Chapter 1
Just after her fourteenth birthday, when on holiday from her Boarding School, Muriel went to stay with her Aunt. Her parents were abroad, where her Father worked for the government as an engineer of civil works. Up to the age of ten, she had been brought up as one of the privileged children of the officials of the Colony. Then it had been decided that she must be sent home to a good school. Normally in the school holidays, a plane ticket had been waiting to take her out to spend the time with her parents. This time, a certain amount of trouble in the colony had made her parents decide against this, and she had been sent to stay with her Mother's sister. Her aunt Julia. This aunt had two children of her own, a daughter, Diana, of much the same age as Muriel, and a son, Gerald, who was nearly two years their junior.
When she arrived at the station, the local taxi had already been instructed to pick her up, and she had been quickly whisked out of town to the remote, but lovely house where her Aunt lived. She was delighted by her cousins, they were a lively, and healthy seeming pair, who made her very welcome. Her auntie had been cordial in her greeting, but had quickly left the three of them to their own devices.
They had gone up to the 'play-room', a small attic room that the children had taken over long ago, and had got well-stocked with their personal treasures and were soon old friends. The first time that it struck Muriel that there was anything at all unusual about the freedom of action and speech between the brother and sister was when, after they had been looking over the treasures in the form of climbing irons, skates etc., for some time, Diana had quite conversationally remarked, "Ooh! I must have a pee!" With no further so, she had gone and pulled a bucket out from a cupboard in the corner, and straddled it, slipping her panties down, to piss into it with a pronounced tinny noise.
Muriel found herself blushing a little for her new friend, and they both laughed, "By the time you have lived here for a little while, you will see why it is we have no false modesty between us!" the girl had assured her. Her panties pulled up again, she put the bucket back, and they continued their examination of the bits and pieces. In a large trunk, there was a marvelous collection of clothing for dressing up in and Muriel was thrilled with some of the costumes in it, they were all in perfect condition, and some of then dated back nearly a century! Pulling out and old bombazine dress, and a feather boa, Muriel was perplexed by the strange implement that lay beneath them. She picked it up, it was polished wooden handle, with a short length of wide, thick leather attached to it. This strap was about twelve inches long, and two inches wide, with the last six inches split into three 'fingers' with rounded ends. She was just about to ask whatever it was, when Gerald took it from her with a whoop, and swung around to give his sister a hearty whack across the seat of her frock with it! "Remember this, DI?", he demanded, laughing. She rubbed her rear, and told him, "Of course! And I bet you do!" She turned to her puzzled cousin, and explained, "When we were rather younger, Mom used to use that for spanking us when we were naughty! Then last year, when she said we had outgrown it, she bought a cane, and this got relegated to the attic!"
Muriel had not had any personal experience of corporal punishment, and only heard vague tales from different 'Nannies' of how the lower-class children got beaten when they were naughty. She found the subject raised a mixed feeling in her-a slight terror at the thought of being hurt, but also a strange interest in the thought of being laid bare for such treatment!
Her cousins were nothing loathe to discuss the subject, and for the next half-hour, she heard them recalling the various times when they had this strap applied to them, and more recently, taken turns to bend over the table for a dose of the new cane their mother had bought! No wonder they were not shy of having their lower bodies uncovered in front of each other, and didn't bother to leave the attic to go to the lavatory!
Further discussion was cut short by a bell ringing down below, and they had to go down for their tea. Over the tea-table, Muriel gazed at her Aunt. She was younger than her mother, and a very good-looking woman. Muriel found her eyes wandering to the well formed arms, and capable hands, with vague mental images of those hands baring a person's rear, and displaying a strap, reddening it as the victim wriggled and cried as the children had described these occasions. Again she got this strange thrill of mixed emotions, and moved her thighs on the hard surface of her chair in a vague discomfort.
Tea over, they all went out for a stroll in the spacious grounds around the house. Near to the actual building, these were laid out in very nice gardens at the front and sides, a well-stocked kitchen garden at the back, and then outside the cultivated area at the back, there was a large wood. Muriel realized the reason for the climbing irons, and knew that she was going to have a lot of fun here.
When her Aunt returned to the house, the other two took her to the woods to see a tree-top house they had built. Hanging down from the thick foliage of a large oak-tree, there was a rope ladder. Diana went up first, and Muriel climbed up after her, rather self-consciously aware of Gerald below her, with every opportunity to look up her clothes, and remembering the smart, imagine panties she was wearing!
Arrived at the top of the ladder, she found herself to be on a stoutly constructed platform, lashed into place across the main branches of the old tree.
Two thirds of this were enclosed in a hut built of wood, hard-board, and with a roof of tent canvas. It had a doorway covered by a heavy tarpaulin nailed into place at the top and down one side, and two small windows. Lifting the tarpaulin 'door', Diana led the way into this hut. It was quite large inside, and contained a card-table, several boxes with soft padding nailed onto them as seats, and even an old mattress doubled length wise, and covered with a blanket as a sofa! She was thrilled, and they spent the rest of their time in this hideaway, until the bell was heard again from the house, and they had to go in for supper.
Muriel had been given a single bed in a room she shared with Diana, and they chattered about life as they understood it once they were alone together. Muriel was surprised to find that Diana could put her right, and expand on most of the things she had heard from the other girls at school about sex, and looked on her friend with a new respect. They may be the same age but Diana certainly seemed to know a lot more about life!