Saturday 12 October 2013

The Headmaster's Dilemma (M/m)

Of all the CP scenarios I have been involved in, both in fact and fiction, a boy being caned on his bare behind by an authoritative male figure is the most stimulating. Perhaps because it happened to me when I was about twelve and for the next forty years I constantly tried to recreate it. These days it is mainly in stories that I nervously lower my pants for that exquisite sting. This one, written in 2010, is one of them. Alfred Roy
 
 
 
The Headmaster's Dilemma
The Headmaster read the appropriate minute again. He had read it three times, or it may have been four, and he almost knew its telling words by heart. He recalled the meeting when the matter of corporal punishment had been discussed some years before. He had been headmaster for only a few months at the time and a decision on a vexed subject was required. Society was changing, legislation was, if not imminent, on the political agenda and lines were being drawn on both sides. Split between the traditionalists and the trendies his staff were a microcosm of a changing world. Corporal punishment of schoolboys was a last resort which was rapidly fading from fashion. Should his school, his new school, anticipate the changing times with a blast of modernism or retain, in some form, the ultimate sanction. His new staff, trendies and traditionalists alike, waited with bated breath the guidance and opinion of their young and progressive headmaster, He did not disappoint. He moved with the times but kept a steady foot in the rituals and rules of the past. A cane could still strike the bottoms of uncontrollable boys at his school but only by him or his deputy and only when there was no alternative. A compromise which totally satisfied none, but a compromise that both sides could accept. The hard liners could relax with the thought the cane was not completely abolished and the others could console themselves with the view that it would never be used again. Honour to all. Unless there was no alternative. That was the crux. He read the minutes of that old and distant meeting for a fourth or fifth time and wondered why it was that those who employed the cane when required were always considered to be hard liners. It can be so much harder to invoke other means of expressing ones disapproval.


‘Extract from minutes of meeting 276/9 – Section 3/Para4 –Restrictions on the use of the Cane.

-         With effect from the date of this meeting Corporal Punishment of any boy under the age of fourteen years is immediately abolished. Boys aged between fourteen and the day prior to their eighteenth birthday may be referred to the headmaster or deputy headmaster for any disciplinary sanction he or they wish to employ. Such sanctions, if determined by the headmaster or deputy headmaster in consultation with the referring master, may include the issuing of an order of Corporal Punishment. In such instances only the official school cane may be used and all such enactments must be carried out in private with two independent staff witnesses. No more than four strokes of the cane can be applied for any individual transgression and no boy can be subject to more than two orders for Corporal Punishment in any school year. Multiple transgressions can be included in any one order but in such instances the total penalty applied must not exceed eight strokes. All applications of the cane will be applied to the boy’s clothed posterior, or as determined by the headmaster, and will be carried out within twenty four hours of the order. No boy attaining the age of eighteen years may be caned.- Ref 276/934

 
In all the years since the heated meeting in which the vexed issue was minuted only three boys in the school had been made subject of the special order and none had received more than four strokes of the official school cane across their trousers. As much as he found the use of the cane distasteful the headmaster had to agree with his deputy that in all the cases the punishment was well deserved. After the first such caning, a boy who had demanded money from younger boys, the headmaster deferred to his deputy and the subsequent two canings were carried out by a man who had more enthusiasm for the task. At those canings tearful boys rubbing well scolded bottoms left his study and he reflected that the youthful extortionist, subsequently expelled for similar offences, had been let off lightly. But now the headmaster had a dilemma. He had to cane a boy who had done nothing wrong and he had to do it before legislation to abolish such a scholastic act was introduced. And that was little more than a few weeks away. It is little wonder that he had been trawling through the minutes of an inglorious past.

