“But Mr Davis, I didn’t do it,” Kate wailed.

Ashlyn, listening at the door hooked her lower lip with her teeth and hugged herself with glee. It was a pity she couldn’t be a fly on the wall, but sometimes you couldn’t have it all.

“Is that the best you can do Miss Henson?” the vice-principal in charge of college discipline sounded pissed.

“But it’s true,” Kate insisted.

“So you are saying that between two am and six this morning someone else had a party in a study room that you had signed for?” Vice-Principal Davis was exasperated now.

“I signed for that room from eight; to study,” Kate sounded shrill now, “I left at 11.45, the midnight to two slot was just in case…”

“And you just happened to forget to hand in the keys?” Ashlyn could almost hear Davis arching his eyebrows in disbelief.  “And the graffiti, the beer cans, the… oh don’t even let me think about that… what were you and your friends doing in their? And you still insist that you can’t give me their names?” he barked.

“But… but… but…” Kate spluttered.

“The only butt I am interested in right now is yours, bared and bending for…” Davis said wearily, any one of her offences could get her 18 swats. Even if he reduced it to 12 for a first offence… he sighed. “Miss Henson I am going to give you 36 swats on your naked behind, the most permissible, but if you offer me one more denial I am going to raise that to 54 and add 18 for lying. That means returning in three days for another 36.

Ashlyn punched the air and mouthed a mighty ‘yeah’ in triumph. Please deny it again, please, she prayed. But a moment later she heard the scrape of a chair and some laboured breathing and then a heavy thwack.

She didn’t see the first swat land sharply across Kate’s bare bottom, but she heard it and the next. Thereafter the paddle swats had to compete with some serious yells. Ashlyn grinned and tossed her head back as if bathing in sunshine so that the tight dome of her dark straight bobbed hair shook like the helm of a dark knight of old. Kate was her third victim that week, but none of the others had got more than 24 swats. All-in-all she had managed to get some 17 college seniors paddled that semester and none of them suspected.

Kate had been easy. The study rooms all had the same key on the upper floor, a fact that the vice-principal seemed to be ignorant of. Ashlyn and her friends had had quite a party before the janitor had come on duty at six.

“Nnnoooo please,” Kate yelled from inside Davis’s office, Ashlyn counted the 18th swat with glee. This girl was really not going to make it to 36; she would walk bandy for a week and wouldn’t sit down for two.

*

John Vaughn watched Kate step oh so carefully down the administration building’s steps. The gait of a paddled girl was unmistakeable and even if it wasn’t, 20 minutes in the ladies powder room wasn’t long enough to address the river of tears that had assailed her make-up. The sight was almost comical and in any other circumstances he would have revelled in the schadenfreude.

But when he heard that Kate Henson had taken the rap for Ashlyn’s party he felt used. He had no problem with flaunting the college rules and felt few qualms about the mess they had made the night before, but he hadn’t realised that Ashlyn had deliberately set Kate up.

He knew for a fact that she had pulled the same stunt a few weeks back, but then she had claimed the girl involved had had it coming. Now he learned that quite a few girls had had it coming too, only it seemed now that none of them had.

If he had worked this out an hour earlier he would have gone to the vice-principal with it, but Kate’s bottom was already in tatters and getting Ashlyn the same would serve no real purpose, not if there was another way. No, this was now a delicate matter and one he was going to have to take up with the joint standards committee for Kate and Ashlyn’s sororities.

*

Ashlyn had found another mark. Some poor freshman shmuck had left her library card in the refractory. All she had to do now was work up the best way to exploit the situation. Watching her latest victim oblivious strolling across campus, Ashlyn adjusted her shades and swaggering with attitude she sauntered after her. Maybe she could make friends first and tease out the girl’s weaknesses.

She was still smirking when she noticed Janice Chambers leaning under a tree in the quad watching her. Ashlyn frowned, there was something way too knowing in that sister’s gaze. Janice had been hit number three that semester, nothing too involved, the girl had got a dozen swats after a small matter of some misdirected mail. It had been too easy.

Ashlyn was about to shrug it off when she saw another of her little marks sitting on a bench also watching her. The name escaped her but the evidence of two dozen paddle swats she had seen in the showers would forever dwell in her mind.

Then she saw two more girls whispering off to her right. Neither had been one of Ashlyn’s victims but one of them was on the standards committee and both of them were definitely watching her.

Ashlyn was beginning to get a bad feeling about this when three sisters hedged her in.

“Ashlyn Bridger,” said a row of white even teeth in a faux friendly tone.

