The Taming of the Student Shrew
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"Never!" proclaimed Mary-Helen. "I'll bet you
can't."
"How much?" asked Roberta, rising to the challenge.
"Dinner at Chez Gaston."
"You're on."
The two friends, who should have been hard at their course work, were wasting
time. Roberta knew she should be working on her paper for Prof. Fletcher --
gender stereotypes in The Taming of the Shrew. It had been due the day
before.
Roberta Soames liked the study of English. Odd, that. Most of her friends,
including Mary-Helen Shea, were taking psychology or biology, with the more
career-minded focussing on business or something to do with computers. But in
spite of being thoroughly modern in most other respects, she found poring over
the Milton and the early Romantics fascinating. So it was odd that she had
failed to complete her final essay for Professor Fletcher. Normally a
conscientious student, she had just not seemed to have time. Truth be
told, she had been spending too much time with Mary-Helen, sharing coffee, wine
and late night confidences.
Of course, they talked about sex. Roberta, a pert, raven-haired young women with
boundless self-confidence, had not found it hard to attract
attention in her three years in the halls of learning, though she rejected
foursquare the crude advances of the boisterous majority. She preferred to take
the initiative, cutting serious, studious types out of the herd.
So her bet with her oldest friend was not surprising. Hadn't she been able to
succeed with Prof. Gribben, a renowned behaviourist who had taught them
psychology in first year?
"Yeah, but that was different," retorted Mary-Helen. "She was a
piece of cake."
"That's not what you said at the time," grinned Roberta. "You
were pretty surprised."
"But Fletcher? He's, he's... "
"Why not?"
True, her Shakespeare teacher was a bit on the old side, an aloof Englishman
with a an air of tweedy distraction about him. But she found this challenging.
Under the rumpled, absent-minded persona -- and his usually-rumpled old
clothes -- there was a man. And she felt there would be no problem in winning
both an extension on her already-overdue paper and his attentions. Besides, she
adored the ris de veau at Chez Gaston.
So the next day she dressed carefully, paid a quick visit to her favourite
vending machine and waited until after office hours when she knew the good
professor would be alone in his office, a wood-panelled sanctuary that smacked
of leather-chair traditionalism and old world elegance.
"Come in," he muttered absentmindedly as she knocked on the heavy door
that was standing ajar.
She coughed nervously as he looked up over his rimless half lenses. He put
down his pen and fixed her with a steady gaze.
"What in the devil's name is this one up to?" he asked himself. The
girl, who he recognized as one of his brightest -- if most impetuous --
students, had undergone something of a makeover since he'd last seen her.
Roberta was standing there in a too-short pleated skirt, black knee socks and a
sweater that appeared at least one size too small. (She was quite proud of what
she called her slutty Catholic schoolgirl look) The veteran of many academic
wars had thought he'd seen it all, but this was over the top.
"Yes, Roberta, come in and sit down. What can I do for you?"
"I want to know if I can get another extension on my Shrew
paper," she murmured in what he thought was a breathless though contrived
imitation of Lauren Bacall. She pulled one of the chairs from his big pine
seminar table, placed it close to him, and plunked herself down. He couldn't
help but notice that she did nothing to stop her skirt from rising to expose the
top of her stocking and a hint of thigh.
"I just haven't had the time to get to it..." she whined.
"I'm afraid that one extension is all I ever grant and I think you know
that. If you don't have it in by tomorrow you lose half your grade."
"Oh, puh-leeease, sir" implored Roberta in an irritating tone, leaning
forward and blinking her eyes beseechingly at him. He couldn't really believe
it. The young minx was putting the moves on him, and here he was, old enough to
be her father. For a moment at least he didn't know quite what to make of it
all, let alone what to do. But when she got up and stood close enough so that
the front of that sweater rubbed against him, he had an idea.
He rose and, stepping neatly around her, he closed the heavy office door and
pulled another chair from the seminar table and placed it in the centre of his
office. Then resumed his place behind his desk.
"Please sit down, Roberta. I want to make two things clear. One, you'd
better have that paper in to me by this time tomorrow. That's plenty of
time."
Roberta, who was puzzled by the furniture rearrangement, had started to lose a
bit of her poise. But not enough to change course. Besides, she was curious
about the second thing that the good professor had in mind.
"Ohh, sir, I'll never be able to do that," she pouted, sticking out
her lower lip and attempting -- with some success, she felt -- to look very jeune
fille beneath her pageboy haircut. "What's the second thing?"
"That," he responded, "involves a choice. You can either leave
this office and I promise not to let word of this little seduction drama
outside these walls. Or I can make sure it never happens again by taking you
across my knee."
"You have, he added, taking out an old pocket watch and looking at it
pointedly, "one minute to decide."
Roberta was, to say the least, taken aback and several thoughts immediately
flashed across her mind.
She remembered the time when she was twelve and she'd been visiting Mary-Helen,
who had on occasion referred to Getting It. Her irritating younger brother had
actually gotten It. Her parents were on the old-fashioned side and her mother
had gotten, fed up with the bratty brother, had marched him upstairs. She knew
from the sound of what followed that the pest was getting a spanking and that
the sharp reports punctuating by the boy's increasingly shrill entreaties told
her that there was nothing between Mrs. Shea’s hand and her son’s backside.
Then there had been that Madonna song. She recalled that Mary-Helen had had no
argument with the chorus, stressing that there was, indeed, "nothing
like a good spanking." Roberta had no way of knowing, but was, again,
intrigued.
She quickly wondered, as she glanced from Prof Fletcher (he was looking at her
quizzically) to the empty chair, what It would feel like. Where would It lead?
Taking a deep breath, she made her decision. Placing her knees together and
sitting up straight, she folded her arms over her chest and stuck out her chin
in what she felt was a gesture of defiance. The room was silent, save for the
portentous ticking of the antique French clock on the mantelpiece. No one,
Roberta told herself as she waited, would ever know -- except for the Bard
himself, whose marble bust sat staring at her from the centre of the seminar
table.
Prof. Fletcher moved past her to the solid, armless chair and Roberta's gaze
shifted to him as he sat there rolling up the sleeve of his flannel shirt.
Catching her eye, he didn't say anything, but simply raised his bushy grey
eyebrows as if to ask a question. She rose. "You may still leave, you know," he reminded her. But he noticed that
there was no hesitation as the young woman took a deep breath that
stretched her sweater even tighter. Roberta marched to his side.
"I don't suppose you've ever received a spanking before, young lady?"
he asked as he took her wrist. A little puff of breath escaped as she plopped
across his lap.
Roberta could only mutter a muted "No" through a welter of
emotions as she stared down at the carpet that, being on the short side, she
could just touch with the tips of her fingers.
Continued in the MEMBERS AREA
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