The following morning Sammy was in Mrs Pardoe's class sewing a plain white collar onto a skimpy black dress. It was a compulsory project. During their first term all sissies had to produce their own parlour maid outfit, and it had to be done by hand because Mrs Pardoe claimed exclusive use of the only sewing-machine in the house. Sewing was one thing he hated with a vengeance, he was all thumbs with a needle and half the time he spent with Mrs Pardoe involved needlework of some kind.
Also he had a rather delicate problem. All morning he'd been suffering from the extreme walloping he'd received the previous day, but after lunch the discomfort had dissipated and been unaccountably replaced by a hard-on. He hoped it would quickly fade, but it hadn't faded, and by the time he'd joined Mrs Pardoe's class it was tenting out the front of the panties beneath his skirt. The school teacher was mean at the best of times and there was no knowing the direction her temper would take if she discovered such a display of maleness. Mrs Pardoe hated boys being boys so certainly it would make her angry. It may even make her angry enough to use the plastic ruler again.
He knew just a few moments alone in the toilet and a brisk rub with his hand would solve the problem, but the moody tutor had made that impossible. He'd already swallowed his pride and put his hand in the air like a schoolgirl to ask teacher for permission to go for a pee, but she'd refused to allow him to leave the room, and she'd made him push his knickers down to his knees and flick his skirt out at the back in case he felt compelled to wet himself before midmorning break. She warned him that if he did have an accident he'd get six with her slipper and an hour of cleaning detention after supper, and just to prove how nasty she was she'd made every other sissy in her class adjust their clothing in the same way, which hadn't endeared Sammy to any of them. Both Zoë and Holly Bedlam had given him a look that was thunderous.
The classroom was large, but contained only ten tables for the pupils and the tutor's high desk perched on a dais in front of a blackboard. The whole place smelt of chalk dust and polished wood, while the high ceiling and small windows gave it a nineteenth century ambience. Periodically Mrs Pardoe called a halt while she explained something. She habitually explained things a stage at a time because she didn't trust sissies to remember much, and her students were compelled to sit motionless with their arms folded whilst she talked.
Good gracious, how had it come to this? He was eighteen years old. They were all eighteen; all adults. They were men, but they were dressed as schoolgirls and compelled to behave like schoolgirls. On his arrival he had thought about objecting to such a ridiculous idea, but when he noticed the rough treatment some of the more stroppy people got when they protested he decided it was best to go along with it. It was weird how when one was dressed like a schoolgirl and treated like a schoolgirl one eventually began to feel like one.
That morning Sammy half-wished he was a girl because girls didn't have stiff dicks they needed to hide. He wanted to cross his legs to hide the obstinate stalk thrusting from his loins, but the underwear wrapped around his knees didn't allow him to do that, and as time passed he became increasingly concerned. From the high stool behind her desk the schoolmistress could observe everything, and he knew it was only a matter of time before she deduced he was guilty of more than bad toilet timing.
Then something unforeseen appeared to give him a chance. The hushed silence of the room was shattered by a bobbin of cotton rolling from a tabletop and striking the floor. The noise was minute, a mere plop, but it was enough to warrant the attention of Mrs Pardoe, who watched the reel skid across the linoleum with vindictive eyes. Because she was feeling bored she'd been waiting for a reason to assert her authority, and it seemed that some unfortunate carelessness had provided her with one. Her voice, so quiet and yet so sudden, made everyone jump.
"Yours I think, Jemima." she murmured thinly, her overly calm manner projecting the kind of threat everyone knew well.
The culprits face paled. "M-me, miss?"
"Who else would I be talking to, idiot?" The woman responded testily. "Come and collect it, and you can also collect a smack for your inattention."
"Oh -" reluctantly Jemima rose up and reached down to hoist his knickers, but Mrs Pardoe, peering out from beneath her eyebrows, told him to leave them draped around his legs and hobble forward. After all, she reasoned while extracting an old plimsoll from a recess in her desk, she would only have to pull them down again.
Jemima was a pretty, but Sammy thought him a snooty bitch because he'd recently rejected a bedtime invite. He wouldn't have minded watching him get a wallop, but his own predicament was his main concern at that moment, and in a desperate attempt at salvation he risked humiliation a second time and thrust his arm in the air, hoping that the distraction with the cotton reel would be his ally.
"Please, Mrs Pardoe..."
The woman scowled in irritation at him, aware he'd pestered her previously, but this time she relented. "Go now, and be quick, and be prepared for some smacks when you return. I'll not tolerate my lessons being ruined by silly sissies who lack personal organisation."
He pulled his pants up surreptitiously while she was concentrating on Jemima, then hurried outside. Smacks with a strap or a plimsoll would hurt, but they were preferable to the risk of the ghastly measuring-rule whacking his balls again.
Once away from the classroom Sammy was confident his problem was solved, but at the end of the landing he saw Jennifer hovering by the door of the loo, and he remembered that on Mondays she always did a 'shine' inspection for her mother and paid particular attention to the cleanliness of the toilets. He dared not go near her in his present condition, so he plunging down the steps to the floor below.
The ground floor was out-of-bounds at that time of day, but with the toilets within range he made a sudden dash before coming to an abrupt halt. Marching towards him, dark nylons flashing beneath a short skirt, was Abigail.
The head-girl observed him keenly. "You should be with Mrs Pardoe. What are you doing out of class?"
Sammy flinched. No one could ever ignore the menace of the double-tongued leather strap that always swung from Abigail's waist band. "I'm not doing anything wrong, I promise I'm not." he replied softly.
Abigail pursed his lips. "There we differ in opinion. I think otherwise."
"M-Mrs Pardoe allowed me to go to the toilet. She's going to smack me when I go back." Sammy muttered in a desperate small voice. He hoped the mention of smacks would deter Abigail from punishing him too, but it didn't work.
"I expect she is, but she won't be aware of you going out-of-bounds, so put out your hand."
Sammy's shoulders sagged. It was unfair, he'd done nothing really bad, but Abigail was going to strap his hand anyway, just because he had the authority to do it. Frantically he tried to think of something, a mitigating reason, anything that would help him avoid whatever Abigail planned. Explaining about the stiffness inside his pants was pointless. Abigail would strap his hands all the same, and then go off to have a laugh about it with the prefects.
Whilst he dithered the head-girl grabbed his wrist and pulled his arm up level with his shoulder. "Hold it out - keep your hand flat."
Sammy's face drained of colour, but he knew he had no choice. Disobeying the head-girl would only lead to a spell in the dungeon with prefects coming to smack his bum every hour, so he gave in and watched passively as, slowly, as if savouring the delay, Abigail unclipped the evil looking tawse from his waist and measured the tip against the palm of his outstretched hand.
