As her mother tidied away the breakfast things and emptied the plates and cutlery into the dishwasher, Lara Rodrigues packed her books into a leather bag and hoisted it onto her shoulder.
“Oh, mom, I almost forgot. Could you just sign this form please?” The eighteen-year-old flicked her long dark hair out of her eyes and put a small green paper onto the kitchen table. “Here, use this pen.”
“Okay.” Mrs Rodrigues dried her hands on a towel and took the pen her daughter held out for her. “What’s this about, honey?” She asked suspiciously as Lara held the paper firmly on the table with her hand covering most of the writing.
“Nothing, mom. Just something I need you to sign for school. Okay?” Lara snapped tetchily.
“I gathered that, honey, but what exactly is it for?” Mrs Rodrigues knew her daughter well enough to know there was something more to this than Lara was letting on.
“It’s nothing, mom. Just a stupid little disciplinary note. Okay? Come on! I’m late for school.”
“Well, that’s just too bad, honey, because I ain’t signing nothing that I haven’t read.”
Mrs Rodrigues read through the form as quickly as she could while still retaining a good sense of what it was about. It was a standard form but one of the school secretaries had carefully filled in several blanks.
“They want to paddle you,” Mrs Rodrigues summed up curtly. “This form says I’m giving them permission to paddle you, if I sign it, that is.”
“That’s correct. Yes, mom.”
“And you want me to sign this?”
“Yes, mom.”
“Five swats?”
“Yes, mom.”
“For dress code violations? What’s that all about?”
“Well, first they didn’t like me wearing shorts with nothing except my panties underneath. Then I wore flesh coloured pantyhose underneath some other shorts and that still wasn’t good enough. They said they had to be black pantyhose.”
“Like you’re wearing now?”
“Yes, mom.”
They both looked down at Lara’s cut down blue jeans worn over black pantyhose stretched tight by the eighteen-year-old’s shapely legs.
“And that’s acceptable dress, is it?”
“Guess so.”
“With two dress code violations hanging over you, didn’t occur to you to maybe wear something like normal jeans or trousers? Maybe even a dress or skirt?”
“Mom, are you kidding?”
“Well, maybe that was a little too much to hope for but I’m not happy about signing this note, honey. Your daddy never did believe in physical punishment, when he was around, that is, and I’ve always been reluctant.”
“Oh, mom! If I don’t take the swats it means I’ll have to serve all day in Saturday detention class. I’ve got things to do this weekend. We all have.”
“All?”
“Er, yes.” Lara regretted instantly letting slip she wasn’t alone in having problems with the school. “Amy Marshall and Tonia Carlson are pretty much in the same boat. Well, they’re in exactly the same boat, pretty much, actually.”
“So, this little plan to take your swats and have a weekend free is something the three of you have got together on, is it?”
“Does it matter? What difference does it make?”
“Not a lot, I guess. But I’m still not happy about letting you take swats, honey.”
“Aw mom! That’s not fair!”
“When are you due to take them?”
“Three o’clock this afternoon.” Lara looked pleadingly at her mother.
“Okay. You better get off to school. I’ll have a think about it and if I agree I’ll stop by and deliver this form. Okay?”
“I guess it’ll have to be. I’m running real late.”
At two forty-five that afternoon, the bell rang to signal the start of the mid-afternoon break that, for most at Caredo High, would last exactly half an hour before that same bell would send them to their final classes of the day.
Lara Rodrigues collected her books together and waited for Amy Marshall and Tonia Carlson to do the same.
“Are you coming along to the office with us?” Amy asked, as much intent on checking the back pockets of her jeans to make sure they were empty as she was about keeping her books tidy. Amy, petite and slender with short mousey-coloured brown hair, looked up at the taller Lara.
Lara shrugged. “I guess so. Maybe my mom has relented and signed the form after all.”
“Who are you kidding? If she didn’t sign the form with you encouraging her, she sure ain’t going to reckon much to her darling little girl getting her botty walloped all on her own now, is she?” Tonia, blonde with drop-dead gorgeous looks and curvaceous figure, had clear Scandinavian ancestry.
“Aw, you never know.” Lara followed Tonia out of the door, leaving Amy to follow. “Anyways, I’ll enjoy hearing your screams as you get your fat ass paddled.”
“I’ve never had any complaints from the boys about my ass, thank you,” Tonia joined in the good humour despite the circumstances and rubbed her right hand around the seat of her white trousers to emphasise her good figure.
“I guess Mr Hogarth won’t be complaining either!” Amy added.
They soon reached the school secretaries’ station, a semi-circular counter that enclosed six work stations of which four were occupied.
“We’re due to see Mr Hogarth?” Tonia Carlson enquired of a woman with a kindly face and generously proportioned figure who happened to be free. “Tonia Carlson, Lara Rodrigues and Amy Marshall.”
Mrs Wilson, the secretary, tapped away at her computer until the information she needed appeared on her screen. After reading the details, she looked anxiously at the three girls.
“Well, Tonia. You and Amy can go wait outside Mr Hogarth’s office and good luck.”
Amy and Tonia gave Lara sympathetic looks. “Sorry, girl. Looks like that’s your Saturday accounted for,” Tonia added.
“Not so fast, girls,” Mrs Wilson interrupted. “Lara, you need to go wait outside Mr Lawson’s door. Looks like he wants to see you.”
“Mr Lawson? Are you sure?” Lara tried to lean over the counter far enough so she could check Mrs Wilson’s computer screen for herself. All the girls knew Vice Principal Hogarth dealt with matters of discipline, Principal Lawson having delegated such tasks long ago.
“That’s what it says, honey.” Mrs Wilson twisted her screen round slightly so Lara could see without straining.
“What did you do to become so famous?” Tonia asked as they went along the corridor to where the offices of the main school administrators were located. Mr Lawson’s office was right next door to Mr Hogarth’s, so they were able to keep together.
“No good asking me.”
“Perhaps your mom did agree after all.” Amy suggested. “Perhaps she really got to like the idea and perhaps she knows Mr Lawson uses an extra large paddle.”
“That’s crazy!” Lara retorted, before adding doubtfully, “He doesn’t, does he?”
“Why are we clowning around like this?” Tonia asked as they found several seats free, halfway between the doors of the Principal’s and Vice Principal’s offices. “Just when we’re about to get our asses whacked until they’re black and blue.”
“Gee thanks, Tonia.” Amy responded. “You really know how to steady a girl’s nerves, don’t you just?”
“It’s all right for you two,” Lara retorted. “I still don’t even know if I am going to get my ass paddled!”
“Is that actually better?” Amy asked thoughtfully. “I mean, is it better to know you’re going to be spanked than to not know what they’re going to do to you?”
Before anyone could answer, the door to Mr Hogarth’s office opened and an attractive dark-haired woman in her early forties stuck her head round the open door.
“Miss Carlson? We’re ready for you.”
Tonia breathed in and sprang to her feet. “Wish me luck!”
As the door closed behind Tonia, the remaining two girls seated in the corridor also started breathing more heavily as they listened to muffled conversation involving, in the main, a goodly number of gruff male words and, intermittently, the odd softly spoken word from Tonia.
“Any moment now.” Amy warned.
“Are you some kind of expert?” Lara asked irritably.
“No.” Amy sounded surprised at the tone of Lara’s voice.
“Have you actually been paddled before, Amy?”
“Er, no. No, this is a whole new experience for me too.”
“Has Tonia?”
“In the seventh grade, so she claims.”
A loud bang from inside Mr Hogarth’s office was followed by a distinct grunt.
“Here we go,” Amy announced needlessly.
A second loud bang preceded a shrill cry.
Third and fourth bangs were followed by deathly silence.
The fifth and final bang brought another shrill cry, somewhat louder than the one produced by the second swat.
“That’s it. That was the fifth.” Amy stated. “Oh God!”
Much too soon for the petite girl with the mousey brown hair, the door to Mr Hogarth’s office sprang open and a sullen faced Tonia emerged, one hand gently rubbing the seat of her white trousers. Amy immediately jumped to her feet.
“Would you give us a couple of minutes please, Miss Marshall?” The secretary, Mrs Padolski, asked.
Amy chose not to sit down again, leaving Tonia to take her chair next to Lara.
“Bad?” Lara asked, looking at her blonde-haired friend through screwed up eyes.
“I’ll live,” Tonia replied and fidgeted on the chair before adding, “Sleeping face down might be a good option tonight though.”
“Oh Jesus!” Amy exclaimed. “This is going to really hurt!”
“Miss Marshall?”
In her anguish, the small short-haired girl hadn’t heard the door being quietly opened behind her.
“Oooh!” Amy squealed before turning and facing the waiting school secretary. As Mrs Podolski stood to one side for her, Amy entered the room with both hands clasped defensively behind her back.
“No sign of Mr Lawson?” Tonia asked, seemingly oblivious to the muffled conversation being played out inside the office between Mr Hogarth and Amy.
“Nope.” Lara shook her head.
“Maybe your mom has asked Mr Lawson to paddle you instead of Mr Hogarth,” Tonia suggested. “Maybe she just wants to make sure it’s done right.”
“Could be,” Lara answered, finding it hard to concentrate on all the possibilities that could have materialised following her mother’s refusal to sign her consent form that morning. “Could be anything.”
A loud bang was swiftly followed by a tortured squeal from within Mr Hogarth’s office.
The two girls outside sat in silence.
A second bang and another anguished cry failed to stir them.
The third bang produced an even louder shriek.
“He seems to like keeping to a steady pace,” Lara commented idly.
“Don’t he just. At least you’re not kept waiting and wondering when the next one’s coming though.”
“No,” Lara acknowledged after a fourth bang brought another frenzied howl. “No, there is that.”
After a few words that emanated from Hr Hogarth’s voice, although the walls prevented the two girls outside the office from hearing exactly what was said, another loud bang was followed by the loudest shriek from Amy.
“Guess that’s her done,” Tonia said, looking at the door. “I suppose there’ll be floods of tears.”
“Yep.” Lara agreed.
After a few moments the door opened and their thoughts were confirmed as Amy emerged with a face that was positively wet with salty tears and both hands clasped to the seat of her jeans.
“Oh God! Oh God!” Amy gasped. “My butt is on fire!”
“Take a few deep breaths,” Tonia suggested. “It’ll quieten down soon enough.”
“I’m never going to be able to sit down ever again,” Amy announced with some conviction.
“Aw, I’m sure you’ll manage it somehow,” Tonia said calmly.
“Amy! You’ve only been spanked, for Heavens’ sakes!” Lara added tetchily, more through fear than real hostility.
“That’s easy for you to…”
Amy was interrupted by the door to Mr Hogarth’s office opening and Mrs Podolski coming out. Instead of returning to the secretaries’ station she turned the other way and went into Mr Lawson’s office, pausing only to announce her pending arrival with a gentle tap on the door.
“No prizes for guessing why she’s going in there,” Lara said, feeling suddenly quite fearful.
“I guess not,” Tonia confirmed. “Looks like you’re getting paddled after all.”
“Maybe,” Lara replied. “But why didn’t Mr Hogarth do me too? It doesn’t make sense.”
“Perhaps,” Amy began, but with her mind more preoccupied with her own sore backside, she could only finish with, “Oh, I don’t know.”
It didn’t take long for the door to open again and for Mrs Podolski to peer round the opening.
“Miss Rodrigues? We’re ready for you now.”
Lara screwed her face up in horror.
“It kind of looks like you’re getting paddled after all,” Tonia looked up at the waiting school secretary but gained no information from the dark haired woman’s expressionless face.
“Yes,” Lara acknowledged. “Look, you don’t need to wait for me. I’ll meet you in the rest room on E wing.”
“It’s no problem. We’ll wait,” Tonia replied, her faint smile verifying her awareness that Lara would have preferred them not to hear her paddling. “It’s okay to squeal.”
“Yes, that’s right.” Amy confirmed.
Lara would have liked to argue the point but, with Mrs Podolski waiting in the doorway, there didn’t seem the time. She stood up and went towards the open door, feeling awkward on legs that suddenly felt shaky and unsupportive.
As the door closed behind her, Lara looked quickly around the room and was surprised to see her mother sitting in front of Mr Lawson’s large whitewood desk.
“Mom? What are you doing here?”
Mrs Rodrigues touched her daughter’s arm reassuringly as Lara stood next to her.
“Lara, your mom came to see me because, as I believe you know, she wasn’t too happy about signing the consent form for you,” Mr Lawson, a tall willowy man with pure white hair, sat bolt upright behind his desk. “Well, we’ve had a good talk over the problem and we believe we’ve arrived at a compromise.”
“Okay.” Lara’s voice reflected her doubts as she looked up towards the ceiling and tried to anticipate what that might mean.
“Here’s the deal, Lara,” the school principal continued in a steady plodding tone. “You need to take five swats to avoid spending next Saturday in detention.”
“Yes, sir.”
“For whatever reason, your mom isn’t willing to sign a consent form to allow us to administer a spanking to you.”
“No?”
“So the simplest solution is to allow your mom to apply the five swats herself. Mrs Podolski and myself will remain in the room to act as witnesses and to ensure the punishment is appropriate.”
“Appropriate?”
“You have to take a fair spanking, Lara,” Mr Lawson explained. “Mrs Podolski and I need to be satisfied that the spanking your mother gives you is equivalent to the kind the school would administer. It’s only fair on every other student who elects to take the paddle over detention.”
Lara took a few moments to mull over the Principal’s words.
“You mean it has to hurt the same, sir?”
The Principal took a deep breath. “I guess so, if you care to look at it that way.”
Lara nodded pensively. Of course, they wouldn’t accept a spanking that was soft, not that she was at all certain her mother had any intention of being overly gentle.
“Is that okay, honey?” Mrs Rodrigues looked up at her daughter.
p>“Well, I guess.” Lara didn’t try to hide the doubt in her voice. Her mind was still struggling to come to terms with the proposition. “I mean, of course I can see that. That’s fair enough, I guess,” Lara conceded, still not at all sure how she felt about her own mother administering a spanking to her, something that had never ever happened before.“Then perhaps we should get to it?” Mr Lawson expressed it like it was a question, but Lara and her mother both knew that wasn’t the way he meant it.
Mrs Rodrigues stood up and Lara looked around furtively for the paddle, thinking that a sight of the implement might help to calm the fears her imagination had provoked. There was no sign of it.
“You’ll have to help me, Mr Lawson.” Mrs Rodrigues’ voice faltered and she swallowed hard. “This is a whole new idea to me.
“I understand perfectly, Mrs Rodrigues.” The Principal’s voice was in contrast quite calm and reassuring. “Mrs Podolski, why don’t you grab that chair by the wall and put it out here in the centre of the room? You know how we need it.” Mr Lawson smiled at the school secretary, as though they shared some little secret piece of information.
Everyone watched in silence as the woman fetched a small office chair from behind the door and brought it out into a clear area of floor to the side of the large desk where Mr Lawson still sat. Significantly, at least to Lara, the back faced towards them.
“Lara, why don’t you go stand behind that chair and bend over the back?” The Principal managed to sound calmly reassuring still, in distinct contrast to how Lara was feeling. “Make sure your back pockets are empty. You can leave anything you find on my desk.”
“Yes, sir.” Lara slipped her hands inside her back pockets, but found nothing. “They’re empty, sir.”
Mr Lawson smiled.
Any doubt Lara had that she would avoid being paddled had gone. Her fate was sealed. She still wasn’t sure how she felt about being spanked by her mother. For reasons she didn’t fully understand, she might have preferred Mr Lawson to paddle her, and paddle her without her mother being present. Even better, taking her place along with her two friends and taking her turn to be paddled by Mr Hogarth would have been her preference, only her friends had been spanked very firmly. Maybe her mother might be a little more gentle with her. Maybe.
After taking a deep breath, Lara passed in front of her mother and Mrs Podolski and managed to avoid looking either of them in the eye, even though both women were staring intently at her. The chair, with a wood frame, low arms and thinly upholstered seat and backrest in bland blue-grey durable cloth, was hardly inviting to the eighteen-year-old, but she bent over the back with ease and placed her elbows and forearms on the seat.
“You might want to stick your butt out a little, Lara.” Mr Lawson stood up and pushed his own chair back.
Lara didn’t want to do any such thing. The idea of giving her mother a better target to aim at seemed totally against her instincts. Nonetheless, obedience seemed to be a good policy right now. She was going to get five swats with a paddle and she wanted, even needed, all five to count. The very last thing she intended was for a swat not to count and have to be redone. She could hear someone, presumably Mr Lawson, fiddling around in a drawer in a cupboard by the window and she looked round from her bending position.
“This is what you’ll be needing, Mrs Rodrigues.”
Lara finally saw the paddle, a flat piece of pale wood no more than half an inch thick with a blade around fourteen inches long and a round black handle perhaps six inches long, being handed to her mother by Mr Lawson. The Principal treated the implement with some deference as he offered it over, whereas Mrs Rodrigues took it warily, like she was expecting it to burn her hands.
“That’s it, is it?” Mrs Rodrigues asked after closely examining the implement.
“That’s it,” Mr Lawson answered with a shy grin.
“It’s not as heavy as I was expecting.”
“Oh, don’t you worry, Mrs Rodrigues. That’ll do the job nicely.”
