Our story began here.

A bird sang nearby, a sweet accompaniment to the hush of the trees as they swayed in a light dance in the wind. Not that Mary noticed. She sat under the tree pretending to read a book as she kicked her life around in her head. Nor did she see Alice’s approach along the side of the gravel path.

“Anything good?” the governess asked as she nodded at the book.

Mary shrugged and shook her head.

“Come on, let’s go for a walk,” Alice suggested.

Mary didn’t reply, but ungainly got to her feet and dusted off her patterned flared skirt. Then quickly falling into step besides Alice, she ducked her head as if complying from duty.

Alice chuckled quietly as she sized the girl up. Her attire was better than the night before and it was obvious the girl had washed her mass of red hair so that it shone for once. But her demeanour was a little sullen

“How do you feel things are going?” the older woman asked carefully.

Mary shrugged.

Only the night before they had had a chat about Mary’s shortcomings and the 21-year-old had shown the first glimpse of spirit since coming under Alice’s wing. Katherine too had fared little better after offering up some make-up tips and afterwards the two older women had compared notes.

Now there was another matter that needed to be addressed.

“Why are you here?” Alice said stopping suddenly.

Mary’s face became animated and pained as she looked away.

“You want more don’t you? You want…” Alice began tentatively.

“I want to be like you and Katherine,” Mary blurted. “I know what you said last night; I know you were right but… oh… I don’t know, I just don’t know…” she stamped her foot in frustration.

“Is that why you went through my things last night?” Alice said in a neutral voice.

“I… I didn’t…” Mary stuttered.

“Not my books?” Alice pressed her.

Mary blushed to her ears and dropped her chin to her chest.

“I was just…”

“So you don’t deny it?” Alice said lightly.

Mary shrugged and looked around at the garden as if she might be rescued by the grass or the flowers.

“What were you looking for?” Alice pressed her.

Mary felt a throb of blood in her head and her mouth went dry.

“A book… a book like the pamphlet I was sent,” Mary mumbled.

If Alice guessed Mary’s true meaning she didn’t reveal it. Instead she nodded and said, “So you think the answer is in a book?”

“I was just curious?” Mary said quietly.

“Do you think you should have gone in my room without permission? Do you think you should rifle through my books?” Alice asked as if addressing a class in geography or French, both equally alien to Mary.

“No,” Mary breathed.

“What do you think I should do about it now?” Alice asked pointedly.

Mary looked up, her face a picture of panic and her eyes dancing rapidly in her head.

“What do you think I would do to Jenny or Janet?” Alice said sternly.

The girl worked her mouth as she blanched.

“Is that one of the things you are curious about?” Alice barked.

Mary jumped and dipped her head. But she nodded.

“When I asked you if you went through my things, you lied,” Alice said more gently.

Mary sniffed, her eyes now a little moist and she shrugged.

“Should I go easy on you?” Alice asked in genuine curiosity.

The redhead squirmed and hugged into herself.

“No,” she said, seemingly more like a little girl than a 21-year-old.

“Public or private?” the governess asked sharply, “Private will be harsh, public will be like Janet.”

Alice was still working the young woman out and wanted to know her choices. Usually there would be none and shouldn’t be.

Mary responded with saucer eyes and mouthed the words ‘you can’t.’

Alice glared and made to take the girl’s arm.

“Private, please, private,” Mary gabbled hastily.

“I’ll think about it,” Alice snapped and taking Mary’s arm led her down the path towards the house.

*

The arm-towed Mary tottered behind Alice half-resisting as they approached the house. She wanted to beg for a private spanking, but she wasn’t even reconciled to the idea of any kind of spanking yet so the ‘please’ stuck to her tongue.

But just as the back door to the kitchen loomed they made a hard right and went another way towards some out buildings. They were of old brick with one or two broken window panes and a partly tumbled down roof.

“This has a kind of woodshed at one end,” Alice told her, “You know what woodsheds are for don’t you? It is a grand old American tradition.”

“Yes Ma’am,” Mary blurted.

