Portrait of a Disciplinarian Read online

  The two large red-faced women who sat together at the very back seemed to disapprove of her, though their expressions suggested that they disapproved of everybody and everything. That didn’t stop her imagining them singling her out for an impromptu spanking, delivered bare bottom in front of Hermione and the other passengers. An equally large but jolly woman, who had brought a small pig on to the omnibus, seemed less likely to feel the need to dish out discipline, but might very well do it for fun and enjoy a good feel at the same time.

  The men were worse. A trio of farmers debating the price of wool appeared to be indifferent to her, but when they spoke quietly she wondered if they were discussing how amusing it would be to share her between them, using her mouth, quim and bottom hole simultaneously, while Hermione was made to watch. The lone man in a high-collared suit was presumably a clerk of some sort and definitely a pervert. It showed in his nervous manner and the small, piggy eyes that looked everywhere but at his fellow passengers, revealing his guilt at wanting to make Stephanie and her sister indulge him in unspeakable practices.

  At length they reached Princetown and got down from the omnibus outside the Plume of Feathers. Stephanie’s head was swimming with frightening yet compelling fantasies. What had seemed so straightforward when discussed over a decanter of Warre ’08 kindly provided by Catchpole was now terrifying, yet to show her feelings in front of her little sister was unthinkable. As they came in sight of the final line of granite-built cottages, a solution occurred to her.

  ‘I think you should do it this time, H.,’ she stated.

  Her sister’s eyes rounded in shock before she replied.

  ‘What, suck his … his thingy?’

  ‘Of course that is what I mean,’ Stephanie replied.

  ‘Why me?’ Hermione demanded.

  ‘As Papa says,’ Stephanie pointed out, ‘on a campaign everybody should share the discomforts equally.’

  ‘No,’ Hermione replied, ‘he says it’s a good thing for an officer to share the discomforts of his men. You’re in charge, so you should be the one doing the sharing.’

  ‘I’ve already done it twice,’ Stephanie pointed out, changing tack, ‘so it’s your turn.’

  ‘No, it isn’t,’ Hermione answered.

  ‘Yes, it is,’ Stephanie insisted. ‘I won’t teach you to drive if you aren’t a little bit more helpful, H.’

  ‘But I don’t want to suck his beastly thingy!’ Hermione whined.

  ‘I did, so you should have to do it too.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘It’s disgusting!’

  ‘You thought it was jolly funny that he’d made me do it!’

  Hermione’s face had begun to grow obstinate, and Stephanie again changed tack.

  ‘Come on, H., please? For me? And just think, when I marry Freddie I’ll be able to afford another car, maybe a Lagonda or something, and you can have the two-seater, but only if you’re helpful.’

  ‘I am being helpful,’ Hermione replied. ‘I came up with most of the ideas.’

  ‘Exactly,’ Stephanie said quickly, ‘such as paying for the dray by sucking Lias Snell’s penis. As Papa says, you should never make a plan you wouldn’t be prepared to carry out yourself.’

  Hermione made to speak, then fell silent, her face sulky. Stephanie pressed her advantage.

  ‘I will give you my car, I promise, and sucking a penis isn’t that bad, not really. In fact, it’s rather nice, in a funny sort of way. It makes me feel like when … you know …’

  She trailed off. Hermione was looking at her suspiciously.

  ‘It is, really,’ she insisted. ‘Please, H.? Think of having your own car, and it really is only fair, and … and I promise I won’t spank you any more, even if the aunts are passing you around and I’m supposed to. Not hard, anyway.’

  Hermione made a face, then gave a shy, nervous nod.

  ‘Thank you,’ Stephanie said, and quickly turned away to hide the smug look she could feel stealing over her face.

  They had reached the end of the line of cottages and, despite Hermione’s promise, it still took all Stephanie’s courage to walk in at the garden gate and down between two neatly laid-out patches of spring vegetables. She was fighting the urge to bite her lip as she knocked at the smartly painted door, filled with sudden guilt for bullying her sister into sucking cock for the awful man who was about to confront her.

