It all started shortly after the car accident which killed both her parents. Seventeen-year-old Sally’s only remaining relative was her Uncle George, and even though he had become her legal guardian, he took absolutely no responsibility or interest in the girl’s welfare and gladly left, what he saw as an unwelcome intrusion, to his young wife Harriet.
Harriet picked up Sally from the train station, and the teenager’s world turned from bad to worse within the first ten words from her aunt, who was, after all, at twenty-eight, only a little older than she. “Hurry along, girl. I ought to turn you over my knee right here in the station for keeping me waiting, but it will have to wait until we get home, or I risk getting a parking ticket.”
Sally, shocked into silence, initially replied, “I’m sorry to have kept you waiting Aunt Harriet, but I was confused by the strange indications and took the wrong elevator.”
“You will be, I assure you, very sorry once I have you indoors, my girl. I ordered three punishment canes once I heard we were going to be having you. Now hurry or that fat bottom of yours will be black and blue if I get a ticket because of you.”
Sally’s mind was in turmoil as she rushed along to keep up with her aunt. She blushed at the reference to her admittedly, generous, hips but the mention of canes terrified her. She’d been given two strokes on each hand, as well as detention in the fourth-form last year for being caught smoking, but her parents had never owned a cane, nor even smacked her, since she had been about eight. Now this acquired aunt, whom she had met only once before, at her uncle’s second marriage, was threatening to change that.
Fortunately, there was no parking ticket. Sally loaded her trolly into the back of Aunt Harriet’s station wagon and got into the passenger seat. As soon as the car was out of the parking lot, Harriet dropped her next bombshell; “Once you are indoors, get those jeans off and I’ll inspect your luggage. No jeans, trousers or leggings for you anymore my girl. Skirts and dresses only."
“But Aunty,” said Sally looking very directly at Harriet’s designer jeans.
“The next ‘but’ I hear from you will add three more strokes to the six I’ve already decided you are getting, when we get home. You do what I say from now on without any question and it is not Aunty, it is Ma’am, when addressing me, and Sir when addressing your Uncle George. Is that quite clear girl?
“Yes, Aunt… I mean yes Ma’am.”
Her aunt was all she was not. Tall, slim, blonde, blue-eyed and assertive. Sally was only five-feet-two-inches, with long straight jet-black hair and a waist which tended to bulge when she was not careful about her diet and exercise. Breasts which drew more attention than she wanted, in and out of school, and a hip to waist ratio which made squeezing into fashionable jeans a bit of a struggle. She had the habit of wearing long tops to hide her hips.
She was certainly not a team leader, and tried to blend in with whatever the majority decided. Being dragged away from her Kent roots, meant also losing her dearest-ever friend Julie with whom she had shared even her most secret thoughts, since the days when they had started together at the same Grammar school.
The car turned into a long tree-lined drive and then into a detached garage with they entered thanks to an automatic door. Her aunt got out and waited while Sally retrieved her trolly. “This way girl,” as she led the way to an enormous house that stood on the far side of the lawn.
Sally was not yet taking in her surroundings; she was perplexed as to why her aunt kept referring to her as “girl” rather than by her name.
They reached the entrance which opened to a magnificent hallway with large rooms left and right which they passed before reaching a wide stairway, which they did not take, but carried on via a reduced passageway off to the right side of the stairs.
Harriet’s heels clicked loudly on the granite floor and Sally hurried to catch up before her aunt disappeared.
Then they took a sharp right and entered a room with bookshelves on two sides. In the center stood a desk. It was a replica of an old-fashioned school desk. Just a little further, on a raised platform was an oak table with a comfortable-looking chair. Behind the chair, attached to the wall was a blackboard.
Sally took in the fact that it was a classroom. A very strange classroom with only one desk, dawned on Sally, in the same instant in which she saw it; A long dark-yellow colored, crook-handled cane, hanging on a hook, placed between the blackboard and the remaining, window-lined wall. Beyond, was another flowerbed-decorated lawn, but her attention was all on that cane.
Her aunt, who was beaming at Sally’s open-mouthed reaction said, “This is our private study room, specially modified from the library it once was. Here I can keep a close eye on your progress.”
She waited a moment to allow Sally to catch up before adding, “Take those trainers off, you can use them only for exercise-time from here on. For normal use I hope you have brought proper shoes, otherwise, I’ll have the housekeeper find you something until we can get you some from town.” Sally said nothing, just bent and unlaced her trainers.
Harriet did not give her niece the pause she sought and said; “When I give you an instruction you will respond, 'YES, Ma’am.'” Sally shocked by the loud tone, looked up from her task to see her aunt reach for and take down the dreaded cane.
“Yes, Ma’am,” she shouted and pulled off the shoes as she rose, frightened.
Harriet pressed on her advantage and added; “I told you already that when we get indoors you were to remove those jeans, now be quick about it girl!”
This time Sally automatically responded to the barked command with a, “Yes Ma’am,” which brought a sinister smile to Harriet’s stare. She then lowered her gaze from Sally’s face and flexed the rattan rod between her hands. Sally fumbled with her belt buckle and pushed down her jeans with a bit more of a struggle than usual given her agitated state.
“Wake up girl, I do not have all day to dedicate to you!” Sally hurried and tugged the jeans off. “Get those disgusting tights off too, girl. Throw them on the floor with your jeans. You will wear neither again, as I want you in skirts and short white socks, or on special occasions, I’ll allow you to wear stockings with a dress, but not those. Now your knickers. Quickly!”
Just as Sally was peeling off her lacy thong, a middle-aged woman in a black dress and white apron walked in and said, “Welcome home Ma’am. I’m very happy to see that you got here in such good time with young Sally.”
She did not appear in the least surprised by the scene in front of her eyes. To Sally, it seemed as if this newcomer treated this crazy situation as if it were the most normal thing in the world. A lady with a punishment cane flexed between her hands and a teenaged half-nude girl being barked at.
“What on earth do you call that, girl? Those are NOT knickers. Throw them with the rest!" Sally was so frightened she began to cry.
“Stop that sniffling, girl, I’ll be giving you something to really cry about in a moment.”
Addressing herself to the newcomer, Harriet said; “Mrs. Higgins, Sally here kept me waiting ten minutes after the train arrived, and you know I don’t tolerate being kept waiting.”
“Of course you don’t Ma’am, you have far too much to keep your day full as it is. She certainly deserves a good lesson if I may say so, Ma’am.”
“And that is just what she’ll get in a moment, Mrs. Higgins.”
Turning back to Sally; “Girl, you will refer to Mrs. Higgins with the utmost respect as she has my absolute trust. Mrs. Higgins, later, kindly open and inspect my niece’s luggage. I hope she has some suitable shoes, otherwise, I would ask you please to get her something for tomorrow, and then I will add them to the list of things we are going to need. You, of course, know what I consider unsuitable for my students and my niece will be abiding by the same rules.”