“Good,” Alice sighed as they reached the open component of the buildings under a lean-to stacked high with wood.

“It is fairly quiet here, so we will leave your privacy in the lap of the gods. Take off you skirt, petticoat and panties.”

Mary gaped.

“Any procrastination and I’ll take you up to the house,” Alice snapped.

A red-faced Mary swallowed down a hefty dose of dismay and scrambled to obey.

Once naked below the waist Alice took her clothes and directed her to face the wall under the half roof in the only space available.

“I’ll come back in a while and if you are still here then we will begin. If not I will expect to find you in your room to await a trip to the bathroom,” Alice told.

Mary could feel the blood singing in her ears and the chill on her thighs and exposed bottom. It was too unreal and she could hardly get a breath. There was no question of not obeying and she knew well what would happen in the bathroom, or could.

“That’s it,” Alice said cheerfully as Mary reluctantly turned her bare bottom out as she faced the wall. “There are only girls to see and if they do then too bad. Otherwise this will be between us. But mark my words, don’t move a muscle or turn away from the wall. I want you to think about things and exactly what you have coming.”

“Yes Ma’am,” Mary gasped. “But Ma’am… how… how long do I…?”

But Alice didn’t answer and walked away leaving Mary in a state of consternation.

*

How long she had been standing there was lost in her shame as a race of confusion went through Mary’s brain. It was a totally alien experience, standing as she was half opened to the elements with no skirt or panties on. She only had Alice’s word that only she and the other girls could see and that was bad enough. But that wasn’t even the worst of it. She was going to get a spanking and she knew it. A spanking worse than Janet’s or Jenny’s that ran the risk of being even more embarrassing.

She could run of course. Go to her room maybe or leave altogether. But that did not bear thinking about and besides she was too much the coward to defy Alice.

Suddenly at a crack of a twig behind her she stole a look over shoulder. There was nothing but the afternoon shadows under overgrown shrubs and the woods. She imagined local boys spying on her and thrilled at the shame. She blushed. She would die if there really were anyone watching her. Her tummy tingled with butterflies and she was torn at every sound between peeking and the fear that it was Alice or one of the girls.

She could leave me here all day and then send Katherine to fetch me to be spanked in front of everyone. Her head nearly burst at the idea. Then she thought of the sneaking into Alice’s room and what she had been looking for.

She deserved this, she really did, and any watching boys. A nasty girl like her should be spanked in town where young men could see and know how bad she was. It was an odd train of thought and she buzzed as she ran with it. She hovered then between a netherworld of secret fantasies and the hard reality of the sounds in the woods and the hard knots and smell of pine just inches from her nose.

Mary grabbed at her bottom and imagined it spanked, glancing again backwards and picturing the scene from the trees like some narcissus. The rush of wind in the forest beyond the garden lulled her and she began to drift in sleepy submission, surrendering herself to the world.

Then a hard crunch on the path brought her back and Alice was at her shoulder.

“That’s a good girl,” Alice said with a grin that Mary risked turning to see. “You look so cute there I could almost let you off easy,” the governess continued.

Then Mary saw what Alice was holding a gulped. Her mentor rolled a long thin stick of hickory or the like between her fingers. It was robust enough and the older woman had taken the trouble to peel it carefully.

“Oh yes, it is for you,” Alice said in amusement. “Mark it well, as it will shortly mark you, next time you will find, cut and prepare your own, and sans culottes as you are now.”

“Sans-what?” Mary said absently, but her entire attention was on the switch.

“Without panties or skirt, or even naked like wood nymph,” Alice said sharply.

Mary worked her mouth and turned away again as if out of sight out of mind.

“I have decided to get creative with you,” Alice continued, warming to her task. “I am going to give you a switching old-style just to take the edge of your somewhat unhealthy appetite and then within three days you will come and see me and request a sound old-fashioned over the knee spanking on your bare bottom. If you don’t, on Sunday we will come right back here and you can demonstrate your switch-finding skills.”

“But…” Mary wailed.

