Dione, part 3

Dione had been in Damascus for nearly ten weeks now, and she loved it. After a few weeks, in which her results had really improved, Jurek had let her off the restrictions he had imposed on her. She wouldn't have thought it possible, but she now found satisfaction in coming to class well-prepared and being good at what she was doing. Her only regret was that she had chosen Japanese and Hindi as foreign languages, of all things - it had been practical on the research platform, where nobody had spoken them and been able to control her progress, but it wasn't practical here, where she really had to work at them. Still, Jurek had told her her teachers were quite pleased with her. He was pleased with her, too.

Then there were all the extracurricular activities. In the beginning, there had only been the floorball practice Lubna had dragged her to. Then, her science teacher had told her that she obviously had a broad background in astronomy (well, no wonder), and that her computer skills were above average even for this school, so would she be interested in a project group sponsored by the University of Beijing, working on designing routines for the evaluation of data gathered by the research platforms in space? The project would take up a lot of her free time, but it would be a great opportunity to apply her skills to something useful ('instead of hacking into other people's computers,' her teacher had said with a grin) and work together with some of the world's best scientists in this field. Dione had immediately taken up on the offer. She discovered that she was the youngest in the group, all the others being between sixteen and eighteen. Lubna was immensely jealous, especially as Dione had to spend so much time with the project now, instead of spending it with her. But still, they had lots of fun together.

In the beginning, Dione had refused to sign up for any cultural activities. She had hated playing the violin, which her parents had made her do, and she thought that, as such a small portion of her lessons was devoted to maths and computer stuff, she'd like to spend her spare time with her computer, like she had always done on the space platform. Now, she found out that with all her classes, and the work on the project, she often didn't feel like switching on her computer in her free time, and she regretted not having taken the chance to do something different. Lubna went to a drama group on Wednesdays and some weekends, but they only accepted new members in the beginning of the term.

One Wednesday, about four weeks into the term, Dione, after a lot of hesitation, went to see Jurek and asked him whether there was a possiblity to sign up late for anything, on Wednesdays, if possible - 'anything but violin lessons,' she said. Jurek laughed. He searched the database of extracurricular activities for a while and then told her that a Syrian tabla player (tabla is a kind of Arabian drum) had offered to give lessons to groups of two students on Wednesdays, and that another student - a seventeen year old boy called Nuri - was interested. 'Nuri would probably be glad if you signed up, so he could get started,' Jurek said. 'Do you know him?' 'Oh, yes, he's in my science project,' Dione replied. 'I wouldn't mind taking lessons with him, and drumming sounds interesting. Can you sign me up?' 'Sure,' Jurek said, 'but you have to stick to it at least till the end of interterm. And you would have to spend some of your spare time practicing.' 'Well, yes, I think I will survive that,' Dione said with a grin.

Jurek had explained to her all about interterm in her first week. The schoolyear had three terms, each of them twelve weeks long. Between the first and the second and the second and third term, respectively, there were four weeks in which each student could chose between a wide range of activities - 'group A' were activities from the fields of science, maths or computer science, and 'group B' was cultural, language or historical. If you chose group A in the first interterm, you had to chose group B in the second and vice versa. After each interterm, there was a schoolfeast that was attended by most families, and after the third term, the students had eight weeks of holidays with their families.

Dione was looking forward to interterm a lot. All of her classes would be suspended, but there would still be floorball, and a reduced amount of work for her science project, and her drum lessons, which had turned out to be really pleasant. Nuri was a tall, dark guy with a good sense of humor and a sharp mind. Now that she knew him from their drum lessons, she worked together with him a lot in the science project, in which she had sometimes felt a bit as an outsider before. So, with all these activities, and Lubna for a friend, the term was great and here days were full.

She was sitting at her desk and practising some Japanese writing when her comm beeped. It was a voice call from Jurek, so she took it. She always felt a bit uneasy when he called, though she really had a clean slate now. But when she remembered the first spanking she had gotten from him...
'I'm just calling to tell you I sent you the list of interterm activities a few minutes ago,' Jurek said. 'You have never done this before, so I just wanted to make sure that you have no open questions.'
'Wait a minute, I'm not at my terminal right now,' she said and turned to her screen. 'Yes, here it is. Hmmm... No, it looks pretty self-explanatory. Are they all appropriate for my level?'
'Most of them are for all levels,' he said, 'and the few that are only for the youngest or oldest are not on the list I sent you.'
'Oh. Okay. When do I have to sign up?'
'In the end of this week at the latest, but the sooner, the better - some of the popular projects fill up really fast,' he advised her.

