A week into the summer term and all was well in my happy household. The two wanderers had returned from the Easter vacation showing no obvious signs of wear and tear and general debauchery. In fact, each of them had returned with completed essays and book reports, the signs of an industrious couple of weeks away. I should have been really pleased for them, afterall it was good that they were beginning to take their coursework seriously, but I�m honest enough to admit here and now that I was a little bit disappointed. All this evidence of scholarly activity meant that any notions I had of having them both bent for a little chat with my new cane was out of the question. Of course I didn�t show my disappointment; I�m not one to spread my own unhappiness around.

There had been a few chuckles at first when they realised that Number Three was stuck with wearing a somewhat boyish outfit for the coming months. I appreciated their good humour as the lad did look extremely tasty in those fawn coloured shorts. They were only mid-thigh in length and generously cut so they looked very comfortable on him, but that also meant that he was parading around with quite a bit of bared thigh on display. His legs had even begun to pick up a bit of colour over the Easter holiday so, as I said, delicious. But they soon got their chuckling under control when I hinted that perhaps Number Three wasn�t the only nineteen year-old in the house who would benefit from being more appropriately attired. It wasn�t very subtle of me, but then I�m like that at times.

Now one or two of you readers seem to be getting confused by my use of numbers to preserve the anonymity of these lads. I admit that it is a tiresome way of doing things but I just cannot bring myself to use pseudonyms for them as in fact they have really sweet names reflecting their generation and class and I couldn�t do with calling them Stanley, Fred, and Harry or some such thing. And now with the addition of Number Four things are bound to get all the more confusing but do stick with it. I�m sure you�ll manage just fine. If you want just apply your own name and the names of some friends to replace the numbers; I won�t mind. But I must insist on sticking to this system as three or four of you have been very clever at using my other stories to pinpoint the general geographical location of this town and its university. One correspondent even managed to suggest a suburb that was really too close for comfort. You will know by now that I am a discrete kind of person, and I genuinely don�t want to cause any more embarrassment to my young charges than is absolutely necessary. They have their lives ahead of them and I think that in fairness, while their current situation may amuse some of us, there is no need to pile even more humiliation upon them.

Anyway, back to the beginning. We were now a full week into the summer term and all was very, very, well in my happy household. Before me was a youth, his body stretched across the big old armchair in my study. Behind me were two more youths, watching and waiting, knowing that their time would come soon enough. In my hand was a cane. Each of them has donned his formal school uniform to which I�ve made a few changes out of regard for the warmer weather. It didn�t take much money and anyway, I�m not sure that I would have begrudged a few more quid towards these attractive and smart outfits.

I�m not one of those who thinks that boys should be forced to sweat through the summer in unsuitable long trousers and blazers. To me summer is a time when youth should be encouraged to express itself in wholesome activity; wouldn�t you agree? So a bundle of short-sleeved white shirts and a little pile of very neat ankle socks with regulation school trim had been distributed to the lads earlier in the week. You could see that they were delighted to be able to combine these items with their grey short trousers and uniform ties to achieve a look that was fresh and light while emphasising the priority of scholarship and attention to study in their young lives.

So you�ve probably got quite a good idea of how things stood; three young men in traditional summer uniforms awaiting my attention. I don�t want to dwell too long on detail but I really must return to the cane in hand. Now I�ve had occasion to describe this beautiful instrument before so I won�t trouble you with an inch by inch picture, save that as canes go I believe this is a very nice piece of craftsmanship. I had it sent from a place in Wales and for a moment I mused that it was perhaps the encouragement of something like this that had led to such an improvement in the Principality�s rugby team of late. Certainly there are one or two of their players, well one in particular, who look like suitable candidates for extra tuition under the rod. But let us leave idle thoughts aside and return to the real world. The lad is stretched out over the armchair, his grey school shorts define the target area for the moment, and I have delayed too long in banter.

But first you ask, why on earth am I thrashing this youth today? Well I shall refrain from making the obvious and rather flippant response but for the moment I hope you won�t mind if I get on with his punishment and return to the question after the third stroke when I intend to undo those tight little shorts and pull them down with his briefs in readiness for the second half of his caning.

I feel that I am getting to be much more proficient in the use of the cane now. I used to be a reasonable enough caner having always managed to avoid whipping the cane around the sides of the buttocks during role-play sessions. But I was never very good at achieving that classic five-bar gate look. With the bit of extra practice that I have been having of late I think that it is high time I started to work towards adding some higher aesthetic qualities to the more obvious physical sensations.

Starting off with the cane hovering over the middle of his awaiting buttocks I draw it back and up so that it comes up level with my right shoulder (it�s not that my left shoulder is at a different height, it�s just that being right-handed this is where the cane is). It�s all a very simple matter of motion and energy thereafter. There is that flick of the wrist, so often referred to in the literature but so difficult to get right, that has to come just a fraction of a second before the end of the cane�s flight. I would like to be able to tell you that I managed it this time but alas, I misjudged the timing. Nonetheless it is a stroke with force that lands straight across his bottom and he obviously feels it even if he manages to avoid moving or screaming. There is, however, an audible intake of breath that suggests that something has registered in that brain of his.

