The slippery slope (1/2) Jennifer was going through a rebellious phase both at school and home. She was thirteen years old - a typical age for trouble to start. Perhaps most significantly, she had her first serious boyfriend, and he was a real tearaway who was quickly leading her into activities that she would never have dreamed of. She started cutting an odd class at school to meet with him and then played truant for whole days. Her father found out and grounded her. That didn't work so he stopped her allowance. For a few days that seemed to have given her a bit of a shock, but then despite the fact hat he'd even resorted to threatening her with his thick leather belt if she was reported truanting again, she agreed to meet up with David in town rather than go to school. They went and had a coffee first and then she told him about getting her allowance stopped and he told her how to get 'round that one. Apparently he had done it before and it was easy. Although she tried not to show it, she was initially horrified at the idea of shoplifting; it took him a while to convince her that it would be okay. He knew a second hand shop where they could get cash for the right sorts of good and which didn't ask questions. They wouldn't need to take any risks; they had as much time as they needed to find an opportunity to take something when they were sure that they weren't being watched. It would be exciting With butterflies in her stomach, Jennifer agreed, and they set off to find a suitable 'soft' target. The first actual 'hit' was a small record shop. There was only one person working in the shop and a couple of customers, so David decided it was ideal. He instructed Jennifer to fasten her anorak around her to make it less obvious that she wore a school uniform. He explained that this was for two reasons, firstly that they would look like obvious potential shoplifters if they flaunted the fact that they should have been in school, and second because, in the unlikely event of having to do a runner, it wouldn't be a good idea to have anyone recognise the uniform and 'phone their schools to report that someone from the school had been in town shoplifting. They browsed casually around the shop for several minutes, never getting very far in from the door. Then there came a moment when there were no customer nearby, and the assistant had to go to the shelving behind the counter to find a record for somebody. In a second, David grabbed half a dozen tapes, stuffed them in his pockets, and they walked calmly out of the shop. Even up to the time they were several shop lengths away, Jennifer expected to hear a shout, but nothing happened. She felt quite exhilarated by the adrenaline high that the escapade had brought about. David was quite please - half a dozen new tapes from popular groups that would be really easy to get some cash for. Before then 'though he wanted to get a few more items, so they looked for another shop to target. This time it was going to be Jennifer's turn to make the grab and she felt quite excited at the thought. They selected an electrical goods store in the end and began browsing to see what would be worth pinching. Jennifer felt herself blushing all over and her legs felt hot under her tights. She felt sure that others must have noticed her, but gradually she realised that nobody else was in the least interested. Near to the door there was a dump-bin with a cheap quality of personal hi-fi piled up inside it - in quiet conversation they agreed that a couple of those would be very suitable. David moved nearer to the door, ready to leave, and Jennifer moved in to the immediate proximity of the dump-bin. There were two assistants but the one was dealing with a customer complaint and was totally preoccupied, so when the other had to go off the shop floor to get something for a customer, Jennifer decided that this was the right moment to move. There was a middle aged women looking at hair dryers but she was busy reading the box, and there was nobody else around at all. Jennifer tried to move as calmly and casually as possible, to avoid attracting attention.. She picked up one of the personal hi-fis apparently to examine the box, and then with one final glance she pushed it up under her jacket. Nobody reacted at all, so she moved to put her back to the counter, picked up two more of the boxes and pushed them under her anorak and headed for the door. She saw David starting to move off, and she had one hand on the door when she felt a sudden grip on her shoulder. She turned in panic, and as she did so one of the personal hi-fis fell to the floor. It was the middle aged women who had been apparently buying a hair drier. She panicked, and made the decision to drop the goods and run, but she hesitated a moment too long and the women now had a very firm, painfully firm, grip on her arm and she was being led back into the shop. The older man, who turned out to be the shop manager, had just finished dealing with he complaint and looked surprised as Jennifer was led up to him. "My name's Carol Winters - I'm a store detective at Hardcastle's Department store and I was in here to do some shopping during my break. I saw this girl take three personal hi-fis from the bin at the front and conceal them under her coat as she made to leave the shop. One fell out, but you'll find the other two are still there." "Is this true?" Jennifer desperately wanted to cry, but she also wanted to put on a show of bravado in case David could see her - she didn't dare look back to the door for fear of implicating him. She shrugged and used her free hand to remove the remaining stolen goods from under her coat and deposit them on the counter. "Well, thank you very much Mrs Winters - we don't have any security staff here so we're very grateful for your help." "Well, it's up to you