Kimberly was bored. A trip to the charity shop had been fun, but there was only so much vintage clothing a girl could buy. Not that they didn’t have some neat stuff, she thought admiring herself in the shop window.

The woman looking back her was much younger and might be taken for a girl from another century. Her usual mess of red-brown hair had been tamed somewhat and tied back. The maroon blazer, while not matching the pleated grey skirt, complimented it very well. Very 1950s head girl, Kimberly chuckled, granny would be proud. The only things out of place were the converse kick boots, but that’s what made the look so totally rad.

The problem was there was no one to see her or chat about her finds, not in Dunston, a small village nestling smartly under the Cotswolds. It would be ungracious to say it was a dump, but when one was flying solo it got boring fast.

Five minutes later she had taken another turn of the village and had returned to the large ancient gothic building styling itself the New Vicarage.

“Man if that is the New Vicarage, how old is the old one,” she muttered aloud. But as she thought about it she remembered the medieval street off the High Road was also called New Lane, so that rather told its own story.

What drew her to the Vicarage she couldn’t say, maybe it was the leafy drive or the offered seclusion. Maybe it was the immaculate lawn. But Kimberly Michaels rather thought it was the wild orchard set back and adjacent to the garden.

In her heart she knew it was private, but who would care?

*

George Anton Baxter ran an eye around his kingdom and sighed. Not a book or flower petal out of place. There was even fire wood in the grate. He checked his watch, time for morning prep he noted and smiled. Supervising morning prep had been part of his old life, over 20 years before, before his honourable retirement. He confronted the mirror; the steely grey-haired man staring back at him still had it and it was on days like these that he bemoaned his early departure from the game. But he knew the jig was up as soon as they had allowed girls into the school, I mean I ask you, girls, he thought grimly. What do you do with them?

He turned to the window to inspect the garden and the orchard beyond. Needed some work, he thought, but at least… hello, who is that?

Sitting under his prize Bramley Tree was a girl straight out of his past. Indolent and carefree, she was eating one of his apples. Not a Bramley, I’ll be bound, he thought casually as if it mattered.

The girl was of the older variety, one of the smug ones who knew it all, just weeks away from leaving and already so damn wise. He definitely knew the kind. He caned a few demob happy types like her for smoking in the quad, disabusing them of any notion that they were above the rules.

*

Kimberly looked up and saw someone striding towards her with a face like doom. He looked angry and she placed him as a military sort pushing 60, but he could be older she thought, he was certainly dressed like a man from another time.

“Who the devil are you?” he barked without breaking his stride.

His voice was rich and fulsome, resplendent with upper middle class vowels and it carried an unmistakeable authority. She was also loving the tweed, very retro.

“I’m… Kimberley,” she offered weakly.

“Stand up when I am talking to you girl,” he bellowed.

Kimberly obeyed without thinking, flustered at being addressed so angrily.

“Am I trespassing?” she said weakly as she dusted down her clothes.

Exhibit one was in her hand, but she thought it might be provocative to toss a half-eaten apple right in front of him so she grimaced and wagged it at him in admission.

“You know damn well you are and stealing apples, my apples,” he said more calmly, but all the while allowing his voice to carry the hint that he might actually explode.

“S-sorry,” she squeaked.

“Shouldn’t you be in school?” he continued, now drawing himself to regard her sternly.

Kimberly nearly laughed and was about to tell him that she was a college graduate with a job when she caught herself. “I have been excluded,” she permitted the lie.

“Now why doesn’t that surprise me,” he sighed. “Alright girl, come this way while I decide who to call first.”

“Call, who are you going to call?” she asked, adding cheekily, “Ghostbusters.”

He gave a look that might actually kill her and she shut up.

“For one thing, I ought to call the police. Then there is your school and your parents of course,” he told her firmly.

“My parents?” she gasped. Now that would be embarrassing, although the sound of the police wasn’t too comfortable either.

“I’m an orphan,” she lied, “And the school is in… Lichtenstein.”

Lichtenstein, why the hell did she say that?

He gave her a withering look.

“My new school that is, the old one won’t have me back and my p… guardian thought I should go somewhere with more discipline.” She gabbled. “So I haven’t started yet and… look, please don’t call the police.”

He led her into a large room that looked like a library-come-study from one of those old Ealing movies.

“What you need my girl is not the police, but a damn good thrashing,” he growled.

King of the clichés, Kimberly groaned inwardly, but her heart did a skip and she felt the blood flooding into her face.

“I expect you’re right,” she said cheekily, “That’s why I have to go to Lichtenstein, they still allow that sort of thing there.” She extended the lie. Why did I say that? She berated herself. “Look,” she said confidently, asserting herself as an adult, “Can’t I just pay for the apple, I’m sorry okay?”

“The apple is immaterial, it is the principle of the thing,” George growled. “And given that you are going to maintain this ridiculous story, then I have no option but to call the police.”

“Oh, I thought you were going to thrash me,” she said belligerently.

