CHAPTER 5

LATE TEEN SCHOOL PUNISHMENT

It had taken less than a fortnight to put the first part of her scheme in motion; relocating Alice’s bedroom. Of course young Alice had made all sorts of protestations about being given a room that was actually below ground level. She relented a little when it was pointed out that it was not really below ground level, in the sense that it did have a window, albeit only looking out on a dugout basement stair and entrance. She relented even more when told it was to be merely a temporary measure while her old room was ‘in renovation’ a process Alice had been led to believe would involve a substantial increase in space, her room being converted to ‘en-suite’ and benefiting from having been fitted out with all manner of confections likely to appeal to a young woman of her age group.

The final convincer had been an exasperated authoritatively voiced, “because I said so” delivered in clipped tones and backed up by the threat of the cane and a comment alluding to how quickly the time had passed since the last time her medication had been due. That latter part had done the trick and she had even had the girl bend across her lap for a quick chat with the back of a hairbrush to ‘christen’ her new room before she would hand over the girl’s pills to her. But that had been a while ago. Alice had had sufficient time to settle down in her new environment now and so it was as good a time as any to proceed to the next waypoint.

Quietly twisting the brass handle of the door to her stepdaughter’s new bedroom, the lightest of metallic squeaks accompanying the lock sliding back, the words of her ex-teacher, Daphne Larkspear, kept running through Karen Lamberton-Marchment’s mind: “I will want Alice in the schoolroom for a good while before I begin her re-education proper. Meanwhile the idea is to keep her sleep deprived, disorientated - she’ll be all the easier to handle for it”. Well, the device Mrs Larkspear had loaned her certainly seemed to take care of that aspect; such a clever mechanism.

Alice had not as much as stirred as her stepmother had entered her room, her constantly disturbed sleep pattern had seen to that. The random ‘bleeper’ had done its work well. It would sound at varying intervals throughout the night; loud enough to momentarily rouse Alice from her slumber, yet sufficiently brief to not fully do so nor tip off the sleeper as to the nature of the disturbance. The result, a mere two weeks after the ‘bleeper’s introduction into the girl’s bedroom, was a constantly bleary-eyed stepdaughter as mystified by her increasingly debilitating state of mental exhaustion as in her inability to concentrate generally and who was consequently becoming ever easier to browbeat into submission by argument alone.

Indeed it had proved a simple task to use Alice’s constant tiredness as a way of justifying to the girl ramping up - with her doctor’s co-operation - the dosage of the barbiturate tranquilizer that had been originally introduced as a substitute for the illegal drugs she had let herself become addicted to. The result of the latter intervention was a deepening of the girl’s already quite pronounced dependency on her medication, a trend her stepmother had every intention of encouraging.

The use of the cane and the strap had by this stage become firmly entrenched in the running of the household as a way of controlling Alice, the girl’s acceptance of these methods being enforced where necessary by the constant threat of the withdrawal of her medication. But in this sleep-deprived, constantly drowsy and confused state it was becoming increasingly common for Alice to submit to some new restriction or erosion of her freedom without resort to corporal punishment. Somehow Alice’s stepmother didn’t think the latter was likely to remain the case now that it had come time to put Alice in school uniform, especially given that so many features of the design had been incorporated with the sole conscious intent to increase the sense of humiliation a girl of Alice’s age would likely experience from being made to wear it.

Moving quietly around the Spartan and effectively windowless room - the latter’s glass having been newly covered by a milky-white sticky-back plastic film - Karen Lamberton-Marchment hung the hanger containing the green and white striped blouse, on a hook on the wall at the foot of the girl’s bed. The buttons were all smartly fastened and the school tie was in place around its high and deliberately stiffened collar just as it would be in wearing, the short little wraparound grey PE-style skirt flaring out from beneath it. She smiled to herself - the ensemble would be the first thing Alice would see on opening her eyes; the message would be clear enough.

The firm reinforced white corselet she decided to drape over the back of the bedside chair while the high-waisted, full-bodied bottle-green knickers she laid out on its seat. These she carefully arranged to showcase their polythene inner lining and the odd-looking hammock-like arrangement by which was strung out a thick, coarse hygienic towel, some ten inches long, slung on elasticated strings between rubber buttons sewn into the inside of the waistband and that constituted an integral sanitary napkin belt.

