Finally told to get up from over the chair, I put my clothes back on and cleared away the tea things as if nothing had happened. I can tell you that I made my way back to the kitchen with the tray loaded with the dirty crockery and my arse feeling totally on fire. I am not ashamed to tell you that I wept bitterly as the pain was just so great. That evening at supper I could barely sit down at table and was really relieved when I could get back to the dorm, take a shower and go to bed to nurse my wounds. My peace was short-lived as my trials and tribulations were still not over for the day. It was about eight in the evening when one of the two junior prefects suddenly appeared in the room: “Stevens, get your arse out of bed; Simmons (the House-Captain you will remember) wants to see you in his study right now.”
CHAPTER 4
Commands, even from a junior prefect, were given to be obeyed without question and so I pulled myself stiffly out of bed and started to take off my pyjamas to put back on my day clothes only to be told curtly: “Forget dressing Stevens; you can go and see the House Captain just as you are; your pyjamas will do just fine; in fact I think that you will find they are perfect for the occasion. Now get a move on as Simmons wants to see you pronto and it doesn’t do to keep him waiting.” I wondered why on earth the House-Captain, the very man who had precipitated matters that afternoon and got me my first thrashing, wanted to see me. But I can tell you, as I am sure you can imagine, that it was with some considerable trepidation that I went along to his study, asking myself what I had done to warrant such a summons and what was to happen to me now; I did not have to wait long to find out.
Simmons received me with scowling face which boded ill: “Stevens, were you aware that the Head-Boy, for whom you have the honour to be the fag (some honour I thought!) was, until he was named Head-Boy for this year, a prefect of this very House? Let me tell you Stevens, that I was mortified that a boy from this house, my House, the House of which the Head-Boy is still an honorary member, could make such a mess of things: simple things, which any normal boy would be able to accomplish with no problem; but you apparently could not. Now as far as I can see your attitude is all wrong. You are from America where things are probably done differently, but you are now here enjoying an education in England and we expect you to show the right attitude (that word again; what did he mean by it?) which as far as I can see, you so far have not. And so it falls to me as your House-Captain, to try to inculcate into you the values which we at Frogmore cherish. (My god! what a load of pompous tripe!) Now I think we would both agree that the Head-Boy was very lenient with you when beat you this afternoon. (I certainly did not feel he had been lenient, as the pain in my arse was continually reminding me as Simmons was speaking.) And so Stevens, I feel I have no option but to take additional measures to set you on the right road to acceptable behaviour in this school; to help you to improve your attitude in general.”
At this stage, having finished his rather pompous peroration, Simmons evidently decided that actions spoke louder than words; so he got up from his desk, in front of which I was standing with my back to the door dressed only in my pyjamas, walked around me and reached up to the door on which several rattan canes were hanging from a hook. He selected one and came back to face me, waving the cane under my nose and said: “So Stevens, in view of the leniency of the Head-Boy, I propose to give you an additional six as your punishment this afternoon was, in my view, much too light.”
So there it was; Simmons, whom I correctly saw as a sadist, simply wanted to thrash my arse himself for no good reason and that was that. I knew that I would be wasting my breath to protest and so I waited silently until he spoke again. I confess I was shivering with fear at the thought of what was now be visited upon me as my arse was still very sore from the onslaught it had suffered earlier that day. Simmons placed a simple hard backed chair in the centre of the room and said: “Stevens, go and stand behind the chair, drop our pyjama trousers, bend across the chair in the usual manner, place your hands on the seat and keep perfectly still whilst I administer your punishment; keep your hands away from your arse until I am finished and tell you to get up or I shall be obliged to start again from the beginning.”
So there I was, for the second time that day, my naked arse in the air, waiting for that first horrible stroke to land. I steeled myself and swore silently that I would deny my sadistic House-Captain the satisfaction of seeing me reduced to tears. And so, as stroke followed painful stroke — and let me be clear that Simmons was just as proficient with the cane as was the Head-Boy — I managed to remain silent; I neither cried-out with the excruciating pain he delivered nor did I shed a tear; it was hard; very hard indeed; but I managed to keep silent. When Simmons saw that he was not managing to break me and as stroke followed stroke, he increased his intensity. Finally it was all over and I was told to get up, pull back on my pyjama trousers and leave. I limped back to my bed, where my dorm-mates were agog to see what had happened to me. I had the satisfaction of being the hero of the moment, for Simmons was universally unloved by one and all.