how you want to play it now. I'll have to get back to work, but if you want to call the police, they know me and they can come and get a statement from me at work - I'll give you my card. Personally, I think it's best to always get the police in and ask them to prosecute but I'll leave the decision to you." She handed over the card and in doing so released her grip on Jennifer. Jennifer was paralysed with fear at the thought of the police being called, and as a result missed her one chance to try and make a run for it. By the time she saw the opportunity, the manager had come around the counter and cut off her escape path. The bitch of a store detective - fancy doing something like that in a place she wasn't even working! - left the shop and the manager, whose name badge identified him as Mr Collis, propelled her towards the back of the shop and through a door marked Staff Only. Once there, he released her and flicked a light switch on the wall, although to no obvious effect. Then he began fiddling with a doorway low down on one wall - the door was only about three feet high and was padlocked and so it took him a minute to open it. "Right, well I haven't got time to bother myself with little thieves now. You can get in there and think over your crimes, and I'll come and get you when I've got time to decide what to do with you. Go on, get in there." Hoping desperately that if she co-operated he might be lenient, she crouched low and struggled through the small door. There was a short flight of stone stairs and she almost fell down them into the gloomy cellar. It smelled terrible, and the one bare light bulb cast eerie shadows. It was also very cold and there were pools of water on the floor. It was a horribly dirty place and she felt badly scared as she heard the door swing shut behind her and the padlock being replaced. It was quite a large area as she discovered as she looked for somewhere to sit, which seemed to extend for most of the area under the shop. Overhead she could hear footsteps but nothing more. Everything was dusty and grimy and she wandered a long way trying to find somewhere that she could sit and await her fate. It was when she was practically at the far end that the light sent out and she was plunged into total darkness. She stifled a scream, but she was now totally blinded. After a while, standing motionless, she started to think she could make out some shapes, and she carefully tried to edge forward. Almost inevitably she hit her leg painfully on something sharp and stopped abruptly. She tried to feel her way more carefully, but she couldn't really move safely at all, and in the end, she conceded and just sat down on the dirty concrete floor. Now, faced with a spell of isolation with nobody to observe her, she finally gave in and began crying - she had never imagined things turning out like this when the adventure had started. The floor was hard and cold through her skirt and the stench of the place was nauseating. Time passed by. Nobody came for her. She eventually stopped crying although she still felt sick to her stomach. What would happen if they called the police? She knew from hearing stories at school that the probability for a first offence was that you normally got a caution, but that wasn't guaranteed so she might have to go to court. Aside from the disgrace and humiliation of that, the school would find out and would almost certainly punish her because she was truanting at the time, and was wearing the uniform - she knew of other cases where the school had expelled pupils for just such an offence. Last, but by no means least, her father would kill her. Well, not literally, but she had little doubt that she'd get a thrashing she'd never forget and further sanctions as well. Still time dragged on and she began to feel forgotten. She had no idea of the time because she couldn't read her watch - trying to work out how long she'd been there gave her something to do which took her mind off the predicament she was in. It had been around 11 o'clock when they'd entered the shop. Eventually she reckoned that it must be at least half past two. She felt very hungry and thirsty, but then the thought of wanting a drink made her start thinking of other needs as well. She began to desperately want to use a toilet. She thought about trying to make her way back to the stairs and knock on the door to attract attention, but wasn't sure that she could make it, and not sure that they would come to her aid if she did. She fund she could now make out shapes a little more safely and in a half crouched position, she slowly made her way to a corner of the dirty cellar. Praying that nobody would come back at that moment, she reached under her skirt and pulled down her tights and knickers then crouched uncomfortably to pee on the floor. To her disgust some of the pee ran down her leg and she began to cry again. However, her bladder relieved, she used a hanky to dry herself off and then discarded it before pulling her pants and tights back up again. The odour of her urine mingled with the generally distasteful smells and she wondered how many previous shoplifters had relieved themselves on this floor. How many of the puddles that she'd trodden in... She very slowly and carefully felt her way along the wall and so eventually she found the steps again. So she sat herself down on the hard bottom step and waited.... and waited ... and waited... She tried to imagine what David would have done now - probably, if he'd got any sense, he'd have headed straight for school, to try to make it look as if he'd been there all along. Secretly she rather hoped he hadn't and was waiting outside somewhere to see if the police came for her or she was released. She started wondering about what her father would do - she had visions of him having to come to collect her