This latter garment she felt sure would be the straw that would break the camel’s back. She wanted an excuse to cane Alice in conjunction with her being put in uniform this first time and these knickers she felt sure would give her that excuse. Refusal was especially likely once Alice saw the metallic ‘U’ shaped hasp and clasp arrangement that emerged through the fabric at the front of the waistband. This latter construct was the visible portion of a spring-steel hoop that was hidden within the waistband and threaded through the fabric in place of the elastic that one would have expected. Once Alice laid eyes on that and the little gold-coloured padlock that could so easily be put to use, a gentle click ensuring that a simple visit to the toilet became a privilege rather than a right... well she was bound to kick over the traces to some extent.

Externally the knickers were styled very much in the form of a pair of conventional if rather old fashioned looking school knickers, being manufactured in some manmade interlock woven fibre and possessing the usual kite-shaped double gusset. Yet they had been designed to incorporate features that had been taken from the sort of ‘tamperproof’ hospital issue incontinence pants usually supplied to those institutionalised with ‘mental impairment’. The scope for humiliation was as obvious as it was seductive in its potential for stimulating the darker aspects of the imagination; it was something Alice’s stepmother intended to explore to the full. Full-fitting, the knickers were designed to fit snugly, so snugly that Alice would be kept constantly and embarrassingly aware that she was not dressed in the usual fashion expected of a young woman her age, the broad, tight leg elastic nipping into the tops of her thighs acting as a constant physical reminder of that fact.

Looking back at the misty-looking opaque white panes of the single window she smiled to herself in satisfaction. The white painted hinged diamond wire-mesh grill padlocked across it was quite superfluous given the thick, toughened glass, double-glazed construction and the vertical array of iron bars mounted externally, embedded in the stonework sill, but she enjoyed the prison cell-like aspect that the thing lent the room. The window had only ever looked out on the whitewashed wall at the bottom of what had once been the external basement access steps, the greyish light filtering down through a concreted-in metal pavement grille mounted above that altered even the relative freedom of that space into an oppressive prison cage.

The steps themselves had long ago been removed, leaving a bland rectangular space of concrete and stone, and the two external basement doors through which coal and other essential household supplies had once been carried had been bricked up and concreted over to the point at which there was no longer any evidence of their ever having existed, neither inside nor out. It had been an uninspiring view, a depressing, spirit-dampening vista, yet it had still been potentially ‘too distracting’ for Daphne Larkspear’s tastes when she had been shown the room and that identical chamber that had been set aside for her own girl’s living space next to it.

She had been right of course. The simple addition of that self-adhesive plastic coating to the glass had done more than enhance that sense of imprisonment that the room undoubtedly embodied, rather it had transformed the space into a sort of a timeless realm. It was a place now where all mental focus could be lost and where a girl’s sense of reality could become whatever her carers or keepers - for want of a better description - might dictate it to be. What would one day be Daphne Larkspear’s girl’s quarters shared these characteristics, as did a third, larger room, set up with a double bed in place of the institutional hospital style cot, in which two girls, suitably tamed, might be encouraged to form the type of bond that would undoubtedly be frowned upon elsewhere.

This self-enclosed world was one that extended up a windowless stairwell - a previously long-disused servant’s access way bricked off from the rest of the house halfway through the 20th century but now reinstated where it connected with the attic space - to that segment of the house now reassigned and subdivided into the class room, PE room, punishment room, and ‘domestic education’ room and the rest. And that carefully crafted element of isolation had been extended to all these rooms as well. Despite being mounted well above head height, the windows illuminating these areas too now shared that same permanently misted-over appearance. Alice, Mrs Larkspear’s girl and - any others that might one day be housed here - could be shepherded from their basement sleeping quarters, dressed in their school uniforms or ‘domestic education’ uniforms of work-dress, apron and maid’s cap, to the attic ‘schoolroom’ without coming into contact with any other section of the house or as much as glimpsing the world outside.

Almost laughing to herself Karen Lamberton-Marchment pressed the button on the remote control box concealed in her pocket that would trigger the wake-up alarm. Sensuously she fingered the long, thin pliant rattan switch in her other hand: She didn’t much care whether Alice capitulated immediately to the idea of being put in school uniform or whether she objected like a bull and screamed the place down. She had already decided the girl was going to receive a good hard caning by way of introduction to this new restriction of her freedom - what little there was left of it - whatever the case. It was good psychology to underline her authority in such a manner. One thing she knew for certain was that the girl would bend for the cane when she ordered her to; it had been at least eight hours since her last dose of her medication and she would awaken desperate for it, a soul-famishing hunger consuming her being.

