Tammy, Charlotte Coleman and Anne Shelley were all around the kitchen table when Hilary walked in. The red-haired senior, Charlotte, shifted awkwardly in her seat, visibly wincing. Hilary remembered that Charlotte had had a tutorial that day and she knew damn well the girl had not finished her paper.
The well-groomed Anne was rather more sensible, although the pink fluffy slippers belied that and clashed with her raven hair. She didn’t look up until Tammy rather too enthusiastically said, “Hi Hilary.”
The girl’s mood did not fit Hilary’s just then.
“Hello,” Hilary replied dejectedly.
Anne was already regarding Hilary with a quizzical look, having picked up on Hilary’s vibe, but now Charlotte too cast a glance in her direction.
“What’s up?” she said.
Hilary drew in a large slow breath and then let it out as a heavy sigh. Then she crossed the room defiantly and slapped Harmon’s note on the cork board and pinned it there with an angry flourish as if to say ‘there, have a good laugh.’ Then she crossed her arms and stood there rocking back and forth with her lips pursed to await a reaction.
“What’s this?” Anne frowned.
Charlotte seemed to forget her own woes and strained to read the note without getting up from the table. But it wasn’t until Tammy bounded over and read it aloud that they got the full picture.
“Oh-my-God,” Tammy said with slow shocked deliberation. All expression drained from her face and she went limp with her hands dangling at her sides.
Charlotte got painfully to her feet with another wince and came and read the notice for herself as if not quite trusting the news from the ever-ebullient and rather flakey Tammy. Her lips moved silently as she read, realisation growing on her face.
Anne was more direct and after a moment stood up brusquely and grabbed the note by one corner and read it quickly without pulling it off.
“Is this to do with that Spanish history thing?” Tammy asked in a tone that suggested she was still more shocked than amused.
Hilary nodded and thought she might cry.
“Oh Hilary, this is dreadful,” Anne said, her voice strained with concern.
“It’s the first debagging of the semester isn’t it?” Charlotte said as if it were a random piece of news. But the word was out of her mouth and it seemed to Hilary like an undeniable pronouncement of doom. It made it seem real somehow.
“I guess you won’t be going onto campus tonight,” Tammy said mildly as she recovered from the shock.
Hilary looked up at the clock. It had gone quarter to six and she swallowed down some despair. Anne followed her gaze and offered Hilary a sympathetic face.
“Oh I don’t know,” Charlotte said in a dismissive voice, “You could always brazen it out like Susie Morgenstern.”
During Halloween of the previous year Susie had been debagged but had chosen to don nothing below the waist but a tutu and walk theatrically around campus thrusting her stripes at anyone who showed an interest. The woman had been in campus theatre, but even so Hilary wondered if it had all been a defensive stratagem. Hilary had seen Susie on the stairs when she thought no one was looking; she had paused before the doors to the lower concourse and fanned her face with her hand as if steeling herself before a performance. She had looked cute in a tutu though and Hilary would love to carry something like that off.
“What are you going to wear?” Anne asked softly, “I mean, what is your…? I don’t know. I’m sorry Hilary. This is a tough break.”
“You kind of deserve it though, don’t you?” Tammy said brightly as if she thought the suggestion might help.
In funny kind of way it sort of did, but all the same, Hilary chose that moment to burst into tears.
*
That evening Hilary mostly stayed in her room. There was no way that she would go back onto campus for the evening meal. Instead after six she had laid out a range of clothes and tried them on one by one to gauge which was the least revealing while meeting the requirements of a debagging.
She could probably have gotten away with not complying while still in the house, but John might ask her directly and he would see through a lie immediately. Also someone else might let it slip and she didn’t really know all the girls in the house well enough. Besides it was good practice for facing the world the next day.
Her best option was a short dark blue woollen number that could be tweaked up at the back, but then Anne, who had come to support Hilary, pointed out that debagging required that everything in back be no more than three inches below the waist. So while the blue dress would work, it would have to be clearly hiked up in back and draw more attention than was perhaps strictly necessary.
That was going to be true of almost all of her skirts and dresses and Hilary dropped into the chair by the bed in despair. There is no way out of this is there? The thought was a crushing hard reality.
Anne frowned and crinkled up her nose in deep pondering. Then she said, “I have a long bum-freezer wrap around sweater. With a few small adjustments it might just serve. From the front and pretty much the sides too it looks like a frock-style affair, very chic, but the hem rises naturally in back almost as far as the waist. You’re supposed to wear it with a midi or pants, but…”
Hilary seized her hand in gratitude and forced a smile.
