Lyon, France 1952

 

The church was filled with rustling and coughing as people began to gather their belongings and exit into the bright spring sunshine of a Sunday morning. Behind them the organ began to thunder some triumphal tune that Eloise didn't recognise, she was dressed in her Sunday best, a royal blue pleated skirt and a short jacket over a crisply laundered shirt, on her head was a straw boater with a blue ribbon round it. She looked like a well-brought up little girl with prosperous parents and she hated it. Beside her, her older sister, Marie looked very grown up in her black dress with short sleeves, she was allowed stockings and even wore high heels.

At nineteen years old to Eloise's eighteen, Marie looked to be an elegant and refined young lady. But the glances the two girls exchanged as they stood and waited in the sun outside the church were ones of a shared anxiety.

They had transgressed earlier that day and retribution was to follow, as sure as Monday would follow today, their guardian would punish them.

They stood quietly with their hands demurely together in front of them, Marie clutching her handbag which had been a birthday present from their mother and which Eloise would cheerfully die for.

Their mother and Monsieur Dupont, their guardian stood and chatted with people - the men in their dark suits, the women in bright dresses and hats. Colour was slowly returning to the world as the war receded into the past. Their guardian was a man of consequence in the area, he owned the woollen mills on the edge of town and employed many local people. The fact that he had kept the factory operating throughout the war meant he was regarded with gratitude by many, but with resentment by those who had opposed the Vichy government.

He was a tall, handsome man with iron grey hair, the girls' mother was also tall but with dark hair and large, dark eyes which had beguiled Monsieur Dupont when she had been widowed and bombed out of her home with two small children. The handsome, austere bachelor living alone, apart from his housekeeper, in the big house just outside town, had taken her in.

It was the kind of pragmatic, unofficial arrangement that the war had forced on many people and no one commented on it.

For nearly ten years now their mother had been his mistress and he had seen the children clothed and dressed and educated at the convent school. But he ran his house with a rod of iron and the girls knew what was in store for them after that morning.

They had risen early, it being a fresh and clear spring morning and they had tip-toed downstairs, past Madame Corbusier's room and out into the yard at the back of the house. Then they had run, laughing and giggling for the sheer joy of being young and alive out into the woods which surrounded the house and down to the vegetable garden.

From there they had meandered into the orchards and finally out onto the road that led into the village. There they had met Jean Loiselle, the son of the village's shopkeeper who shied stones at them for being posh. They had retaliated before retiring, still giggling and happy to their guardian's property and trailed happily back to the house where they found they were late for breakfast.

Monsieur Dupont liked meal times to be strictly adhered to.

They had had breakfast in the kitchen with Madame Corbusier.

"Monsieur will see your bottoms red for that, my girls!" she had said, smiling grimly.

Marie had tossed her head proudly and replied that she didn't care but Eloise knew that both of them would be in tears before lunch time.

Eventually their mother and Monsieur broke free of the crowd and the girls walked behind them as they returned to the long, low Citroen and climbed in.

"It was not a such a serious offence, Marc. And they are getting rather big to be spanked," their mother had said as soon as the doors were closed.

"Simone," he had replied. "You know my rules. And anyway you wish me to use the cane? Or maybe the birch now they are growing up?"

From the back seat the girls had listened with their hearts in their mouths.

Eloise could see how her mother blushed hotly, but she said nothing and just shook her head.

Satisfied, Monsieur drove away.

In the house it was still quite cool and the girls stood anxiously in the hallway as Monsieur took off his hat and jacket and handed them to their mother, whose expression was as anxious as theirs. He told her to wait upstairs and as always at these times, she nodded but kept silent and left them.

Monsieur opened the drawing room door and ushered them in. Sunlight flooded the room from the south facing sash windows. It had always been one of Eloise's worst fears that someone might walk past on the drive and see her taking her punishments but Monsieur never drew the curtains when he beat them. They had to take it in broad daylight.

Marie went first as the elder girl.

Eloise felt so 'little girl' in her jacket and skirt while Marie looked so womanly as she slipped off her heels and went to where their guardian stood beside the punishment chair, rolling up his sleeves. The chair was kept in this room for that very purpose, although it was really a dining chair with a ladder back.

