In my serial The Governess, teenagers Jacob and Amelia meet their match in the guise of the steely Miss Eversham, who very soon takes control. I was a former Mistress in a mansion in some upper class neighborhood in Saint Petersburg in Russia. Very well educated in art and literature, I used to wear expensive and elegant dresses as well as make-up and jewels. But that's over now. Due to an "accident" in life, I lost everything: my wealth, my social status, my friends and networking, my former university education. Everything!

I got the idea of a secret area from when I used to have stalls, at markets, a man I got to know, showed me how it works. Let me let you into a traders secret. The eldest was first taken to her dressing room and prepared for the rod, and then conveyed to the boudoir by the governess, who at once administered the discipline. The younger one was then prepared and received a wholesome flagellation [on the bare posterior], the delinquents being tightly strapped to an ottoman during the castigation, at the conclusion of which they had to kiss the rod and thank the governess, when they were permitted to retire.

ISOLATION & PROLONGED CONFINEMENT – blindfolded or masked wearing a cage in a cage (in chastity for the uninitiated!) Plenty of time to contemplate the error of your ways. I hear nervous breathing. I have the hook baited, I know it is dangling tantalisingly in her mind. People say I have a nice, soothing, calm voice. I offer her a spanking present, which will be a mystery gift. We discuss our next steps. She leaves, happy and excited. Looking it the add now it’s easy to read between the lines, young mummy’s boy with no girlfriend wanted to live with older experienced woman; I can’t believe I was so naive.

Why? Because I had to become a full time maid, being employed in another mansion now. By chance, if I can say that, it is not in Saint Petersburg but in Yekaterinburg - thus I will not come across the people I knew formerly. But so, I was reeducated to become a real maid.We enter the cafe, “ooops, I forgot to mention to the waitresses that I would not need my red spanking cushion today.” Public humiliation was certainly a theme of the earlier epochs – the pillory was a wooden or metal framework erected on a post, with holes for securing the head and hands. Used from the 1600s to the early 1800s, the pillory was able to humiliate the offender by holding the head in a tight grasp and thus up to the public gaze. Miss Glenwood's face had become as red as fire; her eyes flashed with anger. "You sir, are no gentleman," she hissed, "to force a lady to strip almost naked, like a common trollop! Is humiliation a part of my punishment as well?"

Queen Elizabeth II and Princess Margaret were taught at home by a governess but their children and grandchildren attended school. It would seem that the governess has mostly died out as a profession, yet the image she leaves behind continues to spark interest. I have often wondered why the erstwhile figure of the governess holds such fascination in the present day. Could it be attributed to the way in which the governess has been portrayed in fiction and film - as a stereotype of a generally impoverished woman, neither servant nor family member, yet who constantly emerges as the heroine, often escaping a prim middle-age by marrying the local curate or the master of the house? With the help of an internet search engine, I decided to do some digging. And this is what I found.When she she finished spanking me and left the room, I peeked under my door and made sure she was down the hall before starting my little victory dance. I was quite pleased with myself and my acting skills. I knew that not only did I escape a real belting, but I escaped a real spanking altogether! I also thought that, moving forward…she may go to the belt instead of her sandal and that would be pretty OK with me! I could just act my way through it. I had a get out of jail free card! Whilst the above can certainly spice up a few fantasies, I can find no evidence to indicate that Elizabeth Markham ever existed. The first strike stung like fire and sounded like a canon. Even Sir Richard jumped a little. Caroline jumped a lot and jerked on the desktop. The most unsettling punishment on our list is drawing and quartering, also called dismemberment. In these cases, the victim is tied to four horses that all pull in different directions. Probably the most famous case of its administration ties in all the motifs of our previous punishments. The victim was Tupac Amaru, a rebel leader in Peru, who led indigenous Peruvians against the colonial Spanish.