The bell was not quite ear-splitting, but as shrill as it should be. Alice sat bolt upright, disorientated, her mouth agape. She was dressed in her plain white polyester/cotton mix nightdress, not the one-piece green and white striped fleece-lined pyjamas she would be soon wearing and from that day forth, with their school badge embroidered breast pocket, buttoned flap over the bottom and matching plastic knickers beneath.

“Wha...?”

“Good morning, sweetheart!” What did it matter that it was three thirty in the afternoon? It was morning as far as Alice was concerned; she - Karen Lamberton-Marchment - told her stepdaughter so. And so, therefore, it was. Bleary-eyed and uncomprehending the girl was staring straight at the obvious school uniform blouse, tie and skirt arranged on the hanger, her eyes flicking momentarily to the fearsome looking cane in her stepmother’s hand and then back again while throwing an occasionally sideways glance at the bedside chair and the horrors it held on show. The question went unasked but was there to be read, nonetheless, in her stepdaughter’s eyes - and so Karen Lamberton-Marchment answered it anyway:

“Yes, it is.”

“Wha... what?”

“Your new school uniform of course - it’s arrived at last. Remember we talked about it?” Smiling knowingly Alice’s stepmother twisted away momentarily, plucking the hanger from its perch and brandishing the blouse and skirt with her cane-holding hand - the switch hanging now loose from her wrist by a leather loop - open-palmed beneath the garments before hooking the hanger over the iron bed rail at the foot of the bed.

Alice Lamberton did indeed remember her stepmother’s remarks regarding school uniform. She had said nothing at the time, believing it nothing but an empty threat, if indeed not something of a joke made at her expense and for that woman’s amusement to see her squirm. As indeed she was squirming now - although she was trying not to show it, not wanting to give her stepmother the satisfaction of seeing her discomfort.

“I’m not wearing... I mean... I can’t wear....” For a fleeting instant the old, as yet untamed, Alice flared in the girl’s eyes - just as Karen Lamberton-Marchment had hoped it would. Then her eyes flickered once again to the length of yellowing but smoothly polished rattan swinging from her stepmother’s wrist, the woman already beginning to palm the cane in preparation, and she relented, trying to retrieve the situation: “I, I mean...” She had wanted to simply say ‘yes’, but then had taken in the ugly knickers and foundations and the words had stuck in her throat. But it was too late in any case.

“Right! I’m not having that defiant attitude, young lady! Get out of bed, bend over the bedside and get that nightdress up - let’s see that big fat backside of yours bared. Perhaps a few strokes of the cane will make you more appreciative of your new uniform.”

“No, please! I didn’t say I wouldn’t wear it, honestly!”

“Too late! Up! Now!... and get yourself bent over that bed.”

“Please, I’ll wear it! Honest I will”

“Yes, you will - and quite ridiculous I expect you’ll look in it too; a girl of your age in school uniform! But it is going to be the cane first.”

“No... I, I, I... won’t! I WON’T!” Alice was biting her bottom lip, her demeanour failing to back up the strength of her words and betraying her closeness to defeat. Almost immediately she tried to retract her defiant stance, her determination crumbling even before the threat she knew was coming next: “I’ I... I’m sorry - look I’m getting up, please, I’m sorry...”

“Yes, you’re going to be... I was going to give you three strokes, but now it is going to be six. Any further delay and it will be twelve - and no medication for the rest of today! And there’ll be a repeat performance tomorrow morning.” Karen Lamberton-Marchment smiled with satisfaction, readying the cane, her arm already twisting back over her shoulder in anticipation of the first full-bloodied swing: That last part - the part about withholding her stepdaughter’s medication - had done the trick. She had barely finished uttering the threat and already young Alice was out of bed and compliantly flopping herself over the bedside. She looked on, fascinated, beads of sweat breaking out on her brow and her breathing becoming heavy, as her stepdaughter reached back, drawing her ankle length nightdress up over her buttocks, the milky half-moons betraying the marks of previous canings and the outline of the strap in faded criss-cross patterning. Murmuring breathlessly ‘oh my god’ to herself, hoping beyond hope that the girl had not caught those tell-tale sighing words, she brought her arm down and across, describing a wide whistling, swooping arc, the length of rattan bowing against the air resistance before springing forward at the last instance as her wrist flexed and twisted and the tip of the cane bit in to the teenager’s taut, resilient flesh. A girlish scream rent the air and a shiver ran up the older woman’s spine - she was made for this, she knew now; just as much as her stepdaughter’s bottom was made for the cane’s kiss. She knew, too, she wasn’t going to stop at the promised six. And she had the strap with her as well, and the thought of having Alice over her lap for that... But first the caning - then, perhaps, the strapping!

