Sadie licked the last of Miss Maple's envelopes. "Are you done, dear." Miss Maple, a six foot two Jamaican woman and Sadie's typing teacher asked her. "Yes, Miss Maple. I really appreciate you giving me the work." Sadie said gratefully. Money was tight, and she didn't want to work part-time and screw up her business college scholarship.
Miss Maple had never seemed the sympathetic sort, and was a tough critic of her students, once embarrassing Sadie in front of the class by predicting her imminent future as a dime store clerk "Though you may make even more mistakes on the keys to a cash register than you do a typewriter, I'm afraid."
"I mean I really, really am glad you hired me to assist you with this mailing, and I'm sorry if I've not been very good in class" said Sadie apologetically. "Well, that's fine" replied Miss Maple in her melodic voice.
"It's unfortunate that you are not a gifted typist, Sadie, dear, because you are certainly quite attractive and a well-read girl. But you seem not to have the energy that it takes to hustle along in the office world."
Miss Maple paused, thinking as she piled the envelopes together for her church rummage sale. "You seem to be the sort of young woman who would be better off being looked after...waited on, you know."
Sadie looked at Miss Maple suspiciously, thinking the Jamaican woman was making fun of her. "Well, that's never been my life. I've had part time jobs to pay for clothes, school lunches and everything else since I was nine and I've been on my own since age twelve."
But Sadie felt guilty as she said this, because the fact was, she did feel like it would be nice to be taken care of. All that work! Housework! Making a living! God, it was a drag.
"You have a really nice house here, Miss Maple." Sadie looked around Miss Maples living room in surprise. She didn't think typing teachers would make very much money, but Miss Maple's place was a two bedroom house in a fairly nice neighborhood.
"Well, it could be cleaner." Miss Maple said in some disgust. It looked immaculate to Sadie, except for some newspapers that were left on the couch.
All of a sudden the door unlocked and a large man in a green coverall walked in. Sadie remembered Dee telling her that Miss Maple had lived with a longtime boyfriend, Aubrey, a tool and die craftsman. But this guy was white! Pale white.
"Hello, Miss Maple, how was your day?" The big man stopped in the living room and looked at Miss Maple appreciatively as he said that. Well, this must not be the boyfriend if he calls her MISS Maple., Sadie considered.
"Did I have a good day?" Miss Maple repeated. She breathed in, and Sadie watched the big man's eyes fasten on Miss Maple's considerable chest, which was enveloped in a burgundy turtleneck.
Miss Maple always wore classy short skirts, high heels and snug blouses, but quite pressed and respectable, because, as she told her girls "Your employers are men, and men are quite visual."
"I suppose I would have had a good day, had I come home to a decently clean house, Aubrey." Miss Maple said, as she pointed a crimson nail at the couch, cluttered with newspapers and a somewhat dusty coffee table. "I was led to believe you had a morning off? You did I believe."
The big man nodded his head, staring at his boots. "And what did you do with it? I see your video game joysticks are out. I see a cluttered couch, a dusty living room, and a rather grimy kitchen, Aubrey.
We had an agreement that you could save five dollars a week from your twenty dollar allowance to buy that ridiculous video game machine with the understanding that you devoted your spare hours to housework, and would use the video game for two hours on Saturday afternoon IF all the housework was done pristinely, Aubrey, was that right?" The big man began shuffling his feet.
"And twice this week I have found the video game joystick out, the housework sadly neglected, Aubrey. And you yourself have admitted time and time again that chastisement is what you need to help you to be a more responsible fellow is that not so?" Miss Maple took off her smart leather jacket and put it on the chair.
The big man looked over at Sadie furtively, blushed and said "M-Mebbe we kin talk about this after yer guest is gone, Miss Maple, d'ye think?"
Miss Maple stepped away from the dining room table where the envelopes were being piled up, and reached behind the cluttered couch bringing forth a long, polished stick with little bumps and ridges, as if someone had taken a tree branch and without whittling off the bumps, had refinished it so it glimmered.
Miss Maple turned it about in her hands, examining it, and Sadie saw that the stick seemed to have a carved twist to it, like a fancy banister in addition to the little bumps and ridges along the wood. The knob on the end seemed to be cut in the shape of a wolf's head. "Do you know what this is, Sadie?"
Sadie cocked her head. "It's like a British cane or a walking stick, right? Miss Maple looked approvingly at the girl. "This, Sadie is an Irish Blackthorne carved T-handle hiking staff." Miss Maple looked at the stick approvingly and Aubrey seemed to shudder.
"It is the sort that Prince Charles took his sons over the hills with near the palace...though he didn't seem to use it on Prince Harry enough, from what I have read of his antics in the National Enquirer."
"you will not see many of these Hiking Staffs in this country. I inherited it from my grandfather who used it in forming my father's character, and my father used it on my brothers and sisters, and occasionally, myself." Miss Maple smiled. Sadie smiled back. Pa Mulvaney had had his own "character shaper" in the form of an old fan belt he'd found in the back alley of their tenement.