So she printed the list and brooded over it for a while. Some of the science projects sounded really interesting, but she had enough work with the Beijing project - she felt like doing something different. She looked at the B list and soon discovered a project on 'History and archeology of Syria, with archeological fieldwork'. She read the description and was really intrigued - the group would be visiting six archeological digs dealing with different periods of Syrian history - stone age, Roman, Christian, early Muslim, crusader and Ottoman. They'd prepare the field visits by learning on these different periods and would then be shown around by the archeologists leading the excavations, be able to discuss with them and visit a lot of interesting historical sites - some of them not even open to the general public. The more Dione thought about this, the more excited she got. She called Lubna to ask her advice.
'Pooh,' Lubna said dismissively, 'THAT one. They offer it every year. I took it three years ago. It'll be full of kids, really. Come on, join me in the DNA research project!'
Dione was disappointed in her friend's reaction. 'I'm sorry, but I really don't want to do any science stuff right now,' she explained to Lubna. 'I've got enough to do with the Beijing project.'
'Ooooh, I forgot, Miss Superbrain is carrying lots of responsibility now,' Lubna remarked pointedly.
Dione was hurt and at a loss for words. She knew that Lubna was jealous, but she hadn't known she was THAT jealous. So she just said 'Do whatever you like,' and hung up. She pondered for a while, a bit depressed, and then decided to call Jurek again.
'Jurek,' she said, 'I'm really interested in that archeology stuff, but ... someone said to me it's bound to be full of kids?'
He laughed. 'Who told you that nonsense?' he asked. 'Well, never mind. It's a hugely popular project, and a lot of new students pick it - but at least one third should be your age or above. Some even take part a second time, when they're older. If you are interested in that one, you should decide quickly - it tends to fill up fast.'
Dione thanked him. She stared at the project list for a few more minutes and then signed up for the archeological one.

Lubna apologized to her shortly afterwards. 'I'm sorry I was so nasty,' she said. 'I guess I haven't gotten over my jealousy. Of course, that's no excuse. After all, if I had been chosen for that project, I'd be as thrilled as you are.'
'It's okay,' said Dione, glad to have her friend back. 'Have you already decided on an interterm project?'
'Yeah, I took the video project, so that we both have group B projects this time. Then maybe we can take a science project together next interterm?'
'Hey, that would be great,' said Dione, smiling, and Lubna's face lightened up with her friend's obvious pleasure at the prospect.
'So, did you sign up for archeology?'
'Yeah, Jurek said it's supposed to be good,' Dione replied.
'It IS good,' Lubna said. 'I should have told you so right then, if I hadn't been in such a bad mood at that moment.'
'Forget it,' Dione said warmly.

So, everything was too good to be true for Dione right then, and perhaps that made her think she could get away with what Lubna proposed to do.

Dione wanted to get some clothes suitable for walking around archeological sites in December. True, it wasn't exactly snowing in Damascus in December, but it WAS chilly, windy, and sometimes raining. And what had been dust during summer, turned to dirt in winter. Dione's colourful summer dresses and light sneakers just wouldn't do.

The problem was, Dione didn't know when to do her shopping in the coming two weeks before interterm started. Both weekends would be full with meetings for her project, as a group of scientists from Beijing was just staying with them to work out the schedule for the next months. Dione had decided to stay in the project for another term and then maybe quit before next interterm, so she had to atttend these meetings. In the afternoons, she was booked with her usual busy schedule and a lot of additional end-of-term events. In the evenings, she had to work for her exams and maybe practise her drums occasionally, and anyway it became dark too early to make shopping trips in the evening a pleasant experience. Dione browsed through her schedule several times, looking for a free couple of hours, and finding none.
Of course she could always order online, but she didn't really like that. Although her measurements were coded and should theoretically serve to provide her with an outfit exactly her size, it still was a matter of trial-and-error: pants would look to baggy, the material would be ugly, whatever - the things you ordered just never looked as good as they looked on the 3D-supposedly-your-size models you could watch before ordering. And then you had to send the stuff back and order other things. It was really a hassle. Besides, Dione was fascinated by the possibility of going shopping, which she had never been able to do on the space platform, of course.

