Chapter 1

Jump to another chapter: Ch. 1: Marcus’s Office Ch. 2: Student Schedule Worksheet

By Alex Reynolds

Marcus’s Office

There was no denying that Ethan felt awkward as he walked towards the art building. It was good to be back on campus, but it felt strange, too. Every other student that he had started school with had graduated or otherwise left campus by now. The same could be said of almost everyone in the class that had entered during his sophomore year as well. Because he had left campus during his first semester last year and not come back until now, he felt like he didn’t even know many of the returning students, even the other ones who were hanging out in the art building.

There was a certain shame in being greeted by people on campus who were surprised to see him, too. Were they surprised that it was taking him so long to finish his schooling, or that he was still trying after having screwed things up so many times?

Before he came back this year, Ethan’s father had a serious conversation with him in which he had made it clear that if he didn’t complete all his remaining credits and finish his thesis to be considered a candidate for graduation in May, he was no longer going to keep paying for Ethan’s education or giving him financial support. It hadn’t been a very positive or supportive interaction. He couldn’t stop replaying “You’ve had enough chances. If you screw things up again this time, you’re on your own,” in his head.

Sure, school was incredibly expensive. His college was one of the most expensive in the United States, and Ethan had lost his merit scholarship after his first year. The fact that he was going back for his seventh year meant that his parents had already sunken a ridiculous amount of  money into his education. At this point, he could tell that they were annoyed enough towards him over this that it was going to be near impossible to win their approval, but the pressure to at least not make all of this be a complete and total waste was crippling.

Ethan knew that he had to get himself together and make this semester work. He had come back to town a week early and had moved himself into a studio apartment just off campus. He had hoped that not living with friends would help him to avoid distraction and focus on actually getting work done. Besides, he felt like it would be humiliating to be twenty five years old and living in a dorm.

Now, it was time for the next step in his plan to stop being such a complete and total fuck up. He was going to change his advisor, or at least try to.

Ethan went to a small liberal arts college that had some policies that were different than many schools. There was a big emphasis on one-on-one work with your teachers, and class sizes were very small. This generally meant that it was harder for a student to slip through the cracks, but it felt to Ethan that doing exactly that had become his specialty over the past few years.

Part of the problem, admittedly, was the fact that Ethan’s advisor, Gil, was probably the professor who was the least involved with his students of anyone in the school. He frequently cancelled meetings at last minute, or just left a note on his door stating that he wasn’t going to be there after all. He had been far too accepting of the fact that Ethan was starting to dip dangerously behind on his work in the start of each of the semesters that he had withdrawn from, and he didn’t even show up to Ethan’s academic parole meeting last November.

It wasn’t Gil’s fault that Ethan had failed so many times, but at the same time, he knew that this situation wasn’t working. If he was going to actually write and defend a thesis, he was going to need an advisor who could, well, advise him.

Ethan’s major was Film History, which was a small department to begin with. He didn’t have very many professors to choose from. He had decided while he was lying in bed back in Maine after the talk he had with his father that he was going to ask Marcus Turner to be his advisor instead of Gil. Ethan had taken courses with Marcus every semester that he had been attending school, and they got along well. Marcus was a tough grader and had often made Ethan and other students that he knew redo work that wasn’t up to the standard that he expected from them. At first, it had felt to Ethan that this attitude made it needlessly hard for him to succeed, which was why trying to make this change hadn’t occurred to him. But now he was feeling like maybe having a little more structure was going to be better for him.

The big potential problem was that if Marcus didn’t have time to take on another advisee or just didn’t want to do it, Ethan was either going to have to stick with Gil or try and ask Melinda to take him on, and neither of those things were likely to work out well. Melinda was the third professor that Ethan had taken classes with in the FH department, and they had never gotten along. They had gotten into actual arguments during classes before, which had usually ended with Melinda sending Ethan out of the class and not giving him credit for the day. He had tried to take three different courses with her over the years and had only earned credits for one, in which he had gotten the most scathing evaluations along with his C- that he had ever received. If he was going to have to ask her to be his advisor he might as well just drop out then.

A lot was riding on the conversation Ethan was about to try to have. It was Monday and classes didn’t actually start until Wednesday, but most students were back on campus and Freshmen and those returning from abroad or wanting to change their schedule were interviewing for classes now, so it was probable that Marcus would be in his office.

Ethan rubbed his hands against his jeans because they felt sweaty from nervousness as he climbed the wide, open staircase of the art building towards Marcus’s office. The art building was the newest one on campus, and it had a very modern design. It had a very open layout and a generally harsh and minimalistic feeling to it. Marcus’s office was behind a pale grey door at the end of a hallway with concrete walls. Ethan found the building needlessly foreboding as he stood at the end of the hallway and thought about what he was going to say for a second before walking to the door.

It was half open, signally that Turner was indeed inside, but Ethan couldn’t see in. He knocked on the door jamb.

“Come in,” he heard Marcus’s voice call from inside the office.

Ethan pushed the door open to see him sitting at his desk. The office had an entirely different feeling than the rest of the building. Marcus had covered the concrete floor with an oriental style rug and the walls were nearly all floor to ceiling bookcases that were overly filled with books, DVDs and even film reels. He had two desks: one faced the wall of windows that overlooked the lawn behind the art building. The windows had wooden blinds on them, but they were pulled up at the moment, filling the room with sunlight. This desk was piled with papers, books that were stuck full of sticky notes and various other items of media. All the clutter practically covered Marcus’s computer. In the corner of it was a small TV. This desk was a plain metal one: the kind that the school provided for the professors’ offices.

The second desk was in front of this one and faced out into the room. It was an old fashioned and classic looking wooden desk. Every time Ethan had evert been in this room in the past this desk had been entirely cleared off aside from a desk lamp and a leather blotter. There was a sturdy looking, dark wood chair in front of this desk. The arrangement always kind of struck Ethan as odd: Marcus worked at the desk by the window and then turned his chair around to use the wooden desk to talk to Ethan, and presumably anyone else who came into the office. He kind of assumed it was to keep whatever mess he was making with his work out of the way when he needed to talk to someone, but it had always seemed a bit odd to him.

Squeezed against the far wall was a tattered, grey love seat and a potted plant. The room ended up being a mixture of being a little cozy and a little formal, which seemed to fit Marcus’s personality.


Marcus himself was seated at the desk by the window, looking at some papers. He marked something with a sticky note and then turned towards the door. He smiled as soon as he saw Ethan standing there. It felt genuine.

“Ethan! It’s good to see you again,” Marcus told him warmly. “Can I do something for you?”

“Yeah,” Ethan said, feeling a little nervous again as he thought of the stakes of the conversation he needed to have. “Can I come in?”

“Please do, sit down,” Marcus told him, gesturing to the chair in front of his other desk. He moved his chair to face that desk.

Marcus was probably in his early 40’s, although Ethan always had a hard time telling how old the teachers at school were for some reason. He was English, but had been living in the US for many years now. He still had an accent, although it wasn’t particularly strong and his word choice had obviously become very Americanized over time. He had pale brown hair that wasn’t greying at all and always looked a bit rumpled on his head. He wore glasses and had a very expressive face— it was easy to tell if he was feeling jovial or displeased, and the look on his face at the moment did a lot to put Ethan to ease. He was taller than Ethan and quite a bit more strongly built— Ethan himself was 5’10” and while he wasn’t overly skinny, he didn’t really cut an intimidating figure either. Maybe it was to his advantage in terms of blending in that even though he was one of the oldest undergraduates on campus, he still had a fairly boyish look to him.