from the police station. It wasn't just the thrashing that she feared, although she imagined he would be livid and that she was going to face a serious belting, but it was also the lecture and the blame that she would be faced with for a long time to come. There seemed to be less noise from upstairs and she fund herself straining to hear anything that could convince her that she wasn't forgotten and deserted. However, when the naked light bulb came back on, she was taken by surprise and also dazzled by the puny light after so long a period of darkness. She struggled to her feet, noticing as she did so that her skirt and legs were grimy from the filth of the cellar, as she heard the door being unlocked. Then, Mr Collis was descending the stone steps to wards her. "Well, had some time to think about your crime have you?" Stupidly, she hadn't planned what to say to him when this moment came, but she had to try to avoid him calling the police. "Please, I'm really sorry. I've never done anything like this before and I'm so scared now that I can assure you that I'll never do anything like it again. Please don't call the police." He snorted derisively. "Yeah, I'm sure you're sorry now you've been caught. Unfortunately, if you get away with this, I don't believe you when you say you'll never do it again. I think I have little choice but to let the police handle this." She felt sick - he really was going to do it! "Please, I'm not like that really...." "Sure - let me tell you something. Personally, I can think of better ways of spending my time than having to go with you to the police station, and then appearing in court to give evidence. Especially since they're so soft on young offenders now that you'll probably be back here the next day trying it on again. Personally, I would like to see you get a damn good hiding and that just might do you some good. Given that the present way of thinking is more inclined to give you a warning not to be naughty in the future, I can't imagine that you won't re- offend." Jennifer wondered whether she ought to tell him that she was in for one hell of a hiding when her father found out - given that this seemed a foregone conclusion anyway, she might just impress on Mr Collis that she did come from a family that believed in strong discipline, and the fear of what might have happened this time just might have done the trick. Stupidly, she told him. She saw his expression change but he wasn't sure what to make of it, and having once started she was afraid to stop talking. Perhaps, instead of being impressed with her background, she had just made sure that he told her father so that he could make sure she got the thrashing he felt she deserved. She pleaded and begged and he was almost grinning. "So, if I call the police you get thrashed, a police record, and expelled from school. If I call your school you get thrashed and expelled from school. If I call your old man you get thrashed. Doesn't look like a very happy set of choices for you does it?" She whimpered. "Suppose I save us both some time and you some embarrassment." She was puzzled - what was he getting at. He explained - basically, he'd give her the choice of him calling the police, which had to be the worst imaginable scenario to hr, or else she gave him permission to thrash her himself. She was shocked beyond belief. It was awful, perverted without a doubt. On the other hand, she wondered whether she had much to lose. There was little doubt in her mind that he was making the suggestion partly because he would get a sexual thrill out of thrashing her, and that she should allow someone to get that sort of sexual gratification at her expense was pretty humiliating and frightening. On the other hand, this way nobody else ever needed to know. The only person to know would never be able to tell anybody else anyway. There would be no long term implications. She would never need to see him ever again. Okay, so he would probably give her a damn good thrashing, but it wouldn't necessarily be any worse than what her father would do to her if he knew. She knew she should tell him to go to hell, but she heard herself agreeing. He went back up the stairs and she started crying, wondering what she had done, but she stayed where she was and waited. It was a short wait. He came back down with a piece of thick PVC covered mains cable in his hand, doubled over. God, but that was going to hurt some, and probably a damn sight more than her father's belt, but she still preferred the anonymity of this to having people know. He told her to remover her coat and skirt. Choking back the tears she did as he instructed. Standing in her blouse, tights and knickers she felt really stupid and vulnerable, but he led her across to an old bench at the side of the cellar and told her to bend right across it and grip the far side. It was a tight stretch that left her no room to move and she only reached at all by standing on tip-toe, acutely conscious of her bottom sticking out for him. In a split second of action, before she realised it, he had hooked his hands into the waistband of her panties and tights, and they were around her knees. She cried out, but didn't move. He was going to get his pound of flesh, and no mistaking it. She was mortified with shame, even 'though rationally she should have realised that in the half light, he could see very little. He could, it transpired, see quite enough to get his aim right. The first stroke from the makeshift whip felt as if it had cut her bottom in two. By the second she was sure that she must be cut and bleeding and was sobbing her heart out. After six, it hurt so much that it was almost becoming numb to further hurt. However, by taking his time, he managed to prolong her agony - each time, just as the worst of the flaming pain was fading, he re- ignited the