Free Rectory of Correction by Amanita Virosa

led Bella past them and a suppressed surge of fury took over Amelia’s proud soul.
    Why should she be humiliated like this? Why should that little blonde slut Clara, who was younger than Amelia by almost a year, get to sit in comfort and laugh at her as she stumbled past? Tears of frustrated anger misted Amelia’s eyes.
    â€˜Come on, Amelia, pick those legs up, you old slowcoach!’
    Jamie’s amused comment as Amelia pounded up the drive towards her relatives made her want to weep. Cousin Clara could not disguise an amused smile. Lady Alicia let out a peal of laughter and Lord Alex clapped languidly as she laboured past the party. Desperate to get out of sight of the grinning foursome, Amelia put down her head, ignored her aching legs and ran.
    Kirsty was fit, but she was somewhat shorter than Amelia, whose long legs soon ate up the gap between them. Amelia overtook her even before the course wound down the rise that was known as Holly Hill.
    To Amelia’s distress, Rose turned at the bottom and ran along the edge of the lake, back across the front of the house and in full view of the watching company. There was nothing she could do about this, but she thanked God that, this time, the audience would be a good deal further away. Amelia ran as fast as she could along the lakeshore, desperate to get out of sight of her tormentors. So fast did she run that by the time the course wound back up into the woods and out of sight of the house, she had almost caught up with Bella and Rose.
    The effort caught up with her as she pounded after their backs. Her lungs were bursting now and her thigh muscles shrieking their distress. Amelia gasped and slowed a little, thankful that Gretchen had delayed the Reverend way back along the course. Then she raised her head to follow Rose’s route. What she saw made her knees go weak.
    The Reverend Dawes was standing by the side of the path, leaning casually against a tree and looking perfectly collected. With horror, Amelia realised he must have cut across the route of the run to intercept them. As Rose and Bella ran past him he swung his arm almost lazily and laid a stroke of his crop across the tight seat of Bella’s shorts.
    Amelia’s stomach contracted at the sound of the impact. Bella stumbled and gave a little gasp of pain, then she was running even faster, away into the woods. Now there was no one between Amelia and the smiling Reverend Dawes. She put her head down and tried to ignore him, running as fast as her aching legs and laboured breathing would allow.
    â€˜Come on, Amelia, buck up. You can do better than that!’ the Reverend called out to her as she drew near. As she drew level, she saw him smile and raise the crop.
    The stroke caught her right across the centre of her bottom. The pain was so intense that Amelia closed her eyes for a second, and narrowly avoided colliding with a tree. A strange, agonised hiss came out of her lips, but as the pain subsided she congratulated herself that at least she had got past the waiting Dawes.
    She heard his step and the whistle of the crop a split second before pain shot through the top of her right thigh.
    â€˜I said buck up! Come on, girl, pick those legs up now!’
    There was another whistle and another excruciating crack. Amelia could not stop herself from sobbing as she ran. He kept pace with almost contemptuous ease, raining blistering crop strokes down on her bottom and thighs. She was running as fast as she could manage, but still he whipped her mercilessly on down the little woodland path. Yelping with pain, tears streaming down her face, Amelia stumbled on blindly, anxious to get away from the wicked crop.
    So desperate was she, so intensely did her hindquarters burn and her legs ache, that she was not even aware, for the first few seconds, that the punishing rain of crop strokes and the Reverend’s exhortations had ceased. Still she dared not look around in case he was keeping pace behind