Ashlyn could spot two-faced sorority bitch at 30 paces, after all she was one.

“I don’t think we have had the… eh… pleasure,” she said in an equally bitchy tone.

“I don’t think we have,” the bitch-smile said carefully, “What about you girls?”

A tall blonde with Gucci to match swung around and appeared to size Ashlyn up and then crinkled up her nose before shaking her head.

“John Vaughn said we should look you up,” a young Michelle Obama look alike said casually. Her smile was broad as it got, but the joyful expression did not reach her eyes.

“Wh-what’s this about?” Ashlyn asked nervously.

“Do you know Rachel Dean?” the original bitch-smile asked.

“Or Amanda Kravis?” the Gucci blonde added.

‘Michelle’ shook her head dismissively before suggesting, “Janice Chambers?”

Amanda Kravis had already been forgotten but Rachel and Janice definitely had some connection and Ashlyn gulped.

The three women, shortly to become six, listed several more names in turn, many of which Ashlyn recognised and none of which in circumstances that were likely to be friendly.

“Look I don’t know who you have been talking to but…” Ashlyn began.

“It is not who we have been talking to that should concern you, but who we could talk to,” ‘Michelle’ said softly up close in Ashlyn’s ear.

Bitch-smile and Gucci had taken one of Ashlyn’s arms apiece and were now leading her somewhere.

“You know what this is about,” one of the others said. Ashlyn recognised her as being from the standards committee.

“It was a joke, just a joke,” Ashlyn said nervously.

Bitch-smile leaned in close with a frown and hissed, “Newsflash sister, no one is laughing.”

“You have a choice and you will make it now,” ‘Michelle’ said in a reasonable tone.

“Sign your ass over to the joint standards committee or we go to the principal with 11 affidavits and three personal testimonies,” the redheaded Janice Chambers who had now joined the group growled.

“What my friend means to say is…” Michelle cut in smoothly, “If you sign a confession and a letter of application for extended guidance by the joint standards committee, then this can be handled as an internal matter and no real harm will come to you.”

“Or…?” an ashen-faced Ashlyn asked.

But the alternative was obvious. An official session or three with the vice-principal followed by a suspension and if she were lucky a return next semester to face the continuing ire of her sorority sisters.

*

Ashlyn sat naked in the back of a small truck shivering. The floor of the vehicle was hard and cold under her backside, but at least she wasn’t tied up. Not unless you counted the blindfold, which she had been invited to leave in place by one of the sororities mean looking sergeant-at-arms. Not that she could have seen anything; it was a dead cert that it was still dark.

She had been summoned at five that morning; an aggressive rousing by two of her own sisters with an attitude she hadn’t encountered since she had been a pledge.

“It is a come as you are party,” one of the growled as she was shoved into the hall in only her shortie.

The gathering at the standards committee hearing had been well-attended considering the hour, and 20 or more pairs of eyes had been watching as she had been divested of her one skimpy layer of clothing. This was a situation made infinitely worse by the presence of five men from the frat committees. Such things weren’t unknown when one was a pledge, but no senior should have to endure such treatment, Ashlyn had thought bitterly.

She had still been off-guard when one of her own sisters had passed her a standards committee consent form and a typed letter she hadn’t bothered to read; presumably it was her confession. She had signed them both.

The incoherent lecture from the committee chair had been both pompous and long-winded, but the panel had sat seriously throughout it all while Ashlyn had stood facing them naked and trying to look bored.

Finally the sergeant-at-arms had stepped forward and handed her a pair of cheap clear plastic sandals and the blindfold.

Sitting on the floor of the truck Ashlyn tried to guess her fate. So far it was pretty tame pledge hazing if she were honest. The only difference was that this time she was alone. They were trying to scare her of course and a few paddle swats were a certainty, she thought ruefully. She thought about the waver she had signed and gulped. No doubt, like a pledge she would be required to see a representative of the standards committee once a week until they were done with her and then it would all blow over. But even this thought sent her queasy… what if…? The thought was left unfinished because the vehicle chose that moment to rock to a stop and the door opened.

“Get her out,” someone snapped and a moment later Ashlyn was seized and bundled out of the truck.

Another voice muttered, “Okay let her see.”

The horizon was ablaze with clear golden light and she blinked hard as the blindfold was whipped away. It took her a moment to see and when she could she was surprised. She was in a clearing in a forest next to some kind of old western-style ghost town; heaven knew how they had found it.

“Okay guys what happens now,” Ashlyn said bravely.

