Chapter 6
Home Games
"Weighty triple-handfuls, aren't they?"
Thumbs indented the central buccal summits callously. Taloned fingers palped the abdundant outer buttock slopes.
"Perhaps, quadruple palmfuls. Bouncy as harem cushions, too. Any sheikh's sons been sharing these bountiful bedwarmers? Eh?"
The thumbnails carved indelicately just above her fear-tight sphincter, parting her ample rounds as Jan Ladrone squeaked a hasty negative. The girl crouched on knees and elbows, her lowered slacks bunched about her ankles at one end of the chill medical examination table.
"Just as well." Wildwood Secondary School's nurse inspected the brownish, innocently puckered anus. "The backdoor playpen has a nasty way of leading to the nursery foyer."
The grizzled woman let the wide posteriors slap back together. "Your hide holds the marks a good while, but you're recovering nicely. When did Miss Plimsoll promise you that livener?"
"Next Friday, ma'am. Five if my attitude has been proper during the week. Ten if . . . not."
The veteran school nurse snorted. "Fifteen more likely! We're overrun with you dainty snots, held back a grade here because your family was traveling, or lingering through her studies there because her folks didn't give a damn."
The woman's carpentry-callused palm slapped the gluteal crevice. "They should set all you dollies out on the street the minute you turn eighteen. Let the colleges nursemaid you."
Fingers probed between Jan's generous thighs and tugged playfully. "No longer looking like small mink is nesting in your britches. Zipper on your bell-bottoms uncomfortable, is it?"
"Without panties, it catches."
"Smarts, too, I'll bet." The nurse cackled. "Your chart says you're approved to wear panties again as of Monday. At least if you have to touch your toes in class, you won't be giving the other girls such an eyeful."
"Yes, ma'am."
" 'Lthough if Miss Plim had her 'druthers, you'd be showing a nice crop of blisters where those holes in her strap stretch the skin."
Jan sent a fervent wail heavenwards. Please, God, don't let her whip me more than five strokes Friday-anything, any cup of sacrifice-take my Prince autographed T-shirt- take my R2D2 Ovaltine mug-let Ron have a hernia hauling his next leading lady around on stage-only please, please, please don't let Miss Plimsoll tan my hide that hard again. So soon.
"You enjoy that position, or am I supposed to take your temperature?" the hard-faced woman demanded.
"Umm, sorry," Jan gulped, sliding off the table. "Uh, ma'am," she lamely concluded as she scooped up her bell-bottomed slacks and tried to fasten them around her naked hips.
A stabbing, matronly glare followed her out the infirmary door.
"Collins twins, next!" The woman barked into the corridor.
Two petrified fifteen year olds stumbled into her presence. One had a head of spikey black hair, darker than nature the other had a shoulder-length coiffure tinted a glowing licorice-whip red.
"Miss Plimsoll ordered you to wash that paint off. Since you haven't obeyed," the nurse chortled, "I get to help.
"You, pour some laundry detergent into that galvenized bucket and put it under the hot tap. And I do mean hot.
While she's doing that, Jeanne, you can get my can of turpentine out of the cupboard."
She slammed the door and rubbed her hands. "Don't lollygag, girls. You're scheduled for a long, tender session with Miss Plim after I make you both presentable. You know how she absolutely hates being kept waiting."
Ron Ladrone propped his arm against the kitchen wall. Mona's voice droned gloomily over the phone.
"... too dangerous, Ron, I mean it. I'm grounded. It's not just the Sigma Boy Ban. Rita's so spitting-poison mad at me for pledging that I can't even step onto the sidewalk unless I'm heading to class or to compulsory house activities."
"All we have to do is go down to the basement like we did before. That's not going anywhere. You have to be able to go down to the laundry room, right?"
"Suppose someone finds us-suppose it's Rita!"
"You always say that, and nothing ever happens. That bitch never comes home from work early."
"Well ... I do miss you . . ."
