Bottoms Up for Ladies (F/m)

I frequently muse on what to call my pieces. Very important if you want to make life easy for your readers. This one started out life as The New Boys Clinic a futuristic piece on government approved discipline for young males. But due to my mood at the time it emerged in quirkiness. Sydney and Mortenson, eponymous civil servants both, desperate to appoint the right sort of corrective officers for their special institution. They clearly give the filming of one boys' disciplinary session the thumbs up. Justifying their decision to align the whacking roles to the fairer sex. Or so it seems. A flushed thumbs up for the ladies from Sydney certainly. And when you are thinking along those lines Bottoms Up for Ladies really chooses itself. That is my excuse. Alfred Roy

 

It took about five years to get the legislation through and a further three to set everything in place. As the appropriate locations and buildings were selected, the search, appointment, and training of the key personnel was put into place. Not easy. The government of the day may have passed legislation re-introducing corporal punishment, a nice theory, but finding the right people to carry it out was a task rich in problems. Gender was not an issue providing the applicants met the strict criteria. Although only males from 12-18 would be subject to corporal discipline, the authorities were unanimous in their opinion that the sex of the correcting officer was irrelevant. Given the element of shame, all discipline to be applied to naked posteriors, and the amount of pain envisaged, all doubted that the miscreant would be influenced by whether the implement wielder was male or female. The problems arose in the appointing of those corrective officers. Most came with ulterior motives or emotional issues and they, along with others considered unsuitable, had to be ruthlessly weeded out. Therein lay a basic procedural problem.

 

‘Trouble is, Mortenson, the concept of whacking a fetching bare behind with a sturdy cane does have its attractions.’

 

As Sydney said this he lit his pipe, long needed following a tortuous hour or so. Mortenson, disapproving of such habits, removed his glasses and polished them vigorously.

 

‘That comment, Sydney, would immediately negate any application from you.’

 

‘I know, but therein lies our problem. How do we appoint the right people to undertake this task? They need to be a bit special.’

 

‘They need to be very special, Sydney. Fit, athletic, devoid of emotional or sexual issues, confident but compassionate, detached but........’

 

‘Consumed with a sense that what they are doing is right?’

 

‘Not consumed. That suggests an unhealthy fervour.’ Mortenson paused, thinking. ‘Uncomfortably verging on the religious. No, I was thinking that they need to be...... committed.’

 

‘Committed to the task?’

 

‘Yes.’

 

Sydney considered. ‘The seven we have just turned down were all committed, Mortenson. Over committed some would say.’

 

Mortenson replaced his over polished glasses and smiled.

 

‘Exactly, Sydney. They had that one essential requirement but, lamentably, failed elsewhere.’

 

Sydney sucked aimlessly on his pipe. It had gone out. It always did.

 

‘Then we had better keeping looking Mortenson. Six more at three o’clock.’

 

And with that the two men, the pipe smoking Sydney and the bespectacled Mortenson, Home Office officials, left the room.

 

 

Their short break from the machinations of the five man committee, two women and three men in reality, had enabled Mortenson and Sydney to encapsulate the inherent problem. Fine government thinking in theory had been obstructed and found wanting in practice. Prospective appointment of government approved bottom whackers had arrived rich with unwanted baggage. A few, the glazed eyed and breathless, the detailed letter writers venting anger and unseemly detail, the overly religious and the merely prurient were quickly despatched to the rejection pile. But even most of those who made it to a committee interview failed the basic criteria. Health issues, physique, immaturity, irresolution and, frankly, blind prejudice were amongst the many reasons for failed interviews. Some, not many, passed these hurdles but fell down on more obscure or oblique points. One candidate was objected to on the grounds that her two sons were of an age to be disciplined and when questioned, expressed her view that she was vehemently opposed to it. Another went into the ‘not suitable’ pile merely because he said the fee for the canings was immaterial. An unwise statement given the caution of the committee. A committee whose task was hard, and made harder by their scrupulous endeavours to only appoint the right people. They had been working on it for nearly two months. Their brief was simple. Two Home Office officials, Mortenson and Sydney, and three carefully chosen non political members were to find eighteen corrective officers for six selected regional offices. Offices where young boys and young men would, under strict legal procedures, have their trousers and pants removed and be whacked with a cane. Officially sanctioned. A simple but portentous brief and the three members, a barrister, a priest, a psychiatrist, were diligently appointed and despatched to their task. Along with the bespectacled Mortenson and the pipe smoking Sydney. After five weeks and two hundred and forty seven applications, diligently sifted by support staff, and twenty three interviews they had failed to make a single appointment.

 

‘Another six wasted interviews.’

 

‘Not totally, Sydney. I found it illuminating.’

 

‘I don’t see how, Mortenson. Most failed even our basic criteria. And a couple verged on latent sadism.’

 

‘You are thinking particularly of the young woman from Birmingham.’

 

‘And the girl who followed her. Ideal types in some ways, ex army, but both fell into that psychiatrist woman’s trap.’

