The illicit coffee-bar visit

 Original Fiction – for adult eyes only

(A St. Francis Independent Grammar School story)

An eighteen-year-old senior boy has been found out of bounds at a coffee bar. He’s too old to be caned, says his form master ....

 

“Cane him. Six-of-the-best. It doesn’t matter that he is eighteen years old. He’s a schoolboy and that’s how schoolboys are punished.”

Mr Durrant blew on his mug of tea encouraging it to cool. He was irritated with his colleague; why was Talbot making such a fuss about this?

The two schoolmasters sat in companionable silence for a few moments; alone in the staff common room. Talbot was in a spot and he didn’t know what to do.

“Look, Talbot. It’s cut and dry isn’t it? Harding was caught red-handed wasn’t he? Has he denied being there?”

Durrant already knew the answer. He had been present when his colleague received the news that the sixth-former had been spotted that lunchtime in The Italiano, a coffee bar a mile away from the school.

“No,” Talbot conceded the point, almost reluctantly; as if he had been victim of a fiendish inquisitor rather than a barely-concerned colleague.

“But, he is eighteen. He’s legally allowed to go to coffee bars.”

“Ha!” Durrant snorted. “They’re legally allowed to have sex with girls, but we don’t allow them to screw them over the desks.”

Talbot blushed at Durrant’s crudity. There was no need to talk like that. Durrant flushed a little himself at his colleague’s embarrassment and rushed to cover it up.

“Look. It was only last week that the headmaster spoke about going to coffee bars. He made it quite clear that they were out of bounds at lunchtime.”

Talbot nodded his agreement. There had been a number of cases of boys in the coffee bar at lunchtime. He didn’t see the attraction preferring a nice cup of Earl Grey tea himself. As far as Talbot knew all the culprits were senior boys in the sixth-form and eighteen years old. But, even though they were legally allowed to be in coffee bars, it did harm the school’s reputation if its pupils were there. Hah, he thought, some of them didn’t even bother to remove their school blazers before setting off for a frothy coffee.

“So,” Durrant continued, “Harding’s crime is disobeying a direct instruction from the headmaster and for that alone, he should be beaten.”

Talbot was still not so sure and his body language betrayed his thought.

“Look man,” Durrant sipped at his now cool tea, “You are his form master; you are expected to deal with him. What’s the problem?”

Talbot remained silent. The ‘problem’ was that Harding was eighteen; it was one thing to say he was still a schoolboy (which undoubtedly was true) but he was also a strong young adult and built like a brick-outhouse. He was hardly likely to bend over and offer up his backside to Talbot’s cane. And, when he refused to take his beating, then what? Talbot would be made to look a complete fool. It would be too humiliating.

Durrant, mistaking Talbot’s thoughtful silence for cowardice, leant over to his colleague. “Look I’m his housemaster; do you want me to deal with him?”

If he meant to provoke Talbot it worked. Talbot had a reputation among the masters for weakness where corporal punishment was concerned. He didn’t like beating boys, even when they so clearly deserved a whacking. His colleagues thought he let the side down; he allowed the boys to get away with murder.

“No,” Talbot snapped at Durrant, “I’ll deal with it. But, tell me, what would you do if he refused to take a caning?”

Durrant was losing his patience. “Have you actually spoken to him about this?”

Talbot slumped back in his chair. “No, I saw him at lunchtime and told him to report to the form room at the end of the afternoon.”

“So you don’t know that he is refusing to be whacked.”

“Well, no,” Talbot conceded.

“So what’s all the fuss about? See him after school, tell him he’s a naughty boy, bend him over and then, whack! whack! It will all be over in thirty seconds and then everyone can move on with their lives. Don’t make it into such a drama.”

“Y-e-s,” Talbot drew the word out. He was still not convinced it would go that smoothly.

“And,” Durrant advised, “If he does refuse to touch his toes, tell him his parents will be summoned and he’ll probably end up suspended from school. He won’t want to go through all that and he’ll take the caning, if only to get it all over with.”

Talbot was far from sure it would play out like this.

Durrant rose from his chair. “I’ve got a class. Go on man don’t worry. And, remember whack him hard. There’s no point caning a boy unless you leave him with a blistered backside.”

He grinned and left the room, leaving Talbot to contemplate the ordeal ahead so that by four o’clock he was possibly more anxious about the impending appointment than Harding.

