by David Islay
One Wednesday morning in the spring of 1979, Susan Cole met with the Principal and Vice-Principal of Anderson Falls High School before classes started, to make the final plans for the paddling that Don Jenkins was going to receive at the end of the day.
Miss Cole was in her second year of teaching English, and the two other women were seasoned educators, each having over two decades of teaching experience. Kathy Harris was the Principal, and although she was a good administrator, she wasn't particularly intimidating due to her petite stature and soft-spoken manner. Betty Nicholas, the Vice-Principal, was Kathy's lifelong friend, and she usually handled disciplinary matters at the school. She was a tall, stern-looking woman who was perfectly suited for this role, and her name alone could strike fear into the hearts of the students under her control.
To make sure everyone understood how things would proceed, Kathy went over the plan with her subordinates. "Susan, you and Betty can paddle Don in your classroom at the end of the day. It's been a while since we've spanked anyone here at the school, but it's still allowed by the Board of Education, and since he's 18 we don't need to get permission from his parents."
"How may swats should we give him?" asked Betty.
"I'll leave that up to you, but according to the Board's rules, the maximum number you can give him is six." Reaching into a drawer in her desk, Kathy took out a wooden paddle and handed to Susan. "I'll let you take this to your room so that you'll be ready at the end of the day when you need it."
The meeting adjourned, and as Susan walked to her classroom, she enjoyed the weight of the paddle in her hand. Mrs. Nicholas had spanked her with it a couple of times in the past year, and based upon her experience on the receiving end, she knew that Don was going to have trouble sitting down by the time his day was over.
Don's first inkling that something was wrong came in his sixth period class when one of the pretty assistants from the Principal's office knocked on the door, and told the teacher that she had a note for a student in his class. Such notes rarely brought good news, and everyone else in the room was relieved when Don was called to the front to pick it up. He hated that when he walked back to his desk he wasn't able to watch the assistant's cute backside sway from side-to-side as she headed back to the office, and the interest evident in the faces of the other boys in class as they watched her walking away made it clear he was missing out.
Back at his desk, Don looked at the note and groaned when he saw that he was to report to Miss Cole's room after final period. He didn't exactly dislike Miss Cole, but she bored him. He always thought of her as Miss Cold because she seemed so lifeless and drab. She might only be a few years older than him, and with her blonde hair and nice figure he imagined he might even find her attractive if only she wasn't so bland.
Don thought he was smarter than Miss Cole, and in fact, he considered himself smarter than just about every teacher he'd had since eighth grade. He was in the last half of his senior year, and his grades were so much better than those of his peers, he'd effectively locked up the class valedictorian spot the previous fall. In addition to being sharp, he was also a decent athlete and had lettered in all the high profile sports (football, basketball, and track) since his sophomore year.
After his last class, Don approached Room 101 where Miss Cole taught senior English. It was always hard for him to avoid laughing when he walked through the door into Miss Cole's room. The fact that the first book she assigned for his class to read was 1984 somehow seemed appropriate to him since Room 101 in the book served as a torture chamber that people wanted to avoid more than anything else in the world.
In Don's case, the primary dread associated with Miss Cole's Room 101 was the mind-numbing boredom. Because she didn't interest him, the only joy he got in her class was finding creative ways of tormenting her. A favorite tactic in his ongoing battle with her was to make sure that every paper he wrote for class involved sports in some way. Miss Cole clearly had no interest in athletic pursuits, and her repeated instructions to write about anything else convinced Don that he was getting on her nerves just as much as she seemed to get on his.
He blatantly flouted her orders to write about other topics because he had concluded that there was very little she could do to punish him for his disobedience. His work was much better than anything his peers handed in, and he only rarely made errors in grammar or any other metric used to justify awarding him anything lower than an 'A'; so he continued writing what he wanted and believed he could continue doing so with impunity.
When Don entered Room 101, he saw Mrs. Nicholas sitting with Miss Cole, and noticed that there was a heavy wooden paddle on top of his English teacher's desk. He looked at the paddle warily, and he had a strange premonition that Miss Cole was going to show him that she wasn't quite so boring as he thought she was.
"Hi, Miss Cole. I received a note saying you wanted to see me."
"Yes. Thanks for coming so promptly. Mrs. Nicholas and I have something that we want to discuss with you, and when we're finished we're going to paddle you."
"Now wait a minute, I haven't done anything to deserve a paddling."
