Chapter 2: Meeting roommate
The walk to Willow Hall was a gauntlet of murmured judgment. Alice kept her gaze locked on the damp pavement, the autumn chill raising goosebumps on her bare legs and making the thin, damp shirt cling even more desperately to her torso. Whistles cut through the hum of campus life. Someone yelled, “Forgot your pants!” Another voice, laughing, chimed in, “Way to represent the freshman class!”
She tuned it out by focusing on the rhythm of her own breathing, in and out, and the sharp, lingering sting from Brittany’s efficient punishment. It was a real, physical anchor in the swirling humiliation. The concrete was cold under her feet.
The lobby of Willow Hall was a warm, wood-paneled space that smelled of lemon polish and old books. It was also mercifully quiet. Behind a tall oak desk sat a woman with a cloud of soft grey hair and knitting needles clicking rhythmically in her hands. She looked up, her eyes crinkling into a kind smile.
“Well, hello there. You look a bit lost, dear. First day jitters?” Her voice was like warm honey, exactly the sort of tone Alice desperately needed.
“Yes, ma’am. I’m Alice. I’m supposed to be in room 314, but I… I don’t have my key.” Alice shifted, trying to make the pathetic t-shirt seem like a deliberate fashion choice.
“Of course, dear. I’m Mrs. Gable. I oversee Willow Hall. We’re like a little family here.” She set her knitting aside—a lilac-colored shawl—and opened a large ledger. “Let me just… find…”
As she peered at the list, her eyes naturally traveled downward to note the room number. They stopped at Alice’s midsection. The kindly smile froze, then slowly dissolved into a look of profound, grandmotherly shock. Her hand flew to her chest.
“Good heavens, child! Where are your trousers?”
“It’s… it’s a long story, Mrs. Gable. I had an accident in the locker room and—”
“An accident?” Mrs. Gable stood up, her petite frame suddenly imposing. “Young lady, parading about the campus in a state of undress is not an ‘accident.’ It is a profound lack of decorum. In my day, such brazen display would have earned you a trip to the headmistress’s office for a rigorous correction before you could even blink.”
Alice felt a new, deeper kind of dread pool in her stomach. This wasn’t Brittany’s mean-girl cruelty; this was the disappointment of a stern, caring elder. It was worse. “I’m really sorry, I didn’t mean to—”
“Intentions are not the point, Alice. The point is the effect. The effect is that you are presenting yourself, and by extension this residence hall, in a most unseemly light. Decency is the cornerstone of a civilized community.”
Mrs. Gable came around the desk with surprising speed. Before Alice could process it, the woman’s hand shot out and firmly grasped Alice by the ear. It wasn’t painfully hard, but it was unbreakably firm, a classic, old-school grip.
“Mrs. Gable!”
“Hush, child. This is for your own good. Some lessons are best learned the traditional way.”
Still holding Alice’s ear, Mrs. Gable sat back down in her upholstered desk chair. With her free hand, she slid off one of her sensible tan loafers. The movement was calm, practiced.
Alice knew what was coming. Her brain short-circuited between absolute humiliation and a strange, resigned understanding. Charlie’s words echoed: humiliation as a deterrent.
With a strength that belied her age, Mrs. Gable pulled, guiding Alice effortlessly over her soft lap. The world tipped. Alice’s hands scrambled for purchase on the patterned rug below. The front of her body was suspended over empty space, her backside, already tender, positioned perfectly for judgment.
“Let this be a reminder, Alice,” Mrs. Gable said, her voice now hovering right above her. The cool, smooth leather of the loafer’s sole tapped her once, twice, a warning.
Then it fell.
THWACK!
The sound was explosive in the quiet lobby. A dry, fierce slap of leather against skin that was nothing like a hand. A bolt of white-hot pain ignited across both cheeks. Alice screamed, a raw, unfiltered yelp.
THWACK! THWACK!
“Public decency!” THWACK! “Is not optional!” THWACK!
The slipper came down in a steady, rhythmic torrent. Each impact was a seismic event, compounding on the last, building a firestorm of pain. Alice kicked, she sob-screamed, she begged garbled apologies into the rug. Tears sprang freely, spotting the wool. From the corner of her streaming vision, she saw a few students had gathered at the staircase entrance, watching silently. One grinned and gave a thumbs-up to a friend.
The punishment was thorough and absolutely without malice. It was a chore, a duty. After a final, thunderous volley that left Alice’s entire lower half throbbing with a deep, radiant ache, the slipper stopped tapping.
Mrs. Gable breathed out, a satisfied sigh. She helped the sobbing, limp Alice to her feet. Her grip was gentle again. She handed Alice a tissue from the box on her desk.
“There, now. The matter is settled. Let that be an end to it.” She slid her loafer back on, then retrieved a key from a pigeonhole behind her. “Your key for room 314. Your roommate, Lucy, moved in this morning.”
