“Good?” whispered Barbara Mack, re-accepting the even slimier length of bone.
“Bliss,” murmured Monika Vorst and, turning over, she fell asleep almost instantly.
Chapter Four
Reveille rang from the cavalry barracks across the wind-whipped plain, and promptly as it did so, at six o'clock each morning save the Sabbath, a bell clanged in the upper corridors of Schloss Rutenberg. A new day had dawned for its pensionaires. Matrone Steinkopf announced Aufstehen with a huge copper bell, walking past one Dormitory after another, and every girl except the Prefects had to be out of bed by the time it was silent.
So there was much rubbing of sleepy eyes and tousled heads as the girls jumped out of bed, threw off their cozy nighties and made naked, all in a jiggling jostle of toasted girl-flesh, for the wash-room adjoining their individual Dormitory. Here each had to take a cold bath in a wooden tub which would be, as winter wore on, crusted with ice at the start. It was a merry moment again, of pushing and giggling maidens in prime condition, and the Prefect in charge, lying a few seconds longer in her raised bed, would wonder how many more of those chubby bottoms would have neat lines ruled on them by evening. Depending on how long ago they'd had it these lines were black, brown, yellow, the Hohenzollern colors with a vengeance. Supposedly each girl was meant to sit in the icy tub for a full count of ten slow seconds, and some Prefects laughingly enforced this. Others usually got up when the slopping and gambolling was threatening to grow too intense, in order to restore a little order and decorum into the activities. For this girlhood was anything but repressed; they were part of a new world, a coming breed, their camaraderie was close, their esprit de corps intense. Dorm “D” was a real team.
Finally a few slapping cracks of the Prefect's strap would resound and with a whistling “Phew!” some girl, still grinning, would jump into the water she had been reluctantly eyeing. Praelictors were permitted occasional strokes with these straps, “hunting” strokes as they were called, given too by the mistresses with their switches (known for the purpose as Jagdgerte), but to punish a girl any further they had to fill out a chit requesting permission. The girl then had to take this for signing to the Duty Mistress of the day. The latter very rarely refused the request, which was then returned by the culprit for effectuating to the Prefect, who in turn never abused the privilege. It would have been unthinkable to do so-let alone the punishment involved, if discovered. There was indeed no motive to do so in an environment in which justice was so universally worshiped. The strap stung considerably, but the pain was far from intolerable, and a dozen strokes was seldom exceeded. However, the effect was beneficial, notably for the scum, and today Prafekt Seckendorff, standing with beads of moisture on her powerful downy thighs, and rich wet muff, decided it was time to give her own “underschool,” or personally assigned new girl, a reminder of her place in life. She was one of the few Praelictors who liked to take a cold bath to set herself up for the coming day, as well as the majority. Little Anna Erland had just scampered by, to dress and do her bed. Toweling herself briskly on parted legs, the big girl smiled at the Junior doing the same there.
“Get those yesterday, Monika?”
“Yes, Seckendorff.”
“Hurt?”
“Oh like anything.”
“I always hated it from Wedell.”
“Urn, and Steinkopf.”
“Heavens, yes.”
They laughed in complicity together and as Monika Vorst ran through to the dorm to dress the Prefect flicked out the wet end of her towel so that it snapped under the bounding right buttock, indenting it there.
“Ow!” Monika looked back with a grinning squirm.
Many of the girls had put their tunics under their mattresses the night, in order to press them neatly for the new day's wear. The dormitory was now a tangle of tightening knickers, pulled-high stockings, and polished shoes. After which the girls tidied their lockers and made their beds. Seckendorff, making her prefectorial stroll past these when they had finished, dropped out laconically, “Erland. Untidy corner. Come and see me after breakfast, would you.”
Breakfast was at seven, but punctually at a quarter of the school formed up for morning inspection by the day's Duty Mistress, in the big hall before the dining-room. They paraded in classes, like soldiers. The Duty Mistress inspected them before and behind, walking along their ranks close followed by the Duty Prefect for the day who carried the dreaded Duty Book. The mistress herself carried her switch, unclipped from her belt. For this was no laughing matter, at all. Though the so-called hunting stripes seldom amounted to more than three or four, these long eel-dark switches cut like fury, being used principally about the backs of the legs.
This morning the presiding Duty Mistress had roamed the front rank of the Juniors without especial event, except for a passing reprimand here and there, when she stopped before one striking brunette.
“I don't think you require soap behind the ear, Ingrid,” she said quietly. When she had passed on, the Prefect behind her snapped, “Stand out, Forster,” and the girl took three smart military paces forward. One more girl did the like, from a rear rank, only in her case she stepped backward. She had not dried herself sufficiently, it seemed, notably between the legs.
Inspection completed, the Prefect ordered:
“Forster. Right turn. Touch your toes.”
Each girl was accorded three hissing kisses with the lash across the top of the legs, across, in fact, that band of ivory white between her knickers and stocking-tops. Ingrid Forster had to blink back tears marching into a breakfast.
After breakfast there was a so-called free period until first class at eight thirty. In fact, each girl had to evacuate her bowels under penalty. Prefects and seniors were exempt from supervision but the rest had to line up in the chilly exterior area of planked latrines, known as “Groves,” perhaps sarcastically, and have their contributions to a bucket approved by a Prefect before proceeding back to the building. These were usually quite copious since the diet had a large admixture of psyllium seeds within it, and the bulk of even a scum's Wurstchen was considerable. Each had to wash out her bucket afterwards. Anyone “missing” was sent to the Matron, where she soon knew about it.
Thus, Anna Erland, possessor by this point of a slip of paper which began “Request for permission to give the bearer six stripes…” was tensely costive, and climbed the stairs fearfully to the Matron. This good woman lost no time in bending her over and administering a rectal evacuator, of glycerine and castor oil, and long suppository slid in high. Then pigeon-toed, and plucking at her tunic in front, the girl had to stand in a line of four, “controlling” her insides for a ten-minute wait. One offender was fairly griped double, and begged to relieve herself, or else. Unfortunately the alternative, if she let fly as her inner person so demanded, would have been a really sound caning from the implacable Steinkopf. Most held out, squatting over a pan in turn and in public. Each knew, as she left, that were she to miss again that week, it would be a long-beaked clyster up her anus, compared to which the suppository would seem a Sunday-school picnic. And after this little Anna Erland draggled to her Prefect's private den, or study, having first passed by the Duty Mistress to have her chit signed.