  Except that he didn’t. As the door swung wide, she remembered Lias mentioning a wife, although, looking at the woman who stood framed in the doorway, Stephanie felt that the drayman would have been justified in mentioning two wives, or even three. The drayman’s wife was simply the largest woman Stephanie had ever set eyes on, from the substantial feet crammed into carpet slippers to the mass of greying hair on her head. Between were all the usual features, but painted with a broad brush: a head somewhat reminiscent of the pumpkin her grandfather had contributed to the previous year’s harvest festival; a thick bull neck set on broad shoulders, from which depended arms that would have put many a railway navvy to shame; breasts each of which would have outdone Sir Richard’s pumpkin with ease; a thick waist barely constrained by a creaking corset; massive hips; and legs that, though concealed beneath voluminous old-fashioned skirts, were presumably of similar proportions. Stephanie’s face was on a level with the colossal breasts.

  ‘Mrs Snell, I presume?’ she managed, looking up.

  ‘Mrs Endicott,’ the woman corrected her. ‘Anne Snell’s my sister. How may I help you, Miss?’

  ‘Miss Myrtle Finch-Farmiloe,’ Stephanie lied, remembering their decision to use false names and choosing the first that came into her head. ‘We had hoped to hire your brother-in-law’s dray.’

  ‘No difficulty there,’ the woman answered. ‘Come along inside.’

  Stephanie and Hermione entered the house, where they were shown into a small but comfortably furnished parlour. The big woman disappeared and the two girls began to inspect the room. It looked out over a back garden as carefully tended as the front and also given over entirely to vegetables, while beyond the granite walls stretched the moor, with woods and fields in the distance and the dark smudge of Plymouth and the dull green of the sea visible even further away. The room contained several chairs, two tables and a sideboard, on which stood a photograph of a man she recognised as Elias Snell, although it had been taken perhaps twenty years ago. He wore a somewhat ill-fitting suit and beside him was a woman in a wedding dress, presumably Mrs Snell, every bit as large and formidable as her sister, who now returned.

  ‘If you’d just write down the details here,’ Mrs Endicott said, offering Stephanie a ledger.

  Taking the book, Stephanie hesitated a moment, then wrote a request for the drayman to come to the gates of Stukely Hall the following afternoon. That would allow her to make the real appointment without arousing suspicion, to show Lias Snell where he was supposed to take the pig, and to make – or rather let Hermione make – the appropriate payment.

  Mrs Endicott took the ledger and a small deposit, provided a glass of cider that felt like sandpaper as it went down, and showed the girls back on to the road. The station was no great distance away and they decided to catch a train. They talked in low voices as they went along.

  ‘Imagine being spanked by her,’ Hermione said.

  Stephanie grimaced. The thought had already occurred to her, although with Mrs Snell rather than Mrs Endicott attending to her bottom, which was no doubt the least she could expect if the woman discovered what had happened with her husband.

  The following morning Stephanie rose early. Somewhat to her surprise, Vera Clapshott had not taken advantage of the intimacy between them, and was proving an excellent lady’s maid. Stephanie’s clothes, which were already laid out, had been chosen both to create a stylish effect and to suit what promised to be a warm day. Once dressed, she made her way down to breakfast, already nervous at the prospect of what was to come.

  Hermione was not yet down
, but Aunt Lettice was, and somewhat spoiled breakfast with a long monologue on the effects of too much protein on the intestinal tract. Recalling her spanking, Stephanie responded with careful politeness and even forced herself to eat some of the American cereal. Aunt Gertrude joined them, and then her grandfather, allowing her to make the opening gambit of the day’s elaborate plans.

  ‘Hermione and I shall visit Great-grandmama Nell today,’ she announced.

  ‘That’s unusually thoughtful of you, Stephanie,’ her Aunt Gertrude responded, ‘although Mr Attwater is lunching here, and he was keen to speak with you.’

  ‘Mr Attwater?’ Stephanie replied. ‘Why ever would he want to speak to me?’

  ‘The fellow probably wants you to join his Brown Drawers or whatever they call themselves,’ Sir Richard put in.

  ‘There’s no need to be vulgar, father,’ Gertrude responded. ‘You know perfectly well that Mr Attwater’s organisation is called the Brown Shorts.’

  ‘Be that as it may,’ Sir Richard replied, ‘it’s a load of nonsense, prancing around in footer bags, although some of the girls look deuced attractive.’

  ‘They look positively indecent,’ Lettice supplied. ‘They might as well be running around in their underwear.’

