If you haven't read the first two parts of this trip down memory lane, please have a look at the warning at the start of each before reading further - if you have, the same things apply here.
During the brief pause while Paulie was getting himself together and Sean was getting ready for HIS taste of stick, something happened which showed me that 'our' generation COULD, in fact, 'take it' with the best of our elders. As Paulie walked, a bit stiffly, towards the others, I also moved a bit closer to them, mainly to get a different view of the next hiding and heard David whispering to Simon that they were all going to 'carry on' in the 'House Bogs' afterwards and that he must pass on to the others. So, with the agony caused by 'Circling' still VERY fresh, my pals literally couldn't wait to finish off what had been started and so painfully interrupted. I mentally saluted them, but, as for me, wild horses couldn't have dragged me away from my vantage point just then - I could 'Circle' any day, but get to watch nine really hard bare bum canings in a row, probably never again!
While waiting for Sean to 'get up' on David's back, I had a moment to take stock of what was coming up. Three of the remaining seven boys, Sean, David and Pete, were class and housemates of mine and Sean and Pete were in my dorm as well. I had seen all three of them 'get it' quite often before, both with pants on, in class from various Brothers and for sundry 'House' and 'Dorm' offences, often (illegally) bare bum, from Pre's or Monitors. So, I knew exactly how each of them reacted to getting his tail tanned, which was, to be honest, so bloody 'well' that it became quite boring to watch!
The result was that my REAL interest in the rest of the 'executions' was focussed on the three under-15's and Simon, whose other claim to fame I have mentioned before and who was actually an under-14 and in a different House. That day, when he had stripped to 'Circle', he had revealed several black/blue/green and still very tender looking bruises right across his arse, showing that he had been soundly thrashed, probably through pants, quite recently. Even from my cynically patronising viewpoint, I didn't envy his having to submit THAT bum, this time naked, to the sort of caning that Bro. Mac was dishing out that afternoon, but I couldn't help feeling a rising excitement and a yet more lively tingling in my _c_o_c_k_, (which must have been rivalling Simon's own for stiffness by then), at the prospect of his coming ordeal.
There was only one novel and really interesting aspect to the next three hidings, which each consisted of 6 lusty, sizzling, stinging cuts, biting into bare, flinching, clenching, tails and which raised more than the usual chorus of yelps, gasps and howls from these genuinely tough kids and left long, hard welts evenly spread over six sturdy young cheeks, so I'm going to spare you the lurid, repetitive details and move on direct to David, who was the last of the three of them to be caned. As soon as he had got up on Pete's back, instead of letting his legs dangle, like everyone else had, he hooked his heels round Pete's thighs. According to him, this would enable him to brace his bum against the sting, but it looked _d_a_m_n_ stupid to me, as it put him in a crouching, 'Jockey' position, with his bare tail pulled very tight, stuck right out and spread so wide open that a whole expanse of tender, virgin skin that was usually protected from the cane by the depth of his crack, was exposed to it that time.
Bro. Mac spared him nothing on that account though and laid into that, to me frighteningly exposed and vulnerable, arse, as if his life depended on it, once again putting the first three across his underbum and the rest from the middle up. I thought that the two centremost cuts might actually reach his arsehole, but, although all his stripes were a good inch longer on each cheek in the 'in between' area than any of ours, none of them came closer than about half an inch from his hole, for which he could thank having a muscular, swimmer's backside. For all that, to judge from how he yelled while he was being thrashed, if his strange position DID help reduce the pain, I would have loved to have heard him perform, if he had taken it with his legs 'down' instead.
On the other hand, he did recover pretty quickly and, after a good rub and jump around, he left the 'Wall' area walking perfectly normally and not, like most of the others, as if he 'had a carrot'.
Perhaps I should have followed up with David, as he was the only one, apart from me, who was on bone before his hiding and got it again almost straight afterwards; of course, this could just have been due to the pleasurable anticipation of what was going to happen in the 'House Bogs', as he never gave any signs, as I must often have done, of enjoying or wanting to get 'it'.
