Tania tugged at the hem of her skirt as she waited at the front gate of the school. At five feet two, nothing seemed to look elegant on her, not even the designer red travel-dress ensemble that she had picked out to wear home. Her blonde untamed shoulder-length hair, just added to the general look of scruffiness, which seemed to symbolise the walking disaster her life had become of late. In frustration she kicked an old tin can down the driveway and heard it rattle out of sight into the gutter. The can was as out of place as she was at the Cardinal Rutger School for Young Ladies and only half as rusty.

At nearly 19 she should have gone to college, but she hadn’t got the grades and although she had been content just to get a job, her parents had not been enthusiastic.

“As what?” Her mother had wanted to know.

“I could always be a hooker. I hear you don’t need math or physics for that,” Tania had thrown back.

“One more word like that, just one and you, young lady and as old as you are, you will go over my knee,” her father had said.

It wasn’t smart to piss off Daddy, she thought. Not when he was on her side. Well usually he was.

Her previous school, the Lutheran Saints, had been his idea and despite her mother’s misgivings, she had been allowed to go. But mother was a catholic and although not religious, deep-down she couldn’t help harbouring the suspicion that all Protestants lacked discipline.

In the end, Cardinal Rutger’s had been the answer for her so spectacularly proving her mother right.

Now here she was at the end of the first term with a report full of Ds, Es and three Fs. But what did they expect? The damn… darn, she amended, the penguins could read minds clear out to Boston; the darn school was a nightmare.

On her first week she had been pounced on in the hall on her way back to her room after a study hour. “You should be in your room, it’s eight and a half minutes past curfew,” Sister Maria had challenged.

Tania had actually laughed. “How many nanoseconds?” She had chirped. That had got her on report. Not that an abject apology and three Hail Mary’s would have got her any other outcome, as she was to find out. Tardiness was a mortal sin in the eyes of the penguins. In fact just about everything, as it turned out, was a mortal sin.

At her last school being on report meant a trip to the Dean’s Office and ‘a little chat’ where he smiled at you and convinced himself that he had dressed you down. At Cardinal Rutger’s, being on report meant the paddle.

The hall outside the principal’s office smelt of fresh wax and stale cotton. “It’s those starchy habits and priest’s get-ups,” she had been told; and the fact that the hallway itself was rather heavy on the wood, giving everything a brownish tint, which reminded Tania of a church.

On that first trip to see the Principal there was already someone waiting; a brown-haired girl with a sullen air. Clarissa, as it turned out. “Your first visit,” she said as Tania walked up.

“Yeah. What’s the biggie? I mean I was less than 10 minutes late back from study. What you in for?”

“Smoking.” Clarissa’s mouth formed a worried pout.

“What’s the deal then… I mean they don’t actually… paddle us like in high school?”

“Not they; Father Thomas, the Principal. The deal is that for your first paddling you’ll get a panty warmer. Six to 10 swats, depending on his mood or if he likes your ass,” the girl said icily. “Me? It’s my third this semester. And smoking…” She rocked her hand dramatically from side to side… “He is going to blister my bare butt.”

“No way,” Tania gasped.

“Oh way, believe me. Way.”

It hadn’t taken Tania long to find out. Shortly afterwards Father Thomas had breezed down the corridor. “A new… face, I see,” he had said cheerily as he had ushered them in to his office.

He was a short man, but built like a barrel. Not fat exactly. More like a football player who had been crushed by a falling piano. He was thinning on top, but Tania could see that once upon-a-time he had had a thick head of curly red hair.

“Smoking again Clarissa?” He said, taking up a huge paddle from his desk without ceremony.

“Yes Sir,” Clarissa said woodenly.

“And…?”

“Tania Sir.”

Father Thomas raised his eyebrows quizzically.

“Oh… I was late back from my study period, but it was only…”

“Late and insubordinate,” Father Thomas said tersely reading her slip. “You can take 10 I think. But first we will show you how it’s done. Clarissa.”

“Yes Sir,” Clarissa said miserably reaching under her skirts.

This was too surreal, Tania thought. As she watched, Clarissa pulled up her skirts and slipped her panties right down to her knees, then bent forward over the desk so as to push out her bare bottom. Her blush could have been painted on with a brush, but yet she didn’t hesitate to show herself to the Principal.

Father Thomas was workman-like and moved behind the girl wielding the paddle. It was made of heavy wood and about three feet long with a large striking surface that had been drilled with several dozen holes.

The paddle came down with a splat that caused Tania to jump, but Clarissa merely hissed and rocked her hips so that her bottom wagged. Where it had struck the offered behind, her skin had gone a stark white in an outline of the paddle, complete with dozens of white holes. As she watched the paddle-print went pink and then red until it became a swollen patch on Clarissa’s bottom. The girl herself was struggling with her ragged breathing and continued to pump her thighs a little.

Then after waiting for just a few moments, Father Thomas struck again extracting an “uh” from Clarissa and even more rocking against the desk. Where the paddle had struck, slightly lower than before, there were welts at the point where the paddle prints overlapped.