Later that afternoon Talbot sat at his desk alone in the form room; Harding was due in a few minutes time. Perhaps, the master secretly hoped, the sixth-former wouldn’t come. He would just clear off home. He was indulging himself in this fantasy when the classroom door opened and Harding entered.

There was a moment’s silence; neither of them quite knew who was meant to speak first.

Harding cracked. “You said I should ….” he trailed off.

“Yes, Harding put your briefcase down and come stand in front of me.”

The sixth-former did as instructed and stood hands clasped behind his back. Neither the master nor the pupil had the confidence to look the other in the eye.

But, Mr Talbot felt the presence of the boy in front of him. Harding was easily two or three inches taller than his master and strongly built. Mr Talbot had a vague idea that the boy was a half-decent rugby player. Even though the boy bowed his head, the master could clearly see his five o’clock shadow beard. Even though he was dressed in what was obviously a school uniform, there was no mistaking it: this was no boy, this was a young adult who stood before him.

The confirmation of Harding’s maturity only served to throw Mr Talbot off his stride.

“You know why you are here?” He posed it as a question rather than a statement of fact. The tone of his voice threw Harding for a moment.

“Yes, Sir,” was all he could think by way of reply. Then he lapsed into silence. He was confused. Did Mr Talbot want him to say some more?

Mr Talbot hoped the boy could not detect his own acute embarrassment. He had rehearsed in his head a script, but now he could not remember his lines.

“You were in the Italiano? Yes.” He turned a question into a direct statement.

Harding, his eyes firmly fixed on a spot on the floor a few inches in front of his feet, mumbled his agreement.

“And, were you present last week when the headmaster said coffee bars were out of bounds?”

He had been.

“But, nonetheless you decided you would go to the Italiano?”

Yes, he had.

That was settled. The boy was guilty and now all that remained was to pronounce sentence. And, Mr Talbot sincerely hoped, execute it without fuss.

He rose from his desk and slowly walked across the room to a large storage cupboard. Harding’s eyes followed him all the way. He knew what was hidden behind its doors.

He hadn’t known what to expect from Mr Talbot. He had been thinking about it all afternoon. His fellow sixth-formers were unable to agree on his fate. Some thought he would get a bowing. If Mr Durrant, his housemaster, was dealing with the matter there would be no doubt. Harding would leave with a very sore backside indeed. But, with Mr Talbot you just couldn’t tell. He would probably not beat you; he’d find some task for you to do; an imposition, essay; detention. God knows what he would come up with and any one of his plans would mean a lot of time-consuming effort.

Harding’s heart beat a little faster as he watched Mr Talbot extract a whippy rattan cane from within. So, it was to be a beating after all.

The boy could see his form master was a little apprehensive; but he wasn’t sure why. Harding knew he had deliberately disobeyed the headmaster’s instruction and harsh punishment was inevitable. But, even that realisation had not stopped him going to the coffee bar.

It was because of a woman, of course. Well, a mere slip of a girl really. Sandra was her name. She worked lunchtimes at the Italiano. It was her fair hair and pert breasts; Harding had been spoiling his bedsheets for weeks. He spent every lunchtime at the coffee bar trying to pluck up the courage to speak to the girl. Some weeks he slotted all the wages he earned from his job filling shelves at the supermarket into the juke box, just for an excuse to ogle Sandra from a distance.

Mr Talbot resumed his place behind the desk; this time standing. Harding watched as his master easily flexed the dark yellow whippy rod between his hands. It wasn’t the first cane Harding had seen, nor the first that he had felt thwacking into his outstretched backside. St Francis Independent Grammar was that kind of school. He knew what was soon to follow would be extremely painful, but he also knew from experience that he could take it. His buttocks would end up red raw and throbbing and the marks might stay for days, but he would live.

If he hadn’t been so engrossed in his own thoughts, he would have seen the colour drain from Mr Talbot face as he coughed imaginary phlegm from his throat.

“I want you to bend across my desk,” Mr Talbot could hardly say the words, so terrified was he of the response he expected.

But, instead of defiance and mockery, his instructions were greeted with complete submission. Harding stepped forward two paces so he was close to the edge of the desk, then without fuss, he eased himself forward so his stomach and chest lay flat across the wooden desk and his buttocks jutted out behind ready for his master to perform his duty.

The desk was sufficiently large for the teenager to stretch his arms forward and grab the far edge. Once in position he was the perfect target for Mr Talbot’s cane.

