He had made her stand on the half stair above the entrance hall. To be sure she was out of sight of the door for now, but that could always change. Her nose was to the corner, exactly touching the point at which the two walls met at the foot of the second set of stairs going up. It was a popular place for him to leave her. However, today it was much, much worse.

For one thing, his housekeeper was around. He had always promised her that to be truly tamed she needed witnesses for her discipline. Today it seemed it would come to pass. To make matters even worse, she had been made to stand at half-squat with her knees touching the wall as well as her nose. This had the effect of thrusting her bare bottom out obscenely behind.

Perhaps from the cold, Anne shivered, although familiar butterflies assailed her lower belly and despite being dressed in just a corset with stockings, there was no real chill. Her outfit was expensive; a hair-matching black-brown chocolate silk with delicate cream details, like the tiny bows at her hips. He had chosen it for her, just as he selected everything she wore.

Her hands were clasped into the small of her back just above her jutting behind and she dared not move them, so she had to shake her thick helmet-bobbed hair to pull a stray strand from her perfect natural pout.

Somewhere the dull thump of the housekeeper going about her business made Anne cringe. What does she think of me? The thought flooded her face with a blush as delicate and red as the one that would soon grace her bottom. Why do I put myself through this?

It had all begun years ago while she was still at school. Then it had been another master who had dwelt in her thoughts. An English master called Mr Grey. She had been 18 and in her last days at Chad’s, an old fashioned school with traditional standards of discipline. The type of establishment whose time-honoured methods had been swept away by progressive human rights legislation brought in during the dying days of the millennium.

Mr Grey had summoned her after a veritable cascade of failings and two previous warnings. Her previous essay had more than just rattled his cage and when he had found her sitting cigarette in hand in the linen cupboard, his invitation had been grim.

The creaky wooden stairs up to his study were oaken and dark with age; a black-brown that matched both her hair and her mood. Each step on the venerable planks was too loud and seemed to announce her passage to the whole school, causing her to stop after every step and listen. As she did so she was overwhelmed by the dank odour. The wooden stairwell and the wide parquet floor reeked of polish, a smell that would linger in her mind for ever afterwards.

Then from somewhere below was the clank of a door slamming. A moment later the draft of its impact rushed passed her as if to urge her on. Perhaps another master was coming; it didn’t do to dawdle, so she hurried on.

The door to Mr Grey’s study was of the same dark oak as the stairs, but it was dressed with subtle panels that had seen much better days. There was a patch of worn varnish above the door knob where eons of students had knocked at the end of the self same journey as hers.

She paused.

Did she hear a creak within? Did he know she was there waiting? She knocked. Her knuckles made little impression, so after another short wait she wrapped again, only harder. Too loud.

She half expected leering boys to emerge from hidey holes to mock her, but the only sound was her own breathing and far-off youthful shouts from the distant games field. Today she could have been an avid sports fan.

Still there was no reply. She hated this. Should she knock again?

“Come,” his muffled dark voice came from within.

Although she had been expecting it, nevertheless she started and anxiously rubbed her thighs beneath her blue pleated skirt.

Anne had read in a book once of how time had hung on end. She hadn’t known what that had meant then, but now as she reached for the door knob her arm became lost in intention. The reach in her mind was faster than the actual motion so that she seemed to forever extend an arm to grasp the hard shiny sphere of greasy oak. It was paler in colour than the door. As if someone had replaced it at some time in the door’s life; another pointless detail to be remembered.

Then suddenly the door rattled open and for a moment Anne was outside herself and watching her own entrance.

Mr Grey sniffed sharply at the sight of her as if only now remembering the unpleasant association to come. He was old, she thought, at least near 40. With a rugged dark complexion and grizzled short grey hair that matched his eyes.

The boys liked him, she remembered. He was fair they said and he knew about rugger and the more fashionable football that was rarely played at Chad’s. Anne hated sport almost as much as she disliked English. Who had made Shakespeare God anyway? As for Chaucer; what was that all about? The word ‘mastery’ popped into her head for some reason.

“Miss Auten,” Mr Grey said pleasantly.

The use of the title spelled trouble. Mostly she was just Anne. ‘Ought Auten to, or oughtn’t she not?” It was a childish tease she hadn’t heard since she was a sprog. It played around her head now and she thought of prefects.

“You know why you are here,” he continued.

“No Sir,” she said instinctively. Keep him talking, words couldn’t hurt her.

He put his pleasant manner down and regarded her with his hard grey eyes.

“Oh that,” she amended averting her own.

“That,” he agreed. “Or rather shall we say that ‘those,’ as I believe we have quite an assembly of deficiencies to address.”

