Houston was in place. It was a familiar position to him and he knew precisely what was going to happen next. He was stretched across his housemaster’s desk. He was that kind of boy and St Creosote was that kind of school. It didn’t matter that he was eighteen years old; seniors and juniors were treated alike. It was the only hint of democracy in the whole school.
Schools have rules and St Creosote had more than many. If rules are broken there must be sanctions. There are many available to a modern housemaster but Mr Keneally was far from modern. Not for him the imposition of one hundred lines; nor a detention in place of afternoon sports. He knew little of Latin or Greek so ‘impots’ were of no interest to him. Mr Keneally believed in the short sharp shock. Perhaps, truthfully it would be more accurate to say Mr Keneally believed in six short sharp shocks; delivered with one of the many whippy curve-handled canes he kept in a basket in the corner of his study.
There were rules for everything at St Creosote from what time to get up in the morning to when to go to bed. Every minute of every day was planned for: be here, be there. Houston was eighteen years old and one might be sympathetic and say he was a tad too old to be constrained in such away. But since we are in the mood for truth-telling the truth is that young or old Houston had never been one for rules. It would be fanciful to liken Houston to a kestrel or an eagle that cannot live without the open skies; but there is no doubt that Houston did not have a suitable temperament for boarding school life.
The desk he lay across was not best suitable for a boy of his height. It was not a huge walnut, leather topped effort; it wouldn’t have looked out of place in an office at the local municipal council. To position himself suitably for what was to come Houston was obliged to lay his stomach on one edge of the desk and place his elbows in such a way that he was able to take a grip of the far edge. His shoulders were raised which made his back curve uncomfortably and his face stared down at the desk which had been cleared of all articles except for a solid black telephone. His legs were stretched behind him and he struggled not to bend his knees.
In truth – there’s that word again – it would be better to place Houston over the rather grubby armchair that stood in a far corner. He could comfortably stretch across its back and grab hold of the front of the seat cushion. He was tall enough to fit perfectly with his head low and his bottom high. Mr Keneally would be able to administer a very satisfactory Six to Houston’s most sensitive sit-spot. But Mr Keneally was a man of habit. He did not like change. Novelty unnerved him. It might be that his desk was the best piece of furniture to bring into call when dealing with boys up to age of fifteen or thereabouts, but older, taller lads needed a different kind of presentation.
Houston knew every square inch of the housemaster’s study. St Creosote might like to think of itself as a traditional school with centuries of history behind it and many more to come, but in reality its walls were not ivy-covered, its windows were mainly not mullioned and the study did not have oak panelled walls and glass-fronted book cases. As with the desk, the whole room with its light-wood shelving, industrial grade carpeting and mass-produced photographs on the wall could have been inside the town hall.
Mr Keneally and the other masters – there were no mistresses in the all-boys’ St Creosote – did consider themselves to be a cut above the teachers at Oil Drum Secondary Modern and dressed themselves in academic gowns and mortar board caps. A US television series had popularised the gowned hero Batman and the masters were often ridiculed behind their backs because of this.
Mr Keneally had removed his cap and gown as the cloak inhibited his arm as he lined up to swing his cane and with all the movement associated with delivering a good caning the cap was apt to slide off his head in a comical and rather embarrassing manner. So it was that the housemaster was down to his shirtsleeves.
Houston too had removed some clothing. His hooped school cap and blue-and-black-striped blazer were at this moment resting on the armchair previously mentioned. He was left in pale-grey long trousers, white shirt and tie. There would be no call on Houston to remove further clothing for although Mr Keneally personally would have no qualms about caning the sixth-former with his trousers at his ankles (Houston’s not the housemaster’s) and also with the cotton white Y-front underpants at his knees the rules of the school did not permit such. This Mr Keneally believed this to be to the detriment of good order in the school. Why back in the day at his school, he would sometimes remind younger colleagues, he had been regularly birched on his bare behind. The colleagues would cough politely and immediately remember an important errand they must run before the start of the next class.
So, Houston would be spared Six on the bare but he knew that even when clothed his buttocks would suffer terribly at the hand – or rather, of course, at the cane – of his housemaster. The old man’s reputation as a ferocious beater was well justified.
