. The Headmaster, by now somewhat mellowed by the alcohol, became more expansive and it was not long before Patrick, who was quite worldly wise, realised where it was all leading.

"Ingram-Lewis, I am afraid I have become a lonely old man these last few years, living alone as I do. I don't want to burden you with my problems, (which was, of course, was exactly what he was about to do) but it is rare for me to have a young man like you around to talk to other than about school matters. And as I said to you earlier, I do consider you a young man, Ingram-Lewis, even though you are technically still a pupil of the school until the end of the school year. You will have passed your nineteenth birthday by then. But as you must have realised in conferring upon you the responsibilities I have, you do have my fullest confidence, that you will uphold the fine disciplinarian tradition of the school, which has been the hall mark of Rigby for well over a century now. But I am sure you will understand, Ingram-Lewis, that even an old man like me finds it helpful, on occasions, to unburden himself to someone."

"As you are doubtless aware, I have lived totally alone since before you entered the school; but it was not always like that, oh no! Indeed not. Most definitely not. No, for more than twenty years I had a very close friendship, very close indeed, with the assistant master, Mr Crockford, a classicist like myself, but who unfortunately died some eight or so years ago of a heart attack. He had a weak heart, you know, and he knew he should take care. I always told him not to over-exert himself; but he was devoted to me and regularly threw caution to the wind in his desire to please me. In the end it was that which was his undoing; it was his excessive exertions which led to the final fatal attack. I was utterly heart broken as we had been together for almost a quarter of a century, and then, puff, as quick as a wink, the poor fellow was no more. I am not sure that I have ever completely recovered from his passing."

"Of course, the doctors tried to revive him but it was already too late and I had to face the bitter truth that my closest friend was gone forever. The doctors were very understanding, given the circumstance of his sudden departure and the whole matter was handled with extreme delicacy and discretion, with never a whiff of scandal. It could have been quite dreadful had the full details surrounding his sudden demise been made public."

"I shouldn't really tell you this, something I have never vouchsafed to anyone. Dear old Clarence, that was his Christian name, by the way, died whilst he was in the act of servicing me. I take it as a man of the world you know the type of service to which I am referring and I need not spell it out in any greater detail. You know, after all these years it's a great relief, Ingram-Lewis, to be able to share the awful facts of the business with someone. And you know, Ingram-Lewis, it is so much easier to unburden oneself to someone totally uninvolved. So, Ingram-Lewis, now you know, your Headmaster is, in fact, a homosexual, non-practising, by the way since Clarence's untimely departure, but a homosexual nevertheless."

Patrick had listened to all this with increasing incredulity. Here was his elderly Headmaster pouring out his innermost secrets to his newly appointed Head Boy. It did not require any imagination to understand that Mr Clarence Crockford, of blessed memory, had been engaged in fucking the Headmaster when he had suddenly keeled over with a heart attack and died. "My god, what a way to go," thought Patrick, "Though at least he went quickly and in the act of doing something which he clearly enjoyed. I wonder if his relationship with Godber was two- way, or did he just do the fucking and Godber was always the bottom."

Having listened to this outpouring, Patrick realised that the Headmaster had needed a friendly ear into which to pour his pent-up grief and, mellowed by several glasses of good port, had decided to reveal all to Patrick, who even though but a pupil had proved a sympathetic listener. This left Patrick wondering if the headmaster had any inkling of his own sexual activities and where the present revelations were leading.

Sex between the boys was strictly forbidden, but pretty well all public schools closed a blind eye to the numerous acts of buggery that the boys committed among themselves. As any sensible person knows, sex is such an important driving force in life - the most important, in fact - that it is totally understandable that boys in their late teens, denied female company, have recourse to anal intercourse among themselves. If caught in the act, then the Rigby rule was a mandatory birching. So, the great trick was not to get caught. There was a tacit understanding among all staff not to go looking. Of course if a member of the teaching staff or a prefect came across boys in the act, then they had to be punished. It was all quite hypocritical when members of the teaching staff, and here the self confessed Headmaster imself is included, indulged in the very act that was forbidden to the pupils.

"You know, Ingram-Lewis, now that I have metaphorically laid myself bare in front of you, I have to tell you that since Crockford's death I have had not sexual contact with any other person." There was a slight pause as the Headmaster tried to organise his thoughts, but Patrick knew by now, exactly where it was all going. "I, er, wonder, Ingram-Lewis, if you, er, might consider, er..." And it was obvious that the Headmaster was having great difficulty in voicing his thoughts, which, if you think about it, was not at all surprising, as he was about to ask Ingram-Lewis, his Head Boy, if he would like to take up where Clarence Crockford had so precipitously and dramatically left off.

Patrick felt sorry for the Headmaster and seeing just how difficult it had become for him to put his desires into words said, very gently: "Headmaster, am I to understand that you would like me service you sexually? Crudely put, calling a spade a spade sir, as sex is, at the end of the day, a rather crude act, you would like me to fuck you?"