by Ashlynn Ally
“And why is that?” the lady—I guess she’s a secretary?—asks, not unkindly but not overly friendly either. With a brisk move of her hand, she reaches out to take the schedule from me.
“I’m just, uhh, a little confused…” I stammer, not wanting to admit I’m actually late.
Her eyes flick to the top of my schedule, and then she eyes me knowingly. “Ahh… Jaden Macklemore. You know, we already had to call your emergency contact and tell him you never showed up today.”
“You did what?” I drop out the words as I feel my blood running a bit cooler than it had been a moment again. For some reason I’m pretty sure the air-conditioning doesn’t have anything to do with it.
“Jaden, that’s how the program works. If you can’t make it, you call. If you don’t call, we call you. Since the number we had down for you was the same as your emergency contact, we ended up getting a hold of him. He seemed pretty concerned about your whereabouts.”
I gush out an indignant sigh. Great, just great. Now I’m probably going to have to deal with Justin’s shit when I get home, and that is after sitting through the rest of these boring classes for the next two hours.
“Well, you can call and tell him I’m here now,” I blurt out rudely. I snatch back my schedule and turn toward the exit.
“You can call yourself,” the secretary quips after me. “There’s a phone open to students right there by the door. Use nine to dial out.”
“Yeah, I’ll pass on that,” I say blusteringly.
Brusquely, I push myself through the door, back into the tepid hallway, and then right back outside again. No use sitting around this shithole until three o’clock for Justin to come pick me up and lecture me again. Skipping school probably warrants a spanking in his little psycho rulebook, and there’s no way I’m handing myself up on a silver platter for that. Though a part of me is curious what it would feel like to be spread across his knee the way he described, the whole idea makes me nervous. I’m not really sure I’m ready for him to subject me to one of his stupid embarrassing punishments ever again.
I have no clue where I’m going, so I just keep walking till I arrive at the beach. I kick off my shoes and park myself in the sand with my feet in the water. I think about ditching out on this whole thing, catching a bus back to Venice and resuming my life as usual, but of course all my clothes and stuff are at Justin’s. All I have is this shitty outfit he bought me yesterday, some old messenger bag, and my loot from the gas station.
Well, I suppose I could sneak back into the house and grab my stuff. Of course, I never was very good at that. Maybe I’ll just hang out here for a while until the whole thing blows over. A couple of skipped classes aren’t worth giving up on the whole deal… not just yet.
It sucks I don’t have my bathing suit, but it’s getting warm enough that if I dive in with my t-shirt on, it’ll be dry soon enough. I ditch the capris on the shore though, since not only do my panties almost pass for a bikini bottom, but my t-shirt covers most of my ass anyway.
I spend the rest of the afternoon at the beach, drinking from a nearby water fountain and polishing off my bag of Reese’s Pieces. Eventually though, when dusk starts to set in, I decide it’s time to head back to Justin’s. Don’t want to miss his eight o’clock curfew after all.
Chapter Nine
When I arrive at the house, the doorknob actually turns in my hand for once, so I don’t have to climb the trellis again. I crack it open slowly and take a peek inside, almost as if I expect Justin to be sitting there in the center of the room waiting for me. But, no, the living room is empty. Maybe this thing isn’t as big of a deal as I thought. I decide to go to the kitchen to find something to eat, and I’m just digging around in the freezer for a Popsicle when Justin walks in from his dining room/office.
“Well, well,” he says, clearly a bit annoyed. “And how was school today, Jaden?”
I don’t take my eyes out of the freezer. I think I spot the end of something red and wrapped in cellophane in the back. “Not sure why you’re asking that, since you already know I didn’t go.”
“Alright, young lady, I’m not sure what you’re trying to pull here, but we’re going to get to the bottom of it—one way or another. I want you upstairs in your room, now.”
His booming voice reverberates all throughout my chest, but I just pretend like it doesn’t faze me as I pull the long cylinder-shaped pop out from the back of the freezer. “And what if I don’t want to be upstairs in my room?” I ask sassily, popping open the wrapper of the Popsicle and pulling out the stick of frozen juice with my teeth.
