by Lisa Grant
When Ben arrived at Kelly's house she didn't even look pleased to see him. His offer of a trip to the beach to watch the sun go down was shrugged off with an indifference that was quite unlike her. He was ushered ungraciously into the Christy family's kitchen, and was told to help himself to a coke or a 7-Up from the refrigerator, if he wanted one, whereupon Kelly left him all on his own. Ben could hear a babble of excited chatter coming from the den and realised that several of Kelly's girl friends were in there. How rude! She had known he was coming round after school.
He could hear Kelly telling her friends to keep their voices down, but she needn't have worried, Ben certainly wasn't interested in the moronic prattling chatter her friends usually indulged in.
He was so angry with his girlfriend he would have stormed out and gone home, but he'd been aching (quite literally!) for this evening to come. He and Kelly had been dating for nearly three months, but she wasn't yet willing to go 'all the way'. However, just in the last couple of weeks, she had discovered that a good way to curb his constant pressure on her to make love was to give him a 'hand-job'. So Ben's righteous indignation at this uncharacteristically inconsiderate treatment was tempered by the hope that the evening might yet culminate in the soft gentle fingers of his leggy blonde girlfriend taking him to new heady heights, and thereby quelling his eager teenage lusts.
After twenty long minutes of being ignored, Ben decided he couldn't be treated like this any longer, even if it did mean losing out on the hoped-for 'hand-job', so he summoned up all his courage and strode towards the den to tell Kelly exactly what he thought of her thoughtlessness. He thought to himself that if this were a John Wayne movie he'd burst in there, scoop her up, dump her over his knee, and soundly spank her pretty butt in front of all her friends. Unfortunately, this wasn't a John Wayne movie but, nevertheless, Ben found this a surprisingly arousing thought. Of course, in reality, if you tried anything like that in the 21st century you would end up getting a slapped face or, worse, a lawsuit.
He wasn't quite sure what he was going to say as he opened the den door on the animated babble of six eighteen-year-old girls, all talking at once.
Kelly quickly silenced her friends as she saw Ben, and she blushed red, rather appealingly. He was just about to speak when one of the girls, Beverley, a strikingly attractive redhead from the 12th grade, beat him to it.
"Go on Kell..."
"No..."
"Go on - ask him!"
"Please Beverley! No!" Kelly pleaded with her friend, looking very uncomfortable.
"I'll ask him," piped up a voice to his left, which Ben recognised instantly.
"No! Don't!" Kelly implored.
Ben was, quite naturally, intrigued by now, and had quite forgotten his manly ire. He looked in the direction of the voice to his left to see if the girl was going to ask him whatever this controversial question might be. Sherilyn was a doe-eyed brunette who he had dated a couple of times. She was all together more pushy than Kelly, although every bit as gorgeous. He fondly remembered having his hand inside her well-filled bra on one memorable occasion. The question she asked though stopped his reverie, and pulled him up sharp.
"Y'know when you were in the 11th grade Ben, and you got paddled by Naylor - what was it like?"
It was Ben's turn to blush now. "What do you mean?" he stammered, as he gathered his thoughts.
"It's a simple enough question. I mean what was it like? Did it hurt?"
Suddenly, six pairs of female eyes were trained on a somewhat embarrassed Ben, and the room fell eerily silent.
"Errmm, a bit... well, y'know... not much... not too bad," he shrugged. He certainly wasn't going to admit to six girls that, even at seventeen, it had made him cry because it had hurt so goddamn much!
"How many licks did you get?"
Ben turned. It was Dannii, another shapely little blonde, quizzing him now.
"Five..."
The girls all glanced at one another.
"Only five?" Dannii asked.
"What do you mean 'only five'?! That was bad enough!" he snapped, letting his bravado slip a little at any suggestion that he'd been let off lightly.
"I thought you said it wasn't too bad" Sherilyn said, butting in.
"Well no... er, it wasn't... but it does, well, sting a bit... Naylor hits pretty good."
Anxious glances all round once more.
"How good?" pushed Sherilyn.
"Y'know - pretty hard."
"Oh God!" muttered Dannii. "But you say it wasn't too bad?"
"No, not too bad really. But it stings a bit."
He wasn't going to let on that the burning fiery sting built up so intensely that the last swat had him dancing up and down, clutching his butt and bawling his eyes out.
"How long did the sting last?" a quiet voice asked. It was Kimberley Brookes.
"Well, y'know... errmm... a bit of a glow back there where you sit for an hour or so."
Again his bravado got the better of the truth. In fact he couldn't sit comfortably all day, and he could still feel the dull ache of the bruising two or three days later. His butt had actually been swollen for twenty four hours with the force of that vicious paddle. The Principal had really let him have it.
"Did it mark your butt?" Sherilyn asked.
Ben blushed again at this question. "What is all this?" he asked, recalling all too vividly the purple, black and blue bruising that faded to yellow over the course of a week. His question was ignored, and the interrogation continued.
"It wasn't on the bare butt was it?"
"Course not, stupid!" he snapped at Sherilyn. Although Ben remembered thinking that pants seemed scant protection against that hard piece of agonising board. "He just made me empty my back pockets."
