by Conor Grayson
Her governess was sitting at the desk when Rose scrambled in. At first she didn’t look up. Rose had taken up the position she believed was expected of her, back straight and arms crossed behind. After a moment she furtively reached back and adjusted her panties, which had yet again slipped up in her haste, before snapping back into position. If Dorothea noticed, she made no indication of it, just continued to write.
Rose could hear a chickadee singing in the rhododendron outside. She imagined the small, white body with its black cap, ever in motion amid the dark, drooping leaves. She loved the sprawling rhododendron, that kept their leaves in winter, and would catch and hold the snow that would come a month from now, and the Christmas lights. When she was very young she used to play under them. She would look up at the twinkling rainbow lights and imagine herself in a fairy castle. A winter queen, her father had called her. And the nickname had stuck; every so often one of her sisters would refer to her that way, usually around Christmas. She heard the ellipsis of the chickadee’s song, and all these thoughts ran through her head, one after the other, warm flashes of memory. She didn’t realize she was smiling until Dorothea broke the silence.
“And what’s so funny, young lady?”
Rose, blinking, realized she had been daydreaming. “Nothing, Miss.”
“I should hope not. My goodness, look at you. You’re covered in…is this drool?”
“Yes Miss,” Rose answered, shamefully, “Philippa made me…”
“Rose! I don’t want to hear it, you silly girl. You expect me to have you running around covered in…in all this? I ought to smack you for letting yourself get so filthy. You’re lucky I don’t have time right now. Now, arms up!”
Rose, surprised, did as she was told, and felt her tank top yanked off of her. A moment later her panties were likewise acquitted. Now completely naked, she was spun around and briskly smacked, and ordered to “march yourself upstairs this instant and change. And don’t even think about putting on anything but a fresh punishment outfit. Go, and be quick about it! Or I’ll make you sorry you weren’t, never mind my schedule. Now go!”
Rose scampered out of the living room, into the foyer and then up the wide staircase to her room. She knew her governess wasn’t kidding about making her sorry, but she also did not need the encouragement to hurry. Covering herself as best she could, she prayed that no one else would intercept her. What a picture she must make, she thought, naked as the day and as pale as moonlight, bounding up the stairs like a rambunctious kid. And with her spanked red behind trailing her.
Fortunately, no one was in the hall, and she was able to slip into her bedroom and close the door. Not daring to slow down, she pulled open the armoire and began flipping through clothes. She knew she had extra punishment outfits; it being just a white tank top and regular panties, she had lots of them. But unlike the one main outfit, which she was expected to keep clean and folded in her top drawer, the backups were scattered who knows where. After a moment, she pulled out a tank top, clean but a bit wrinkled. She then dove into the deep lagoon of her underwear drawer. She waded through rainbow pools, aware that time was passing. At last, she pulled out a full-back, plain white pair. Frantically, she pulled on the shirt and the panties. As she was rushing out of the room, she glanced over to her bed, and her heart sank. The bloody stain of the wine lay across the bed like a mortal wound. She had forgotten. There would be little rest for her tonight, and another hard day tomorrow. It was all so unfair. But there wasn’t time to dwell on it. She could feel sorry for herself once she was in the corner. She fled her room and took the stairs two at a time, praying that her lack of organization hadn’t bought her even more punishment.
Rose entered the living room again, and again presented herself. She realized too late that she had failed to arrange her panties. This was maddening: were they to come up and come down all day? She went to reach back, but Dorothea stopped her.
“Never mind that. Let’s get you in position.”
With that, Dorothea pulled the girl’s panties down yet again, this time slipping the thin material into the pocket of the dress. “Now into the corner with you, and stay alert. I’m going to be very busy and I don’t have time to make sure you’re following me. But I expect to see a naughty girl’s bottom every time I look up, do you understand?”
“Yes, Miss.”
Rose walked to the corner of the room and tucked in, her arms already crossed across the small of her back. She straightened her posture, letting her shoulders fall back and her hips round forward. She knew this presented the generous curve of her bottom more prominently to the room, but she also knew Dorothea would prefer it. And, even though she thought this punishment was excessive and unfair, she still longed to please her governess.
The time passed slowly. She could hear Dorothea writing, occasionally flipping papers. Her ears were alert to the sound of her keeper taking flight. But for all that she feared to be left behind, she also soon grew bored. There was nothing to do, and her back, which had been bent over the kitchen floor for so long, was now growing sore. Still, she held her posture. Level with her eyes was a crown molding of ivory-colored acanthus leaves. It was spotless, which surprised her. The servant girls were more industrious than she realized; she was rapidly coming to appreciate that. And, as she had the time, she did consider that. It wasn’t the first time she had been reminded of her fortunate station in life, but it had maybe not seemed real before this. The actual reality of a working life, however minute this taste of it was, impressed Rose. She resolved, in a fleeting way, to be generally better about things. But it did not save her now.
Just then she heard the click of footsteps exiting the drawing room, at speed. She turned, hands clasped in front of her, and padded silently after Dorothea as she passed through the foyer–Rose glancing nervously at the quiet front door–and into the billiards room. This was a room Rose rarely entered, and to step into it now made her nervous. It was the domain of her father. Here he would withdraw with business associates or friends, to talk of who knows what. Rose had occasionally tried to sneak into this room when she was younger, to spy on her father and his strange tall friends. But they had always laughingly returned her to her governess, who would scold her gently about being out of bed. Now, to be here uncovered, was a bit shocking. She had not expected to visit this place. Nonetheless, as her governess sat down at the desk in one corner and opened a large, leather-bound ledger, Rose found a spot between pool cues where she could present herself. And so the process repeated.