And I had the distinction of being the first boy in my year — the first of many times for me, I might add — to undergo what I came to think of as the traditional post mortem viewing of a freshly beaten arse. After expressions of sympathy tinged with a mixture of both fear for themselves and admiration for me from my mates at the sight of a twelve-cut welted arse, I climbed back into bed; my arse was on fire; the pain was excruciating; but I finally went to sleep sobbing quietly to myself. But I had the satisfaction of knowing that I had survived the first of many beatings which unbeknown to me at the time, would dog my future life at Frogmore. It was only a few weeks later that I learned that the concept of the well-beaten arse, was something of a hallmark of the school. My first experience surely qualified for that accolade as did my many subsequent beatings, but it was only years later, in fact, in the final days of my final year at Frogmore, that I really experienced what a truly gold standard, well-beaten arse felt like.
I won’t burden you with a chronological account of my numerous confrontations with the cane during my life at Frogmore other than to recount the details of two painful occasions, one of which changed my life forever and I suppose set me the road to my future career — if you can call it that — as a Male Escort. But before I tell you about that occasion, which occurred when I was just sixteen and in the fifth form let me jump some two years forwards in time to the last week of term in my final year at Frogmore. This was the one and only time in my entire career at Frogmore, that I was beaten by Headmaster himself. Over the years I had been beaten at least once a term by my Housemaster, by every Head-Boy and by every House-Captain of Hanover, not to mention by sundry other prefects. For some reasons I was one of those people whose arse just seemed to be a magnet for the cane, and one way and another I was seldom without a sore bottom for long, But it was not until that final, fatal week when I was in the upper sixth that, together with my then closest friend with whom I had enjoyed a long term sexual relationship as a sixth-former, that I was beaten by the Headmaster himself.
CHAPTER 5
During my years at Frogmore the Headmaster was a certain Dr. W. C. Bellamy, DD, of whom my immediate impression was of a tall, bony, humourless man who should have been put out to grass a long time ago. But of course to a thirteen-year-old as I then was, even a man of forty seemed old. At first sight he appeared to me to be a superannuated hangover from the days when public schools were often headed by clergymen. But that was just my impression, for Dr. Bellamy ruled the school with a rod of iron and had over the years acquired a legendary reputation with the cane and the birch, both of which, according to reports of those who had had the misfortune of being obliged to allow him to whack their arses, he applied with an unbelievable and unequalled vigour. What happened was that Clive Garrard my closest friend and sex partner — I say sex partner rather than lover, as it was really just raw lust which kept us together — and I very foolishly decided one Friday night at the end of our final term, to go down to the local pub and have a few drinks and smoke a fag.
Now we were both eighteen at the time we started our sexual liaison and of legal age to smoke and drink alcoholic beverages. Of legal age we may well have been, but the school rules, which as far as smoking and drinking were concerned, were tantamount to being engraved in tablets of stone, forbad both activities on what was the Frogmore equivalent of pain of death if the perpetrators of the offense were caught in flagrante. But it was just the fact that smoking and drinking were so very strictly forbidden which made them so enticingly attractive to the likes of us. And so, fully aware of the potentially painful consequences if we were caught, on the last Friday evening of term, we sneaked out of the school grounds and went down to the pub. Now as I mentioned earlier, the Headmaster had more or less abandoned the application of the cane and birch himself, leaving regular beatings, of which, believe me, there were plenty, to the Head-Boy of the day. But he was absolutely adamant when it came to the two cardinal sins of smoking and drinking; he insisted that any prefect or master who caught any boy in the act report the culprit to him. These two sins merited his personal attention and as you will shortly learn, when the good Doctor Bellamy addressed a miscreant’s arse with either cane or birch, it was not anything that any boy in his right mind would ever volunteer for; in American English it was one of those awful occasions where one prefer to be included out!