"We'll make it a party this time."
"A party in the basement?"
"Once you lock the door, no one can get in. If anyone jiggles the knob, you can tell them something while we hide behind the furnace."
"Who's this 'we,' Ron?"
"You're a Greek girl, now. They're a couple of guys from Theater Arts. They're in a fraternity, so it'll be old Hellenic homeweek for you."
"I can't-not without--it's a violation to talk to any boy for more than five minutes even at an approved party, and this is NOT an approved party."
"Look, you're my girl and I want to show you off. What about during classes. You can talk then, can't you?"
"Ye-ahhh ..."
"So we're conducting a class. Hank's into some serious enology. His dad has acreage and does grapes for some winery. Hank-boy's got some primo vino he made him- self. He can tell how he did it and we'll taste it to give our opinions. That's educational."
"Ron, I don't think you respect what I'm trying to a-achieve as a Sigma."
"To get your fanny out of Rita's claws."
"Well, yeah . . . that means I can't risk getting dropped by the chapter.'' "Word I heard from Greek Row is that the last time Sigma booted a pledge out into the cold she was wanted by the FBI, the CIA, and James Bond himself."
"Susie explained all that. It was just some Quebec separatist terrorist trying to hide out in this country. She called herself Yvette la Plastique or something. She wasn't serious about the house."
"I'm wondering if you're serious about me. What kind of big respect did you show our relationship by tying up with that Boy Ban crowd. I didn't complain, did I? We've got something special."
"Y-yeah, I know we do, Ron, but-"
"I haven't seen you since Saturday. This is already Wednesday. How about three tomorrow afternoon?"
"Wellll . . . better make it Friday. Rita'll be in San Francisco dumping off an order of Czechoslovakian bronze cats. She's just invoicing them now for Gypsy Wagon."
"I love you, sweet cheeks. Friday at three."
He dumped the receiver into the wall cradle. The silent, staring face of his sister Jan appeared at his elbow. He flinched back against the wall.
"Christ's bloody tears, Jan-"
"Call me Living Shadow. Musta been Mona," the girl diagnosed as she headed to the refrigerator. "You never get that intense when you talk to me."
He stared at the door leading from the kitchen to the cemented back yard. "I'm going to get the guy who oiled that screen door."
Jan investigated the fridge's hoard. Two six-packs of Coke without caffein, sugar, or any other purpose for existence . . . oranges and grapes ... the big pitcher had been filled with something alcoholic. She sniffed. Mai-tais?
"Sounded like romantic upsets." She settled for a double handful of flame-colored grapes.
"Between that damn Rita Henshaw-may she die with a dick in each ear-and this Sigma Epsilon Xi buffalo crap ..."
He rested his shoulders against the wall and stuck his legs out. There'd been a photo of Martin Sheen doing that-something like James Dean, only with Latin macho cool . . .
"They probably don't trust you after tomcatting around with Cleopatra on stage."
"Yeah, Shandel'la and I had a great thing going. In the play, I mean."
Jan popped two fat grapes into her mouth. "Everybody falls for a horny Italian with a cape and a padded pud. Look at poor Juliet."
"Toga." He swung upself forward, weight solidly on the balls of his feet. "I played Antony. Toga and armor and no codpiece."
"And Cleopatra's gown." She smirked, crunching more grapes.
"Damned Lesbo director. The text just refers to that. She didn't have to show it." He'd been forced to peel down naked and put on Shandel'la's costume, flickering rose lights playing over his body. It had been the play's sexiest scene, but Pari never stopped sniggering at him, even after six weeks of performances.
The dining room door swung open. A solemn, wide-eyed woman in her late twenties stepped through. She blocked the door's backswing with scarlet evening pumps sporting five-inch spike heels.
The memory of Shandel'la's ebony nudity on the play set couch melted from his mind. The woman entering the kitchen had only a canary-yellow baby doll top and a serving tray, aside from her skyscraper foot gear.