The form master could not believe his luck. The boy had submitted himself meekly for chastisement. There were no histrionics, no arguments and no fight. Harding was going to let him thrash his backside, just like he was a very naughty schoolboy: which, of course, was exactly what Durrant had said he was.

Mr Talbot was a reluctant caner of boys’ backsides. It was true and this did sometimes make him unpopular with his colleagues. He was far from sure that beatings had much effect on moderating behaviour. You only had to look at the number of repeat offenders there were at the school. Once, when he made that point to one of his pro-caning colleagues, he was rewarded with a sneer. “That’s because you don’t beat them hard enough.”

Durrant had said as much earlier that afternoon. “There’s no point caning a boy unless you leave him with a blistered backside.”

Well, we shall see, Mr Talbot thought as he took hold of Harding’s blazer and folded the tail up his back. His grey school trousers stretched across generous buttocks and the master could see the outline of the young man’s underpants. Harding seemed calm to Mr Talbot. His breathing came evenly, which was more than could be said for the form master himself. He could feel his blood pressure rising and his heart raced. If he didn’t get this over with pretty quickly he might have a stroke.

He gripped the cane in his right hand took a step or two back to give him space for his swing and crashed the rattan down across the centre of the stretched trousers.

Harding hadn’t expected so much pain. He gasped loudly and grasped the edge of the desk. The second whack fell directly on top of the first, reigniting the pain and sending a wave of agony through his entire body. He could feel blood seeping from a wound under his tight underpants.

Mr Talbot was astonished at his own brutality. He hadn’t intended to lay one stroke on top of the other. It was a fluke, like scoring a hole in one at golf: something he could never repeat in a million years no matter how hard he tried.

He laid stroke number three lower, right into the fleshy part of the buttocks, close to where they meet the thighs. Harding responded by stamping his feet rapidly, like he was trying to run a fifty-metres dash. He wanted to jump up, clutch his burning buttocks and rush from the classroom. No matter how much he wanted to, he knew he could not. Mr Talbot was in control and the consequences of such disobedience would be too ghastly to contemplate.

Tears were welling as number four lashed into his beefy backside. Harding couldn’t stop his feet stomping, like he was performing some crazy Irish dance. His bum was throbbing so much; it felt like it was twice its normal size. The stickiness he could feel under his cotton underpants was evidence that this was no straightforward six-of-the-best; this was the thrashing of his life. He had never felt such agony before; not even that time when he was eleven years old and had fallen off his bike and broken a wrist.

Later, when he examined his backside, he would find the seat of his underpants stained with blood. But, that was later: for now he still had to try to survive the final two cuts of Mr Talbot’s cruel cane.

His form master was into his stride. He would show Durrant and his other doubting colleagues that he could lay on a caning to end all canings. This time he took deliberate aim with the intention of inflicting the maximum pain possible. He laid the stick diagonally across both the supine young man’s buttocks so that it crossed the existing wounds, then gently tap, tap, tapped it against the grey trousers, before raising it, not too high, but returning it with such force it sank into the flesh. His deliberation was greeted by a howl so piercing its sound reverberated around the empty classroom.

Harding banged his head up and down on the desk in a futile attempt to distract his body from feeling the searing pain that shot from his buttocks and down his legs. He would have begged for mercy, if he had been able to speak at all.

The young man was beaten: quite literally. Mr Talbot stood watching Harding, his body prostrate across the desk, heaving with sobs. Tears and snot covered the sixth-former’s face. Slowly the form master moved from one end of the desk to the other, to allow himself the space to tap, tap, tap his cane across the stretched trousers from the opposite diagonal.

Harding’s yell was so tremendous the banshee-like howl could be heard far away from the classroom, in the outside corridor and in the classroom directly above.

That was it. It was over. Mr Talbot replaced his cane in the cupboard. No fuss. No embarrassing argument. No refusal to submit to punishment.

Now, it was over, the form master felt quite proud of himself. And, as he could see from Harding’s beaten body, still prone across the desk, he had applied the cane with sufficient vigour to ensure the eighteen-year-old’s buttocks were well and truly blistered.

“You may get up and leave when you are ready. Please don’t make me have to repeat this.”

He watched from the classroom doorway as Harding slowly eased himself off the desk and tried to stand. He stumbled and collapsed to the floor.