scorching lines of pain in her poor defenceless bottom. After twelve, he waited a while and then told her to get dressed. Oblivious now to her partial nudity she stood slowly and clutched her hands to her bottom cheeks , feeling the deep welts left by the flex across her buttocks. Slowly, she rolled back up the knickers and tights, almost wishing she could leave her bottom bare rather than having it painfully encased in the clinging fabric, and then tearfully replaced the skirt. By then he had returned to the shop floor. She stiffly climbed the stairs and slowly followed him. She was astonished to realise that the shop was now closed, and the time on the clock above the sales desk told her it was almost six o'clock. She spent a moment wiping the tears from her face. "Right, get out, and I suggest you don't come back in here again unless you want more of the same." In some ways she wanted to run from him. She certainly needed to hurry up home, because her father was going to wonder where she was. On the other hand, she could barely walk with the pain in her bottom, and it was a very stiff legged girl that walked from the shop and back home. On the way she started wondering what she was going to say. In the end she decided that it was best to say she'd gone shopping with some friends after school and hadn't noticed the time. That would get her a strong telling off, and maybe get her grounded again or something, but at least by admitting to a minor offence, it might save him speculating about something more serious. The slippery slope (2/2) "Where the hell have you been." She was very vulnerable right now and flinched from the verbal onslaught. She took a deep breath and made ready to try and lie convincingly, hoping that he would take her hesitation as being a normal sign of being forced to admit guilt. "I suppose you're late because you've been kept in again? What for this time?" She was thrown - of course, it was Thursday, which was the ordinary night for after school detentions. It was a logical conclusion for him to reach. If she stuck to her story about shopping after school, he might not believe her and he could ring the school to check, and in doing so discover that she'd played truant. Thinking fast, she admitted she'd been kept in. He demanded to know why, so she said something about not paying attention class and talking to her friend. He wasn't convinced - after all, she'd obviously been kept in for about an hour and half, which sounded like something more serious than talking in class - perhaps she'd been kept in for missing lessons again? She panicked - anxious to divert him from that line of thought - and said , in a shamefaced way, that she'd sworn at one of the teachers as well. To her relief, he seemed to accept that, although he was obviously livid. "Right, Jennifer, get up to your room and stay there. I'll be up to deal with you later." She fled upstairs, almost crying again, with a mixture of fear of what was to come, so unjustly, and relief at having convinced him without needing to admit the awful truth. However, once in her room, the dreadful situation began to sink in. She hung up her coat and immediately saw the filthy state of her skirt and tights. She spent several minutes cleaning those up and then paid some attention to her face and hair, she looked a bit less dishevelled - it was a wonder he hadn't noticed already. Straining her ears she could hear that dinner was being served downstairs. That was at once an opportunity and a threat. In terms of the threat, she had missed lunch already, and now seemed likely to miss dinner. She was hungry but the heady and traumatic events of the day meant that food was not her highest priority right now. More importantly, perhaps, if everyone was occupied with dinner, she had a few minutes of guaranteed uninterruption. She gladly seized the chance to inspect the damage, and immediately wished she hadn't. Her backside was bruised with a mass of welts that looked like they would last for weeks. It was not actually hurting right now, but it was very hot to touch, the ridges were still very distinct, and it was more than a little tender. It was then that she began to wonder whether the offences she had just made up and admitted to would be enough to make her father think of thrashing her as well. If he did, and he never had doe anything like this for years, what would it involve. The last time he'd given her any sort of physical punishment, he had turned her skirt back and spanked her pants with his hand. However, that was almost four years ago and he had recently been threatening to get tough. She checked carefully in the mirror to see if any marks were visible when her knickers were pulled up. The answer was that, knowing to look for something, there were a few traces of the whipping visible, but not much and there was a chance that he wouldn't notice in the heat of the moment. On the other hand, if he pulled them up tighter, or worst still pulled them down altogether, then she'd have some very difficult explaining to do - there really could be no more lying then. Of course, the other issue was how well her tender buttocks could cope with another thrashing if the worst happened, and her feeling was that she just about couldn't stand it. She'd have to do anything, agree to anything, beg anything, offer anything.... Once she had tidied herself up as much as possible there was nothing to do but sit and wait. It gave her plenty of time to think back on what had already happened. The more she thought, in the harsh reality of hindsight, the more she decided that Mr Collis was a real perv. She couldn't believe that she'd been willing to drop her knickers and tights for him to see her bare bum, let alone to co-operate with him whipping it. Jennifer was, despite her apparently loutish behaviour