Ethan walked across the carpet and sat down on the chair.

“I saw you on one of my class lists earlier today and I was really pleased to learn that you’re joining us again, Ethan,” Marcus told him.

“Thanks,” Ethan said quietly. “I hope I can get things right this time.”

Marcus just nodded.

“I, uh, actually wanted to talk to you about something related to this,” Ethan said.

Marcus nodded again. “Certainly.”

“Well, you see, I…” Ethan trailed off for a second, then drew a deep breath and started over. “For the past couple of years things haven’t really been working out between me and Gil,” he tried to explain. “I mean, I like Gil, and I really liked working with him at first, but he’s never around and he kind of just expects me to figure stuff out on my own and that hasn’t gone so well, really. I know I need to like, actually do this stuff myself, but it’s just hard.”

“You need more guidance than you’ve been getting so far,” Marcus stated.

“Yeah, that,” Ethan kind of muttered.

“I agree with that. I’ve always felt that you’re a boy who would do best with a stronger sense of structure in his life.”

Ethan didn’t really know what to make of that statement, but he also couldn’t deny that it was true.

“I want to change advisors and not work with Gil anymore,” Ethan said quickly.

Marcus’s face was serious, but still caring. “I think that’s a wise choice.”

This was the moment that mattered the most. “I was wondering if it would be possible for you to be my advisor instead?”

Marcus leaned back in his chair a little bit. He drew his fingers together like he was thinking carefully about what Ethan had just asked him.

Ethan waited nervously for what felt like a very long moment.

“I will absolutely be your advisor, Ethan,” he finally said. “However, there are some things I will need you to understand and agree to before you make the decision that this is what you want.”

Relief filled Ethan as he heard that Marcus was willing to take him on as an advisee. This was the first step to making things work out, he thought.

“Yeah! Ok!” he said eagerly.

“You’re a very smart boy and you have astute insight in your criticism. You write very well. I truly believe that if you want to, you can write an excellent thesis and go on to either go to graduate school or find work relating to this field.”

This was far more praise than Ethan felt like he deserved right now.

“However,” Marcus continued, “it’s going to take a lot of hard work and dedication for you to get your academic career back on track. You are going to have to learn better organization and time management. You’re going to have to dramatically improve your attendance record. You’re going to have to become a more responsible young man and you are going to need to a lot of discipline to do these things. I will…”

“Yeah, I know that I’m kind of a screw up these days,” Ethan cut in.

“Don’t put yourself down and don’t interrupt me.” Marcus’s face was serious now. “I will help you with these things, and I will give you the structure that you need to thrive, but it isn’t going to be easy, or necessarily pleasant for you. It’s my understanding that Gil generally allows his advisees to, essentially, do whatever they please. Would you agree with that?”

Ethan nodded. “Yeah,” he said. He felt a little bit sheepish after having been scolded.

“I have a much more hands on philosophy to guiding students, especially those who particularly need it. If I become your advisor, there will be times when I will simply not allow you to make poor decisions and there will be times when I will tell you what you may and may not do. This will be very frequently as you are building new habits and changing your behaviors. Most importantly for you to understand, if you do not obey my instructions or live up to my expectations, there will be consequences for you.”

Ethan was listening to this with a bit of hesitation.

“So are you saying that if I don’t do the stuff that I’m supposed to you’ll drop me as an advisee?” he asked.

It was fair enough, really. Ethan knew he was a lot to deal with. Even his own parents had been sick of his nonsense for a long time.

“That is not what I am saying in the least. If we work together on this, I am never going to give up on you, and I will not allow you to give up on yourself anymore. I will do whatever I can to help you write your thesis and to ensure that you graduate this year. And you will work exceptionally hard to meet these goals. If you don’t hold up your end of this bargain, then I will punish you.”

To say that Ethan was taken aback by this would be a huge understatement. This was the last thing that he was expecting to hear.

“Uh, ok? What does that even mean?” he asked.

“It means that if you do not work and behave in a way that lives up to your potential, you’ll be disciplined. It’s been clear to me over the years that I’ve known you that this is something that you need. In fact, I’ve thought about stepping in before, but always thought it wasn’t really my place. Maybe I’m old fashioned, but I believe that even at your age, the most effective way of setting and enforcing these kind of boundaries is with corporal punishment.”

“What?” was all Ethan could say.

“If your behavior is not appropriate and your work is not your best, then I’ll give you a spanking,” Marcus explained matter of factly.

Ethan felt his face grow hot just hearing these words. He was reminded of a time near the end of his last semester on campus before this when he had showed up to Marcus’s class a half an hour late, without his required viewing journal. His teacher had been very clearly frustrated and had told him: “This is too much, Ethan. You deserve a good thrashing.”

Ethan had been deeply embarrassed by this statement, but it had never occurred to him that Marcus meant this literally.

“Are you serious?”  he asked. He just couldn’t wrap his mind around the idea that he could be.

“I’m very serious. I know that this is not particularly conventional, and I don’t always do this,  but it is something that frequently has excellent results. You can take some time to think about this if you’d like to. We could meet again tomorrow if you want.”

As the initial shock of this suggestion wore off, Ethan tried to just shrug the idea off instead of asking questions to try and get a better idea of what, exactly, Marcus was talking about. If Marcus really spanked students, this is something people on campus, and especially in the FH department would talk about, right? It was probably just a threat to try and scare Ethan onto the straight and narrow. He was far too old to be spanked. He didn’t even want to think about it.

Leaving aside how…surprising and just a little terrifying that threat was, Ethan found that the things that Marcus had said made him feel oddly secure. He didn’t really believe that Marcus wouldn’t ever give up on him, but at the same time, he wasn’t used to hearing things like that and it meant a lot to him that someone would say it.

It wasn’t really worth wasting a day to think about things. Ethan was under-registered right now and he didn’t want to try to track down Gil to get into more classes before the semester started on Wednesday. The last thing he wanted was to start the new year behind on work, so this was something he needed to do right away. And besides, this was kind of his last good option, and it seemed like it could ultimately be exactly what he needed. And obviously Marcus wasn’t going to spank him. That was just a ridiculous idea. There was no way.

“No,” he told Marcus, “I know that I want to do it.”

“I want you to be sure,” he responded. “I’m not going to be easy on you.”

“I guess that’s what I need though,” Ethan said in a voice that wasn’t as confident as he wanted it to be.

“I agree,” Marcus said. He turned around in his chair and opened up a drawer on the metal desk. He sifted through some papers until he pulled out a form that had yellow and pink carbon copies attached to it. He began to fill parts of it out.


“This is the change of advisor form,” Marcus explained. “Once I’m finished with my portion of this, you need to fill in your information and then get Gilbert to do his part as well. He has to agree to the change, but I feel confident that he will.”

Ethan let out a little laugh. “Uh, yeah.”

Marcus finished what he was doing and then handed the form to Ethan. He filled in his information.

“Get Gil’s signature on that and then bring it to the registrar, please.” Marcus looked at his watch. “Do you have anywhere you need to be right now?” he asked.