“That will do for a day or two but what if… what if…?” she was close to a fresh outburst of tears now.
“Hey, let’s cross that bridge later…” Anne shushed her soothingly, “I also have a big leather full-length coat. You could wear most anything under that above the waist and then we could just button or pin it back like a curtain behind. You know as debagging goes we have a lot of scope. At least you haven’t been told to wear a fire-warden tabard.”
Hilary remembered Candy Chandler and after a moment she cracked a smile until Anne laughed too.
“See it could be so much worse,” Anne said encouragingly. “Come on let’s go to my room and look what else I have. If worse comes to worse you could borrow a pair of Tammy’s shorts. She wears them so brief in the summer that no one would know if she even got debagged.”
Hilary giggled at that image too and wished she really could get off that easily, but nevertheless paused at her bedroom door before she faced the world. Then with a shrug she pulled off her robe and followed Anne in just a skimpy hipster shirt and her socks. One of the girls gave her a wolf-whistle and Hilary did a little shimmy out of bravado.
*
Hilary had opted for the bum-freezer for her meeting with John Harmon. The coat was a good call also, as were a couple of the other options, but the thick-collared woollen wrap-around sweater best met the letter of a debagging and she didn’t want take the slightest chance of having her punishment upgraded for evasion.
Nine-thirty was a late start, but then John wasn’t an early riser if he didn’t need to be. The trouble was the rest of the campus started to come alive after eight, so as Hilary made her way through the trees along the path she felt acutely exposed.
The bum-freezer was aptly named as the cool October morning was more than evident on her behind and the flesh on her curves tightened with goosebumps.
There had been some derisive humour over coffee that morning and two of the girls hadn’t even heard. But it had been largely good-natured, as Hilary expected would be the rest of the college’s reaction, but she had blushed all the same and had done her best to keep her behind backed to the wall wherever possible. But now it was time to face the world in earnest. Hey-ho, campus here I come, she thought.
Hilary had opted for leaving early. She figured that if she could get to the history faculty building where John’s study was before the campus became too busy, then she could hide in a bathroom or sit down somewhere with her tail end neatly tucked from sight.
Part of her hoped that John would bawl her out and then after a suitable paddy-whacking would relent about the debagging having given her a fright and put her in her place. It wasn’t an entirely unrealistic ambition, she had heard about and seen girls ducking down corridors with their hind-ends exposed having only come on to campus for a sound spanking. Skipping a lecture or two during a two or three day debag was manageable. However, given that Hilary’s crime was skipping lectures, she dared not even contemplate that strategy. Her only hope was that John would punish her and let her go home before letting it drop.
Hilary reached a branch in the path just as three women came from one of the other houses. They were giggling among themselves but didn’t give Hilary a second glance. Hilary felt her heart pounding in her chest and hung back to let them get ahead. Then quickly looking behind she saw no one, so after a moment picked up the pace towards the history building.
Her normal route took right across the main thoroughfare passed the refectory and common areas, but today Hilary opted for another route through the trees that skirted the service road to the faculty buildings.
Her only concern was that someone would drive by or come up behind her, the greatest danger being from someone on a bike who would come along fast and relatively quietly. But it was just possible that in a hurry someone would just think she was wearing pink pants.
Then she remembered meal times. Up to now she had had no appetite and a small snack prepared by Anne had sustained her. But cooking facilities in the block houses were limited and almost all students had to eat in the refectory. The option to go off campus either to buy food or to eat was closed to her so if she got debagged for a week, as was likely, then all her evasive tactics was just delaying the inevitable.
“Oh shoot,” she cursed. You idiot, you absolute idiot; this was going to be bad.
Just then a car went by and she swung around to present her back to the trees. As she did this a bike did come up the path at a lick. It was ridden by a girl with wild blonde hair who looked as if she might be late for something. Neither, as far as Hilary could tell, noticed a thing.
Up ahead the red-brick faculty building suddenly looked exposed being at least 50 yards from the nearest stand of trees and already she could see people coming and going through the side entrance she had hoped would be quiet.
It was 8.55, her circuitous walk had taken longer than she had supposed. Still she was early.
A man making a delivery pulled up in a van as she reached the side entrance. As it was she had walked briskly across the open area and then had kept her back half turned to the side wall as she headed for the door. He smiled broadly at her and winked as he got out with a stack of boxes in his arms. Hilary froze.
“Hey ma’am, can you get the door?” he puffed in her direction.
