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Dodo sat perched in the Sweet Spot, pouting miserably at his coach across the room.
Who knew how long this chair had sat in the Rosie Baughm tennis coach’s office. It wasn’t Halko’s invention, was all Dodo knew, though the man was happy enough to employ it.
Someone back in the annals of the university’s history had probably thought it was cute. They’d thought of a tennis racket and the cross-hatch weave of the strings. They’d imagined that pattern branded into the bottom of a misbehaving student, and they’d thought, yes, this is a thing that needs to happen.
They would have had to commission it, Dodo thought sourly. Someone had had to design it: the unassuming little hardwood chair with its sturdy legs and solid back. Someone had stretched the nylon strings across its surface, in a half-inch grid, just as they would be on a racket.
Someone had decided the seat should sit lower to the ground than it ordinarily would, so you had to put your full weight on your ass, and that the seat should be just a little bit concave so that you wound up pressing the strings down with your weight, tautening them even further.
This had all been done on the university’s dollar. Someone had had to propose a budget.
And they’d given it that cutesy name. The Sweet Spot. Halko refused to call it that. He rarely referred to the thing, at all. He just put you in time out, and Dodo had been there enough times to know damn well what that meant.
This was his first encounter with the chair since spring, however. It was still early in the fall semester of sophomore year. Dodo felt a little out of practice.
He squirmed where he sat. The strings of the chair shifted under him, finding new purchase in the freshly reddened skin of his butt. It pinched and poked, and Dodo gave a piteous whine.
That is, anyone with a heart would have found it piteous. Coach Halko, who had been clacking away at his laptop for the past eon, didn’t even take his fingers off the keyboard.
“Coooach,” said Dodo, in as subdued a tone as he could muster. “Is it time, yet?”
“No,” said Halko.
Dodo wrinkled his nose. “You didn’t even look.”
The thin man paused his typing. He turned his head slowly to peer at Dodo over the rims of his glasses. Then he picked up a timer on the desk, referenced it, and set it back down.
“It is not time yet,” he said, and he went back to typing.
“Coooach!”
“You will sit in silence, please.”
Dodo flared his nostrils, but he pulled in his lips and bit down, obediently shutting himself up. Halko’s please was code for unless you want to be very, very sorry.
After another agonizing who-knew-how-many minutes, the little timer finally gave a soft bee-beep, and Dodo perked up, anxious for his freedom.
Halko looked put out by the interruption. He heaved a sigh, stopped the timer with a rap of a long finger, and said, “All right. You may go.”
Finally.
Dodo eased himself forward, peeling his ass away from the strings of the evil seat. They made little plunking sounds as they released him.
He winced as he straightened up. He craned his neck, twisting himself around to get a glimpse of the damage.
Halko had some kind of Scandinavian carpet-beater thing he brought out when he was really peeved, and he was damn efficient with it. He’d had Dodo dancing in seconds, and now, even after a bit of a cooldown period, Dodo’s butt was still thoroughly red. Nearly glowing, Dodo thought as he examined it.
And, of course, there was the stupid grid from the tennis strings, seared into his ass like a waffle iron.
Dodo ran his fingers along the little square bumps, grimacing. His skin was hot to the touch. He gave it a quick, mostly useless rub.
“Young man,” said Halko. He had one white-blond eyebrow raised high in his tall, pale forehead. “You may go.”
“Yes, Coach.” Dodo pulled up his shorts, carefully adjusting them over the tenderized area. “Um. Bye.”
Halko raised a hand. “See you tomorrow.”
Dodo gathered up his tennis bag and left the coaching office.
It was a relief to be freed from that horrible chair. Well… it wasn’t so bad, Dodo mused in retrospect. It was a terrible way to spend twenty minutes, but it didn’t have the same after-effect as a spanking.
That is, it didn’t make the existing after-effect any worse.
Dodo hopped on his bike, screwing up his face as he did so. He’d picked up one of the soft gel seats the bookstore sold specially for students on the Brat track. It was still a far cry from comfortable, but it was better than the alternative. And, anyway, Dodo spent so much time biking on a sore ass, he barely noticed it, anymore.
He started to head back to campus and his dorm, but he paused. The sun hung low in the sky, and the breeze carried a hint of chill from the oncoming autumn.
A perfect evening to cozy up with a video game.
Dodo wheeled his bike around and headed in the opposite direction, off-campus, toward the tennis house, where the upperclassmen lived. He’d been practicing his Mario Kart all summer, and he had yet to really challenge anyone.
He wondered if Cam would be up for a game.
A grin split Dodo’s face, his chastisement all but forgotten, and he pedaled away down the road.