“No, not really,” Ethan told him.

“Great, let me look at the classes that you’re registered for while you’re here.”

Marcus had gone over Ethan’s course selections with him and completely reworked his schedule. It left him with a heavy course load, but one that allowed him to complete all his remaining requirements in one semester, and gave him room to try again if he did end up missing any credits.

He’d been tough about it: Ethan had tried to protest some of Marcus’s choices, like a 10 AM math class with a professor that Marcus had noted wasn’t this nicest person in the world, and a writing class that met on Fridays. Only freshmen took classes on Fridays. Marcus had called Ethan out on it, telling him that he wasn’t going to design Ethan’s course schedule around his desire to get drunk on a Thursday night. He’d felt a little sheepish hearing that, but he’d accepted his fate.

He’d had good ideas, too, though: he suggested that Ethan could take a writing class and do film related conference work to get credit for his major, and had encouraged him to continue taking French instead of starting a new language at the 100 level, since it would that much better if Ethan did end up trying to go to graduate school.

Marcus then filled in Ethan’s schedule worksheet for him. This is a document that you turn into the registrar to prove that you have scheduled all your classes and conferences in a way that didn’t overlap. People treated this as if it was a requirement, but Ethan knew that it actually wasn’t necessary, since he hadn’t turned one in since Freshman year and had never experienced any consequences.

Marcus handed the paper to Ethan.


“I added your conference and advising for me. Fill in the rest of your conferences once you schedule them and then turn that in to the registrar, too.”

Ethan did not actually plan on doing that, but took the paper anyway. He looked it over. It was a pretty heavy course load, but it was doable.

“Make sure that you get your change of advisor slip signed by Gil today and turn that in. Explain to Rochelle that your drop/adds are filled in by your new advisor so she can be sure to process that first.”

“Yeah, okay,” Ethan said.

“Even though classes don’t start until Wednesday, I would like us to meet tomorrow to look over the work you’ve done on your thesis thus far and see if you should continue the same project or start all over. However, I need to have open office hours from 11:00 – 4:00 by school policy. I’d like you to come at 10:00 tomorrow with those materials, will that work for you?”

Ethan nodded. “That should be fine, yeah.”

“Alright then, I’ll see you then.”

Marcus stood up and put his hand out for Ethan to shake.

As Ethan shook his hand, Marcus told him: “I’m glad to be working with you. I think this will be a very positive change for you.”

“Thank you for all your help,” Ethan said. He gathered up his things and left the office.

***

The art building, being the newest building on campus, was across a main street from the rest of the major buildings, on land that had been purchased later, so it was a bit of a walk for Ethan to get back to the main area of campus. After his meeting with Marcus, he had managed to find Gil and get him to sign his paperwork. The conversation had been entirely uneventful. Gil seemed a little bit relieved to not have to deal with Ethan and his nonsense anymore.

As he walked, he thought about the conversation that he had with Marcus. He had expected that Marcus was going to be more authoritative towards him than he was used to, but it was still surprising to him that he had been so direct in telling him which courses he needed to take. He was still a little bit grumpy about the fact that he was going to have class on a Friday for the first time since Freshman year, but he couldn’t deny that Marcus had ideas that he wouldn’t have thought of on his own, like the fact that he could apply a writing course to his major or the potential use in continuing French instead of starting a new language. It was weird to be told what to do like that, but ultimately would probably be good?

Then there was the whole part about… no, he wasn’t even going to think about that. It was definitely *not* a thing.

Ethan headed directly to the registrar’s office and turned all his paper work in, explaining the situation. It had been a quick and easy errand, although Rochelle did say “Wow, you’re here again!” when Ethan walked into the office. He was getting pretty sick of that reaction already, and school hadn’t even started yet.

As he left the main academic building and walked under the breezeway back towards the library he passed the school cafe. On the veranda in front of it, his friend Chris was sitting on an adirondack chair, smoking a cigarette.

“Hey! Look who’s back!” he called when he saw Ethan.

“Long time no see,” Ethan said with a smile. Ethan and Chris had been good friends for a couple of years, and had spent a lot of time together last year, at least during the part of last year that Ethan was enrolled for. Chris was probably the student who was still on campus that Ethan knew best at this point.

“I didn’t know you were coming back,” he told him.

“Yeah, I didn’t wanna post about it online, I just felt weird about it,” Ethan explained.

Chris shrugged. “There’s nothing weird about coming back to school.”

“I didn’t wanna make a Facebook status that was like ‘Starting my seventh year of college now!’ or whatever.”

“Well, I think that’s dumb, but ok,” Chris said. “We should catch up, anyway.” He pulled his phone out of his pocket and looked at the time. “Do you want to go get some food off campus?”

Ethan didn’t have anything left to do today. He could afford to spend some time hanging out. “Harvest Moon?” he suggested.

Harvest Moon was a fairly upscale Mexican restaurant marketed towards the permanent residents of the town. During happy hour, though, it became one of the go-to places for students to hang out and drink. The school’s location in a fairly wealthy suburb, combined with the fact that the school was considerably smaller than most universities meant that there weren’t many businesses that catered to students nearby, so they took what they could get.

“Good by me,” Chris said as he got up from the chair.

***

Realistically, going to Harvest Moon with Chris had been a pretty bad idea. They had arrived right around 4:00, when Happy Hour started. Yes, they had gotten food, but they had also gotten more than their fair share of $3 sangrias. Maybe they had ordered one too many, because by the time Happy Hour ended at 7:00, the bar tender seemed to really want the two of them out of there before the dinner crowd showed up. They paid and then headed outside.

Ethan had known that he was drunk while he was inside the bar, but once he had to stand up and walk, he realized that he was much more intoxicated than he had originally thought. Being pretty thoroughly drunk at 7:00 was a funny situation. It was late enough that he couldn’t really think of anything else to do with his evening, but obviously too early to crash and go to bed. So, Ethan and Chris decided to do the only thing that seemed reasonable to them: to go back to Chris’s apartment and drink some more.

It wasn’t as if they just sat and drank all night, of course. They talked about the various things that had been going on in their lives since they last saw each other in November, about movies, about the courses that they were going to be taking this year and about Chris’s never ending problems with the women in his life. Ethan was in the mood to play video games but Chris consistently refused and said that he hated all things video game related. The fact that they were at his apartment made it pretty easy for him to control this situation, since he didn’t have anything set up for it. Instead, they had decided to watch a movie. This debate had taken ages, since the two had very different taste, but they eventually settled on The Thing. Ethan was drunk enough that he fell asleep close to the start of the movie and only woke up whenever Chris was caught off guard by a startle effect.

He ended up sleeping on Chris’s couch for about an hour after the movie ended. When he woke up, it was around midnight. He hadn’t realized how exhausted he was, but he hadn’t been getting much sleep since he got back to town. Chris had also fallen asleep. Ethan woke him up and said goodbye to him, then grabbed his backpack and headed out.

Chris lived a lot closer to town than Ethan did, so it took him a little while to walk back. By the time he got back to his apartment and got settled, it was 1:00 AM. All things considered, he was having an early night. He got ready for bed directly. It had been a good and productive afternoon, and it had been fun to hang out with Chris, but he was tired beyond belief. He fell asleep right away, without much time to let his mind wander.

