When the Pupil Is Ready

"Ms Holliday will be with you in a moment," the young Ms Dollar said cheerfully, motioning Samantha toward a nice leather chair arranged in the seating area of the headmistress's large, well-lit office. Samantha took a seat.

"Would you care for some coffee or water or something while you wait?" Ms Dollar asked.

"Some coffee would be great," Samantha said. "Thank you."

"Sure thing, back in a bit," replied Ms Dollar as she backed out of the office and quietly closed the double doors.

For a moment, Samantha considered her choice of outfit, a slim fitting pantsuit over her lithe frame, and wondered if she had dressed too casually for her first day at the school. She looked around and took in the spacious, wood paneled office. She had conducted her interviews in other parts of the campus and this was the first time in the headmistress's office. Off to her right was a large wooden desk. It was remarkably clutter free, with just a small leather bound book, a black quill pen, an antique looking lamp with a green shade, and photos of several people faced outward toward the room.

She got up and walked over for a closer look at the pictures on the desk. It was several pictures of some adorable looking children, a young boy and a young girl, probably ranging from three to five years old or so. There was also a photo of a handsome man smiling to the camera, presumably Mr Holliday.

'Her family looks quite happy and pleasant,' Samantha thought. 'Perhaps a good sign she will be a good boss?'

She turned around and faced the room again. To her left was the seating area, with expensive looking, oxblood colored leather chairs and a matching couch, two end tables with antique lamps, and a low coffee table with several new magazines. To her right was the entrance way, which was practically a parlor in this grand office suite, complete with a posh rug, hall tree for hats, etc. and original prints on the walls. And on the other side of the office was a wall of shelves running from the floor to the crown molding some 14 feet high or so. The upper and middle shelves were filled with a variety of education manuals, law books, and treatises of various sorts, while the lower shelves held several trophies and more photographs, mostly in black and white.

Samantha noticed what looked like a long wooden item on a center shelf, but from this distance she could not make out what it was. She walked over toward the bookshelves and leaned in to inspect the item.

'Is that a paddle?' She thought.

She looked to the closed double doors to her right and sensed no one approaching. She looked back at the paddle and with a rising sense of excitement she picked it up for a closer look. The handle, which was perfect for her small hand size, was sanded for a good grip, whereas the paddle itself was polished. It was about half an inch thick from top to bottom and probably two feet long. The flat paddling portion seemed like it was about six inches wide. The paddle seemed old, but well maintained. It was free of dust and seemed to have been buffed and polished regularly, although one side of the paddle seemed distinctly more faded than the other, suggesting it was the business end of the instrument.

Samantha felt butterflies in her stomach as she recalled the school's corporal punishment clause in her hiring documents.

'Do they really spank here? Does this really get used on the students?'

She imagined for a moment all the bottoms this paddle may have spanked, all the bent over schoolgirls receiving their just desserts, and all the resulting pain, shame, embarrassment and tears. The butterflies in her stomach became a pleasurably warm sensation.

Samantha had witnessed a fair amount of spankings while teaching abroad. At first she found it shocking, but something she had not been able to stop thinking about. Ultimately, she had accepted that corporal punishment was a fetish of hers, although she had never engaged in it and she had tried to repress her feelings on the subject, telling herself it was not normal.

Suddenly feeling ashamed of her fantasizing, she put the paddle back down and turned back around again. She noticed for the first time a small piece of furniture off to her right and walked over to check it out. It was a bare, squat, sturdy looking wood table, about three feet tall with a top about three feet square. It had no drawers or chairs and stood alone along the far wall behind the seating area, which is why it had been out of her view. On the wall immediately next to the table hung a small mirror at roughly the same height as the tabletop, which Samantha found as odd. From her standing perspective, all Samantha could see in the mirror was the top of her own pants.

'What would this mirror be for?' She wondered.

Right then she heard the doors open on the far side of the room. She turned and saw Ms Holliday enter with a most pleasant smile. She noted how Ms Holliday, a gorgeous woman of about 40, was smartly dressed in a fetching dark pantsuit, with pearls around her neck and on her ears, and jet black hair falling to just below her jawline. She was slender and tall, wearing red heels that provided her stylish ensemble with a nice pop of color. Samantha instantly felt less insecure about her own choice of attire.

