The Inquiry - By C. Lakewood

The following story was inspired by "Enslaving Laurie," written by Laura Lynn Davis. (The framework is similar, up to a point, but there are significant differences in details and direction.) I sent her two e-mails, but received no reply.

THE INQUIRY

by C. Lakewood

Alice Arliss was swept back in time as she drove between the limestone pillars that marked the entrance to the grounds of Briarcliff Academy. She had been sent off to a school very much like it 21 years before...a private school for bright, problem girls from rich families. Though Briarcliff had an excellent academic reputation, there were anonymous accusations that its disciplinary practices constituted abuse. Based on her background, her status as a feminist lawyer, her proximity to the school, and her political connections, the state board of education had appointed Alice to investigate those allegations. At age 36, she was also expected to be young enough to remember her own school days and old enough for any biases -- pro or con -- to have faded.

Now the main building came into view, in weather-stained buff and grey, a strangely attractive mixture of Palladian and Gothic. It was early yet, and there were still areas of low-lying fog that the sun had not yet burnt off. She shivered. ("Perfect," she thought.)

The state did allow the option of corporal punishment. For public schools, the decision was made, on a district-wide basis, by the local boards of education. Each private school made its own rules, however, and virtually all of them had strict disciplinary codes. But parents did have to sign a consent form, and, of course, punishments could not be so severe as to be deemed "excessive."

Outwardly, Briarcliff seemed to be doing an admirable job. Tuition was astronomical, but an unbelievable percentage of the school's graduates went on to complete college. And many eventually earned advanced degrees, with the customary honors en route.

Alice parked in a space marked "Visitor," took a deep breath, marched up the broad, worn limestone steps, and pulled the bell handle.

A young woman, attractive despite her supercilious expression, answered the door.

"Alice Arliss. I have a seven o'clock with the headmistress."

"Indeed? Well, its 7:06 now, but I imagine she'll see you anyway. Follow me."

She was shown into the presence of Honoria Cronin, the rather starchy headmistress, to whom she presented her credentials.

Returning the papers, Miss Cronin smiled thinly. "So, Miss Arliss...."

"Um...it's 'Ms. Arliss,' if you don't mind." Alice was feeling increasingly intimidated by this place and these people, but was determined not to show it.

"Really? How...progressive." Miss Cronin's nose wrinkled at that last word.

Alice briefly recapitulated her mission and outlined her proposed approach. Somewhat surprisingly, Miss Cronin airily agreed to everything. She gestured toward a couple of files on a side table. "A complete roster of our students and a photocopy of the disciplinary consent form for each girl. You can examine them now, if you like. I have anticipated that you'd want to witness a typical punishment and interview the girl. We here at Briarcliff certainly have nothing to hide. I've set up a nine o'clock meeting with Miss Gillian Stoner, our provost, who is in charge of discipline. And I'm also lending you one of our students as an escort. I'm afraid there is no time for pleasantries." She looked at her watch peevishly. "Your escort, at least, will not be tardy. So I will leave you to get on with your work."

It was work that Alice had an aptitude for. The number of students and the number of consent forms matched, and there were no duplicates among the latter. Spot checks failed to turn up any discrepancies. She was just finishing when Miss Cronin returned.

"Your escort is here," she announced.

Alice looked up from her notes. Miss Cronin was accompanied by a brunette, olive-skinned girl, attractive in a sulky sort of way. "Ms. Arliss, this is Melanie Girardo. Melanie, Ms. Arliss. She's conducting an investigation of alleged abuse for the state board of education."

The headmistress wasted no time.  "Melanie is a senior and certainly knows her way around. She will give you a tour and can answer questions. She's also due for punishment this morning, and you can witness it. So...if there's nothing more...."