***

Ethan woke up on Tuesday morning with just a little bit of a headache. He sat up and grabbed his phone, which was plugged in and sitting on his nightstand. It was 11:20.

“Goddamnit,” he said to no one. He was supposed to have gotten up at 9:00 and gone back to campus to see Marcus at 10:00, but while he was drunk last night he had forgotten to set an alarm. This was not a good start to the school year. Class didn’t even start until tomorrow and he already had screwed things up. Who even sleeps for eleven hours straight? How could he have been that tired? For fuck’s sake.

He considered getting up and going over to campus anyway, since Marcus had mentioned that he had open office hours from 11:00 – 4:00. But the idea of going back and admitting that he had already screwed things up did not seem appealing in the least. It made him feel embarrassed and made his stomach feel a little bit funny to think about trying to explain this.

So, Ethan decided to do what he often chose to do when he made mistakes: he was just going to ignore it and pretend it never happened instead of doing something to fix it. He got up and went to take a shower. As he stood under the water, his mind wandered back to the fact that Marcus wasn’t going to be thrilled about this. Maybe he’d realize that he had made a mistake in deciding to work with Ethan. It probably *was* a mistake to work with him, he thought. Here he was, having all these good intentions about the school year and already he was getting drunk and missing things for no reason at all. He tried to shake the thoughts out of his mind as he finished rinsing shampoo out of his hair.

Deciding to try to be productive even if he wasn’t going to do the thing he really should be doing, Ethan drove to campus and bought his books. He was very glad that he hadn’t tried to walk to do this errand: his statistics book alone pretty much maxed out what he could comfortably carry at once. It was massive. His writing class had eight books. His other classes were more reasonable, but it still took him two trips to carry everything to his car. After that was finished, he decided to go back to his apartment and finish unpacking. He was worried that if he hung around on campus he might find his way into trouble again, or worse, he might run into Marcus and have to explain himself.

Despite his screw up in the morning, the day ended up being alright. He had finished his unpacking and organization of his apartment and had gone to the next town over to go to Target for a few more things he needed. On the way back he stopped at Stop and Shop for groceries and yes, some more beer.

He told himself he was going to get ahead on reading, but that lasted for only a couple of minutes until he decided to give up and watch Netflix. He did that until he got tired and headed to bed.

Ethan had been avoiding checking his email all day, in case there was a message from Marcus about the fact that he had missed his meeting today. He knew that he really needed to before he went to sleep, though, since tomorrow was the first day of classes, so he checked it from his phone as he lay on his back in bed.

He had a confirmation from the registrar that he had been added into all the classes that he wanted to be, and no personal note from Marcus— just an email that had been sent to the entire section letting them know that they would meet in 208 instead of the film viewing room for an introductory class instead of a screening. He felt like this should have been relieving to him, but it wasn’t really. Now, instead of dreading checking his email he found himself dreading going to that first class. Maybe this meant that Marcus didn’t care that he had forgotten the meeting? No, that was way too much to hope for. He knew Marcus well enough to know that he cared.

He set his phone to charge and turned off the light on his bedside table then settled down to sleep. He found his mind wandering a lot. He kept waking himself up to check and make sure that he had actually set an alarm. He kept silently cursing himself for agreeing to take a 10 AM class. And he especially kept worrying about how Marcus was going to react to the fact that he hadn’t showed up to their meeting. He should have just gone over during office hours. How come it seemed like he never did anything right?

Eventually, he drifted off to sleep, but he kept waking up from dreams about messing things up at school, or in a panic thinking that he had already overslept.

*****

Fortunately, Ethan got up before his alarm and, although he was tired from his rough night of sleep, he got ready for his day and arrived on campus on time. He even dragged his heavy, oversized statistics book all the way to campus in case he needed it in his first class. He definitely wasn’t happy about his ten AM class, but he was at least managing.

Statistics wasn’t the absolute worst. Ethan did get the sense that the teacher was kind of an asshole. He wasn’t sure if he would have noticed it if Marcus hadn’t suggested that he wasn’t likable beforehand, though. He didn’t do anything outrageous, although some of his class policies did seem a bit needlessly unforgiving (who marks someone as absent if their phone rings during class?)

Ethan didn’t even recognize anyone in the room, which suggested to him that they were primarily Freshmen. He felt old and a little awkward, but it also wasn’t the kind of class where a lot of socializing took place, so it wasn’t a huge deal.

Ethan had forgotten that math courses had tests in them, too: the college generally did writing base assessments instead of exams except in areas where that wasn’t practical. He also had a long homework assignment due Monday. Being back in school felt really real now.

His break between this class and the next was nice and long, though, and he enjoyed a leisurely if not exactly delicious lunch at the school cafe where he got to meet up with a couple of other people that he knew on campus still, including his friend Andrew and Andrew’s girlfriend, Becky. They were living together in a shared house off campus with Megan, Dalia and Aiyana: all people he had at least met before, some of whom he knew pretty well. He was glad to be reconnecting with a few people, and made plans to go hang out at their place after their FH class tonight, since Andrew was also in it.

Ethan was dreading going that class meeting, but there was nothing he could do about that. He  was pretty stupid sometimes, but he wasn’t stupid enough to consider skipping it on the first day.

His writing class had gone well. There was a girl who was a part time student in the class who was probably 30, which was the best thing Ethan could have asked for. It made him feel less like he was ancient for a undergrad. Robin was as nice as Ethan remembered her to be, and she made the class seem like it would be pretty fun and interesting. Their homework was just to start reading the first few chapters of their first assigned book and write a response journal: the absolute most basic assignment.

Ethan had signed up to have his conference for this course right after it let out on A weeks, but he didn’t bother writing that on his schedule worksheet since he wasn’t going to turn it in anyway. He just added it to his calendar in his phone and set a reminder for it. This week, he didn’t have conference though: the first week of school was neither an A week nor a B week. So, after that class let out, Ethan had a weird chunk of free time before what would normally be a screening but today was, apparently, a short class meeting. He decided to go to the library and start working on his statistics homework. If he was going to have to drag that damn book around he might as well use it for something, right?

Eventually, it got to be time to head over to the arts building for Marcus’s class. Ethan had gotten the majority of his first math assignment done and was feeling pretty pleased with himself about it. It was dumb that doing basic things like starting homework before the last minute made him feel good about himself, but, well, they did.

Ethan headed out from the library and across the street, heading for the new addition. He ran into Andrew and Megan as they were on their way to class, as well, and the three walked together. Being around other people helped Ethan to feel less nervous. As he started to slowly reintegrate into the campus, he was realizing how dumb it had been to cut himself off from the people he knew here when he had gone back to Maine. Isolating himself hadn’t actually done anything to make him feel better, and it was a relief to be breaking free of that self created solitude.

The three students met up with Chris as they got closer to the building. He was leaning against a handrail and, as usual, smoking. The group hung out with him while he finished his cigarette and then headed into class together.

There were already a few people in the room when the four of them got in: Miems, a girl that Ethan had taken courses with before and didn’t really know outside of that context but who he really liked, and two girls that he didn’t know, one with a tawny complexion, a nose ring and sun streaked hair and the other a very pale girl with freckles, red hair, a nose that was slightly turned up and old fashioned tortoiseshell glasses. Ethan pretty immediately noticed that both these girls were really hot.