of late, a very reserved and modest girl. Although she fitted in with the current trend at school of wearing a skirt well above knee length, she wore one longer than most of her friends because she worried abut somebody glimpsing her knickers when she leaned forwards, or sat on a bus. The realisation that she had, almost willingly, agreed to expose her bare bottom to a male who she had never met before and who was probably 30 years older than herself filled her with a feeling of self- disgust and loathing. At least these thoughts kept her mind from the awful question of what was to come, but it couldn't delay the inevitable. At 8.30pm she heard her father coming up the stairs. It wasn't a pleasant encounter - the already emotionally fragile teenager grovelled apologetically and begged to be let off any further punishment arguing that she'd already been punished by the school. He told her that she had been given plenty of chances already and this time he was determined to teach her a lesson she'd really remember. With that he unbuckled his belt and drew it out, pleased to see the look of abject horror on his errant daughter's face as she realised that he really meant to carry out his previous threat. She started crying and pleading but he was past being inveigled by feminine histrionics. He grabbed her arm and twisted her around until she fell forward across the bed - her skirt had already ridden some way up her thighs but that wasn't enough to satisfy him and he easily flipped it over on to her back. She was almost wetting herself in case he pulled her knickers down, or noticed the few welts now showing through her tights at the edge of her knickers. He was, however, more inclined to preserve his daughter's dignity than Mr Collis had been, and he left the knickers and tights in place. Nevertheless, he was determined to do his level best to get the message through to Jennifer before she really went off the rails. He coiled the thick leather belt around his right fist and then brought if down hard across the centre of her bottom cheeks. She yelped as the belt loudly cracked down on her bottom, as much from shock as front he renewed stinging, but he wasn't moved to pity. Instead he brought it down time and time again, setting her bottom ablaze, and she squealed and sobbed and begged and writhed to no avail. Her contortions did have one effect - they caused her skirt to slip back down to at least partially cover her bottom, but rather than pause the strapping to remedy the situation, simply aimed a little lower so that a number of strokes landed on her insubstantially protected thighs. When he stopped, breathing heavily from the exertion, Jennifer just lay there crying, her bottom and the backs of her legs burning terribly. "Next time you feel like being cheeky to a teacher, I hope you'll remember this. Now, get yourself undressed and go to bed - I'll be back in ten minutes to check that you're in." She lay there crying for a few minutes more - paralysed by the ordeal as much as the pain. But then the worst of the stinging began to fade and the sudden realisation that he might come back when she was undressing and see that there were some other marks on her bottom that could not be accounted for by the strap, motivated her to move quickly. Her bottom was red hot to touch and she was more than horrified by the sight of the unmistakable red marks on the backs of her thighs that clearly showed through the natural coloured tights that she normally wore. She undressed fast, slipped on her long night-shirt, and climbed into bed before he returned *** She slept badly, her hands massaging her hot bottom cheeks and the memories of the days events going through her mind time and time again like a movie. She was watching herself, half naked, being whipped in that dirty cellar by Mr Collis. She was watching herself lying across the bed while the noise of her father's belt landing on her legs echoed around. When she finally fell asleep, she dreamed that she was back in the cellar and that Mr Collis was whipping her and blood was flowing and then he came behind her and suddenly she was totally naked, and he had his hands on her chest and was forcing himself into her... And she woke up perspiring. The belting from her father had, undoubtedly, been far less severe than the earlier whipping, but in some ways it had caused her more distress. For one thing, she would never see Mr Collis again, and therefore there was no threat of a repeat punishment. On the other hand, she knew that if she stepped out of line, her father would have no hesitation in giving her another licking. There was also the element of shame - she felt embarrassed enough at a stranger seeing her half naked, but, in some ways it was amore embarrassing to think that somebody who obviously loved her dearly had seen her behaviour as being so bad that he had no choice but to thrash her. Getting ready to go to school had never been such an ordeal. She managed to get a look in the mirror and confirmed that the welts from the whipping in the afternoon were going to last for some while. There were three of four blood blisters at the sorts places, but the rest of the welts would also last some time. There were a few places on her bottom where she could make out a faint image from the end of the belt, but these were much more apparent on the backs of her thighs, and there was no way anybody could think they had been caused in any way other than they way they had been created. She found out a pair of opaque black tights. They were not really allowed at school, but loads of girls wore them and nobody ever said anything. To her great relief, they masked the marks effectively. Nevertheless, when she reached the school she felt as if everyone must know what had happened, and as if they could see the weals for