He regarded her with steel in his gaze and sized her up. “You say that as if you think I won’t,” his voice had an edge. “I was 32 years in the teaching profession and although I mainly dealt with boys, I have caned the occasional girl or three. I have had future generals and politicians blubbing in my office, how do you think you would fare?”

Kimberly felt a little dizzy. She knew the threat was an idle one but she found the idea strangely thrilling. She loved too that he thought she was 17 or 18. She also liked his honest outrage and the fact that there was nothing creepy or ulterior about his attitude. He was old school and he meant it.

“Alright,” she said decisively, then licking her lips thoughtfully she added, “You’re on.”

“I beg your pardon?” he shot back.

“I don’t want you to go to the police and I have given my… my guardian enough to worry about lately. My new school is going to beat the crap out of me anyway, apparently,” she remembered the lie, “I think I would rather get my first beating from an Englishman and not some effete Frenchy or grim Kraut,” she added hoping to goad him and wondering if she didn’t sound racist.

“So you think I should cane you, do you?” he asked now interested. “Would that be for the thievery, the trespassing, the bad attitude, the rudeness, the lies or the disrespect to our friends in the noble principality of Lichtenstein?”

“Whoops,” she bit her lip. “All of them,” she offered very carefully as if she was walking on broken glass.

“Then I suppose you will call the police and have me up on some nonsensical charges?” he said wearily.

“No, really, I can’t stress this enough, no police. Look I am over 18, I will sign something and then you can… whatever and we will call it quits.” Kimberly made an emphatic gesture with her hands.

George rounded on her and looked her hard in the face. She did look somewhat older than he had thought and her eyes said she was telling the truth. Probably he should let it go.

“I suppose you think I won’t do it and I’ll let you off?” he said aloud.

“No, do your worst, I deserve it,” she said perkily. It might be fun, she thought as she remembered that some of her friends were dabbling in BDSM or some such. Not that she believed it would happen.

“I think have a consent form over here among my memorabilia,” he told her while not breaking eye contact. “If you are serious then…”

*

The blazer and skirt were on the chair and Kimberly was pondering if she should take her own knickers down or leave them up.

“Tell me… Miss… Kimberly, have you ever been caned before?” George was holding a dark brown-black wooden stick; a venerable rod around a yard long and as thick as her small finger.

“Oh yes,” she lied and nodded.

“You just love to lie don’t you?” he sighed. “I want you to bend over the back of the chair, the padded cloth one, not the leather.”

She took a swallow and nodded. “Yes Sir.”

“Reach over for the ridge under the cushion and hold tight,” he said.

Kimberly sucked in air through her nose and then faced the back of the chair. With her back turned she found the courage to tug down her knickers and step out of them. Then she followed his instruction.

“I didn’t…” he muttered in surprise.

“What was that?” she said, her voice muffled by the seat cushion. This was surreal she thought.

“Oh nothing,” he replied. It wasn’t as if he hadn’t caned a girl bare before. “Do try and keep your legs together.”

Kimberly blushed and snapped her thighs shut.

How many, he thought as he regarded the girl’s pert round bare bottom? He felt an unfamiliar stirring and his grip on the cane tightened. He had forgotten that part, best to ignore it when duty called. Six is feeble for a big girl. A dozen? No, she is too eager. She thinks this is a game. He knew some girls came back for more. I’ll aim for 15 or so, maybe more and see how she does.

Expert hands the cane described an efficient arch through the air and landed with full force across the offered bare bottom.

“Yeeek,” Kimberly shrieked. The sharpness was unbelievable.

A thin cane is best for girls, George thought casually; effective and yet not too cruel. He watched as a red line developed on the girl’s bottom and then he lay another stroke just below it.

“Jesus Christ,” she gasped. This is not fun, who does this?

“No more stealing apples I trust,” George chuckled.

“No Sir,” Kimberly yelled as a third stroke cut her bottom.

“No more trespassing?” he landed a fourth.

“Nyuuugh, God no,” she groaned. The pain seemed to build and none of the first strokes had lost their power as yet.

“No more disrespect,” George said gently.

“Nooo, S-sir,” Kimberly agreed earnestly.

“No more lies.”

“No Sir.” It was a shout and now she began some independent yelling as she bucked and squirmed into the seat.

“Definitely no more lies,” he insisted as he caned her again.

“No Sir,” she hissed and tried to swallow back the tears to create an extreme lemon face.

“Are you going to be a good girl in Lichtenstein?” The row of lines was added to with one right where the thighs met her bottom.

She screamed incoherently and he paused as she continued to thrash about and the first real tears came. She was trying to say something.

“There is no Lichtenstein, no school,” she now told him while panting hard and letting the tears run free down her face. “I’m sorry.”

“I had rather guessed that,” he chuckled, “Are you ready to continue?”

She drew in one heavy breath and then nodded.

“Breathe, Kimberly, remember to breathe,” he said kindly as he began the caning from the top again.

The stroke landed just below her dimples about three inches below where the cleft began. She screamed.

“Fix your gaze on a spot on the wall and try to slow down your breathing,” he suggested.

She nodded vigorously and took a tighter hold on the chair.

“Mmmmmmmm,” she groaned as she rode the next stroke.

