Reformatory Girls Ch. 11

Karen Frayn may be almost sick with worry, but as Saturday arrives Clare Davenport is feeling physically sick. Her period is due and she had had stomach cramps for a couple of days: but the thought of what Miss Lucy is likely to do to her has aggravated her stomach pains to the point where she is feeling as though she might throw up.

So when the girls have filed into the Waiting Room she makes a decision. Instead of taking her seat she approaches Miss McCloud and asks:

"Please Miss McCloud, I'm feeling ill: please could I see Matron today?"

Miss McCloud scrutinises her carefully. Whenever a girl claims to be ill Miss McCloud's scepticism comes to the fore - as it would for every Warden in Hazely. Nine times out of ten it is a try-on of some kind. But Clare Davenport does not look well. And if it is a try-on it is a very odd one. Miss McCloud is aware that most if not all of the girls would prefer to be shaved by Miss Lucy. Had Claire's request been reversed her suspicions would immediately have been aroused. But no girl would ask to see Matron unless their symptoms were real. And so she nods her assent.

Clare takes her seat mightily relieved.

She sets about clipping her toe nails and fingernails, glancing around at the bare thighs on display, and avoiding the eye of Miss Lucy whenever that person appears in the doorway.

When Miss Lucy calls Clare's name Miss McCloud intervenes:

"She is not well," she informs Miss Lucy. "She will see Matron today."

For a second Miss Lucy looks like a tiger that has just been thwarted of its prey:

"Is it not something I can help with?" she asks.

"She will see Matron," Miss McCloud repeats.

There is nothing more Miss Lucy can do: so she calls the next name on the list.

Miss Lucy is seething. All week she has been looking forward to trying out the itching powder on Clare Davenport's fanny. Now the little bitch has evaded her. Ill my arse! If Miss McCloud has fallen for that she is more gullible than she seems.

Now she will have to find another victim to use the itching powder on.

Not Elsa Engels, the next girl in her charge. Elsa disgusts her, and the less time she has to spend on her the better. She shaves Elsa with undisguised contempt, then goes to call the next girl.

It is then that she realises the full consequences of Clare Davenport's evasion: for the next girl is Ruby Grey: and the girl after her is Karen Frayn.

Since she has no option but to call Ruby Grey, both Clare Davenport and Karen Frayn will have escaped her: and the letter Karen was to have written to her father will have to be postponed.

She is so angry that she shouts at Ruby to stop wriggling, and thrusts her finger directly up Ruby's arse. Ruby is astonished: she cannot understand why Miss Lucy has turned on her, after she delivered her message to Karen Frayn exactly as instructed.

"Why did you do that?" she asks almost tearfully, when Miss Lucy has yanked her finger back out.

"Because I can," Miss Lucy snarls.

She does not, however, use the itching powder on Ruby. Ruby is neither the brightest nor the most discreet of girls: if she pushes Ruby too hard Ruby might blab.

Instead she calms herself down and proceeds with the shaving, thinking through potential victims until she can come up with the one most suitable. It does not take her long to line up Kelly Watson in her sights.

The image of that fat girl struggling to scratch at her fanny brings a tight-lipped smile to Miss Lucy's face.

Miss Lucy has not intended to avoid Donna May, but she has got out of step, and Donna has been called by her Aunt. This does not bother Miss Lucy unduly: she is pleased with Donna and happy to thank her for what she has done to Clare Davenport. But she also suspects that Donna might ask her for another rub: and though she might use Donna again in the future, for now, as far as she is concerned, payment has been rendered.

Donna, though, is disappointed. She had been looking forward to telling Miss Lucy exactly what she had done, and how Clare Davenport had suffered in consequence. She had hoped and expected that Miss Lucy would be pleased. She had hoped Miss Lucy might offer her another such commission. She had even hoped Miss Lucy would give her another rub.

But it wasn't to be. Instead she would have to submit her stubble and her private parts to Matron's ungentle hands.

