Suddenly Maria saw it. An upright iron frame was placed below Wedell's broad behind, centrally. From the brazier the youth Karl plucked out with a pair of tongs a glowing grille. This faded quickly but yet was hot enough, when he affixed it to the top rungs of the frame, some six inches under the mistress's base, to make her clench forward to the post in a trembling cry-“NOOOOOO!” A drip of curdled gism from her anus fell on a bar and spat, hissing there. She pressed herself, pleading, to the upright strut. The Count's streaked torn gave a jerk at these manifestations.
“While I count three,” he said pleasantly, feeling it.
The mistress seemed to know what was required of her. Her face became a comedy of concentration, and tortured doubts, as slowly, very slowly, she flexed her knees, lowering her large rump still closer to the hot bars. These were arranged so that they fell vertically, up her arse-cheeks. Maria watched, aghast.
Suddenly contact was made. The striped seat sat on the heated bars and Wedell straightened with a startled jump, screaming. “Auuuu…!”
The Count nodded.
Huish! Huissch!
The long cane wrapped itself beltingly about the startled buttocks. The mistress tried once more. This time she jerked off the inconceivably painful burn with four livid lines inscribed up her hams. Four cuts with the cane followed them. Wedell's bottom was becoming respectably tender.
“I haven't even begun to count, as yet,” drawled the Count watching, his ramrod high. “Thrash her again, Sergeant-Major. I like my meat well done.”
“Wait!”
With clenched teeth and starting eyes Ulrika Wedell lowered her buttocks the little allowed her by her fetters. With a grimace of agony she touched the bars, seemed to lift up, then held herself there. Slowly the Count said, “One.”
Her face screwed up with the effort of self-discipline, fighting down her riotous senses, her temples sweating.
“Two,” said the Commanding Officer gently. He waited an interminable period, then said, “Three.”
Ulrika Wedell fairly hurled herself in one strangled stifled yelp of agony upwards, her body crashing into the upright. Four fearsome blistered burn-marks crisscrossed her cane welts. Her bottom was a cauldron of white-hot coals. Never had Maria Daunitz seen, or imagined, its like before.
In the Army trap back Ulrika Wedell indeed had to kneel on the floor, weeping; she was too tender altogether to sit as yet. Ingeborg put her arm around her friend with a shudder.
“Too bad you lost your cherry,” was what she said.
“I'd sooner have lost ten than been buggered again,” Maria answered. “It was quite the most repulsive evening of my life.”
“Yet in the interests of Prussia,” opined the other passively. “What mammoth pricks,” she said with another shudder, and an undertone of pride.
“What was it he said to you as we left?” Maria asked quietly.
Ingeborg replied gloomily-“The contest. Between us and Wolfenbiittel. It's to take place shortly. And evidently at the barracks.”
“We have to,” said a voice through set teeth, as Ulrika Wedell spoke from the floor, “win!”
“What spirit,” commented Ingeborg Untermacher as she snuggled closer to her friend. Already she was recovering, a gentle warmth stealing over all her body, and there were inchoate delights ahead, when they returned.
Chapter Ten
The duel with Wolfenbuttel for the glory of housing Princess Elizabeth Christine of Brunswick-Bevern lived long in the annals of Schloss Rutenberg. It occurred on a snowy December evening, towards the end of term. And it did so, as the Colonel of the 15th. Dragoons had promised, in a commodious drill hall at the local barracks. Both schools were present, as spectators, Rutenberg tiered to one side, each girl bandbox neat and tidy, Wolfenbiittel-rather more numerous-on the other. The respective mistresses sat below their schools, facing each other across the polished expanse of parquet. Only the two Headmistresses sat on the dais, either side the Margrave of Ansbach, a bespectacled, scholarly gentleman of some seventy summers who clung to a copy of Wolff's Metaphysics throughout, but who showed a complete expertise in all matters of the rod.
Count Karl von Schmettau ran the proceedings, with the assistance of diligent orderlies from the regiment, and a Tursteherin appointed by each side. These twin ushers, both senior mistresses, acted as umpires in the events, of which there were to be three. The first was a simple caning contest.
When the two girls to compete against each other in this came forward there was a general buzz of astonishment. Rutenberg had chosen as its champion an Upper Senior called Annie Jansen, a big bovine blonde of peasant stock and build who had practiced use of the stick under the eagle eye of Frau Dick, gym mistress, for these two weeks past. She was five eleven in her broad, stockinged feet with muscular, arching thighs, visible biceps in her arms and a slightly protuberant belly; she could hit with great weight and, allowed to perform in one Duty under supervision, had made two girls “come again” at four.
But what was the surprise of all when the Wolfenbuttel heroine tripped down the aisles, turning out to be a slim, shy-looking little Oriental of seventeen or so? Both girls stripped to stockings, heeled shoes and wide leather belts and as they did so their contrast could not have been much greater. Kho, as the smaller girl was called, was a liquid-limbed little gem whose small, pert ass looked vulnerable to the point of absurdity. Her neat triangular bush had been trimmed low, whereas Annie's was full and bushy. The Rutenberg girl tried some practice swings with the cane provided, a very long, bright yellow one, and there were some giggles and shivers in the audience as a result.
Then the bottoms of both girls were “inspected” by rival umpires-tested to see there might have been no anesthetizing, belts tightened and a line drawn out with charcoal under the sulcus of each; for no stroke could fall “low,” only the buttock proper was to be attacked. A foul cut would result in three gratis for the donor: which was to say, against her! The two girls drew for start. A hush fell on the hall. Frau Grumkow's eyes brightened.
Technically, there was little enough advantage in starting. However, it helped to come second in the administration of strokes since the girl then knew how many she had to endure to win. There was an exact simulacrum of the Duty bars created for the purpose and Kho, having lost the draw, advanced with a smile to them. She bent over in a lissome movement and grasped the bar in front. The two umpire-mistresses sat before this watching the exact moment at which the contender might give up, and leave go. It was a lovely lithe little pair she put on display, set at the top of two close soft thighs, perfectly symmetrical; and at the exact central junction of the charcoal sulcus-line a charming rosy little quim nudged back, as if apologetically, a sliced and hairless bulge. Annie addressed herself to aim.
“Commence,” called the Margrave. “One.”
The Rutenberg girl took a good run and whupped the licky stick across the creamy skin. A livid weal leapt up, and the Rutenberg mistress said, “All right.” Kho stood up, bashfully smiling, and walked steadily back to accept the quivering wand from Annie, who handed it to her and advanced to bend over in kind. Kho gave her stroke without a run, yet a very venomous welt ran across the thick posteriors of the Rutenberg Senior as a result. All the watching girls craned forward, observing symptoms, like connoisseurs. Battle had been joined. The contest was on.
Kho then took two, followed by two for Annie. Then three, then four, then… five.
Until this point the duel seemed eventless with the exception that Annie appeared to be striking twice as hard. She whipped the little ass of the Oriental girl slowly, with zeal, as if she wished to flog it off. As Kho walked back her jouncing halves were well welted up and down.