Her hair rolled in finger curls down to her saffron-misted boobs. Lips, cheeks, and nipples had been garishly rouged.
"Could you . . . please . . .?" Her eyes averted. Her skin burned in a blush rivaling the trollop-heavy paint.
"Oh, sure." Ron propped the door open.
Jan simply stared, mangled grapes dripping thick juice in her mouth. Bare silky flesh showed below the transparent nightie, from navel to ankles. The girl had never realized anyone could finger curl her pubic hair, much less want to.
She thought of her own shorn Venus locks. Maybe when the thatch grew out . . .
"Want me to get the booze for you? Jan, can you open the fridge and hold the door?" Ron had a face practically oozing with gentlemanly courtesy. Not a glimmer of male lust showed. Jan knew better.
She went to the refrigerator. The woman and her tray hobbled forward. Jan realized that the stranger wore the tray. A softly jingling chain harness around shoulders and waist supported the silver server. The woman's arms angled behind her back, thrusting her breasts out to maximum effect.
"Got it?" Ron carefully loaded the pitcher onto the bobbing tray. The visitor gave a gasp as the frosty cocktail jug slid back into the warm cradle of her breasts.
As she turned, Jan saw the woman's hands pressed, palms outward, against the crease joining buttock and thigh. Some sort of leather bands circled her inward-pointed thumbs.
"I'll get it!" Jan ran ahead of her brother and pushed the swinging door open. Big, robin's egg eyes batted thank-you and vanished.
The door swished closed behind her.
"Okay," the girl regarded her brother. "Just who was that? Some Nile lovely from drama class?"
"She did kind of look like our Charmion. We had fun with that line," he reflected. " 'Please, don't squeeze the-' "
"Who?" Jan stabbed a finger toward the dining room.
"She's part of the bridge group entourage." Ron bent over the kitchen table and plucked some grapes. "You know, Mom, Aunt Tilly, Mrs. Warden-Eleanor Warden, I mean. Dorothy Tilden." His nose curled slightly. "She's Cheslyn Warden."
"That's Mrs. Warden's daughter-in-law?" "She's staying with the family while he's on duty in Greenland."
"Rosalind mentioned it at school." Jan recalled the daughter-in-law from Christmas. She'd worn a lot more then. "What's with the floor show? A lingerie and bondage display to distract the players while Mrs. Warden deals from the bottom of the deck?"
"Mommy-in-law decided that her son's wife had been naughty. I didn't hear details." He stared at her poker-lipped. "You might ask when you face the folks."
"When I-?" Jan frowned quizzically.
She knew that their mother hated interruptions. That bridge crowd played for the taste of blood. Their father spent his Wednesday evenings with his parish Men's Club cronies.
"Something between you and Aunt Tilly." Ron's voice sounded marshmallow-innocent.
"Omigod!" The mortuary calendar, showing all the Saint's Days and fast days, hung by the oven. It told her anguished mind the truth. "Omigod-omigod-it's-" Her strap-tender rear tried to contract into a nonexistent point. She vividly recalled her bargain with God. How could He call in her promise so soon?
"Don't tell them I ever got home-" She jumped toward the outside door and the yard's safety.
"Ja-NET- La-DRONE!" The bell-clear purity of tone carved through the dining room door like the crash of doom rending the curtain of the temple.
"I'll be upstairs if you need me afterward." Ron fondled some fiery red grapes. "Here's looking up you, kid."
She dragged herself across the kitchen. "You can be replaced by a battery-operated zucchini, you know." She pushed the door open and trod the weary yards through the dining area to the living room.
"Myfavorite niece!"
Attilina Ladrone's chest-tones rang with the timbre of a Verdi soprano in heat. Her round, heavy-chinned face had never been graced by an abundant nose. The poor pug thing appeared lost between two cheeks as thickly laden with paint as any hand-decorated china.
"Where have you been, my precious darling? I thought school had dismissed hours and hours ago."