After they left the head's office, Melanie brightened up immediately. She was as tall as Alice (5'6"), but a bit heavier and rather more athletic. She looked smart in her uniform -- blue blazer with the school crest, white blouse, blue tie with a gold stripe, astonishingly short blue skirt, white socks, and black loafers. As they walked, Melanie talked about the school, past and present...and not just a dry recital of facts and figures. She spoke with intelligence, animation, and humor.

"Why are you being punished today?" Alice asked.

"I was...um...'misbehaving in the shower.' You understand...."

"Oh, yes. I went to a school very much like this. Were you alone?"

"Yep. I'd probably have been better off if I'd had company, though. They seem to go easier on lesbians than on masturbators." She made a wry face. "Just my luck I'm both."

"Hmmmm." Alice was at a loss for words.

"They ARE really strict here, but I'd have to say that the punishments are pretty fair and 'proper.' I certainly get my share...." She made a wry face. "And I don't feel 'abused.'"

They passed one classroom after another, all very much alike, except that some were occupied, and some were not. In the former, all the girls seemed alert and actively involved in the lesson.

"A little monotonous, I'm afraid," Melanie said. Then she stopped short. "Oh! I know what you'd like to see, Ms. Arliss." She looked at her watch. "Just in time, too. C'mon."

She scurried off, with Alice in her wake. Alice had no idea where they were headed, but followed along without question, Melanie's bare, flashing legs a reminder of other times....

Melanie led the way downstairs, through a locker room, and into a large shower area. "We can wait in there," Melanie whispered, conspiratorially. "It's a trainer's room, but there won't be anyone there now."

They stood in the dim little room, looking through a window back into the brightly lit shower area.

"Won't be long, now, Ms. Arliss."

"What? And you can call me Alice."

"Alice? Is that what they called you at school?"

"N-no...."

"What, then?"

"Um...P-piggy...."  (Damn! she thought. Why did I tell her that? Well, she'll never guess how I got that name....)

"Cool! Did you like the name?"

"Not much."

At this point, there arose a tumult in the the locker room, which, a few minutes later, suddenly got closer, as a mob of squealing, naked senior girls invaded the shower.

(Now THAT really takes me back, Alice mused. A couple of dozen naked schoolgirls, pink and wet and uninhibited, cavorting in the gang shower. Most quite innocent, but some fingering themselves, and a few even fingering others. I wonder what it'd be like to be in the shower with M.... God! Where did THAT notion come from? For that matter, why did Melanie bring me here? What ideas are going through HER head?)

"That's MY P.E. class with an unsupervised shower today...and I'm missing it," Melanie complained.

They watched for a few more minutes, then Melanie checked the time.

"We'd better get a move on; it's getting late. C'mon, Piggy!"

She grasped Alice by the hand and hurried out the room's rear door and back upstairs.

They got to Miss Stoner's office in time -- just. Miss Stoner was a short, slender blonde, about 30, with a good tan. She looked much like the stereotypical "California Girl." But, when she spoke, her accent was strictly British, and very posh, at that.

Introductions and explanations turned out to be unnecessary; Miss Stoner had been thoroughly briefed. Without "dawdling," as she put it, she led Alice and Melanie next door to a designated "punishment room." This was a small, harshly lighted, and sparsely furnished chamber. On the back wall there was a rack with canes and straps and a couple of paddles. A sturdy-looking oak bench about waist high, with a slightly swaybacked, padded top stood nearby. Several shallow trays lay in a row against the wall on the left.

Miss Stoner smiled thinly and said to Melanie, "Please prepare yourself."

The girl proceeded to strip naked, much to Alice's fascination. She revealed a solid body, perhaps 35B-28-36, well-muscled but devoid of pubic hair. Dimly aware that Gillian Stoner was speaking to her, Alice tore her attention away from Melanie.

"As I was saying, we rarely have outside observers here. There should be some spare chairs in the room across the hallway; perhaps you would fetch one for yourself...."

Alice was glad to get out of there for a few minutes, to take several deep breaths and re-group. This whole trip down memory lane was taking some weird detours. Her panties were beginning to feel...damp.

