Under The Redoubtable Ms Soames’s Celebrated Suppository Discipline

The answer to that question was that Aunt Julia had been busy - busy indeed! Had Lavinia Vitesse been able to peer in on her aunt at her home some months after having joined the hospital’s research project she would have been astounded at the changes that had been wrought in her absence. She would also have been dismayed that her place in her Aunt’s care had been so swiftly taken by another. Had she been able to have seen that individual and had she been able to have been present outside the hospital on the day she had been committed, she might have recognized the pretty petite teenager in her aunt’s care as one of two girls who had been spirited away from the research unit even as she had been facing the psychiatric appraisal panel that had put her away. But this is a point in time way before that day, way before the girl in question would herself be persuaded to join the study.

The sanatorium-style examination table would have seemed hopelessly incongruous in a domestic setting, had it not been for the spartan furnishing and institutional-looking décor of this ‘roped-off’ segment of the formidable Ms Julia Soames’ home. This was after all something of a self-contained home-within-a-home; a private realm which, in so being, found little reason to excuse, nor explain, the apparent incongruity of its existence to the world at large. The plush and comfortingly-familiar carpeting that flowed throughout the rest of the cottage-style accommodation, covering much of the original flagstone ground floor and timbered upper floor with a swirling patterning of muted reds and tasteful browns, came to an abrupt halt at a nondescript door, hidden away at the rearmost section of the eastern side of the double fronted premises and very much in keeping with the farmhouse character of the place.

Once past the sturdy blackened-oak door with its iron-ring twist-handle, nowadays habitually kept securely locked, the domestic woollen pile flooring immediately and disconcertingly gave way to spongy, clinically-white, cushioned linoleum which, upon climbing a short flight, a secondary staircase leading up into a rear extension, then spread out across a skylight-lit landing before flowing seamlessly into four small, yet sufficiently functional, rooms, each nestling behind its very own and equally securely-locked door. The same oaken boundary similarly delineated twee floral-papered walls - hung all higgledy-piggledy with watercolour seascapes and leaf-less winter-forest views, oil still-life renderings in gold varnished frames and horse-brasses - and the gnarled ancient oak ceiling beams one might expect of a Home Counties thatched cottage, from the smooth, scrupulously clean white vinyl wall coverings, glossy, plastic-like white paint and that false ceiling of white plastic panels.

The atmosphere too changed, just as abruptly as the decoration, on that first stair-tread, becoming all together more institutional; indeed the scent of jasmine, hollyhocks, roses, freshly-mowed grass wood and old leather that seemed to characterize the rest of the house became drowned in a sea of soapy carbolic, pine-needle and bleach-like disinfectant, plastic and a faint, barely resolved mishmash of odours, all far more reminiscent of a hospital than the domestic environment.

The accommodation comprised a toilet, little more than a cubicle sufficient to house the pedestal and a bidet, a shower room that also contained what appeared to be a massage table but one that strangely had been furnished with a system of broad Velcro-fastening padded-nylon straps, and the girl’s bedroom. This latter was a strangely frothy and flouncy concoction of girlish femininity seemingly completely at odds with the institutional flavour of the rest of this part of the house, other than for the bed. The latter was a standard hospital metal-framed model, but one which - being well camouflaged by the soft pink-flounced counterpane - discreetly kept hidden the padded leather cuffs and strong webbing straps of a humane restraint system as might well have graced an asylum.

Then, of course, there was this room, this warm, yet paradoxically clinically cold, sterile space within which a deliciously curvaceous teenage girl presently waited bottom-up across the lap of a middle-aged woman dressed in the navy-blue dress and white apron of a hospital matron circa 1965 and seated on a plastic-topped examination couch of a similar vintage. On the sidewall immediately adjacent to the exam table and mounted high up at around head height, a white plastic pigeon-hole cabinet housed a matrix of transparent-fronted pull-out draws. Each was filled to brimming with a continuous, concertina-folded, strip of white perforated cardboard whose transparent polythene-blister surface carried a parallel array of waxy tallow-hued soapy bullets, bringing to mind the image of some tear-off, medicinal ammunition belt.

Ranging across the cabinet, from left to right, the arrangement was by way of function, whereas from top to bottom, in any particular category, the organization was one of increasing physical dimensions, in both length and girth. Stool softeners jostled uneasily alongside draws holding suppositories designed to circumvent and treat diarrhoea and whose careless over-prescription could so easily induce the painfully bloating constipation and clay-like stools that the other was designed to defeat. Similarly, suppositories having muscle relaxant properties lay in misty slide-out trays mounted shoulder to shoulder with those holding astringent suppositories formulated to tackle incontinence and the action of which relied heavily on the induced constriction of anal sphincter muscles and the consequent involuntary clenching of the patient’s buttocks.

Then there were those suppositories laced with other medicinally-beneficial substances. Not least of this category were those designed to discreetly introduce a mildly-calming tranquilizer or, if it was desired that a more addictive form of dependency be created, a more powerful and longer lasting sedative - as had been the approach she had used with her niece, Lavinia. These latter sedative suppositories came in a wide range of doses, yet shared the same moderately sized and otherwise quite innocent looking bullet-shaped form, resulting in the subject having no idea as to the desired therapeutic effect - or, indeed, that any particular effect was to be expected from their insertion at all.

But there were effects none-the-less, starting with a barely discernable calming effect that could be incremented in a series of graduated steps right up to the point of rendering the patient as docile as a lamb and lost and wandering in an absent minded fog. And then there were the much larger nap-inducing doses that could make most of the day disappear as surely as if the clock, of its own accord, had simply jumped ahead several hours. Finally there were those dosage schemes that, if the subject were not yet accustomed to them, would result in a long night of deep dreamless sleep and a hopelessly muddled head for the entirety of the following day. This was a stratagem the woman, from her past psychiatric-nursing experience, had found most efficacious in situations wherein a patient initially mistrusted her medication or was resistant to the whole idea of needing any form of medication in the first place. A few weeks of coaxing - backed up by this somewhat surreptitious method of incremental introduction - and the patient, as if through nothing more than the power of persuasion alone, would readily accept administration of her medication in the conventional oral form without descent or argument.

In between these different categories of medication, again running from left to right across the cabinet, the concentration of active ingredient varied; from that having only the mildest effect at one extreme, that barely noticeable, to an effect bordering on debilitation at the other. For any given clinical categorization and efficacy level, if one was to run one’s finger down that column from top to bottom one would encounter the profile of the suppository gradually morphing from bullet-like, to something more conical, before finally approaching the downright phallic, as both length and girth increased.

In much the same way a notch, running around the circumference at the broadest extremity, deepened and became more pronounced with the increase in dimensions while, concurrently, the tapering and rounded, forward end, gradually took on a notably more bulbous appearance. Both these latter features were intended to function to lock the suppository in place while it dissolved deep in the patient’s rectum. Additionally, while each suppository was designed to be malleable enough to ooze slowly into place with the gentle unhurried coaxing pressure of a nurse’s latex-sheaved digit, paradoxically any rapid, violent compression - such as that resulting from an attempted expulsion - caused the suppository to respond by instantaneously changing its physical properties, momentarily becoming essentially incompressible. The patient’s own, often involuntary, efforts, were thus harnessed to ensure full retention.

