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Adea’s Mama thumbed the blue card, metal fingers stroking over the red pen marks. She had been staring at it for the past three or four minutes. Now, she set it back down on the kitchen table.
“Adea, sweetpea,” she asked, “how did you fail English? And your other grades have fallen too. What happened?”
Her little girl shrugged her shoulders and lowered her head. Adea didn’t know either, but if she had to name a catalyst, she would point fingers at her teachers.
Especially her history teacher.
Mr Mayers could hardly tell his right from his left, much less explain the significance of the Haitian revolution to his class.
If her mother would not accept this complaint, or if she asked about the other subjects, then Adea would point to her classmates. They were rambunctious, untidy little things and all their noise was distracting.
Adea had already primed her mother to believe as such. It wasn’t a lie, either: her class was often so loud that the teachers, unable to control them, turned heel and went back to the staff room.
Alexandria, Adea’s mother, huffed. “Well,” said she, rising from the kitchen table, her chair creaking as she pushed it back. “if you don’t know, then I don’t know either.”
Her mother walked over to where the landline was kept on the counter, over where the sugar bowl and salt and pepper shakers were. She began to dial a number — Adea’s stomach fell when she recognised the first three digits.
“I’m sure your father will be as disappointed as I am,” her Mama continued, “Adea, we don’t expect perfection but we do expect that if we put so much into your education that you will bring home a report card that reflects our care—”
But Adea had already disassociated. Her mind itself felt numb, and she was already despairing how her life would undoubtedly change when her father returned home from work. She had grown up with her mother working from home, and being the one responsible for all of Adea’s sore bottoms and times in the corner. For her mother to call for her father represented a handing over of the reins. And for Adea, that meant a bedtime spanking.
Her father was kind, and gentle but his hand and his disapproval stung more than her mother’s.
By the time Adea had snapped out of her trance, her mother was already off the phone. A chair was pulled out from the kitchen table, and Adea watched as metal fingers took swift possession of the wooden spoon.
Adea twisted in place where she stood, rolling her toes in her school socks and trying her best not to look like those ten quick strikes with the spoon had humbled her. The wicked spoon was in plain view, hung back on its perch. And because her mother always ended a spanking on the bare, it was not the only thing on open display.
The last time Adea had been made to stand in the corner, with her underwear neatly folded one-side and her darkened bottom in plain sight — why, Adea couldn’t remember. She had more memories of being sent up to her room, or made to stand with her hands in the air until they got sore. To be placed in the corner of the kitchen wall, bum-naked, was a shameful punishment.
A flat palm landed on her right cheek, and Adea heard her mother’s tutting voice, “No fidgeting, young lady. And stand up straight — the least you can do is have proper posture.”
The slap knocked the breath out of the girl. It had taken her by surprise and had made her float up to her tip-toes and wring her hands like nothing had before.
Then came the sound of a car outside; of tires running against asphalt. Adea snuck a look at the time. It couldn’t have been her father. He was a dean at the local university so he hardly ever came home early.
Adea jumped at a touch to her shoulder. “Adea, go upstairs and wash up for dinner.”
“Is … everything okay at the university?” Adea managed to ask before she could be shooed away.
Her Mama pinched the bridge of her nose. “Yes, Adea. Now shoo. Go.”
*
Adea wiped the condensation off the bathroom mirror with her palm. Her body was a little damp still, and her bottom still smarted, but the worst of the after-spanking glow was gone. And Adea was certain of this latter fact because she inspected the damage thoroughly — this was not her first time with the wooden spoon, after all.
She lingered by the stairway after she dressed herself in baggy clothes that she hoped would hide even the worst of her squirming. Peering over the edge, she looked round for any sign of her father; his Oxford loafers by the front door, or his car keys on the end table downstairs. But there was no sign of him.
No matter how late he worked, Adea’s father, Dr Belgrave, always returned home in time for dinner. Always. His absence presented either a miracle or some false sense of hope.
The miracle was tentatively confirmed when Adea arrived at the dinner table to see only two plates set out. One for Adea herself, and the other for her mother, who sat across from Adea. The third seat at the table was conspicuously empty, and Adea fought hard to bite down a relieved smile.
Her father liked to ask about her day at school. And there could be no mention of the accursed institution without triggering an inquiry into whether report cards had been shared out.
Dr Belgrave may have already known about the distribution of the report cards from the phonecall earlier, but his absence meant that Adea’s Mama couldn’t persuade him to be ‘properly firm’ with Adea’s bad performance.
Adea breathed a sigh of relief. If she could get to sleep before her father returned home, she might be able to delay her punishment, or even have him waive it entirely. A good night’s sleep was more than capable of erasing the bad thoughts about the report card and how lucky it was that Adea was not being held back. Yes, a good night’s rest could also amplify the concerns of the report card inplicitly presented: that Adea was being bullied, or that her teachers weren’t doing their jobs, and the likes.