But it goes without saying, of course, that Clive and I were caught in the act red-handed. In fact we were caught by our own Housemaster, who had been alerted to the fact by one of our own House junior prefects who had, by chance, seen us entering the pub; the Housemaster had then seen fit to come down to the pub himself, find us in the bar both driming and smoking, turn us out and send us back to the school with dire verbal warnings about the severe consequences we would reap for our misdeeds. Next day was Saturday; but nothing happened; and so with a sense of false security, we sort of thought that the whole affair had blown over; but we were just so very wrong! After chapel on Sunday morning, the Headmaster made his usual announcements and then the axe fell, as he concluded, almost as an after-thought: “Now before I forget, Stevens and Garrard, I want to see the two of you this afternoon at three o’clock precisely in my study. Oh and I am sure that I need not remind you that you should both present yourselves wearing the — and then came those fateful words — appropriate attire. I always feel that one should be correctly dressed for every occasion and for our meeting this afternoon, the appropriate attire of shorts and gym vest will be very suitable; no other clothing, including underwear, will be required.” He did not have to specify why he wanted to see us or what he had in store for us; those two words, appropriate attire, said it all.
This announcement was made in front of the entire school and a buzz went round the congregation — an appropriate word as the announcement had been made at the end of service in the chapel — as the sensational significance of what he had just said sank in: Two upper sixth formers were to receive a beating from the Headmaster that very afternoon. This was an amazing piece of news the Headmaster himself rarely beat anyone anymore; and never on a Sunday; but here he was, proposing to shred the arses of two boys — young men really — who would be leaving the school forever in a few days time when the term ended. What had they done to deserve this? The prurient curiosity of the entire school was aroused. Then word went round that someone had seen the school handyman making up a set of new birches in his store-room on Saturday afternoon; so connecting the dots, it had to follow that Stevens and Garrard were to be birched. This truly was the juiciest piece of news the school had heard all term and some of the older boys already had a hard on just thinking about what was to happen; two, lusciously muscular arses were to be beaten to pulp — well not quite — that very afternoon. But why? It had to be something serious for the Headmaster to make such an announcement in public; and in the chapel to boot; clearly it was a warning to others that no one was above the sacrosanct Laws of Frogmore and that penalties associated with their breaking would be upheld right through to the final minute of a boy’s career at the school. So although the announcement had raised great interest it had also made the boys think that what was about to happen to the hapless pair, to Clive and me, might one day happen to any of them; and that was a really sobering thought.
Three o’clock arrived and Clive Garrard and I presented ourselves at the door of the Headmaster’s study wearing just our gym strip and slippers. I knocked on the door and there was no reply and we were left standing there in the corridor by the Headmaster, who had evidently decided to let us stew in our own juice for a while; presumably to heighten the already palpable state of nervous tension we were both feeling. He was clearly not alone in his study, for as we stood there we could hear, through the closed door, the murmur of voices from within; the door was eventually flung open, rather melodramatically, by Gerard Oliver, the then Head-Boy, whom Dr. Bellamy had obviously invited to assist him in a task which, for him, had become increasingly rare: a Headmaster’s beating; was it sort of an end of term treat for the Head-Boy to thank him for his assistance during the term? After all, even if the Head-Boy was just there as an observer, it was a place that Sunday afternoon for which most lads would gladly have given their eye teeth to be present; just think of it: an opportunity to see two sixth formers having their naked arses birched; it was the stuff legends were made of: a spectacle to arouse that streak of sadistic eroticism which is hidden deeply dormant inside most boys and which is awakened when they see one of their class mates being beaten; it was just a too utterly delicious, sexually-arousing prospect to contemplate; which was, however, as far as it would get other than for the Head-Boy.
However you looked on it, one could see from the expression on the Head-Boy’s face that he was really looking forward to his part — whatever that was to be — in the performance which was about to begin and in which Clive and I had the main roles. Frankly speaking as someone whose backside was accustomed to being caned, on this occasion I have to admit that I did feel a shiver of fear run though my body as we entered, for the very first time in both our careers at Frogmore, that holy of holy’s, Dr. Bellamy’s study. As I mentioned above, I had, over my years at the school, been beaten times without number by all and sundry: numerous prefects and Housemasters, who, over the years, had been authorised to swing the cane; but never until now had I been beaten by the Headmaster. So you could chalk it up as a first for me and also a first for Clive as he too had never before been in the Headmaster’s study. But as I took in the surroundings in which we found ourselves, my heart sank as I saw lying on a table several freshly made birches and to the side, one of those professional beating-stools which I had only ever before seen in the Head-Boy’s study and over which I had bent several times in the past to have my arse roasted by a succession of Head-Boys.
