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Category: Missing scene

Just One Good Woman

Crimson Kid

"JUST ONE GOOD WOMAN" by the Crimson Kid  [Category: Missing Scene]

(All rights reserved. This story's setting is early evening at the Judge 
Advocate General headquarters in Washington, D.C., in the early 1990's.)

   "That's all it would've taken to straighten you out early," Joanne 
Galloway stated sharply, "But I suppose your mother wasn't much of a
disciplinarian."
   "Not really," Daniel Kaffee agreed.
   "Your father was focused on his career, right?" In her crisp white 
uniform, the lieutenant commander appeared to questioning a naval
subordinate--which in a sense she was.
   "My father's none of your business," the 'jaygee' responded
defensively.

   "You disobeying my instructions IS my business, lieutenant." She 
emphasized his lower rank.
   "It was a suggestion, Jo, not an order," Daniel countered. "Besides,
I DID break Jessip on the stand, something you left up to my
judgement." He sighed. "You're not really going to try to make that
stick, are you?"
   "Actually, no..." 
   He grinned. "Didn't think so."
   "...Not when I have a half-dozen clearcut instances of disrespect
and insubordination on your part." Joanne smiled tightly. "Isn't that
so, Danny?" 

   "Come on, Jo," the junior officer protested, "There was some
friction between us, that's all."
   "You're immature and undisciplined, Danny," his superior noted. "If
you're going to fullfill your promise as a lawyer, you'll need help."
   "Reporting me for insubordination? That will help my career?"
   "That's not what I had in mind," she countered, "I'd rather deal
with it privately."
   "Privately?" Daniel looked confused. 

   "As Kendrick would say, 'within the unit'." The pretty brunette
reached into her purse and withdrew a glossy black hairbrush.
   "You're going to brush my hair?" 
   "Wrong side of the hairbrush, Danny," she explained breezily. "It's 
'tails,' not 'heads,' for you."
   "I don't get it." He shrugged.
   "You didn't 'get it' when you needed it," Joanne agreed, "Now you
will."

   Realization flooded her subordinate's awareness. "Come on, Jo, you 
can't..."
   "Paddle your butt?" she continued. "Not officially--but I can agree
to take my hairbrush to your bare bottom, over my lap like a naughty
boy, in lieu of making official charges. Consider it your forty-fifth
successful plea bargain, counselor."
   "You wouldn't really...?" Daniel sounded incredulous.
   "The formal charges are here, Danny." She tapped a document on her
desk. 
"What's your decision?"

   Soon the 'jaygee' lay across his superior's skirted thighs, softball
pants and briefs at knee level and naked buttocks quivering, as the
woman smugly raised her heavy wooden hairbrush.
   "Think of all your smart-assed remarks, Danny," Joanne instructed.
"You know that you deserve this, you've been an insolent child--so I'll
treat you like one..."
  SMACK!! SMACK!! The hairbrush's flat back bounced briskly off each of
Daniel's pale buttcheeks in turn.
   "Owww, that stings!"
   His chastiser chuckled. "It's supposed to hurt."

   The punishment quickly produced yelps and squirms as his exposed
posterior rapidly reddened under the punitive brush's blistering-hard
whacking. When the lengthy spanking was concluded, he was sobbing for
mercy.
   "How did that feel?" Joanne demanded.
   Daniel recalled Colonel Jessip's comment about the attractiveness of
"a woman you have to salute in the morning."

   "Effective, Jo--for our first time..."
   {The End}

[Note: For those unfamiliar with the movie, this would be an epilogue
scene to the 1991 motion picture, "A Few Good Men." Tom Cruise played
Lieutenant (J.G.) Daniel Kaffee and Demi Moore played Lieutenant
Commander Joanne Galloway.] 

Eric

There is an ominous element of humiliation in an adult female taking her hairbrush to the bare bottom of an adult male whom she's put 'over my lap like a naughty boy'. When that female happens to be serving in a senior and honourable branch of the defence forces this reviewer starts seeing 'Abu Ghraib'. Replacing the over-the-knee scene with a full-on, adult, classic domestic discipline caning would transform 'Just One Good Woman' into a powerful and compelling story.

Janet Miles

As I've not seen the movie _A Few Good Men_, I can't address whether this is an effective missing scene. Addressing it without that context, however, it's a reasonable and straightforward story of its genre (superior and subordinate, personal punishment for inappropriate behavior rather than making a formal complaint). However, nothing particularly caught my eye to make it stand out.

Pablo

Cute. Maybe a tiny bit too cute. There's lots of scope for a scene like this, which has issues of power and authority built into it because of the military setting, to be dark and dangerous - at least playfully so - but what's here is slightly arch and corny. Partly that's due to the characters' voices not being distinctive enough, and partly it's that the author's voice is a wee bit intrusive: there's the thesaurus approach to bottom references: 'butt', 'bare bottom', 'naked buttocks', 'pale buttcheeks', 'exposed posterior'. Try making the characters' voices more realistic and distinctive, and making the narrator's voice less noticeable, especially when writing with (what should be) an anonymous third-person narrator. (Pablo)