The boy read the letter again. He had read it three times, or it may have been four, and he almost knew its telling words by heart. He considered the implications, the painful implications, and the financial consequences. He was nearly seventeen and had been at the school for almost six years. And the considerable fees had been paid for by a man he had never met. The half brother of his long dead father had paid the relevant fees for all of his growing years and, as his mother constantly reminded him, they should both be permanently grateful. And now the half brother had died and for weeks and months both he and his mother worried that the payments would cease and his privileged schooling would end. But a last letter to his mother from the anonymous uncle assured them both that the fees would continue to be met until the boy’s eighteenth birthday. The letter, from a man who knew he would shortly draw his final breath, also assured them both that arrangements had been made to ensure a financially secure future. The worrying weeks and months could be set aside. And then came the letter to him. From his uncle’s solicitor. And he read it again and still did not understand. The first part, outlining a successful and rich life of his benefactor, caused no difficulties. It was the final paragraphs which engendered thoughts of painful implications and financial consequences.

‘Your uncle was not an orthodox man and he had many unorthodox and, frankly, rigid and incomprehensible values. But his support for you in your educational years has never wavered. The memory of your father, his half brother, determined his resolve never to allow you to suffer. But now, perversely, to come to your part of his considerable estate you must do exactly that. He was convinced that his commercial success was due in no small part to the fact that, many years ago, he was severely caned by his headmaster for a sin that he never amplified either to me or anyone else. But, in his own words, often quoted ‘It was the best five minutes I ever spent in my life. Bending over and getting that cane on my backside taught me things I have never forgotten. There is no finer lesson to a boy about to become a man. I hated that caning at the time but now, every time I count my money, I profusely thank the man who did it.’ They quoted this comment in his obituary and, in his adopted country, he became almost famous for it. It should, therefore, come as no surprise that a condition of you inheriting his estate is that you accept and suffer the same experience. I will therefore be contacting your headmaster in due course.’

And in due course, he did.

 
‘An unusual legacy.’

‘Yes sir.’

‘Or an unusual condition placed on a legacy. Either way it makes for uncomfortable reading.’

‘Yes sir.’

‘I shall, of course, write to your solicitor informing him that the request, or instruction, cannot possibly be carried out.’

‘Yes sir.’

‘We do not do things like this in England.’

‘No sir.’

‘An application to any court would, in my opinion, see the unusual conditions of the bequest set aside.’

‘Yes sir.’

‘And besides.’

‘Sir?’

‘In a few weeks time such action, even if approved of by an unreasonable judge, would be illegal. In this country.’

‘Yes sir.’

‘So you have no need to worry.’

‘No sir.’

 
The headmaster reflected that it had been a strange interview. The boy seemed more disappointed than relieved that he was not about to be caned. Given the financial implications of his step uncle’s will and the tongue of his overbearing mother he probably considered that a short and sharp pain to his backside was the easiest and quickest option. His bottom may briefly burn and he may shed a few tears but, as the sting subsided, he would be the possessor of a considerable fortune. A small price to pay. Whereas the headmaster’s approach seemed rich with legalistic complications. If the boy did not think like this, and he was only sixteen and three quarters, then the headmaster certainly did. But it was not as simple as that. If it was, the headmaster could merely sign a form to the effect that the required caning had been carried out, even though nothing of the kind had taken place. But the conditions of the bequest made things more difficult and therefore, in the opinion of the headmaster, needed to be challenged in an English court. If necessary.

 
‘Let us get this clear headmaster. The conditions of the bequest are that a senior official from the uncle’s company flies over here to witness the caning. Do you know who that would be?’

‘The company secretary. A lawyer.’

‘Ah. And he signs a form to the effect that the boy has been caned by his headmaster in accordance with the instructions.’

‘Quite.’

‘Twelve strokes of a rattan cane on his backside.’

‘His bare backside.’

‘His bare backside, yes. And after that the boy gets his inheritance?’

‘Yes.’

‘Well I could do it if you didn’t feel up to it.’

The headmaster smiled but said nothing.

‘In the circumstances I would go easy on him.’

‘The company lawyer might not agree to that. In his country such disciplines tend to leave serious weals.’