She was in the home stretch now.
It was too good to be true.
Adea kept checking the clock; where was Dr Belgrave? Or rather, where was Adam?
Adea knew that she would be going to bed sore, but now she had to wait up in actual anticipation for her punishment. It made her feel squirmy to have to wait, and she took extra time brushing her teeth for bed. She made sure to glance back over her shoulder, too — all of this just in case Adam — erm, her father should suddenly appear.
She tried to find reasons to still be awake. She made a mess of her room, and cleaned it up again. She sat on her bed and stared at the textures of her bedroom wall. And finally, in one last act of desperation, she had poked her head out into the corridor — to see if maybe Adam was lying in wait somewhere, waiting for some perfect moment to deliver her punishment.
But there was no Adam.
Defeated, Adea threw herself down on her bed. She had just pulled her blanket on when the bedroom door opened a crack. Immediately Adea went limp. She bit down hard on her tongue, trying to keep a neutral face; but she could feel herself smiling.
She felt the bed dip with new weight. “Adea, I know you aren’t asleep.” Her heart fluttered, and she curled her fingers beneath the sheet, just so the excitement had somewhere to go.
Slowly — and still fighting a big smile — Adea opened her eyes and sat up. She tried to think back to her character — that girl who had been all but promised a spanking from her father — and she shrunk back.
“Good night, Papa,” she greeted slowly.
“Really?” he returned. He opened his arms, urging her closer, “I haven’t seen you since this morning, sweeting — aren’t I owed a hug, at the very least?”
Adea stared for a moment. But then she dived headfirst into the embrace. He was so warm and his hand on her back was so steady and assuring. She felt so damned certain that perhaps, this time, her mother’s spanking had been ‘enough’, and that this was her father taking pity on her.
“Did Mama tell you?” Adea just had to ask. She felt no difference in her father’s hold, and she relaxed for a moment. But just for a moment.
“Yes, but I was hoping that you could tell me, too.”
Adea frowned. Her unspoken excuses from earlier rolled in front her eyes like text on tickertape; so she was getting a spanking, after all.
“So she did tell you,” murmured Adea. She pulled away from him, and he didn’t fight her on it, only keeping a hand against her back to keep her sitting upright.
“Is there a reason she should not have?” her father asked, and Adea felt her face get hot.
“It’s not fair,” Adea said, “It’s not fair! I already got smacked — a-and with the spoon — i-it’s not fair for you to do it, too–”
She would have gone on for longer if not for the interruption. “Dear child,” her guardian clicked his tongue, tsking at her, almost, “if I did not think you earned a second smacking, I would not have come up here to deliver one.”
“Then why even bother hugging me at all?”
“Because I always hug you when I come home, don’t I?”
It was true. And now, despite being the scene of her punishment, was in fact only the second time she’d seen her father for the whole day. Adea mulled over this, and when she looked truly settled, her father cleared her throat.
“What were your marks like last year?” he queried.
Adea didn’t need to think. “High-80s and Low-90s.” She’d made the Principal’s List, and had even gotten a nice pin for it. Her parents had taken her to the beach for the weekend to celebrate.
It seemed very far away now. Even moreso because Adea knew what the next question would be.
“Right … yes, that is right, isn’t it? What did you get this year?”
The squirmy feeling returned, and Adea shifted on Adam’s lap, face warming even more and trying to ignore his furtive smile.
“You know what I got,” she said.
“I want to hear it from you, sweeting. In your own words.” Her father frowned just the smallest amount at her. “What did you get for Maths?”
“… Forty-nine, Papa.”
“And Physics?”
Adea shook her head. Her father rose a brow at her. “Adea,” he started, “what did you get for Physics this year?”
She declined to speak again. But another firm look did her in. “A high-D.”
“A high-D.” Her father was not at all impressed, and his disapproval stung, no matter how implicitly given. “I want numbers, sweeting.”
Adea whispered, “…it’s a thirty.”
“That doesn’t sound like a high-D at all.” He looked at her. “And what about English?”
The girl’s eyes were glossy, wet and sheen with little tears. She tried to say that she couldn’t say it — that she didn’t dare put words to the number on her report card — but the words didn’t come. She only managed to open and close her mouth dumbly.
She slammed her head into his chest, making one last appeal, “Papa, please don’t make me say it! Please!”
Any hope she had died in her stomach. “Adea, that is exactly why you must tell me. I’m certain it doesn’t feel good to hear how poorly you did this year. Consider this an incentive to do better — as your mother and I know you can, if only you would be more diligent. So come. Stop crying. I still need to hear how you did in Biology and Chemistry.”
Adea’s voice got softer and softer until she hardly said anything at all. And when her pajama shorts came down — like they always did when her father spanked her at bedtime — she didn’t try to fight it. She just clutched onto her mattress sheet and bawled.