The present Head-Boy, Gerard Oliver, was in the same upper-sixth form as Clive and I; but although he had the authority to beat any boy in the school, he had, to the best of my knowledge, never beaten any of his sixth-form classmates. But sanguine though I generally was about being caned, as I felt I had become immured to the act; on this occasion I admit to having a really uneasy feeling about what was about to happen to us; and when it finally did, my worst fears proved, unfortunately, to be right; it truly was one of those ghastly occasions from which, to use an Americanism, I would have preferred to have been included out!
Dr. Bellamy sat behind his huge desk, with the Head-Boy standing looking on to one side. Clive and I, appropriately attired, looking like two overgrown schoolboys which is, of course, exactly what we were, stood stiffly to attention in front of the old man, attempting as best we could to look penitent in the vain hope that things might not be quite as bad as we envisaged; as events turned out, we were, of course, totally wrong; they were just about as bad as they could possibly have been. The Headmaster addressed us at length in no uncertain terms, and leaving us in no doubt whatsoever about the seriousness of our crime and what he thought of us. The Head-Boy played the role of a silent Greek chorus and as an approving onlooker nodded his agreement at each point the old boy made. Finally things came to the inevitable head and Dr. Bellamy said: “And so gentlemen, I find I have no alternative but to inflict upon you the most severe punishment that is but rarely used in this school.”
He did not, however, get around to telling us what our punishment was to be, but at least he was clear enough to call it a punishment and not a correction; so I suppose we thought that we knew where we stood, but frankly as things unfolded, we had not the faintest idea of just how awful things at Frogmore could be. “Kindly remove your shorts the pair of you and go and stand against the wall there with your hands on your heads.” The Head-Boy looked on with visual approval at the obvious, humiliating embarrassment we were being made to suffer, standing there half naked in front of him and the Headmaster. Can you imagine what it felt like as two eighteen year-old young men, to have to stand there with our genitalia — and we were both pretty well endowed in that department — totally exposed. It was not as if any of us were unfamiliar with the sexual attributes of the young, naked, male figure, which frankly I personally found very, very appealing; but it was one thing to see one another naked in the daily context of the gym changing-rooms or in the showers each evening or morning but quite another to be made to stand there as if posing for a sculpture, with nothing to preserve what is commonly called one’s modesty. And of course, the inevitable happened; both our cocks, with that mind of their own that the male sex organ always has, started to rise to the occasion. I noticed that the Head-Boy too was not immune from a similar problem as the tenting of the crotch of his pants showed.
But action time finally arrived as the Headmaster picked up one of the birches, motioned to Clive move towards the beating stool, across which he was then told to bend. And then both the Head-Boy and I had the unpleasant experience of watching Dr. Bellamy wield the birch across my closest friend’s naked arse. And let me just add, that in spite of his rather decrepit appearance, he was a clear master at the task. He separated each stroke from the next by that all-important, appreciation interval; with six strokes administered standing on Clive’s left he had already completed covered his arse with the fine welts which the birch creates. He then moved to Clive’s right side and proceeded to give him another six cuts so that by the time he had finished, Clive’s arse was was a bright red colour all over. I have to admit, to my shame — but then I am human with all the human failings — that even under these unhappy conditions when I knew full well that I was about to suffer the same treatment, I did experience a feeling of erotic pleasure as the birch descended time and time again on my friend’s naked flesh; by the time Clive was told to get up and regain his position against the wall with his hands again on his head, my own cock was rock-hard with the sheer eroticism of what I had just witnessed. To me there seemed no doubt at all but that corporal punishment, in the context in which I had just witnessed it, was sexually stimulating. However as Dr. Bellamy motioned me to take my place across the beating stool I could not help but notice that poor Clive had evidently had all the spunk beaten out of him, as his normally perky cock was now hanging in surrender, like a limp rag between his legs.