Earlier, Eloise had helped Marie on with her first suspender belt and stockings so was not surprised at the pale, smooth skin that appeared as she furled the skirt of her dress up and then got her thumbs into the waistband of the pretty, feminine knickers that Eloise so hungered after and slipped them down her long legs before tramping them off her feet and bending over the back of the chair to hold onto the seat.

Eloise had to count the strokes. He never told them how many they were to receive. They just had to bend and take what was dished out.

With one hand Monsieur held the dress up over Marie's back, while with the other he delivered the heavy, stinging smacks they knew so very well.

"One! Two! Three! Four!" Eloise counted as the loud reports echoed around the high ceilinged room. Monsieur's big hand covered most of each of Marie's buttocks and each smack set it to quivering in the aftershock. He moved from one side to the other in a steady rhythm that took no stock of their cries or tears.

And for Eloise it was a special torture because she had to watch, knowing how many she was going to have to take.

For some reason on that day, Monsieur was in a bad mood.

"Fourteen! Fifteen! Sixteen!" The count mounted and Eloise's lip was trembling as she tried to keep tally, knowing that this was coming her way.

Marie began to fidget, lifting one leg and then the other as the blows crashed home. And then finally she broke into soft warbling cries of distress as her buttocks, now more livid than Eloise had ever seen them, continued to tremble and quiver under the beating.

"Twenty-one! Twenty-two! Twenty-three!" Eloise was crying now herself.

At twenty-six, Monsieur stopped and Marie didn't move for a moment, then slowly began to push herself upright, her hair tousled, her face red and tear-swollen. She stood for a moment rubbing ferociously at her scorched hinds before walking carefully away to where Eloise stood.

"Come!" Monsieur bade her.

She slipped her shoes off and went to her guardian, furling her skirt up as she went. She wore plain, little girl knickers under it and although she hated them normally, today she would have given anything to keep them on. But down they went and she felt the cool air of the room circulate around her private parts as she bent over the chair back, feeling its top dig into her stomach. She watched her own small hands grip the edges of the seat cushion. Over the years she and Marie had worn part of the varnish away from the surrounding woodwork as they had suffered Monsieur's wrath.

Marie was told to stop rubbing her backside and to concentrate on keeping count.

"Any mistakes and you will be back over this chair, Ma'amselle," he warned her and then began to beat Eloise, slowly and steadily.

Each thunderous blow rocked her forwards and lit fires that burned deep inside her and made her eyes water instantly.

From far away she heard Marie sob out the count. But inside her the pain was mounting until it consumed her and spilled out in the form of tears and howls of pain. She jerked, sobbed and wriggled her way through the whole horrible thing until at long last she was told she could stand.

Slowly she stood up, sniffing back tears and snot, then with what dignity she could muster, she shuffled back to stand by Marie. Then they both had to curtsy and thank Monsieur for correcting their behaviour before they were allowed to pick up their knickers and then walk stiff-legged to the door and then climb the stairs to their room at the back of the house. The moment the door was closed they flung themselves together and cried until eventually Marie pulled herself together and poured some water into the bowl on the wash-hand stand, dipped a flannel into it and told Eloise to lie down.

She did so and hauled her skirt up again.

She gasped as the cold cloth touched her burning skin.

"Madame was right," Marie said as she gently dabbed at her sister. "He did see our bottoms well and truly reddened."

Eloise struggled up and insisted she treat her sister. Marie's bottom was another thing that she envied her elder sister, she felt it was far more sweetly rounded than hers, and she was sure she would never have as long legs.

As she gently dabbed at the rounded buttocks, she heard Monsieur come up stairs, then turn at the landing to walk towards the front of the house, where the main bedrooms were. She heard the door to the bedroom he shared with their mother open and then close.

Marie looked round at Eloise. "Always he does this after he has beaten us!" she whispered. "Come on!"

She scrambled off the bed and smoothed her dress down then led the way on stockinged feet out onto the landing and then towards the front of the house. Eloise, her heart pounding at the thought of what would happen if they were caught, followed. They came to the door and stopped. In the silence they could clearly hear the bed springs squeaking and their mother sighing and groaning.

The two girls exchanged horrified glances that quickly turned to giggles and they scampered back to the safety of their room.

Their mother came to fetch them for lunch. She still wore the dress she had worn for church, it was a little more creased now, the girls noticed, but her face was flushed and happy.

"Darlings! Don't give him cause again! Promise me!" she cooed as she embraced them.

"No, Mama, we won't" they chorused.