Clarissa grunted angrily at the third impact and took several moments to compose herself. All the while she was breathing like a buzz-saw. Her bottom was quite vivid now, not only strawberry red, but at the edges of the paddle strikes Tania could see purple grazing and the bumps caused by the holes looked very tender.

“I trust the only thing that will be smoking now is your backside,” Father Thomas growled.

“Yes Sir,” Clarissa wailed.

The paddle blasted down a dozen more times before the Principal was satisfied and by then Clarissa was crying freely.

“Alright get up and face the wall,” Father Thomas said in a bored voice.

Throughout Clarissa’s spanking, Tania had been shaking and a little light-headed, although she had been riveted by the scene. Despite it all though, she had not connected the event with the fate that was about to befall her. However, now that Clarissa had got to her feet and made her way to the wall with slow easy steps, Tania felt her mouth get quite dry.

“Right… eh… Tania, lift that skirt and bend over the desk,” Father Thomas said casually rubbing at the still-warm paddle with his thumb.

The paddle had been unbelievable and after 10 swats, even through her panties, Tania had not be able to sit down for three days.

Nor had that been the only trip to the Principal’s office; on three more occasions she had been across his desk and as promised this time the paddle had seared her completely bare bottom.

As she remembered the long slow walks to Father Thomas’s office and the even longer and decidedly slower walks back, she saw her father’s car rounding the end of the drive.

“Hello Tania,” her father said with a tight smile as he pulled up.

“What exactly were you thinking?” Her mother threw at her without the pleasantries.

“Let’s get home… before we… well let’s get home.” Her father squeezed her arm as he guided her into the car and then picked up her bags to deposit them in the trunk.

Then they drove home in a stony silence.

*

“But I… yes but… if you…” Tania managed between her mother’s raging, the tears pricking at her eyes.

Her father just hung back with his arms folded looking terminally disappointed.

“And another thing, if you think you are going to see the outside of this house any time before you go back to school, then dream on my girl. When I…” Tania’s mother reached for the air and the words to continue her tirade.

“I’m sorry,” Tania managed.

“Sorry. Sorry? You will be sorry… I’m going to…” Her mother sucked in her breath through her nose, the tears pooling in her eyes. Then she hurled the report across the room so that it scattered in a mockery of the celebration that had been expected.

My very own tickertape welcome, Tania thought ruefully, as the motley collection of Ds, Es and Fs fluttered to the floor.

Her father sighed and then let out a long slow deliberate breath. “You know it’s been years since I had to spank you,” he said.

“Sp… spank me, but Daddy I’m 18,” Tania gaped. “Almost 19, you can’t, you just can’t.”

“I think… oh hell, I think I had better before your mother kills you,” he said quietly.

Tania let her mouth hang open and she blushed. This was… she sighed. She had no idea, she was way too embarrassed. What if someone found out? Then she remembered her mother’s former stance when she had been really pissed at her all through high school. “Tania can’t come to the phone right now; I have her standing in the corner. No, there’s nothing wrong with the TV. She’s in the corner with her panties down because her father spanked her.”

Worst yet were those times when she actually invited her friends in. “Oh ignore Tania, she’ll be out of the corner soon. As it’s not a school night perhaps I let her out just this once if she promises to be good.”

“Oh Mrs Selznick, you spank hard. Poor Tania,” her girlfriends might say in mock sympathy as the supressed grins. However sometimes, they just laughed. Any boyfriends in tow always did. But that was then, this was now.

Her father took her arm and led her over to the couch. Then flipping up the skirts of her red travel clothes, he exposed her delicate stockings and red panties. With a sigh he hooked his thumb in the elastic of her briefs and tugged them right down.

“Tania, I’m so disappointed in you,” he growled.

“Sorry Daddy,” she said miserably, mortified by being so exposed in front of her father.

Her father didn’t wait, but brought his hand down sharply stinging her bare bottom. It didn’t hurt anywhere near as much as Father Thomas’s paddle, but her own sense of failure and shame did the work and she yelped, a big tear rolling down her face.

“I’m sorry Daddy, ouch, I’m so… ouch, sorry…” she wailed and then broke into chuckling sobs.

The spanking lasted a good 10 minutes until the fire in her bottom superseded any guilt and sorry wasn’t just a mantra for her. By then her bottom was cherry red and all four of her cheeks looked as if they had been rouged by a 10-year-old pretending to be a grown-up. Rather like Tania, she thought miserably.

“Now I want you in that corner out in the kitchen and don’t you dare move until bedtime. Do you hear me Tania Selznick?”

“Yes Daddy,” Tania sniffed, still holding up her skirts in back as she knew was required.

About an hour later the phone rang. “Hello… Debbie, how nice to hear from you,” Tania heard her mother say behind her.

No, no, nooo, Tania’s eyes went wide, her mind racing, Debbie Kent had the biggest mouth in town, please Mom don’t…

“Tania, yes she’s home. No she can’t come to the phone right now… no, nothing like that… she won’t be there… no she’s grounded. Oh… maybe tomorrow, yes, you can talk then. She’s in the corner right now; her father had to spank her… that’s fine. Goodbye Debbie.”

In the corner on the other side of the kitchen, Tania started to cry again.

Ends.