“Very well,” assented Frau Grumkow, taking a seat to one side and pulling on a newly lit cheroot. “Do you think you can drive home the lesson on a big girl like this with a butcher's dozen, Bellais?”
“I do,” said the mistress calculatingly, “if you would let me use the Hauter, Directress.”
There was a pause.
Then Frau Grumkow said, “Very well. It won't do her any harm to have her fat hams well thrashed.”
“Please, Headmistress,” came in the girl's worried tone.
“What is it, Seckendorff?”
“I… if I might be permitted to speak… I feel sure I could extract the information for you, without this… trouble. Our Dormitory is a true team. If you please, Headmistress.”
The good lady thought. She frowned, then said, “You have never had the Hauter, have you, Seckendorff?”
“Never,” came in immediate, and hollow, echo.
“I am glad to see it instills such respect in your soul. But it will do you a world of good to know what true pain is before you leave the Schloss. Not many girls get it. You should be proud. Make this a thoroughly significant experience for her, Bellais. You may add on two for Making Idle Excuses.”
“Thank you, Head,” said the mistress deferentially. “And with your permission I shall use Position Five.”
“By all means.”
Jacqueline Bellais approached her victim who had visibly abandoned all hope. She ran her hands over the full satiny globes behind inspectingly; spongily solid, they were unmarked, very white and curiously well downed up the crease. They would be lovely to whip. There was, for the little French mistress, only one pity-that they were not those of Maria Daunitz. She had pined to flog the newcomer all this term, and an idea had come into her head whereby perhaps she might. Fifteen with the Skinner-as the Hauter was locally known- what utter, utter bliss!
Jacqueline Bellais knew how to whip. Which was to say: she knew how to prepare the mind of a culprit until her imaginings of disaster reduced her to a jelly of emotions inside. It was important now to let this sinner see the weapon-see it, hear it, if possible even smell it, before she felt it on her person. The mistress went to one wall-noting with satisfaction that the Duty Maid of the day had left a tub of boiling brine and other impedimenta to hand-and took down the dreaded Hauter. It was a simple enough instrument.
“Afterwards you can put her on the saddle. I shall interrogate her at that time.”
“Very good, Headmistress.”
The Skinner consisted in a small polished walnut-wood handle in the shape of a T, in the bar of which-no longer than ten centimeters or so-had been inserted three leathery-looking limbs of ash, or sometimes willow. These were fresh cut by the Duty Maid of the day, full of sap, and-in added refinement-wound in wire, latticed along their great length, and this dreadfully compounded the difficulty of accepting a “Skinning,” as the girls called it, with any stoicism since the wire so abraded and grazed the skin. Jacqui Bellais saw with approval that the three greedily wavering tips had been especially well twined with the cutting wire.
“Every girl ought to have the Skinner once before she leaves,” said the Headmistress in a grumbling undertone, watching the trinity of wands shudder the air in the mistress' hand. “I declare it's even better than the Sole.”
Prafekt Seckendorff watched it with a visible gulp. She did not have to be top of her Arithmetic class to know that fifteen strokes, which she was going to get, meant exactly forty-five agonizing weals across her bottom with this evil-looking instrument-a bottom on which, if rumor and appearance were correct, she would not care to sit for a good two days. She was rescued from her trance of apprehension by an order.
“Position Five!”
She did an about-face and went to the wall for the straps. This much she knew, having secured a Senior in the celebrated position as Duty Prefect on one occasion. There were seven straps, the mystic number, and each carried sewn into it a small brass ring. Two she tightened on her ankles, with the rings outermost, two just above her knees with the rings behind her; the broad waist-belt had to be breathtakingly tight with the rather larger ring in front, while one strap went on each pulsing wrist. With a tug to her stockings she pulled back her shoulders and went to her fate. If she had to go through with it, better to do so bravely. She felt no resentment, and the aspect of that awful instrument, which made her whole being cry out, “Au weh!” in advance, was, she well knew, a proper part of her punishment.
The sturdy girl was bent over, facing a wall. Her legs were well parted and ringbolts on the floor were attached to her ankle-straps. Her wrists were drawn to a bolt about a meter high in the wall. Next, a chain was fastened to the ring on her left leg, taken through a ring in the flooring behind her and brought up to be secured to the ring on her right leg. This simple V most effectively braced back the legs, which could not now bend in the slightest at the knees. Finally, the ring at her belly was connected with its mate on the flooring beneath her, also by a chain, pulling down her waist in a deep arch; this, working against the V hauling taut her legs, had the effect of cambering up the pelvic girdle in a most powerful, indeed painful-looking manner. Nor was Mademoiselle Bellais satisfied until she had gone round and tightened the screw-links at each point until the girl might well have been on the rack. Her face red, her breathing rapid, she seemed to stick out her buttocks like a mare in heat, the slice of her sex a choice and quivering morsel beneath. And the mistress attended even to this. After the wet slide of the suppository up the cushiony velvet of her victim's entrails, soon to long to expel that peppery burn, the inexorable Bellais went for a bowl and soft brush. Parting the pussy lips she laved inside with a caustic solution, one that would also burn. As she worried the brush deep in, Seckendorff hissed audibly. Her effort to squirm off the impalement showed the watchers how little her bonds let her move.
The Head drew up her chair, the better to observe. The caustic was not absolutely necessary, but she approved, oh she undoubtedly approved. Bellais was really an educated corrector. One who did not flinch before the most severe beatings.
“Bit her,” ordered Frau Grumkow, biting on a new cigar. “I don't want to be deafened, thanks. The last time I saw a Skinning they thought we were sticking a pig in here.”
“Might I… prepare the terrain a trifle first?”
And the Duty Mistress asked it with such a charming smile the Frau Direktrice inclined her head at once.
Jacqueline Bellais cheerfully collected a hard-bristled floor brush from the side, steeped it in boiling brine, and, addressing herself to her target with concentration, began to curry the buttocks so well displayed there.
This she did at first with strong strokes upwards from above the knees, where the constrained stockings now ended. The cheeks soon flushed a vivid red, then became near beetroot, as she altered her attack and worked downward. The Directress raised her eyebrows. This scouring was even better than the sandstone, with which every bottom to be birched was rubbed by Matron Steinkopf until it was tender-after all, the sandstone was normally employed on the copper and pewter-ware that hung glowing in the kitchen. Finally, stiff-armed, the mistress hit the stretched flesh several times with the bristles, at which a rash of dark pimples leapt up. She so plied the right that Frau Grumkow, impatient, muttered, “Enough. Proceed with the whipping, please.
First the big heavy bit was placed in the girlish mouth, already gasping now; it was not put in, however, before the corners of the sensitive lips had first been coated in salve, for they were not brutal at the Schloss, and the mouth might have been cut into by the steel. Then a slender cutting golden chain was fastened to the belly ring in front, drawn through the burning purse of the pussy, up the anal divide, already rippling in response to inner protests now, was threaded through a ring in back of the belt and connected tightly to the bit at the girl's head. This was thus brought strongly back and any movement, any natural inclination, to alleviate the tension, or drop the face forward, would only serve to tighten the chain beneath. This was at the pitch of excruciation as it was. Jacqueline Bellais stepped back with the Hauter in her hand, satisfied.