Suddenly, the severity of the thrashing, struck Talbot. He had whipped the boy, young man, describe him how you like, into a pulp. This had been no “six-of-the-best”. Yes, it had been six strokes with a cane, but its effect was vicious.

Why had he allowed himself to be goaded by Durrant? What had he done to the poor boy? But, he didn’t want to wait to find out.

“Take your time, don’t forget your briefcase,” Mr Talbot called as he rushed from the room.

Five minutes later he was back in the staff room, trying to ease his nerves.

“How did it go?” Durrant was eager to know.

“Oh, he took his caning, just as you said he would.”

Durrant smiled, he so loved being right. “Yes, I knew he would. They’re not bad lads. Very honourable most of them. They know if they break the rules they deserve a whacking. They’re good lads really.”

Talbot nodded his agreement, sipped his tea and wondered if he should return to the classroom to see if Harding was still lying on the floor.

 …

The sight Paul saw through the classroom window pulled him up sharply.

There, laid stretched across the stout wooden desk with his chubby backside in the air, was that bully Harding, one of the most reviled prefects at St Francis. The eighteen-year old would often extort lunch money from the younger boys.

And, standing there waving a crooked-handled cane in the air was Mr Talbot, the maths master.

Crack! The cane swished down into Harding’s stretched grey Terylene. The boy jerked and yelped as the rattan hit home.

Paul stood in the courtyard transfixed. There was Harding, dressed in his green-and-gold-blazer, jumper, grey trousers and black shoes, laying stomach down over the desk, gripping the far edge with both hands for all he was worth.

Crack! Mr Talbot an elderly man, easily in his sixties, Paul reckoned, whacked the cane down again. This was no token tap, Mr Talbot was trying his damndest to cause real pain and from what Paul could see, he was succeeding in his task.

Harding gripped the table for all he was worth. The cuts of the rattan were searing into his rump. He was not taking his beating well.

Swipe! Crack! The sight and the sound of the caning reignited the throbbing in Paul’s own backside.

The third-former gingerly touched the seat of his grey short trousers. All the boys at St Francis wore short trousers until the end of their third year. In the real world it was unheard of for fourteen-year-old boys to be wearing grey short trousers and you can imagine the trouble the boys had on their way to and from school each day, with the real possibility they would meet up with yobs from Gumshoe Lane secondary modern school and face a punch-up in the streets or on the bus.

Paul had just received his first-ever caning because of one such punch-up. Paul had been on his way home yesterday afternoon on the local public bus when he and four other pupils were set upon by oiks. Of course, they had no choice but to defend themselves.

Paul never did find out how the headmaster found out about the fight. The bus driver didn’t try to stop it (too frightened probably) and as far as he could see none of the other passengers seemed too willing to get involved either. 

But, there they were only ten minutes ago, five of them lined up outside the headmaster’s study, waiting for the inevitable. One by one they were called in. Paul had been number two in the queue. There was no ceremony, no big lecture. It may have been the first caning Paul had ever been given, but for the headmaster it was all in a day’s routine.

Paul hadn’t been inside the study before, although he and his friends walked by the outside several times a day. And, they all knew what could take place inside. Once, and surprisingly considering the number of times the head exercised his right arm on boys’ backsides, and only once, they had been passing just at the moment the rattan was swishing through the air to connect with a miscreant’s taut bottom. On that time, three whacks descended in quick succession and before you could say “Yaroo!! Billy Bunter” the study door opened and a second-former emerged, as pale as pale could be. When he saw the boys watching he choked back the tears he was desperate to shed and rushed down the corridor.

“Send in the next boy,” the headmaster ordered as he took the punishment book from Taylor. The twelve-year-old boy was happy to oblige: he just wanted to get out of there as soon as he could. He opened the door and rushed through. “You’re next,” he told Paul, as rubbing his backside, he went in the general direction of the lavs.

Paul’s heart was thumping. Although he had never been caned before he knew all about it of course. The cane was in constant use at St Francis and he heard many tales of fellow pupils who had made the self-same trip he was making now. After the ordeal was over they would recount in blood thirsty detail how with trousers and pants around their ankles they had bent across one of the headmaster’s plush chair for the whipping from hell.

Paul wasn’t to know that the tales were just that: invented stories. He suspected they might be a bit exaggerated but he had no way of knowing this for sure. Until now.