'Sheesh,' she said to Lubna. 'I've got no idea when to go and buy some clothes. Do you think I should talk to Jurek?'
'Pah,' said Lubna, 'what do you think he'd tell you to do? Skip your Japanese conversation? Good joke.'
'Any better idea?' Dione asked, slightly exasperated.
'Yeah, you could be sick. Want me to be sick, too?' Lubna asked, her eyes twinkling.
'Oh, come on,' Dione said. 'There's no way we could pull this through without getting caught. Can you imagine what Jurek would say when we BOTH happened to be sick very suddenly, with unspecific symptoms, the same day?'
'Hmmm,' said Lubna. 'Okay, we'd have to do it like this. You call Jurek in the morning and tell him you've got a nasty headache, whatever. You are in his good books now, you always do your homework and all that stuff, he won't suspect a thing. He'll check on you, and when you tell him you want to sleep till lunch, he'll leave you alone. If we did it tomorrow, we'd have the extra advantage of the tutors' meeting at 10 am, which means, he won't come checking on you until lunch. I'll go to my class at 8.30 and suddenly start having really heavy stomach cramps. Everybody knows that happens to girls our age once in a while. Yvette had this last month, and was sent to her room to lie down with a hot water bottle. Same with me. All we've got to do is sneak out unnoticed, which shouldn't be a problem during classes, and get back before lunch. We wouldn't have a lot of time for shopping, but it ought to be enough.'

Dione was torn. Lubna's proposal sounded like a million things could go wrong with it, but on the other hand it would be a perfect solution, especially if they did it the next day, when she didn't have any classes she couldn't afford to miss. No drum lessons or project meetings either - just floorball, but she could miss that easily - it would even give her an opportunity to revise her Hindi grammar before the exam.

So, the next morning, she called Jurek. 'Sorry to bother you,' she said with what she hoped was a suffering voice, 'but I've got an awful headache. I can hardly open my eyes. I really don't think I can manage to go to classes today.'
'Shall I ask the doctor to come over and have a look at you?' Jurek asked. His voice sounded concerned, and Dione felt a little bad.
'No, I don't think that's necessary,' she said. 'I've had this fairly regularly on the platform. It usually goes away after a day if I lie down and sleep a lot. Our doctor has tried all kinds of medication, but nothing really helped. Only sleeping.'
'Okay, then lie down and sleep,' Jurek said. 'I'll come over and bring you some breakfast. But if you don't feel better tonight, I'm going to fetch the doctor, okay?'
'Okay,' she said and lay back in her bed. Jurek came in after a few minutes, carrying a tray with some bread, cheese, jam, and a cup of tea. 'Thanks,' she said weekly.
'Are you sure you'll be okay?' he asked seriously.
'Yeah, really,' she said, giving the impression of trying to smile, but then being hit by another jolt of pain. She pressed her hands to her temples and breathed heavily. 'I'll just try to get some sleep after breakfast,' she murmured, after the 'pain' had 'faded'.
'Good, I'll check on you before the tutors' meeting, then,' Jurek said.

She gobbled down her breakfast, took a shower, and got into bed again, taking her Japanese book with her. When she heard a soft knock on her door at five to ten, she quickly slid the book under her cover and pretended to be asleep. She heard the door open, someone coming in, standing there for a while, then taking her breakfast tray and walking out again, closing the door behind him. She breathed a sigh of relief and hurried to get dressed.

At ten past ten, her door flew open, and Lubna rushed in. 'Ready?' she asked, not waiting for an answer. 'Let's go!'

They hurried down the silent corridors and left the school by a side door, suppressing nervous giggles. When they were on the road, where they couldn't be seen or heard, they both heaved a sigh of relief. While they waited for the shuttle to the shopping centre they had decided to go to - the city centre with it's sprawled-out streets and markets would just take too long to explore for the limited time they had - they told each other of their adventures. Lubna, who could be a marvelous actress if she wanted to, had had no problems at all, despite her reputation for getting into mischief all the time.