Sadie and her eight brothers and sisters had all felt the weight of it on their legs when they'd behaved badly, or sadly sometimes when Pa was just drunk and ornery.
"This walking staff has been quite instrumental in assisting me with dealing with recalcitrant behavior on this young man's part." Sadie looked at Aubrey curiously. He looked to be about thirty-five, perhaps fifteen or so years younger than Miss Maple,but he wasn't all that young.
"We will discuss this matter now, Aubrey, because you have been terribly slovenly this week and I have repeatedly had to ask you to keep up with your home chores—" Sadie stood up quickly. "Miss Maple, maybe I really should go."
Miss Maple looked at Sadie in surprise. "Do you not wish to be paid for the full five hours I hired you for?" she asked in surprise. "I am paying you for five hours work,but you have been here scarcely two."
Sadie sat down. She wanted to alleviate Aubrey's discomfort, but eight dollars an hour was quite a nice little bit of money, as the minimum wage in 1983 was only three dollars and thirty-five cents.
"Now you will be punished, Aubrey, right in front of this young woman. You are a naughty boy, Aubrey, and you deserve it. Take off your coveralls!"
Aubrey looked desperately at Sadie, and then at Miss Maple, and then unbuttoned the top of his coverall, shaking off his shoes as he went. Stepping out of the ugly green garment, Aubrey folded it up and lay it on the cluttered couch next to the newspapers.
He was now clad in an undershirt, plaid boxer shorts and black socks with hideous garters. Sheila hid a smile. "Now pull down your shorts, Aubrey, and bend over the arm of the couch." Miss Maple said crisply. Aubrey looked at Sadie feebly. "C'mon Miss Maple, with her here? I mean, I got my dignity."
At this, Sadie unfortunately tittered rather loudly. This revolting tubbo was unbelievably dignified, wasn't he?
Miss Maple looked reprovingly at Sadie, and then focused back on Aubrey. "I am confident that witnessing your disrobing and chastisement will have a positive effect on Sadie, even if it is merely as an appetite suppressant." Sadie put her knuckles in her mouth and chortled. "You will now disrobe immediately, Aubrey!"
His lower lip trembling, Aubrey took down his coverall and folded it neatly on the chair, revealing himself in his shorts and undershirt, and then Miss Maple pointed to the arm of the sofa.
Aubrey slowly stepped over to the couch, breathing heavily. Sadie had never seen anything like this in her life. What the hell was going on with this guy? He was going to let Miss Maple HIT him? "Take down your undershorts, Aubrey, immediately."
Miss Maple commanded, and breathed in, so her breasts bounced in the tight sweater. This measure was not lost on Aubrey, who Sadie noticed was growing a slight tent in his boxer shorts. "P-please, ma'am, not in front of that girl. She's just a child!"
Though a moment before, Sadie had been dying to get out of there now she prayed that Miss Maple wouldn't change her mind, and Sadie could watch this weird thing going on. Sadie wasn't disappointed.
"You will remove your underpants immediately, Aubrey.
I was going to permit you to just drop them to your knees, but now as punishment for your impertinence and all this waffling, I insist you remove all your remaining clothes. This young woman has five times your maturity, and should be able to watch a pathetic specimen likeyourself receive punishment stark naked. Why not? You are a worthless, insignificant slug.
Aubrey. Remove everything immediately, or I will fetch the scourge from the basement. Do you wish that?" Aubrey looked again at his feet and a tear rolled down his cheek. "No, Miss Maple."
Aubrey gave her one more imploring look, however, but Miss Maple was implacable. He slowly pulled off his undershirt, and stepped out of his shorts, trying hard to keep his hands in front of his crotch so Sadie couldn't see anything, but it wasn't that easy for him.
In undressing, he seemed to forget his socks and garters, but he was certainly naked enough...in a way, Sadie thought the socks and garters made Aubrey seem even MORE exposed. "Aubrey, put your hands behind your back please."
Miss Maples spoke crisply. Aubrey gulped, but he put his hands behind his back and Aburey could see his penis bulging hard, a drop of precum sliding off the tip. Jesus, why was he so horny? Sadie thought.
I'd be mortified if I was a guy and my girlfriend had me stripped naked in front of a vistor. And she was going to hit him with a fuckin' stick, too. But Aubrey's penis was straining, and every vein was bulging out of it.
"You are erect, Aubrey. I am glad you have not been masturbating your penis in the lavatories at work again, as I have had to correct you for that before." Miss Maple said approvingly.
"It's appalling, Sadie, how Aubrey is such a dedicated onanist. I have had a trying time breaking him of the self-abuse problem it is quite annoying. Is it not, Aubrey?"
Aubrey stared at the floor hopelessly. "Yes, Miss Maple." Sadie was gaping at all this. Aubrey was a big guy, not gorgeous, he had a bit of a gut, but he certainly could find a sweet, compliant girlfriend of his own skin color if he wanted, why was he taking all this shit from a middle aged Carribean woman?
Sure Miss Maple was attractive, but this was ridiculous. And Dee had told Sadie that they'd lived together nine years. Damn, this was WEIRD!