 

‘Couldn’t think of a single young male backside from here to Edinburgh that would not benefit from being walloped.’

 

‘Exactly.’

 

‘A flaw yes, I agree, but not a fatal one, Sydney. In most other respects they seemed ideal. Just need to curb their enthusiasm.’

 

‘Are you going to recommend we accept them?’

 

‘Not the Birmingham girl, no. But the other girl, yes I think so.’

 

Sydney reflected.

 

‘You will need a 3-2 majority to get her accepted.’

 

Mortenson removed his glasses, in readiness for unnecessary polishing, always a sign of crucial thought.

 

‘If I have you, Sydney, I just need to swing that barrister woman over.’

 

‘Yes.’

 

Sydney sounded doubtful.

 

‘Think about it, Sydney. She’s young, but not too young. Fit and strong, ex army. Unmarried. No emotional issues. Used to being in authority. Not overzealous. Probably a lesbian.’

 

‘What has that got to do with anything?’

 

‘I am not sure, but it may explain her answers to the psychiatrist’s questions.’

 

Mortenson paused and replaced his glasses on his nose.

 

‘Will you back me Sydney?’

 

‘I suppose so. We have to start somewhere. And it gives us a bit of a template.’

 

‘For the other seventeen?’

 

‘Yes.’

 

‘So let us make our first appointment.’

 

Mortenson, a jaunty Mortenson, and the less confident Sydney returned to the fray. Thirty five minutes later their first Correctional Officer was pencilled in. By, surprisingly, 4 votes to 1. Only the elderly priest dissented.

 

 

The boy looked very nervous, understandably so given the situation. The officer brought him into the punishment room. She stood behind him, impassively looking ahead. Her starch, dark blue, uniform with deep red trimmings contrasted sharply with his simple attire of pristine clean white vest and shorts. Nothing else, even his feet were bare. He looked little more than fourteen or fifteen but, given his sentence, was probably older. There were two other female officers already in the small square room. The boy did not look at them. He glanced at the apparition a couple of feet to their right and it was then he cried. They were barely audible sobs but his head drooped and his body trembled with involuntary fear. This was the moment he had been dreading ever since the magistrate sentenced him to twelve strokes of the cane. To be delivered in the approved manner. The magistrate had stressed this last sentence and all in the court, especially the boy, knew what it meant. And now, two days later, in that approved manner his punishment was to be carried out. And much as he may sob in anticipation none in the punishment room would be swayed. The female officer reiterating the sentence and the younger and more determined one at her side had seen it all before. It was the latter who would deliver the caning and she, like her colleagues, was of the view that he should have thought of this situation before he committed his offence. She did not know why he was here, it was policy for the correcting officer not to know the details before a caning was carried out, but she knew he must have done something pretty bad. You did not get sentenced to be whacked for minor offences, even repeat ones. He should be nervous, she thought, she was good at her job, as all in the room were. All caned when required, and today was the duty day for the young and sturdy brunette with a strong Scottish accent. She waited patiently and her colleague continued with the obligatory statement of intention, as it was quaintly called. The boy trembled even more as the words were clinically spelt out. Twelve cane strokes across his bare posterior with the standard issue cane to be delivered continuously at ten second intervals. There was no appeal as he had been passed medically fit to sustain his mandatory correction. Approach the bench. It was the last three words that eliminated his last remaining semblance of resolve. His knees buckled and the accompanying officer firmly, but gently, took his arm. She was well used to such responses when the hour, the second, of retribution was due. Taking the arm of the boy served the dual purpose of steadying his form and leading him to the front of the apparition that had first caught his attention. There could be no illusions as to its purpose. A sturdy black leathered gymnasium horse with spread wooden legs and hanging leather straps at the front and rear. And a thicker, equally shiny, strap hanging in the middle. The boy hardly had time to absorb the proximity and smell of the contraption before he felt the sensation of his small shorts being pulled down to his feet. The accompanying officer tapped his leg as she yanked the shorts down and the boy, confused and distressed, lifted his feet and stepped out of them. It was then, five minutes into the film, that the viewer had first sight of the bottom about to be punished. This one was small but firm and pleasingly pronounced. Smooth and peach like, and slightly freckled on the edges of his flanks. It was highly likely that this was a bottom that in its short life had never, until today, suffered even the lightest and gentlest of smacks. Within moments, expertly and efficiently, the boy had been upended onto the horse and all the relevant straps fixed into place. He did not resist. The baring of his bottom had dissipated all resistance, not that this boy had given any trouble. This had been noted before with other boys, even the most troublesome. Whatever the initial demeanour, the pulling down of the shorts generally weakened all resolve. By the time this boy’s straps, two to hands and legs and the thicker one across his back, were fixed into place he was resigned to his fate. And that fate, quickly following, was incredibly painful. The correcting officer took the regulation cane from a small cupboard on the wall and stood to the left of the boy, stretched and fearful across the horse. His bottom was slightly raised due to the angle of the apparition and his vest had been raised up his back prior to the fixing of the central strap. Nothing would impede the duty of the instrument, shiny and medium thick, in the officer’s right hand. She tapped it, impatiently, against her own left hand and, at a signal from her colleague, placed it gently across the centre of the boy’s buttock cheeks. He squirmed and tried without success to turn his head. His bottom involuntarily twitched and the correcting officer, face a little flushed, tapped his cheeks again as if to say, keep still and let my cane do its work. There was a silence, almost in unison, an expectation from all four in the room that the moment had arrived. Tension had ebbed and flowed and now, at its highest peak, a voice said let the punishment begin. The words cut the air and the boy absorbed both them and their significance when the cane lashed viciously across the centre of his bottom. As a vivid red line slowly emerged across the surface of his skin he issued a harrowing gasp and shook his body in response. That hurt he seemed to be saying. It was less than ten minutes since entering the room.