Joe was the only one of the three older guys who was caned out of the 'seniority' sequence. In spite of having just turned 15, he was a bit shorter than the younger Simon and was 'horsed' by him, instead of the other way round. I was very interested to see whether Bro. Mac was going to treat the three big guys as 'ringleaders' just because of their ages and having regard to what he had said before thrashing Eric. I'm sure that the same thought crossed Joe's mind as he got on to Simon's waiting back, as his slightly hairy arse was so full of goosebumps and so tightly clenched, that his cheeks were dimpled on the sides and his legs stuck out in an almost straight line with his body, instead of hanging down over Simon's bum, while he was waiting for his first cut. I wondered idly if the smattering of soft hair on his cheeks would absorb any of the sting, but decided that it was very unlikely. Joe had a nice, strong, round bum, which, I felt sure, hadn't tasted cane for over a year, so, for practical purposes, Bro. Mac was about to whip his first 'virgin' backside of the day and I wondered whether he realised just how much scope he had for giving those three seniors real hell, without even trying. (It's amazing how quickly your tail gets used to the cane if it is used frequently and how soon that protective layer of 'tanned' skin vanishes once you become exempt from the 'Junior' flogging regime, by reason of having moved up in the School. I dreaded reaching that point, myself and sometimes lay awake at night, pulling my wire and conjuring up ways in which I would be able to 'earn' myself some cuts when I really wanted them, as a Senior, without 'getting the sack')
In the result, the only difference between Joe's caning and any of the others since mine, was that he got No. 6 on the slant, across his other stripes, which made him scream like a banshee and drew quite a bit of blood from the upper part of his left cheek, which was, obviously, far more tender than mine and which also popped the big blood-blister that had formed on his lower right cheek. So, I was STILL ahead in the 'severity' stakes, with both 8 cuts and TWO diagonals, although Joe's arse was in a real mess, very swollen and quite bloody, as a result of his being so 'out of practice'.
Joe was obviously in a lot of pain when he was lowered to the floor. He struggled manfully not to show it but, as in my own case, the heat must have continued to build after the hiding had stopped and he eventually reached the point at which bare, ridged skin was burning so fiercely that life seemed to be insupportable and I saw, with real sympathy, that the tears had begun to run down his face, although he managed not to sob out loud.
Then, at last, it was Simon's turn. He had been so busy with his naughty plans for 'later' (Hell, I wondered what Bro. Mac would have done if he had known that his 'victims' were all planning to go and carry on doing exactly what they had just been thrashed for, even before the pain of those thrashings had started to subside) that I doubt whether the implications of what was about to happen to HIM registered until he suddenly had to get on to Steve's back for his own hiding. I saw him suddenly go very pale and his hands reach back to press those dark bruises on his bum, probably to check just how sensitive they still were. He took his fingers away so quickly, though, that I suppose he was imagining the horrible pain he would soon be feeling as Bro. Mac's hissing cane sank into his already tenderized backside and that the anticipation was a worse torture than all the rest of our floggings put together. I also noticed that his _c_o_c_k_, which had been standing up cheekily while Joe was on his back, had almost vanished into its nest of dark, curly hair and that his balls were no longer hanging free, but were pulled up tight against his crotch. Then, he LITERALLY squared his shoulders and padded over to Steve with an insouciant, barefoot lope and in one effortless leap, was in position on Steve's broad, suntanned back, his discoloured hindquarters thrust defiantly out, as if to challenge Bro. Mac to do his worst.
Bro. Mac, himself, seemed quite unconcerned about having to deal with his second 'problem' arse of the day. I don't think he had any intention of hitting Simon on his existing stripes, because next thing, the cane whistled and landed with a sharp 'Thwip' on the narrow strip of clear skin between the bottom of the bruised area and Simon's crease, drawing a gasp of pain from Si and raising a bright, hard, red, pencil-thick weal across the lower part of both cheeks. This was repeated not twice, but three times more, giving his tail a Tricolor effect, white on top, blueish in the middle and red down below. My first reaction was 'Oh _s_h_i_t_, he's getting 8 and here goes MY record', but my second was to wonder what poor old Si had done to get such a lathering. However, it was all just a question of placement. Bro. Mac had judged that he could fit 4 stripes in on Simon's unwhipped lower bum and then give him his remaining two cuts with no diagonals, across the top of his cheeks, from the other side. So, Simon ended up with a very comprehensively beaten bum to take to his continued Circle and he told me afterwards that sitting on it, bare, on the hard stone floor had actually made the Circle even better than usual. (I could have told HIM that!!)