The shaving proceeds. In the Waiting Room girls file their nails and take their places on the two chairs where their hair is cropped. Clare, having been given an Asprin by Matron, sits on the bench in a state of comparative relaxation, staring across the room. Opposite her Sienna Sharples is still filing her toe nails, one foot resting on the other knee, her skirt hitched back, and her thighs and pants on display. Is it Clare's imagination, or is Sienna flaunting herself? The Asprin has made her feel woozy, and as her stare locks onto Sienna's pants she remembers the sensations she felt in the Laundry, when she was certain Tina Dukes was rubbing herself to a climax. Is it possible to arouse another girl just with your mind? As she stares at Sienna, at the narrow white gusset between Sienna's thighs, she starts to imagine that she is projecting something, some sort of beam, and that by the power of her mind she can affect Sienna, induce a feeling of warmth and arousal between Sienna's legs. She stares and in her mind's eye she sees things happening inside Sienna's pants: blood flowing into Sienna's genitals, Sienna's little clitoris starting to swell. And under her gaze Sienna does shift on her bench, does seem to fidget as though something was stirring down there, although of course there is no way she dare touch.

Then Clare's concentration gives out, she looks elsewhere, and Sienna continues to file her nails, and it is all inconclusive, probably Clare was just imagining things.

Though when Sienna is called by Matron, and smoothes down her skirt to walk to the doorway, there is a tiny furrow of puzzlement across her brow.

The only drawback with Kelly, as far as Miss Lucy is concerned, is that Kelly is one of the last girls to be shaved. And since the itching powder does not work instantly, Miss Lucy will not be able to witness the consequences in the Waiting Room.

Kelly enters slowly and warily. She has not forgotten how Miss Lucy treated her last time. But Miss Lucy seems in a good humour, she asks Kelly pleasantly how she is, and shaves her so gently that Kelly is starting to think that maybe she just caught Miss Lucy on a very bad day. At any rate Kelly relaxes, enjoys the smooth glide of the razor over her stubble, allows Miss Lucy's fingers to part and extend her labia, without any expectations of sexual relief. She relaxes her muscles as Miss Lucy parts her buttocks, and does not see the smile of anticipation on Miss Lucy's face as Miss Lucy lowers her head, widens the gaps around Kelly's anus with her finger and thumb, and draws the razor from side to side.

Kelly closes her eyes, and does not see the little circular box Miss Lucy has taken from the pocket of her Uniform dress. It feels nice when Miss Lucy drapes the warm flannel over Kelly's vulva, and even nicer when Miss Lucy spreads the massage oil. But Kelly is not going to make a fool of herself again, and as Miss Lucy's fingers do not play with her clitoris or make any direct attempts to arouse her, Karen resists the temptation to get more than pleasantly, moderately aroused. And when she feels Miss Lucy's finger applying a circular pressure to the crown of her vulva, just above the hood of her clitoris, then tracing her fingernail down the crevice where her pudenda joins her leg, she suspects nothing untoward: Miss Lucy is removing shaved flecks of stubble most like.

Miss Lucy remains civil to her, even handing her her knickers; and Kelly leaves the Consulting Room in a happier frame of mind than when she had entered.

Kelly Watson is the last of Miss Lucy's clients. Sharon Williams has already returned from Matron's Consulting Room, and the girls are all preparing to leave. Miss Lucy takes her clipboard in to her Aunt, then slips away.

At the top of the building in which the sick bay and Matron's rooms are housed are some disused attics. Long ago they may have served as Servant's Quarters: now they are home only to lumber: discarded furniture, threadbare carpets and the like. They are not kept locked and have little interest for anyone: except that Miss Lucy has discovered that one of the cobwebbed windows given an excellent view of the Recreation Yard.

It is there that she stations herself, waiting for the girls to appear - waiting especially to observe Kelly Watson.

Soon the girls are led in by Miss Bulstrode and Miss McCloud, and, in pairs or small groups, begin to mill around. Some of them run about or jump about, eager to work off some of the pent-up energy, accumulated through a long stretch of sitting and waiting in the Waiting Room. Others are more interested in conversing with their friends.

It doesn't take Miss Lucy long to see that all is not right with Kelly. Every few steps she takes she stops, frowns and wriggles. She makes movements which have no logic to them: raising her knees in turn, rotating her pelvis, bending over and straightening up again. She is too far away for Miss Lucy to make out her expressions clearly: but from time to time she stops abruptly and looks about her with a puzzled air.

About half and hour into the Recreation period she has what looks like an urgent conversation with Laura Marsh, at the end of which Laura shrugs her shoulders and shakes her head.

By the time the Recreation period is drawing to a close, Kelly is clearly in some distress: she is fidgeting madly, has given up all social intercourse, and is scratching herself in improbable but permitted places, such as the small of her back and the crook of her knees.

