Friday fiction

“And we’ll have these down.” Neatly-manicured fingers slip under the waistband of his underpants, which are tight and very white. The cloth clings to well-muscled, athlete’s buttocks like a second skin. So tight that it takes a tug or two to get them down far enough to bare his pale cheeks just the way she wants them.

“I’m very disappointed with you, Coleman. Very disappointed. You’ve been a very disobedient young man this term, haven’t you? I’ve given you chance after chance, haven’t I?” There’s a pause, which he knows means the question is one that she expects him to answer. Most of her questions are meant to answer themselves, but this last one is clearly one of the ones that isn’t. An answer is expected.

It’s a dilemma. If he doesn’t come up with one quickly he will be even deeper in trouble than he already is. But he’s a little preoccupied with the weird feeling of hyper-sensitivity that he’s been experiencing since he entered the room.

His over-stimulated nervous system is focussed almost entirely on his butt. In a normal day how often are you aware of your behind? It’s just there isn’t it, usually between you and whatever you are sitting on?

Not just now though. At this precise moment Jay time is in go-slow and every nerve ending in his butt cheeks vibrates with anticipation about what is about to happen.

From the moment she took the strap out of the desk drawer the air has seemed electric. In the slight chill of the room the surface of his lily-white bottom and sun-browned thighs have turned to goosebumps.

He has to say something. The Vice-Principal (Pastoral) is waiting for something, but the best he can do is to mumble: “I don’t know... I guess I’m sorry...”

The fact that his face is pressed into the polished teak surface of the desk top doesn’t help. “Speak up young man, I can’t hear you,” Mrs Flood says. Her voice is cool, steely edged and rather husky.
“I’m sorry...” he says again, lifting his face a little to free a little more sound. Almost too much.

“No need to shout,” she answers sardonically. “Save your voice for later. You have had your chances, but still you’re disobedient. So I think it’s time for a long-overdue punishment...”

Jay screws his eyes shut and holds his breath waiting for the swish-crack of the punishment strap. But it doesn’t arrive and after four or five seconds he opens his eyes again to see that Mrs F has crossed to the far side of the room.

She’s standing by the window looking out and running the dark, aged strap slowly through her fingers as though she’s testing its weight. Looking over surrounding roofs to a quiet road – it is Sunday morning – and to rolling countryside beyond she is counting slowly to ten in her head. Anticipation is all part of the experience, she feels, and so he should wait just a little longer.

Quiet please!

I can remember when librarians were strict. Strict. no-nonsense. Talk once and you got The Look, usually over a pair of steel-framed spectacles. Talk a second time and you were out, no second chances.

So, I was surprised by my trip to the local library today. First time in ages, I thought I'd take my laptop in and do some work using some of the reference books for research.

But the place was crowded and everybody seemed to be so noisy. The librarian was younger and better looking than I expect librarians to be, but the guy just didn't have the right stuff. No way he could do The Look - not a strict bone in his body.

I didn't get much work done. I just couldn't concentrate. I did, however, spend some time mulling over how strict an old-style librarian could have been. Clearly CP would have been out of the question in an environment where silence was at a premium, but after hours there'd have been nobody to hear the smack of implement on bare bottom, the squeals, the begging...

Poetry corner

I'm really enjoying spending time in the 1940s at the moment. The novel I have in mind is going to be set in the war years and I'm at that stage of gathering material, mood and feel.

As well as reading up on the Land Army I've been re-visiting an old collection of the poems of Sir John Betjeman. I had a fierce crush on his work a few years ago, but then fell out of love - so it's great to go back.

1940s tennis girl

My heroine is pretty clear in my mind now. She's positive, sporty and likes - to use an old-fashioned phrase - to get stuck in. So it seemd like meeting up with a friend when I got to to 'A Subaltern's Love Song' and its object of desire, Miss Joan Hunter Dunn.

Written in the early 1940s, Betjeman's  poem is a marvellous tale of unrequited love and pokes fun at the manners of the English middle classes. For some reason that I can't quite put my finger on I find lots of JB's poems sexy in a repressed, buttoned-up sort of way, and Miss Hunter Dunn has 'it' in spades.
She's 'furnish'd and burnish'd by Aldershot sun', sporty, strong and confident.


Love-thirty, love-forty, oh! weakness of joy,
The speed of a swallow, the grace of a boy,
With carefullest carelessness, gaily you won,
I am weak from your loveliness, Joan Hunter Dunn.


I want to be her, I want to be him. It's all a bit confusing (as is his mention of her boyish grace...) And it also feels a bit voyeuristic:


On the floor of her bedroom lie blazer and short,
And the cream-colour walls are be-trophied with sports...


And is it just me but do I dectect a hint of the spanko sentiment? 

Oh! Surrey twilight! importunate band!
Oh! strongly adorable tennis-girl's hand!

Betjeman's dream?

Probably not, but you never know. According to Paul Johnson he liked 'pigtails, gymslips, black stockings and navy-blue serge bloomers' and wrote of his own early CP experiences.
 
PS There was a real Joan, who apparently died in 2008. JB's poem was, she said, mostly fantasy.