Justin is quick to stride over to me. With one quick motion, he takes the Popsicle by the stick and removes it from my mouth. At the same time he’s pushing me toward the door by the small of my back with his other hand. “In case you didn’t notice, I wasn’t asking you, I was telling. Now you march yourself up those stairs and into your room before I throw you over my shoulder and carry you, you got that?”
With my back to him, I roll my eyes so high my vision goes blurry, though I make sure my face is placid when I turn back to him. “What about my Popsicle? I’ve been outside all day. I’m dehydrated.”
“And whose fault is that?” Justin barks. “You can have water, no more Popsicles. After I get through with you upstairs, you’ll be eating a proper meal.”
His words sends tingles up and down my spine, and then into the pit of my belly where they sit like a stone. After I get through with you. I almost contemplate walking out the front door, or at least going upstairs to get my stuff first and then going down the trellis again. Only curiosity gets the better of me. What does Justin have cooked up for me this time? Is he planning on spanking me? No, he can’t—that must have just been a joke. Yet I thought the same thing about the soap, and I got that. Well, I guess there’s only one way to find out.
After slamming myself into Jessica’s old bedroom, I toss my bag to the floor and throw myself face up across the bed, staring at the ceiling. God, how long is he going to make me wait? The anticipation is killing me! Okay, so it’s only been about twenty seconds, but what is he doing down there anyway? I’m beginning to get the sense he’s only making me wait like this to torture me some more, when the door swings open and all of a sudden I kind of wish he had taken longer.
The first thing he does is nudge my bag on the floor with his foot, and then he looks at me with raised eyebrows. “Did a little shopping, I see?” he remarks, causing me to bolt up from the bed. Shit! My cigarettes, sunglasses, and empty bag of candy have all spilled out of the bag and onto the floor. I jump from the bed to grab it up as quickly as I can, but Justin is right there, and he gets it before me.
“Give me that!” I shout. “That’s all my shit!”
“Hmm, let’s see,” Justin says casually, rifling through my bag. “Cigarettes, a lighter, new pair of sunglasses with the price tag still on. Oh, look at that, thirty-six dollars. That’s an awful lot of money for someone who doesn’t have any.”
I work hard not to let my menacing stare falter. “I came into a small inheritance. Actually, that’s why I had to miss school today. I was wanted at the courthouse.”
“Cut the crap, Jaden. I’m very disappointed in you. There’s no reason you should have missed class today, and now I find out you’ve been smoking and what looks like shoplifting on top of that. What do you have to say for yourself?”
“Nothing,” I hiss, dropping my eyes and feeling like a complete piece of shit all of a sudden. I just wish this whole thing were over already.
“Well, I bet you’re going to have a lot to say in a couple of minutes, when your bare butt is across my lap and I’m spanking you with a hairbrush.”
Time seems to slow down as I watch him walk out the door again, and this time return with the promised hairbrush in hand. It’s thick and wooden with a heavy handle and makes me swallow, hard.
“You wouldn’t,” I say quietly. My voice almost sticks to my throat with a mix of fear and a strange
sense of thrill.
He takes a seat on edge of the bed, setting the hairbrush down on the nightstand. “What did I tell you would happen if I caught you behaving in a way that I thought was unacceptable? Huh? What did I tell you?”
I just stand there boldly, too humiliated to repeat his words back to him—that he would give me a spanking. Finally, I manage to sidestep the question with, “I didn’t think you would actually do it. I thought you were kidding.”
“Well, maybe after this spanking you’ll realize your life isn’t a joke to me, and when I tell you to behave yourself, you had better do it. What do you think? Do you think it will work?”
“Probably not,” I declare boisterously. I’m still struggling to play it cool while holding onto my last ounce of hope that he isn’t actually going to go through with this.
“Nice try, but you’re not getting out of this. Come on, over my knee. You can keep your pants on to begin with, but by the end of it, they’re going down.”