Alice Lamberton knew now that by the end of this she would be begging to dress in the school uniform that was lying across the chair just a few feet away and waiting, freshly-pressed on the hanger now dangling from iron rails at the foot of the bed, the school blouse’s collar and cuffs appearing even at a distance to possess a consistency reminiscent of stiffened cardboard. She almost jumped to her feet as a wickedly thin cane slashed down across her already burning buttocks. Her hands shot backwards, fingers outspread in an attempt to protect the inflamed flesh but stronger hands seized hers and yanked them up over her head. A full half-dozen more sizzling strokes were slashed in before it stopped, but by then she had ceased to try and twist away from the searing pain, just lying there like a lifeless wet rag, her mouth wide open in a grimace and emitting continuous piteous, broken wail.

Karen Lamberton-Marchment took a long hard look at her sobbing ward. Although the glint of defiance still showed in the girl’s eyes she was rather pleased with the result of this, Alice’s first real lesson in what corporal punishment was all about - and there were many, many more similar lessons still to come. She had expected a little more defiance from her stepdaughter despite the leverage that the girl’s drug problem gave her over her, but even so she was certain that there would be some struggle before she became properly tamed - but properly tamed she would be. It was more than just being about correcting the girl’s erroneous behaviour now; she wanted Alice to be hers, body and soul - and she would have her.

“Now, I think we’ll have you over my lap.” Karen Lamberton-Marchment sat herself down on the bedside, patting her lap where her fitted skirt moulded her hips, the fabric drum-tight and ignoring her stepdaughter’s desperate tears. The split-tongued leather strap seemed to tumble open in her palm as if having a mind of its own and barely had the girl flopped across her knees than she found herself bringing it down rhythmically across thin raised cane lines, some of which now showed thread-like flecks of blood, punctuating her lecturing with a slow steady slap, slap, slap in synchronism with each and every sentence:

“You have to understand, Alice; your education is going to have to continue, here at home. As I have said before; sadly it turns out you are somewhat... how shall we say... academically backward? Let’s face it; you barely passed your GCSEs, let alone your ‘A’ levels - which, incidentally you failed badly. Even when you were still at school I had been considering sending you to a special school specialising in remedial teaching - did you know that? Then for a while I considered having you educated at home, employing private tutors. Now, given these new circumstances we find ourselves in, the power given me over you by the courts, it is the latter path I have decide to explore.

In fact I have already given this matter a lot of thought: I have even taken the liberty of appointing a teacher, a certain Mrs Larkspear. I have selected a room in one of the upper storeys which I have had suitably fitted out, following her advice, as a school room. And yes, she is the sort of teacher that will expect you to have been kitted out in full, traditional school uniform from the skin outwards, despite the fact that your school never had one; part of its problem in my opinion. Since your school was so lackadaisical in its attitude to standards in that direction, the good Mrs Larkspear has been obliged to set her mind to the problem herself. Luckily she was up until quite recently employed in a very fine private educational establishment that had a school uniform eminently suitable for a girl of your age in my opinion. She has gone to a great deal of trouble off her own back to procure the entire dress list for you, right down to the physical education kit, domestic science overall and apron, underwear and nightwear.” Face down over her stepmother’s lap and so out of sight, Alice’s eyes tear-reddened, now startled, eyes widened still further at that last statement and she twisted round, the movement prompting her stepmother to further elucidate, reinforcing her statement with yet another slap of the heavy leather strap across her stepdaughter’s tortured bottom:

“Oh yes, dear; nightwear as well - there is to be no letup. You are going to be spending your days in a genuine school uniform - and it is very strict indeed. Knickers, bras, a nice tight leotard for ‘PE’, a nightgown for the evening - it’s all regimented; a regulation for every little thing, right down to the tiniest detail; it is why I had that woman who visited a while back take all those tedious measurements you moaned about so much.