The next stroke is a bit better but again, I have to confess, I don�t get that flick right. But I don�t feel particularly put out. I am like a sportsman in training, knowing that with each stroke my experience is increasing and I am all the more likely to achieve a reasonable level of perfection at some stage. I still have two lads waiting for thrashing practice so some fourteen strokes to go, and that�s just today. There will always be tomorrow or, if they manage to attend to their studies and behave themselves, it may be next week, but I�m sure that I am going to get a lot of training in before the summer holidays brings the fun to an end.

The third stroke, well I�m not sure that I want to talk about that, but I am trying to be as honest as I can be about this little scene so I better confess again. The third stroke is a disaster. I don�t know how it happened but the cane went much lower than I had intended and I completely missed that poor boy�s backside. There was of course a scream and the lad leapt up as the rod crashed into the back of his upper thighs. I was terribly embarrassed but I pulled myself together and ordered him back into position. He was not to know that I had not been aiming for that spot and I wasn�t about to apologise; afterall I am supposed to be punishing him. But the unfortunate thing is that in order to be completely fair I am going to have to make sure that each of the others gets a stroke on about the same area. A disciplinarian must first and foremost be disciplined himself, and scrupulously fair.

The boy gets back into position and I lay my cane aside for a moment, it being time for that most delicious of duties. I reach around his waist and undo the clasp of his tight grey school shorts and then slowly draw them down towards his knees. Next I indulge in a little psychological trick that my first roleplay master played on me. Instead of pulling his cute white underpants down I actually give them a little tug upwards and then rub my hand over the taut material. When this was done to me I actually felt a huge rush of relief at the idea that I wasn�t about to be totally bared just yet and I suspect from the way he relaxes just that little bit that this young man is thinking that very same thought. Too bad. In the next movement I roll the briefs down to join his shorts and he realises the folly of his delusion. The cane is back in my hand and I carefully reposition myself and take aim again.

�Hold on�, I hear you cry. �You promised to tell us why you were punishing this trio. You said that you would take a moment when you bared the boy�s bottom at the half-time interval�.

My apologies, I have allowed myself to be distracted. It�s surprisingly easy to be distracted when you have a young man, a fit and active nineteen-year old undergraduate, bent before you with his bared buttocks on display. What can I have been thinking of?

It�s simple enough. I happened to take a short-cut through the campus today in the early afternoon. It�s a useful route between my office and the city-centre and I prefer to walk the couple of miles rather than take taxis or the bus. I�m told that the exercise is good for me but for me it�s just a matter of simple pleasures. There are bookshops along the way, a couple of galleries with enticing window displays, a whole campus of lithe young bodies, it�s all very pleasant. And by the students� union there was a large group of happy youngsters sitting around under those big umbrellas that unfailingly lull the English into imagining themselves in France or some other chic setting. There was a great deal of laughter and my heart lifted as I recalled the easy joys of student life.

And there, in the midst of this gathering I noticed my three lodgers, sharing in the jokes and banter. They were holding coffee cups and so it wasn�t even as if they were indulging in a sneaked lager or anything more adventurous. Although, when I say that they were holding coffee cups I am not being quite accurate, as one of them was actually sipping from one of those incredibly pretentious latte glasses. I passed on my way and I suspect that I allowed a little grin to take overcome my expression. The youthful exuberance was infectious but I�m afraid that my smile was down to the fact that I knew that at least two of them should have been sitting in a lecture theatre listening to an enthusiastic PhD student drivel on about the latest petty detail uncovered in the course of his research.

Now let�s be quite clear about this. I am a very reasonable kind of guy and I recognise that there may be a totally innocent explanation for three young men who are grounded and subject to a pretty tight schedule to be relaxing with friends on this warm afternoon. It may, for example, be the case that the lecture has been cancelled due to illness. It could be that the lecture theatres are unusable due to flooding. There could be thousands of excuses. So naturally enough, when later that day they return to the house, I don�t mention the affable little gathering that I had seen earlier that afternoon. Instead I simply ask them about their respective days, demonstrating a kind interest in their academic and personal development. And bizarrely, Number One describes the tedium of the PhD student�s lecture about that latest petty detail uncovered in the course of his research.

Further enquiries extract the information that none of them had had any free time other than for lunch. The whole day had been nothing but lectures and seminars and tutorials and reading in the library. Well such diligence deserves its own reward, but I�m afraid that I am not so far gone in the senility of middle years to doubt many of the things that I see with my own eyes. So that, dear reader, is why I am thrashing my three lodgers. They are being punished for having fun on a summer�s afternoon. And for trying to conceal the fact that fun had entered the day in any guise. It seems to me that this is a perfectly reasonable pretext for a caning. At least, it�s a lot better than some of the pretexts I have used in the past, and infinitely better than a couple of the pretexts that were used to justify a thrashing when I was a schoolboy.

But I have allowed myself to delay too long. The young man before me must be a complete wreck of nervousness as he awaits the second part of his punishment. I really must get on with it. It is a lot easier to place each stroke in a fairly artistic manner when you have bare skin in front of you and I manage to get the next two strokes to fall in pretty neat parallel lines. But my final stroke, that attempt at the diagonal that should complete the five-bar gate is not so good. For some reason I only manage to raise a welt across the middle of the gate.

Oh well. I won�t waste any more of your time by describing the canings I administer to the two other lads. But rest assured, they do get soundly thrashed and I really think that I am getting much better at this lark. By the end of this term I expect to be producing perfect gates without too much strain. It may be time to think about setting myself another challenge.

 

� Mike Ward 2006

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