  ‘As I say, deuced attractive,’ Sir Richard replied, and chuckled as both daughters gave him dark looks.

  ‘I thought Mr Attwater disapproved of women?’ Stephanie asked cautiously.

  ‘Certainly Mr Attwater approves of women,’ Gertrude responded. ‘He simply realises that progress must be tempered with common sense, and therefore opposes this absurd extension of the franchise …’

  Stephanie returned her attention to her American cereal, hoping it might prove more palatable than her aunt’s political lecture. It didn’t, but with Aunt Lettice regarding her from the corner of one eye she was forced to finish. It sat like a lead ball in her stomach. Not at all keen to renew the acquaintance of a man who had last seen her with her bare bottom sticking up in the air as she was disciplined, she left the house and climbed Burley Down to the old folly at the summit, where she sat admiring the view.

  The western flank of Dartmoor occupied most of the horizon, verdant green sprinkled with the grey of rocks, and below the darker greens of woods and hedgerows, among which a scattering of buildings stood out: farms, the churches at Lydford and Sourton, and the squat towers of Stukely Hall. If there was a giant pig to conceal, the woodland around the hall was undoubtedly the place to do it, and she found her confidence growing as she looked back towards the house.

  It seemed like a toy from so high up, and yet clear in the morning sunlight. The tiny figures emerging from the French windows were her Aunt Gertrude and Claude Attwater, while Hermione had just come out from the stable block, her bright red dress unmistakable, although the tall, apparently dapper young man was unfamiliar – or perhaps not. Stephanie narrowed her eyes, excitement welling up inside her as she realised that the man was Freddie Drake. Immediately she began to run back down the hill, less because she wanted to see him than because she was worried about what her sister might say.

  By the time she reached the bottom, he and Hermione were approaching the pigsty. Stephanie ran straight to them and threw herself into his arms. After a moment of surprise he responded well, catching her up and kissing her, then holding her briefly at arm’s length before setting her back down on the ground. Only then did she remember all the circumstances of their last meeting.

  ‘I’m surprised you’re so friendly,’ she said, doing her best to sound haughty. ‘I would have expected you to adopt a rather more apologetic attitude. Grovelling, even?’

  ‘Oh, don’t worry about that,’ he said casually. ‘H. has explained everything.’

  Stephanie went scarlet and threw an accusing glance at Hermione, who was shaking her head and making urgent hand gestures to indicate that it wasn’t true.

  ‘So I know you’re not really cross with me,’ Freddie went on, ‘and dammit, I did bail you out.’

  ‘Very well,’ Stephanie said, tilting her nose to indicate scorn, ‘but next time you wish to cover my face with burning kisses I shall expect you to say something first.’

  ‘I’d rather cover your bottom with burning kisses,’ Freddie replied.

  Hermione burst into giggles. Stephanie, who had been angling for either an apology or a proposal, hit him. Freddie merely chuckled and linked arms with both girls as he continued towards the sty.

  ‘Beast,’ Stephanie remarked.

  ‘Absolutely,’ he agreed. ‘With girls like you about, a fellow’s bound to be a bit of a beast. And speaking of beasts, I hear your grandfather thinks his animal is capable of beating the Porker at Okehampton.’

  ‘Is that its name? Your father’s pig?’ Stephanie enquired. ‘I thought it was something Latin.’

  ‘It is,’ he told her. ‘In full, Singularis Porcus, meaning the singular or extraordinary pig, as any Teigngraceeducated girl should know, although from what Myrtle tells me you spent most of your time throwing ink darts and pulling each other’s hair. Anyhow, what of the Emperor’s form? Cyril Wonnacott’s playing his cards close to his chest, as usual. Five pints we stood him last night and he still wouldn’t spill the beans, and H. wouldn’t tell even when I threatened to tickle her.’

  Stephanie had begun to go red at the mention of Myrtle and Teigngrace, but quickly rallied.

  ‘You’d hardly expect me to tell you,’ she said. ‘Why do you want to know, anyway?’

  ‘Benjy Porthwell is running a book,’ Freddie informed her. ‘Rather appropriate, that, don’t you think, one porker taking bets on some others? There are five runners in the fat pig class, but it’s hard to establish form. The Porker’s over the hundred stone, but the Emperor’s been creeping up year by year, which is why I was hoping for a tip from the stable.’