"Uh, I got a bite afterward. Mom said there wouldn't be dinner." The girl blinked toward the bridge table.
"Something nice?" Eleanor Warden glanced up from computing points from the last go-around. "I've heard of a lovely bean curd and stir-fry vegetable place down by your school."
"Yes," Jan's mother remarked. "That area's becoming terribly commercial. A video store seduces students on their way home."
"I dropped off the Naughty Victorians tape on the way to class," the girl reported. Her gaze kept wandering to Cheslyn Warden, standing face to the wall in the corner by the TV set. The backs of her hands still pressed against her leg tops and her bottom.
"What did you eat, dear?" Aunt Tilly pursued. "Mrs. Warden has been telling these frightful tales of how young people's diets positively cripple them for life."
"Just a quarter pounder and some fries and an apple pie at McDonald's." Jan tried to sound inoffensive.
"Rosalind and Eric ate at that place ..." Mrs. Warden scowled in memory. "No, I err. It was that Captain Nameless Submarine Shoppe. I marched them right back after a good dosing with castor oil.
"I made them each eat one of those Trident super-specials on the premises. They proved remarkably energetic about emptying themselves. I think the lesson did the other patrons good." ' Aunt Tilly bobbed her powerful chins. "Still I thought it needlessly cruel to rub their faces with Hostess Snowballs before putting them to bed."
"Aversion therapy." The guest fixed Jan with a basilisk intensity. "I want young people to live, not just to exist in a trance of avitaminosis."
"Ron still responds to light and pin pricks," the fourth woman at the bridge table laughed. Jan recognized the dark-haired, pale drama professor, Dorothy Tilden. "Have you finished making the deck?"
Mother handed the cards over. Mrs. Warden cut then into four equal piles.
"Aunt Tilly . . . could I . . . please ..." Jan fetl naked as a slug on a glass table. "Miss Plimsoll at Wild wood ..."
Mrs. Warden studied her coldly, analytically. "I Love A Mystery hasn't been on in years, dear girl. Speak up. We've cards to play."
"KPFA broadcast some of those," Dorothy Tilden mused "I never did learn how Doc and Reggie got out of that cave filled with vampires."
She accepted the deck and began to deal.
"A family custom." Mother sorted her cards as they slid to her. "Jan, do tell her."
"Do I have . . .?" Her face burned. "Okay, you see--"
"We all see. Let us hear, clearly and completely." Mrs. Warden barely turned her head. "Excuse me for reprimanding your child, Carla."
"Aunt Tilly is my godmother, you kn-ah, I was christened today."
"So late in life? Is that what kept you?" The visitor' capable hands packed her cards into a tight enclave.
"I mean, eighteen years ago today."
Dorothy Tilden rested her hands on the deck, stopping the deal. "Name of Names-to look back to the Seventies and Eighties as normalcy! To think of Ronald Reagan the way I think of-"
"FDR? Deal while you reminisce."
"-Eisenhower." She planted a card firmly in front Mrs. Warden.
"I thought your birthday came in late November." The matronly guest studied Jan. "You and Rosalind had that Sweet Sixteen affair together."
"Fucking during Lent-or did Easter come late that year?"
"Dorothy!" Aunt Tilly shook her formidable head. "Jan was baptised late, Eleanor."
"Joe had these agnostic persuasions," Mother confessed in a subdued voice. "Tilly finally brought him around."
Mrs. Warden stared. "I never knew. I thought he'd been ushering in the parish since Pius XII."
"So I became my dear little girl's godmother." Attilina Ladrone's voice rose with the majesty of Bellini's Norma appealing to her chaste gods. "Now tell them the rest."
Jan twisted her feet in shame. "Instead of giving me a birthday . . . uuummmm ..."
"Don't mumble. Only pigs grunt for speech."
Jan blurted at Mrs. Warden, "Aunt Tilly spanks me on my christening day."
Dorothy Tilden's low chuckle flowed through the room. She reached for the big pitcher and freshened her mai-tai glass.