Hilary gave him a fixed smile and grappled for the door sideways on. It was a narrow escape. At least on the central campus she wouldn’t encounter outside males and very few men at all, she pondered as she watched the man go about his business oblivious to her exposed state. Then he too was gone.
Inside there were people about but they were all off to the side or had just passed. Only someone directly behind her would see her bare bottom and know she had been debagged. So as it was she reached the back stairs without a hitch.
Halfway up Hilary passed one of the teaching staff she vaguely recognised. She was a woman in her 30s with dark horn-rimmed specs and a tweed skirt suit. She smiled in acknowledgement but went on past. Again Hilary did the half turn thing and went on up confident that the woman had seen nothing.
“Oh my, someone has been a bad girl,” said a female voice from behind that made Hilary start.
A middle-aged woman with a blue rinse who Hilary knew worked in admin had seen her naked tail side-on from the top step as she came through the fire doors. Hilary blushed and tugged self-consciously at her sweater.
“I studied at community college myself,” the woman said with a twinkle and a hint of southern drawl, “I missed out on all this fun.” Then she winked and went about her business without further comment.
That wasn’t too bad, Hilary reassured herself and hurried on. But her ears and face were furiously burning. She went so fast that she almost broke into a run all the way to her hoped for haven and reached it without further incident. Thankful there was no one in the student’s bathroom and Hilary found a stall to sit in to wait for her appointment.
*
Hilary knocked on the door and then bounced up and down impatiently praying that John wasn’t late. She shot a glance up and down the corridor willing that no one would come. Then finally the door opened.
Professor Harmon looked her up and down suspiciously, his eyes glancing at her middle. He looked as if he was about to say something and leaned sideways a bit. He must have glimpsed her bare bottom in profile because he relaxed and ushered her in. For a dreadful moment he had feared that Hilary had taken advantage of their friendship and had defied him. But for her part, from his reaction, Hilary gathered that her outfit was well chosen from most angles. Thank you Anne, she prayed silently.
“Miss Cline, so nice of you to be on time for once, I see you got my note,” John said pointedly.
“Yes Sir,” Hilary blushed.
“Tell me Miss Cline, have I made my point?” he sighed.
Hilary couldn’t answer and just got redder in the face.
“I mean if you can look me in the eye and tell me that I have overreacted then I will go easy on you,” John continued.
Hilary opened her mouth to speak and then closed it again. What could she say?
“No really, I mean it,” he said in a tired voice. “You are only the second student in 25 years here that I have ever debagged. The other was 18 years ago and the alternative was a full-disciplinary or exclusion. I really do prefer a private afternoon putting a girl straight and it usually works. If you can make a case I’ll just paddle your tail, no doubt with a little caning thrown in, and you can go home and get more appropriately dressed.”
Hilary clamped her chin to her chest and frantically tried to think of an argument that would end this nightmare.
“You see when I said I went to bat for you twice over the Spanish history course I don’t think you understood. I vouched for you as being reliable and keen; twice. I promised, promised a senior colleague that you wouldn’t let us down. I am not just embarrassed, I am not just compromised…” he let out a heavy sigh and rubbed the bridge of his nose. “You have made it more difficult for me to push another student forward in future. You know Professor Martin wanted to give you some demerits and hold you back for a year. All because Professor Lindsay got a bee in her bonnet about making an example of you; you know how she gets.”
Hilary felt sick. He hadn’t until now understood the shit storm she had caused.
“Guess who went to bat for you again to get you clear of Madam Professor Righteous. Although frankly I can’t blame Jim Martin, he has good cause to be pissed at you,” John added.
“Thank you Sir, I’m sorry,” Hilary mumbled. She guessed that John had bought her out of a hole with the debagging option.
“Do you want a week’s suspension?” he asked in a tired voice, “Maybe it will have blown over somewhat by then and I could deal with you properly.”
Hilary thought of Aunt Clarice’s disappointment. Running away would be a kind of betrayal of Clyburn. Besides what if it didn’t blow over? A double debagging would look bad and might even… well it would be a mess whatever happened. So what if a mailman or a guy from maintenance caught an eyeful of her rear end? What was a bit of joshing from the girls? It was part of the Clyburn experience. Better to be a bystander, sure, but given a choice between Clyburn without its traditions or the one she knew and loved… well someone had to take a fall from time to time and what was so special about her. Besides, thinking about it, by Clyburn’s lights, she deserved it. Aunt Clarice would be proud. She felt a cosy tickle down her spine like warm milk and a homely fire at this thought.
“No Sir, I guess I have it coming,” she said in a spirited voice.
“You know you are still on Professor Martin’s course, he practically insisted on it. Not one for giving up on a student is Jim Martin,” John told her, “But you’ll have a devil of a job making the grade and I expect he will make you squirm this week given the situation.”
“If I get less than an A minus from him you can spank me,” Hilary said in bravado.
“Oh Miss Cline, I will,” John growled. “And don’t think he won’t spank you himself for the least thing. When you come to write your autobiography you can call this chapter ‘The Semester of Standing for Supper.’
“Yes Sir,” Hilary grinned sheepishly. It was kind of funny.
“Now let me tell you about this week and how we are going to handle things,” John said darkly. He was using his serious voice again. “In the meantime I suggest you do not miss any lectures, even the optional ones. Do I make myself clear?”
“Yes Sir,” Hilary gulped the implications for her infamy and dignity not lost on her.
“No seriously Hilary, do I? I really resent being forced into this OTT situation and I am determined to make it stick.” John sighed. “The alternatives are too gruesome for either of us to contemplate.”
Hilary sighed. “I know. I’m real sorry Professor Harmon. I guess I’ve got it coming,” she said miserably.
After a bawling out that left her close to tears, Hilary was surprised to be taken over John’s lap for a sound hand-spanking. It not only stung, but it was embarrassing. Under the circumstances, that was still surprising.
After finally setting her on her feet where she stood blushing and gasping for breath John said, “In future, so long as you are debagged I mean, you will report to the faculty office to tell them you have arrived for your tutorial and then you will go to the corner opposite the entrance and face the wall until you are summoned.”
While Hilary gaped at this news, John reached across his desk and picked up a piece of paper.
“I have your schedule here. You will report to me every day, even when you don’t have lectures on campus… well we don’t want you skulking in your room do we? Also unless you are dismissed from here for a lecture or another agreed purpose you will go back to the corner in the faculty office until I ring down to dismiss you.” John told her. “I know other professors use debagging largely for the public shaming aspect, but that is by and by. I believe there is nothing as salutatory as a sore bottom so for the next week or so anyone who does see your bottom will see that it is pretty damn red. I do hope you understand that.”
Hilary nodded and then with a deep breath she acknowledged his words with a curt, “Yes Sir.”
“Today I have one other task for you to get us off to the right start and to put you in the right frame of mind,” he intoned.
Hilary swallowed nervously. She had already realised that an over the knee spanking was way too lenient.
*
Instead of the corner, Hilary was told to go into the ‘beautiful countryside’ and find a suitable tree for switches. She was to cut at least a dozen 18-inch lengths and if she didn’t know which were suitable, she was to go to library and look up how to identify birch, hazel and suchlike for use of correction.
“If you get it wrong, I will send you back out again,” John had told.
Hilary walked dejectedly to the main entrance ignoring the occasionally glance and “Oh-my-goshes.” It was going to be a long week, so she might as well start to get used to it.
She pondered if she should bite the bullet and go to the library or rely on what her Aunt Clarice had taught her. It was worth taking a chance, she decided. If she could help it she wanted to stay as far away from the library as possible this week.
Thankfully the woods began less than 100 yards from the faculty building and apart from one gaping girl on the steps, no one noticed her slip into the trees.
It was peaceful in the woods and one would never have known that the campus was a few steps away. She didn’t have to go far before she saw a thick hazel tree; she recognised it by the small heart-shaped leaves. They were yellowing now and one or two had become brown.
This tree was no use to her, but at least she was confident now she could pick the right one for switches; for she was in doubt that that was what John intended to use them for. A bare bottom switching was its own little piece of hell she had heard. But thankfully it was an experience she had had little familiarity with up until then.
It took her another 10 minutes to find a smaller tree which stood like an over-large bouquet in a clearing. As she stooped to trim some of the straighter withes from the hazel she remembered that she could also have found an apple tree. She would have no difficulty in identifying one by the apples of course and she knew that there were some about. She shrugged. It was too late now and the hazel would probably sting less, she decided on very little data. But Clarice had told her that apple switches were the very worst for switching.
“That is to say the best,” she had said one day with a twinkle in her eye.
Before coming to Clyburn Hilary had always wondered how Clarice knew so much about it. Surely she could not have been spanked that much, Hilary had thought. But after her first semester they had been able to trade stories and up until now Clarice’s always had the edge for drama. So now Hilary felt a kind of pride that she was now the star of one of Clyburn’s oldest traditions. She was finally one up on her aunt. During the walk back she felt a strange sense of achievement.
Then she reached the path and paused. Until then she had been able to brazen it out and hang back or turn her back when she passed someone. But now she was standing in the open with a bundle of hazel twigs in her hands.
Hilary had seen girls gathering them before and everyone knew what they meant. It was a specialty with some of the professors, especially the ladies, but the embarrassed miscreants didn’t usually have their tail’s hanging in the breeze.
She waited for the path ahead to clear and then she all but ran as fast as she deemed appropriate for the faculty building. Nobody saw her and she once inside she sighed with relief.
The she remembered her instructions and her heart sank.
“Oh shoot,” she said in frustration and stamped her foot.
*
It had been embarrassing enough to meekly inform the receptionist at the faculty desk that she was waiting to see Professor Harmon and could she let him know. The woman had frowned in open puzzlement, as students were not usually announced. Then her colleague had whispered something in her ear.
“Oh, you are that girl,” the woman said tartly.
Hilary blushed.
“I’ll be…” she pointed to the corner, realising that the woman and everyone else passing through the office would now know everything.
“Oh I know where you’ll be,” the woman replied with a smirk.
Hilary glowered and then averted her eyes.
Standing in the corner in a public office finally robbed her all of all hope that she wouldn’t be seen. She could only pray that John summoned her quickly. Then she remembered the bundle of switches. Maybe she hoped that, oh God, Clyburn certainly knows how to put a girl in her place she miserably thought.
A door opened and there was palpable atmosphere in the open space behind her and then whoever had come in went about their business leaving Hilary with her nose in the corner and a heroic blush on her face.
It seemed to take forever for the receptionist to tell Hilary ‘to go on up.’ Before then more than a dozen people must have come and gone. Most, if they noticed her at all, did not react. But Hilary counted two gasps, one ‘oh my God,’ and four giggles before the woman called out in a voice that was far too loud for comfort, “Miss Cline, Professor Harmon will see you now.”
It must have been a day for discipline for as Hilary reached the door to John’s office a pretty blonde emerged looking sorry for herself. She was damp-eyed and rubbing her bottom as she came out and when she saw Hilary she hurried away.
Another freshman learning the mysteries of Clyburn, Hilary thought ruefully. She wondered if the girl would ever be initiated into a debagging. Then she shrugged and then knocked on the door.
“Come in,” John said at once.
The paddle was still on the desk and Hilary fancied she could still see smoke issuing from it.
“Miss Carmichael managed a D minus on her second attempt at the same paper. Her spelling is atrocious. You would think being English she would know better,” John said humourlessly.
Hilary acknowledged him with a nervous half smile and proffered the bundle of hazel.
“You know what they are?” his eyes narrowed.
“Hazel I think,” Hilary said meekly. Then she added, in case he meant something else, “Switches, for my… for me.”
“Hazel, yes, did you look it up?”
Hilary shook her head. Then seeing that he was still questioning her with his eyes she added, “My aunt, she… she had some experience.”
“Indeed?”
“She was here a few years back, she is only a little younger than me,” Hilary explained. “My mom’s little sister.”
“Oh yes,” John said brightly, “Clarice Greenburg. I remember her… yes I knew she was your aunt. She has called in to see me once or twice since then.”
He had a faraway look in his eyes and a smile played about his lips.
“I never debagged her, but she did have to cut switches for me more than once. Quite a wilful girl I remember,” John chuckled.
“She never told me it was you…” Hilary gaped. Of course, so much made sense to her now.
Then he stiffened. “Anyway, to business Miss Cline,” he brusquely, “No need to disrobe today eh? Bend over and grab your ankles. We’ll warm you up first.”
Hilary regarded the paddle that had suddenly made an appearance in his hands with some dread.
“Miss Cline,” he said significantly, “If you please.”
The first dozen swats were familiar territory for Hilary. Each splat across her behind extracted a sharp grunt and a shimmy but she held up well. In fact the light burn in her tail brought back some feeling against the slightly numbed chill that had crept up on her due to her exposure. If only that was all she faced, she thought ruefully.
“We have wasted enough time on this today as it is,” John said after a cursory application of the paddle.
“Yes Sir,” Hilary winced.
As she stood up she saw him picking through the pile of switches on his desk.
“This might sting a bit,” the professor said thoughtfully, “I want you to kneel facing backwards in the seat of the chair. This time and bend right over the back with your head towards the floor.”