Anne rolled her eyes. She hated bloody English and bloody English teachers. Oh you have deficiencies as well do you sir, she almost quipped. Was suicide catching? If she survived maybe he would jump out of the window after she had left.

Instead she said, “Yes Sir.”

“Your essay was…” His voice tailed off into a disappointed growl as he picked up a piece of paper. “Yes well… warned for tardiness, imposition for…”

He cast the foolscap aside and moved behind his desk.

“Miss Auten,” he said scratching his ear in irritation.

“Yes Sir,” Anne said brightly, which sounded a little cheeky even to her.

“Let us keep this very simple. Today we will deal with the smoking, by way of a marker as it were,” he said. “As for the rest… no more warnings. This is your very last.”

“Yes Sir,” Anne said. She couldn’t help but show some relief.

Then he reached for something on his desk and there was unmistakeable sound of the scratch-clack of wood upon wood.

The cane was finger-thick and dark to the point of black. At regular intervals were pale ‘knuckles’ marking the slow growth of the Malacca it had been cut from.

Anne’s eyes seized upon it and she swallowed.

“You know the drill,” Mr Grey sounded bored now.

She did.

“I…” Anne had never been caned. Her hands strayed to her sides and she gripped at her skirt.

“Miss Auten please, if you will.” It was not a request.

“How…?” She felt sick and she managed to blanche and blush both at once; a sudden raspberry colour melting on her face right up to her ears on otherwise stark white skin.

“I see no reason to grant you any particular favour, do you?”

A standard caning then. She worked her mouth and found it dry.

Mr Grey held the cane up level with his face and flexed it between two hands. “Well?” His voice was a sharp rasp.

Anne turned slowly to face the back of an old worn-out stuffed chair. It had only one purpose. Stepping forward she felt the frayed back of the seat press against the front of her thighs. Then grabbing her skirt from the sides she began to work it up like a curtain. Once it was clear of her bottom so that her pale cream knickers and blue stocking-tops were revealed, she flopped forward so that she dangled like a fish on a hook into the seat of the chair.

A hope, a small hope, hung in the air and she held her breath. Then she felt fingers at the waist of her underwear. With no drama or ceremony the cotton briefs slid with a shuck against her bare thighs to expose her round wide bottom to his gaze. She gasped.

The slight chill gathered at her exposed bottom tickling it and she felt the skin tighten into goosepimples.

Her heart and mind raced in unison with the hot hard pulsing of her ears as she blushed ready to die.

Perhaps he admired the shading between her thighs and the curve of her bottom, but he didn’t linger.

The cane stroke was a biting line of fire before she had even heard it; a throbbing line that cut and continued to saw even as the next joined it a cane’s-breadth beneath it.

Surprise had stilled her tongue for the first, but the second made her yelp girlishly. Would a boy have been braver? Such considerations were lost with the next stroke and by five the cane was at the fold and beyond all silence.

In all he placed eight across her bottom and by the end she was left bent over and breathing like a saw mill. She didn’t move until he said so. Then she got unsteadily to her feet and eased her knickers over her stripes.

She wanted to hate him, but just then he seemed like God, his authority tickling at her neck and elsewhere to join in one all over fuzzy feeling. It was the same one she got when a boy smiled at her.

She wanted to cry for him, to show that him that he had won, but the dam wouldn’t break.

“I trust I won’t see you again Anne,” Mr Grey said sadly.

Anne sounded like forgiveness and she smiled shyly as she shook his hand.

“No Sir,” she gushed.

Never had she wanted to please anyone so much. At that moment she would have given anything to try her hardest for him and… and… still fail.

The walk to the bathroom was a dream, although with every step the cane throbbed in her seat. Even when she saw the damage and finally begun to cry, she could not help stare at the plum ridges in the mirror for the better part of an hour. Lost in narcissism, she fingered the raised lines, hissing at the touch of her hands and then pressing her scolding cane scratches again and again.

It had been her last caning at school and she had been 20 before she had found a new master to serve.

Now she served him.

Her back ached now, just a little; a dull twinge that let her know she had been in the corner for a good while. Once upon a time she would have said too long, but he had trained her away from such notions. She would stand in the corner until he released her.

Just then she heard a sound on the stair and she sensed the housekeeper behind her. The woman said nothing but continued to lug the vacuum cleaner upstairs, which was confirmed a few moments later by the irritating shush-wail on the upper landing.

Anne’s face burned in shame, she wasn’t even worth a cutting remark; she was just a naughty girl in the corner; her bottom still jutting out in an obscene display as she awaited the cane. In her mind he was watching her; he was always watching, for he was always with her.

Ends.