On a less appealing note, Neil Morris was in the course. Ethan hated Neil. As soon as he saw Neil, he felt a huge bubble of disgust and frustration. His reasons for hating him were small and primarily petty, but Neil just annoyed the fuck out of him. Ethan was sufficiently unhappy about this that he pulled his phone and texted Chris, who was sitting two feet away from him:

“I fucking hate Neil Morris” the text read.

As soon as he sent it, he heard Chris’s phone ding. Chris pulled it out and read it, so Ethan immediately checked that his phone was still in silent mode. Just in case.

“he’s a tool,” Chris wrote back.

Ethan decided that the conversation didn’t need to go any further at the moment.

Two more students filed into the room: yet another unknown girl, this one a taller, busty girl with black hair and turquoise bangs. The second was also unfamiliar, but this time another guy: a lanky, dorky looking kid with blonde hair and wireframe glasses.

Ethan saw a text notification on his screen. Chris had sent him: “I hate this girl, too.”

“Who is she?” Ethan sent back.

“Her name is Isabelle and she never stops talking” Chris replied.

Ethan was slightly self conscious about the fact that it was probably pretty obvious what they were doing, but he tried not to care too much.

People chatted for a few minutes until Marcus came into the room. He looked at his watch as soon as he entered.

“Alright, it’s time to start. I would have been here sooner but I waited at the viewing room just in case anyone didn’t get my email. I’m glad to see you’re all here.”

A few students said “Hi” or other greetings and Miems did an exaggerated wave. Ethan felt really uncomfortable, finally having to see Marcus after having skipped their meeting so he kind of looked down at the table.

“We aren’t going to have a full class today. I just wanted to meet briefly so we could get some housekeeping out of the way so that we don’t have to waist time on it during our next section. There are a couple of you who I haven’t met yet, so I’ll introduce myself quickly. I’m Marcus Turner and I’m the chair of the FH department, this is The Evolution of Editing which is this year’s 300 level FH course. I want to speak briefly about my policies for this class because they do differ from other teachers in this department.”

Ethan had to assume that at least one of the students that he didn’t know was either a freshman or a transfer, since it was unlikely that someone had been in this department for a year without at least meeting Marcus.

Marcus continued: “I take attendance at every class section, which shouldn’t be a surprise to you, but I do also take attendance at all screenings. I do not care if you have already seen the film we are watching or if you have access to it at home: there will be consequences if you don’t attend screenings. I think that viewing these films on a proper screen gives you a significantly better experience than watching them at home, and it also guarantees that you watch the correct edit of each film, which is obviously relEthant to the subject matter of this class. I do not stay throughout the screening, however, so if you are more than a few minutes late to a screening you will be marked absent. If you have some reason why you truly cannot attend a screening you can talk to me in advance about scheduling another time for you to watch the film privately, but again, I insist that it has to be in the viewing room. I will always allow necessary absence for illness provided you bring me a note from Health Services but besides that, you’ll be penalized for all other absences.”

The boy that Ethan didn’t know raised his hand.

Marcus nodded towards him. “Go ahead, Kyle” he said.

“What’s the penalty?” he asked.

“Depending on how severe the attendance issue is, it can range from being assigned additional work to losing credits for the course. I do my best to work things out with each individual student. Although it’s true that I’m somewhat strict, I do my best to be fair,” Marcus explained.

With the subject of consequences and penalties being discussed, Ethan couldn’t help but start thinking about the conversation that he had had with Marcus the other day and the threat of…corporal punishment. Was this real? It couldn’t be real, right? The idea of getting a spanking was simply too embarrassing for him to handle. Ethan hadn’t been spanked in almost ten years, and he felt embarrassed just looking back at that experience. Was something like that really looming in his future?

He honestly didn’t listen too carefully to the rest of this lecture. He knew how Marcus ran his classes, anyway: show up on time, go to all the screenings, write in your viewing journal at least three times a week, don’t eat in class, one paper every two weeks selected from a list of pre-determined topics. It was hard to focus on this talk. Now that he had stopped pushing the idea of a spanking from his mind, it had rushed in and become impossible for him to ignore.

This couldn’t really happen, he thought for the thousandth time. Then again, he wondered, what was the alternative? Marcus could just refuse to work with him, or deny him the help that he needed as a consequence for not showing up when he should have. That seemed much more like a worst case scenario. Or he could do nothing, which didn’t seem very appealing either, honestly. Ethan spent so much time feeling bad about himself and his constant stream of mistakes…maybe the idea of having an actual consequence would make him feel a little bit better? But not this. There was no way, right?

Ethan had continued his obsessive thoughts as the other students signed up for conference time slots, too, since Marcus had already assigned Ethan’s.

“…Alright, so, if no one else has any more questions, I’ll see you back in this room tomorrow for our first class. I won’t assign you any homework and you don’t need to start your viewing journal this week, although I would like you all to have your books purchased by the time I see you tomorrow. If there’s a problem with that, please come talk to me. You only need to bring the Bordwell with you to class for now.” Marcus finished.  “Any other questions at all?” he asked.

No one raised their hand.

“Very well, you’re dismissed. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Everyone started to gather up their things to leave. It was the last class of the day for almost everyone and no one wanted to stick around.

Ethan was about to start talking to Andrew about their plans to hang out when he heard Marcus add: “Ethan Dougherty, I’d like to speak to you for a few moments please.”

Ethan had half hoped that he was going to get away with things and slip out of the room unnoticed. But of course, that wouldn’t have made the anxiety in his stomach when he thought about his missed meeting go away: it would simply procrastinate dealing with it. He felt a little overwhelmed by the prospect that he was going to be dealing with this *now* though.

“Uh, I’m supposed to go with Andrew…” Ethan began without even being entirely aware that he was talking.

“Hey, it’s cool,” Andrew cut in immediately. “I can catch you later, just text me if you still want to hang out.” He patted Ethan’s upper arm in a way that seemed almost supportive. What did he know?

“Thank you, Andrew,” Marcus said, “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Andrew waved, and then fell in with Chris and Megan and headed out of the room.

Marcus took his time organizing his things as the last couple of students headed out of the classroom, then he turned to Ethan, who was standing awkwardly in the doorway still.

“Come upstairs to my office with me,” Marcus instructed.

Ethan walked in tense silence lagging just slightly behind Marcus. The walk from 208 to Marcus’s office was technically very short, but it felt like forever at this moment.

When they finally reached the door, Marcus pulled his keys from his pocket and unlocked the  door, flipped on the lights, then held the door open and gestured for Ethan to enter. He did, and Marcus came in behind him, closing and locking the door.

The locked door did not make Ethan feel particularly optimistic about the direction things were going.

Marcus sat down at his desk.

“Please take a seat,” he told Ethan, gesturing to the chair in front of his desk.

Ethan set his backpack on the floor and then sat down, still feeling both nervous and awkward.

“Go ahead and tell me what we need to have a conversation about, Ethan,” Marcus said, sounding very serious indeed.

Ethan felt for a moment like he couldn’t handle this. This would have been so much easier if Marcus had just started telling him off immediately. It honestly would have been easier if he had seemed mad, or even annoyed. There was none of that present in his face or in his voice. He just seemed…serious and stern.

