BEXHILL SCHOOL

While Emma was receiving twelve painful strokes of the fibreglass cane from her mother in the sitting room, her father marched her two siblings, Natalie and Abigail upstairs. Like his wife, he was beside himself with fury at the way the three girls had betrayed their trust by holding a wild party during a parental absence over the weekend. Not only did the rubbish bins outside the house provide ample evidence of excessive drinking, the guests had apparently made enough noise to disturb the neighbours.

He told them curtly to strip off, angrily dismissing Abigail's vain plea that 'they were big girls now and shouldn't be treated like this'.

"Behave like irresponsible juveniles and you'll be treated like irresponsible juveniles," she snapped, lifting his leather razor strop from the bathroom wall. The girls shuddered, but not from cold. They had both experienced the smack of the strop before and they knew how much it stung. With dad in this sort of evil mood, they dreaded what was about to happen to them.

He dealt with Abigail first, giving her one welt for every year of her age. Then he told her to stand in the bathroom while he attended to her elder sister.

He ordered Natalie to lie on her bed, her hands clasped behind her back. He flicked her buttocks with the hard leather.

"Come on, stick that bottom up, right up!"

Natalie did her best to raise her quivering cheeks as high as she could. She closed her eyes and bit her lip.

"Now keep still and don't let those hands get anywhere near your backside."

Her father had rolled up his sleeves so that they would not hinder his swing. He hefted the strop high, and swept it down, aiming for the centre of the two pale mounds.