The pretty elfin featured late-teenage girl could feel the cold ribbed semi-rigid nylon-tipped nozzle, the dragging length of snaking tubing connected to it following close behind, insinuating itself and inching its way up inside her bottom, violating her as surely as if it were something of flesh and blood. It brought to mind how it had been in his hands; that old pervert in his ecclesiastical regalia. It was humiliatingly like once again being impaled on his ‘thing’, bent across that trestle bench beneath the banner extolling the ‘mission’ of ‘The Children of Christ, Scientist’ and the stained glass image of the Madonna and Child that peered out disdainfully from behind the thick iron prison bars covering the window.

Yet this was somehow a worse violation than even that had been, in its way; there was no expression of desire, no sense of ‘worth’, just the liberally applied coating of cold thick slimy gel lubricant that made her shudder. Icy trickles of excess, oozing from her overstretched rosebud, ran tantalizingly slowly down between her widely-parted globes in thin gloopy silver-grey strings like slather dripping from the cold tongue of some long-dead thing, the disconcerting mess drawn rather than impeded beneath the thin layer of polythene that sheaved her buttocks as if spray painted.

In humiliated anticipation the girl felt the muscles around her gently-rounded belly tightening, her anus tightening around the black nozzle that protruded obscenely from between her swollen plastic sheaved buttocks like a rigid plastic penis, the transparent plastic tubing emerging from its centre made silvery with strings of passing bubbles. This was a procedure that had once been preceded by a few swishing strokes of the cane thrumming through the air, the harsh crackling snap of a searing flame-tongued tawse or the ruthless crack of a supple leather belt - the latter would generally be doubled over and would brand the girl’s naked buttocks with its outline, the broad swollen stripes being punctuated longitudinally by a raised blister-like pattern where its holes fell. Now she unconsciously raised her swelling peach-like bottom, as if offering it up willingly to the ingress of the wide-bore rubbery enema nozzle that was once more raping her backside; as it had the evening before... and the morning before that... and as it would continue to do, twice per day, for the foreseeable future.

She had been fiercely independent, this one, this Meredith Hewson, more so even than her own niece, Lavinia, had been, Learning to curb and bridle herself had come slowly and painfully to her, but it had come nonetheless. An acceptable level of obedience had been achieved - now it would have to be perfected, honed and refined. This constant and repeated submission to the soapy urging of the enema was very much part of that refinement.

The girl had been quick tempered and prone to brusque outbursts; but the tight leash of discipline she now had the girl under was doing wonders in beating down and subduing that former volatility. She had taken her time with the girl; the luxuries and indulgences she had been used to had not been removed all at once but rather gradually and insidiously replaced by the privations she knew the girl detested. At each step it seemed as if deep down inside some part of the girl’s personality and character were being peeled away, discarded along with her increasingly limited freedom.

It had been with a rising sense of satisfaction and no little anticipation that the uniformed woman had watched her charge prepare, struggling to squeeze her somewhat overly mature curves into the tight bottom-hugging white plastic ‘enema knickers’ she always insisted the girl wear for these treatments. She had smiled to herself knowingly as the girl had flinched, oh so prettily. Partly that faint grimace had come about through the final snap of the elasticated waistband, once the girl had succeeded in kneading and moulding her ample bottom into the intimately detailed glossy PVC covering. Partly the girl’s discomfort stemmed from the action of the tight leg elastic biting into the yielding flesh around those milky thighs of hers, but m--ore importantly as far as Julia Soames was concerned, a major part of her young charge’s unease came from the sense of humiliation that the garment seemed almost purposely designed to engender.

The glossy gossamer-thin plastic of the seemingly sprayed-on knickers trapped light in little puddles that served to emphasize the shadowed cleft whereat the back-seam dipped sharply down and inward, practically disappearing from view, and where the cleverly contrived construction while moulding the buttocks into an eye-pleasing heart shape, simultaneously drew the swelling cheeks widely and lewdly apart.

The eye was naturally drawn to range over the perfect mirror-sheen surface of white plastic coated globes, bringing the suggestion to mind of two over-inflated balloons sat side by side, and down on, along the tightly-lined plastic valley to where the slippery fabric again pressed outwards, puckering and pulling into a glossed and detailed outline of intimate lips already moistening in the unrelenting humidity of their covering. Somehow this thin yet tough polythene sheaving managed to reveal even more intimate detail than if the girl had actually been naked - something the shy young thing was only too keenly aware of and that brought colour to her cheeks even before undergoing a procedure that was, after all, designed to humiliatingly deny her control of the most basic of her bodily functions.

At the centre of the back-seam of these purpose-designed knickers the plastic thickened and turned inwards for a couple of centimetres, thus forming a semi-rigid sleeve that connected with the outside world by way of an elastic-circled sphincter of plastic fabric mirroring the puckered pink flesh beneath into which the sleeve was designed to worm its way. This feature was customarily aided in its purpose by having previously been liberally coated with a medical lubricant and once in place it was simplicity itself to introduce the big black ribbed phallus of the enema nozzle into the girl’s backside or to slip any number of suppositories into place, as required.

In the latter case she preferred to have the girl lie across her lap, the girl’s calves straining to keep her bare toes in contact with the floor, her pretty head hanging down and beribboned plaited pigtails draping onto the lino. Typically she would insert three of the slick rubbery bullets in quick succession - the last, having by far the greater diameter of the set, would invariably have the girl squirming across her knees, her buttocks involuntarily clenching. The twisting and turning of the girl’s pelvis would crumple the polyester skirt of her nurse’s dress, riding it up on her nylon-stockinged thighs, the strained stretching polythene of the girl’s ‘enema knickers’ and the softly-crumpling latex folds of the genuine hospital-issue incontinence gown she now insisted the girl wear would charmingly squeak like a child’s soft toy or would rustle like rain-soaked autumn leaves against the disposable plastic bib-apron she wore on such occasions to protect her uniform.

Such sounds came like music to the woman’s ears; a sighing, whispering symphony written in the notation of strict discipline. And if percussion be needed, then there could always be added a rhythmic accompaniment of supple leather on tightly stretched resilient young flesh. She would coax and cajole: “You know we have to do this for your own good - I know what is best for you. Now, you just be a good girl; come on, just relax those bottom cheeks and let auntie slide your suppositories up into that big chubby backside of yours”.