Si was a brave, undemonstrative boy and took his obviously very painful hiding with a minimum of fuss, confining himself to sharp intakes of breath each time the cane landed across one or the other part of his bare bum and a couple of short, harsh gasps as fresh stripes struck perilously close to earlier bruises, both below and above the tender central area. Anyone who has had to endure a second thrashing before the damage done by an earlier one has fully resorbed, will realise that, although the bruises shrink all the time, the flesh/skin surrounding the still visible stripes or bruises remain tender for a long time and seem to have the unfortunate characteristic of, themselves, becoming re-inflamed and painful far more easily than is the case with a completely healed or, at least, not recently whipped, backside.
So, when Simon's feet again touched ground, he was a VERY sore young man with a bottom which was producing several levels of pain, from the bright, hot stinging of his 'new' cuts, some of which were right in his crease, almost across the tops of his legs, while others were at the very top of his crack, where there is very little 'padding' but an awful lot of nerve endings, through the again painful throbbing of the areas close to his previous stripes; to the aching of the re-tenderized middle of his tail.
It took him a minute or two to steady himself, give his smarting bum a good rub, grin ruefully and a bit tremulously at us and set off resolutely towards his clothes. Bro. Mac was never one for making boys whom he had beaten pretend to be grateful, shake hands or go through any other motions of reconciliation. He realised that any boy whose tail had just been thrashed needed nothing more than a little privacy and it was for that reason that we all knew that we could make ourselves scarce in our own time after any beating from him. The last I saw of Si that afternoon was his glowing, corrugated, multi-coloured haunches moving steadily towards the exit on top of two sturdy, bare legs, which were striding widely enough to do credit to any cowboy, but which were making his taut, round cheeks rotate and wiggle in a way which any stripper would have envied.
That left Bro. Mac, Steve, Tommy and me. Steve was the only one who had been told to stick around after his hiding, for the simple reason that Tommy, the tallest and last in line, would otherwise have had nobody to 'horse' him for HIS caning. Steve was also the only one of the entire group about whom my feelings were ambivalent. A good-looking, athletic, almost 15-year-old, he was, in the opinion of my 18-year-old sister, "The sweetest kid with the most beautiful arse in all the (three local boys' high) schools." I had reservations on both counts, as Steve was known to me to possess a rather frightening streak of cruelty and, whereas her assessment had to be based on such contours as she could see through admittedly minute and tight football shorts or the hideous, skirted 'full' bathing costumes which males were obliged to wear in public in those 'modest', pre Satin-Elastic Trunks days, I had seen THAT backside as well as most of those belonging to the other obvious contenders for the 'title', in all their naked glory, on many occasions. However, realising that her perspective on the subject was probably different from mine, I had never argued the point.
I said that my feelings for Steve were ambivalent; in fact, they were tinged with more than a little malice. He had had his eye on me, for SOME reason, ever since I had arrived at the school, aged 8 and had bullied me consistently, although more proprietorially than viciously, throughout my first two years. Then, soon after I had become a boarder, he must have noticed my disproportionately large equipment in the showers or changerooms and decided that I needed to be brought to heel. So, one afternoon, I was flattered by having my opinion sought by him and two of his cronies on the subject of birds' eggs, about which I knew a fair amount from the Farm. Unsuspectingly, I accompanied them into the plantation on the hill behind the school, realising, too late, that the three big boys had closed in and that I was their prisoner. I wasn't really scared, as they couldn't very well HURT me (and, any way, what for?), but I guessed that I was in for some torrid teasing, at least. As soon as we were securely out of sight and earshot of the School, I was grabbed and stripped completely. My hands were then tied to a branch above my head so that I was helpless, and left standing quite comfortably flatfoot, stark naked and at their mercy. After some taunts about the size of my _c_o_c_k_ and what a pity it was that I didn't know what to do with it, they started to make me 'dance' vigorously, by rapping my bare toes, not at all hard, but VERY painfully, with a bit of dry stick, knowing full well that the jerky, bobbing movement would soon give me an erection, which it did. They probably also expected the continued bouncing of my stiff _c_o_c_k_ to cause me to climax, but there they were disappointed as, once I was erect, the swinging and flapping that had caused that state stopped and I simply began to get tired.
