Chapter 3: A Midnight Reckoning
The corner was a universe of textured green. For an hour, I studied the brushstrokes in the wallpaper, the minute cracks in the plaster, the shadow I cast from the dim sconce light. My back ached from standing rigid, my heels a dull punishment. Every rustle from behind me—the quiet clearing of a throat, the shift of fabric—was a fresh wave of humiliation. They were still there, Mr.and Mrs.Ashworth, waiting and watching. Preserving the silence like a specimen under glass.When his voice finally came, it was a shock. “You may turn around.”
My joints were stiff. I turned slowly, my eyes downcast, not from submission but from a furious, burning shame I couldn’t let him see.“You stood correctly.That is noted,” Mr. Ashworth said.He hadn’t moved from his chair at the head of the table. The tray with the soap still sat on the sideboard, a silent, sinister promise. “We will now adjourn.You will go directly to your room. We will discuss your behavior, and the matter of appropriate consequences, tomorrow.”
“Consequences?” The word slipped out, hoarse.
He looked at me, his face unreadable in the low light. “This was not the consequence, Anna.This was a period of reflection.Consequences follow reflection.Now, go upstairs. Goodnight.”
I didn’t move. “What are you going to do?”
“That,” he said, with infinite calm, “will be determined tomorrow.Goodnight.”
Mrs. Ashworth moved then, opening the dining room door for me.The gesture was polite, final. I walked past her, my head high, feeling the heat of their gazes on my back until I was in the hall. The grandfather clock tolled nine solemn booms.The sound vibrated in my teeth.
Upstairs, my room felt like a cell. The floral wallpaper, the too-soft bed, the lace curtains—all of it was complicit. I locked the door, a meaningless gesture against the authority in this house.Loco parentis.The law.He had the right. A weird, thrilling horror twisted in my stomach.I had asked for authenticity. I had secretly wanted to see the stern, old-fashioned discipline I’d read about in novels.Wasn’t this it?
But this wasn’t a novel.This was real. His calm voice, the silent wife, the soap, the corner.My mind skipped ahead.‘Consequences.’ The word echoed. In the corner of my room, by the wardrobe, I saw it—a long, slender, flexible-looking cane, the kind used for hiking.It hadn’t been there before. It leaned against the wall as if casually placed, but its presence was a scream.An hour crawled by. The house fell into a deep, watchful quiet. Below my window, the garden was a pool of black ink.My phone buzzed with messages from my friends, annoyed then worried. I told them I was sick.The lie tasted bitter.A plan, stupid and desperate, crystalized. If I was to be punished anyway—sharply, physically, whatever he meant by ‘consequences’—then let it be for something real.For defiance.For living.Let him have a real reason.
The window opened without a sound. The ivy-covered trellis outside was sturdy, a Victorian relic.My heels were abandoned. I changed into jeans and a dark jumper, moving like a thief in my own life. Climbing down was easy, my muscles remembering Moscow fire escapes and late-night returns.The cold night air bit my face.It smelled of wet grass and freedom.
I called a taxi from the lane, my heart hammering a frantic rhythm against my ribs. The club in town was a throbbing, neon lung. The music was too loud, the vodka cheap, the boys handsy and uninteresting.I danced, but my body was just going through the motions. Every shout, every laugh, felt like a performance. I was waiting for the clock to strike some unseen hour, for the judgment to fall. I was proving his point about the sort of place this was, and I didn’t even care.
It was just past one when the lights snapped on, stark and unforgiving.The music died mid-thump. A uniformed policeman was on the stage, holding a microphone.“Licensing check! Everyone form an orderly queue by the exits with your IDs.”
Groans filled the air. As I shuffled forward in the crowd, a different officer, older, with a weary face and sharp eyes, looked at my student ID, then at me, then back at the ID.His gaze lingered on my home address—the Ashworths’.
“You’re a long way from home, Miss Petrova,” he said, his voice low.“Mr. Ashworth is very concerned.He reported you missing hours ago.”
My blood turned to ice. “I’m not missing. I’m here.”
“Come with me, please.” It wasn’t a request. He took my elbow, his grip firm and impersonal, and guided me out of the club, past the staring, snickering queue. A black police car waited at the curb, its engine running.He opened the back door.“In you go.”
The drive was silent. The radio crackled with static. We turned off the main road, not towards the Ashworth house, but down a narrow, unlit lane. He pulled into a small, secluded car park overlooking dark fields.“Out,” he said.Confused, I complied.The night was utterly still. He came around the car to stand before me.He was a big man, like Mr. Ashworth, but his authority was of a different, more brutal texture.“Mr. Ashworth is a respected man in this community,” he began, his voice quiet and hard. “He has loco parentis over you.He takes that seriously.We take it seriously. He asked us to find you and ensure you were… safe. And to impress upon you the gravity of your actions.” He paused, letting the words sink into the cold air. “Burning off his goodwill, young lady, is a very foolish thing to do.”
Before I could speak, he took a swift step forward. His left hand shot out, not to hit me, but to capture my wrist. He pulled me stumbling towards him, then pivoted, seating himself on the edge of the car’s bonnet. In one fluid, practiced motion, he drew me across his knees. The rough fabric of his trousers scraped my stomach. The position was so sudden, so shockingly childlike, that my brain short-circuited.
“This,” he said, his voice devoid of anger, purely procedural, “is a measure of last resort. For wayward girls who won’t listen.”
His hand, broad and heavy, came down. The first slap was a shock of sound in the silent night, a crisp, mean crack that burst across my backside.Pain bloomed, hot and startling. I gasped, kicking out.He held me easily. The second slap landed, then a third, a fourth.They weren’t playful spanks or sensual slaps from some stupid film. They were methodical, clinical corrections, each one landing with a precise, stinging impact that seared through the denim. I stopped struggling, humiliated beyond tears, biting my lip to keep from crying out.The only sounds were the rhythmic, terrible smacks and his steady, even breathing.
He stopped at ten.Just like that. He let me go, and I slid off his knees, staggering to find my balance on the gravel. My face was on fire, my backside a throbbing, painful ache.He stood, brushing a hand down his uniform trousers as if dusting off crumbs. “Get in the car.I’m taking you home.Mr. Ashworth will be waiting.”
I crawled into the back seat, unable to sit properly, leaning on my hip. The cold leather was a relief against the heat. We drove the rest of the way in a silence thicker than the night. The Ashworth house was a monolith of darkened windows except for one: a single, burning square of light in the drawing room.The policeman walked me to the front door. It opened before we reached it.Mr. Ashworth stood in the doorway, dressed in a robe over his pajamas.He looked at the policeman, then at me, his expression granite.
“Thank you, Constable Harris,” he said, his voice gravelly with the late hour.“All sorted, sir. Goodnight.”
The door closed softly.The hall was lit by a single lamp. The grandfather clock ticked.Mr. Ashworth looked at me, at my disheveled hair, my frightened eyes, the way I couldn’t stand straight.
“I see you have already begun to understand the consequences of tonight,” he said finally.His eyes held no pity, no triumph. Only a cold, weary certainty.“Go to your room.We will speak in the morning. The actual discipline will occur then. This—” he gestured vaguely at me, “—was merely the preamble.”