“I…” Ethan began. He stopped and took a deep breath. “I’m sorry that I didn’t come to see you yesterday, I didn’t mean to screw this up, it’s just that…”

Marcus cut him off.

“I’m not asking you to explain yourself right now. I am asking you to tell me what it is that we need to talk about. Give it another go.”

Ethan felt very young right at this moment. He usually dealt with things by pushing them away and avoiding reminders of the problems that he had created. He didn’t want to talk about the way that he had screwed things up yesterday. Generally, when he didn’t want to do something, he simply found a way to avoid doing it. But this felt inescapable.

“I was supposed to come meet you yesterday,” Ethan mumbled, looking at the carpet. “I didn’t do that.”

“And what else did you fail to do?” Marcus asked.

“I didn’t email you or whatever or try and come find you later or anything like that,” he added quietly and meekly.

“We had a conversation two days ago about getting you on the right track for this year. You were enthusiastic and ready to make changes to your behavior. It seems we’ve had a false start, here,” Marcus scolded.

“I just…” Ethan opened his mouth to try to explain.

“Did you have an emergency situation yesterday?” Marcus asked, once again cutting him off.

Ethan considered lying, but realized that would not make things any better. “No, sir,” he said quietly. These words came out of his mouth by instinct alone, and were rather telling about where Ethan’s mind was at the moment. He hadn’t called anyone “sir” or “ma’am” since he was a teenager.

“Then right now, I don’t want to hear about why this happened. You want to give me an explanation of what happened. You want to find an excuse. You’re looking for a narrative in which this isn’t really your fault. By finding ways to explain your behavior away you’ve avoided ever facing the fact that you create these situations, Ethan. This is no one’s fault but your own,” Marcus lectured.

Ethan’s face felt hot with shame. This conversation was everything he wanted to avoid. It was overwhelming to hear something so true said aloud. All he could do was nod and whisper another “Yes, sir,” this one barely audible.

“I told you when we spoke two days ago that I would not permit you to make bad choices and that there would be consequences if you did. I’m quite certain that you remember that. I need you to know that I am absolutely serious when I say this. So even though today is the first day of the semester, even though this is the first time that you’ve made a mistake since we started together, you’re going to get a spanking.”

Ethan felt his stomach flop. For a moment he wondered if he was dreaming, trapped in another nightmare like he had been last night. But no. This was real. It was really happening. He couldn’t even bring himself to protest. He just sat frozen in place, still staring at the rug.

“When was the last time you were spanked, Ethan?” Marcus asked.

Ethan bit his lip. “When I was sixteen,” he admitted quietly. He really didn’t want to talk about this. It was far too embarrassing.

“By one of your parents? Or at school?” Marcus wanted to know.

Ethan sighed heavily as he forced himself to continue this conversation. “By my dad. I never got…we never had…this kind of thing at school,” he explained awkwardly.

“And how did your father spank you?” he asked.

The memory of the experience was vivid and full of details, but Ethan condensed it down to a couple words. “With his belt,” he said quietly.

Marcus was still not satisfied with the information that Ethan had given him. “On your bare bottom?” he asked.

Ethan’s eyes grew wide. Was he asking this because he intended to do the same? Because he might die. His autopsy report would read “Cause of death: embarrassment.”

“Well?” Marcus nudged.

“Yeah,” Ethan finally admitted.

“And were you ever spanked any other way?”

Why were they still talking about this?!

“Both my parents spanked me with their hands when I was like a little kid, but that stopped when I was like ten or eleven,” Ethan said quickly, trying to get the words out without really thinking about it.

There was a blissful moment in which Marcus did not follow up with another embarrassing question. They sat in silence for a second. Ethan’s neck hurt a little from pointedly staring at the ground for so long.

“Alright, listen to me carefully,” Marcus said when he finally spoke again. “I would appreciate if you would look at me when I’m speaking to you,” he added.

Raising his gaze was really, really difficult, but he eventually managed to make eye contact with his professor. When he finally looked at Marcus, his face looked a lot gentler than he had been imagining.

“Today, you’re going to go over my knee and get a hard spanking on your bare bottom. Then, we’ll finish with my belt, since that’s what’s familiar to you,” Marcus told him.

“You don’t have to… if that’s not normal… just because it’s familiar…” Ethan muttered, incapable of creating a coherent sentence. He couldn’t believe this was happening. Nothing had ever been more embarrassing in his life.

“I’m not really seeking input here,” Marcus said dryly. He then glanced down at his watch. “I want you to take a moment to compose yourself and to think about the choices that you made that lead you here. The spanking that you’re about to get could have been avoided if you had been responsible, but that isn’t what happened. Right now, I want you to go stand in the corner and think about what things you could have done differently to have prevented this.” He pointed towards a corner of his office. Ethan had never before noticed that despite the cluttered nature of the room, that corner was totally and entirely empty. Oh.

Ethan was too embarrassed to respond with anything, and almost too much so to even move, but he managed to get up and walk over to the corner. He stood about a foot away from the wall and started biting at his thumbnail nervously.

“Alright, this is something you are going to need to learn,” Marcus said, walking over to him.

Ethan looked back at him, confused as to what he meant.

“There is a correct and an incorrect way to stand in the corner,” he explained. “For today, I will let you leave your jeans up,” he continued.

The implications of that statement made Ethan’s eyes widen.

“Take a step forward, no, all the way. Your face all the way against the walls,” he told him. He put his hand on Ethan’s back and gently guided him into the position that he wanted. “Like that, good. Fold your arms behind your back,” he added.

Ethan obeyed the instruction.

“Now, you stay like this until I tell you that you may move.”

Ethan muttered a quiet “Yes, sir,” again. It was the only thing that seemed even vaguely appropriate. He could hear Marcus walk back across the room and sit down at his desk. And so, he stood there.

Standing still felt impossible. He couldn’t stop worrying about what was about to happen. He cracked one of his knuckles nervously.

“You are to hold still when you are in the corner, Ethan. That means no fidgeting,” Marcus chided immediately.

He tried to follow the instruction, but it was difficult. His mind was all over the place, one minute he was feeling embarrassed by how childish this position was, another concerned over how long he would need to remain here, and then a moment later, frustrated at himself for being dumb enough to make this happen.

Ethan had never stood in a corner before in his entire life. He’d been sent to his room plenty of times as a child and a teenager, but once he was there, he was able to do whatever he wanted. He probably had been put in “time out” at some point but it would have happened when he was too young to even remember it. Standing here in anticipation was a new experience, but he already knew that he hated it.

Time dragged on and on. It seemed like it was getting to be an impossibly long time spent there. He was beginning to wonder if it was possible that Marcus had forgotten him, but the idea was a little ridiculous. He was sitting right there. He could hear the sound of him typing on and off. He felt tempted to turn around, or to say something, but he had been scolded for moving a single finger earlier, so he doubted that this would go over well.

Finally, when the corner time was starting to become unbearable, he heard Marcus speak to him again. “Alright, Ethan, you may come out.”

Ethan took a step back and turned around. He cracked his neck and stretched his shoulders after having held the same pose for such a long time.

Marcus had stood up from his desk and walked out into the middle of the room.