Alice took the key, her hand trembling. The pain was blinding, but through the haze, she felt a perverse gratitude. The old world order of crime and punishment felt bizarrely simpler than the chaotic cruelty of her peers.
“Thank you,” Alice sniffled, the words automatic.
“You are welcome, dear. Now.” Mrs. Gable’s eyes sharpened. “You will return here at seven o’clock this evening. Sharp. We will have a discussion about the rules of Willow Hall and your personal responsibilities.”
“Yes, Mrs. Gable.”
“Good girl. Off you go.”
The climb to the third floor was a slow, mortifying ordeal. Each step sent a fresh jolt through her punished backside. She clutched the key like a talisman. Room 314. Sanctuary.
She unlocked the door and pushed it open.
The room was small, with two beds, two desks, and a large window overlooking a courtyard. Sitting cross-legged on the left-hand bed, wearing only a pair of lavender cotton panties and headphones, was a girl with a sleek black bob. She was scrolling on her laptop but looked up as the door opened.
Her eyes widened. They took in Alice’s tear-streaked face, the disastrously damp shirt, the unmistakable, fiery red hue of her legs and what lay just above them.
Alice swallowed. “Hi. I’m Alice. Your roommate.”
The girl, Lucy, slowly pulled her headphones down around her neck. A faint, shy smile touched her lips, but her eyes were deeply uncertain. “Yeah. I kinda figured. I’m Lucy.”
“It’s… it’s not what it looks like,” Alice began, the explanation already feeling tired and pathetic on her tongue.
Lucy’s gaze flickered to the door, down the hall where the whispers of Alice’s latest scandal were undoubtedly already circulating. She gave a small, non-committal shrug, her expression a mixture of shyness and profound doubt. “Okay.”
But then her smile warmed, just a fraction. It was the smile of someone deciding to be kind despite the evidence. “Do you, uh… want some sweatpants or something? You look like you’ve had a day.”
Alice nodded, fresh tears—these from relief—pricking her eyes. Lucy thought she was nice, perhaps. A bit clumsy. Definitely a nudist. But for now, she was offering sweatpants. It was a start.
It was a start. Lucy tossed her a pair of soft grey sweatpants, which Alice pulled on with a wince, the fabric whispering over her tortured skin. “Thanks,” Alice muttered, sinking onto the edge of her own bare mattress.
“You look like you got run over by the campus tour bus.” Lucy’s voice was quiet, observational. “Specifically by the back tire. A few times.”
“Feels like it.” Alice managed a weak laugh that cracked halfway through. She leaned forward, elbows on her knees, just letting the relative safety of the room soak into her.
Lucy tilted her head, her black bob swaying. “Seriously, what happened? Your… um… your bum is practically glowing. I can see the heat from here.”
Alice let out a long, shaky breath. The kindness in Lucy’s question, the lack of immediate judgment, undid her. The whole story tumbled out in a hushed, frantic whisper. The trip, the lost panties, Charlie and his bizarre stories, Brittany in the locker room with her phone and the shower hose. Finally, her voice dropping to a mere shadow of sound, she confessed about Mrs. Gable and the leather loafer in the lobby.
Lucy stayed silent throughout, her expression unreadable. She just listened, her fingers tracing the pattern on her duvet cover. When Alice finished, the room was filled only with the distant sounds of dorm life.
Then, a small giggle escaped Lucy. It wasn’t cruel. It was stunned, incredulous. “You got the Gable Special on day one? Wow. You’re kinda legendary, you know that?”
“It doesn’t feel legendary,” Alice mumbled, her face in her hands.
“Come here,” Lucy said, patting the space on her bed. “Let me see the damage. I’ve only heard rumors.”
Hesitantly, Alice shuffled over and laid on her stomach. Lucy peered at the pronounced red welt stamped across the back of the sweatpants. She let out a low whistle. “Yep. That’s her work. Perfectly even.” A moment passed. Then Lucy gently laid her palm flat against the warm fabric.
Alice stiffened.
“Whoa. It’s like a radiator.” Lucy giggled again, a light, breathy sound. She didn’t move her hand. “It’s actually really nice. My hands are freezing.”
Alice rolled her eyes so hard she saw stars, but she didn’t shake her off. The weight of the hand was strange, intrusive, but the warmth was a two-way exchange. The deep, throbbing ache in her skin seemed to pulse against Lucy’s cool palm. “It’s rather cold in here anyway,” Alice conceded, her voice muffled by the comforter.
Lucy took that as permission, leaving her hand there, a steady, grounding pressure. After a minute, Alice relaxed, the tension leaking out of her shoulders. She shifted, making room, and Lucy leaned back against the wall, grabbing her laptop. She pulled up a reality show, the volume low, and they watched in a silence that slowly morphed from awkward to comfortable.
An hour slipped by, marked by the escalating absurdity on screen. The pain in Alice’s backside dulled to a persistent, hot hum. Comfortable, almost dozing, she spoke into the pillow. “I have to go back down to see Mrs. Gable at seven. Sharp. For a ‘chat’.”