At times she might run her hands appreciatively over the swelling contours of the closely-sheaved hemispheres, perhaps insinuate a finger through the elastic plastic sphincter. At other times she might trace the hot back-seam valley down to where the yielding thin polythene cupped gently inward and upward, running her fingers tantalizingly around the intimate hollow, insistently circling with the pad of her thumb and pressing upward with her index finger, pirouetting around the stiffening nubbin and threatening violation. All the time the girl would be obliged to keep her arms folded behind the small of her back and her buttocks relaxed - and any hint of objection, any tensing up, and woe betide her. That supple leather tawse was always close at hand, coiled expectantly in the hip pocket of her uniform dress, and the girl’s skin-tight thin polythene knickers offered very little protection. Besides, there were always the backs of the girl’s thighs available as a target for correction - and those long, coltish teenage legs of hers seemed to simply demand the attention of the strap, cane or riding switch.

A few fiery licks from the supple tongue of auntie Julia’s tawse across the girl’s plump teenage backside could always be relied upon to subdue the girl’s struggles and leave her lying passively across her apron-protected lap - at least until the point that her knowing, manipulative, fingers had her slithering in wantonly serpentine fashion, the girl’s hips rocking rhythmically in frustration at the unrequited arousal.

And if the girl’s hands should be tempted to stray from their required position, cupping the elbows and holding her arms smartly folded behind the small of her back? Whether it be to fend off the rhythmically flailing leather strap from her bottom or thighs, or whether it be to assuage the flame spreading throughout her swollen hemispherical buttocks, her fingers involuntarily kneading and rubbing the raised and rutted reminders of the strap or tawse through the plastic of her knickers - well, the girl knew the consequences well enough by now. The enema couch could just as easily double as a punishment bench and Julia Soames kept a rubber covered bolster pillow, tucked away against the wall on the floor beneath it, for just such a purpose.

A thick, round, pliant yet firm, foam-filled sausage, this latter adaptation was just long enough to span the width of the couch. Stainless-steel rings - one mounted at the centre of each end of the cushion - were designed to mate with buckled straps that hung suspended from the couch’s sides, locking it in position when in use. The thing could be pressed into service in moments and the girl could find herself thrown face-down, her abdomen across that pillow and her wrists and ankles quickly and efficiently entwined in the Velcro-fastening cuffs that were mounted at the couch’s corners, her arms drawn out tightly above her head.

Once she had a girl so immobilized, Ms Soames could afford to take her time. A broad leather belt would be fastened across the small of the girl’s back and two others would be individually fastened around the top of each thigh and the buckles of all three fastenings pulled wickedly tight until - aided by the bolster pillow beneath supporting the girl’s abdomen - the girl’s buttocks would be stretched to an almost flesh-splitting tautness.

The girl’s bottom cheeks always appeared positively mountainous when presented in that manner despite her petite build. The thin translucent vinyl covering provided by her knickers would be strained to the limit in constraining the twin puppy-fatted mounds, the fabric pulling and insinuating itself into every crevice, mapping out in embarrassingly revealed detail every intimate contour. The sight never failed to make Julia Soames lick her lips - and never failed to make her glad that the hospital the girl had been in had set about tackling those ridiculous fad-diet notions of hers.

Those latter notions were often tied in with a teenage girl’s equally ridiculous and unrealistic expectations in any case. These were aspirations so often encouraged in almost equal measure by pandering and pampering at home and by a hopelessly liberal schooling that extolled the virtues of ‘free thought’ - whatever that meant - and that led, as so often the case in the modern world, to a girl being encouraged to ‘grow up’ before her time. It was shocking, quite outrageous; they treated the girls like young adults in those ‘places’ - she hesitated to call them schools. They encouraged girls to take just about every and any decision for themselves, to take on responsibilities for their own actions that they simply were not equipped to and to expect freedoms that they had no right to.

Why, many of today’s educational establishments didn’t even have a uniform. And those that did - and this girl’s had apparently been amongst them - well, one could hardly call it a uniform at all. They might, as with the establishment that this girl had attended, define a particular colour for certain items of clothing. They might specify that a skirt be worn - and that was rare these days - or trousers be worn in preference denim jeans - and they might well mean that latter stipulation to apply to girls! But that was not what a uniform was supposed to be about, not a real uniform. Pandering to ‘individual expressionism’ and ‘the developing personality’ - that was not what a uniform should be about at all; not a proper school uniform such as that which now formed such an important part of this young lady’s life.

She would often be quite stringent with the minutiae of the adjustments, taking her time, slackening and re-tightening straps and buckles until she was satisfied that she had the girl’s pelvis tilted at just the right angle. The delay stretched - and more often than not, broke - the girl’s nerve, reducing her to childish floods of tears well before her actual physical chastisement commenced. That psychological aspect to the punishment was crucial, of course, in developing in the girl the mindset that she was seeking to, and in ensuring the permanency of the effect it was having on the girl. But there was more to it than just that. It was having access to that overhang of the buttocks that was important here - the soft underside of the buttocks and that so tender ripple of flesh, that intriguing little finger-crease where the buttocks met the rear of the thighs. She always worked towards having the girl’s buttocks tilted and raised in such a manner that she could easily bring the thin whip-lash length of springy rattan up and under that fleshy overhang or whip it in hard, burying it deep within that tender corrugated fold running across the junction at the very tops of the girl’s thighs.

Cane-stroke by soul-searing cane-stroke Julia Soames would work her way down across the girl’s twitching buttocks, all the while laying down a mat of closely-spaced and near perfectly parallel thin red stripes of fire. Starting from the point at which the well-fleshed orbs first spilled out and expanded outward and upward from the constraint of the broad leather restraint-belt encircling the girl’s surprisingly slender waist - as broad, if not broader, as a weightlifter’s lumber belt - she would work the cane expertly up and over the swelling hillocks then down their underside. At that prized and well presented site around the fleshy overhang she would tarry a moment, overlaying three, perhaps four, strokes in rapid succession one upon the other - the only site where she would do so and the only point where she would break her strict one-stroke-per-second tempo - before working down the backs of the girl’s thighs as far as the backs of the knees.

At that point the cane would be laid aside; the backs of the knees deserved a specialist approach. The finely plaited leather fronds of the martinet or ‘child’s whip’ - a term the woman found most apt and a term she was fond of using within earshot of her charge - were more suited here. On occasion even the soles of the feet might constitute a lawful target for her attentions, in a milder, domestic, variation of what was once called the bastinado - the martinet applied with the girl kneeling on the bed with her hands on her head and obliged to stare at her own reflection in the wall mirror mounted behind the bedside throughout.

But by far and wide the way she preferred to have the girl presented was as she was now following her enema and expulsion, draped over her lap, the girl’s weight taken on her gently out-curving and pleasantly upholstered belly. She could feel the warmth of the girl’s body on her thighs even through the layers of her uniform, the heat radiating through the protective disposable plastic apron, the starched cambric apron that always formed part of her uniform beneath that, and the polyester nurse’s dress, nylon slip and the broad welts of the fully-fashioned, opera-length stockings she favoured. The girl’s upper torso was tilted sharply downward to her left hand side and she kept her left hand pressed firmly to the nape of the girl’s neck, holding her charge in place, steadying her.