When it becomes clear I’m not going to move, Justin reaches for me, but I shrink back, practically cowering in spite of myself. Even though I’m trying to tell myself the whole thing probably won’t be as bad as I think, in the end I guess I’d really rather not find out. One day of skipped classes and a few cigarettes really doesn’t seem worth getting my ass beat, and I’m cursing myself for getting myself into this predicament. Especially since Justin has already confiscated the rest of my pack.
“Please, I’m sorry.” I go for the apologetic thing again as I hop out of the way of his hand trying to grab my arm. Even though it didn’t work to get me out of the soap, this might be a different story. “I didn’t know you were really going to do this, otherwise I never would have skipped class to go get cigarettes.”
“Oh, Little-Miss-Nothing-To-Say-For-Herself,” Justin says, slightly mockingly. “Now you’re speaking up. And here I thought you were just being stubborn.”
I can’t tell if he’s softening or not, but it’s worth a shot that he might be to keep up my act. “Please don’t do this. It was stupid to skip school. I’m sorry, Justin! And I’m really going to try quitting this time. I just slipped up. But I’m going to do better, I swear. Just don’t… y’know…” I let my eyes sink down to the floor as my words drift off, once again embarrassed to even say it out loud.
“Spank you?” Justin finishes for me. He’s gotten up from the bed now to stalk me into a corner of the room. I risk a look up at his face. It’s still stern, but his eyes are benevolent, which I take to mean he might be on the verge of relenting.
“Yeah,” I say, feeling foolish. I flash my eyes away from him, searching out anything else in the room I can to avoid his smoldering gaze.
He does that thing again where he lifts my chin with his fingers, forcing me to look at him. My eyes burn with the indignity of it all as his own bury deep down into me. “Sorry, Jaden, but you messed up, and you’re getting a spanking. If I let you out of this one today, it will only teach you that I don’t keep my word and that you don’t have to take me seriously. Now get over here… let’s get this over with…”
Before I know it, he’s pulling me over to the bed. Then with a few quick motions, he has my pants down and me flipped over his knee across the mattress.
“Hey!’ I protest immediately, though when I go to push my top half up off the bed with my hands, he wastes no time in shoving me back down again. “I thought you said I could keep my pants on.” My voice comes out a bit muffled, but I don’t care.
“That was before you tried to con you way out of this,” he says, his hand still holding me in place with my wrist pinned to my back. “You must think I was born yesterday.”
“No, Justin, that’s not true.” I’m getting flustered now, my words coming too fast, in a frenzy. “I really am sorry.”
“Well, you’re about to be a whole lot sorrier. Now, I asked you before, and I’m going to ask you again. What did I say would happen if I found out you’d been smoking?”
As I contemplate answering this, something occurs to me, and I can’t keep myself from blurting out, “You don’t know I was smoking. You just found part of a pack in my bag.”
All at once, I hear a loud smack. It actually takes me a second to register that the sound is Justin’s hand slamming down against the tender skin of my left butt cheek, the bottom part where my panties aren’t covering. Then the pain sets in, and I let out a howl that would put coyotes to shame.
“You son of a bitch,” I scream out, arching my back in an attempt to escape, but of course Justin holds me in place. “That fucking hurt like hell, you fucking asshole.”
“There’s a lot more to come, so you better get used to it,” Justin says in a calm, even voice. “And if you swear at me one more time while you’re over my knee, we’ll move this little session right into the bathroom. You’ll get a sudsy bar of soap in your mouth, bent over the sink, and then spanked again with the bath brush, which is twice as thick and twice as heavy as the hairbrush. Do you understand me, young lady?”
With my butt still stinging and his words still ringing in my ears, I’m finally starting to grasp the seriousness of this situation. Why the fuck did I ditch school again? Did I really need a cigarette that fucking bad? I guess swearing in my head is okay.
“Yes,” I finally manage to whimper out in a small voice.
“Good,” he says. “I’m glad you’re starting to catch on. I also want you to refer to me as sir anytime I’m punishing you. I want to make sure you’re taking this seriously, do you understand me?”