The two ladies approached each other toward the middle of the room. Ms Holliday extended her right hand and clasped Samantha's hand with both her hands as she took it.

"Samantha, I am so delighted to have you on board!" Ms Holliday said. "Mr Pearson practically demanded that you be his replacement, and with your CV and personality, he certainly had no objections from me."

Samantha could feel herself blushing at the praise. True, she had graduated from a prestigious university with honors, and then published a book based on her many noteworthy experiences while teaching English in Asia and India for five years. But she was still only in her late 20s and she instantly found Ms Holliday intimidatingly impressive.

"Thank you, Ms Holliday. I'm really delighted to be here," she responded.

Ms Holliday directed Samantha toward the chairs and offered her a seat. The two sat down and Ms Holliday began.

"Mr Pearson was really an institution here. He taught English for 30 years and his recommendation is really something to be proud of," Ms Holliday said. "He has had young students go on to some remarkable accomplishments, CEOs of Fortune 500 companies, high level work in the federal government, you name it. And he was our last male teacher on staff, so now we are literally an all-female institution."

Right then Ms Dollar entered with a tray carrying two coffee cups, a carafe, and a small jug of cream. She quietly approached the two seated women and placed the tray on the center table between them.

"Thank you, Chelsea," Ms Holliday said.

Ms Dollar nodded and quietly backed out of the room, closing the double doors.

"And Samantha, do you feel like you have the hang of the campus, where your classroom is, and all that?" Ms Holliday asked.

"Oh yes, Ms Dollar was very gracious and showed me all around." Samantha picked up a cup and took a sip of coffee. "I'm ready to start today. I just hope I can come close to filling Mr Pearson's shoes," she said.

"Oh, I don't doubt you will," Ms Holliday said. She struck Samantha as a genuinely nice person.

Samantha and Ms Holliday had a pleasant chat, discussing the history of the school, details of Samantha's class and students, extracurricular activities and then snippets of their respective life stories. As they talked, Samantha felt she was really connecting with Ms Holliday, who became more animated and her laughter more full throated. Samantha even sensed some mild flirting by Ms Holliday, as she occasionally touched Samantha's knee and kept strong eye contact. Ms Holliday's early career path was quite similar to Samantha's and she mused about this successful woman being a positive mentor and professional guide for her.

In a natural cadence, their conversation came to a pause.

"Samantha, do you want to know what I think Mr Pearson's secret recipe for his success was?" Ms Holliday finished her coffee and put the cup on the table.

"Please, I'm all ears," Samantha said.

"Discipline," Ms Holliday said. "Unabashed, unmitigated, old-school discipline. In fact, it's the secret to this entire school's success."

"Oh, no talking in class or else clean the blackboards, that kind of thing?" Samantha jokingly asked, feigning ignorance and again thinking with rising excitement of the paddle she had just inspected.

Ms Holliday smiled knowingly. "Oh, a little more than that," she said rather suggestively. "You see, because we are a private school, we generally have the discretion to set the terms our students and their parents must agree to on admission. And one term we are very clear about is how and why we administer discipline. And because we are so respected, we've had very little cause to alter our terms in the nearly 200 years of our existence."

Ms Holliday stood up. "Here, let me show you something," she said.

Samantha placed her cup on the table and stood up with her. The two walked toward the paddle. Samantha could feel the butterflies returning in her stomach.

"This, I believe, has been the key to our success," Ms Holliday said, gesturing to the paddle. When one of our young ladies acts up in a serious way, which isn't frequent, but does happen, we give them a one-time choice. They can face expulsion, which means that all their parents' money that went to pay for their education here has been wasted, or they accept a thorough spanking with this."

"Oh, so corporal punishment is done here." Samantha said, trying to sound nonchalant in the face of her titillation. "I saw that it was an option reserved for use by the school in my application materials, but I didn't know it was really still used in all the States."

"Oh, in some private schools like ours, yes," Ms Holliday said. "I hope that is not a problem for you? It is something we feel rather strongly about."