Now, in a moment I am going to let you up off my lap and when I do you are going to try on the ‘day-uniform’ I have laid out for you. And you had better get used to it if you want to receive your prescription each day; it is all you are going to be wearing day-in day-out from now on. Mrs Larkspear wont be arriving for two or three weeks or so, but you are going to be wearing your school uniform every day regardless of that, so that by the time she does arrive it will seem the most natural thing in the world to you. And you are also going to write her a nice letter, once you have changed, thanking Mrs Larkspear for your new school uniform.”

Sobbing, Alice was allowed up. Released from her stepmother’s deceptively vice-like grip she at first flopped to the floor before, chided by her irascible step-parent, scrambling unsteadily to her feet encouraged in no little measure by the promise of a repeat performance. Meanwhile her firm handed nemesis crossed to the far corner of the room. Slipping a key into the lock securing access to the toughened Plexiglas cylindrical shower cubicle she pulled back the door, the milky white cloudy gloss giving way to the equally glossed plastic interior.

“Hurry along! Pop in the shower and get that over with; I’m keen to see you in your smart new uniform.” Karen Lamberton-Marchment had taken care to retrieve her cane from where she had discarded it across the end of the bed when she had taken her stepdaughter across her lap and now tapped it meaningfully against the side of the cubicle. The message having been received loud and clear by its intended recipient, Alice, struggling free with some urgency from her now unfastened one-piece pyjama outfit, half hopped, half tripped towards the waiting shower.

Five or so shivering minutes later and Alice was alone. Having supervised her stepdaughter’s showering Karen Lamberton-Marchment had departed triumphantly smirking and taking care to lock both the shower and bedroom doors behind her in that order, having first gathered up Alice’s night things destined for the laundry basket.

Alice had been left doing her best to preserve whatever tatters of modesty she had remaining within the coiled form of an all too brief towel. She was pleased to have been freed from the harshly cleansing icy rain, the warm water supply having mysteriously failed a week or so into her tenure in this, the new bedroom that had been set up for while - she had been told - her old room was being redecorated. She was not quite so delighted to have been informed that her harpy of a stepmother intended to return in only ten minutes - no more - and that by that time she had better have dealt with her ‘ablutions’ and to have ‘damn well got that uniform on’. ‘

Ablutions’, now that she had been transferred to this room - demoted to this room was how she thought of it - consisted of a limited term of privacy on a commode chair. The latter amenity doubled as the bedside chair, this possessing a hinged plastic cushioned seat that when raised revealed a porcelain toilet seat poised over an inner cylindrical porcelain liner imbedded within the chair’s box-like base or plinth. The concept of privacy was limited, always, by the plausible threat of her stepmother’s imminent unannounced return but no more so than today when that woman’s hurried return was guaranteed and when there was an unaccustomed pile of apparel to be negotiated.

Under the circumstances she determined to deal with her ‘ablutions’ in the first instance - a seemingly logical decision, one affording her the greatest chance of continued dignity. Embattled by mounting psychological stress and pressure born of apprehension over the potentially humiliating form of garb she was to soon adorn herself in and amplified by the uncertain pace of time’s tide - she had no timepiece of any type to consult - failure had been guaranteed from the start. Instead she now opted for a change of tack: Perhaps if she got the dressing part over and down with, just gritted her teeth and got on with it, the anxiety might subside and she might yet ‘go’ before her stepmother’s return.

Straightening up from her uncomfortable perch she moved across to the foot of the bed, reaching out tentatively and with no little trepidation to the hateful pile of humiliation waiting there. Then, her nose twisting with distaste, she moved across to the wire clothes hanger swinging from the bed frame’s metal foot rail. Raising the hanger and its shaming load by its wire hook to eye height she inspected the garments it supported with growing, near-phobic, dread. A cold clamminess came over her; there was something inherently perverted about it all somehow, something beyond her hated stepmother’s attempts to control and humiliate her. This was about changing who she was, drowning out her old personality, stamping down on her self expression.

The terylene / viscose - it said so on the label inside - green and white broad-striped school blouse came over as almost sort of ‘plasticy’ to the touch, its substantial close-woven fabric seeming turgid and possessed of a crisp stiffness reminiscent of the sort of heavyweight paper Alice had more commonly seen fed into printers. Long-sleeved and betraying no signs of tailoring or fitting it featured a high cardboard-stiff shirt-style collar and cuffs that seemed just as unforgiving. The Trutex Schoolwear tag seemed genuine, though the styling suggested a commercial mass-produced origin as dubious and the sewn-in nametag - printed ‘Alice Marchment’ in bold capitals - was very obviously a later addition. It was also just plain wrong, and she felt herself bristle at the thought; she was Alice Lamberton - not Alice Marchment, or Alice Lamberton-Marchment or any other odd combination of names someone somewhere might have come up with. Lamberton had been her father’s name and it was her family’s name; and that was all there was to it.

