Robyn played with one of her curls wrapped around her index. She cast a quick glace around the shop and hurried towards the exit.
‘Wait! Miss? Miss? Where are you going?’ asked a loud, stern voice.
‘I… I…’ the young girl stammered, blushing hard. She kept walking towards the exit, head down, eyes shut, trying to avoid the unavoidable.
‘Hey! Wait!’ the other woman continued. She was tall, lean. With a few long strides, she caught up with Robyn and grabbed her arm.
‘L-let me go…’ the young girl tried, biting her lip. She looked up at the woman. The woman’s eyes were ice-cold behind her glasses. She was looking at her up and down, frowning.
‘All right, young lady, where is it?’ she asked.
‘Where is what?’ Robyn said, trying to be defiant.
The woman pushed her glasses up the bridge of her nose and sneered. ‘You know exactly what, young lady.’
‘Let me go! You’re hurting my arm’
‘Where did you stuff the clothes that you took?’
‘I… I…’ Robyn felt tears starting to well up in her eyes, ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to…’
‘You… Didn’t mean to grab clothes off the racks and stuff them somewhere?’
‘No, I… It… Hum… It was a dare and…’
‘A dare?’
‘Yes…’ she said, sheepishly, ‘It’s my friends, they…’
‘What friends?’
‘They’re over… there,’ Robyn said, her voice dropping to a whisper as she pointed to an empty space outside the shop, in the mall. She didn’t think that she could blush more than she was already doing, and yet… Defeated, she looked down at her feet and tugged nervously at her skirt with her free hand.
‘Please…’ she started, but the tall woman interrupted her and raised her hand, palm up.
‘The clothes. Now.’
Biting her lips, Robyn lifted her blouse and pulled up the stolen tee-shirt half-tucked in the waistband or her pleated skirt. Without looking up and without a word, she put it in the woman’s waiting hand.
‘A ten-dollar shirt… Well I hope it was worth it. Come with me.’
‘Wh-what? Where? It… It was just a dare, I swear… Please…’
‘Oh, it’s very simple… We’re going to go in the back, and we’re going to wait for the police to arrive.’
‘The police? No, no, no, no, no… Please! I’ll do anything; please!’
The woman rolled her eyes and punched a code into a secure door.
‘Please!’ Robyn insisted. ‘Please! I’ll work for you; I’ll clean your house! I’ll do anything!’ Tears were rolling down her cheeks.
Having closed the door behind them, the woman finally let go of her arm, and Robyn rubbed it in silence. The woman pointed at a chair. She sat down without a word, her head down in her hands, sobbing and sniffling.
The woman picked up a phone from the desk that occupied a corner of the room. She typed a number and let her finger hover above the ‘call’ button. She looked up at Robyn, sobbing in her chair. She rolled her eyes again and sighed before putting the phone down.
‘What’s your name?’ she asked the girl.
‘R… Robyn Miller, ma’am,’ she managed between two sobs. ‘I’m so sorry…’ she added, quietly.
‘Okay, Robyn Miller. You should re-think who your friends are, don’t you agree?’
‘Yes ma’am…’
‘Do you have a lot of friends, Robyn?’
‘Not… Not really…’
‘And you think that doing any idiotic thing they tell you to do is going to make them your friends?’
‘I… I don’t know, ma’am…’
‘I think you know… I think you know that that’s not how friends treat each other.’
‘Yes ma’am…’
Sitting against the desk, the woman crossed her arms.
‘Now, what do you think should happen?’
‘I… I don’t know… I don’t want to go to j-j-jail’ she bawled.
‘Don’t you think you deserve to be punished? You think stealing is okay?’
‘No, no, it’s not, I know! I’m sorry; I’m SO sorry, I swear… I’ve never done… anything like this…’
‘What should we do, then?’
‘I… Well… I… I don’t…’ she broke into more tears.
The woman rubbed the bridge of her nose,
‘Right. Robyn. Have you been spanked before?’
‘Have I been…’
‘Spanked, yes. As a kid?’
Shocked, Robyn looked up.
‘B-b-by my mom… But… But… I was little and…’
‘You agreed that you deserved to be punished, didn’t you? Would you rather I made that call?’
‘No! No, please!’
‘Then you’re going to come over my knees, and I’m going to give you a spanking you’ll remember for a long, long time. Understood?’
The woman’s piercing blue eyes pinned Robyn in place. The young girl swallowed and nodded quietly.
‘I didn’t hear that?’
‘Yes… Ma’am…’ she sniffled.
The woman snapped her fingers.
‘Get up.’
Robyn did as she was told, and the woman took her place in the chair.
‘Take your skirt and blouse off.’
‘Wh-why?’
‘No arguing, young lady! It’s not too late for me to make that call.’
‘No, no! I’ll do whatever you say.’
She unbuttoned her blouse and put it down on the desk, then undid her skirt and let it fall to the floor in a ruffle of fabric. She stood there, in her underwear, blushing in apprehension.
The woman tapped her lap. ‘Come over here.’
Again, she obeyed, finding her place over the woman’s knees. The position immediately brought back memories of her previous punishments at home, and she clenched her round buttocks reflexively.
‘Why are you being punished, Robyn?’
‘Hum, because… Because I—
SMACK! The first slap cut her reply short. Another followed immediately, an another, and another. Within thirty seconds, she was squirming over the woman’s lap, her panties barely softening the harsh blows that rained down on her bottom. Her eyes filled with tears and she let out a little cry every time the woman’s hand slammed down.
SMACK! SMACK! SMACK! SMACK! SMACK! SMACK! SMACK! SMACK! SMACK! SMACK! SMACK! SMACK!
Again and again, the stern woman peppered her soft, young bottom with handfuls of scorn.
‘I’m sorry…’ she managed between the sobs that she couldn’t contain. ‘I’m so sorry… I… Oww!’
The first slap on her thigh surprised her. Soon, they were just another area on fire. She felt pain, she was humiliated, she was ashamed of herself. She was angry. At the woman, at herself, and at her pretend friends who’d gotten her in the position.
The woman kept spanking her, a little pinched, satisfied smile on her face. Truth be told, that young girl on her lap was getting punished for all the others she hadn’t caught, and for every disrespectful client to which she’d dreamt she could do the same. Her round globes were bright red, and they bounced adorably with each and every slap.
After what felt to Robyn like an eternity, she was allowed to get up. She waddled to the corner of the room that the woman pointed to. Hands on her head, she waited and sobbed quietly. She had never felt so much pain. She wondered whether she would ever be able to sit again. Another eternity later, she felt a hand gently laying on her shoulder. She turned around, raising watery eyes up to look at her tormentor.
‘What will you do when you get out of here, Robyn Miller?’
‘I… I will go home and…’
‘Robyn…’
‘I… I will find new friends…’
‘Real friends…
‘I don’t know how…’
‘Well, tell you what. If you come back with a resume, I’ll have a spot for you. You can make a little money, and do things that you like, rather than hanging out with people that, clearly, don’t appreciate you.’
‘Oh! I…’ She was so surprised she didn’t know what to say. That woman was clearly evil incarnate, so why would she…
‘And another thing… If you manage to bring one of these ‘friends’ in the shop, I’ll take them to the back and give them a piece of my mind…’ She winked.
