Gemma

I'm very bad at starting fiction and never finishing it, so this was my attempt just to write a damn story and get it finished! So I apologise for the quality, but finishing it was an achievement in itself!


She waited outside the study, her stomach churning as she waited. How much longer? This in its way was more of a punishment than what was about to happen inside the study. She knew she was really in trouble this time. Her school report had arrived in the post today. She knew it wouldn't be good. Since starting the Upper Sixth she'd lost all enthusiasm for half her subjects. She still liked Spanish and Biology, but Maths and Chemistry just bored her to tears now and she'd given up trying. She couldn't summon up enthusiasm for them any more. So she'd known this first half term's report would not be good. She hadn't reckoned on quite how bad though.
Her stepmother had called her into the dining room when she got home from school. She'd thrown the report in front of her, let the awfulness of it sink in, and then said the words she knew were calculated to inspire dread:
"Get up to your room. Your father will deal with this when he gets home."
So she'd sat in her bedroom, curled up on the window seat, gazing out into the garden, waiting until she heard the sound of the key in the front door.

Half an hour later, her stepmother had come into her room. "Go and wait outside the study." She stalked away. Gemma rolled her eyes. There was no love lost between the two of them. She straightened her skirt and made her way downstairs. She reached the door to the study and stood against the wall trying not to think about what was to come.

Eventually, just when she thought she couldn't take the wait for a second longer, the door opened and her father beckoned her inside. He motioned for her to stand in front of the desk.
He sat down on the other side, and picked up the report.
"What's this all about?" She could hear the concern in his voice, mixed with frustration and disappointment. "Are you even trying in Chemistry and Maths? Doing any work at all?"
Gemma looked back at him and decided that honesty was probably the best policy.
"Um, no. Not really. I've just lost all interest in them. I don't want to do medicine any more, and Chemistry and Maths seem so dry. I'd rather be doing history or something."
"When did you decide this?" her father asked. "You've wanted to be a doctor since you were a little girl. Why, all of a sudden, is it no longer for you?"
"I don't know... ever since I did work experience at the hospital I've been thinking more and more that the life of a doctor just isn't for me. I don't want to study for five years, and then have to work ridiculous hours for five more. There's so much else I want to do with my life. I want to travel, work abroad, learn languages, experience culture and history. LIVE!"
She paused, and finished lamely, "Chemistry and maths just seem so dry. I can't work up any enthusiasm."
Her father looked at her, and shook his head slowly.
"I understand what you are feeling. You're realising that the world is full of possibilities and you don't want to limit yourself. That's fine. There's time to make those decisions. Universities will accept you for a whole variety of subjects even with your science bias at A-Level. But they won't accept you at all if you fail those A-Levels, and that's what you're on track to do at the moment."
He stood up and walked around the desk so he was next to her.
"Look at me."
She turned to face him.
"We are paying thousands of pounds a year for your education. You will start putting effort into ALL your subjects. You will complete your A-Levels and gain A grades. If you fulfil these criteria, I will pay for you to have a year off, so you can work out what you would really like to do in life, and even take a crammer course to get do extra subjects that you're interested in, if you want."
He moved away towards the cupboard at the back of his study. Gemma turned to watch him, hoping she had been reprieved. A hope soon dashed.
"However, we have the matter in hand to deal with. You remember what happened last time you misbehaved?"
She nodded. She remembered only too well.
"And what I said would happen if you misbehaved again?"
With that he opened the cupboard and pulled out a cane.
"Well, what did I say?"
Gemma couldn't take her eyes off the horrible thing. So thin, so innocuous, and yet, as she knew, so painful in her father's hands.
"You said you would cane me again."
"Now, come, that's not quite what I said, is it?"
Gemma gulped. "You said you would cane me again, and give me double the strokes, twice as hard."
"Correct. You know what to do."
She shook her head and looked at him pleadingly.
"Dad, please, no... I promise I'll work hard from now on, I really will."
It wasn't working.
"Gemma, I am not about to let you waste one of the best educations money can buy. Assume the position, please."
She sighed, and removed her school uniform skirt, putting it on a nearby chair.
She moved towards the desk and bent over, gripping on to the other side with her fingers, mostly to keep her hands from shaking. She looked straight ahead, and tried to quell the rising nausea she felt as she heard her father's footsteps moving towards her. Now all those days of drifting off in lessons and of failing to hand her homework seemed like a very bad decision.
She cringed and buried her head in the table as she felt him tug down her knickers, baring her rear. Her stomach leapt in fear as she heard the cane swish.
"Twelve, Gemma. Stay in position throughout, please."
He didn't wait for an answer, and the first stroke took her by surprise, slamming into her bottom. Before she even realised it, she was upright, and in tears. The few times he had caned her before and been nothing like this hard.
"I'm sorry, I'm sorry", she gabbled through her tears. "I didn't mean to move." She bent back over.
"I know, Gemma, and I'll let that one go, but they are all going to be that hard. As I said, I'm not having you waste your education without any thought. So if you stand up again, you will get extras."
She tried to let the desk take her weight, so that it was harder to stand up, and managed to get through the next four strokes. Stroke six, though, hit the crease where her thighs met her bottom and she gasped as it fell and leapt to her feet again.
She clutched at her stripes, tears streaming down her face.
"I can't do it, I'm sorry, I can't bend over again...."
He looked at her. She looked back, realising that she wouldn't win.
Over she went once more, gripping on to the desk again.
Her father was merciful and did not make her wait. He aimed and the stroke hit true again.
"That was six."
Stroke seven hit and she felt a well of nausea rise in her stomach, but she stayed clinging on.
Stroke eight. Her right leg kicked up involuntarily, but she stayed down. There was a pool of tears on the desk by now.
Her father placed a hand in the small of her back, a simple gesture which calmed her a little.
Nine, ten and eleven fell with less force. She was grateful.
There was a pause, and her father spoke as she lay there.
"The last stroke, as is traditional, will be the hardest. I want you to remember this for a long time, whenever the urge comes over you to slack off. Do you understand?"
She sniffed and nodded.
She braced herself, and the cane slammed into her crease for one last time. The tears came faster as she went limp over the desk.
She felt her knickers being pulled up, and then she was pulled to her feet and enveloped in a hug. She laid her head on her father's shoulders.
"I'm sorry, Dad. I'll try harder, I promise."
He wiped a tear from her eye. "I'm sorry too, Gemma, I never want to put either of us through that again."