Still bristling she plucked at the skirt. Taking the brief garment from the hanger she saw it to be a mid-grey wrapover skirt with a knife pleated rear in winter-weight Terylene. ‘By Gymflex’ it said on the inside of the waistband, the brand name written in scrolling gold embroidery on a satiny dark green sewn-in label at the rear. ‘Alice Marchment’ it said in bold black capital letters on the sewn-in nametag just above the maker’s brand. There was something particularly humiliating about having a nametag sewn in every article of clothing - something beyond simply what she perceived must have been the deliberate misspelling of her name, no doubt some point her stepmother was trying to make.

The old fashioned open bottom long-line girdle was a nightmare of straps and buckles, elasticated panels and boning and the idea of wearing such a thing was anathema to her, as it would have been to any modern teenage girl. But she needed the loo and with, she felt sure, time running out she knew she’d never manage to ‘go’ unless she’d at least got dressing out of the way - there was just too much pressure otherwise. And so she struggled into the thing, tugging at the zip that ran up the front and experiencing for the first time the unfamiliar disconcerting grip of heavyweight rubberised fabric, elasticated nylon satin panels and unforgiving stiffened ‘boning’ as together they moulded her form into someone else’s ideal.

The strange, elderly foundation garment flattened what little there was of her tummy, drew in her waist drastically, squeezed and spread outwards her buttocks - encouraging the latter to seem to protrude unnaturally behind her like a hanging shelf - and flattened down her bustline. The latter was a particularly distressing outcome for a girl not particularly blessed in that department to begin with and who, as a result, had a tendency to be more than a little self-conscious of her bosom.

The detestably ugly knickers she found she’d rather not examine too closely, instead opting to draw them quickly up her legs without looking, having grabbed the things off the side by their waistband, shaken them out and stepped in to them in as near to a single movement as she could manage. Overly substantial and designed to cover from mid-thigh to navel in prim knitted one-hundred-percent polyester, she nevertheless found she had to wriggle the tight waistband over her hips; something she found she could accomplish only with great difficulty. When the broad elasticated band did finally slide into place around her waist it did so only by simultaneously drawing up the gusset uncomfortably snugly into her crotch. The back-seam slipped deep within the cleft between her buttock cheeks at the same time - despite the fact that the stretchy fabric still somehow managed to maintain its prim coverage of both globes in their entirety, - and resisted all attempts to pluck the raised central ridge of rubber-lined fabric out from hiding.

The deep-section, rubberised elasticated banded cuffs that surrounded the ribbed leg openings bit into her thighs just a smidgen above the midpoint, triggering the red-cheeked concern that the abbreviated skirt might be just a little too brief to cover them. She had never been too worried about short skirts before, but all that had instantly changed with this getup; this most decidedly was not fun!

It was only at this point that she realised that there seemed something caught up around the top of her legs, something that caught and nearly tripped her as she went to turn, part in her efforts to wriggle the knickers into place easing the discomfort they were causing, part in at the same time reaching for the school skirt in her hurry to cover up. A short bridging bottle-green fabric strip extended between the leg cuffs of the knickers, joining one to the other. An experimental tug and a ‘feeling around’, Alice’s first thought being that this was something left over from manufacture, revealed a tether stronger than it looked. Further dextrous exploration led to the discovery that something tough, wiry and web-like was incorporated within this strap-like slither, something embedded within the fabric itself that could be traced back across in both directions to where it was continuous with a thin band running around both leg cuffs. For now she could do nothing about this new restriction but work around it as best she could.

Taking care not to trip she reached for the blouse and fastening the first few buttons at the bottom drew the tiny skirt around her waist, zipping up the side fastener and relieved that its hem did indeed hang past the thick, broad leg elastics of those humiliating knickers. The juvenile-looking pleated school games skirt did little to lift her spirits but it did at least cover those awful knickers, if only just, and she fiddled with the double button fastening to the side of the waist band.