Their intention was clearly to humiliate me by making me ejaculate at their bidding, but they then seemed reluctant to bring me to orgasm, manually, themselves, because, as I overheard Nick muttering to Trevor, he wouldn't know quite how to deal with having done so, at his next confession. So, my hands were untied and I was ordered to 'toss yourself off' under threat of 'getting your block knocked off' if I refused or failed. I was well accustomed to being played with by bigger kids and wouldn't have minded in the least, had this episode been, like the others, just for fun, instead of being delib- erately intended to make me look and feel a fool. As it was, I was not keen to sit or stand there tamely and to masturbate for their amusement, but as I did, by then, want to 'shoot', probably as much as they wanted me to, I set my imagination to work in search of a face and conscience-saving solution. In short order I came up with the brilliant suggestion that, if they took my adjustable, elastic school belt out of the loops of my discarded shorts, and I put my stiff _c_o_c_k_ through the 'double' section, two of them could provide some friction by pulling the belt tight and if the third continued to make me 'dance', nature would take its course quite quickly and without anyone having to 'do it' to me. So it was and I produced a satisfactory 'fountain' in a matter of minutes to their delight and my own quite unabashed relief.
I did, however, want some of my own back and therefore, not having any inhibitions on the score myself, bet them, tongue in cheek, that none of them could shoot as high or as much as I had and offered to do the honours for them, while they relaxed and enjoyed it, to prove my point. This offer was accepted, as they seemed to have no problem about confessing to BEING tossed off BY someone else and, a little later I graciously conceded defeat by all of them, but not before adding two worthwhile 'Roundhead' and one 'Cavalier' scalps to my collection. I liked that, as all my cousins and I, myself, were 'Cavaliers' and I was intrigued by the firm, clean shape, feel and stamina of the 'other kind', which was so rare in those days, in the absence of Jewish boys, that, of the 10 of us, Steve was the only 'local' 'Roundhead', Eric hailing from a totally different part of the world.
The upshot was that I converted three rather nasty tormentors into quite well-disposed allies and that I, myself, went up in general 'Senior' estimation, to being 'not such a bad little guy, really' and a good sport as well. Nevertheless, I never really forgave Steve for trying to humiliate me; the fact that he hadn't succeeded was no thanks to him and, as a result, I was looking forward to his thrashing in the HOPE that it was REALLY going to sting and hurt his bum like the very devil and also that, when he had to 'horse' Tommy, straight afterwards, the pressure of Tommy's midriff and hard, solid thighs against Steve's newly whipped cheeks would give him particular blazes.
I was slightly surprised that neither Bro. Mac nor any of the other victims had even commented on my hanging around while the others were caned, but my own crowd obviously didn't care and the bigger boys probably had other things on their minds.
In any event, that brought Steve to his moment of truth and me to mine of revenge. For the first and, probably the only, time in our school careers, we were almost on an equal footing, with the dice actually loaded in my favour, as, far from the nearly 15-year-old bare bum's enjoying any advantage over the 12-year-old one, once the cane started doing its job, the converse was true, as my tail was well tanned and toughened by its not infrequent meetings with strap and cane, while his, not having been whipped for heaven knows how long, now had to suffer a virtually 'first-time' thrashing, bare and without any preliminary warming up or de-sensitizing.
Our eyes locked briefly, I gave him what I hoped, in spite of myself, was an encouraging wink and, like Simon before him, he braced himself and turned away to take his medicine, also hopping easily up on to Tommy's beautiful, brown back. I was frankly delighted by the sight of Steve's bare bum positioned for its caning; he was the one boy to whom I would happily have yielded my 'most soundly caned' status, in the sadistic hope that his extra two (or more!?!) cuts would REALLY carve his tail up and give him absolute hell. I saw Tommy plant his bare feet firmly on the cement floor and take a good grip on Steve's wrists; Steve, himself, was as tense as as steel spring, his toes splayed, his calf and thigh muscles braced and his lean, muscular (and, yes, VERY nice) bum clenched so tightly that his crack was merely a thin, straight groove between his squeezed-together, rock hard, bottom cheeks.
