Like most things in the school the bench is an antique, but a well maintained one. It only has one purpose, and everyone knows what it is. If they bring out the bench it means that someone is about to be punished. I watched a couple of the tutors carry it out into the middle of the stage, the dark wood and leather of the old contraption gleaming in the light that flooded in through the big windows. As yet I'd not seen anyone strapped into the bench, but I could see how it would work. They would lie on their front astride the bench, backside exposed, legs and arms cinched in place by thick leather restraints. Already my mouth was dry.
"Who do you think it is?" whispered Nancy from beside me.
I shook my head. "No idea." For a brief moment the possibility that it might be me flitted through my head. I imagined my name being called, standing and walking to the front, bending over the bench... My stomach fluttered, and I returned to reality. Of course it wasn't me. I'd done nothing wrong.
Silence fell throughout the hall, every head turned towards the stage and the bench. People were craning to look, eyes wide. The senior teachers sat in a line at the back of the stage, unperturbed. And then from the left emerged a pair of girls accompanied by Mr Anderson, the teacher in charge of discipline. Both wore plain white dressing gowns and expressions of wide-eyed fear.
With a shock I realised that I recognised one of the girls. Her name was Cherry, and she lived in the dorm across from mine. I had often seen her in the common room, or in the corridor, and although we had always traded smiles and greetings we had never really talked. Here she looked pale and small beneath her mop of shoulder-length red hair, very different from her usual self. She scanned the hall, then lowered her head as she was escorted across the stage.
The other girl was a blonde with long curly hair and a curvy figure. It was she who Anderson took to the bench first. Cherry was left to wait at the side of the stage, hands on head and facing away from the hall. Anderson lowered his head to the blonde girl and said something to her in a voice that I couldn't quite catch.
Shyly, with a pleading glance at Anderson, the blonde girl removed her gown. Beneath her body was pale and naked except for a plain black bra and panties. Her breasts were big, and her hips wide, leading down to strong peasant legs. If I could have seen her face I'm sure she would have been blushing. Of course, humiliation was part of the punishment.
Anderson set about securing her to the bench. Even watching the process sent shivers through me. When he put a hand on the back of her neck and bent her over the wooden device I felt as though it was my neck he was touching. As he cinched her wrists and ankles and thighs tightly with the leather straps I felt my own limbs tingle. And when the last strap--the thickest, strongest one that ran over the blonde girl's back--was fastened into place I couldn't help but shiver.
The silence in the hall was absolute. I was sure I could hear the blonde girl breathing, though looking back that must have been my imagination. Anderson's footsteps echoed as he strode across to the side of the stage and picked up the cane. It was a thin, whippy black thing. Not wood, but something synthetic and cruel looking. Anderson crossed the stage once more, slowly and leisurely, and took up position behind the blonde girl.
Everyone waited.
"Last week Elisia Simpson and Cherry Harris left university grounds without signing out, and returned drunk and under the influence of drugs. For this breach of the rules each shall receive fifty strokes with the cane." Anderson turned his attention to the blonde girl, Elisia, speaking to the back of her head in a voice the whole hall could hear. "If you swear or otherwise behave unacceptably during your punishment, an extra twelve strokes will be added."
And then, without any further ceremony, the punishment began. It was brutal.
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