They were lucky and caught a shuttle after only three minutes of waiting. At the mall, they tried to hurry as much as they could, heading straight for the good clothes stores, and quickly trying on everything they were interested in (Lubna had decided to exploit the opportunity and get some new pants, too). After only a bit over an hour, they left the mall, Lubna with new red pants and a T-shirt in her bag, and Dione with a couple of brown jeans, a pair of sturdy shoes, a water- and wind-proof jacket, and several sweaters. Money was not an issue - their credits allowed a fair amount of money to be spent on clothes, and none of them had bought anything expensive since the beginning of the term.

Their good luck left them when they reached the shuttle stop and saw their shuttle just leaving. 'Damn,' Lubna said, dismayed, 'the next one will only leave in twenty minutes or so!' 'But it's already standing there,' Dione pointed out. 'Yeah, but the driver's waiting for it to fill up,' Lubna explained. 'In the evening, shuttles go more often, but now, it's only every twenty minutes.' She looked at her watch. 'Which means we'll be back at the school at five to twelve if we hurry, which again means you'll have to be in bed real fast - the tutors' meeting usually ends at twelve. Maybe we are lucky and they are taking longer today, with the exams near and everything.'
Dione shivered. 'I really hope so. I can't imagine what Jurek's gonna do to us if he finds out.'
'We'll, I can,' remarked Lubna, drily, 'and I'm not particularly keen on it.'

They reached the school at a few minutes to twelve, as Lubna had said. Unfortunately, it was raining heavily when they left the shuttle, and they arrived at the school door soaking wet, and panting. They hurried along the corridors, but had to hide every now and then, as there seemed to be a considerable number of people around at this time. Lubna finally reached her room and slid into it hurriedly, whispering 'See you at lunch!' Dione dashed to her room, which was a few meters further down the corridor, flung the door open and stood petrified, staring with wide eyes at Jurek who was sitting on her desk chair and didn't look pleased.
'Close the door,' he said curtly. She did so.
'Now would you mind explaining to me why you are coming into this room with wet hair, muddy boots and several shopping bags, when you were supposed to be trying to cure a bad headache?' he asked, his polite voice not deceiving her over the fact that he was really, really angry.
She swallowed. 'I... I had to do some shopping,' she said lamely.
'You had to do some shopping,' he repeated flatly.
She gulped. 'I... I didn't have any spare time to do it in, and I had to get some stuff before interterm,' she tried to defend herself, but she knew that sounded like a really bad excuse.
'I see,' Jurek said. 'And it didn't occur to you to place an online order, or even – of course that would be extremely far-fetched – come to me for advice?'
Dione didn't know what to answer to this without giving Lubna away, as it had been her who had pooh-pooed the latter idea. So she was silent.
'Come here,' Jurek said.

Her mouth went dry. Slowly, she walked over to him, expecting him to tell her to lower her pants. She yelped of surprise when he very quickly and deftly pulled her over his lap and pulled down the convenient elastic sports pants she was wearing, panties following suit. Before she had had time to recover from her surprise, a flurry of hard spanks that made her cry out rained down on her bare buttocks. She was glad that the room was soundproof, but she didn't reflect on this long as spank after painful spank fell down on her bottom, making her gasp and whimper.
After a while, Jurek stopped briefly to bring her into a better positon. Dione was already crying softly.
Then Jurek started lecturing her, at the same time resuming her spanking, and not holding back at all. 'I SMACK will not SMACK have you SMACK skipping SMACK school!!! SMACK SMACK SMACK And SMACK I will SMACK definitely SMACK _not_ SMACK SMACK have you SMACK pulling SMACK a stunt SMACK like this SMACK on me! SMACK.'
'Owwww yesss I'm sorreeee!' she wailed. 'Pleeeze... I woooohoon't do it AAAAH agaaain!'
'I'll SMACK make SMACK damn SMACK sure SMACK you won't! SMACK SMACK SMACK I will NOT SMACK SMACK tolerate SMACK your taking SMACK advantage of SMACK my trust. SMACK You will SMACK never ever SMACK pretend SMACK to be sick SMACK again! SMACK I'm SMACK extremely SMACK disappointed SMACK in you! SMACK SMACK SMACK'
At that point, Dione was in too much pain to follow his lecture any longer, and he stopped it pretty soon, just continuing to rain spank after spank on her bottom. Dione wailed in distress, kicked her legs und bucked on his lap, but he held her in position effortlessly. Finally she broke down, went limp over his lap and just sobbed helplessly . He spanked her for another two minutes after this and then stopped.
It took her a while to realize her spanking had ended. Her fingers were cramped around the legs of the chair. It hurt so badly she didn't know how she had withheld the urge to reach back and protect her bottom, but she had somehow managed to do so.