“In future, if I tell you to prepare for a spanking, this is what I expect of you. You are to bring this chair,” he put his hand on the wooden, ladder backed chair where Ethan usually sat in front of Marcus’s desk, “to the middle of the room.” As he explained this he did exactly that, moving the chair to the center of the carpet. Marcus’s office wasn’t enormous, but it wasn’t cramped by any means, either. There was more than enough room for this arrangement. He sat down in the chair.

“You are then to stand to one side” he continued, then beckoned Ethan with his hand and said “come here, right here.” This was suddenly a little too real. Ethan felt his face hot with embarrassment, and he felt a little bit afraid. Maybe more than a little bit.

“Then, you are to take your trousers down,” Marcus said sternly.

Ethan couldn’t make his hands move to do this. He looked at Marcus pleadingly for a moment. He wasn’t about to actually whine and beg like a child, but he couldn’t keep from at least trying to communicate these things silently.

“Right now, Ethan, unless you want me to do it for you,” Marcus said. His voice was measured and even and not at all angry but still sharp and more than a little bit terrifying.

Like magic, Ethan somehow found the ability to control his hands again, and he undid the button of his jeans, unzipped them and then pulled them down to just below his backside.

“All the way down, Ethan. I am being patient with you today but I will not always be,” Marcus warned.

Ethan tugged his jeans down lower so they piled at his knees. He felt silly and exposed, standing there like this. He wriggled a little bit with embarrassment. Marcus left Ethan standing next to him nervously for a moment as he undid the button on his shirt cuff and rolled the sleeve of his pale blue dress shirt above elbow before finally speaking to Ethan again.

“In future, if I’m not seated here yet, you are to put your hands on your head and wait for me like this. But right now, you’re going to get over my knee,” he said.

Ethan hadn’t been in this position in over half of his lifetime, and until today, it had never occurred to him that he would ever wind up here again. He very, very hesitantly lowered himself onto Marcus’s lap, bracing himself on the ground with his hands and feet, trying not to actually lay his weight there.

Marcus shifted Ethan, pushing him forward just slightly, knocking him off balance a little bit and forcing him to accept the position he was in just a little bit. Ethan was surprised by how much stronger than him Marcus was and how easily he could be maneuvered. He didn’t think he could feel younger and more vulnerable than he did at that moment.

Until, of course, he felt Marcus’s hands on the waistband of his boxers. Oh god, he thought, this is really happening. Marcus pulled Ethan’s boxers all the way down to where his jeans were piled near his knees. Ethan’s heart pounded.

“I’m going to spank you now, Ethan,” Marcus told him. “You’re being punished because you were irresponsible and because you did not do anything to try and correct your mistake once you made it. You can do better than this, and you will. You are going to unlearn the bad habits and stop the bad behavior that you’ve fallen into. Starting right now.”

Then Ethan felt Marcus’s hand smack his bottom. It was hard and stinging. Then there was another, and another, and another.

As he had worried about the idea of being spanked, Ethan had been very focused on how humiliating and childish the experience would be. In this fixation, he had failed to remember the other key feature of a spanking: that it hurt.

Somehow, he had thought that now that he was an young adult, a spanking wouldn’t hurt anymore. But it hurt. It hurt a lot more than he wanted to admit. Marcus wasn’t messing around. He kept spanking Ethan at a steady pace, and somehow the smacks were getting harder and harder.

Ethan wanted to be absolutely still. He wanted to be totally silent. It embarrassed him to show any sign that the spanking he was getting hurt. But the cumulative effect was great, and his butt was getting sorer and sorer with each passing second. Soon, he could not longer stifle his yelps and whimpers. He started to squirm and wriggle as Marcus’s hand continued to fall again and again.

Marcus shifted Ethan even further forward, then landed a particularly hard smack to the point where his bottom and thighs meet. Ethan let out a little shriek at this. Then he felt one directly opposite it, and then a flurry of hard swats to this area.

Ethan ground his sneaker into the carpet as he tried to keep from kicking his legs. His resistance was breaking down. This hurt. Ethan liked to think of himself as being pretty tough, but damn, the spanking hurt.

What made it worse was that, just like the time he had spent in the corner earlier, it seemed like it was going to go on forever. Every time there was a pause between smacks and Ethan became hopeful that the spanking was ending, it began again. He stopped being able to prevent himself from kicking and trying to get away from the stinging pain, but Marcus just pinned his legs under one of his and trapped him there.

Ethan breathed heavily, feeling almost like he was running as he tried to keep from crying out but eventually, eventually it was no good. He couldn’t help but wail and shriek. It was all he could do to keep himself from breaking into tears, but he wasn’t going to let that happen. He was twenty five years old. He wasn’t going to cry from a spanking.

Finally, when Ethan was feeling sore and tired and very, very sorry, Marcus stopped and rested his hand on Ethan’s lower back. Ethan tried to catch his breath.

“Your punishment is not over, Ethan,” Marcus said, dashing Ethan’s hopes before they grew too strong. “I’m ready to hear your explanation of what happened yesterday and why you didn’t attend our meeting. I want to hear you taking responsibility for this, you’re not in a good position to be giving me excuses.”

Ethan was scared that if he talked he *would* start crying, but he managed out: “After I left your office on Monday I met up with Chris Padilla and we went to get dinner.” There was a long pause. “We ended up getting really drunk and hanging out until late. I forgot to set my alarm and I slept through the meeting.” Ethan sighed deeply, feeling guilty about it all over again. “I’m really sorry,” he whispered.

“And why didn’t you come to my office when you did wake up? I told you I was going to be there until 4:00,” Marcus asked. He was gently rubbing Ethan’s back in a motion that felt deeply comforting. That little hand motion was making Ethan feel like Marcus wasn’t truly angry at him. It made him feel oddly safe in the extremely vulnerable position he was in.

“I dunno,” Ethan muttered. “I was embarrassed that I messed up. I was feeling anxious about it. I didn’t want you to be mad at me…” He couldn’t really explain it.

“You were avoiding a problem instead of facing it,” Marcus said.

Ethan nodded miserably.

“That’s a behavior that is going to stop. Every single time that you do that you will get a spanking, do you understand me?”

Marcus was talking about this as if spankings were about to become a regular part of Ethan’s life, especially considering that Ethan probably avoided problems at least a few times every day. He was going to *have* to change that, because he really didn’t want to go through this again any time soon.


“Yes, sir,” he said as clearly as he could.

“If you had come and found me and told me what happened, your spanking would be over now. But you didn’t choose that path, so I want you to get up off my lap and go bend over my desk,” Marcus told him in a voice that left no room for argument as he moved his leg to free Ethan’s.

Ethan pushed off the ground and stood up, his hands immediately reaching back to feel the heat coming off his hot, punished bottom. He knew what Marcus had told him would happen next, and he was not looking forward to it. But he slowly made his way to the desk and bent over, bracing himself with his hands against it and his bottom out. As he did, he realized for the first time why, exactly, Marcus had his desks set up the way that he did, and he wondered how often something like this happened in this office.

He didn’t have long to entertain these thoughts though, because in the quiet room he could hear the the jingle of Marcus’s belt buckle as he undid it. This was a sound that Ethan was familiar with from his younger days, and it made him shiver just a little bit. He couldn’t help but look back and see his professor doubling up his belt.

“Face forward, son,” Marcus said. “And bend all the way down, put your elbows down on the desk,” he added.