"Very practical, actually." Mother glanced reprovingly at her partner. "This looks like a foot not a hand, Dorothy. The ritual preserves Tilly's godmotherly authority should she ever have to exercise her duties."
"How sensible." Mrs. Warden looked thoughtful. "I should have done that with Eric and Rosalind."
"They're not too old," Dorothy Tilden observed, "if cheeky Cheslyn constitutes any example."
"Young men these days have no idea of how to train their wives," the older guest allowed grandly. "I have given Robert my assistance as he needs it."
"Don't let Gloria Steinem in on the bitter secret. She's under enough strain trying to teach women how to live like a harem houri, with champagne and endless nookie, and yet not muff a shot at the corporate boardroom." Dorothy Tilden prompted, "Your bid."
"Really? Two clubs," Jan's aunt announced. "I can't see that Steinem woman's picture without wanting to scrub her face for her." The farded cheeks tightened.
"Pass." Mother continued, "A good scolding would do her wonders."
"Paddle her bottom before bed for a week to get her attention, first." Mrs. Warden studied her cards. "Two spades."
"You genteel ladies remind me of Havelock Ellis's Florrie and her fantasy of birching the suffragettes. You might try kidnapping Gloria at an ERA rally." Dorothy Tilden lifted an eyebrow and bid, "Two no trump."
"You remember the old Sigma House days?" Aunt Tilly flared with the malicious glee of a Tosca reminiscing over Scarpia bubbling in his dying blood. "Martha Daltry looked so foolish in that oak tree growing on the football frat house lawn."
"Naked as an unvarnished truth, except for that paper bag with the eyeholes. Pass." Mother indulged herself in a wistfully fond smile.
"She did have pluck, for a snooty thing. She almost made it out of the lower branches before we got that fire alarm to go off." Jan's aunt sparkled.
"Four spades," Mrs. Warden bid definitely. "I recall Martha was a Sigma Delta Tau. Very free about high-hatting Sigma Epsilon Xi, too. Their symbols are the torch and the rose. Her bottom resembled both when we'd done with it."
"Pass." Dorothy Tilden glowered at her cards. "You had the baby Bolshevik crowd out at Berkeley. St. Cloud gets the puppy Jean Kirkpatricks."
"Pass." Aunt Tilly benignly regarded Jan. "How lucky for you that I appear to be dummy, my darling. We can finish our business so you won't have to wait around for it."
"And pass. No time like the present," her mother agreed. "Would you care to have Cheslyn watch by way of object lesson, Eleanor?"
"Having fun while I battle for our honor?" An indignant sound erupted from Mrs. Warden. "Can't you stand her on a stool with her pants at her ankles or something while I try to salvage the rubber?"
"It wouldn't be fair to my favorite dear!" Aunt Tilly's painted cheeks furrowed as her lips pursed. "This isn't punishment, after all, merely an affirmation of my godmotherly commitment."
"The spanking will distract us as much as you, Eleanor." The drama professor watched as the dummy was laid out. She whistled, shaking her head.
"Cheslyn, turn around."
Jan could see tear smears in her whore's rouge as the young wife obeyed. The canary-hued nightie shimmered over pear-firm teats.
"That knockers-on-parade pose gets painful after a while, Eleanor," Dorothy Tilden commented.
"How ever would you know? Posture discipline teaches her to stand straight and not slouch when her husband wishes to fondle her charms."
"Janet! Don't you pay any mind." Mother had an alarmed expression.
"Let Jan have a peek at what real deportment training means," the college teacher suggested slyly.
Mrs. Warden wiggled a beckonning finger. Her daughter-in-law tottered forward on her absurdly tall spikes. The silver tray swung back and forth.
"Don't puff and fuss, Carla. It'll do your baby girl good. She'll be voting for Bush or Dukakis in two months. She should know something of the world."
The imposing woman motioned at Jan. The girl advanced. She froze at the command, "Kneel here."
