by DJ Black
Hilary Cline had always been fascinated by her aunt's alma mater. Set among the rolling woodland of New England, it had a proud tradition of educating women that went back to 1879. It took its motto seriously: respiciunt futura praeteritis ad honorem, which meant something like respect the past to honour the future, or maybe the other way about, Hilary was never too sure. But Clyburn had always pursued progressive thinking while maintaining traditional methods of discipline. It had been one of the first ladies' colleges to advocate the vote, one of the first to admit black women and boasted one of the first lady state governors among its graduates.
Hilary's young aunt had graduated back in 1965 and it had always been her and the family's wish that her niece follow in her footsteps. Hilary had been in her teens back then and more than a little impressionable. Not that she had been immediately convinced that she even wanted to go to college. Then one Thanksgiving she had come to find her aunt had come to visit on her way back from Clyburn.
Hilary had flown up the stairs to the guest room and had swept in without knocking.
Aunt Clarice was lying half naked face down on the bed with an ice pack on her tail end. Even obscured by the ice bag, it wasn't hard to see her aunt's purple rear and for Hilary to work out that her heroine had been very soundly spanked.
"Busted," Clarice blushed. "You won't tell your mom will you? She will just have to tell mine if you do."
Clarice rolled her eyes as she spoke and then winced.
"But you're... you're way too old to be spanked," Hilary had said with something like awe.
"Not at Clyburn kiddo, there it is practically mandatory," Clarice said ruefully.
"But what did you do?" Hilary had asked with wide innocent eyes.
"Best you don't know kiddo, let's just say I had it coming." Clarice grimaced.
"Was it a paddle?" Hilary asked as she came nearer. She had seen the girls at high school's backsides after a trip to see the principal. She couldn't take her eyes from her aunt's tail end.
"This time it was, but they can use just about anything at Clyburn," Clarice told her. "They have some very quaint traditions."
That had been a turning point for Hilary. After that, and for reasons she could not then or since fathom, studying at Clyburn was all that she ever wanted.
A dozen troublesome thoughts ran through Hilary's head, all competing for her consideration. But only one of these notions came with free tummy-butterflies and that was the one she tried to suppress. Well she couldn't say she hadn't been warned beforehand and she certainly should have known better now, Hilary thought as she picked her way between the trees back to her block house.
The block houses at Clyburn were like small mansions set higgledy-piggledy among the trees. They generally stood at the end of winding paths that led to and from the red-brick study halls. Hilary shared hers with eleven other girls at different stages of their student careers.
It was a fairly neat arrangement, with older girls able to support the newbies and show them the ropes. Also there was none of that bitchiness that came from a house full of sorority rich girl clones all competing over air and nothing in particular.
Hilary herself was fairly tall, which gave her a slender look, and her shoulder-length dark hair curled in from her narrow shoulders in two points at the front to frame her face. Her features were a little sharp for true beauty, but she had high cheekbones and her aunt's dark, smiley eyes.
It was 1971 and Hilary was in her final year of a four-year course in English and History. She had already been offered a place at Stanford to do her master's and if it hadn't been for her recent troubles with her tutor she wouldn't even have considered it. She was a Clyburnian girl through and through.
The trouble with John Harmon had begun routinely enough. She hadn't got back into the swing of things after the summer vacation and had skipped a few lectures was all. The summons to his study the week before last had come as no great surprise nor had his instruction to drop her pants and panties and bend over for swats.
Professor Harmon's paddle was old school, a short stout affair carved from teak and with thumb-sized, drilled holes. It was said that it had been at Clyburn since its founding, a possibility supported by the smooth, shiny face on the striking surface.
Hilary had felt it many, many times since her first semester and she had never lost respect for it. Not least because, when Professor Harmon was particularly pissed at her, he could have at her behind for some seriously prolonged workouts that not only left her unable to sit down for days, but gave her a strange mincing step that was hard to shake and announced to all who saw her that she had been a bad girl. But the laughter and smirking was usually short-lived as, all too soon, her fellow students knew their time would come around.
Usually, a serious spanking from John Harmon went in sets. First came the warm-up, with his culprit bared and bent for several hard steady swats. Then the girl was sent to the corner to think about her sins. The second set of bottom-blisters was delivered while Hilary, or whoever, was bent over the back of an old, padded chesterfield. Holding on to one's ankles for a second instalment was all but impossible, so one had to admit that it was a fair enough pose. Hilary, for one, was always grateful for the added support.
Usually, it being an hour or more since being summoned, that was the end of it. Bye-bye paddle, goodbye sitting privileges for another week. But sometimes a girl had to go back to the corner for another goodly while to contemplate a serious dose of the cane. This was never, ever fun. Her aunt had told about such extended corrections and Hilary had been enthralled, but the reality was not to be borne. Still, it was what she had signed on for and such corrections were not handed out unless they were thoroughly deserved.
Then there were the other punishments.
Hilary had never fallen afoul of the campus nurse, but she had heard dark stories. Added to this were tales of dark initiations among the various faculties. Hilary prayed nightly in thanks that she was an English-History major; they were such a staid lot and did not go in for some of the more colourful rituals found amid the sports faculty, medicine, or even law. But more than this, there were worse things.
Besides the legendary campus judicial bottom blistering - this carried out in public with a range of medieval devices all designed to unseat a girl for a whole semester - there was debagging.
Now strictly speaking, debagging was not as bad as a full judicial. But then a full judicial was less than rare and could only be carried out after a disciplinary hearing. You had to be caught with a reefer or have stolen a car or suchlike for it to come into play.
But debagging was rare enough to get you noticed in the very worst way and entirely within the gift of anyone with authority over one.
Debagging was a quaint term for what amounted to a very public correction. Firstly, as the name suggested, one was devoid of one's bags. Bags being a quaint old term for trews, pants, panties, breeches and anything pertaining there to. This, of course, included skirts and the lower portion of one's dress should one be so attired. There was a time-honoured tradition that predated Teddy Roosevelt that a girl's skirts should be pinned up above her tail end and everything beneath to be left sans culottes; that is to say, removed.
But a public display of one's behind on a mainly all-girl campus was not the worse part, although the heavens knew it was bad enough for a delicate flower's nerves. No, indeed not. The worse thing was that such a presentation both preceded and followed a rather sharp punishment or punishments of an elaborate nature. And furthermore the one debagged usually had to remain so for at least a week.
Mockery was the friend of such a girl well beyond the punitive semester, and indeed whole academic careers could become associated with such colourful corrections. It is this last point that brings us back to Hilary picking her way home through the trees.
It had begun with the aforementioned summons two weeks ago. John had greeted her tersely and enquired about her health. He was a tall, sturdy man in his late 40s. His dark, parted hair was touched with white at his temples, and streaks of white emanated from the sharp comb-track that divided it. This cumulated in a broad patch of white that hung in a quiff to his forehead. Only his eyebrows were completely dark, and these sat as expressive hats above his slate-grey eyes that seemed to miss nothing. Today they seemed to regard Hilary sternly and find her lacking.
The usual polite exchanges had taken place while Professor Harmon had patiently stirred his tea as he listened. Hilary noted at the time that he had not offered her a cup, a sure sign that she was for the high-jump, but then she had known that already.
Then he had come sharply to the point.
"Your grades are slipping," he said, looking up.
"I know I..." Hilary blustered.
"You have been missing lectures," he continued without pause, motioning her to silence. He looked down at his desk at this point and then back to meet her eyes. "Seven lectures, I believe, one of which you especially asked me to arrange." He let the last words sink in.
Hilary shifted uncomfortably as she stood in the middle of the carpet.
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