“Oh you’re getting both, believe me, but the second, an encounter with a hairbrush, you will have to ask for. I am determined to shake you out of this shell of yours.”

Mary took a deep breath and willed the ground to do some proverbial swallowing, but it stubbornly refused to oblige.

“Now turn and face the saw-horse,” Alice continued, “And bend right over with your bottom uppermost.”

Mary blanched, still considering the near future shame when she saw the wood crossbar, mercifully polished with long use. Whether from cutting wood or bent over girls, Mary couldn’t decide. But the reality of imminent indignity and an encounter with the switch was now too close for sanity.

“Bend over,” Alice said with firm deliberation.

Mary nodded and took a step forward. The cool of the crosspiece was a hand-span down her thighs, too high to lower herself with any dignity, and she had to strain on to tip-toes to get right over.

Alice meanwhile was appraising Mary’s well-defined high-set bottom that jutted deeper in profile than it did to the sides. Not that the girl was narrow-hipped; just athletic. Once doubled over her bare bottom domed up firmly offering a good target that looked well able to take a good whipping.

“I ought to spank you first for mercy’s sake,” Alice murmured.

“Ooh, ooh,” Mary fluttered, “Please don’t.”

“Suit yourself,” Alice shrugged and with a light flick-snick she struck the girl across both bottom cheeks.

Mary hissed and rocked her bottom, one of her feet kicking back. Alice landed several more in quick succession exacting the same response. In moments the pale bottom was pinkened with a rash long bumps forming ridges.

“So you know, most girls think this worse than a spanking, I certainly do, but something about you suggest this is your level. Besides, we both know you have an unhealthy interest in a traditional spanking, which is why you are going to have to ask for the other first,” Alice explained. “Ask or face more of this,” the switch sliced crossways and then across the under-curves of Mary’s bottom where she sat, “Much more.”

Still doubled over with her head down, Mary glowered into the floor, mortified at both Alice’s suggestion and her proposed solution. But the lines of fire quickly overrode all and she began to gasp and give over to tight pained grunts as the switching continued.

By now the welts were fully formed and stood out as angry purple-red ridges fit to burst. While Mary rocked and pumped her legs as she squealed comically at each impact. Her distress was earnest enough but Alice could tell it was not soul-felt and for a first-timer the girl was amazingly stoical.

“Is it what you expected?” Alice asked; she remembered her first encounter and the shocked reality of it, which had been nothing like her imaginings.

As she spoke the snick-hiss-thwack of the switch continued until Mary became quite shrill.

“Omigod,” Mary yelped, bug-eyed into the floor.

“Is it?” Alice pressed her picking up the pace.

“Nooo,” Mary wailed, hardly knowing now what was said; “I’m sorry, so sorry…”

Despite her tearful regrets, no more than pools at her red-rimmed eyes, the girl wasn’t broken and there was no true sobbing, Alice marvelled, well some girls were tough and it was always the quiet ones.

“I will have your surrender one way or another,” Alice told her, “Or you will back here time and again.”

The governess might have continued for longer but if Mary was equal to the ordeal, her virgin bottom wasn’t and the mass of worm-tracks looked very raw indeed.

“That should do you for now,” Alice sighed, “You can go and cool your bottom back in the corner for a while.”

The sweat-bathed Mary got unsteadily to her feet, panting as if she had run a race. Her mouth hung open beneath a mess of red hair and she nodded. The little pain-dance was more subdued than many Alice had seen and Mary found the strength not to rub as her arms stayed defiantly at her sides with hands clenched.

“You know what you have to do. You have three days,” Alice said kindly.

Then she tossed the switch out into the grass and as soon as Mary was facing the wall she left.

Mary faced the wall gaping like landed fish for a moment, her hands clawing frantically at her ravage bottom. She had survived; she was not quite the weak ninny everyone thought she was. She was one of the girls after all. For a second she regretted that they might never know, but she wasn’t that ready, not yet.

Then unbidden, and taking her totally by surprise she burst into violent heaving sobs, which continued for long, long minutes.

To be continued.