"I suppose if it'll do her good ... do as she says, Janet." Mother disarranged her hand restlessly.
The girl sank to her knees, closely by Cheslyn's naked haunch. The projecting buttocks lifted the baby doll's pleated hem up and out. Mrs. Warden slapped one cheek lightly and the young wife shifted position, her substantial half-moons facing Jan squarely.
The young woman's hands still crushed tightly against her legs and fundament. Mrs. Warden explained succinctly, "Thumb cuffs."
She reached down and unsnapped the leather bands girdling each thumb. Cheslyn's arms moved freely. Her shoulders sagged, setting the tray wobbling.
Jan saw the thumb restraints dangle from a stout biforcated thong. Mrs. Warden gathered the ends and tugged. The lightly-haired valley between the thrusting hillocks widened as half an inch of scum-slick dildo emerged.
Jan could clearly see the distended rectal corona.
"Cute stuff, eh, kid?"
"Dorothy!"
"A tighter grip than usual." Mrs. Warden pulled harder. Gradually, as Cheslyn rocked on her torturous high heels, three more inches of stiff prong emerged into daylight.
"Now, you cannot be cooperating." The older woman pressed the firm plastic member back in with difficulty. "Surely suction cannot be a problem in insertion. I dislike a balky bottom, Cheslyn."
Jan's own anus felt gun barrel-hot as her clitoris rose to press anxiously against her slacks' toothy zipper.
"I hope you don't think I'm going to waste yet another dollop of Mrs. Ladrone's good Crisco."
"N-o-o-o, Mama Eleanor."
Mrs. Warden worked the solid ramus back and forth irritably. Cheslyn made a faint, nasal sound as the length appeared and disappeared.
"Your bid, Eleanor. Perhaps you could play a card." Mother viewed the exhibition with visibly mounting doubt.
"Oh, so sorry." The guest observed the three of clubs lead. She slid a card from the dummy. As Jan's mother topped it with a ten, Mrs. Warden set down a jack.
"You play the knave charmingly," Dorothy Tilden remarked.
The older woman rammed the piston firmly home with the heel of her hand. Cheslyn's buttocks quivered.
"Spine straight, hands on your head." The matron collected the trick.
"I'm afraid it's your turn, dear Janet." Aunt Tilly's voice chimed with good spirits. Jan thought dismally of Turandot summoning her suitors to the riddle game and execution.
The girl's fingers clutched at her belt in acute embarrassment. "Um, Miss Plimsoll ..."
"You mentioned her before-OH!" Mother's mouth stiffened into a perfect O. "Don't tell me . . . oh."
Aunt Tilly's eyes gleamed like hard ebony chips bracketing her runtish nose. "You see, Eleanor, my rule calls for one loving smack across each cheek of my darling girl's seat for each year of her life, plus ten to grow on, and ten to be good on."
"Did I read that somewhere?" Dorothy Tilden discarded a card atop Mrs. Warden's fresh lead.
"Perhaps not original," the aunt admitted, "but effective in practice."
"However, when Tilly finds signs of recent . . . correction ..." Mother gave Jan a reproving look. "Although all classroom teachers may administer corporal punishment at Wildwood, Miss Plimsoll does handle the major infractions in her office."
Dorothy Tilden leaned forward. "They still beat high school girls in California?"
"Chastise, please." Their hostess sounded prim.
"It's the verb the British used when I sojourned in England." The drama instructor's dark, inquisitive eyes studied Jan with fresh interest. "What happens when you scent the spoor of a hot shelacking, Tilly?"
"I must increase the count with ten additional smacks to behave on, ten more to be sorry on, and a final ten to beware on."
"Thirty-six plus twenty with thirty yet to go. A sizeable duff dusting."
"She's got bottom enough for it," Mrs. Warden appraised bluntly. "What was that card, Dorothy?"
The college professor exposed the queen she'd taken the trick with. "Sorry, no grand slam today. Only a small and inglorious one."