Having fastened the majority of the remaining buttons up the front of the overly-crisp and fussy school blouse with little trouble, it was nevertheless with the self-conscious unease of someone who had never worn a shirt-blouse and tie in her life that she struggled with the final collar button. The latter was of course, given the absence of any mirror in her room, or any other source of reflection come to that, out of sight, being tucked away beneath her chin and had to be dealt with first before moving on to dealing with the tie. Cursing herself for her stupidity, in addition for so weakly kowtowing to her stepmother’s wishes in this manner, she now found herself embroiled in desperately attempting to replicate from memory the knot which she had unthinkingly unfastened in its entirety when removing the diagonally striped symbol of childish repression from around the blouse collar when still on its hanger.

In her mind’s eye Alice could see an imaginary second hand sprinting around a clock face like the proverbial white hare in Wonderland, stopwatch in hand, though in truth she had little idea how long it had been since her stepmother had withdrawn. With one eye on the still as yet unused commode and with that imaginary second hand now taking on the guise of a rapidly emptying hourglass she struggled on. Tears of frustration were now developing in the corners of her pretty almond-shaped eyes and self admonishment growing steadily in her heart. That she should have been beaten so easily and yet still be trying so hard - it was a bitter pill to swallow.

She was still struggling - and that commode still languishing unused - when the key rattled in the lock, her blood curdling as the door burst inward. Her stepmother marched straight up to her, tut-tut-tutting and arching her eyebrows, her jodhpurs rasping together and her stride accompanied by a rubbery clumping indicating that she had now exchanged her polished riding boots of earlier in the day for the equally pampered designer Wellington-type she habitually wore around the stable yard when not actually intending to go out riding.

A tinkling little giggle escaped her red- glossed lips at the sight of her stepdaughter’s obvious plight, The frustrated, frantic discomfiture that was presently etched across her stepdaughter’s face was a delight to her eyes - it was an insight that she was quite at ease about betraying. There were times when it paid to play the inscrutable enigma, keep the girl guessing, struggling to tease friend from foe from the tangled little web she had woven around her. There were other times when there was advantage to be had from having neglected to turn the page with sufficient rapidity - not quite the ‘open book’, for sure, but perhaps a leaf or two glimpsed in passing? Well, this was one of those latter times. An apparently clumsily fumbled guard, a momentary slip, and an even more rapid re-attainment of equilibrium - it all served to undermine the poor thing’s grip, that was the point. Cruel, for sure, but so, so exquisite in the execution.

“Oh dear, come here honey; I can see you’re going to need a little help with that.” To Alice her stepmother’s sudden adoption of this uncharacteristically helpful, almost friendly, tone seemed both strangely disarming and more than a little disorientating. Confused and befuddled through the terrible mental weariness that seemed to have become her permanent companion in latter times Alice found herself stepping forwards to where her stepmother was pointing at the floor.

“Come along, silly. Put your arms down by your sides out of the way and let me get a look at the mess you’ve made of that tie.” Alice complied automatically, without thinking and was instantly annoyed at herself for her complacency in the face of this ever increasing domination of her will and the ever-mounting pile of regulations and restrictions she found herself labouring under. Despite her undeniable natural rebellious streak it was becoming more and more automatic, more and more natural, for her to do as she was told - it was becoming almost a reflex action. Her stepmother was taming her, just as she tamed and schooled her horses - she was becoming tamed, just like one of the fillies in the stables.

With a condescending, haughty smile etched across her beautifully made-up face Karen Lamberton-Marchment gazed deep into her stepdaughter’s satisfyingly panicky widening eyes as her hands and fingers slipped around the girl’s collar, flipping it up and looping around the tie before expertly forming a perfect tie-knot and sliding it up underneath the girl’s chin to sit squarely over the uppermost of the three collar buttons. Stepping back for a moment as if to admire her handiwork she nodded approvingly before reaching forward and turning down the collar. Running a slender finger between it and her stepdaughter’s neck, checking that all was neat and tidy, her smile broadened at the observation of how the snugness of fit made inserting a fingertip so satisfyingly difficult and the way in which the integrally stiffened collar effectively forbade the girl to lower her chin to her chest.

Her stepdaughter would be obliged from now on to hold her head proudly erect, no matter how crestfallen she might feel inside. And she would ensure - with Daphne Larkspear’s aid and the clinical complicity of Dr Anne Ecclestone - that young Alice would be left feeling more than merely crestfallen by the time she was finished with her. But for now that side of her intentions had to be buried away: this was a time for praise. Punishment had its part to play, but so did praise - that was how it worked, that was how one trained a filly.