Miss Lucy's lips compress themselves into a smile: Kelly is not going to find relief by scratching there.

Then Miss McCloud puts the whistle to her lips, and presently the girls file out of sight.

Miss Lucy slips quietly out of the attics and makes her way down to the Refectory. Although the Staff are welcome to take their meals there, and the Wardens on duty invariably do, Miss Lucy likes the finer things in life and is not keen on what she describes to Kim as Reformatory Slops. Usually she makes her own food in the small kitchen that forms part of the living quarters she shares with her Aunt. Today, though, she intends to eat at the Staff table in the Refectory, from where she can observe all the girls.

Kelly Watson does not understand what is happening to her. Occasionally, after shaving, she feels a little raw between her legs. It is something all the girls feel from time to time. But this is quite different: an inflamed, burning sensation - an itching that she is desperate to scratch.

Only she cannot, dare not, scratch. Because if she is caught so much as touching herself down there she will be caned.

For the best part of an hour she has been trying to find ways to rub or scratch without using her hands. She has even, out of desperation, scratched herself in proxy places, such as behind her knees. None of this has been of the slightest help.

So she has come into the Refectory praying that the itching will stop: or that, if it will not stop, that she will find some way of scratching, or something to rub herself against.

Not only will the itching not stop, it is getting worse: to the point where Kelly is being driven mad.

She takes her seat at the long table, and immediately starts pressing herself down into the hard bench, spreading her legs as best she can, and thrusting herself back and forth. Not only is this foolhardy, in that it is likely to attract attention - but it does not help. The itching seems worst in the crease at the top of her right leg, and higher up, near the top of her pubic bone.

Her neighbours start to notice. Sharon Williams, who is being jolted by Kelly, gives Kelly a jolt in return.

"Keep still can't you?" Sharon hisses.

"I can't help it," says the hapless Kelly. "I'm itching like the devil."

"If you've got lice I don't want them," says Sharon.

What on earth is it? Kelly wonders. Has she got lice? Is it some sort of allergic reaction to the massage oil? The itching is getting worse: she cannot sit still no matter how hard she tries. She cannot help herself, she has to scratch.

When she thinks none of the Wardens are looking she plunges her hand down between her legs and scratches violently. The itching does not go away, but the relief is palpable: as long as she is scratching she can breathe, she can stop writhing in her seat. But she dare not scratch for more than a few seconds. She pulls her hand away and lays it on the table in full view: amazingly she has got away with it: none of the Wardens appear to have seen. But now that she has stopped scratching the itching is worse than ever, it is as though millions of tiny microbes are wriggling around down there, twisting tiny claws into her flesh. She has simply got to get rid of them: a second time she plunges her hand between her legs, and this time she thrusts it inside her knickers, the better to scratch at her skin with her nails.

This time she is not so lucky.

"Watson! What are you doing?"

Even though Miss Bulstrode has called her out, Kelly can not stop.

"I can't help it," she cries: "It's driving me mad."

Miss Bulstrode is on her feet. Silence has fallen over the table. Other Wardens begin to rise from the bench.

"For Christ's sake Kelly," says Sharon Williams through clenched teeth.

But Kelly seems almost oblivious to all of them: the microbes are eating into her tender parts, she has to scratch, she must scratch, she will scratch.

"How dare you?" says Miss Bulstrode, dragging Kelly's arm forcefully out of her pants. "At the meal-table. In full view of everybody. I've never known such effrontery in my life."

"You don't understand," wails Kelly. "I've got an itch. I'm only scratching an itch."

If Kelly had thought about it for a month she could not have come up with a worse choice of words. To the Wardens, 'scratching an itch' was a euphemism for one thing only. And it is not only Miss Bulstrode but Miss McCloud, Miss Harman, Miss Barker and Miss Armstrong who all stare at Kelly in amazement. They know the girls in Hazely suffer from sexual frustration: but the idea that one of them could blatantly, brazenly, give in to her impulses in a public place, and do so without expecting to be caught - frankly it took the breath away.

"Have you taken leave of your senses Kelly?" asks Miss McCloud.

"No," says Kelly, in tears now: "I was only scratching an itch."

"Clear these cups and plates away," Miss Bulstrode orders the girls sitting at the end of the table.

There is a clattering of crockery as a space is cleared.