Now it was Mrs Rodrigues’ turn to grin shyly as she patted the blade of the paddle against the palm of her left hand. “Okay. Well, I suppose I’d better…”
Lara’s mother didn’t complete the sentence, but Mr Lawson knew what she meant and nodded his agreement. As Mrs Rodrigues turned towards the chair over which her daughter remained bending, she seemed surprised to see Lara watching her every move with large terrified eyes.
“Don’t worry, honey. We’ll soon get this over with.”
If that was meant to reassure her daughter, Mrs Rodrigues failed. As her mother approached, Lara turned her head to the front and looked down at the carpeted floor, her whole body noticeably stiffening.
“Uh!” The scared little cry came as soon as Mrs Rodrigues touched the seat of Lara’s cut down jeans. When she felt the paddle being rubbed in a circular motion over the seat of her improvised shorts, Lara closed her eyes and braced herself.
Grim-faced with concentration, Lara’s mother pulled back the paddle and swung it down in a wide powerful arc that landed on her daughter’s backside with a loud bang.
“Uuh!!” Even though she knew it was coming, the force of the stroke still caught Lara by surprise and the pain rapidly spread across her whole bottom with an intensity that was just as startling.
Still blinking to try and suppress the tears forming in her eyes, Lara felt the paddle again being rubbed on her bottom and she steeled herself for a second time.
Slowly and with firm determination, Mrs Rodrigues brought the paddle back, well back over her right shoulder, then swung it swiftly down until it impacted Lara’s bottom with another loud bang.
“Sssshhhhhooooo!!” Lara expelled all the breath from her lungs as the burning pain scorched her jean-clad backside with even more ferocity.
There was a temptation for Lara to call over her shoulder for her mother to take it a little easier, but would Mr Lawson then say the spank wasn’t hard enough and call for it to be repeated? She certainly didn’t want that.
Sensing her mother rubbing the paddle against her bottom in a sideways motion, Lara decided it was better to brace herself and consider her options after the third dose of the paddle.
It came very quickly, sending another searing measure of pain across the lower portion of her bottom.
“Yeeeow!!”
“How am I doing, Mr Lawson?” Lara heard her mother asking the opinion of the Principal, yet felt she was in a far better position to offer an authoritative guide.
“Fine, Mrs Rodrigues. You’re doing just fine.”
‘Well, that’s okay then!’ Lara silently gave her opinion to no-one but herself.
More importantly, the fourth stroke was already being measured up with a sideways rubbing of her bottom, and Lara sensed her fingertips digging into the sides of the chair.
“Wwooooww!!” With a crack that reverberated round the room, yet another burning agony scorched the eighteen-year-old’s backside and sent tears trickling down the sides of her face. She sniffed back the salty moisture noisily.
“Guess this is the last one, honey,” Lara heard her mother’s voice and wondered whether she hadn’t detected a sense of regret.
‘Great! You can count.’ Lara kept the sarcasm to herself. This was definitely no time to be disrespectful and risk incurring additional penalties, or strokes!
“Yeeouuch!!”
The surprise, for there was no rubbing of the paddle against her bottom this time, as much as the intense pain brought fresh tears and a fresh dose of searing, burning pain to Lara’s sore backside.
Something, whatever, kept the eighteen-year-old in her bending position until her mother uttered the words: “Okay, honey, guess you can get up now.”
Slowly Lara eased herself up straight again and in that moment both mother and daughter knew there would be a different, more respectful, relationship between them that had never existed before.
Lara half turned, expecting to see Mr Lawson and Mrs Podolski looking at her with some kind of delight on their faces, pleased that yet another recalcitrant girl had got her just deserts, but they weren’t smiling, weren’t laughing at her expense. If anything, they too appeared aware of a change in the mother/daughter relationship that had just transpired.
“I trust everyone is satisfied.” Mrs Rodrigues handed the paddle back to the Principal.
“You bet, Mrs Rodrigues.” Mr Lawson accepted the paddle back. “Lara, that was a mighty good paddling you took there. Harder than I’d have done it, to tell the truth.”
“Yes, sir.” Lara accepted what she believed to be a compliment. “Thank you, sir.”
“Let’s get going, honey.” Mrs Rodrigues steered her daughter towards the door. “I believe we’re all done here.”
Mrs Podolski held the door open for Lara and her mother. “Well done, girl.”
“Thank you.” Mrs Rodrigues and Lara answered together.
The End
© Kenny Walters 2011