With her right hand she reached across to the chrome-framed side table, to the wide-necked, blue-grey glass tub waiting there. The latter’s screw top had already been removed in preparation and lay discarded alongside it. With her middle and index fingers she scooped a generous dollop of the pearl-hued goop up into her latex-gloved palm and - rubbing her fingers and thumb together as her hand withdrew - she distributed the thick petroleum gel around and between her digits. Centred over Ms Soames’s lap, the girl’s chubby bottom was offered up, the twin cheeks pressing skyward invitingly and lewdly drawn apart by the hairpin posture and the stricture of their polythene covering, the girl’s pleasantly rounded buttocks involuntarily convulsing as if having a mind of their own.

In moments the woman’s long, slender, latex-sheaved index finger was worming and pirouetting its way through the circular elastic-surrounded polythene iris centred in the back-seam of the girl’s knickers. Already the probing digit had found its way through and in to the short plastic sleeve beneath, a feature designed to just barely penetrate the wearer’s anus, keeping it conveniently dilated. The gentle fingertip was touching naked flesh now, private flesh; sensing the warmth it flexed, wriggled, danced, then twisted a little more - somewhat more than was strictly necessary to ensure sufficient lubrication. In response the girl’s buttocks squeezed together as best they were able; but that was only to be expected, despite the way she now had the girl trained.

In time she withdrew her finger, but only so that her thumb could take its place, ostensibly easing in to position the first of the soapy suppository bullets. Her wrist twisting and turning, her long middle digit now pioneered its own downward path, as if absentmindedly guiding itself along the warm polythene gully forming the gusset of the girl’s knickers, its tip tentatively curling up to meet the stiffening nubbin at the front, the latter becoming quite prominent now through its slick man-made covering.

Julia Soames knew she now had the girl just where she wanted her, at least for now. More importantly she knew that she need fear no outside interference. Indeed, as implausible - not to mention ironic - as it might seem, she had the blessing of a respected, if somewhat obscure, parochial charitable organization ostensibly set up for the prevention of exploitation of vulnerable and wayward females. She also enjoyed the support of the psychotherapist that had been placed in charge of the girl’s ‘case’.

This Hewson girl had witnessed a little more than she should have of the workings of the church’s home for the wayward. This was especially the case considering she had since turned out not to have been quite so disenfranchised from mainstream society as it had first appeared when they had picked her up off the streets. Indeed, there was something of a hue and cry developing around her, some ex-suitor asking questions and poking around, stirring up the mud. She needed to be spirited away, dealt with in such a way that should, God forbid, it become necessary to allow her to resurface the girl herself would question the validity of her recollections, let alone her testimony be taken seriously by others. Preferably she would in time be rendered even more impotent than that, neutralised by legitimate incarceration within a suitable institution; such as that funded by the charity itself.

And there was an even darker aspect lurking in the wings, if that might be possible. There were others with vested interests and entirely different agenda; power brokers puling strings. There were certain characters of ‘old money’ to whom the harrowing sight of a young woman kept permanently off-balance, encouraged to question herself as to her own competence and ability to care for herself - introverted and becoming increasingly more so - was indeed disturbing, but in an entirely unwarranted manner.

Furthermore, Julia Soames knew that, given the choice between the girl’s acceptance of her authority over her - the right she had to impose corporal punishment, to put the girl in her own personal vision of what constituted school uniform and all the other restrictions she might chose to impose - or expulsion from her home, the girl would willingly submit to the authority of her cane in preference. In so doing, the girl would inevitably eventually submit to whatever fresh constraint or rule she might deem to impose, or novel indignity she might devise. And Julia Soames was nothing if not inventive - already she had several schemes in the pipeline, not least of which was to eventually manoeuvre the girl into a place in which she could be kept under even more stringent, more long-term control.

Not that such compliant surrender had been as easily achieved as might be surmised - it had required no little amount of patience, not to mention perseverance. Indeed, it had had to wait until such a time as her hold over the girl had grown to such an extent that it had become possible to introduce the girl to corporal punishment. And that, by necessity, had had to be a most tentative introduction - it was not something she could have risked hurrying along. To have done so would have risked losing the girl at the first hurdle.

Much the same consideration could have been said to have been applied to the thorny subject of the hospital incontinence gown she had, more recently, purchased for her young charge. It hadn’t helped that the packaging it had arrived in had incorporated just that term as part of the labelling, in big bold lettering to boot! Yes, it was true she could have hidden the wrapping away - it was not that it hadn’t occurred to her - but the unusual fabric and equally unusual, unaccustomed styling would have invited comment in any case.

She had known to expect quizzical inquiry and that sooner or later she would have to broach the girl’s reluctance when it eventually came to trying it on; a quite natural reluctance brought about through fear of ridicule. Besides, she considered the psychological consequences of the full knowledge of the nature of the garment, coupled with the girl’s eventual, enforced acceptance of it - with that label, ‘incontinent’, forever echoing in her mind - easily outweighed the extra complication that knowledge introduced.

That Julia Soames had decided to follow that particular path was an indication of the confidence she had in her hold over the girl even then. She had foreseen the struggle to come but had been confident she had the strength to win through. She knew that in the mind of her petulant, sullen charge, just as in the eyes of the public at large if they could see beyond the picturesque facade of the thatched-roofed cottage, the very nature of the garment screamed ‘invalid’ every bit as coherently as would the wearing of leg braces or the occupancy of a wheelchair. In collusion with the charity’s psychiatrist it had been discussed of late as to whether even that might be a direction to take the girl in, particularly if indeed it proved possible to place her back with the behavioural research project they had running at the hospital. After all, there were all sorts of psychosomatic conditions that might call for such mobility aids... The power of suggestion could be remarkably efficacious in the treatment of hysterical paralysis and the like, but as for the opposite... Negative therapy? ...Hmmm!

This, then, was definitely the mindset she wished to encourage in this young lady. But she was only too aware that had she introduced the latex nightgown, plastic knickers - or indeed even the latex mattress, duvet covers and the matching pillow-slips that had been her earliest innovations - too soon in their relationship, she would have been met with derisive laughter at best. At worst she might well have been faced with a frightened, perhaps vindictive, runaway spreading damaging rumours and allegations and setting gossiping tongues wagging around the village.

As it turned out, having predictably demurred at first, when confronted by the cane, the girl had nonetheless relented when pressed and bent to grasp her ankles when ordered. In actuality it had taken three separate such sessions with the supple rattan kissing that plumply-delectable backside of hers to fully tame her and resign her to wearing that hated incontinent-dress for her treatments.

Now the latex nightgown was donned for bed without comment or hesitation - albeit it with her cheeks burning hotly, like coal-embers smouldering in the grate. Similarly, the enema pants were now obediently drawn up when ordered - how she loved to watch the girl wiggling and struggling prettily into their hot and sticky snugness. And of course the bed pan was now squatted over without delay... even under close supervision.

It had been the same when she had introduced the first vestiges of dress restriction, then restricted the girl’s choice further, before finally introducing the idea of her wearing a full school uniform. Even the pyjamas she now had the girl routinely wear for bed each night, with their polythene inner layer, originally had been met with derision sneering and refusal. Now the girl not only slipped into her night things when instructed - without comment let alone struggle - but when roused in the morning would slip into her latex-lined school knickers as if they had always been a normal part of her attire. Yet she never lost that charming blush that bloomed across her cheeks s as she did so.

The pyjamas were very much part of the routine, the school uniform was very much part of the routine and now the girl’s medication would be part of the routine. Under her guidance the girl’s entire life was becoming part of a routine, disciplined, controlled, and regimented. Each aspect was constantly and consistently enforced once accepted. Consistency; that was the key to dealing with a teenage girl - one had to be consistent. One had to be firm, keep up the pressure, tug the rug out from under her figuratively speaking - and once off balance one should never, ever again let her regain her footing.

The progress she had made with the girl since she had taken her into her care, as remarkable as it might seem, she saw as just so many preliminary steps. Nevertheless she felt satisfied that deep inside the girl’s mind, that label - that of ‘invalid’ - would already be taking root in her mind, growing and haunting her thoughts... And it would continue to so - after all, it could only be for the best if she could make the girl more accepting of the care she needed... And the discipline that had by necessity to come hand-in-hand with that care.

When she had received her, in her guise of ‘outreach social worker’, the girl had already all but come to accept the story of the car smash she had been in - after all she had awoken swathed in plaster immobilised on a hospital ward, so why wouldn’t she? The rest - the abuse she insisted she had suffered beforehand - she was now very nearly convinced of as being a symptom of delusion. But she harboured allegations she could levy against the Children of Christ, Scientist and their quaintly named charity home, the ‘Seminary for Wayward Girls and Young Ladies of Delinquent Morality’. Someone out there had stirred up the waters - the girl had become too hot to handle and had had to be moved. She had to be controlled, thoroughly undermined just in case. She had to be made to become dependent on those whose hands she was now in, so thoroughly dependent that in time the little fool would come to believe anything she was told.

She had to be kept on the move and if she could be manipulated into volunteering for one of the hospital’s residential behavioural psychology trials the charity helped fund then so much the better - if investigated her incarceration would then be under her own free will, if she even knew what her own free will was any more by that time. Later the waters could be muddied a little more and eventually the authorities would lose sight of her completely. Eventually they would probable take her back under the charity home’s authority, place her in one of the work rooms the nuns ran there where she could earn her keep labouring over her sewing at a work bench for years to come...

The thought made Julia Soames shiver and her mind again turned to that notion of leg braces she and the doctor had had. Negative therapy and suggestion - it was something they were playing with in the behavioural psychology lab as a sub class of the ‘schoolroom experiment’ wherein they had recreated the strictest girls’ boarding school environment the mind could conceive of. It was a rerun of a nineteen thirties experiment investigating the origins of speech deficits by their deliberate induction - how appropriate!

Reminiscing The Past & Planning The Future

Having dealt with her present charge Julia Soames unlocked the second, now unoccupied bedroom, a tiny space little more than a box room. Her mind filled with fond recollections of its previous occupant she perched herself on the edge of the childishly flounced, lace-endowed bed, unconsciously running her palms over the satin-soft flamingo-pink eiderdown, tracing the outlines of the hand-wrought quilting with long and delicately tapered fingers.

From time to time she shifted her weight, looking this way and that, turning her head and twisting about her artificially trim waspish waist, each movement causing a wave to slowly ripple along the draped edge of the heavy bedcover, the alternating frothing pink and white layers of Broderie Anglaise brushing the floor and whispering against the carpet. At each point, her eyes, alighting on this or that, would bring reminiscences to life and a faint smile would momentarily flicker about her lips, brightening and softening a face that while attractive nevertheless had a tendency towards a stern aspect.

If anything could have been said to look out of place in that palace of fantasy-childhood it was Julia Soames herself. All but submerged in a frothy pink amalgam of all things frivolously feminine - all winsome-rabbits, gleesome-geese, ballerina-mice and cupid-bow lipped dolls - her appearance could not have been more starkly contrasted. Her dark hair, coiled and pinned up in a tight bun topped by a rigidly-starched white broderie anglaise lace-trimmed nurse’s cap would have seemed incongruous enough, let alone when teamed, as it was at present, with her smartly tailored hospital sister’s uniform, black fully-fashion nylons and well polished black court shoes - the latter she had casually kicked off on entering allowing herself the simple pleasure of brushing her stockinged feet to and fro through the soft, thick-pile pale pink carpet.

The long-sleeved navy-blue polyester dress, with its stiff white buttoned cuffs and matching high buttoning collar she had decided to have made to measure for her around three and a half months or so into her little project. It had been something of an extravagant indulgence - being a perfectionist of almost obsessive proportions it had taken very many fitting sessions to satisfy her, patiently standing with pin-tacked seams, her dressmaker fussing with pins, needles and thread, taking-in here, letting-out there. But it had been worth it, if nothing else for the effect it had had on her charge when the girl had first seen her in it.

Previously she had worn the old uniform that she had retained from the days when she had indeed genuinely been a ward sister. It had been a well-known psychiatric hospital, with a prestigious reputation and the discipline and the smart uniforms that went with that in those days. Having left to start a family - a misguided venture if ever there had been one, preordained from the outset to go awry given her latent proclivities - she never quite could bring herself to throw it out. It was as if that uniform had become part of her somehow, as if she was incomplete without it - but mainly, if she was to have been honest with herself, it was that deep down inside she recognized that she was going to miss the authority that it had given her over others. She had just had to hang on to it; it was as if through some clairvoyant instinct she had known, even then, just how important that dress, cap and apron would one day be in bringing forth her true self, for finally releasing the persona that for so long she had kept bottled up inside.

Though not an outrageous beauty, Ms Julia Soames nevertheless possessed a certain unnameable magnetism that turned heads and drew unguarded admiring glances from both sexes. Dressed as she presently was - as if from a bygone era, in the dark-blue uniform of a nursing sister or matron - the effect was arresting. Though given a dour air, the eye was drawn to her stiff white cuffs buttoned at the wrists, white collar fastened high at the neck and the apron that wrapped itself around her mature, curvaceous hips and that stretched across a notably buxom bust. Her eyes were as blue as her uniform dress and her complexion, belying the signs of late-middle age, retained the healthy natural glow, carbolic-soaped, well-scrubbed and dew-fresh cleanliness that seemed to bloom only on trained nurses of a certain period.

Dominant lesbian...she hated the label but could hardly question the truth. And if that old uniform had released the genie, then this handmade, personalised take on it had fuelled its hunger. The close-fitting princess-seamed button-through bodice, tapering sharply, as it did, down to an exceedingly narrow waistband, the latter girdled by the traditional Petersham ribbon nurses’ belt, made the most of her waspish figure, itself a tribute to the corsetiere’s art. The flat fronted, panelled skirt seemed moulded to the upper curvature of her broad hips before, softened by a group of flaring pleats at either side it flared out, following the classic A-line to hem just below her knees. In this she exuded authority; in this she really felt the part and she knew the respect she demanded would be offered up unequivocally by her present charge just as it had been by Lavinia.

Ordinarily the starched white cotton pinafore apron, tied at the waist and with shoulder straps crossing at the back completed the picture, at other times there would be the polyester/viscose model with the pale blue vertical pinstripe running through it. At still other times, special times, it would be a semi-transparent disposable plastic pinafore or perhaps the protection of calf-length thick white latex would be called for - and the girl always knew what that meant, the tears would well up automatically at the sight of that.

Other than in the case of the rubber and plastic - they were merely practical and protective - she would always wear her belt over the apron; it made for a better line and, besides, the girl had been trained by this time to fixate on the glinting polished ornate silver butterfly clasp fastening. It was the second stage of a series of post-hypnotic triggers that had been developed within the girl by her therapist to aid with trance induction during her treatment sessions; the first was merely the sight of a woman in nurse’s uniform. From thereon in it was a simple matter to guide the girl’s gaze to her fob watch or to the metronome on her bedside table as required; Lavinia had been habituated to both, the sight of either would act as a trigger.

But this had only ever been Lavinia’s room - such an outlay it had been, such effort, for the one single inhabitant. “If only there might be time to introduce young Susan to this room”, she muttered softly to herself.

With her left hand she lifted the thin, tapered rattan cane from its customary home, lying across the top of the little school desk that stood at the foot of the bed, running her fingers nimbly and somewhat suggestively up and down its length as she rested it across her lap.

Leaning forward she reached across to the chest of drawers that stood to the right of the wardrobe and directly opposite the bedside. Pulling out the second drawer down, she gazed wistfully at the shimmering finely rippled fabric piled neatly to its left-hand side, as black as the midnight sky yet appearing almost frosted where caught by the light, conjuring images of misty autumn dew-draped threads and moonlit gossamer webs. Three garments lay piled one above the other, each as light as breath, satin smooth and slippery to the touch. The uppermost she whisked off the pile with a flick of her wrist, the leotard becoming a writhing heap in her lap as it came to rest. Lovingly she ran the fabric between thumb and forefinger, sampling the texture, glorying in its slick sensuality, pulling and stretching and testing and all the while wondrous of its elasticity, its ability to mould and sheave a girl’s body so closely, so intimately, as to somehow render more naked the femininity it covered.

Breathless, she looked down at the soft folds in her lap. She could almost feel the warmth of the girl’s flesh beneath the thin sheer fabric as she let it slither between her fingers, the dampening of perspiration lubricating and softening the material still further and causing it to cling ever closer to those curves. In her mind’s eye she could see the slippery gusset puckering revealingly, the back-seam slipping and sliding and angled ever steeper, vanishing ever more completely from sight into the hot sticky declivity of the girl’s rear until the rounded globes of her dancing buttocks appeared to each have been individually cling-wrapped in glossed black perfection.

In so many ways it exemplified the traditional school physical education leotard of old, as had been her intention. It embodied all those boarding-school principals of modesty, health and fitness; jet black, unadorned and demurely cut with its rounded neckline and long sleeves it would not have seemed out of place in a 1950s school gymnastics display. Where it differed was merely in the incorporation of modern fibre types. The slick elastic gloss of tight-weave Lycra - the origin of the garment’s rather special characteristics - rendered baggy by comparison the most embarrassingly snug-fitting poly-cotton creations of that era.

Yet this had been little more than an accident of manufacture; unimpressed by modern styling and unable to acquire suitably sized originals she had submitted her own design to a small-batch manufacturer, requesting samples and specifying a certain elasticity and thickness of fabric. The garment that now lay in her hands had been their solution - little thicker than opaque pantyhose, the fabric used was of the thickness that she had intended it to be in wearing; the manufacturers had apparently either misunderstood or failed to take into account how it would become all the more sheer once drawn out over the curves of the wearer’s body.

At one stage she had considered sending it back. But then she had tried it on the girl and she was sold. Wherever ripe, swelling, feminine curves demanded most of the fabric’s stretch to accommodate, it did so as if deliberately contrary to the wearer’s sensibilities.

Then there was the rear zip fastener; this she had specified in her drawings as originating around the waist area and running up the centre of the back to then click into place at a ‘keeper’ at the back of the neck; the latter being an awkward and intricate little arrangement, once secured requiring a second pair of hands to release. As supplied, the nylon zipper originated from the rear of the kite-shaped gusset and ran up between the buttocks before making its way up the back as originally specified.

Once again there had been some internal debate as to whether she should return the thing with a letter of complaint. But then she had watched the girl tugging at the zipper tag, the way in which it dragged the fabric in between her buttock cheeks as it went, the fastener pressing up tight against her anus, the way that at the front the slippery fabric was coaxed into an appealing, longitudinal puckering valley - and again she was sold on the idea; it resonated with her sexuality.

In her mind’s eye she revisited the moment that she had first instructed the girl to twirl before her, the first breathtaking sight of those glistening Lycra coated cheeks looking like obsidian-carved half-moons and covered with such perfection as to deny that here was anything other than skin - if skin were man-made, marble smooth and blemish free. It hadn’t been the blatant exposure that she knew that girl would presently be experiencing in the clinic, but it was all the more aesthetically pleasing for all that.

She had seen the clinic’s own design, with its high cut legs and the coverage at the rear reduced to little more than the width of the back-seam itself, sufficient to cover the anus but little more. She could understand the rationale, the added humiliation of reddened cane marks made visible, perhaps a heightened sense of defencelessness - but did that warrant the denial of the aesthetic delight to be had from the sight of a covered but well-moulded and well-separated pair of buttocks glistening as if polished and sculpted to perfection?

Besides, what might a few finely woven fibres do by way of ameliorating the bite of the cane or the sting of the riding crop that wouldn’t be offset by the improved presentation of the backside to its well-deserved chastisement? Then there was the gusset, but there again her taste veered on the side of the subtle; she well preferred the hint of invagination, of moistened slick fabric sucked and puckered inward, to the out-and-out blatant exposure of the transparent polythene gusset panels of the clinic’s take on the design. She disliked, too, the spherical bulge in the rear seam whereat their design incorporated a teeny latex sphere - a little more than one centimetre in diameter; it was sewn into the rolled-over fabric of the back-seam so as to coincide almost exactly with a girl’s anal sphincter. She knew of its purpose of course, to arouse and excite without hope of release, but found it vulgar: a similar effect could be brought about by far subtler means.

She reached across to the end of the bed where one of the gymslips she had insisted Lavinia wear when the girl had been living here with her lay across the counterpane in a transparent polythene dress bag - it wouldn’t be long before she would have her current guest in one of these. The cloth was of some fairly primitive man-made fibre mixture and, being of an extremely fine herringbone weave, was nearly entirely devoid of ‘nap’. Even when extricated from its polythene wrapping the garment was surprisingly weighty - a fact that could be put down both to density and thickness of the fabric, but also to the fact that it was fully lined.

