"But you can't do that! I'm not going to comply," Katie said, fury blazing in her eyes, her feet tapping the floor in incredulity.
Ryan smirked, "Wow, that's a big word coming from you. Did you finally learn how to read a dictionary?"
"Very funny! And don't change the topic. I don't care what my parents said. I'm not going to let some loser like you manhandle me for your entertainment. I'm a grown-up! So just fuck off," she said scathingly.
"Watch your language. This is exactly why your parents want you to be disciplined. You are unruly, rude, and unnecessarily entitled. You don't listen to anyone and just do whatever you want, even if it's harmful to yourself," Ryan said exasperatedly, anger starting to stir inside him at being called a loser.
Katie and Ryan were the same age (they had both turned 18 recently) and had been neighbors since they were born. Their parents had been good friends for years. Katie had bullied Ryan since childhood, often humiliating him and once even pushing him from a tree because of which he had broken his arm. Of course, once he had grown up to be a foot taller than her and more muscular, she had stopped bullying him and started focusing on weaker prey. Ryan had grown up to become one of the most popular boys in school but Katie refused to reform her childhood impression of him.
While Ryan had forgiven her childish bullying, he had not forgotten, and observing her bad behaviour over the years, he was in sympathy with her parents' plans for her. Her grades had been slipping but she paid no heed to her teachers' warnings. Studying and homework were beneath her. She was in trouble all the time with bad grades, bullying complaints and even getting drunk. Her parents had been called into the school for a meeting with the principal who stressed to them that if her behaviour did not improve soon, the school would have no choice but to expel her.
Since she was mid-way through her senior year, they knew that they needed to act fast or her academic record would be in ruins. And thus, they began to think of possible ways of disciplining their daughter. Unfortunately, for them, they had 3 weeks' worth of business meetings scheduled in Japan, France, and London, back to back. So they could not take a direct hand in her disciplining.
In their opinion, Ryan was a good-hearted, humble and down-to-earth boy, with good grades and kind behaviour towards everyone. Despite their childhood enmity which had turned to teenage indifference, he knew Katie better than most others. And he could observe her behaviour at school as well. This led them to think that he would be the perfect person to discipline her. The fact of their being the same age would add to the disciplining as it would embarrass their daughter even more.
They had decided to allow Ryan to take control of Katie's life for the next 3 weeks and to punish her with spankings or however else he deemed fit whenever she misbehaved. They knew him well enough to know that he would never misuse his authority to the detriment of their daughter and were at peace in their minds knowing that they had left their daughter in good hands.
Ryan had initially deemed the idea as unrealistic and inexecutable. Katie would never submit to his authority and especially not to any kind of humiliating punishment he would try on her. He asked why he and not another adult was being asked to do it. Her parents explained the lack of family in the city, their trust in him more than in others, and his ability to monitor her behaviour in school as well as outside school due to their living close by and having similar time schedules. Any working adults would not have as much time to devote to her. And Ryan had already qualified his SATs and didn't have much to stress over in his own life. They pleaded with him to at least give it a try for their sakes.
Ryan had always liked Katie's parents. So he decided to give it a shot. Plus the thought of having complete control over Katie's life for the next 3 weeks gave him a sense of satisfaction and slight revenge for the past, as well.
Thus, it was that he found himself having this conversation with Katie in her bedroom. Her parents had explained to her, before they left, that they gave Ryan full authority where she was concerned and warned her that if she didn't fix her attitude soon enough, she would be expelled from school.
Ryan realised that it was going to be difficult to get her to obey so he decided to use her own psychology against her.
"Let's make a deal, if you are able to complete your homework, on your own, before midnight, I'll admit that you're a grown-up, as you stated earlier," Ryan began.
"And if I don't," she cut him off, eyes narrowed.
"Then I will punish you and you will cooperate with me," Ryan continued, "if you do the homework, I'll tell your parents and we will call off the whole thing and of course, seeing your improved performance, the school might reconsider throwing you out."
"What kind of punishment?" she asked.
"Well, for one thing, I will give you a sound spanking, and definitely corner time, and then see from there, depending on the circumstances."
Katie started thinking. She wondered whether he was trying to trick her with his words. She went over the proposal in her mind. She didn't want to get expelled. Ford Prep had been her turf since childhood and no matter how much she didn't care for her grades, she did care about the humiliation of being expelled. But was it worse than getting a spanking from Ryan? The whole thing was a jumble in her head, but the only thing that stood out was this- if she finished her homework tonight, the whole nightmare would go away.
Not even considering for one moment that she might not be able to do it, she agreed to his terms. Soon, however, she realised that there was so much work that she couldn't possibly complete it within 6 hours. Even if she worked non-stop, she didn't know much of what the homework was about because either she didn't bother submitting her homework or she bullied the nerds at school into doing it for her. By 8:30, she had written only 3 paragraphs for her history essay, attempted only 2 of 10 equations of her Math homework (both of which she got wrong), understood absolutely nothing of what Shakespeare had written in Act 3 Scene 2 of Romeo and Juliet, and had completely given up on her French vocabulary paper.
She couldn't even contact her friends to ask for help because her phone had been confiscated by Ryan. By 11pm, she was in tears, completely regretting her decision to accept his challenge. But she knew she couldn't go through with the spanking. She would just have to ask him to cut her another deal or something. By 11:45pm, still sitting in her school uniform, she had put aside her homework and thought of various ways in which to manipulate Ryan but she couldn't come up with anything convincing enough. She knew that the son-of-a-bitch would never take a bribe and he was so clean that she couldn't use anything to blackmail him with.
At 12am, he entered her room. Her time was up and her mind became foggy with dread.
He gave her a small, genuine smile and asked, "how much were you able to complete? Can I have a look?"
One by one he went through all her homework and found that she had hardly been able to do any work.
"Look, I know I haven't been able to complete it, but at least I attempted it, right? I mean, that's got to count for something. So can you please talk to my parents and tell them to back off?" Katie said
"Complete it? Katie, it's obvious that you don't understand any of the concepts involved in any of the homework. How do you expect to graduate school when you can't even write a paper on the Cold War?"
"I...I...but that's none of your business, okay? I'll do what I want," she replied. The truth in his words had penetrated her mind, however. How exactly was she going to do her homework if she didn't understand anything?
"It
is
my business now. And a deal is a deal, Katie." He didn't say more. He merely alluded to the inevitable spanking and walked towards her.
