Author's Note:
A standalone part in 'Rima's Misadventures' series which follows the story of a 19 year-old Rima.
Disclaimer:
All the characters in the story are above the age of 18.
* * * * *
Rima got out of the car with a heavy heart.
"Don't forget to put on your ID card!" said her father before he drove off.
She stood outside the gate and looked at the coaching institute while wearing her ID card around her neck. It had been six months and she was still not used to the place. Almost every student of Winners' Institute felt the same. But they had no choice. Most of them resided in hostels within the institute's campus. And they rarely got any opportunity to step outside.
But Rima was a day-scholar. She came to the institute by 8.30 in the morning and went back home by 5 in the evening. It was just like school time, except, school was way more fun.
She couldn't clear the engineering entrance exam in the first attempt, so her father decided to enrol her in a coaching institute.
Day-scholars had to submit their phones at the reception where they were kept in lockers.
As she walked through the corridors of the girls' building, she blended in with the blue T-shirts of the girls. All the students had to wear Winners' Institute's blue T-shirt as part of the uniform.
Most of the girls wore leggings or jeans. Some girls wore long skirts. Rima wore skirts which almost showed her knees and it was considered a revealing outfit by many.
She had been reprimanded many times by Miss Vaneeta for not covering her legs enough.
The boys attended their classes in a separate building. The boys' and girls' buildings were separated by a lawn by some 30 metres.
She entered her classroom absent-mindedly. She was a student of Class-F. The batches were divided from Classes A to F and the students of Class-F were the lowest scoring students when they wrote the admission test for getting into Winners' Institute. There was a Class-M for medical entrance test aspirants.
Rima looked around inside her classroom and watched the pathetic 18 to 20 year old girls, half of them with glasses, most of them looking geeky, trying to memorise all the chemical, mathematical or physical formulas, even though it was still fifteen minutes before Miss Vaneeta's Inorganic Chemistry class started.
Her benchmate, Kavita, was perhaps the most unkempt girl she had ever seen. But she liked Kavita.
"You missed a big show yesterday Rima!" shouted Kavita as she shook Rima by her shoulders.
Rima had taken a sick leave the previous day.
"I had a headache," lied Rima.
"I hope you brought a letter from your parents?"
"Oh yes."
"You better get that leave letter out, or else your ass is gonna get whooped," said Kavita.
"Nothing is gonna happen. I have it, I know," said Rima, "You were saying something about missing a show."
"Oh yes!" said Kavita, "How do I say this? Oh my god. I could still see that image. Dirty thoughts were floating in my mind when I saw that. Have you ever seen the butt of a naked boy?"
"What..? What..? What are you saying..? Butt of a naked boy?"
"That's exactly what I saw yesterday, Rima. And the hundreds of girls from Class-A to Class-M. A boy was paraded naked through the corridors. All the girls were sticking to the window bars and standing at the classroom doors for the show."
"You must be kidding Kavita."
"No, I'm not! I'm telling you... that a boy was paraded naked through the corridors of the girls' building."
Rima was still sceptical.
Kavita nudged a girl with thick glasses sitting on the bench in front of them.
"Hey? Wasn't a boy walking naked in the corridor yesterday?"
"Yes, his name was Saatvik. And I know that because he is my neighbour back at my place and I only saw him yesterday after six months; in his birthday suit. He's also a hosteller," said the girl with thick glasses whose name was Sadhna.
Rima's mouth was wide open.
"His ass looked so smooth. Ah," said Kavita, closing her eyes, trying to think about it.
"But why?"
"He shaves his buttcheeks, probably."
"No, I mean, why was he paraded around naked?"
Sadhna turned around.
"Saatvik was made to parade around naked because when he was asked to solve a simple trigonometric question on the blackboard of his class, he messed up the identities. First he was slapped on the face and his butt was caned for not remembering the identities. But it seems like he has made such mistakes many times. So the maths teacher made him strip all his clothes and..."
"Not all his clothes mind you. He still had his watch, his shoes, socks and his glasses on," interrupted Kavita.
"Yes, like she said," continued Sadhna, "And he was made to walk naked through the corridors of the boys' building and then cross the little lawn between the buildings and walk through the corridors of the girls' building."
"Giving us a good view of his naked body, and his sweet smooth ass," said Kavita, "His head was lowered all the time, poor boy. And he was covering his crotch with his hands. The maths teacher was leading him."
"Now Saatvik will never forget the trigonometric identities," said Sadhna.
"But how can they do this? It's torture. It's against some kind of human rights," said Rima, "He should complain to his parents."
"Our parents have agreed to such kinds of punishments before they sent us here," said Kavita.
"What? No way," said Rima.
