This story is inspired by the absolutely excellent writings of Literotica user "writingsomethingnew" whose work you should 100% check out.
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Four minutes was all it took.
The deadline for the first year student's Engineering essay had been due on Monday at 12:00 and no later. So, of course, Yasmin submitted it at 12:04. It wasn't her fault, she told herself and anyone who might read her semi-pleading emails -- the submission point had been hidden away in folder after folder and so it had taken her almost ten minutes just to find the ridiculous thing. But, said her supervisor, maybe this was evidence that she should be submitting a little earlier than ten minutes before the deadline. IT issues were no excuse. And then came the horror of it all -- a choice. Either swallow a ten-mark deduction for the late submission, which could drag her average grade down into the gutter for the semester, or accept what this university liked to call "correction."
It was a word whispered through the corridors of Crownbird Academy, the vast campus where Yasmin and thousands of others lived and studied, bringing with it all sorts of foreboding feelings. Yasmin had known since before she started, since she signed her contract of attendance and saw lurking among the pages a little section under STUDENT CODE OF CONDUCT which read, in part:
"In the event that a student should commit an infraction contrary to the code of conduct, in the event that this infraction does not constitute illegal activity then the student will face mandatory disciplinary action in the form of corporal punishment. The specific nature of the corporal punishment to be administered will be determined on a Faculty basis."
What corporal punishment meant, of course, was a few slaps on the wrist, or the hand, maybe with a wooden ruler -- or so Yasmin had assumed. Then she started to attend. Then she heard the stories. But she never imagined that it might come thundering down upon her like a black cloud of humiliation and shame. She didn't even know what might await her -- for each Faculty had their own policies but these were not written for students to see. Mystery surrounded them -- they were known only to those on the receiving end and, though some surely shared their experience, Yasmin's circle weren't the type to engage with those sorts of conversations. Yasmin had heard of other students being punished, even seen it -- one girl, whose name she never knew, had been paraded naked around the campus with her wrists tied behind her back. Her arms tattooed and her hair dyed blue, she had stood up straight, trying to be as stoic as possible in the face of disgrace. Yasmin had glimpsed the scene through her window before she retreated, as fast as she could, back to her desk and put in headphones to block out the jeers. She desperately, desperately hoped the same fate wasn't about to befall her. She knew what it would mean; she'd have to leave. Her education would be forfeit for she could never accept such a penalty. There was no life available to a Muslim woman like her which was worth living after being put through such shame. Nobody would forgive her -- least of all herself.
These thoughts kept Yasmin occupied, the anxiety raging like storm clouds in her head, as she sat in the reception area of the Engineering building and awaited her fate. She hadn't been sure what to wear, besides the compulsory hijab, of course, so had opted -- given the weather -- for jeans and a black-white stripy shirt, the sleeves stretching all the way down to her wrists. A receptionist -- young man, ginger goatee, in need of a haircut -- sat with his side to her and didn't glance from his screen. All Yasmin could do was sit there, shifting in the seat, adjusting her black hijab more out of nervous habit than need, and stare at the ticking clock above him. Seconds never used to pass this slowly, she thought.
Finally, after more time than could possibly be fair, a door across the room opened and a woman of about thirty -- dirty blonde hair to her shoulders, rectangular glasses, freckled around her nose, deep laugh lines, wearing a blue plaid shirt and jeans of the same colour as Yasmin's -- appeared, a purple strap around her neck from which dangled a lanyard holding her plastic university ID. The woman clocked Yasmin immediately and approached.
"Yasmin, isn't it?" she asked with a toothy smile and a disarming perkiness about her manner. As she stood, her ID swung back and forth like it was trying to hypnotise Yasmin.
"Yeah -- that's me," Yasmin mumbled, then cleared her throat, trying and already failing when it came to disguising her anxiety.
"I'm Lucy." She offered Yasmin a hand, which she took, trying not to let her arm be too limp. "Do you want to follow me?"
"Sure." Yasmin pulled on her backpack and followed, more shuffling than walking, just behind Lucy as she was led through the door from which she had come, unlocked by a thumbprint scanner, and down a corridor past offices a third-full with administrative staff at laptops and monitors.
"You got here okay?" asked Lucy, still cheery as she tried to make small talk.
"Yeah -- I don't usually work in this building but I knew where it was. Study, I mean." Yasmin's mouth felt dry. She had little clue what was about to happen to her and, really, that only made it worse.
Lucy led Yasmin to a wooden door halfway down the corridor, on which was drilled a plastic sign reading ADMIN OFFICE 1.07. She opened it, the door squeaking, and Yasmin followed her inside as the motion-sensitive lights blinked on. The office was spartan and small and square, four arm lengths wide on all sides, with a pair of black swivel chairs, one in the middle of the room and one at a bare wooden desk. A poster on the wall lent the room some colour with its educational notes about lithium batteries. Outside, through the sole window, Yasmin saw only a glimpse of green countryside. Birdsong fluttered in. In the corner of the room, though, was what struck Yasmin most immediately -- a silver camcorder set on a tripod, high enough to look her right in the eye, and she stared at it for a moment as Lucy pulled out the swivel chair from the desk, turned it, and sat down.
"If you'd like to have a seat," she said nicely, gesturing to its friend.
"Yeah, thanks," mumbled Yasmin, sitting. The seat wheezed at her weight and sunk a couple of inches. Yasmin fiddled with the lever and forced it to raise as Lucy regarded her.
"How're you feeling?" asked Lucy. Terrified. Frightened. I want to run away and never stop running. My heart's going a million miles an hour. I'm so scared I'm going to cry in front of you and nothing's even happened yet.
"I'm fine."
"That's good." Lucy smiled. There was a gentleness in her blue eyes that Yasmin found strangely reassuring. "So, tell me a bit about yourself."
"Uh..." Suddenly Yasmin's mind was blank. She couldn't think of a single thing about herself -- she had ceased to exist. Only when Lucy prompted her with a follow-up did the words come.
"Where are you from?"
"Oh. Kuwait." It wasn't hard to tell that she was foreign but English people tended not to be able to differentiate between different Arabic accents. Yasmin didn't hold it against them -- she was still trying to tell the difference between the Scousers and the Welsh.
"And you're studying engineering?
"Yeah," said Yasmin, nodding. "Civil engineering."
"Do you enjoy it?" Yasmin just nodded again and adjusted her hijab. Her heart wouldn't calm down. Any moment now, she thought, as they carried on through the stilted small talk, Lucy's hands weren't shaking. Maybe she had nothing planned for her after all. Maybe she'd just get a bit of a talking to and that'd be that.
They carried on for a couple of minutes, with Lucy introducing herself as the Faculty Disciplinary Officer -- a role she combined with her general role as a manager to the Administration Team. Yasmin asked if she liked the role, and she said she did.
"So," Lucy suddenly said, with a tone that told Yasmin the topic was shifting, "what do you know about the correction policy?"
"Just the same as everyone else, I guess," replied Yasmin with a shrug she worried seemed dismissive. "Corporal punishment, right?"
"Right," said Lucy, nodding.
"But..." Yasmin sniffed. "I don't know, like, what this faculty's policies are. Not specifically, I mean. I once saw this girl have to walk naked round the campus and I really don't wanna do that. I can't do that. I can't-"
"You won't," said Lucy, and Yasmin shut up. "The Engineering faculty doesn't have anything public in its policies. All corrections take place privately."
"Okay." Yasmin took a deep breath and glanced down at her Converse trainers. "Okay. That's good."
"First, perhaps we should talk about why you received the Disciplinary Notice in the first place," said Lucy. "It's your first, yes?"
