Student Rag Week

Jim, a final-year Humanities Major was in the bar of the Students’ Guild, his fist wrapped around a pint of mild trying to explain “Rag Week” to Alf, a first-year Chemistry man.

“Basically, we get people to sponsor us with money to do a lot of stupid stunts,” he sipped at the weak beer. “It’s a bit like a ‘fright night’ really,” he mused. “We might flour bomb the outside of the post office.” He took a deeper swig, “Or run naked through the Corn Exchange,” he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

Alf nodded sagely. He wasn’t that interested but he had been at the university for a term and a half and he hadn’t experienced anything of what might be called “student life”. Nothing, that is except attending lectures and laboratories or working on his own in the library. Rag Week might just change that. It might add a bit of excitement to his humdrum existence.

“It’s a tradition, goes back centuries,” Jim assured him, although he knew he had no hard evidence to back up this assertion.

Alf continued nodding. He hated the taste of beer and wasn’t sure why he was torturing himself. “It sounds pretty straight-forward,” he said, for want of something more intelligent to say. “Where does the money go to?”

“Local charities. The poor. Kids. That sort of thing,” Jim mumbled, suddenly aware that he had no clear answer to the question.

“How much is raised?”

“Lots,” Jim buried his lips in the glass; he had never been very good at specifics.

“We have this arrangement with the police,” he continued. “If they catch us causing mayhem we get taken to the local cop shop,” Jim gulped more beer, suddenly realising that what he was about to reveal might sound decidedly odd.

“What happens then?” Alf prompted.

Jim attempted a smile, “Well …” he stammered. “Then, Sergeant Strong gives us a spanking …” he let the sentence trail off. 

“He spanks you!…” Alf spluttered.

“Well,” Jim became defensive, “The deal is that someone sponsors you to, say, flour-bomb the post office and if you get caught and spanked they cough up double.”

The silence was deafening. Then Alf broke it. “That’s a little unusual, isn’t it?”

“Tradition,” Jim was trying to gain the initiative again. “Raises lots of money,” he took another mouthful of beer and swallowed it slowly. “Of course, when I say ‘spanking’ that’s all I mean.”

Alf’s incredulous stare unnerved him, but he pressed on. “It’s not a flogging. He doesn’t birch us. Or whip us. Or, well ….” he was beginning to lose his thread.

“Spanking,” Alf chipped in, “Like bend over my knee you naughty boy, that kind of spanking?”

“Yes, that’s it,” Jim brightened. “That’s it. You take down your trousers and pants and go across his knee.”

“Bare-bottomed!” Alf nearly choked.

“Of course. Spankings are always bare-bottomed, aren’t they?”

Jim had no idea. He had never been spanked in his life. He had no experience of corporal punishment. He hadn’t even been caned at school which was a rarity at his Grammar. He let Jim continue.

“It doesn’t really hurt. It wouldn’t would it. Not really. Not when you think about it. Not even on the bare. I mean there’s Sgt Strong and there’s a student, what eighteen, nineteen, twenty across his knee. He’s never going to do much damage is he. Not with the palm of his hand …”

“Even so …” Alf was trying to visualise his pal with his trousers at his ankles and underpants at his knees lying submissively across the lap of a burly police sergeant. And the older man spanking the student across his naked fleshy buttocks.

“We all do it,” Jim drained his glass. “Well most of us, anyway …. It raises a lot of money,” he added doubtfully. “It’s all in a good cause.”

Jim watched as Alf finished his beer. “So, do you want to take part?”

Alf slammed his glass down on the table, “You betcha!” he burped.

Picture credit: Unknown.

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Still spanked in short trousers

The cunning plan

 

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Charles Hamilton the Second

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