‘I always marked the backsides I walloped, headmaster. Even when I did not use full force. The last boy I caned told me he had the stripes across his arse for weeks.’

The headmaster studied his enthusiastic deputy and decided that it was a past conversation he had no desire to pursue. He had contacted the solicitor and received a fairly curt and pedantry reply. If the boy did not comply with the conditions of the will it would be impossible to release the funds and a long and protracted legal case between two countries with differing cultures seemed the likely outcome. As if echoing his own earlier thoughts the solicitor had commented that a few quick taps on a young backside seemed a small price to pay to avoid such complications.

‘If it has to be done then I, as headmaster, will have to do it. The instructions make that clear. But I am still hoping for a compromise.’

He was dwelling much on that compromise when, a week later, he interviewed the boy for a second time.

 
‘They would not agree.’

‘No sir. I didn’t think they would.’

‘They would not agree to you not being caned.’

‘No sir.’

‘They would not agree to the caning being symbolic.’ The headmaster paused. ‘Less harsh.’

‘No sir.’

‘Or the strokes being reduced.’

‘No sir.’

‘And they would not agree to you retaining an element of dignity.’

‘No sir.’

‘So it is to be twelve strokes of their choice of cane, delivered to your exposed backside.’

‘Yes sir.’

‘Which causes me a considerable dilemma.’

‘Sir?’

‘Who is to do it?’

‘I thought it would be you sir.’

‘It cannot.’

‘Why not sir?’

‘I could not bring myself to do it. Not under their stringent conditions, conditions which breach the disciplinary rules of this school.’

The boy looked concerned and the headmaster anticipated his thoughts.

‘I could not do it. Not even for your inheritance and your mother.’

‘No sir.’

‘But I have thought of a compromise. One that I am sure will be acceptable to their solicitors.’

‘Sir?’

‘You will be transferred to a new school. Next week. It will be arranged as a permanent move but you will be allowed to return here next term. I have spoken to their headmaster, the brother of my deputy, and he has agreed to cane you. It will fulfil all the conditions of your uncle’s strange legacy.’

‘And if I do not agree? Sir.’

‘You have no choice. Your mother has approved the arrangements.’

The boy moved towards the door with some sadness.

‘I would prefer to stay here sir.’

‘I know you would. I would also prefer that.’

‘And I can. All you have to do is cane me as they say.’

‘I could not do it. I could not do it well. And they would see that.’

The boy paused, his hand on the handle of the study door.

‘Even if I gave you reason.’

‘I cannot think of anything you could do which would make me wish to cane you. In that way. In that manner.’

‘No sir.’

‘So go and pack your belongings.’

‘Yes sir.’

The boy opened the door and, before departing, turned back to the headmaster. His eyes were full of tears. The tears of boy who had been told he would not be caned. Not at this school.

‘I shall have to think of a reason, sir. I shall have to think of something that would make you cane me.’

And with these parting words to his headmaster he closed the door.

 
The headmaster looked at the cheque again and still did not believe what he saw. It was drawn on the account of the boy’s mother and dated from the first day of the following term. He re-read the letter that was attached to it and, picking up his study phone, summoned his deputy to his office. Ten minutes later, apprised of the contents of the letter and the details of the cheque, his deputy gave his opinion to the headmaster. What he had to say was unpleasant but expected.

‘I think that clinches it headmaster. You will have to cane the boy.’

‘Meaning every man has his price?’

‘For the good of the school. The cheque is for £10,000.’

‘But only if I cane him.’

The headmaster emphasised the ‘I’ and let it contain all the distaste that he had constantly felt ever since this protracted matter first emerged.

‘The letter makes that clear. If the boy is transferred to my brother’s school and he is caned there he will not pass any of his legacy to his mother.’

‘And so the cheque, if presented, will not be honoured?’

‘No.’

‘But if I do it?’

‘Then it will. The mother’s letter makes that clear.’