John Vaughn stepped into view and eyed her sharply. He was formally dressed with a suit and tie, but it was the paddle that he held that made Ashlyn gulp.

“You remember John?” the Michelle Obama look alike from the day before said.

Ashlyn nodded and visibly swallowed again. It was hard not to blush when standing so exposed and in the open. “Wh-where is this place?” her voice was thick.

“We’ll get to that,” Michelle said with a wink. “This way,” she added with a snap.

There were maybe eight of them besides John, only one of the others was a frat, a fact that Ashlyn sucked dry of comfort. Not unless there were others somewhere. She was still pondering this when she was led around to the side of the nearby barn to a kind of lean-to.

Ashlyn drew a breath. The damn place was obviously a woodshed and it even had a trestle with impromptu padding wrapped around the crosspiece.

“This is going to be fun, your kind of fun,” Michelle told her before giving a sharp nod.

Two girls seized Ashlyn’s arms and pressed her forward to the trestle, but then let her go.

“Bend over,” Michelle told her.

Ashlyn shot her a look of disdain and thought about flipping her off.

“Bend over,” John growled and Ashlyn found herself obeying.

“You see, all completely consensual,” Michelle said breezily.

“Yes ma’am,” Ashlyn agreed miserably, her nose just inches from the wood shavings-peppered ground and her face fringed by a curtain of hair that made her tongue-spit it off her lips.

“Get your butt up,” someone snarled, an impossibility Ashlyn thought, as her bottom being uppermost was as ‘up’ as it was ever going to go.

“How many?” John asked as he moved up behind her.

“What minutes?” Michelle chuckled, “Just until the sand timer runs out,” she said with glee, “To begin with anyway.”

Ashlyn couldn’t see the timer that was set on some old logs, but she knew they rarely measured less than three minutes. Maybe it was even an hour glass, she suddenly thought in horror. She was till turning this one over when the paddle struck.

“How does that feel?” Michelle asked with glee, “Or that?” she added as John struck Ashlyn again.

“Man, her ass is already so red,” someone said.

Ashlyn thought it sounded like Janice and felt hot blood surge into her head. “That’s fine ma’am,” Ashlyn said in a tight voice; an answer to the look a like’s question.

The paddle slammed down eight times before Ashlyn had to clamp on her jaw to supress a long whine. She had to diffuse the sting by breathing rapidly.

“How many did you arrange all those girls to have?” Michelle casually asked, “In total I mean?”

The figure of 300 swats, popped into Ashlyn’s head but she knew it could easily have been more. “I don’t know ma’am,” she lied.

“How many do you think you deserve?” Michelle pressed her.

The paddle bit down several more times and Ashlyn struggled not to cry. “Please,” she wailed, “It was a joke.”

“How are we doing on time?” John asked, adding a swat in case it was his last.

Ashlyn screamed out at this one.

“We figured 36 swats for each offence, hell if you factor in those we don’t know about… I make that what…?” Michelle said matter-of-factly, “A thousand?” she put in.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” Ashlyn wailed wetly.

“Time’s up,” a girlish voice said breathlessly.

“Flip it,” Michelle shot back.

*

Ashlyn faced the wooden barn wall heaving down sobs. Her bottom was beyond on-fire and a stolen glance backwards had given her a vertical view of two swollen purple curves.

“I’m sorry we don’t have a proper corner here, we’ll set that up for another day,” Michelle told her, “You know, for the rest of the semester and maybe the next if you don’t behave.”

Ashlyn laboured with the air and pressed her forehead into the wood until it hurt by way of a distraction from the hellfire assault on her bottom.

“Now let me tell you about the rest of your day,” the black woman continued.

Ashlyn started to cry in earnest as she listened.

“There is a town about five miles from here up the track. I am going to give an address for a house there where some of your sisters are waiting to throw you a party. Do you best not to get too lost or be too late, or else some of the umpires will intervene and give you another sanction. Remember everything will be reported back to standards later,” she was told. “Now turn around.”

Ashlyn sniffed and peeled herself away from the wall.

“Here,” the look alike said as she wrote an address on Ashlyn’s forearm.

“What about my clothes?” Ashlyn asked miserably.

Michelle grinned.

“You’re kidding,” Ashlyn wailed.

“Better get going girl, better get going, I’ll see you Friday for our first little consultation,” the black woman chuckled.

“You can’t leave me alone out here and naked,” Ashlyn called after the group as they went to the truck.

“You won’t see them, but you won’t be alone,” her new mentor called back, “And that’s not counting the photographers. Have fun.”