The crying and the exhaustion that came with it masked the sting that comes with the first strike on an already sore bottom. It did not hide the absolute distress Adea felt at her father’s disappointment. She was supposed to be a big girl! She had been on the honour roll, had walked up to the school hall’s platform and had gotten her special pin to show for it — she wasn’t supposed to be getting her bottom warmed like this!
Adea scrunched her legs together as the slaps continued to fall.
“It hurts!” she howled, “It huurts!”
Her father actually paused. “I know it does sweeting — and I hope you remember this if you choose to slack off in the future.” One final smack marked the end of this set.
He pulled Adea’s underwear, light blue with multi-coloured stars, down. It fell between the crease of her upper thighs and there it stayed for the remainder of her punishment.
“I certainly take no pleasure from doing this” — Adea heard the grin in Adam’s all-too-concerned, fatherly voice — “but if you won’t correct yourself, then I must do it for you.”
Adea’s bottom throbbed. The stinging of her father’s hand had lost its novelty; dull pain, slow and burny, replaced the sting that had made her jostle and fly forward so much. The strikes from before had hurt like hell, but they didn’t compare to the present pain; it felt like pain building atop pain ad nauseum.
Even the wooden spoon hadn’t hurt so much.
But then the strikes slowed.
“I would like to know that we have an understanding,” Adea heard Adam say. ”I know you don’t wish to be in this position again come next year.” His hand fell again and Adea pressed her legs together, trying to bear the brunt of the pain. “What will you do to make sure we don’t need to repeat this conversation?”
Another swat came after he spoke. Adea tried to gathered her words as best she could. “I’-I’ll study!”
“That doesn’t sound very specific.”
His hand fell again. And again, Adea tried to bear the impact. “I’ll do practice questions! A-all on my own!” She could sense her father raising his hand again, and she reached back to shield her bottom.
She couldn’t take it anymore.
But Adam’s reaction was merely to slap her hands — and hard. Now her bum and her hand burned.
“And?” prodded Adam. He stopped completely this time, though a hand pressed against the girl’s bottom cheeks. A warning that he could start up again just as abruptly as he finished. “One more thing Adea. Just one more, sweeting.”
It was easier to think now that Adea no longer had to fear any more impending swats. The metal hand on her behind was cold, and she felt her shoulders relax just from the relief the coolness afforded her. It almost made her break character. Almost.
“I’ll be … better.” Adea said this with a little hesitancy, wondering if this would be too vague.
It must have been a good answer. Adea’s underwear was gently guided back over her cheeks. “And how will you be better?”
She scrunched her face in thought, before realising that the answer had already been given to her. “I won’t slack off,” she blurted out. “I’ll study. I’ll make cue cards — w-we won’t ever have this conversation again.”
Immediately she was hoisted off her father’s lap for a hug.
“Good answer,” she was told. This time, her father broke the hug first, though he only did so after reassurance that this was now a ‘done and dealt with’ matter.
He even tucked her in, the way he used to when she was a much smaller — and naughtier — little girl. Adea laid on her side, the pain of resting weight on her bottom achy and uncomfortable. But she was done. Her father had made his point; he had disciplined her, and now, he could be as kind as he wanted.
And he was very kind. He gave Adea her goodnight kiss on her forehead, the way he did every night.
“We’ll talk about tutors tomorrow,” he promised her. He walked towards the door, and then paused in the doorway, hand on the doorknob. “Goodnight, little one.”
Adea sniffled. “Goodnight Papa.”
Adea was the very picture of a contrite girl who had been shown the error of her ways, and taken back to the path of good behaviour. She appeared to have had learnt her lesson. As Dr Belgrave slipped into the master bedroom, and greeted his wife with a kiss to the forehead, he supposed to himself that only time would tell whether it was a lesson well learnt.
* * *
It was a settled part of their routine that Adea should be given painkilling cream the day immediately after a roleplay. And that was where Adea was now: bent over Alex’s knee as she and Adam discussed the morning paper.
“Full disclosure,” Adea suddenly said, “I was scared as hell when you didn’t come for dinner Adam.”
The android beamed. “That was the end goal. It seemed a little too … predictable and cliché.”
Alex hummed her affirmation. She pat the cream into either of Adea’s bottom cheeks. “I heard the spanking last night — sounded like everyone was having fun.”
Adea laughed, wiggling in her excitement. “Oh God, I was mortified — a-and then Adam made me tell him my marks and I was so embarrassed, you know?”
She glanced back at Alex, “I can’t wait to hear what you’ve got planned for next time, Alex.”
Alexandria couldn’t wait either. “Oh, don’t you worry about that, hm? Good things come to those who wait.”
Adam met her optics. They both smiled. And then a comfortable silence befell the sitting room once more.