The deputy headmaster paused and then continued.

‘He is going to be caned headmaster, whether you do it or my brother does it. Follow his wishes and the school gets a considerable sum.’

‘But only if I do it in the manner decreed in the instructions?’

‘It is a small price to pay for such a large cheque, headmaster.’

And on that point the deputy left the headmaster to muse, once more, on his dilemma.

 
‘You knew I would send for you?’

‘Yes sir.’

‘You are causing me considerable pain.’

‘Yes sir.’

‘I had no, have no, wish to cane you. I understand your complying with your uncle’s strange legacy. It is a very large sum to inherit. But to transfer to another school for the caning to be carried out would have been a more satisfactory solution.’

‘Yes sir.’

‘As it is you have….’

‘Sir?’

‘You have placed me in a difficult situation.’

‘Yes sir.’

‘And yet, in a convoluted way, you have also resolved it.’

‘I hope so sir.’

‘If I do not cane you then the school loses the bequest that you and your mother are transferring to us next term. So I will do as is required.’

‘Yes sir.’

‘And I will fulfil all the conditions.’

‘Yes sir.’

‘And I will make it hurt. I will not hold back.’

‘No sir.’

The headmaster looked at the boy’s impassive face. The face of a boy who knew he had won.

‘I will not hold back.’

‘No sir.’

‘I will cane your bottom hard because as you know I never wanted to cane it at all.’

‘No sir.’

‘And you have forced my hand.’

‘Yes sir.’

‘Have you anything else to say?’

The boy thought for a moment before speaking.

‘Only this sir. Fulfil the conditions and I will honour my mother’s letter. If it has to done, and it clearly must, I could only accept it if it was done by you. It will lessen the pain and the humiliation.’

‘Do not be too sure of that.’

‘No sir. But it will lessen the humiliation.’

The headmaster looked at the boy’s slightly flushed, but still impassive, face again and registered a momentary understanding. He moved to him and gently placed his hand the boy’s shoulder.

‘You may go. I will make the arrangements.’

‘Yes sir.’

‘And be brave. That means that you need not be afraid to cry. It may help.’

‘Yes sir.’

Twenty minutes after the boy departed the headmaster started to compose a difficult and delicate letter to a distant solicitor.

 
The day after the boy was caned, all the arrangements having been satisfactorily made and carried out, the headmaster went for one of his long regular walks around the grounds of the school. The caning of the boy had left a deep impression on his conscience and the prospect of a substantial cheque had served to enhance, rather than assuage, his troubled thoughts. These thoughts were interrupted by his deputy, returning from a regular daily exercise which, the headmaster noted, did little to inhibit the signs of a comfortable middle age.

‘How are you feeling headmaster?’

‘Fine. It is a fine evening. A good one for your evening run for a change.’

‘I mean after yesterday.’

‘It is over. At least we can be thankful for that.’

‘And a substantial cheque will be coming our way.’

‘Yes. I suppose I should be grateful.’

‘At least you shouldn’t feel guilty.’

‘Am I?’

‘The boy did not mind.’

The headmaster stared at the reddened face of his deputy, only now recovering his breath from his exertions.

‘He seemed very distressed to me.’

‘Who wouldn’t be after that? Twelve strokes of a cane to your bare backside when you have probably never even had as much as a housemaid’s slap in the whole of your life. I thought you did it very well in the circumstances. Laid it on as hard as I ever did.’

‘Did that surprise you?’

‘No. But the boy did not mind.’

‘So you said.’

‘I saw him this morning. Fully recovered. Just a bit sore he said.’

The deputy chuckled and the headmaster responded quickly.

‘You find it amusing?’

‘Boys are strange creatures. All this troubles you, and all he says is that when he looked at the stripes on his bottom he realised what his uncle meant. Said he would go through it all again if he had to.’

‘That won’t be necessary.’

‘He also said that he was glad that it was you that caned him. It made it bearable.’

‘Then at least one of us is happy.’