Refer to him as sir? That’s taking it a bit too far. After all, my ass doesn’t hurt that badly. “Sir?” I repeat, snickering a little bit. “Are you kidding me? I’m not calling you…”
Before I can finish my sentence, another blow lands across my backside, and then another and another. As far as I can tell, the hairbrush is still sitting on the nightstand and he’s only using his hand, though by how painful it is, it might as well be a big hunk of steel.
“Sir!” I scream out, as the blows start coming harder and faster. “I’m sorry, sir. Sir! There, I said it. I’m calling you sir!”
“Okay, then,” he says calmly. Even though he stopped spanking me, the backs of my eyes are smarting with tears, and I have to try with everything I have to stop whimpering in pain. “So we understand one another then?”
“Yes,” I stammer out, feeling completely overwhelmed and helpless.
“Yes, what?” he says, an edge of irritation to his voice. At first, I’m not sure what he means, but after a couple of seconds, I get it.
“Yes, sir,” I correct myself.
“That’s better,” he says approvingly. “Now, let’s try this once more, and I’ll rephrase myself this time. What did I say would happen if I decided you were acting irresponsible, inappropriate, or in other words, like a spoiled little brat?”
I feel a bubble of stubbornness rise up in my chest at being called those last words, but decide it’s not worth the struggle to try to one-up him anymore on this whole thing. “You said you would spank me,” I mumble out diminutively.
“That’s right,” he says back to me, landing another slap against my buttocks. I wince, but at least I don’t yell out this time. Maybe I’m getting used to it or something. “And a spanking is exactly what you’re going to get every time you misbehave. Do you understand me?”
He keeps landing blows in between words as he lectures me, and I’m whimpering again. It’s really painful, and my eyes are wet with tears now. I don’t want to answer him because he’ll hear that I’m crying, but I’m afraid of what will happen if I don’t. “Yes,” I moan pathetically.
“Yes, sir!” he corrects, landing a barrage of hard smacks one on top of the other until I’m writhing in pain and crying full force.
“Yes, sir,” I sob out desperately, just wanting this whole thing to end. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry. Please stop. I’ll behave.” I feel like an absolute tool for begging him, but there’s no wa
y I can take any more of this onslaught of pain against my bottom.
“Oh, are you ready to behave now?” Justin asks, and I’m in such distress I can’t even tell if he’s being sarcastic or what.
“Yes!” I wail out like a mutilated siren. Hope rises in my chest that I’m going to escape his knee soon and my butt won’t feel like it’s on fire anymore. “Please, please, let the spanking be over.”
At this, Justin lets out a little laugh. “It’s funny you think the spanking should be over, but you haven’t even learned to call me sir yet. So how do you expect me to think the rest of the lesson is sinking in?”
Oh, God, the stupid sir thing. Not only do I keep forgetting, but it makes me feel belittled to call him sir. As if he’s getting the better of me somehow, even though in most people’s eyes, he probably is.
“It’s sinking in, I’m just not used to calling people sir.” I try to explain myself as best as I can with sobs racking my throat and my face buried into the bedcovers.
“Well, I guess you need a little more practice,” he says. I can feel him reaching over me, grabbing something from the nightstand. “You’re going to get a paddling with the hairbrush now, and I want you to count each smack. After each one, I want you to say the words, yes, sir, no, sir, I’m sorry, sir. Maybe that will teach you to remember that’s how I’ll expect you to refer to me during punishments from now, do you understand?”
“Yes, sir,” I finally manage to get it right, gritting my teeth the whole time. As an afterthought, I force out the words, “How many am I going to get?” I’m not crying so hard now, but something tells me that’s about to change pretty soon.
“Well, that depends. How many do you think you deserve?”
I falter. This seems like a trick question. He might say a small number is unfair, but I don’t want to screw myself and say too many either. Plus, I don’t know how much the hairbrush is going to hurt compared to his hand, though I’m guessing it’s probably worse. After a little consideration, I finally come up with the number, “Five.”