The bell rang and the already seated girls made an attempt to straighten their backs and look attentive. Within a few seconds a teacher arrived. Everyone stood up to greet her. It was Miss Vaneeta, sort of their class teacher who also taught Chemistry. She was wearing a silk saree with thick green shade.
When all took their seats, the attendance call started.
"Rima? You were absent yesterday?" said Miss Vaneeta in a loud voice, as if Rima had committed a sin.
"Yes ma'am," said Rima jumping up from her seat.
"Can you produce the leave letter?"
The curt voice of Miss Vaneeta shook Rima. Why was her fingers shaking? She searched her bag thoroughly before she found the letter.
She slowly walked towards Miss Vaneeta. She felt as if the whole class was watching her, and she wasn't wrong.
Rima had always been on Miss Vaneeta's radar. Apart from getting the lowest marks consistently in almost all kinds of tests that were conducted from time to time in the class, Rima had the misfortune of being in the wrong place at the wrong time in the presence of Miss Vaneeta.
She had been caught sleeping in the class, not once, but thrice. Miss Vaneeta made her stand outside the class whenever she caught her and even informed her parents.
She once got a perfect zero in an Inorganic Chemistry test. Her parents were informed again.
She was once walking around in a mall with her male best friend on a Sunday and she came across Miss Vaneeta and her young son. Miss Vaneeta stared at her as if she were a slut. Only that one time, Rima's parents put Miss Vaneeta in the wrong because they were aware of her outing with her male friend.
Miss Vaneeta had always insisted that Rima should have stayed in the Institute's hostels. But her parents didn't want her to be away from them.
Miss Vaneeta glanced at the leave letter which had Rima's father's signature. She lifted her eyes from the letter and then scanned Rima from head to toe with her eyes.
"You could help yourself with a longer skirt," said Miss Vaneeta coldly.
Rima looked down at her skirt. It just barely covered her knees.
"Seems like I'm still growing," said Rima with a fake chuckle.
She wanted to lighten the mood. But she should have realised in the past six months that Winners' Institute had no place for jokes.
Miss Vaneeta gave a blank face and signalled her with her eyes to get back to her seat.
* * * * *
The one and half hour class started and Rima found it hard to keep her eyes open. She used to like Chemistry. But somehow Inorganic Chemistry felt like a bore when Miss Vaneeta taught it.
"I'm gonna conduct a class test in two days," said Miss Vaneeta.
Those were the words that woke Rima up from her slumber.
"In this class of seventy, whoever gets the lowest marks would be given a severe punishment," continued Miss Vaneeta, "It could be spanking in front of the whole class, it could be beatings on both the knuckles with a hard ruler. It could be any form of humiliation that can knock some sense into the girl to not be the last person in a competition."
"But what if the lowest marks are shared by more than one person?" asked Sadhna.
Every student looked at her with dread.
"That's a good question Sadhna," said Miss Vaneeta, "Considering the fact that you could very well be the loser."
It was true. Sadhna, Kavita and Rima had always been among the bottom ten students of the class.
"In that case everyone who shares the lowest marks gets punished," continued Miss Vaneeta, "There can be more than one loser. But that's unlikely."
* * * * *
"Of course it's gonna be unlikely, she will evaluate the test that way," said Kavita during recess.
"I wish I'm not the only one getting spanked. If another girl shares the same fate as mine, I'd happily get those spankings," said Sadhna.
"You're gonna be alone Sadhna. Be ready for those spankings," said Rima, "But she said the punishment could be anything."
"Strikes on knuckles?" said Kavita.
"Standing in the corner with your hands raised for an entire period?" said Sadhna, "I just don't wanna be treated like Saatvik."
Kavita and Rima looked shocked at her and stayed quiet for a while.
"What? Like how he was paraded naked throughout the campus?" said Kavita.
"Yes. That's enough motivation for me to stop wasting my time at my hostel room and start preparing for the test," said Sadhna.
"That's surely not gonna happen. I mean, we are girls. They won't humiliate us like that," said Rima, "Spankings are possible in Winners' Institute. But parading a girl naked? That's out of the question. And Miss Vaneeta hasn't gone beyond striking the palms of our hands with a wooden stick. That's the only corporal punishment she has given yet."
"You're underestimating this Institute Rima," said Sadhna.
"Because she's a day-scholar. One night inside the hostel premises, and then she will realise what it's like to be in jail," said Kavita.
That evening after the classes, she rushed to the reception desk, retrieved her phone and called her father. Her father was free, so he came with his car to pick her up.
"How was the day? Was Miss Vaneeta upset about your absence yesterday?" asked her father.
"No papa, she wasn't mad," said Rima, "Papa, can I ask you a question?"
"Yes."
"Let's say... hypothetically... the institute decides to punish the lowest scorer in a class test. And the mode of punishment is humiliation. Would you be ok if I were to suffer such humiliation?"
"If you scored the lowest in the whole class?"
