Professionals like the learned Frau Direktrice, however, observed that her rival institution had not selected their representative of the rod for nothing. Kho was accuracy incarnate. Both girls had now had fifteen cuts in all and you could have put a ruler over those across Annie's broad ass. This was barred, in fact, by a single solid purple weal, blood-black on the right and blistered-looking. She got up from her five visibly the worse for wear, with a strangled cry, grabbing back at her bottom quickly. She walked stiffly away, head down, for her one minute's rest-all allowed the contestant before recommencing. The problem was — could Kho endure as well as administer? She was certainly an expert in the latter art.
The Oriental girl, vividly striped behind, bent over for her six. If she gave up at four, then Annie would only have to get to five to win. But Kho resolutely withstood the six terrific stripes slowly accorded her by the heavy Rutenberg Senior. Though she hopped when it was over she did so with a grin, and Annie Jansen went forward for her six very thoughtfully indeed.
One!
“Auoee!”
Two!
“Huuuuu.”
Kho cut upwards in a biting arc. The cane seemed to espouse the solid seat, cling to it for a second, before bouncing back. She cut crisply into the bruised and aching welt she had drawn there. Twice Annie's head went back in a cry, and twice she seemed about to give up. But pluck held her to her task. Fatty quiverings and tremblings inside her cheeks showed the intensity of her pain, and her equal impossibility of flinching in this position away from the telling blows. The last bit in with a sudden surprising dash of blood-the blister on the right had broken. Gloom settled on the Rutenberg ranks. A stroke on raw skin…
And so it concluded. Kho absorbed the whole next seven, set herself carefully, and-phffffupp!
“Owww!”
Phffppp!
The big girl was in agony. She clung to the bar for four, her right cheek bleeding, then just as the fifth was falling she leapt erect, grasping her buttocks. Kho's completed stroke skinned her knuckles with a scream. Annie Jansen dropped to her knees, her cry drowned in the prolonged applause from the Wolfenbiittel maidens. Rutenberg had lost bout one, and there were only two more contests to decide.
The next was between elected mistresses. It was to consist of a switch duel-three rounds in a large boxing rectangle, roped for the occasion, each round being of three minutes in duration. Each mistress wore a leather tunic to the waist, leaving the arms bare, a broad belt, and high-heeled shoes, that was all. All cuts had to be below the belt. Any shown to have fallen above constituted punishable fouls. Jacqueline Bellais, skilful little French mistress and aficionado of the rod, faced a brawny, raw-boned woman in her late thirties called Bertha Kittel, a brunette with a thick bush and heavily overhung Sitzplatz.
When the “seconds” (assistant mistresses) were ordered out of the ring, this contest looked like a virtual walkover for Rutenberg. Bellais darted in and out, placing excruciating lashing cuts with her two-thonged switch. Bertha Kittel hissed with pain and, the round over, walked to her corner nursing some very angry-looking stripes indeed. But the second round produced sudden dismay for the Schloss-if they lost this, they lost all, and after two minutes had gone by it looked as if they would.
In endeavoring a low swipe Jacqui Bellais tripped and fell. In doing so she lost hold of her switch and her rival flicked it from the ring in a quick triumphant stroke of her own. There followed a frantic chase. Big Bertha had a minute more and was going to take every advantage of it; she got in two ferocious cuts low down on Jacqui's belly, the second of which made her double to her knees in speechless pain a moment, holding herself and heedlessly exposing, on full view, the long slotted lozenge of her veinous vulva. The other saw it with a smile, paused and whipped it with her tips. She might have been more accurate. If she were Kho she doubtless would have been. But it was enough to make the Rutenberg heroine jack straight on her belly with a scream, legs together. A rain of blows followed.
Jacqueline Bellais chose the lesser of two evils. She decided to stick out the remaining seconds of the round, prone on her belly, legs squeezed together, and as close to the ropes as regulations permitted. She had to be helped back to her corner at the bell.
Her bravery won the day, as it transpired. Revived with brandy she advanced stubbornly to the fray, blood oozing from at least two buttock welts, and one on her belly. She went straight for her adversary's hand and scored-on the wrist. Bertha dropped her switch with a howl and from there on, it was all over. Jacqueline was in her element, and knew absolutely no mercy.
Having flicked the switch away she took her time. The Wolfenbiittel mistress, like her, sought desperate refuge on her stomach, but such was Jacqui's skill she would coil the switch tails round the unfortunate woman's left ankle, wrench it wide and almost in the same next motion lash inside the buttock cheeks. The other clung to her pooch with already bleeding hands but the switch would still sting viciously into her cleft, whipping her to agony there. Finally, she had had enough. A great wail went up-“Stop! Stop! She's skinning my cunt. Stop it? I give in… I can't…”
The final event was well won by Rutenberg. The two Head Girls had to vie with each other as to which could take most cuts of the whip. This was meted out by the Regimental Whipmaster, a past-master in the art wielding an oiled and plaited horror some five feet long. The Wolfenbiittel Head, a lovely blonde, suffered first, triced hawser-taut to pulleys at wrists and ankles, upright. The Rutenberg Head was taken outside by an umpire, so that she might not know how many the first contender had taken, and exactly what toll she had to surpass. It turned out to be only seven, a number indicated by Maria Daunitz on the stage in a prearranged manner, by placing seven fingers on display on her well-rounded knees. After eight the girl knew she had won, and was more than glad to be let down.
Karl von Schmettau, who had watched the festivities in an almost continual erection, bowed low to Elizabetha Grumkow.
“Congratulations,” he said gently, “you have won.”
“We have won,” came the enigmatic answer, in a gloomy tone that surprised him, “but I have lost.”
Chapter Eleven
We have won, but I have lost.
This gloomy prognostication, made by the now celebrated Directress of Schloss Rutenberg, had been overheard by some, and puzzled all.
What did it mean?
What did it signify that two days (or, rather, evenings) later the mistresses heard themselves called to convocation in the Head's private Chastisement Chamber? Why had there been erected there, at one commanding end of the room, a gleaming, soulless triangle-of the type to which recalcitrant soldiers were not uncommonly affixed. More than one heart, beating hard under a polished black leather tunic, said Weh in that rank of mistresses assembled there in line, to attention, by Matron Steinkopf. They awaited the Directress's entry with trepidation. When it came, they ducked in ritual curtsey exactly together and, though they kept their eyes dead ahead, at the opposing wall, more than one was surprised to the pitch of intense apprehension.
For Frau Grumkow had entered in degage costume-to whit, skintight velveteen slacks and ruffled shirt. She was wigless. The sandy crop of hair curled vitally away from the freckled forehead, while the blue, slightly slanting eyes beneath were stern and porcelain in appearance.
“I have gathered you together here not to prolong our felicitations over our victory, gentle ladies,” she began, her stocky body falling into a pose before them, “but because a grave injustice has been done this term.”