He turned the handle of the door to the headmaster’s study and pushed it ajar. “Come in Davis,” the head ordered.

It was a huge study. The headmaster, resplendent in his flowing academic gown, stood in the centre of the room. To one side was an old, rather battered, desk that dated back at least a hundred years. Paul wasn’t to know but generations of boys had helped to polish the desk’s surface with their jumpers or blazers as they stretched across to get Six from Dr Henderson-Smith, who had been the headmaster of the school for about all of recorded history.

Dr Henderson-Smith didn’t stand on ceremony when it came to dishing out corporal punishment. A boy on the receiving end had to stand on his own two feet. Sometimes literally. Or to put it another way, the boy about to get a beating had to stand, bend over touch his toes and he had better not jump about as the cane cut his backside or there would be Hell to pay.

Paul entered the study. In fact the headmaster’s desk wasn’t the first thing he saw as he went in. Rather, in his direct line of vision was a small armchair, probably as old as the desk and equally as probably used on many occasions for a similar purpose.

And, behind the desk was a hat stand, six feet tall at least, and hanging from the top were six punishment canes, all dangling by their crook handles. Paul didn’t have much time to take it all in, but he could see they were of various sizes and thicknesses, from one that was so small and thin it couldn’t possibly do much harm to a boy’s buttocks through layers of shorts and pants. Then in a split second he remembered the stories about bared-bottomed beatings.

He didn’t have time to think further. Dr Henderson-Smith spoke clearly and decisively. “Stand there,” he indicated a spot on the rug that covered bare, polished floorboards. The headmaster already had his weapon of choice in his hand. “Face that way,” he used the stick to indicate the far wall.

“Bend over, touch your toes.” So this was it, thought Paul. He did as he was told. He realised he wasn’t especially frightened, more intrigued by what was about to happen next.

In one continuous movement, he swirled around to face the wall and bent down. He was only fourteen-years-old and probably a little bit small for his age. He was fit and healthy and liked to play a lot of football, although he wasn’t in any of the school teams. Not even the one for his House that hardly ever won a match.

Paul bent down as instructed. Time seemed to stand still. Later in bed that night running his fingers under his pyjama bottoms along the ridge marks on his buttocks he would relive this moment.

As he watched Harding under the lash of his maths master, Paul remembered every moment of what happened next in the headmaster’s study.  Of course, Paul couldn’t see himself as a boy in green blazer and grey shorts bent over as Dr Henderson-Smith, a fifty-something bachelor headmaster, swished his cane, touched it against the boys left buttock, took aim, drew his arm back to above shoulder height and let fly. 

Paul saw none of that. What he saw and remembered was his own smooth hands extended as they stretched out so the tips of his fingers touched the toes of his shoes. They were plain black shoes, of course. Highly polished as you’d expect at St Francis.  Polished every night, whether they needed to be or not.

Paul also saw his grey socks, with green and yellow tops pulled up as tight as they could go. Woe betides a boy at St Francis who wore his socks in any other way. The socks went to just below the knee and between them and his short trousers was an area of cold white flesh, maybe three inches between socks and shorts.

And, dangling in front of his face as he struggled to keep in position hung his school tie. A narrow specimen with large diagonal stripes.

Paul could remember every detail. Even as he had assumed the required position, Paul wondered what the pain would be like. “Take it, no matter how much it hurts, just clench your teeth,” he told himself.

“Bend over, touch your toes,” the head had commanded. In one continuous moment Paul was over, fingers touching toes.  Whack! Whack! Whack! Whack! Whack! Whack!

“Stand up, sign the punishment book.” And that was it. No ceremony really, just a simple ritual, familiar to generations of schoolboys. In, out, and a searing pain in the bum at the end of it.

Swish! Whack! Crack! The cane cut into Harding three more times. The yells from the prefect echoed around the classroom and Paul could see he was sobbing his eyes out. He was a beaten man.

Then it was all over. Paul permitted himself a smile. Harding was a bit of a bully with the younger boys, he liked to throw his weight about.

But his smile disappeared as he watched Harding slowly ease himself off the desk, try to stand, before stumbling and collapsing to the floor. Mr Talbot had made a hasty exit.

Paul paused a moment: should he go to see if the prefect was alright? It took a nanosecond for him to decide: No.

With his own bottom still glowing warmly, Paul headed for the school gates and the bus home.

Picture credit: British-discipline. 

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