In fact it was that heavy, slithery and near frictionless, satin-finished nylon lining, the detailing a sign of quality bespoke tailoring, that lent such a perfect ‘fall’ to the gymslip. Indeed it rendered the full-length thick white nylon under-slip that accompanied it in the same bag largely superfluous. Yet despite the latter’s apparent redundancy she had determined from the outset that it should become part of Lavinia’s everyday attire - just as it would for this Meredith Hewson girl, she had sleeping in the other room.

Above the waist the slip had formed an extra, smooth layer under the girl’s blouse, between it and her liberty bodice beneath, whereat it was of benefit, both by way of producing a nice clean line and by helping reduce still further any vestigial outward sign of the breasts. Below the waist, the petticoat’s restrictively close-fitting knee-length pencil skirt had worked wonders to curb any over-exuberance, encouraging, instead, a certain feminine daintiness of step that was simultaneously both pleasing to the eye and conducive to the atmosphere of discipline it had been her intention to foster.

Psychologically the introduction of this outfit had been a pivotal point in her relationship with her niece - she had understood that much even then. Once the girl had accepted having to wear that restrictive and juvenile uniform, once she had bowed that much to her authority, then the eventual introduction of corporal punishment, that she had always intended, had been simplified - it could even have been said to have been inevitable, given sufficient patience. Take a girl dressed like that, a pretty, if pout-inclined, girl in her late teens and possessed of the kind of demeanour she had intended to foster - what other way could there be for others to respond to her than with the adoption of a dominant stance? Nothing could be more natural. It was corrupting, it was meant to be corrupting, just as handing carte blanche over the disciplining of Lavinia to those that now had charge of her in that clinic had been meant to corrupt. It was all part of the grand experiment that was the unit.

As for Lavinia; they had in effect given her with the choice of either having her breasts - as relatively modest as their development had been then - distended and thrust unnaturally out in front of her and be fitted with an obscenely short little pleated skirt or accept the humiliation of having her adult cleavage reduced to flat-chested prepubescent nothingness by the tightly clasping grip of an especially adapted liberty bodice and to be fitted into gymslip, more suited to a ten-year-old than to a flowering young woman of a good seventeen summers or so. The prospect of the constant exposure of those ugly school bloomers she had given the girl had been the clincher. And of course the ‘outdoor’ version of the gymslip did have a perfectly modest skirt, even if the ‘at-home’ style she had been obliged to wear about the house had left more than a modicum of Lavinia’s knickers’ leg-cuff elastics exposed beneath its pleated hem.

As for the issue of ridicule; well, it had been explained to Lavinia that in many ways the amount of that she was going to be exposed to was going to be up to her. As had been explained the very first time she had suffered the ill-disguised mirth of a group of girls of her own age; it was the disparity between her chronological age and that suggested by her mode of dress that was the potential source of humour in the situation. If she persevered with putting on a veneer of adult airs and graces, then all she would be achieving would be to provoke still louder laughter, and even less subtle half-whispered comments. On the other hand if she was to accept and adopt a persona more suitably matched to her appearance, then most would accept her simply as the somewhat precociously overdeveloped young girl that her appearance suggested and leave it at that.

And so it had been; from that day on most paid her scant attention, other than perhaps the occasional comment on her prodigious growth for her age. And even that had been generally directed at her ‘aunt’ or other accompanying adult rather than to the girl herself.

What would have been taken at best as embarrassingly precocious development had been dealt with by the adoption of the liberty bodice as the mainstay of the girl’s ‘underpinnings’. A sleeveless garment similar in cut to a vest but having elements in common with corsetry, it was shorter in the body than a vest, was constructed of a stiffened, close-fitting elasticated fleecy fabric and fastened up the front with rubber buttons. Further buttons, mounted fore and aft around the hem at hip height, acted as anchor points on which could be hung its detachable matching broad elastic suspenders - should the wearing of stockings be required.

This was something that would typically have been worn by younger girls from the 1940s right through to the 1960s - and beyond in certain cases. In those latter historically rare cases the garment’s retention had invariably extended into the late teens or beyond and had been imposed more as a measure of exerting and retaining disciplinary control than for any other practical reason. In the days when such wear was the norm, however, a time would come when every developing young miss would have stopped wearing liberty bodices and moved up to wearing a bra. For young Lavinia this progression had been turned on its head - and by the girl’s own choice too, or so it would have seemed to her at the time.

Now pondering retrospectively, Julia Soames doubted that she would ever have come up with this particular solution alone. It would not have been the first thing to pop into her mind; but then again neither would have the concept of putting a young woman of such an age in a tailored gymslip, blazer and baggy drawers - not to mention habitually dressing in her old nursing uniform and putting the girl across her knee. She had used to pull down those baggy drawers of Lavinia’s and administer a damn good hard hand-spanking until the girl would be left without breath to complain.

It had all just developed along the same serendipitous line, beginning from the day that she had first taken control of her niece and then stumbled across that old wardrobe with its collection of strange, antiquated, school things. It had been her friend of old, Anne Ecclestone, doctor of psychiatry and the girl’s psychotherapist, who had provided, in passing, the details of a seamstress acquaintance of hers described as being “well placed to carry out any necessary alterations”.

The latter needlewoman turned out to be an elderly blue-rinsed lady, steeped in bespoke tailoring and the proprietor of a traditional Home Counties school outfitter. Julia remembered how the shop had been all glass-fronted oaken cubby holes with pull-down fronts, barley twist cornered counters with slide-out trays and jointed wooden manikins, devoid of facial features and sporting the sort of school-wear styles that despite being relatively modern were likely to stay right where they were. In short it had been the last of the few, along with the village wool shop; a traditional institutional enterprise now kept afloat only by two small, semi-local private schools that still listed it as their recommended school uniform supplier. Recommended, but no longer specified; it was an important distinction, the death knell.

It was in the dust-laden rear stockroom of that venerable emporium that she had blundered into the pile of boxes that was to prove so pivotal, having ventured there - accompanied by the good doctor and with the permission of the proprietor - more in an exploration of the architectural riches of carved and moulded wood fitments and fixtures the place abounded in.

To be perfectly accurate, it had been Dr Anne Ecclestone that had actually blundered into the pile of unmarked plain grey packaging; while stepping back to admire a high stained-glass skylight. Low, flat, slab-like and not unlike oversized shirt boxes, the dusty heap had been teetering on the corner of an old glass-topped, glass-fronted display counter. The latter’s slide-out wooden shelves had been filled with all sorts of open-bottomed satin-panelled panty girdles, long-line corselettes with conical bra cups and high-waisted, mid-thigh-length knickers that had the unmistakable pearlescent sheen of white acetate, the ice-smooth fabric gathered and puckering around flesh-gripping elasticated waist and leg apertures. The heap of boxes had tottered, rocked and then slid to the floor with a series of muffled thumps and a cloud of disturbed dust that had had them both coughing. Her friend had managed to get her gloved fingers to the corner of one, the lid sliding off in her hand and the contents flopping down on the counter’s glass top, coming to rest on a rustling nest of tissue paper packaging topped by the upturned box.