"You," Miss Bulstrode orders Kelly. "Get your skirt and knickers off and get yourself bent over the table."

Kelly is still protesting, but she has become incoherent, wriggling around and making stupid noises, and in the end Miss Bulstrode takes a grip on her skirt and knickers and yanks them down from behind. Then she forces Kelly over the end of the long table and pushes her down until her flat chest is resting on the surface. Still Kelly is wriggling her bottom and legs.

"I'll give you something to wriggle about," says Miss Bulstrode grimly: and without more ado she brings her riding crop down hard across Kelly's behind.

Kelly yells: Miss Bulstrode follows up quickly with a second swipe. Kelly's buttocks wobble: two red lines appear. Kelly is practically dancing now, jigging up and down, her buttocks wobbling, the flesh on her fat thighs quivering, her hands gripping the sides of the table top.

A third time Miss Bulstrode brings down her crop. The crockery rattles: Kelly yells and kicks out her legs: her knickers fly off her ankles as she flails every which way, drawing gasps from the girls closest to the action.

Miss Bulstrode tucks her riding crop under her arm. Normally she delivers some parting shot: a warning, a sarcastic rejoinder. But she is so dumbstruck by Kelly's effrontery that she walks back to her seat without a word.

Kelly is left crying and gasping, hardly able to stop herself sliding down the side of the table and onto the floor. The itching has not gone away, but it is like moonlight unto sunlight compared to the searing pain in her buttocks. For a long time she is incapable of pulling up her pants or resuming her seat.

At the Staff table Miss Lucy raises a spoonful of soup to her lips. Never have Reformatory Slops tasted so good.

Clare Davenport's period has come and gone, along with the pains in her stomach. But she is still in the grip of a sickening anxiety. Saturday is approaching, and she no longer has an excuse to ask to see Matron. The thought of what Miss Lucy might do to her makes her shudder. She is still feeling deeply, excruciatingly embarrassed by her day in nappies: and though she cannot be certain, she strongly suspects that Miss Lucy was behind her ordeal. The idea that Miss Lucy can inflict such woes on her at a distance, through the medium of Donna May, is frankly terrifying.

Clare makes a final appeal to Karen Frayn: if they both went to Miss McCloud and told what they knew? But Karen will have none of it, and just repeats to Clare that they would not be believed. Clare is disappointed: but she does not know that Karen Frayn is terrified of what might happen to her if it came out about the five thousand pounds.

Clare longs to have somebody to tell her troubles to. She misses her friend Tina Dukes. So much does she long to tell Tina her troubles that when Friday afternoon comes around, and the girls are handed pieces of exercise paper on which they may write a letter, she decides to pour her heart out.

Not, of course, that she will send that letter or even allow it to be seen. It is quite common, given the censorship, for a girl to occupy the allotted hour by writing something they have no intention of sending, and throwing it into the waste paper basket at the end. Some girls amuse themselves by writing shopping lists, or playlists of favourite songs. As long as they are 'practising their English' and not trying to communicate malicious information about Hazely to outsiders, Miss Bulstrode does not care.

So Clare writes. And as she writes, telling an imaginary Tina all her problems, the writing begins to have a cathartic effect. She is feeling better just by articulating her difficulties, getting them onto paper and out of her head.

The hour passes quickly. At the end Miss Bulstrode walks up and down the aisles between the desks, collecting such letters as girls want to have posted. Clare, much as she would love to send her letter to Tina, screws it up, ready to drop in the bin.

But for some reason Miss Bulstrode stops at Clare's desk.

"What have you written Davenport?" she asks.

"It's nothing Miss Bulstrode," Clare says quickly. "Just rubbish. For the bin."

"You were applying yourself with great concentration," observes Miss Bulstrode. "It would seem a shame for the fruits of you labour to end up in the bin. Show it to me."

Clare's heart starts to pound:

"It's nonsense," she says.

"I will be the judge of that," says Miss Bulstrode, taking the piece of crumpled paper from Clare's desk.

"Please - it's private," says Clare in desperation.

"Nothing is private in Hazely," says Miss Bulstrode. "And to demonstrate this fact, which you ought to have grasped by now, I shall read your writing aloud."

Clare wants to shrink into some tiny cavity in the floor. Her heart is racing as Miss Bulstrode smoothes out the wrinkles in the paper, holds it up to her face, and starts to read: