Total pages in book: 62
Estimated words: 57623 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 288(@200wpm)___ 230(@250wpm)___ 192(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 57623 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 288(@200wpm)___ 230(@250wpm)___ 192(@300wpm)
Still, fuck all of that.
“That’s your own fault then,” Storm snaps back. She turns around, technically still in the corner, but facing out of it, her arms folded over her chest and an expression of pure rebellion on her face. “I don’t have to listen to you.”
“Of course you do, girl.” Frau Lotte has risen from behind her desk and looks very displeased.
“Why? Jane’s not here, Laura’s with her at dinner, and Hannes is having a mental breakdown in Zurich.” Storm did listen into Jane and Laura’s conversation, just a little. She likes to stay informed. It comes in handy at times like these.
“Of all the…”
“You’re an old lady, and I don’t have to do a thing you say,” Storm interrupts. “Because you can’t make me.”
It is then that Storm learns, as many teenagers have learned before her, that just because someone is older, they are not necessarily entirely decrepit.
Frau Lotte crosses the room at quite a pace, takes hold of the smirking, smug student by the ear, and marches her across the room to her desk.
“I know you have been paddled, birched, and caned,” the headmistress says. “But punishment is not about implements. It is about making an impression.”
Storm struggles, considering leaving her ear behind in order to escape this grip. “Let me go, you mad old witch!”
“You are disrespectful,” Lotte observes. “And you are willful, and you have been spoiled by Miss Strict, who clearly has a soft spot for you. I am not burdened by such emotions. I will give you what you have coming tonight. Get into position, girl.”
Bent over the desk by merit of the torque on her ear, Storm squirms and struggles for freedom. This is not the same as being punished by Jane. She likes Jane. She does not like Frau Lotte. The woman has antagonized her and not earned even a fraction of her respect, though she seems to command it from others merely by swanning around looking severe.
Frau Lotte reaches for a cane, the same cane Jane had in hand when she came out to lecture Storm for going missing earlier in the evening. It is starting to feel as though Storm and this cane have an unavoidable date with destiny.
Storm gets up immediately, of course. That is a mistake.
Frau Lotte wields the implement with determination and a complete lack of concern for the tenderness of her charge.
The cane cracks across Storm’s upper thighs hard, making her shriek with shock and pain. There is no padding where that stroke landed, and the sensation is beyond intense.
“The fuck was that!?”
“Stay still, or the cane will land wherever the cane happens to land.”
Storm cannot believe this is happening. The only person to ever discipline her has been Jane, and Jane is a much more restrained, careful, and deliberate disciplinarian. She has no idea what the hell is this.
“Get back down and take your punishment, girl.” Frau Lotte’s tone is mercilessly unyielding and stern.
Storm doesn’t move fast enough and catches another one of those harsh strokes of the cane to the back of her legs. The pain is intense, more than allows for any kind of obedience. Still she does not bend, for now she would rather die than capitulate.
A third time the cane comes down across the back of her legs. Frau Lotte will not be disobeyed. She will also not allow any time to process anything or provide any space in which to choose obedience. She expects Storm to surrender, and when that does not happen, she has nowhere else to go.
Storm is done with this woman, with this punishment, with this school, with the world itself. Though she talks a big game, her primary strategy is and has always been to run. That is what she does. She pushes away from the desk and darts toward the office door. Adrenaline stops her from feeling the ache of her thighs as every step causes punished muscles to contract and extend alternately. It will hurt like hell once she is far enough away to register pain, but for now she is numb to anything but the need to escape.
Zermatt sparkles in the evening air, fresh motes of frosty mist swirling around Jane and Laura as they stroll together through the streets, wrapped up in jackets and gloves and hats that keep the worst of the cold at bay. Dinner was very nice, and the company was very pleasant. Jane has discovered that Laura is a much better conversationalist than she lets on. She does not speak much, but what she does say reveals her to be a keen intellect and astute observer.
Around them many warm lights of the mountain village beautifully illuminate snow and wood and stone. It is like walking about inside a snow globe, so picturesque it barely seems real but for the cold that reminds one that one is alive.