Contrasts

“Girls rushed back and forth, the chattering crowd enjoying their lunch break, as she stood outside the door, gulped a deep breath, and knocked. She heard his voice, clear from inside, and her trembling hand reached out to turn the handle. She stepped inside, seeing him stand up behind his desk as she closed the door behind her.”

I’ve found myself fascinated lately by the sudden contrast between the girl on the outside of the housemaster’s study – and the room itself one she’s entered.

Beforehand – surrounded by other pupils, part of a crowd, noise all around, chaos everywhere. The girl solitary in her knowledge (not shared by her fellows) of her impending punishment. And once she’d passed through the door? Just the two of them, alone, quiet, ordered – with an absolute shared certainty of what was about to take place.

In some ways, indeed, the contrast – this passage from light to dark – feels like a very intrinsic part of the punishment. It’s not something I’ve ever particularly focused on before, in my writing or roleplaying, and I’m curious to hear others’ thoughts…

5 thoughts on “Contrasts

  • 1 February, 2011 at 12:50 pm
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    I can readily see your point Abel, of the jovial life outside of the headmaster’s study, but once inside his domain, the seriousness, a naughty girl must confront, facing her upcoming confrontation with his authority. Yes, she certainly will leave his study the wiser, painfully wiser, because her bare bottom will acknowledge the caning, of at least six or more strokes.

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  • 1 February, 2011 at 6:19 pm
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    Because that moment before is liminal, it’s all that she notices which fascinates me

    the loneliness, even surrounded by a throng of girls, sense of disorientation in not being in a familiar role, with predictable responses to reassure her, heightened awareness of sound -perhaps the ticking of a clock, her physiological state – acute attention to trembling legs, restricted breathing, feeling of being outside time and space watching herself on one level wanting time to rewind or fast forward, on the other knowing herself being dragged inexorably second by second to that dreaded point -when all probabilities will be converted to one horrible certainty, when it will no longer be fear of fear which preoccupies her. A sense of almost being overwhelmed by the flood of sensations.

    Once in the room, maybe it is the cane on the desk or the expression on his face, but something triggers her into a “role” . the dynamic between the two, the actions, explanations expected of her make time speed up again, restore her sense of herself, reconnect her, make what is happening on some level tolerable again.

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  • 4 February, 2011 at 9:50 am
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    I see the scene just a little differently. The housemaster’s study is situated off the main thoroughfare of the school. She is standing outside waiting to be called in with everyone rushing by and well aware of her impending fate. It’s a co-ed school and she can sensel all the boys’s eyes drawn to her lower half. Yes, she knows that her skirt is perfectly opaque but equally well she knows that their imaginations are in overdrive visualising what will so shortly be on view after she enters the study. It almost feels as if she has already been made to take her skirt off.

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  • 6 February, 2011 at 4:59 am
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    @nic – “when it will no longer be fear of fear which preoccupies her”: wow, what an amazing phrase!

    @David Wright – I could rather enjoy the thought that the other pupils will be sitting at their desks in class, concentrating not on their lessons but on trying to picture what must be going on at that same moment in the headmaster’s study.

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  • 7 February, 2011 at 4:43 pm
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    A further idea for developing the scenario. There might be something else in our senior 6th form heroine’s mind whilst waiting outside the housemaster’s study for her caning and having to suffer being ogled at by passing 6th form boys. She might be remembering what had happened some year’s back to a girl in her situation and just praying there was to be no repeat this afternoon. This previous girl had just received the 3rd stroke of the 6 she was to due when the telephone had rung. It was something important and confidential that the housemaster had to deal with immediately so she had been told to wait outside until he had finished the call. She had looked imploringly at her skirt draped across a chair at the other side of his office but one look at his face and she had just scuttled straight out – knickers and 3 vivid tram lines for all the world to gape at

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