by Susan Thomas
Sophie left her foster home shortly before her eighteenth birthday. The lawyer her mom had chosen to manage her trust fund arranged a motel room for Sophie in the small town where her mom had grown up. She had enough money to buy a small property and see herself through school and college. She knew no one in the town, but then her mom had moved around so much nowhere was really home to her. Her birthday was the 2nd of September so she still, if she wished to graduate, had another whole year of school left to do. First, she had to get settled. The small house she chose was one of an estate of twenty houses. Built a few years after World War II, it was in quiet backwater and all seemed well cared for and the occupants respectable. The area crime rate was low and the house itself, although not completely up to date, functioned and was in good shape. The bonus was it had some of the previous occupant's furniture still in place. The furniture was old-fashioned but well cared for, and since Sophie had none she agreed to take it all.
She drove her mom's old car up onto the hard standing and got out, feeling daunted at her transition from childhood to adulthood. A man appeared from the house next door and stared at her. He was about six-feet three in height and strongly built, although he looked about sixty or more in age. His hair was short and grizzled. Something about his bearing suggested ex-military or maybe ex-cop.
"Hi there," he called. "You just moving in?"
"Yes, that's right. Sophie Randall."
"Okay, nice to meet you, Sophie. Bill Jackson, but where's your folks?"
"Just me. Mom passed on a year and a half ago."
"I'm sorry for your loss, Sophie. Real sorry. Now, no offence, but you don't look old enough to be on your own."
"I was eighteen yesterday. I quit foster care a few weeks back. Had my fill of that, and I was eighteen yesterday so nothing they can do now."
"You got no one else to help you?"
"No Sir, just me, but if you're offering I could use a bit of help shifting stuff around and moving boxes from the car."
He grinned, and after shaking hands, helped. When they finished, Sophie made coffee and they sat to drink it, Sophie marveling that this was her own property.
"So, what now for you, Sophie?"
"High school. I need to graduate. Because my birthday is so early in the year, I'm always the eldest in my class. Which is the nearest school?"
"Lowtown High. Small but good." He watched the worry develop on his new neighbor's face and asked gently, "Would you like me to come along with you when you register?"
"Would you? That would be great. Honestly I feel..."
"Yeah, it's tough being out on your own. I'll come."
The next day Bill was good for his word and even drove her to the school where he was recognized by the principal.
"Sergeant Jackson. Good to see you again. Is this your daughter or possibly granddaughter?"
Bill explained the relationship and then, to Sophie, how he'd known Sam Boveri when the teacher was young and volunteered at the youth center run by several police officers including himself. There seemed to be a great many details to complete but just when Sophie thought they'd finished there was one more: the corporal punishment permission form. It was raised apologetically as if Sophie would reject it. The school policy had retained corporal punishment in the form of the paddle. For the under eighteens, parental permission was required and alternatives laid out clearly. Eighty percent of parents had given permission. Once a student reached eighteen, they had to sign the form themselves or, if they didn't, sign to say they accepted the alternative disciplinary procedures should they be needed.
To the surprise of Bill and the principal, Sophie agreed to the corporal punishment without hesitation. On the way back, Bill expressed his surprise.
"Why not? I'm not planning on creating trouble. I want to graduate. I've got no attitude issues. If I didn't want to be in school I wouldn't go. Now how about we eat... my treat."
It took a bit of persuading, but Bill eventually agreed and introduced her to Tamarisk, a restaurant much used by those in the town's law enforcement family. As he introduced her to the many police officers and retired officers, Sophie realized Bill had taken on the role of father figure to her. Not only that, his buddies, old and young, clearly now viewed themselves in the same way. She was a very young woman alone in the world, and they were going to look out for her. She'd gone from having no father to having twenty or more in just a few days. Sophie rather liked that feeling, but it didn't take her long to discover that some years ago Bill had lost his wife and his eighteen-year-old daughter, to black ice. He talked little about his loss, but she guessed that in some small way he now saw her as his daughter. That was fine by her.
Bill took her to school for the first few days and picked her up afterwards. He did this until she sorted out where she could park her car. At the weekends they'd go out to breakfast together, joining other retired officers, all of whom were very kind to her. She went to church with him on Sunday. She cooked for him some days, and he for her on others. Their lives intertwined, and the isolation she had felt in the noisy foster home disappeared.