When she got returned with a folding chair, Melanie had already hung up her clothes, draped herself over the bench, and been strapped down. Her legs were widely straddled, and her most intimate areas were on display.

"Her assigned punishment is nine strokes of the cane, for lewd behavior," Miss Stoner noted. "I shall start with a warm-up, so that she can bear the caning better. I should also tell you that she will be examined by the school nurse after the punishment. Standard procedure."

Alice sat down to watch.

Miss Stoner chose a cane, took up her position, and began by administering a series of rapid, very light strokes from the top of Melanie's buttocks to about mid-thigh, using only the last 12 inches or so of the cane.

This warm-up apparently stung, but it also seemed to be not entirely unpleasant, since Melanie was wiggling her butt rather lasciviously. Shortly, her twitching bottom was a pretty pink all over.

The blonde Provost paused, like a paragraph break, and then began again.

The cane swished through the air and cut viciously across Melanie's ass. The girl gasped and stiffened. The second and third strokes caused her to whimper. By the fifth, she was crying softly and, by the eighth, blubbering.

One more, the fiercest of all, and it was over.

When the sobbing girl had been released from the bench, Miss Stoner said, primly, "I hope you have learned your lesson, Melanie. But you won't graduate until the end of the summer term, so I fear I'll see you again. Now take your place and meditate."

Melanie knelt down on one of the trays, crossed her wrists at the small of her back, and leaned forward until her nose touched the wall.

Satisfied, Miss Stoner turned to Alice. "Conclusion, Ms. Arliss?"

"Oh! Um...it seems severe...even harsh. I-I don't know...."

"I daresay it's less harsh than it might appear. But there's only one way to be absolutely sure, isn't there?"

"I...I...."

"Well?"

"I s-suppose ssso. But...."

"Then we should get started, hmmm? Mustn't dawdle, you know. Please prepare yourself while I fetch a release for you to sign." She swept from the room, leaving Alice with her mouth hanging open. She, who had always excelled at debate and oral argument, was speechless. So she just began -- slowly -- to undress. Melanie watched surreptitiously.

Alice was down to her panties when Gillian Stoner returned, flourishing a consent form. Alice signed it with trembling fingers.

"Very well, Alice," Miss Stoner said, as she pocketed the form. "Now, quickly, off with those panties. Hmmmm. Have you had an...'accident'?"

Alice blushed hotly. "I-I'm...sssorry, Miss."

"I daresay. Well, go on and position yourself across the bench. And you, Melanie, bring your tray over here so you can watch." She glanced at Alice. "It is the custom."

Leather straps, around each wrist and around each thigh just above the knee, secured her limbs to the four legs of the bench, and one across the small of her back kept her properly in position.

After selecting a cane, Miss Stoner parked it between Alice's buttocks (Melanie stifling a giggle) and circled to the other side of the bench.

"You were caned when you were in school?"

Alice nodded.

"Lift your head and look at me when I speak to you, girl. And answer properly. You were caned?"

"Y-yes, Miss."

"Right. Then you'll get a dozen now."

"Oh!"

The time machine again. Alice found the "warm-up" was indeed as stinging -- and as stimulating -- as those of her youth had been. She was beginning to think Miss Stoner would take it easy on her, under the circumstances...until the first real stroke came whickering through the air to land like a thunderbolt and disabuse her of that notion. Though she tried to remain stoic, Alice was sobbing by the third stroke, squealing by the sixth, and practically hysterical by the ninth.

After the ninth stroke, Miss Stoner paused and skimmed the tip of the cane lightly over Alice's bottom and between her legs. She flourished the cane in front of the whimpering woman's face and showed her that it was glistening with her juice.

"Naughty, naughty. I should have thought that you'd display more self-control, Alice. But you're as undisciplined as a schoolgirl."

Alice babbled some nonsense in reply.