Houston stared at the desktop studying in detail the grain in the wood. Experience told him that the best way to endure the thrashing was to pretend it wasn’t happening. He shouldn’t think of the beating to come, or of the pain imposed during its application; instead set the mind to something else, something pleasant if at all possible. For reasons that he couldn’t fathom Houston had the words of a pop record going through his head. It had been top of the charts for many weeks and although he and his pals considered it to be six-and-a-half minutes of utter balderdash he could not get the darned thing out of his head. So it was that while Mr Keneally busied himself selecting just the right rod to use to thrash Houston, Houston himself recited the words Mama Mia, Mama Mia, Beelzebub, Beelzebub over and over again in his head.
Despite his best efforts to transport himself out of the housemaster’s study Houston was acutely aware of his housemaster’s movements. Houston forced himself not to turn his head to watch Mr Keneally who was standing over a basket in a corner of the study selecting one cane after another. There were several to choose from and although each was slightly different to the other (one a bit longer, another thinner and so on) Mr Keneally was very well acquainted with the properties of each, having used them constantly during the previous twelve years. Houston could ignore his housemaster when he flexed each between his hands to examine its suppleness, but he was unable to block out the sound of the cane swishing at speed through the air as Mr Keneally tested its suitability. In truth these actions served no useful purpose other than to intimidate the boy positioned and waiting for the first stroke to land.
Houston moved his body slightly. His stomach was positioned on the edge of the desk but so were his privates. Houston was a big boy down below; he knew this because there were ample opportunities to make comparisons with his fellows in the showers after rugby and also in the dormitories where unsavoury practices regularly occurred. Without using his hands, Houston was able to readjust his package and he was certain he was presented to Mr Keneally’s satisfaction.
On his part, the housemaster had made his election. A whippy, but dense, Malacca-type cane. This, he thought, more suitable for the senior boy. Delivered with some vim, even with trousers and underpants present, this cane would leave welts and bruises across the backside that would be visible for a week at least. He held the cane between his two hands peering at it closely as if he had never seen it before. If truth be told he had used this same cane only an hour earlier on one of the senior rugby team who had exhibited a little too much violence during that afternoon’s match with Oakenhurst.
Mr Keneally swiped the cane through the air and took up a position about three feet to Houston’s left. He ran the tip of his lip around his lips and for a moment admired the physique of the eighteen-year-old prostrate before him. The shirt was loose-fitting but it could not disguise the muscular back beneath it. Houston lay awkwardly across the desk and this emphasised his powerful shoulders. The pale-grey trousers were not tight-fitting but the buttocks filled out the seat. Each cheek was round and firm and his legs were as muscular as his back. The trousers appeared freshly laundered and sharp creases ran from the hem all the way up the legs and across the backside. These creases further emphasised the target for Mr Keneally.
The housemaster admired the sight before him. He paused for a moment as he tried in vain to remember why Houston had been sent to his study. What misdemeanour was he being punished for? Was he the illicit smoker? The boy who had slipped to the town without permission? Hadn’t there been a bully? In fact, Houston was the slacker. His marks in Mr Keneally’s poetry appreciation class had been poor and in Mr Keneally’s world bad marks inevitably led to red marks – six in total across the bottom.
A creaking floorboard alerted Houston that the housemaster was on the move. Any moment now. Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy? Caught in a landside, No escape from reality. He forced the song lyrics into his head. The cane gently tapped the highest hill of his buttocks. Mr Keneally sawed the cane from left to right, taking his aim. Little high, little low,
Any way the wind blows doesn’t really matter to me, to me.
The song didn’t block out the noise of the whistle and crack! the cane made as it flew through the air with great force and landed squarely across the seat of Houston’s trousers. Sends shivers down my spine, body’s aching all the time. No matter how many times a boy is caned during his school career nothing can diminish the shock he feels as the whipping commences. No amount of experience can take away the agony. This was not Houston’s first caning (and with another six months to go before he took his exams and departed the school, it still might not be his last) and the pain he endured at this moment was every bit as unforgiving as that first time he submitted his bottom to Mr Keneally.