"Oh, but you have. Mrs. Nicholas and I were charged with investigating who was responsible for the prank that occurred at the assembly last Thursday. Although what you organized was ingenious, we've caught a couple of your accomplices who were too sloppy to cover their tracks. We kept digging and discovered that you were the mastermind behind the whole thing. Now that the Principal has our findings, she's deciding on how to punish everyone involved. In your case, the Principal wants to expel you for two weeks because someone could have been injured in the panic that you caused. As an alternative, she agreed to let us paddle you in lieu of expulsion. Mrs. Nicholas and I are heading over to the teacher's lounge for a few minutes to give you time to think about what you want to do."
When Miss Cole and Mrs. Nicholas left, Don considered his options. At first he was angry at his co-conspirators because the only way he could have been identified as the brains behind the prank would have been for someone to have ratted on him. Ultimately, he decided that accepting a few minutes of pain was a much better option than being expelled for two weeks and possibly derailing his plans to graduate first in his class.
When Miss Cole and Mrs. Nicholas returned to the classroom and asked for his decision, Don said, "I would rather take the paddling than being thrown out of school."
"I'm glad you made the choice you did," said Miss Cole. "Although you and I have had our differences, I would hate to see you be expelled so close to graduation."
"Well, thanks for giving me a choice, I guess. What do I need to do?"
"Go ahead and remove everything from your back pockets and bend over my desk. After you're in position, you'll receive six cracks from Mrs. Nicholas, followed by six cracks from me."
When Don heard what the two teachers planned to do, alarm bells went off in his head. He had wondered why he wasn't being paddled in front of the Principal, and now he knew why - is she were present, the maximum number of swats he could have been given was six, but by carrying out his sentence in Miss Cole's room, his teachers were bending the rules and doubling the number of licks he was going to receive. If he tried to report what they had done, however, the two teachers could easily cover for each other, and it would be his word against theirs.
He approached Miss Cole's desk and placed his hands on the far side as he bent over and presented his backside for punishment. Mrs. Nicholas picked up the paddle and tapped the insides of his thighs lightly with it as she said, "Spread your legs nice and wide for me." Once Mrs. Nicholas was satisfied with Don's stance, it was only an instant before he felt the sting of the paddle.
Whack! Whack!
After the first two licks from the paddle Don's backside already burned like fire, and his eyes felt watery. He'd been crafty enough to avoid ever being spanked either at home or in school, and he was amazed at just how much it hurt. As he tried to prepare himself for his remaining swats, he fervently hoped Mrs. Nicholas wasn't holding any grudges over the many stunts he'd pulled at the school over the years.
Whack! Whack!
The third and fourth blows delivered by Mrs. Nicholas drove Don forward until his legs were pressed flush against the desk. Nearly overwhelmed by the pain coursing through his backside, he remembered that Mrs. Nicholas was rumored to have paddled other students years earlier when spanking had been a more common practice. He had never put much stock in such wild tales, but it seemed that the tall woman standing to his left was intent on making him a believer.
By the time the sixth swat from Mrs. Nicholas had landed, Don's entire backside throbbed with pain. He had planned to remain stoic throughout his punishment, but after both the fifth and the sixth licks, he couldn't stop himself from groaning audibly and providing the two woman in the room with evidence of his suffering.
While Mrs. Nicholas was handing the paddle to his English teacher, Don turned his head to the left, and in a voice that sounded desperate even to him, he said, "Please don't, Miss Cole. I've had enough." He was ashamed to be asking for mercy at the half-way point of his punishment but he didn't know what else to do because he was afraid he'd be bawling like a baby if he had to endure six more swats like the ones he'd just received.
Miss Cole looked Don in the eye, and although he thought he'd seen a momentary hint of compassion in her gaze, his heart sank when she said in a flat, emotionless voice, "It's too late to ask for leniency now. You chose your punishment, and now that we've started, we're not turning back."
Miss Cole took up her position to Don's left, and when she began smacking his backside, it was clear that compared to Mrs. Nicholas, Miss Cole was inexperienced. Mrs. Nicholas had taken her time, paddled him hard, and hadn't spared a square inch of his backside when carrying out his punishment. In contrast, Miss Cole seemed to be in a hurry, the licks weren't nearly as hard, and they all landed higher up on his hips where they didn't hurt as much as they would have if they'd been aimed nearer his sit spots.
Although the swats from Miss Cole weren't as hard the ones he'd received from Mrs. Nicholas, the speed at which they were delivered ensured that Don struggled to stifle his sobbing that threatened to become full-fledged tears.
"You can stand up now," said Miss Cole after she delivered the final swat.
Don could see smiles on the faces of both women as he rubbed his nether cheeks in an effort to extinguish the raging inferno in his backside.
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