School too was going well. She joined the choir, where the choir master was delighted to have her. Sophie's mom had been a moderately successful hotel and night club singer and had taught her how to read music and sing almost to professional standard. Her grades for work were good initially and then rose to excellent as she got into her stride. There was no sign of any trouble at all until the day Sophie decided to wear a rather daring skirt. She knew it wasn't right. The skirt was short and tight around the bottom but flared out, so a mere puff of wind would lift it. It was designed to catch male attention, and that was not permitted in the dress code. Sophie decided she could get away with it. After all, she was a good and serious student. Teachers wouldn't look hard at her, and at first, they didn't. Then Mrs. Coffey did and sent her to the school office.
Principal Boveri was not a born-again spanker. He used the paddle but not to excess. He was a strong figure about the school and gave his students a great deal of time, but the school rules were clear: a breach of dress code mandated four with the paddle. There was no fine line in the case of Sophie's skirt, no difficult judgment call; the skirt violated the rules and that was that.
"Sophie, do you disagree with my decision that you have breached the rules governing your appearance?"
Sophie was scared but mature enough to know when to accept the inevitable without further argument. She was going to get paddled, and she'd best get on with it.
"No Sir, it was foolish but wrong."
"Good attitude. Now I'm going to paddle you, but first I'll call in Mrs. Winkler as chaperone."
"I don't need a chaperone, Sir."
"No? Well I do."
Mrs. Winkler duly came in and gave Sophie a strong look of disapproval. It seemed to say the word 'slut' to her, and she felt ashamed.
"Now Sophie, stand right here for me then bend over and put your hands on my desk. Spread your legs a little more."
Sophie did as she was told and then worried whether the dress was actually exposing her panties. She felt chill around there, and that alone told her she should not have worn the skirt. With thumping heart and dry mouth, she gave herself over to her punishment.
Mr. Boveri briefly rested the large paddle on her bottom. Then it moved away and suddenly struck with a force that literally took her breath for a moment. There was a short pause and then painful heat hit her, followed by an intense stinging.
"Aaah," she cried and then a plaintive "Oooow," because her bottom's reaction to the swat was so unpleasant. The next swat seemed even harder, and the heat that burned deep down into her was awful. She felt the heat rising seemingly without end, making her cries rise ever higher.
The next swat made her arms bend at the elbows, and she moaned as her whole bottom felt as if it was one huge fire storm. She had no idea the paddle hurt so much. The last swat also made her bend her elbows and rock forward. The pain of the paddling seemed to be burying itself right down into her bottom while the surface was a raging fire.
"You may stand, Sophie. It's now the lunch break, so you're to go home and change that skirt."
Sophie was holding herself in tightly. She was standing upright, trying hard not to move her bottom more than necessary and avoiding putting her hands to her rear end. She imagined some fly-on-the-wall camera broadcasting to gawping millions and wanted to remain dignified. She left the school and walked stiffly across the parking lot to her car. Her bottom was now really raging with a deep burning heat, but Principal Boveri had been clear: she had to change out of her skirt into something that conformed to the dress code. She eased herself down slowly onto the car seat and then, when her bottom adjusted to sitting, drove home. As she parked outside her small house Bill came out looking anxious.
"Are you okay, Sophie? You're not ill?"
"Gotta change, Bill. Dress code violation. Principal Boveri was mad and made it clear I had to change over lunch."
Bill watched her stiff movements and asked, "Paddled?"
"Yes. Four mandatory swats."
"Okay. Right, well we'll have a little chat about that when you get home. Right now, you'd best hurry back."
Sophie swapped her too-short skirt for one that was longer and altogether more modest. It was only as she was driving back to school that she thought about his words. What would they chat about? What did he mean? Then a memory of one of her mother's stories came back to her. When her mom was at school, punished at school invariably meant another punishment at home. That had been very common when her mom was her age. She laughed to herself. No way could Bill mean that.
It was choir practice after school, so it was some time before Sophie eased herself back onto the car seat to drive home. Her bottom was still sore although not as sore as it had been. Bill usually had some sort of pastry, doughnut or other cake type treat waiting for her when she got home. He always made fresh coffee honoring her dislike of sodas. Her mother's night-club singing had left her having had a surfeit of them over the years. This home coming was no exception. Fresh chocolate cake and coffee awaited her, and she sat, carefully, on a seat in Bill's dinette and enjoyed his provision.
"So, your skirt was too short? Is that why the four swats?"
"Too short, too tight around my bottom, too flared, and therefore too immodest."
"Did you know it violated dress code?" Sophie hesitated. Bill narrowed his eyes and somehow became stern and, in a fatherly way, just a little frightening. "Sophie Randall, no lies now, girl. Tell the truth and shame the Devil."
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