Kelly herself then asked her first question. "What had you done, Ben?"
"Oh, I'd cussed at one of the teachers when he was bawling me out for cutting class. I got taken straight to Naylor's office. He paddled me right after school, same day. End of story."
"And five licks didn't hurt too much?" Dannii blinked uncertainly.
"No! I told you," Ben lied yet again. "A bit of a sting. How many more times? What is all this anyway?"
Sherilyn looked at Kelly. "Shall we tell him?"
"Oh God," whispered Kelly, burying her face in her hands.
"Come on. I've answered all your questions!" snapped Ben, glaring at Sherilyn.
"Well... it's just... well we think we might get it." Sherilyn pulled a face that tried to look unconcerned, but actually revealed deep anguish.
Ben's heart pounded at the revelation. "The paddle?" he asked incredulously.
"Maybe."
"What do you mean 'maybe'?"
"Well, it's up to us. Naylor's given us a choice. Out of school suspension... or licks."
"What for?" Ben asked, his mouth widening.
"We cheated big time on a math pop quiz. The teacher was furious and took us to see Naylor. I thought we were going to get expelled!" grimaced Dannii, not looking her normal sassy self.
"Why don't you take the suspension?"
"My parents would kill me!" muttered Dannii.
"A whole week. We'd miss too much. Bound to affect our grades, and we all want to get into college," said Beverley.
"We'd miss the 'senior prom' next week too!" Sherilyn added.
"In any case," Kimberley said, anxiously looking at Ben for reassurance. "You said the paddle's not too bad."
"Well... no." Ben suddenly realised the consequences of his bravado, and, for the first time, thought about this gaggle of pretty eighteen-year-old girls assuming the position for a butt-blistering session with the Principal's paddle, on his say-so! He felt very aroused at the mental image.
"He only got five though!" said Shelley, who had been silent up to now.
"Why? How many are you going to get?" asked Ben, mouth now agape.
"Ten... five days out of school suspension, or ten licks with the paddle. That's the choice. Two licks for each day."
"Wowweee!" Ben exclaimed, and let out a low whistle, thinking to himself how difficult it had been for him to take five licks with any shred of dignity.
"Oh God!" said Kimberley, the most anxious-looking of all of them. "Do you think ten will be real bad then, Ben?"
Now what was he going to say? "Well... bound to be a bit worse I suppose... still, maybe he has a lighter paddle for girls," Ben said, thinking about the big wicked-looking board that had been produced when he reported for his paddling.
"No way! Ten with the senior paddle! The same one he uses on the boys. Naylor made a big point of that!" blurted Dannii.
Shit! thought Ben. What a scorcher! Surely he couldn't let them walk into this, especially not his own girlfriend.
"Well maybe it will be quite bad. I mean five was getting a bit hot... even for me."
"Jee-zus girls!" moaned Kimberley. "Let's go for the suspension."
"Look!" snapped Sherilyn. "Ben's hardly a Schwarzenegger or a Tyson is he? If he can take a bit of a spanking, I'm darned sure as hell we can!"
Well that made Ben's blood boil. Suddenly, he could think of nothing better than Sherilyn crying her eyes out as Naylor blistered her buns with that vicious paddle.
"That's right Sher... a few pops and then forget it," he said knowingly.
Just at that moment, for her put-down, Ben hoped she'd get a whacking she'd never ever forget. In any case he was getting really turned on now by the thought of this mass-paddling.
"So what do you think then, Ben?" asked Beverley, more kindly. "Would you go with the licks?"
"Any day!" lied Ben, knowing full well he'd rather be expelled than go through that agonisingly painful and humiliating ordeal again. And the six girls were going to get worse!
His heart pounded as Sherilyn said, "So. It's agreed then. We choose the licks. Tomorrow... get it over... and life can go back to normal."
"I'm not so sure Sher," whined Kimberley.
"Ben," whispered Kelly. "Do you mind going back to the kitchen for just five more minutes? We need to talk."
Ben sighed and turned. The ferocious gabbling started again, just as soon as he closed the den door. Of course, Sherilyn's voice dominated the conversation.
Ten minutes later he heard the other girls leave, much more subdued now. Kelly looked pale and full of self-pity as she walked into the kitchen. She looked at Ben for a moment, and then burst into tears and clutched her boyfriend to her firm young breast. He suddenly felt very sorry for her.
"What have you decided?" he enquired gently, stroking her long soft blonde hair.
"Licks," sobbed Kelly.
Ben got an instant hard-on at the answer. How could he be so cruel?
"Maybe you should take the suspension Kell. Ten licks will be pretty sting-y."
"We've made our minds up."
"You mean Sherilyn's made your minds up! You don't have to do the same as the others. Let them go through with the paddling if they want, but if you'd rather be suspended. Your grades are good, you'd soon catch up the work."
"All for one, and one for all, an' all that," sniffed the devastatingly pretty girl, trying to force a smile. "I couldn't chicken out now."
The next morning Ben met Kelly during the morning break. She looked lovely in her short plaid skirt and white blouse, but her pretty face was pale and drawn.
"Well?" asked Ben softly, taking her unusually cold clammy hand.
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