Samantha was quiet for a moment, again thinking of bottoms being spanked as she became more turned on. "No, I don't really have an issue with it," she said as she turned to look Ms Holliday directly in her pretty green eyes. "I wasn't spanked myself when I was growing up, but I did see it used to what seemed like very positive effect when I was teaching abroad."

Ms Holliday nodded. "What about it seemed effective to you?" She asked, stroking her own hair.

"From what I could tell, it really seemed to provide a much needed course correction for the students who received it," Samantha said. "And it seemed like the pain itself was only a small part of it. The humiliation, the submission to a loss of bodily integrity, really, the sense of submission itself, that all seemed to play a significant psychological role. And in some of the areas where I was, the fact that a pupil had been corporally punished was made widely known, and there was deep shame over that -- which seemed to be very effective deterrence, too."

"I couldn't agree more," Ms Holliday responded. "We get young ladies in here who are remarkable raw material to be forged into impressive, trailblazing women by the time they leave, but forging, they still need. Many of them have never been punished at all, much less have they received any corporal punishment. Typically, though, once a wayward young lady has been appropriately punished, she is set right and kept from falling through the cracks. With the students here, at least."

"Who does the spanking?" Samantha asked.

Ms Holliday turned and walked toward the small table off to the right that Samantha had noticed earlier, and motioned her to follow.

"We let the teacher decide," she responded. "As a default, I do it. Some of our faculty don't like corporal punishment, though they understand that we practice it here when they accept the position. We don't force the teachers to spank their students, but we do need them present during the punishment to bear witness. Also, before punishment is administered, I am careful to have a frank discussion with the teacher about whether they feel their emotional involvement might cause them to get carried away. We certainly have no intention to overdo any corporal punishment!"

The two stopped in front of the table. "I have the student sign a form in which they acknowledge whatever wrong they've done and that they are choosing 4, 6, 8, or however many strokes of the paddle in lieu of expulsion. They acknowledge that their classmates will be informed in writing about the situation and the punishment, as well as their parents."

Ms Holliday motioned to the table. "Then I have them bend over this table and grip the far side of it. I draw the student's skirt up above her waist and pull her panties down to her thighs. I instruct her to look me in the eyes in my reflection in this mirror. And then I ask her whether she wants to proceed. I must see a sincerely remorseful look in her face and I must hear an honest tone in her voice when she answers that she does. Finally, and I think this is most crucial, I instruct them to remain in their position at all times and to keep their eyes trained on mine in the mirror, or on the teacher administering the spanking, throughout the punishment. I want to see it in their eyes as they fully appreciate the consequences of their actions during the session. They must also count out the spanks. When we are finished, I give her a moment to compose herself. Then she and I both sign the form acknowledging the full punishment was delivered, and typically after a hug and some soft words of encouragement, I send her on her way, a corrected young woman, while I prepare copies of the punishment form for her classmates and parents."

"How does it feel to spank the student? Does your arm get tired? And how do you know you're doing it hard enough, or too hard?" Samantha asked, feeling quite roused by Ms Holliday's description of the punishment process.

"Knowing the right balance comes with practice," Ms Holliday said, quietly, as the two shared another suggestive gaze. Ms Holliday looked at her watch. "First period is still about 20 minutes away, and I don't think you even have a first period class today, right?"

Samantha nodded. "Right."

Ms Holliday walked back over to the paddle and picked it up. "Here," she said, handing the paddle to Samantha handle first. "Take the paddle and you can take some practice swings on me."

Samantha took the paddle from her, a little stunned at the suggestion. 'Does she really want me to spank her?' She thought. Ms Holliday took off her suit jacket and laid it over a chair. She walked back over to Samantha.

"I really think you should try it," she said to Samantha, her emerald eyes sparkling. "I want you to."

Samantha looked on as Ms Holliday eased herself down onto her stomach over the table. Her crisp, slim fit white dress shirt stayed cleanly tucked into her suit pants, which stretched tightly over her well-toned butt as she assumed position. She spread her legs and poked her backside out prominently, then looked back over her left shoulder at Samantha.