The floorboard creaked once more. Thunderbolts and lightning, very, very frightening. The second landed, maybe a quarter inch below the first. Mr Keneally was an expert. Houston’s shoulders heaved and his hips wriggled. He had no control over his body. Shocks of pain shot up and down each leg. He gripped the far edge of the desk for dear life. Galileo, Galileo, Galileo, Galileo, Galileo, Figaro – magnificoo.
Three welts throbbed beneath Houston’s pants. There was probably blood, there often was when Mr Keneally thrashed a boy. Oh mama mia, mama mia, mama mia, let me go. Houston’s temples throbbed and his head ached; possibly as much as his backside.
Mr Keneally paused after the third stroke, He always did this, partly to give him a chance to catch his breath a little, but also to admire his handiwork. Although he was not able to see the bare flesh which he was certain was by now scarred he could see three distinct marks embedded in the cloth of the seat of Houston’s trousers. Bingo! He applauded himself silently. Three parallel cuts, each sunken into the flesh. The boy will have trouble walking for a while, let alone sitting down, he congratulated himself.
He paced across the study; this helped his heartrate slow and also gave Houston time to fully absorb the intense agony he was feeling. Very soon the agony diminishes to a severe pain and then to a constant throbbing. This change can take place over only a few moments. Mr Keneally was waiting for the throbbing to ease before he set about delivering the second set of three. In that way the caning would be infinitely more severe than if he had delivered six strokes at, say, five second intervals.
Satisfied that he wouldn’t have a heart attack if he continued, the housemaster took up his position once again. Tap-tap-tap. Mama, oooh, I don’t want to die, I sometimes wish I’d never been born at all. It hit low, into the crease where the bum and the thighs meet; the most sensitive sit spot. Houston’s choked back a sliver of vomit, he scrunched his teeth together then bit down on his bottom lip; he absolutely refused to holler the yell his body demanded he make. His legs buckled and he twisted his left foot around his right ankle. Mr Keneally observed with a deep satisfaction.
Spare him his life from this monstrosity. This one was higher almost on the apex of the lad’s two mounds and just below the spine. The housemaster knew that was a dangerous stroke to make; if he got it wrong and missed his target he could take out a kidney. But he didn’t get it wrong, he was an expert caner and to give Houston his due (the housemaster wouldn’t do this, but we as observers must) the teenager was taking his whipping stoically and hardly moving about at all. Others would be jumping and jiving all over the desk.
Mr Keneally adjusted his position for the final stroke. This was his trademark. The boys called it the five-bar gate. It was simple in its execution (but it did rather rely on the boy keeping submissively still so that a perfect aim could be made) Mr Keneally lay the cane across both buttocks but rather than go across from left to right as with the previous five this stroke was aimed diagonally from the bottom of the left cheek to the top of the right. It would of course intersect all five welts and set them flaming once more. If there hadn’t been blood before there certainly would be after this.
Whack! Nothing really matters, anyone can see, nothing really matters, nothing really matters to me. There are many different ways to try to describe how the backside feels after one of Mr Keneally’s trademark Sixes. Such as it’s like sitting in a bath of boiling water; having a white-hot wire pressed into the flesh; sitting on a burning barbecue. Houston was in no mood to search for words to describe the hurt; he felt it and that was enough for him. Later he would strip down his trousers and pants and find six thick red welts adorning his backside. There would be blood blisters that would burst in the night if he forgot to lay on his front or his side. He would wear no pyjamas bottoms as the blood might stick to them making it impossible to remove in the morning.
The chaps in the House would demand to see his marks and, of course, Houston would oblige. Triblock, who was a keen photographer, would take pictures; he had a sizeable collection of boys’ blistered buttocks. The pain would ease, the marks would eventually clear up. Life would go on.
There was a final ritual before Houston could depart the study. Mr Keneally replaced the cane with the others in the wicker basket before turning with outstretched hand. “Thank you, sir,” Houston said although he didn’t mean it. “You’re welcome,” the housemaster replied. “Happy to oblige,” he said to himself as he watched Houston’s buttocks ease their way to the study door and beyond.
Picture credit: Sting Pictures
(With apologies to Freddie Mercury and Bohemian Rhapsody)
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