Miss Stoner was relentless. She delivered each of the last three strokes a bit more slowly, but very precisely, with a finishing snap.

When she was released from the bench, Alice staggered over to one of the trays (all which turned out to contain a layer of dried peas), knelt gratefully in it, and put her nose to the wall, physically and emotionally drained.

Melanie left after a few minutes, but Alice spent over half an hour on increasingly protesting knees before she was deemed to have regained her composure.

Miss Stoner then escorted her, still naked, down the busy hallway, through a connecting corridor, past a number of classrooms, and, eventually, to the nurse's office.

But the nurse was "Out," and Alice had to wait there in the hall, standing naked at attention for a humiliating quarter hour. The passing schoolgirls eyed her -- some with sympathy, some with curiosity, and some with....

When the nurse finally re-opened for business, Alice was told to lie prone on the padded examination table, and the nurse treated her stripped butt with an analgesic, which quickly dulled the pain. The nurse also took Alice's temperature (rectally, of course) and checked her respiration and blood pressure. Everything was normal enough.

Pronounced fit, Alice was given a sample size of the topical analgesic and half a dozen pain pills and then was led back to the provost's office. Melanie was waiting for her there. She slipped Alice a clean pair of regulation white cotton panties, murmuring, "We wear the same size. I'll wash the other pair; they're pretty funky."

Alice dressed, rather shakily, closely watched by Melanie and Miss Stoner, both of whom attempted to maintain poker faces, though Miss Stoner was by far the more successful.

After thanking Miss Stoner sincerely for the "demonstration," Alice was escorted back to Miss Cronin's office. There the thanks were more pro forma, but, still, it was almost noon before she was able to regain her car and begin the return journey back to town.

Fifteen minutes down the road, she pulled over onto the berm, parked, and did what she had been longing to do for hours -- she masturbated fiercely, with both hands, until she'd orgasmed so many times she was dizzy.
******************************

Later, she filed her report and cleared the school. Then she took a deep breath and sent the following e-mail:

TO: Honoria Cronin, Headmistress, Briarcliff Academy
FROM: Alice Arliss, Esq.
SUBJECT: My Inquiry
Dear Miss Cronin:
I have turned in my report, which completely exonerates Briarcliff of those absurd abuse charges. I do have some concern, however, that discipline might in fact be somewhat too lax. Please allow me to investigate further by granting me permission to enroll as a student for the summer term beginning next week.
Sincerely,
Alice Arliss

In due course, she received this response:
TO: Alice Arliss
FROM: Briarcliff Academy
SUBJECT: Enrollment
Dear Alice:
We are pleased to accept you as a special needs student for the coming summer term. Tuition is waived. I have personally taken steps to ensure that you will not find our discipline "lax."
Please send us your measurements, so that we may have a suitable uniform waiting for you.
Sincerely,
Honoria Cronin, Headmistress

Alice's reply was to the point:
TO: Honoria Cronin, Headmistress, Briarcliff Academy
FROM: Alice Arliss
SUBJECT: Re: Enrollment
Dear Miss Cronin:
Thank you for admitting me. I shall try to be a credit to Briarcliff, though I am afraid I am bound to misstep, from time to time.
My measurements, which you requested, are
5'6" 124 lbs.
34B-26-36
Size 6 shoe
Sincerely,
Alice Arliss

******************************

The following week, Alice arrived at Briarcliff by taxi, dressed in t-shirt, shorts, and sandals. She carried only one small bag. She was greeted by the same young woman as before -- looking even more disdainful -- who gave her directions to her dorm room.

"Your room-mate is already there; she has all the information on your orientation, medical examination, class schedule, work assignment, and so on. Remember, she is a senior girl, and you will be expected to obey her."

A few minutes later, Alice paused outside Room 207. She sighed, somewhat ambiguously, knocked, and entered.

"Hello, Piggy," a familiar voice said.

Alice smiled, shyly. "Hello, Melanie