After that particular comment the deputy shrugged his shoulders and went off for his evening shower. Clearly he did not think corporal punishment of schoolboys was any big deal and, judged by the comments, neither did the boy who was the subject of their discussion. In different circumstances the headmaster might feel the same but the experience of the previous day was one he had no desire to repeat.

 
‘You know why you are here?’

‘Yes sir.’

‘And you wish to go through with it?’

‘Yes sir.’

‘Then we will not waste any time. Take off your school blazer and place it on the chair,’

‘Yes sir.’

The boy looked around the headmaster’s study. There were four people in the room other than himself. As well as the headmaster and his deputy, both standing by the desk, his uncle’s solicitor was standing by a small side window cleaning his tiny round spectacles with a silky white handkerchief. He had met the solicitor a couple of times over the past few weeks but the fourth man he did not know. As he placed his blazer on the chair the headmaster introduced him as a representative of his uncle’s company. The company lawyer who had to agree that all had been enacted as required. He had sat, large and impassive and silent, in a corner seat when the boy came into the study. As the blazer was removed he stood up and moved towards the solicitor.

‘There is no need to remove your trousers but it will be best if you lower them before you bend over my desk.’

‘Yes sir.’

‘And bend over from the front of the desk, facing the back wall.’

The headmaster paused and as he did so the boy saw, for the first time, the cane he had produced from behind his back. He did not know it but the cane was a two foot six inches long and medium thick rattan cane specially brought over by the impassive company lawyer. No detail had been left unattended. The headmaster, his voice strangely thick and breathless, continued.

‘It is important that everyone in this room gets a good view of your caning.’

‘Yes sir.’

‘When you are in position my deputy will hold onto your wrists to enable you to take all of your…, all of your caning without any unnecessary interruption. Do you understand?’

The headmaster had nearly said punishment but such a word seemed inappropriate. The boy was not being punished. If anyone was being punished it was him.

‘Yes sir’

‘Then do as I say. And you had best lower your underpants as well. It is a condition of the caning.’

‘Yes sir.’

The boy moved towards the desk and to the four waiting figures enacted out his small defining scene. He undid the belt of his long grey school trousers and releasing the buttons of the fly pushed them firmly down to his ankles. He then placed his hands under his pale blue school shirt and pulled down an equally pale blue pair of regulation underpants. He pushed these down his pale legs to join his crumpled trousers and stretched himself firmly across the surface of the desk. He had made no attempt to lift up his school shirt and the area he knew would shortly suffer unfamiliar pain remained decently covered. The deputy headmaster moved towards his bending head and gently but firmly held onto his wrists. The headmaster watched these proceedings and then enquired, unnecessarily, if all were ready, and approached the prostrate boy. He said nothing but lifted the tail of the boy’s shirt and rolled it to his waist. The boy, acutely conscious of this final baring of his lower body, lifted slightly to allow the shirt to make an easy journey of uncovering. Someone in the room coughed.

 
The headmaster had no wish to mark the sight which met his eyes but equally he had no wish to prolong any agony. The round, beautifully smooth, pale brown cheeks of the boy’s buttocks captured everyone’s attentions. Such lower perfection in the boy suggested that sacrilege was about to be committed. Not a blemish, or stain, or spot detracted from the glory of his naked skin. But nature had always decreed that this was the area designed for chastisement and nature was now about to get its wish. In a few moments the smooth and cold rattan cane would gently rest on the warm and trembling cheeks and the first strike of a strange legacy would, literally, make its mark. For a moment the even pale brown skin across the back and the buttocks made the headmaster wonder if the boy sunbathed nude, but the moment passed and he raised the cane in readiness.

‘Please compose yourself. And be brave. You are to be given twelve strokes across your naked behind, as you yourself requested and the conditions of your uncle’s will requires. They will hurt but it will not take long. Are you ready?’

‘Yes sir.’