The worst were the pauses, when she could no longer hear pages turning or papers rustling. It was then that she knew her governess was, quite intentionally, looking right at her, and her bottom. Dorothea was a firm believer that if one was to be put on display as part of punishment, one ought to be observed. And furthermore, the miscreant should know they were being observed. No hiding in the fantasy that no one had noticed her, or that out of pity they had turned away. The girls’ caretaker was so dedicated to this idea that she had been known to say out loud some version of, “I’m looking at that bottom of yours, young lady. Aren’t you embarrassed to be showing yourself like that?” To which the young lady would reply, “yes, ma’am,” if she knew what was good for her. Now, in the gathered silence of this smoke-colored room, she could feel Dorothea’s eyes on her. And all she could do was endure it.
And then again they were off, this time on a series of quick visits to one of a dozen rooms, Rose struggling to both preserve her frontal modesty and make sure she was correctly positioned. She was mostly successful, but at one point she got caught daydreaming, and did not realize she had been abandoned until she heard Dorothea call sharply from several rooms down. Fearing the worst, she disregarded her modesty and sprinted towards the disapproving voice. Rose burst into the room, her thick dark hair a mess. Seeing Dorothea’s stern expression, she spun to find a suitable pedestal for herself, but Dorothea stopped her.
“Come here,” she said quietly, and Rose did so. As she did, she moved her hands in front to cover herself, but Dorothea scolded her. “Leave those hands right where they were. This isn’t just penance, Rose Elaine. This is an exercise in paying attention, in being present for your discipline, not just daydreaming and wishing it was over. If you’re present in the moment, I know your conscience will return you to the reason why you’re here. And how spectacularly careless you were with your family’s love.”
Rose hung her head, stung by her governess’ words. But Dorothea stepped toward her and lifted her chin, so that her own green eyes adhered to the rainy hazel eyes of her charge. “If you lose track again, I will be turning you around for your corner time, and it won’t be your bottom I’ll be expecting to see, but your….,” and here she paused and cleared her throat before continuing. “It will be, well, your private parts I will expect you to show me. And your sisters, and Philippa, and anyone else in our home. I don’t think either of us want that, Rose. But I insist on absolute compliance during a punishment. Mind you, I mean what I say. I don’t care how uncomfortable it would be for me to see this part of you, I promise it will be more uncomfortable for you.”
With that, Dorothea walked past Rose and out of the room, depositing a firm swat on Rose’s backside as she passed. Not pausing to see if she was being followed, the woman again crossed the foyer, this time turning to climb the stairs. Rose groaned inwardly, but did follow. Wanting to show her governess that she really did feel guilty, terribly so, she resolved not to cross her hands in front of her, but to trail her chaperone up the stairs with her arms linked behind her back. This put all of her on show below the waist, she knew. She was halfway up the stairs when the front door swung open.
Dorothea stopped and turned, freezing Rose as though in a spotlight. Under Dorothea’s gaze she could not bring herself to cover up, and so stood there miserably, fully exposed, as Christina entered the hall. She was dressed in her riding gear still, mudstained now from hard riding, and behind her followed a male companion. He saw Dorothea at first, and opened his mouth to greet her, when he noticed the bottomless girl standing at attention on the stairs. His mouth remained open, but no sound emerged.
“Oh Lionel, just a bit of discipline,” Christina said, turning and laughing. “You can put your jaws back together. Haven’t you ever seen a young lady punished before?”
Lionel continued to stammer for a moment. Then his wits appeared to return, and he smiled too. But his eyes never left Rose’s form. “Not like this, I don’t think. What did she do?”
“Yes, Rose, why don’t you tell my friend why you’re being punished?” said Christina sweetly.
Rose looked pleadingly up at Dorothea.
“Excuse us, please, Rose and I are in the middle of some business. Perhaps, Christina, you could fill Lionel in on some of your own adventures in a punishment outfit, or maybe the time I had to spank you in front of half of the debate club moms. I believe that was just a few months ago?” Christina blushed scarlet, and Rose could hear her stammering as she climbed the stairs after an ascending Dorothea.
And so the rest of her chaperoned corner time passed without incident. Rose toured the house and even, for five excruciating minutes, adorned the back deck, as her governess attended to a small herb garden there. Dorothea finished her ministrations quickly, but spent an additional minute telling Rose how lovely the afternoon sun looked on her white skin. No neighbors could see them, but her backside would be well presented to anyone traversing the Hudson behind them. Despite the sun’s efforts the cold was acute in her state of undress, bringing goosebumps up on her snowy skin, like tiny windrows. But soon she was chaperoned back into the grand house, and on into the one o’clock hour.
They had returned to the drawing room, where she was ordered to stand before the desk, hands clasped behind her neck. Her governess stood before her, and after an excruciating final moment, at last removed the girl’s panties from her pocket and carefully slipped them back on. Adjusting them in back, Rose was sent off to the kitchen, to eat something at last.
The rest of the afternoon passed in a similar pageant of small humiliations and unending work. Some of the chores to which Rose was set were tasks she had seen Philippa perform a hundred times. Never once had she considered how difficult they might be. Dusting, for example, had always seemed so simple, so mindless. But in Rose’s unpracticed hands, it was decidedly not. The dust did not respond to her brush, it clumped, it fell in raspy clouds onto the carpet. Every time this happened she could expect a sharp smack from her supervisor. Far from being mindless, Rose found the relentless micro-attentions the labor demanded almost unbearable. Her wrists were sore and her back was too; but the greater challenge was keeping her mind bent on something so dull. As the day progressed, she became more and more aware of how these chores robbed her of a luxury she had not realized was such: the luxury of the daydream. Instead, chained to the realities of her day, there was no distractions from her present discomfort, nor from the reckonings to come.
Part 5 coming soon…