Rosecliff, Episode 008

Scarlet Watts

The girls gone from the study room, Walter turned his gaze on me. “I’m curious, how exactly would you have handled Britney had it been your choice?”

I looked at the now pushed in chair the girl had bent over. In my thoughts the punishment had been completely ineffective. The girl, Britney, would likely have left the room smiling were it not for the back of her skirt being raised. Her embarrassment would have been much more significant had her panties been missing. A little humbling embarrassment was always a good deterrent against future misdeeds, or so my uncle always claimed. I tended to agree. “Bare bottom for certain.”

“How bare?”

I glanced at him with a raised eyebrow.

He said, “Skirt up, panties down, or skirt up, panties off, or skirt and panties off or totally nude. Or some other combination of clothing alteration?”

I hesitated, thinking over the options. My uncle’s version of bare had usually meant naked below the waist and, on a couple of occasions, completely naked. The lack of tears and emotion from Britney tipped the scales in my mind. “Totally nude.”

Walter nodded. “And what implement would you choose?”

It was a less complicated choice. “A wood paddle.”

“We use Lexan.”

I nodded. It was the modern choice. “I’m sure one of those would do fine.”

“We have a fourteen-inch and an eighteen-inch, which one?” he asked.

My thoughts ran toward the eighteen-inch, but I didn’t want to seem too severe. “The fourteen would be good.”

“How many swats?”

I hesitated, too many and he’d think me a monster and too few would show me to be soft. My uncle was good at making the number of swats connect to the behavior being corrected. Fifteen minutes late and there would be fifteen swats, not acting my age and I’d get twice my age. “How old is the girl?”

“Britney Pearce, 24,” He said.

I nodded. Not pushing in one’s chair was certainly akin to not acting one’s age. “48 swats.”

He asked, “Would you send her to corner time in the cafeteria and if so, for how long and in what state of dress?”

The embarrassment would draw out emotion even if nothing else did. “Yes, I’d send her there naked and let her spend the entire meal in the corner as an example to the rest of the students.”

He nodded. “And at what point would you end her punishment and let her dress?”

My uncle’s punishments had usually ended after breakfast the following morning. One time he grounded me an entire week though. That had been embarrassing, not to mention the soreness of my bottom getting spanked every morning of that week. “Five days,” I said, “repeating the spanking and corner time each day with dinner.”

Walter said, “That sounds quite severe for not pushing her chair in.”

I nodded. “Perhaps, but I think she’d learn the lesson. I mean you’d think after four years here she’d know better than to do something like that.”

Walter nodded. “I think a personal demonstration of such a severe discipline might benefit you.”

I stared at him. Did he mean to suggest disciplining me or was the reference to another girl at Institute who was due to receive a more severe punishment? His expression failed to reveal the meaning further.

He walked toward the exit. “We should proceed to the cafeteria.”