"Watch my bottom," she told her new hire. "See how I'm arching my back and pressing my bottom out away from the table? You want the student's bottom well presented for a clean stroke each time. So work with her to get her in position and make sure she really pokes her backside out, like mine is now," she said. "Sometimes, you'll need to physically assist her into position. And she'll want to flinch and squirm and everything," Ms Holliday said, shaking her bottom from side to side. "But you must tell her as often as needed to stay in position and keep her eyes trained on you in the mirror throughout the entire punishment session. You might see if the teacher will help keep her in position. And if the student simply can't or won't stay in position and finish the punishment they've agreed to, then expulsion is the only alternative."

Ms Holliday paused for a moment. "Go on," she said. "Try a few genuine strokes on me."

Samantha still felt unsure. "Really?" She asked, lamely swinging the paddle a bit.

"Definitely," Ms Holliday said. "You really need to get a feel for it, if you intend to do it yourself."

There was another pause.

"Okay," Samantha said. She stood next to Ms Holliday's bottom and assumed a position not unlike her old softball batting stance. "Are really you sure?" She asked again.

"Absolutely," Ms Holliday responded. "Fire away, with the force you feel is fair for real punishment. I'm ready."

Samantha looked again at Ms Holliday's tight, round bottom, which was nicely hugged by her expensive looking trousers. Her butt was perfectly poked out and still. Samantha brought the paddle up, and just as she was about to swing, Ms Holliday stopped her.

"Samantha, I'm so sorry!" She said. "One last thing. Let's look at each other in the mirror. I'll keep my eyes locked with yours. Just look at me in the mirror after every stroke."

"Okay, I will," Samantha said, looking at Ms Holliday's face in the mirror. She noticed Ms Holliday's shadowed eyes were narrowed and had taken on a smoldering quality. Her pretty, angular face was still and her lips in a tight smile. She was gripping the stout table tightly and keeping her body perfectly still.

Samantha smiled back. "Here we go," she said, raising the paddle. She brought it down swiftly toward Ms Holliday's bottom.

SMACK! Samantha's first stroke landed cleanly, right across Ms Holliday's pert backside, which then recoiled ever so slightly. Ms Holliday sharply inhaled and gripped the far end of the table. The two women locked eyes in the mirror.

"One! Very good," Ms Holliday said, her eyes looking bright and excited. "Mmm, very good, Samantha. But feel free to try it with a little more force." She resumed a perfect position for the next stroke.

"Okay," Samantha said. She lightly tapped the paddle against Ms Holliday's comely rump and raised it up again. She paused and then swung the paddle low with more force.

SMACK!!

Samantha noticed how the cheeks of Ms Holliday's bottom rippled slightly after the impact before popping back into place.

"Yes, two!" Ms Holliday gushed as the two women looked at each other in the mirror. Samantha saw that Ms Holliday's eyes were moistening. "That is how you do it, Samantha!"

Ms Holliday stayed in near exact position, though she lowered her face toward the table. Her long straight hair fell over her face and touched the tabletop. Samantha heard Ms Holliday's pearl earrings clack on the tabletop as she drew a long, slow intake of breath. "Ummm," Ms Holiday said with pleasure as she exhaled. "Now that time, I broke one of the rules!" She said lightheartedly. "I broke eye contact with you."

The two women locked eyes again in the mirror. "Let's do one more," Ms Holliday said.

"One more?" Asked Samantha.

Ms Holliday once again gripped the table and put her feet flat on the ground. She arched her back and poked her backside way out, providing Samantha with the choicest, pertest target yet. She looked at Samantha in the mirror, and Samantha saw that a tear-drop had run down the left side of her face and that her mascara had slightly run. She noted the sense of anticipation and pleasure in the other woman's gaze.

"Yes, and make it the firmest stroke of all," replied Ms Holliday.

Samantha tapped the paddle against Ms Holliday's backside again and then brought it back up, gripping it firmly with both hands. She paused for a moment and locked eyes with Ms Holliday, who was smiling with anticipation in the mirror. She looked back to her target and swung the paddle fiercely toward Ms Holliday's waiting rump.

SMACK!!!

This time the two ladies locked eyes immediately. Ms Holliday's eyes had resumed their smoldering look, although they were darker and moister than ever. It seemed as if the crisp report of the final spank hung in the room, decaying slowly as the tension dissipated.