Ethan did as he was told, biting his lip in anticipation.

“You are going to change your behavior and you are going to be more responsible, Ethan,” Marcus said sternly. “I am going to see to that.”

“Yes, sir,” Ethan said in a soft voice as he looked down at the desk.

“You are to keep both your feet on the floor and both your elbows on the desk,” Marcus told him.

Ethan just nodded this time.

“Did you hear me, young man?” Marcus asked, his voice a little bit sharper.

“Yes, sir,” Ethan called out.

“Good,” Marcus said.

There was a pause, during which Ethan braced himself nervously. Then the belt collided with his bottom, hard. Ethan drew his breath in sharply. That was a lot harder than he had been expecting it to be.

There was another one, just as hard. And then another. Had Ethan simply forgotten how badly being belted hurt, or was Marcus spanking him that much harder than his father had when he was a teenager? Either way, it wasn’t looking good for Ethan’s ability to take his punishment without crying. He had sobbed and bawled every single time he got the belt as a teen. He was still trying to be tough, but he had realized that it wasn’t going to last.

By the time Ethan felt the tenth stroke crack against his bottom he wasn’t able to control himself. “Please,” he cried. “I’m sorry!”

The next two caught him right at the base of his bottom, just almost on the tops of his thighs. Ethan howled. “Pleeeeeeeaaasssseeee!”

“You’re almost halfway done,” was Marcus’s response.

And with that, Ethan lost it. He was overwhelmed. He had tried hard and put up a good fight, but he had lost. He broke into tears, entirely bypassing the quiet crying and sniffling that used to always come first in this situation and jumping right to hard, full bodied sobbing.

It didn’t make Marcus slow his pace or tone down the force at all. The punishment continued, and Ethan found himself thinking about how bad he had felt when he had woken up late yesterday, how guilty he felt that he was ignoring facing the issue even though he knew that he needed to, and how stressed and honestly, scared he was about trying to dig himself out of the deep hole that he was in with his academics. Although he would never have in almost any other situation, he let himself cry and wail away as much of this as he could. He was crying so hard that he was hiccuping and sputtering.

“You have five more,” Marcus finally told him. “I’m going to give you a moment to catch your breath.” He put his hand on Ethan’s back again and he tried so hard to focus on that. He felt so young and small and vulnerable and he was desperate for any reassurance. He tried to slow his breath and maybe put an end to his crying, but that didn’t seem to be happening. He wanted to reach back and touch his throbbing backside, but he didn’t dare lift his elbows from the desk. He was scared there would be a penalty for that, and besides that, in this state, he found himself feeling hungry for Marcus’s approval. He wanted to be good.

Much sooner than Ethan would have liked, he heard: “Alright, son, we’re going to finish up.”

The last five strokes came quickly, one immediately after another. They seemed even harder than the ones before had been, but in only a couple seconds, they were over. After the fifth stroke, Ethan collapsed against the desk, feeling like nothing but a well punished little boy. He heard Marcus putting his belt back on, and then he felt him sliding his boxers over his sore, welted bottom. His butt felt like it was twice its usual size.

Ethan didn’t feel like he had the energy to move, but he was grateful when Marcus once again gently rubbed his back and then stroked his disheveled, dark blonde hair.

After a moment, he said “Get yourself up, son,” and Ethan found his way to his feet.

Ethan was still crying. He wasn’t really crying because of the spanking anymore, just because he had fallen into so many feelings. But he wasn’t sobbing hard anymore, just sniffling. He wiped at his eyes with the back of his hand, being careful not to displace a contact lens as he did.

“Right yourself,” Marcus said, gesturing to Ethan’s jeans, which had fallen to rest at his ankles during the proceedings.

Ethan quickly pulled them back up. He was glad to return to being properly dressed.

Marcus then gently lead him over to a small, weathered love seat against the far wall of the office. He sat down and then patted the cushion next to him. “Come here,” he said in a gentle, supportive voice.

Ethan didn’t really want to sit down but he did as he was told. The first moment where he put weight on his punished butt was painful and irritating, and he wiggled around for a second, trying in vain to find a comfortable way to sit.

Marcus put his arm around Ethan. It was hard for Ethan to accept this affection. Some part of him felt like he didn’t deserve it. But he wanted it. So he let go and rested his head against Marcus’s shoulder. Marcus stroked Ethan’s hair and gently rubbed his shoulder and back for a long time until finally he stopped crying.

When he felt more like himself again and less like a sorry little child, he asked Marcus if he had a tissue. He produced a box: of course he had them to hand.

“Look at me,” Marcus said once Ethan had finished cleaning up his face and drying his eyes. Now that he was calmed down, Ethan was back to feeling embarrassed about the fact that he had, just a moment before, been a blubbering mess. It took him a moment to raise his eyes to meet Marcus’s.

“I’m not going to tell you that you aren’t going to do anything like this again, because I have the feeling that you are. I think it’s going to take a little while before you get used to doing things the way that you need to. It’s going to take some learning, and I’m going to have to be hard on you while you learn these things. But you’ll get there.” It didn’t sound like a lecture. It sounded more like a reassurance.

“I’m sorry,” Ethan said quietly. “And I’m sorry for…being such a baby,” he added, blushing a little bit as he said it.

There was a pause. “Are you apologizing for crying?” Marcus finally asked, sounding incredulous.

“Yeah,” Ethan muttered.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Marcus scolded. “You got a hard spanking. Of course you cried. I don’t expect stoicism, but I expect obedience. And you followed all of my instructions. You were very good.”

Ethan looked down at the sofa. He wasn’t so used to being praised and it made him feel good, but also a little shy and flustered.

Marcus glanced down at his watch. “We still need to work on the things we should have been working on yesterday,” he said. “It’s getting late now, and I’m sure you’re tired. I’d like you to come to class tomorrow prepared to meet with me about this afterwards, is that understood?”

Ethan nodded. “Yeah,” he said. The “yes, sir” had gotten lost now that he felt like he was no longer in trouble.

“I do think it wouldn’t be such a bad idea to see Andrew tonight, if you’re up to it,” Marcus suggested. “Andrew is a good kid, I’m sure he’d be good company for you if you need it.” There was an subtext here which Ethan understood. Andrew’s words of support earlier *had* come from personal experience.

Ethan stood up and found his things. Standing caused as much of a jolt of pain as initially sitting had. Walking was a little uncomfortable, too.

Marcus gave Ethan a quick hug once he was standing. “You have a clean slate now,” he told him. “Which means that, at this moment, you have nothing to worry about.”

Ethan didn’t really believe that, but it was a nice idea.

“Take some time to decompress, but do at least an hour of homework tonight,” Marcus told him.

Ethan nodded. “I will.”

“Thank you,” he said. He walked back to his desk and picked up a card and handed it to Ethan. “My cell phone number is there, in case you need to reach me. Don’t be afraid to call.”

Ethan took the card and put it in his pocket. He said a quick good bye to Marcus and then headed out of his office. There was a bathroom further down the same hallway, and he popped in there to rinse his face before venturing down to the main areas.

He felt tired, and sore, but honestly, a little better than he had in a while. He didn’t realize just how much his life had changed today as he pulled his phone out of his pocket to text Andrew.

** End of part 1 **