It was a more awkward and not to say more undignified position than she was used to. The posture had the effect of thrusting her bottom right up. But she was soon to learn the madness of his method.
The first swipe of the hazel switch felt was sharper than the cane, too sharp to bear all at once and she flailed her head and hands and tried to launch herself upwards. But for the assistance of gravity she may well have succeeded, however the extreme posture kept her bottom correctly presented for the second wisp-snick of the thin hazel rod. The third and fourth bits of twig landed in short order, each redoubling the pain of the last until Hilary bucked and bounced as she was being goaded by a cattle prod.
“Hee-ow, professor, it kills, it kills,” she squealed.
“Does it?” he muttered and continued liming her tail.
He didn’t intend to use all the switches she had gathered, not unless she was rebellious. He merely wanted to have a choice and besides the act of collecting so many was a good symbolic gesture of submission for her.
By the time John had used up the first switch to place 30 or 40 light stinging swipes across her bare bottom, Hilary’s bottom was dark red all over with a tight nest of rippled welts. She was also quietly crying, which was a surprise to her if not him. So much so that he decided to let her rest in the corner for a few minutes before he continued to the second and third switch.
“I hope you are learning your lesson Miss Cline,” he said sternly to her as he helped her get to her feet.
“Yes Sir,” she agreed meekly.
His use of the present and on-going tense did not escape her. But nor was she surprised. He hadn’t told he had no use for all of the switches so it was with extreme apprehensive misery that she hobbled to the corner and placed her nose in a well-trained posture.
“It is fortunate that you have no lectures today,” John observed once she was nose-pinned in the corner. “Is there anything else you need to do on campus today?”
“No Sir,” Hilary replied in a sore-filled voice. It had a damp misery addled tone and she sounded a little wan.
No lectures today she thought miserably, but she had two on the next day and one of those was with Professor Martin. Please, please, please let me… she didn’t know what. She just wanted the week to be over, and right then the day or the minute even.
“Well then. Once we have concluded our business here, you can go back to the corner in the faculty office,” he announced.
“Yes Sir,” she said miserably after taking a moment to let his orders sink in.
As ever, corner time seemed to take an age, but this time for once it was too short and she was ordered back into place.
The second set of striping made Hilary yell out this time and she shrieked and babbled apologies by turns until John was ready to take up the third and final switch.
“This is very beneficial don’t you think?” he asked in a neutral voice.
“Yes Sir,” Hilary panted back. Her eyes and nose were in overload producing tears and snot that now drenched her face. She wiped the later with the back of her hand and blinked hard against the searing throb in her bottom.
“Do you think you will skip lectures again?” John asked almost conversationally.
“No Sir, oh no Sir, never,” she promised earnestly.
“Good,” he replied as he struck her across the raw bottom with the last of the switches, “Very good.”
Hilary yelled purposefully now in a vain bid to distract herself from the sting. By then her bottom carried welts like angry worms wrapped around the curves of both her hinds. Each stung and throbbed in a separate punishment for her; dozens and dozens of burning ridges all competing to make her cry.
I’ll be good, really I will, so, so good, she promised the universe in earnest prayers, you can stop now. Then it did.
It took a while for Hilary to notice of course, such was the burning insistence that had become her bottom. For a moment or two she fixed on her ragged breaths in anticipation of another unbearable stroke that would finally send her over the edge. But as ever with such things under the command of a competent but stern master, they stopped just short of what she could cope with.
Her punishment for the moment over, the already tear-drenched Hilary burst into loud cleansing sobs. She lay flopped over the back of the chair strangely enjoying the contrast between the cool rough surface of the chair back on her lower belly and thighs, and the rasping burn in her bottom as it cooled in the seeming chill of the room.
“Miss Cline,” John asked gently, “Are you alright?”
Hilary managed to get her tears under control to reply, “Yes Sir, thank you Sir.”
He mouthed something and extended a hand. She needed his help in getting to her feet.
“Quite a lesson,” he sighed.
“Yes Sir, thank you,” Hilary sniffed.
He nodded.
“No Sir, I mean it. Thank you.” She actually managed a smile even as she winced and did a little shimmy. She was proud of herself that she could resist dancing around the room like a freshman after her first paddling.
He returned a sad smile and nodded again.
“You can use the staff facilities in the hall to clean up,” he said, “But then you know where I want you?”
She nodded ruefully and moved painfully towards the door.
“I will see you again tomorrow morning,” he reminded her.
She looked back and nodded and then she was gone.
To be continued.