“There’s a good girl!” She affected a chirpy yet gentle singsong tone, just as Daphne Larkspear had suggested she do under such circumstances when there had been uncomplaining compliance or capitulation had taken little more than coaxing words: ‘There’s nothing wrong with a little coaxing; one should not have to fall back on the cane all the time’ as Daphne had said. ‘The idea is that she should be led by hand down a path leading to her becoming more malleable, to the point at which it becomes possible to remould her ideas, thoughts and beliefs to the extent that she can no longer even envisage of a life outside of the type of domestic servitude I know you would like to see her reduced to. The cane should be there to break resistance, to get past those sticking points. Where there is no resistance then there should be reward. And your words alone should eventual suffice for that. If she is to receive the cane, if that should be your will, then by all means give her something to resist, something to fight back against - there is always one more peg down for a girl to be taken even if she herself might think she has reached rock bottom’. Such a wise woman, Mrs Daphne Larkspear - she had already partaken of the joys of that woman’s protégé’s tongue. She wondered how that moist velvet appendage would feel in her present condition. Her ‘monthlies’ were never particularly pleasant, nor light - now that would take the girl down another rung or two of the ladder in self-respect terms, that would be worth baring the girl’s bottom to the attention of the cane! Idly she wondered just how many strokes or repeated sessions it would take to wrest that shred of pride from the girl - not that Mrs Daphne Larkspear’s girl had much left in the way of pride or self-respect from what she had seen of her. Almost reluctantly she returned her attention to the task at hand:

“Right lets have a proper look at you. No, don’t fidget; keep you hands down at your sides. If you’re standing up straight properly you’ll notice that your fingertips just come level with the skirt hem. You’ll also notice that there is a seam running down either side of your skirt and I would like to see your thumbs lining up with this seam, if you don’t mind; thank you! Yes, very smart; I think you look very smart in your new school uniform. I’m actually very pleased with you. Yes you made a bit of a hash of knotting your school tie but I’m not that surprised really. I expected you would and so I have set up a video disc for you to watch upstairs and you can spend the rest of today sitting in front of it, watching it over and over while practising putting on and trying your tie. Then, tomorrow, there will be no excuses; mess it up tomorrow and there be a few strokes of the cane, I’m afraid.”

She smiled again, watching at first the relief wash across Alice’s face as the realisation that she was not to be punished sunk in and then the wince that wiped off that expression as the girl took in the manner in which she was to spend the rest of the day. Poor Alice was becoming somewhat accustomed to these short looped films prepared by Daphne Larkspear on various subjects - it was to form an important part of the girl’s re-education. She had set up a flat screen TV in the corner of her study for that very purpose with a hardwood upright chair set before it on which Alice would be obliged to sit.

With a dense black curtain pulled around, hanging from a curved runner screwed to the ceiling, the corner became what amounted to a little darkened booth lit only by the flickering light from the screen. A pair of headphones placed on the girl’s head circumvented any disturbance being caused to her work, while a small webcam mounted above the screen and angled back at the viewer allowed her to keep an eye on the girl via a small window kept open on her laptop. The threat of the cane, backed up by the additional threat of withholding Alice’s medication if necessary, did the rest, ensuring Alice pay complete and continuous attention throughout.

“Actually I’m quite impressed that you dealt with the corselet alright. I don’t suppose you’ve come across one of those before either but I can see by the way the skirt hangs and the blouse is filled-out - or rather the way in which it isn’t...” she gave a little giggle at her own joke at her stepdaughter’s expense “...that you have got that right at least.” Indeed, though Alice’s waist and hips had been drastically reduced, so similarly had been her bustline. Along with the efforts of crisp blouse, which of course, being a genuine school uniform blouse, was not fitted, the corselet had resulted in a delightfully immature flat-fronted profile. Just as delightful to Alice’s stepmother’s way of thinking was the fine, sparse downy blond covering that could just be made out on the girl’s legs now that waxing was out of the question and the coltish way the girl’s bare legs tapered from her slightly over-plump thighs down to the little white nylon fold-over top anklets, each threaded through around the top with a length of bottle-green ribbon that tied at the front in a little bow.

“Right! Come along - follow me; don’t dawdle.” The door was wide open, pressed back against the wall, and Karen Lamberton-Marchment was already through it and waiting on the far side, out in the passage, the key poised between her fingers waiting to lock the door after them. Ahead lay a day of tediously repeated video instruction and inhumanly tiresome repetition practice revolving around knotting, arranging and tying a school tie - over and over and over again.