SSC 2009: The Prodigal Daughter, by Zad Zadigski

It has been a long, hard Friday as Sister Theresa fought the devil for the souls of her students. She was doing the final check , locking up the high school when she noticed a woman sitting in her classroom.

"May I help you?" the nun asked.

"Hello, Sister," the woman said.

"Matilda, I am pleased to see that you are out of prison!"

"I have been out for 18 months on parole. I have been off drugs for five years, I have a job and I even have a good guy who is serious about me.. And I have just found out where my daughter is. She is fifteen and I have not seen her since she was a baby. I am supposed to go see her this weekend."

The woman took a breath. "But I have a problem. I can't stop thinking about all the people I hurt."

Sister said, "You need to see a priest and get forgiveness for your sins."

"Sister, I have been advised by priests, social workers and even a psychiatrist. What I really need is to get the punishment I got out of when I was your student. I need you to punish me. But, Sister, you have to make it a hundred times worse."

Sister nodded and said, "I understand. We don't have paddles anymore, but I think I can find something to use. Get yourself ready, bend over the front row desk, and I will be back."

The nun returned with a curtain pull: a three foot long, thin plastic rod, Matilda was bent over, her bottom bare. Sister tapped her bottom twice with the rod, then gave her a full stroke. Matilda gasped from the pain. Then Sister slowly gave her nine more strokes.

Sister said, "That is all you take." Sister helped her up and helped her dress. Matilda's bottom was so sore that she couldn't bear to have her panties on. She had to hold her dress away from her sore bottom. Sister called Matilda's boyfriend to come get her.

On Monday, Matilda went to see Sister. "I prayed all weekend for you. How did it go?" asked the nun.

"Better than I deserve, Sister. My daughter said that her father's sister is her mother. But I can be her friend. My boyfriend's children aren't happy about my history, but they are accepting me. The only thing is that my boyfriend can't punish me the way you did. I will need that. Sister, could you ... ?"

"I am sure that we can work something out. What you need to do is forgive yourself. It will time, love, prayer, and some sore bottoms. I know. I whipped myself for 25 years because I failed you. I do not need or want to do that again."

Kessily email

A standard F/F discipline punishment scene, with no sexual overtones. The scene that takes place is between a nun and a woman who was once her student and had apparently gone down the path of drugs and criminal activities.

I guess I had a lot of trouble getting into this story. The dialogue felt very formal and not natural flowing at all, and the nun just nodded and completely accepted, with no shock at all, that this woman wants her to punish her. The spanking scene had very little detail and also didn't seem very severe considering the circumstances.

As a strong positive though, I would have to say this is the first story with this plot I've seen.

Pablo email

One of the trickiest parts of writing an SSC story is settling on something that's the right size. It needs enough substance to feel like it has a beginning, a middle, and an end, but not so much that it all feels rushed.

On the surface, this one needn't bite off too much - it's really just a single conversation. And yet it feels very schematic and mechanical. What ought to be a difficult emotional reconnection between these two people after many years is achieved in just a few exchanges. The effect is that this feels like a brief synopsis for the *real* story, which will come later.

Praise is definitely due for attempting something quite dark and gritty. This isn't exactly fantasy material - at least not obviously so. But dark and gritty requires a realism in the telling too, and that also is undermined by how quickly a difficult, complex situation is resolved. Full marks for aiming high, but not quite reaching as high.