After Class 16

It had been a long time since I was last told to stay after for a class, not since I was little. She had said it so calmly, like it was a routine thing. I almost didn't believe she was talking to me, but here I was, alone in an empty hall. I scuffed the bottom of my shoe against the smooth floor tiling. She told me to go and put my books and belongings away and then to come back. The room was dark so I had just been standing outside, waiting.

I wondered how long I should stay. The thought of just leaving felt wrong; I didn't want to get in more trouble than I was already in. Her voice, surprisingly sharp, made me jump.

"Thank you for being patient."

She glided past me and opened the door with the expectation of being followed. She turned on the light and I quickly closed the door behind us. A chair had been moved to sit just in front of her desk in the back of the room.

I sat when she gestured at the chair and crimped my skirt between my thumb and index finger while she wordlessly glanced through a stack of papers, eventually removing one and examining it in front of me. She sat it down between us and I recognized it as a short story I had written. It was about a soldier, Amber, who starts out reckless and rude, but discovers dedication and a peaceful strength, remade with discipline and submission to a higher cause.

"Why did you write this?" Her voice surprised me again.

"The assignment was-"

"A short work of fiction, yes. Why did you write this? This in particular."

I was at a loss. "Is it...too long...?"

She looked right into me. "No."

"So what exactly...is the problem?" I asked weakly.

Her eyebrows tightened slightly. "I don't believe it was an accident that you wrote about this girl. Challenging, out of place, lost." Her eyes were drawing something out of me. I felt myself tense up.

"This story showcases something about you, something that you feel," She pulled even harder, "but can't quite admit."

Your writing lacks honesty." Instantly she released me. My hand lept to the edge of the chair to steady myself.

She paused, waiting for me to speak. I couldn't think of what to say.

"That's why you're here. I am going to show you what I see in you, and then we will work together to develop it." She rose, filling the whole room. "Come here."

My legs shook a little as I stood. I walked slowly, but obediently.

I stopped a few feet from her and focused on not trembling. She towered over me, her face impassive.

"Closer." She demanded.

I hesitated, but inched closer, until we were only a foot apart. I held my breath self-consciously.

Her hand moved fluidly to the side of my neck. It was thin but strong, I felt my pulse reverberate insistently off her thumb. My breath shook out of me. If she was displeased, she didn't show it.

"Bend over my desk. Palms down, elbows apart"

"What?" I sputtered. I must have tried to move back; her fingers locked around the back of my neck, keeping me anchored to her.

"Was I in any way unclear?" She said it calmly, but there was a raised edge in her voice.

Instead of looking for words I couldn't find I simply did as she said. I felt vulnerable and exposed, but she commanded and I obeyed.

She raised up my skirt, lifting it above my legs. I flinched at the sudden coldness in her hands, but something in the way she touched me bid me to be still. She wasn't rough, but she was firm, pulling my skirt up to my stomach and neatly folding it over me. She gripped my sides, fingers set hard against my hip bone. Her touch warmed against my bare body.

"I want you to understand that this isn't punishment. Consider it a push in the right direction." Her textured skirt rubbed against my uncovered skin, like a gentle drag of fingernails.

She spanked me. It was one clean and certain movement. I felt a rush drive me forward. My knees thumped into the dense wood of the desk. Again. My cheeks radiated with the sudden, stinging heat. She never hesitated, only stopping to alter where her blows would land or to draw my hips up, away from hiding.

She was relentless and sure, stoking a fire in me and working the hot want out of places I had never known. Her dedicated hand drifted along the full landscape of my bottom, lashing every inch of skin that could bear it. I felt myself glow, first of embarrassment, then pain, then bliss.

She continued, letting her unchanging hand overlap with the parts of me already well-mapped out. After awhile, the shock of anticipation sunk backward into a raw, clinging pain. My damp palms struggled to grip a smooth desk, my arms groaned from the weight of the warmth.

It wouldn't end. It would never end. My body radiated with that; I would endure anything, everything she chose to give. No cries escaped my lips. Tears stung in my eyes and retreated down my face.

Then I noticed the cool absence of anything. My body burned under the searing attention, like a desert under a setting sun. Her hands returned to my sides, fingers cupping my icy belly. Her skirt was again pressed against me, pinching and piercing.

She gently pulled my body up from her desk and gracefully swung around me to sit in the heat I left. She looked at my tear-scorched cheeks, her face stoic and unchanged.

"Was that in any way helpful to you?" She asked plainly.

I felt my skirt slide back down around my hips and thighs, letting her wrap my new and delicate body. I could barely nod, but it was enough.

She released a small smile and softly pressed a thumb into her stinging red hand, sealing it. She relaxed only slightly, but a sensation of relief nearly knocked me over.

She gently guided me with an upturned hand back to the chair opposite her desk. I sat, the material of my skirt rougher than I remembered. She returned to her own chair and sat before me, picking up my paper where it lay, slightly wrinkled, and returned to it.

"Now, let's confront the scene between Amber and the senior officer in the yard."

I stared at her, confused.

"The verbal beratement. The emotional release after you spend two pages building to it?" Her head tilted to the side.

"You...you want to talk about the story?"

Her eyebrows knit together. "Did you think we were finished, that that would be it? I would open you up and then send you home? We haven't even addressed your writing yet, nevermind the way you hesitate when you speak to me."

I could have sworn she was smiling, just underneath a firm lip.

"We have a lot of work to do."