SSC 2009: Emily's Birthday Surprise, by the Crimson Kid

It was Emily's eleventh birthday and it was going to be a special one, she hoped. The first thought that struck her, once her mother had awakened the pert brunette and told her to get dressed for school, was that she was going to receive a birthday spanking from Miss Sinclair. Her fifth-grade teacher was an older, young-adult version of Emily, if the girl became lucky enough to develop into an attractive, athletic woman with cascading soft brown hair and a perky personality as she matured into her mid-twenties.

Snuggling under the covers, Emily anticipated being playfully put across her teacher's firm, skirted thighs and given eleven moderate swats, plus "one to grow on," on each of her girlish bumcheeks-for a total of twenty-four lighthearted slaps to the seat of her bluejeans, Miss Sinclair's method of doubling a birthday spanking in class.

Emily was startled to see her teacher produce a sturdy, flat-backed oakwood hairbrush from her purse just before lunchtime.

"Time for your birthday spanking, Emily," the woman announced crisply, seating herself atop a low stool. "You'll be my first pupil to be spanked under the new protocols."

"Nuh-new what?" The girl frowned uncertainly.

"Not paying attention when I explained them last week," the teacher clucked, "Now you'll find out first-hand."

Moments later a shocked Emily stood before Miss Sinclair, her unsnapped jeans being lowered to her knees by insistent womanly hands.

"Please..." she begged, only to be flipped face-down over the woman's lap; nimble fingers tugged her panties to mid-thigh level, leaving her round little derriere on display to her tittering classmates.

The hairbrush was raised as the teacher's left arm encircled Emily's waist. The stunned preteen was acutely aware of the public exposure of her posterior, but too shocked to react-until the brush's smooth back cracked sharply against her left buttock, making her yelp wildly.

"One!" Her gleeful classmates counted in near-unison. That count was repeated following the punitive implement's equally-emphatic whack atop her right nether moon.

"This isn't right!" she wailed, consumed by the swat's fiery intensity.

Nonetheless the bare-bottomed blistering continued, breaking Emily down into babyish blubbering by the sixth stinging smack as she futilely kicked, squirmed and howled across Miss Sinclair's lap. Her bumcheeks were glowing bright crimson and her face was tearstained by the time her gloating classmates had shouted "One to grow on!" the second time.

"My, doesn't Emily have a red-hot, well-paddled bare bottom, class?" Miss Sinclair asked cheerily. "Now for the rest of her birthday spanking, counting backwards down to zero." The hairbrush's hard back patted the girl's enflamed rump. "Ready, Emily?"

"Get up!" Emily groggily awakened, aware of her mother shaking her shoulders. "You've missed the bus, I'll have to drive you to school."

Her relief at the nightmare's ending was terminated as she was pulled across maternal knees, pajama bottoms jerked downward.

She gasped. "Mom, please, it's-"

"Not a birthday spanking," the woman interjected, raising her hairbrush to strike, "But you've earned a real one!"

{The End}

Pablo email

I'm slightly frustrated by this one, because it's a nice idea, and mostly quite well executed, but it's let down by something that wouldn't be particularly hard to fix: point of view.

Here's the problem: Who is telling the story? Whose story is it? This one is *perfect* for a first-person narrator. It's clearly Emily's story - even to the extent that much of the narrative takes place in her own head - and it should be her telling it.

But what we actually have is a much more distant third-person narrator, whose language is completely wrong for the story. Where does a description like 'her girlish bumcheeks' come from? This is obviously a phrase the author likes, but it's a long way from Emily's own language.

The story - which would otherwise be exactly the same story - would be hugely focused and enhanced if the language was consistent with Emily's life and personality. Even if she wasn't *explicitly* the narrator, she'd then be the implied narrator, and things would read much better.

In essence, the author is falling back on his usual bag of tricks and phrases which happen to float his boat, without thinking about whether they fit here. Mostly, they don't. Keep in mind whose story this is, tailor the language to that, and try to avoid the same old author's voice and the same old phrases.