Jurek firmly put her on her feet, took her by the shoulders and marched her to the corner next to her desk. He pushed some boxes she had stacked there aside and placed her in the corner, face against the wall, her bright red bottom nearly touching her desk. Then he took the small camera that was lying next to her computer, adjusted it, and placed it on the shelf over the desk. He connected to it with his comm and twiddled with the controls until Dione's back with her red bottom on display was clearly visible on his pocketscreen. All the while, Dione was standing in the corner, crying too hard to even wonder what he was doing.

'I will go and have lunch now,' Jurek finally said. 'You will stay in the corner until my return and NOT move. Your hands stay at your side. I've activated your camera, so you better don't get the idea that I won't notice if you disobey me.' With that, he turned and left the room.

Jurek sat down at the tutors' desk next to his colleague, Luiza, a small, agile and cheerful person who nevertheless could be extremely strict if she wanted to.
'What's up, Jurek?' she asked in her pleasant sing-song voice. 'You look angry.'
'I AM angry,' he said and told her about Dione. 'She's such a nice girl,' he said. 'It would never have occured to me that she could so blatantly try to deceive me. Heck, I nearly sent for the doctor because I was worried about her! If I hadn't left the meeting early to check on her, I would never have realized she was putting this on.'
'Well, I can only hope you teach her a lesson she won't forget,' Luiza commented.
'I will,' he said grimly. 'I've already given her a sound spanking, and there is certainly more to come.'
Several of the other tutors and teachers had listened to this. One of them, Ferial, suddenly said 'I wonder if this has anything to do with Lubna's sickness?'
Jurek turned to her abruptly. 'LUBNA'S sickness?' he asked disbelievingly. 'You don't mean to tell me...'
'Well, yes,' Ferial said. 'At the time, I didn't think anything about it. She seemed to have bad stomach cramps, and I thought she was in no state to write her Latin exam, so I told her to go and lie down. But if you say Dione pretended to be sick today... Everybody knows the two of them are inseparable.'
'Indeed, they are,' Jurek said. 'You really mean to tell me Lubna didn't take her Latin exam today?'
'No, she didn't, like I told you – she went to bed with stomach cramps,' Ferial said. 'Of course it's possible that she was really not feeling good.'
'Of course that's possible,' Jurek agreed. 'It's just not very likely.'

Jurek decided to deal with Dione first. He couldn't very well leave her in the corner for the time it would take him to talk to Lubna and punish her. But he rang Lubna after lunch to tell her he would come to talk to her in about half an hour. If she was innocent, which he doubted, then the prospect of talking to him shouldn't bother her. If she was guilty, on the other hand, it would probably make her feel quite uncomfortable, which was, of course, intended.

Lubna felt indeed uncomfortable over Jurek's message. She felt even more uncomfortable when she tried to ring Dione and got no answer. She didn't dare leave her room and find out what was up; it would be hard to explain why she was out of bed if anybody saw her, which was likely in the period after lunch. So she spent the next half hour in considerably anxiety.

It took Dione a long time to stop crying. When the pain in her bottom was becoming a bit more bearable, it turned out that having to stand in the corner without moving for an unspecified amount of time was quite an ordeal. Dione knew Jurek didn't normally impose cornertime. He must have been pretty mad. She now felt very guilty and ashamed. Not so much about skipping school, which was, of course, an offense and had to be punished, but that was all there was to it; she felt much more guilty about having deceived Jurek in this way, pretending to be in pain when she just wanted to have a little adventure and to do some shopping. She was pretty certain that there was more to come after the spanking she had received before lunch, and although she dreaded receiving a paddling on her already sore bottom, she couldn't help feeling that she deserved it.