 

‘A most satisfactory film, I think.’

 

Sydney lit his pipe, eagerly sitting in his pocket for the duration of the film, and puffed vigorously.

 

‘Most satisfactory, Sydney.’

 

As Mortenson said this he removed his glasses and placed them on the table. This was clearly not a time for polishing.

 

‘Most satisfactory, Sydney. It filled all of our criteria I think.’

 

‘Including, especially, that young boy’s backside.’

 

‘Sometimes Sydney, your comments disturb me.’

 

‘I only mean, Mortenson, if you are going to have such matters filmed it helps for it to be pleasing. A fat and spotty bottom would negate the impact.’

 

‘And our instincts to appoint females of the type in the film seem to be justified.’

 

Sydney vigorously sucked on his pipe which had, as if on cue, lost all its fire.

 

‘I am not sure that boy would agree with you, Mortenson.’

 

‘It was a well wealed backside by the end, I grant you. Well deserved though. I read his report.’

 

‘And?’

 

‘A nasty robbery of a newsagent. Set some papers on fire and whilst the owner was distracted helped himself to the till takings.’ Mortenson paused, reflecting. ‘I think he deserved all he got.’

 

‘And from a woman not much older than his sister, if he has one.’

 

‘Fit and strong, and determined, Sydney. All that we asked for.’

 

Mortenson rose and replaced his glasses in a bright red leather case.

 

‘I shall leave you to parcel up the film and despatch it to our political masters. It is time they saw the fruits of their deliberations.’

 

Sydney smiled and re-lit his uncooperative pipe. This fifth caning, and first filming, had been a complete success. As Mortenson left the room he set the film back to the beginning of the boy’s caning. It would do no harm to review it again before posting.

 

The cane lashed viciously across the centre of his bottom. As a vivid red line slowly emerged across the surface of his skin he issued a harrowing gasp and shook his body in response. That hurt he seemed to be saying. It was less than ten minutes since entering the room. He had hardly time to absorb the searing sting when the young female officer raised the cane again and sent it across the same path it had travelled before. It cut into both of the young and tender cheeks of the boy’s bottom and induced a second and more heartfelt cry of anguished pain. Two red lines, little more than centimetres apart, now flagged that this was a behind being caned, and caned expertly. As the corrective officer delivered a third stroke across the same raised and sensitive area it became clear that the boy’s cries and squirms of discomfort were only match by the determination and sweat of his chastiser. Her eyes never left his backside, with a concentrated will the cane wielder swung her weapon and hit her target with increasing venom and precision accuracy. If this boy had ever been caned before, and all doubted it, it was never like this. By the fifth and sixth strokes he was screaming to be let off. Screaming, and writhing and twisting as much as his restraints would allow. The woman stopped, rested the cane at her side as if allowing some respite. But no. It was clear from the way she tapped the instrument against her thigh and, glancing at her colleagues, conducted a little jogging motion that she was steeling herself for the second six strokes. The boy, sensing this although he could not see, pleaded for release. Begged to be let off anymore, vowed to be good from now on. But it was not to be and the second set of six strokes trod the same relentless path as the first. The boyish buttocks, so fetching and comely when first bent over the disciplinary horse, had six angry red weals turned into twelve. None cut, none were bloody, none were excessively savage but all seared and marked a young behind that was unlikely to forget the experience. By the time the last stroke fell on a naked bottom that all could admire all knew that this was a job well done. The boy, the girl who caned him, and the two who watched. And one of those two, after a moment, approached the boy and sprayed a comforting medical lotion across all those weals. Sprayed precisely and efficiently. And then gently rubbed a light and soft cloth over each of the inflamed cheeks before releasing the straps which had contained and restrained.

 

Sydney packed the film in the appropriate government bag and applied the relevant seal. He wasn’t sure about that cloth, the gentle wiping of the boy’s bottom cheeks. Seemed a bit, well, sensuous. He puffed on his pipe and considered whether he should include it in his report. He would ask Mortenson, Mortenson would know what to do, he was sure of that. As for Sydney, well, he reflected, his stepmother used to do the same to him. After a vigorous, bared bottom, spanking with her slipper. Perhaps it was traditional, part of the procedure. He would ask Mortenson. He would know. Alfred Roy (2015)