"Perhaps you should lower those slacks, Janet," Aunt Tilly encouraged, "though you wear them so snugly one should properly call them tights."
Glumly, Jan released her belt and downed the zip.
"No underthings?" Her aunt's powdered brow clouded. "How . . . modern."
Jan felt wee and timorous. "Miss Plimsoll says it's part of our punishment. Her orders."
"Not a coed school, I trust. Turn this way, my dear," Mrs. Warden directed. "I see you know how to shave your legs."
"That is not a leg," Dorothy Tilden chortled, "although it does its best to imitate a third one. Some boys go erect before a thrashing, why not a girl?"
"How ever would you know?"
"I taught a bit in England during my wild years. They still flogged in those days, both sexes at my school. The boys believed they hated the indignity more than the pain." The drama professor's eyebrows rose mirthfully. "I learned 'em different."
"Please, Dorothy!" Mother wore a shocked mask.
"Go on with your game," Aunt Tilly instructed. "My precious darling and I have business." A thick finger waggled an invitation.
Jan shuffled around her mother to confront her doom. Her aunt babbled on. "The dear is eighteen and world-wise, but still ..."
The stumpy finger probed indelicately. Jan had to squirm, rising on the balls of her feet, brick-faced with mortification.
"... a virgin."
"Don't be so eager, Carla. I hold a trump or two still." Mrs. Warden seized the hand. "That's exquisite coloration on your starboard flank, Janet. How much and with what?"
"Eight strokes . . . each side." The girl could recall the scalding impact of each well-aimed swing. "She used the Truro Terror."
"That what?" Dorothy Tilden craned her neck to stare.
Mother waved her hand disarmingly. "It's a kind of strap the school has, with perforations-"
"A paddle, really," Mrs. Warden contradicted. "Rosalind describes it vividly. Made of composition rubber and pierced with a dozen holes to diminish the air resistance."
"Something like Mrs. Spencer's old spanking paddle." Dorothy Tilden closed her eyes dreamily. "That had two rows of five major holes down the sides of the paddle blade, with four minor holes symmetrically grouped between them."
"Some of us may be ancient enough to remember," Aunt Tilly remarked, nettled. "Where's this Turbo Tanner from?"
"Truro Terror." Mrs. Warden led a king. "A principal in Nova Scotia designed it."
"An improvement over the old rubber-linen Canadian school strap." The drama instructor disgustedly slapped down a queen. "The holes leave those sore blistery appearing marks. Play, Carla; Eleanor hungers to make book."
"The skin stretches as the rubber strikes around those thumbnail-sized spaces." Mrs. Warden gloated genteelly while Jan's mother dithered over her cards. "A bump forms and the next swat, unless perfectly aimed, smacks the raised skin flat."
The woman pounced on the hand jubilantly. "My Rosalind squeals like the very devil when I birch her after a school tanning. She gets one stroke for every lick a teacher delivers, and twosies if Miss Plimsoll had to call the girl into the office."
She reflected judiciously. "Eric has those wicked cane marks from his school, of course, and he hates to feel the birch on top of them."
"Especially when you dress him in Rosalind's frock afterwards." Dorothy Tilden assured the other players, "He looks cute pouting in lipstick and red ribbons. Eleanor takes a half-hour braiding his hair."
"Raising a boy and girl together has advantages."
"Do you discipline Robert as strictly as his rather uncomfortable-looking bride?"
"Good heavens, I'm forced to lead with an ace." Mrs. Warden set the card down with a crisp snap.
"Of trumps, too. How showy."
"Tilly, would you care to borrow my riding whip?" the matron inquired. "I brought it in case Cheslyn proved willful. She sometimes misbehaves in public."
"Oh my, no, no." Aunt Tilly's palm massaged Jan's shrinking bare flank. "A spanking should always be with something flat. I brought our customary slipper. Be a darling and fetch you-know-what from my purse."