Two more were delivered with equal skill and she began to panic.

“Not as easy as you thought eh?” George said gently.

She shook her head and sniffed. Short sharp panting was degenerating into open sobbing and she braced herself for another onslaught.

“Have you been caned before?” he asked.

She shook her head vigorously, “No Sir. Sorry. I lied.”

“Does that mean I should give you extra?” he said lightly.

“Oh God, please,” she gasped.

“I trust you are sorry,” he pressed her.

“Oh yes Sir, so sorry, for everything,” she blurted.

“Three more,” he snapped and caned in hard right across where she sat.

Kimberly bawled out a response and rocked the chair again.

George didn’t wait and added a stroke just under it so that it merged with an early welt and got much the same response. Then he waited.

The air was tense and Kimberly was gently crying. Then the final stroke fell.

“Sir,” she screamed, in her mind she promised him anything.

“That’s it,” he said, “A good sport eh?”

“Are we, are we, are we…” she wept.

“Stand up and shake my hand if you have no hard feelings,” he told her. “It is the usual custom.”

Kimberly sniffed and nodded. She couldn’t stand without dancing to the continued onslaught in her bottom and no sense of dignity could prevent her displaying her front while she clamped hands to her bottom. But finally she calmed a little and shook his hand.

“Thank you Sir,” she said smiling through the tears.

“I can hardly send you out the world like this and it is too soon for you to have tea I suspect. You may go and stand and face the wall while your…” he coughed, “Cools off a little.”

She sniffed and nodded, glad to show him his handiwork if she got to hide her face while she had a good cry.

*

A month later a young woman evidentially in her mid-20s walked up the drive of the New Vicarage and knocked on the door. Her brown-red hair was piled up business-style and she wore grey pencil skirt with matching jacket.

At first George didn’t recognise her and cursed ‘bloody Jehovah’s Witnesses’ as he went to see her off.

“Good afternoon Mr Baxter,” Kimberly greeted him ruefully.

“My God,” George gaped, “You’re…”

“I’m sorry Mr Baxter, I felt bad about deceiving you, I never intended to, things just got out of hand and I went along with it for a joke,” she smiled nervously and chewed at her lip as she coloured a little.

“I see,” he said, not seeing at all. He began to say more but his lips moved silently and the words did not form as he replayed their encounter in his mind looking for anything that he missed. He felt a fool.

“Pilfering apples, however casually was wrong of me, I just wasn’t thinking. I am a… well I’m a police officer,” she made a face that extended her mouth and crinkled up her eyes.

George closed his own eyes in an extended blink as the penny dropped. “And I threatened to call in your colleagues.”

“At best I would never have heard the last of it and there was a chance that I might have lost my job if you had pressed charges,” She explained.

“Yes I see,” he sighed. “Oh where are my manners, come in,” he added gesturing her inside.

“Are you usually so pleasant to people who have stolen from you?” Kimberly asked pleasantly.

“If they have learned their lesson and apologised I do,” he chuckled. “It was ever thus in my day.”

“I suppose it was,” she agreed.

“I can’t say I am pleased to have been made such a fool of, but I suppose I did overreact. Force of habit I am afraid.” George looked decidedly uncomfortable.

“No, no I see that, I am really sorry Mr Baxter, really I am ever so,” she told him in a pained voice.

“Well you were certainly sorry that day,” he laughed.

“I was, and I deserved it,” she agreed.

As he led her into the study where she had been caned she felt some butterflies in her tummy.

“I ought to turn you over my knee or give you another dose of the cane for your prank,” he quipped, but his tone was deliciously serious and scolding.

“Perhaps you should,” she said shyly and bit her lip again. Maybe that’s why I am here, she thought.

He fixed her with a stern gaze as if appraising her.

“I suppose I am too old for all that,” she laughed, when he didn’t speak.

“You are not so old young lady, not next to me,” he chided her.

There was a sudden stillness and the only sound was Kimberly’s gentle breathing and a woodpigeon somewhere out in the garden.

“It was not so very unusual for girls to engineer a return visit after a caning you know. I had to be pretty stern with them when I had to be. Usually a second dose cured them of their morbid fascination, but sometimes a girl would find herself in my study time and time again,” George said conversationally.

Kimberly took a deep breath and plunged in. “What did you do?”

“Oh I thrashed them so soundly that sitting became quite a trial for days afterwards. It didn’t cure them all, as I say, but it kept their needs down to a dull roar. It was that or I would never get any work done.” He made a tapping gesture with his hand in the air and offered her a sideways glance.

“Once a month, I can understand that. Any more and a girl would have to be… well you know,” she whispered, a hand straying to her behind.

“Tea?” George asked brightly.

“Maybe later,” Kimberly replied, adding a poignant, “Sir.”

“Later?” he smiled indulgently.

“Well I have a feeling I am in big trouble aren’t I?” she said ruefully, allowing her teeth to tease at her lower lip.

“I suppose you are and this time I won’t be going so easy on you,” he said sharply.

“Oh God,” she gasped, “I was afraid of that. I am regretting this already.”