Lucy’s hand, which had still been resting idly on her hip, tensed. “What time is it?”
Alice fumbled for her phone on the nightstand. The screen blared to life. 8:42 PM.
“Alice.” Lucy’s voice was a flat monotone of horror. “It’s half-past eight.”
A jolt of pure adrenaline shot through Alice’s spine. She scrambled off the bed so fast she saw spots. “No, no, no, no!”
“Your top! Put on a top!” Lucy hissed, pointing at Alice’s discarded, still-damp shirt in the middle of the floor.
But panic had taken the wheel. Alice frantically yanked a hoodie from her unpacked suitcase, got her arm tangled, and in her frenzied struggle, decided it was taking too long. The clock was ticking. She bolted for the door wearing only her bra and the grey sweatpants.
“Alice, your—” Lucy’s warning was cut off by the slam of the door.
Alice took the stairs two at a time, each impact sending sharp complaints from her punished flesh. She skidded into the lobby, her chest heaving. Mrs. Gable was not at her desk. She was standing beside it, arms crossed, a silver-chained watch held delicately in one hand.
The disappointment on her face was absolute. Her eyes traveled slowly, deliberately, from Alice’s flushed, sweating face, down to her bouncing, heaving breasts confined only by plain white cotton, to the hastily donned sweatpants.
“I… the time… I fell asleep… I’m so…” Alice stammered, clutching her arms over her chest.
Mrs. Gable silenced her with a look. She tapped the face of her watch with a fingernail. Tick. Tick. Tick.
“Indecency,” she stated, her voice like chilled steel. “Lateness. Sprinting in an enclosed area. Breaking curfew protocol for appointed discipline. Indecency, again, with undue display.” She took a step closer. “And now, lying. You were not asleep. You were distracted. I can see the glow of a television screen in your eyes.”
“I wasn’t lying, I just lost track of—” Alice protested, her voice rising in desperate pitch.
“Hush.” The word was a vice. Alice’s mouth snapped shut. She looked down at the polished floor, her whole body trembling. She gave a tiny, timid nod of submission.
“Good. We proceed.”
The punishment was a grim, silent ritual. Mrs. Gable led her to a small, private sitting room behind the main desk. Over the sweatpants, with a hard hairbrush, methodical and relentless. Then, the sweatpants were pulled down to Alice’s knees. The hairbrush on her thin cotton panties, which turned translucent under the assault. Finally, the panties followed.
The brush on bare, already scorched skin was a different language of pain. Alice didn’t scream this time. She choked on silent, heaving sobs, her fingers clawing at the velvet upholstery of the sofa she was bent over. The world shrunk to the rhythmic, devastating crack of wood meeting fire.
When it stopped, Mrs. Gable was breathing lightly. “Now, for the creative portion. Your crime is a childish lack of forethought. Your punishment shall be… childish.”
From a small refrigerator behind her desk, Mrs. Gable produced a full tub of vanilla ice cream. She placed it, unopened, on the crest of Alice’s ravaged bottom. “You will hold this here for the duration of your corner time. Fifteen minutes. If it falls, we begin again.”
The cold was a shock so severe Alice gasped. She stood in the corner, nose to the floral wallpaper, her entire universe the freezing, heavy cylinder on her sit-spots. Slowly, inevitably, it began to melt. Icy rivulets trickled down the backs of her thighs, soaked into her panties still tangled at her knees, a cold, sweet seep that felt bizarrely like a public wetting.
After an eternity, Mrs. Gable retrieved the tub. She set it aside and approached with something small and white in her hand. A single clove of garlic, peeled.
“This,” Mrs. Gable said calmly, “is for the lie. A small, persistent reminder to be truthful. It will… encourage clarity.”
Before Alice could even process the statement, she felt a firm pressure, a blunt, uncomfortable intrusion followed by a sharp, stinging burn as the garlic clove was pressed firmly inside her. It was a violating, medical sensation, utterly devoid of any sensuality, only meant to inhabit and irritate.
“You may go to bed now,” Mrs. Gable said, wiping her fingers on a handkerchief. “Reflect.”
Alice pulled her clothes up with clumsy, shaking hands. The garlic was a hot, unmistakable presence with every careful step. The melted ice cream made her sweatpants cling cold and wet. She didn’t look at anyone as she passed through the silent, watching lobby.
Back in room 314, Lucy was waiting, her face pale. She took one look at Alice’s shattered expression, the wet stain on her pants, and simply turned down the covers on Alice’s bed. Alice peeled off the damp clothes and crawled in, lying stiffly on her side.
She didn’t say a word. Lucy didn’t ask. The garlic burned a petty, relentless ache. Alice closed her eyes, the phantom sounds of the hairbrush and the smell of vanilla and garden soil crowding her senses. She went to bed truly, deeply sorry.