  ‘What are the odds?’ Stephanie asked.

  ‘The Porker’s favourite at two to one,’ Freddie told her, ‘with the Emperor at five, which may be where the clever money is. Squire Cunnigham’s animal is a no-hoper, a hundred to one and no takers, and the same for Farmer Beston. Farmer Urferd has threatened to shoot anyone who sets foot on his land, so he’s up at a cautious ten to one. His pig, that is, not old Urferd.’

  ‘I see,’ Stephanie said cautiously.

  ‘What’s Porker Porthwell doing running a book?’ Hermione asked with a trace of irritation in her voice. ‘He’s the curate at Bridestowe!’

  ‘Yes,’ Freddie explained, ‘but that doesn’t seem to dampen his sporting spirit, or his avaricious nature, although I dare say old Tredegar would play merry hell if he found out. We’ve quite a little party, as it goes, with you two down here, and Roly Bassinger and Eggy White at my place, and Myrtle of course –’

  ‘Myrtle’s down in Devon?’ Stephanie interrupted.

  ‘Rather,’ Freddie admitted, somewhat embarrassed. ‘You know how it is …’

  ‘Yes, I do,’ Stephanie answered, ‘and I’d prefer it if you didn’t speak to her.’

  ‘Tricky, that,’ he said. ‘She’s staying at the hall. Now about that pig …’

  ‘My lips are sealed,’ Stephanie replied haughtily before returning to the earlier subject. ‘Is Bobbie coming down?’

  ‘No, no,’ Freddie replied, ‘no baby sis. She would have come, but she’s determined to get into Gaspers and felt she ought to stay in London.’

  ‘Nobody would blackball Bobbie,’ Stephanie replied with conviction.

  ‘Never,’ he agreed, ‘but you know how she is, always has to be best at everything.’

  Stephanie nodded. She had been Bobbie’s Protector at Teigngrace, and had watched in awe as the tall, athletic girl went through the school like a whirlwind, to end as headgirl and captain of every available sport. Even Myrtle was friendly to Bobbie, despite being two years older, and had never dared persecute her. Stephanie frowned, reflecting how useful it would have been to have Bobbie about.

  When they reached the sty, Cyril Wonnacot
t took one look at Freddie Drake and closed the door in a pointed manner.

  ‘Bother,’ Freddie remarked. ‘Oh well, care for a stroll, old thing?’

  ‘I shall stay and tickle the pig,’ Hermione said tactfully, and detached herself from Freddie’s arm.

  ‘Shall we climb the down?’ Freddie suggested.

  Stephanie acquiesced and once more started up the long zigzag path through the thick ancient woods that cloaked the slope of Burley Down. Freddie spoke of this and that, but she wasn’t really listening. It was a nasty shock to discover that Myrtle had managed to insinuate herself at Combebow, where she would be able to monopolise Freddie’s company even more effectively than in London. It was also a highly romantic setting, with a river walk and not one but two rustic rose gardens. Desperate measures were called for.

  ‘I’ve a little trick to show you,’ she announced as they reached the folly. ‘Come inside and sit down.’

  Freddie obeyed in his usual insouciant manner, regarding her with polite enquiry as he lowered himself on to one of the marble benches inside the folly. Stephanie was feeling anything but insouciant. Her heart was hammering and the blood was hot in her face as she got down on her knees on the hard floor. Freddie’s eyes widened, then his mouth, as she put her hands on his fly.

  ‘I say, Stiffy!’ he gasped as the first button popped open.

  ‘Shh,’ she said gently. ‘This is jolly hard for me, so please don’t say anything.’

  ‘I’ll be jolly hard for you in a moment,’ Freddie told her.

  ‘Shut up,’ Stephanie replied, and hauled his cock out of his underwear.

  It was big, perhaps even bigger than Lias Snell’s, but pale and smooth, with only a faint waft of male smell, accompanied by some expensive and equally masculine scent: very much a gentleman’s cock. She still needed to pluck up her courage before taking it in her mouth, but once she was sucking it was easy. He had relaxed, his eyes closed in bliss and his mouth agape, and he just sighed occasionally as she moved her lips up and down his rapidly thickening shaft and licked the underside of his foreskin, a technique recommended by Elias Snell the second time she had sucked him off.