Bro. Mac clearly intended, for whatever reason, to give Steve a really 'good' thrashing. He drew the cane well back, pivoted at the hips and brought it through, flat and hard, with a slightly upwards trajectory, slamming into Steve's bare bottom about halfway down its lower curve. It was such a deliberately painful stroke that it made even me wince for Steve's sake. The lithe, wet, brown stick seemed to bury itself for a moment in the yielding flesh as the high-pitched hiss of the flashing cane gave way to the snap of hard wood meeting naked skin and was followed by a sucked-in groan from Steve, which sounded as if it had come right up from his toes and confirmed that the bright line of fire on his bottom had registered higher up.
As with all the rest of us, Bro. Mac thrsehed Steve slowly and methodically, leaving several seconds between cuts to give him time to feel the sting of each separately and to the full. The weals that seemed to be drawn out of his naked haunches were beautifully and evenly laid across both writhing, pounding lower cheeks, which not only clenched and relaxed rapidly, in an attempt at lessening their agony, but also seemed to roll apart, opening his buttocks up so far that I got periodic glimpses of the tightly-puckered hole between them, which was something I have never noticed before or since.
This time, the caning did not pause after the third cut and a fourth scorching stripe was laid almost in the crease before Bro. Mac took his customary walk to the other side of the burning bum. So, Steve (and probably also Tommy) was in for 8. I felt a bit sad about losing my 'record', but was consoled by the prospect of Steve's probable two 'diagonals' and seeing that high and mighty arse bleed and hearing its owner yell in agony just like any other whipped kid.
But, then there would be Tommy. As much as I wanted Steve to get it hot and strong, for my own reasons, so I would have done anything to save Tommy from the pain and indignity of getting his bare bum beaten. He had always treated me, one of the real low-life of the House, with a grave, gentle courtesy, so rare in ANY all-boy environment and had, more than once, saved me from being bullied, or actually knocked about. At that point, with the furnace in my own bum having subsided to a pleasant, throbbing glow, I was experiencing the not unfamiliar feeling that 'some more of the same would be OK' and I would cheerfully have offered to take a double dose in Tommy's stead, but for knowing, instinctively, that any such offer would be rejected with contempt and could easily be seen, not only as an empty gesture, but as a barefaced attempt at currying favour with a Senior. So, for the second time that afternoon, I held my peace, but was so deep in my reverie that I almost missed the moment at which Fate played right into my hands.
Steve's naked lower cheeks were already painfully and vividly scored by four long, finger-thick, horizontal, double-lined, crimson welts, the last few inches of each already turning purple, with the blue shadow of bruising starting to spread between the actual stripes. His fifth cut landed right across the middle of his tail with a sharp, incisive 'Thwip' and drew a loud yelp of pain from Steve, who seemed to be more sensitive higher up on his rump than lower down, as the rest of us were. No. 6 landed high across the top of both cheeks leaving his naked bum with its broad band of ruddy, ridged, lower skin and two separate weals across the top. I knew that Bro. Mac was about to join them all up with two final bars of 'crossover' agony and watched, fascinated, as he moved down to level with Steve's muscular mid-thighs. The cane whistled and snapped against bare flesh for the seventh time, the tell-tale spots of bright red young blood appeared here and there and Steve's trim loins seemed to leap off Tommy's hips with a sharp click. Whether the tip of the cane had caught a pressure point or a special nerve, or whether the overall level of pain simply became too much for Steve's so to speak, virgin bum to bear, I don't know, but, without a doubt, he had ricked his hip or lower back in the convulsion following on that last cut. As his body subsided back on to Tommy's, Bro. Mac asked if he was all right; he said he was, but was obviously in some pain that had nothing to do with his whipped backside, so Bro. Mac tacitly let him off his last cut, put the cane down and helped him gently down off Tommy's back, noting that he was unable to straighten up immediately. So, my 'record' was STILL safe by one diagonal cut, as the mighty Steve had 'retired, hurt' from the lists, so to speak.
Then, however, Bro. Mac, Tommy and I all saw a real snag at the same time and as it was an urgent one, Steve was relegated to one of the benches and told to try to relax his back (as far as his scorched, throbbing bum would allow him to), while the 'new' problem was sorted out.
STILL to be concluded!!!