supplicium post mortem

James, it turned out, was a dirty English schoolboy. He got his hands switched when the housekeeper caught him “being foul” behind the chicken coops. Their tutor had been more than usually annoyed. He’d hauled James in by the ear and shut the door loudly behind them. With the housekeeper in the corridor, Casey had not dared to listen, but James later confessed that Carstairs had made it clear that while “solitary congress” could be overlooked, scandalizing ladies by performing it in public places could not. The switch was sore, James said, exceedingly sore across the palms, applied with force; still, he claimed to have gone straight from the schoolroom to the lavatory to finish his wank. “I’m Ophiuchus, I am,” James bragged. When Casey demanded to see this snake of his, he surprised her by obliging. His willy was attractive, clean if sweaty, and uncut. Friendly.

Sometimes she would sneak into his room at night and stand by the side of his bed. He’d put his willy away, scootch over, raise the covers, and then put his arms around her from behind. Sometimes she cried, but it didn’t stop him hugging her. He wasn’t Marky, but when the hug reservoirs were so catastrophically low, any hug felt like rain after drought. Sometimes in an attempt to cheer her up, he’d whisper bits of The Mikado libretto, to sit in solemn silence in a dull, dark, dock, his striped palms around her elbows, knees behind hers, breath on her cheek.

You should have heard the bellyaching this week about the wildcards. All we have to say is: Suck it up, buttercup; hard words will continue until morale improves!

Read other folks tuff enuf to write this week:

• Rafi
• Travis
• Abby
• Nettagyrl

R old boy,

I simply cannot convey in words (written or oral) the dyed-in-the-wool beastliness of Firestone in complaining to Pater about last term. He’s the most caddish of Housemasters, and I’ve every intention of making his life hell come Michaelmas. Pater has been to Timbuktu and back over it, declaring me a perverse aberration in the annals of the Howells clan, and plenty more besides. The upshot is he’s gone and engaged my old tutor (you may remember me telling you about Singer-the-stinger?) for the whole of the beastly hols. It’s enough to make one contemplate suicide, if there wasn’t yachting with you and your uncle to look forward to at month’s end.

Singer’s been riding hard as ever, only worse. There’s more than one splinter in the affected area and no-one to lend a palliative hand, with Clara in France and you nowhere near. Days invariably begin over the birching block, as Singer’s a great believer in clearing accounts before work begins. Gives rise to rather a Sisyphus effect, I can tell you, which leaves one mystified re. why to try at all, as the following day will only begin in tears (metaphorically speaking, of course!). I confess to having lost heart once, sitting one day with my proverbial boulder at the foot of the hill and refusing to push, but Singer lived up to his sobriquet and, drawing blood before tea, reinstated my zeal.

Speak of the devil, must dash. Vile Virgil, then birch.

Yours, F

Read other folks writing this week:

• Rafi
• Frenchies
• Rayne
• PapaTomLA
• Nettagyrl

Of all the restrictions her summer tutor had imposed, school uniform seemed the most unfair. Hers included a gingham dress, and a straw hat that insisted on falling off in every circumstance. James’s attire included no such crippling haberdashery. This was why, she argued, she deserved a head-start.

The challenge: escape Bounds at Carrstairs’s house, claim one Champion Chocolate Chew to be given free to the day’s first five customers at Sand’s Chemist, and return undetected to the schoolroom before the hall-clock rang quarter-past nine.

Sand’s opened at nine. Their morning break began at ten-to-nine. The chemist stood twelve minutes away by the woodland track, necessary to avoid detection. The direct path, perilous, took only seven.

They arranged their plan with the precision of their tutor’s German clock. Casey would stroll to the woods, ditch her hat while climbing out-of-bounds, then reclaim it on return. James would wait for Carrstairs to enter the lavatory, then sprint for the open road. Whoever returned first with chocolate earned toughest bragging rights.

Casey arrived at the chemist with a stitch in her side. She bought a postcard, won a Champion Chew, but learned that James had come and gone.

She sprinted back, anxiety mounting, but surprisingly regained her hat, the house, and the schoolroom door without notice. The quarter-hour rang. She opened the door to find James flushed, Carrstairs serene.

“Your competition was intercepted at the gate,” Carrstairs said, “leaving you victorious.” She swallowed. Their tutor suppressed a smile. “After lunch, I think, just desserts.”

Read other folks writing this week:

• Rafi
• PapaTomLA
• Frenchies
• Joe @ thespankingresource
• Nettagyrl

Hummingbirds sounded like gigantic flies. Frogs sounded like strumming elastic bands. The soft crack of the wine glass hitting the floor of the Rector’s pantry sounded like the way people died – undramatic catastrophe.

“Pay attention, Padawan,” James was saying. She tried to concentrate on the rope he was holding. “You’ve got to let go at the top of the arc.”

“Or I’ll swing back and get smashed, I know.”

“Don’t be scared.”

The wine they filched was supposed to kill fear. In him it seemed to work. If she let go in time, she’d fall beyond the rocks. It was like flying, he said, especially in the dark.

“What will Carrstairs do if he finds out?”

James shrugged, moon on his bare shoulder. “You afraid of the third degree from the Rector?”

She shrugged, too, wishing it could kill the burning in her stomach. The Rector went in for more like the sixteenth degree, though he spread it out over a day or more, catching you unawares when you didn’t know you were being questioned. She wondered how it would feel to be held across Mr. Carrstairs’s knee, his foot braced against a boulder, while he applied a switch to wet skin. James wore faint marks two days later. It would be a change, anyhow, from being treated distantly out of pity for her circumstances.

The Rector saw her too much, the others not at all.

She took the rope from James’s hands and backed up the slope.

Read other folks writing this week:

• Rafi
• Nettagyrl
• Travis King
• PapaTomLA

Still exploring the local footpaths, she took a new route back from the river, one winding through trees along the quarry. Footsteps crunched behind her, and although dark would not fall for hours, she felt uneasy and crouched down to empty her shoe of sand.

A tall man strode down the footpath, wearing grey trousers, dress shoes, white billowy shirt, and a black-and-red striped tie. He nodded as he passed, purposeful.

A few minutes down the path, she glimpsed him at the edge of the quarry, trimming the leaves off a thin branch with a pocket knife, a bundle of clothing at his feet. Below, a boy her age treaded water, his voice echoing up the bank.

“Sir, can’t we discuss it?”

“Certainly,” said the man. “Out you get.”

She watched as the boy hoisted himself, naked, from the water. The man tucked his tie into his shirt, gripped the boy by the shoulder, bent him over the tree trunk, and applied the switch.

“You do not swim alone.” Thwack-thwack-thwack. “You do not swing from this rope.” Thwack-thwack-thwack. The boy yelped. “As previously discussed.” The man tightened his grip and continued.

Afterwards, he handed the boy a handkerchief and told him to dress. She dashed away before she was seen.

After supper that night, the Rector brought a visitor into the garden.

“Casey, say good-evening to Mr. Carrstairs, your summer tutor.”

She stood, trembling. He wore a jacket now, and a silk handkerchief. “I believe we’ve already met,” he said.

As it happens, I came upon this very spot on a footpath in sunny Shepperton this week (photo not local, obv). There was in fact a pile of apparently abandoned clothes by the broken rope-swing, but no-one else in sight. Been wondering about it ever since…

What is Flash Fiction Friday?

Check out the other writers this week:

• Rafi
• PapaTomLA