This, Julia Soames’ first sight of a liberty bodice, had been an uninspiring thing. Perfectly preserved, it had been white, fleecy-lined, child-sized and singly ordinary in every way - the standard design of its time in fact. As it was to transpire, though, through further investigation, this example proved not to have been representative of the stock as a whole but rather had turned out to be one of only three such everyday, mundane examples to be found amidst the contents of the pyramid of ten haphazardly spilt cartons.

Indeed, the very first box Julia had eased the lid from - handed her up from the polished floor by her seemingly nonplussed psychotherapist friend - had contained something that, while clearly of the same vintage, was obviously very much out of the ordinary, even given the date of its manufacture. With the benefit of hindsight Julia now considered her find fortunate indeed. Not least because on so many of the examples she had come across since - whether at antique fairs, in vintage clothes shops or through charity outlets and the like - the rubber buttons had perished, one or all of the suspenders had gone missing and the fabric had become flaccid and incapable of providing the restriction that so famously belied the name. But not only that: even when the condition could be said to be acceptable, the sizing of the genuine article would invariably be insufficient to accommodate a modern teenager’s frame. Additionally, not one specimen she had come across since - now that she kept her eye open - irrespective of the condition, resembled in the least bit in detail any one of the seven rather exceptional liberty bodices they had stumbled across that afternoon in the rear that shop.

Superficially four were differentiated from the all-over-white of what Julia now took to be the ‘standard’ by the incorporation of alternate half-inch wide vertical stripes of woven-in bottle-green - another three were similarly so decorated, but incorporated stripes of a rich royal or navy blue. Each came equipped with six detachable broad white elasticated suspenders - in the standard manner - from which dangled large, ugly and uncomfortable-looking grey metal stocking clips. But whereas traditionally the buttons attaching the suspenders and those fastening up the front would have been of white rubber, whilst still obviously formed of some rubber compound, the buttons on these singular undergarments were contrast coloured so as to co-ordinate with the vertical stripes and the trim that ran around the neck and arm holes.

Two of the bottle-green striped bodices incorporated the additional feature of a deep profile elastic rubber band on the inside. This broad belt ran from just above the navel to the upper chest, emerged from the fleece on either side and had to be fastened up the front with a series of hook and eye clasps before the bodice itself could then be fastened over the top by way of its rubber buttons in the usual manner. The latter restrictive feature did a fine job of ‘smearing out’ the breasts, whether or not its original design function had been to reduce the bust, and was augmented by a discreet strap and buckle arrangement mounted on the outer surface of the garment, at the sides under the armpits, that could be tensioned so as to further reduce the bust line.

Even in the absence of this arrangement, the whole had seemed more elaborate than was strictly necessary. Each liberty bodice was boxed with three packaged pairs of stockings to match - in either green or blue as appropriate - one pair of heavyweight lisle, one pair of a coarse woollen manufacture and one pair in a fairly heavy fully-fashioned rear-seamed nylon. At one end of each box - and easily overlooked, being delicately packaged in fine tissue paper - were two pairs of socks, individually wrapped; again of the appropriate coordinating colour, one pair being plain knee-socks, the other a teeny affair and little more than anklets, the latter strangely decorated with a ribbon bow at the rear. But it hadn’t been so much that bizarre accessorizing that had drawn Julia Soames’ eye and stirred the imagination - as odd as she had thought it at the time. All seven seemed of a smallish adult size.

She recalled the day they had returned with young Lavinia in tow - the poor girl; Julia couldn’t help a little giggle at the memory. The tight school blouse they first tried on her had provided a near perfect showcase for a figure that, above a ridiculously narrow tight-laced waistline, ballooned ludicrously outward with an explosion of bosom despite Lavinia’s modest development. The striped fabric, apparently stretched to almost bursting point, had surged up and down and had rippled like waves in a storm as the girl had battled to draw in sufficient air against the constriction of the rubber open-bottomed girdle they had put her in before hand. The cleverly darted seaming had outlined each breast as if individually wrapped, the buttoning receding deep within the cleavage, and the vivid dark-blue vertical stripe, distorting, morphing and twisting around the contouring of the bust, had drawn the eye pleasingly to the thrusting under-wired elevation produced by the open-fronted bullet bra beneath. This had been one extreme, the other - the solution they had already settled upon - revolved around a completely different approach. The function of this little farce had been merely intended to render their charge more malleable when it came to being guided in the direction they wanted.

The shopkeeper, though, had been a woman who clearly believed that school uniforms should be strict and uncompromising, no matter from what direction the two women decided to approach the problem of dressing their charge. Looking the mortified girl up and down and tapping a finger against her pursed lips Julia remembered she had opined: “A good school uniform should be designed to instil obedience and humility. It should demonstrate smart, modest, well-trained femininity, with all due deference to authority and orderliness - don’t you think?”

Julia remembered how Dr Anne Ecclestone had drawn in her cheeks appreciatively before answering: “Yes, quite.”

The woman shopkeeper had sighed gently before continuing, patently wallowing in nostalgia, a wistful smile on her lined grey-skinned face: “But I am thinking that in this day and age your concern will be as much over combating vanity as anything - we must have humility if we are to instil good old-fashioned values of discipline; am I correct?”

Julia Soames had somehow found herself interjecting, yet without meaning to. “Oh very much so - they grow up far too quickly nowadays. While she is in my care, as far as I’m concerned I consider her still a child; after all, that is how a young lady of her age would have been seen in years gone by. I’m looking for something that will help her to come to accept that.”

“Then we must look to another approach. To misquote or paraphrase an old saying: clothes maketh the girl. Putting her back in school uniform is the right approach, no doubt about it - and I think I have just the thing.” The ‘thing’ of course, had been that liberty bodice with its integral bust flattener, teamed with a fitted yet flat-fronted school blouse of some unidentified green and white striped fabric that was as stiff as card and that had a high shirt-style collar so tight as to barely button about the girl’s neck and that came with a tie to match.

A teenage girl or young woman, so attired, quickly learnt that to be quiet, sheepish and submissive, to be childlike and to speak only when spoken to, was by far the best plan. In short: to behave like a good little girl should, even if one many years her junior. Although humiliating, it was far less shaming to be taken for a rather precociously developed child than for others to know the truth of the matter. It was better to be accepted, although with no little pity, as a rather gawky over-tall twelve to thirteen-year-old then be paraded as an adult forced to dress as a young child. Under such circumstances - and the watchful eye and firm guiding hand of her governess - a young lady soon came to give her age as appropriate to her appearance and demeanour if asked. Yes, it would not have been exaggerating the point to say that the effect on Lavinia had been as striking as it had been rapid; she had literally seemed to change over night.