themselves. She told a couple of friends, on enquiry, that she'd just taken the day before off, because she didn't feel like it, but didn't mention the shoplifting to anyone. David went to a different school, so she didn't have to face him just yet. However, there was another worry to face - she had to explain her absence to the form teacher. In the past she had faked notes from her parents, but there had been no opportunity this time to get hold of a sheet of notepaper. If she insisted that she'd been unwell, they might let her bring a note the next day, but on the other hand they might ring her home, and then she'd really be in big trouble again. In the end she made a real mess of answering when asked, in front of the class, where she had been yesterday. "Have you got a note?" her form teacher, Miss Webb, asked her in growing annoyance at her evasive answers. "Er... no, miss." This was getting nowhere, so Miss Webb told her to come to the front of the class. The intention was to have a quiet and discreet conversation to get to the truth, but as Jennifer hesitantly walked out, the general hub-hub of conversation died down so that people nearby at least could her what was being said. Once again, Jennifer was aware that she was blushing all over, and her tights were tingling with the light perspiration that the fear was causing. "Am I to understand that you have no valid excuse for your absence yesterday?" "Er, no miss." "And would you like to explain that to the headmaster?" "No miss, I'm sorry. It won't happen again, I promise." The form teacher couldn't know how earnestly she meant it. "It certainly will not - if it does, I'll take you to the headmaster myself, is that clear?" "Yes miss." "Well, you know the school rules and the attitude we take to truancy. It's a very serious matter. I have to decide whether to give you a two hour detention next Thursday or give you the strap on your hand right now." It wasn't much of a choice as far as Jennifer was concerned. Detention was boring as hell but if it would have saved her from another dose of corporal punishment she would have gladly begged for a detention. On the other hand, after what had happened last night, her father would be livid if his daughter was in detention again so soon, and she'd get a far worse thrashing from him than she faced from Miss Webb. "I'd rather just get it over with Miss." She mumbled, very embarrassed about the whole discussion going on in front of her classmates. She just hoped that Miss Webb would have to take her away somewhere - perhaps to get the strap from the staff room and give it to her somewhere like that where her classmates couldn't watch. "Very well." To Jennifer's dismay, Miss Webb unlocked a cupboard behind her and seemed pleased to find that there was a suitable strap there. The whole class was silent now and they watched in rapt attention. It was a fairly rare occurrence for someone to get strapped in front of others and it was especially rare for it to be one of the girls. The boys especially were going to enjoy watching this display although they might have preferred to it to be applied to another part of her anatomy. She was told to hold out her left hand and to keep it very still. It was the second time in her life she'd been strapped on the hand so although she was scared and knew it would hurt like blazes, she knew what to expect and if it hadn't been for the public shame it wouldn't have been too bad. It was a long tawse split into two and Mrs Webb was very good with it. The first blow sounded like a pistol shot and landed with the end of the leather tails right in the middle of Jennifer's palm. It was excruciating but she bit her lip and kept her hand reasonably steady. The second one was across her fingers and hurt enough to almost numb them. The third landed in a identical place redoubling the pain. The fourth and final stroke was back across the full palm again. Jennifer fought back the tears and forced her self not to clutch at her burning throbbing hand as she walked back to her seat. However, she also walked back with her head lowered because she didn't want t meet anybody's gaze right now. She didn't speak to anyone all morning. It took about an hour for the throbbing pain to finally fade and her palm was still very red after that. A few people tried to speak to her at morning break - one or two to sympathise, rather more to ask curious questions about how it had felt, and one or two (boys!) to tease her about it. She managed to ignore them all and then went and hid for the rest of the break. Sitting on a toilet she finally allowed herself to cry. It was strange - three beatings in two days - and she wasn't normally in trouble on anything like that scale. But what struck her as strangest of all was that each beating had actually, in terms of physical pain, been less than the one before. In every way logically, the whipping she'd received in the basement of the shop should have been the worst experience of her life. Yet in one sense, she had found the thrashing from her father worse because, even though he hadn't exposed her in the same way, or even given her such a severe beating, the fact that he knew her and would always be there, having seen her in that humiliating position made it worse. Yet, even more than that, the strapping this morning had been terrible, because she had been shamed in front of her peers - the very people she worried most about trying to impress had seen her being strapped for truancy, and would have seen however hard she had tried to hide it, that she had been very close to tears. She could calm herself down now, and by lunchtime she could try and put on a show of bravado, but deep down they would know and she would know. The system had won - not her. She'd been naughty and she'd paid heavily for it. And it wasn't worth it.