When she thought she couldn't stand in the corner any longer without moving, the door opened and Jurek entered. 'Turn around,' he said, and she did so. And wished she hadn't, as the first thing she saw was the paddle he was carrying with him. A long paddle. With holes in it.

He sat down on the bed and put the paddle next to him. 'Sit down,' he ordered, nodding toward s the chair.
'Errr... can I pull my pants up?' she asked hesitantly.
He raised his eyebrows. 'You may pull them up, if you wish; but I'm sure you know that they'll come down again quite soon.
'Yes, Sir,' she whispered, hastily pulled her pants and panties up and sat down on the chair, tears coming to her eyes from the renewed pain. She was thankful, however, for the bit of modesty he had granted her.
'Now, I would like to have a full account of what happened this morning,' Jurek said. He didn't expect her to split on Lubna, and he had decided not to make her give her friend away. If Lubna had been involved in this, it would be easy for him to make her admit it herself. He didn't need to force Dione into a dilemma without necessity.

So, Dione told him everything – except for the fact that Lubna had had anything to do with it. She very carefully tried to give the impression that she had been on her own, which was theoretically allowed for students her age, as long as they took their comms with them so that they could be found in case of emergency. When she had ended her account, she hesitated, swallowed and added more quietly, nearly in a whisper: 'Jurek, I'm really sorry. I know you'll think I just say that to appease you, but I really AM sorry. I just didn't stop to think about this at all. I knew you would believe me when I told you I had a bad headache, and I exploited that, and I feel terrible about it now.'
'And did the spanking I just gave you make you stop feeling terrible?' Jurek asked calmly.
She hesitated and then shook her head. She took a deep breath and said: 'I know I deserve more than a handspanking for this. I just hope you can forgive me.'
'Well, I'll always forgive you after you've been punished, and punished you will be,' Jurek said and got up. He placed a pillow on the foot of Dione's bed and then ordered: 'Bare your bottom and get over here.'
She slowly walked over to him, stood before the foot of the bed, lowered her pants and panties and then bent over, her face on the mattress, her bottom sticking up over the cushion-covered wooden panel. She felt a knot in her stomach. She knew from Lubna that nobody ever got more than a dozen swats with the big paddle, but those swats were supposed to hurt like hell.
'You will receive twelve swats with the paddle,' Jurek said. 'In addition, as you obviously didn't think anything about missing your floorball practice today, you will continue missing it until the end of interterm. That will give you the spare time you were in need of so urgently. Unfortunately, you won't be able to use it for another shopping expedition, because you are grounded until the end of interterm, too.'
She turned her head in shock. 'But what about the interterm project excursions? And the floorball match we want to play at the school feast?'
'You will of course take part in the excursions, but you won't take part in the match,' he said firmly.

She knew there was no point in further arguing, so she turned her head back and tried to relax as much as possible and keep her dread of the impending paddling at bay. She felt the paddle touch her buttocks shortly and shivered. Then it came back at full force. WHAP! 'OOOOOWWW!' she screamed. This hurt way, way, WAY more than Jurek's hand, and it also hurt a lot more than the ruler he had spanked her with on her first day. WHAP! 'AAAAH Pleeeze... <sob>' WHAP! 'NOOOOO!'
After the twelfth spank had impacted her bottom that had already been sore from her previous spanking, she was totally defeated. She lay over her bed sobbing so hard that she nearly didn't realize Jurek had stopped spanking her. Instead he gathered up her pants and panties, which she had kicked away, and carefully placed them over her chair. Then he gently pulled her up onto her bed and covered her with her blanket, putting the pillow under her head. Her sobbing quieted a little, although the pain was still fierce.
Jurek knelt next to her and pushed her hair out of her tear-stained face. 'Dione, I'm sorry I had to spank you so hard,' he said softly. 'But I had to make sure you never do something like this again.'
'I won't,' she brought out between her sobs. 'Promise.'
'Alright,' he said and patted her on the head, 'then take a rest now.' She just nodded. Only after he had left the room, she noticed that he had left her a bag with two sandwiches and a pack of orange juice on her bedside table.