The words were hardly out of the boy’s mouth when the first stroke struck his backside. It was as if the headmaster was eager to commence the proceedings and it took everyone, not least the boy who suffered it, by surprise. He gasped and lifted his left leg slightly as if to ease the pain but, other than that, there was no movement and there was no sound. The stroke had been clean and true, and hard, and as it seemed to echo in the air a clear red line painted itself across the centre of the upturned cheeks. It did not sound its pain but the vividness of its colour spoke loudly to all who watched. The second and third strokes fell equally quickly but after that the headmaster slowed his pace and allowed the boy to absorb each individual shock to his system. By the fourth stroke the buttocks, now twisting and turning, were beginning a fiery glow within the lines across them and by the eighth, or it may have been the ninth, the boy was clearly crying. The deputy headmaster was by now holding on grimly to the arms and hands which begged for release but he did so silently and intently. Other than the sound of the cane hitting its delicate target and the subsequent groans of increasing distress from the boy the room was silent. None of the four men spoke until the last stroke of the twelve had fallen across the naked bottom and, released, the boy had recovered himself and left. It took some time. He had hopped around the room and rubbed his bottom with a violent vigour and then, quickly calming, pulled up his underpants and trousers and begged to be excused. The headmaster had no wish to detain him and he held the hands of the tearstained boy and told him he had been very brave and let him go. And the boy had been brave. But, in his own way, so had the headmaster. And all in the room silently acknowledged that fact.

 
‘Thank you for the cheque. It arrived last week. We are very grateful.’

‘Thank you sir. The school deserves it.’

‘And you have no regrets?’

‘No sir. Should I?’

‘It is a large sum of money.’

‘Yes sir, but small compared to my uncle’s estate.’

‘And you are happy with the way you earned it?’

‘I am sir. I would be happier if I knew that you were comfortable with the way you earned your small part.’

‘It is hardly small. £10,000. It did occur to me that there was a possibility you might not send it. In which case I would have caned you for nothing.’

‘I could not do that sir.’

‘No, of course not. It was an uncharitable thought for such an honourable boy.’

‘If I was to be caned, especially in that way, it had to be you that did it. As I said it was a small price to pay.’

‘And you have no regrets. I mean the caning?’

‘No sir. I would go through it all again if necessary.’

‘So my deputy said.’

‘Yes sir.’

‘In spite of the pain? And the humiliation?’

‘There was no humiliation sir. What you did was an act of love for this school. It made it bearable.’

‘You didn’t give that impression at the time.’

‘I was being caned on my bare bottom at the time. Sir.’

The boy smiled, the first time he had since being summoned to the headmaster’s study following receipt of the promised cheque.

‘Yes.’

The headmaster smiled.

‘You may go. And thank you again for the cheque.’

‘Thank you sir.’

The boy turned to go and then turned back.

‘Sir?’

‘Yes?’

‘What would you have done if I had not sent you the cheque?’

‘I do not know. Probably got my deputy to give you a second thrashing.’

‘In spite of the new regulations?’

‘I am sure we could have got around that.’

After the boy left the headmaster mused on their conversation and everything that had led up to it. He was not happy that the boy had been caned and he would have preferred it not to have been done. But, strangely, if it had to be so, he was glad it was he who carried the caning out. It was what the boy wanted and, now it was over, he was glad he was the one to cane him. Whatever else he owed the boy, and the magnificent cheque to the school would bring great benefits, he owed him gratitude for helping him to learn something of himself. The deeply personal act that had taken place in his study told him that. The boy would never forget his experience but neither would anyone else in that room. On the day that vicious cane kissed the defenceless naked bottom of a perfectly formed boy, four people learned many things about themselves. When he struck the soft and fetching cheeks, shamelessly exposed, his whole being inexplicably surged. And all he was aware of in himself was in all the others. The headmaster was sure of that. The collective silence in the room, both during and after the caning, said so.The uncle’s strange legacy was far reaching.

 

Alfred Roy © 2010