Part 1
From the darkened doorway to their bedroom, Red watched Clarice, his beloved
wife of so many wonderful years, sitting at her desk. The sparkle and sass that
was part and parcel of her "Good Wife" persona were nowhere in evidence, and her
weary face showed every year of her nearly six decades of life. He wished he
could help her somehow, maybe take her in his arms and cuddle her - and make
everything all better for her - but he knew better. Red had a very good idea
what was troubling his wife, and it was a battle he could only join if asked.
Clarice was fighting herself right now - her emotional, caring side tilting at a
fearsome dragon that was rampaging about her rational self.
Clarice slipped off the half-lens reading glasses she refused to wear in public
- one of her few vanities - and pinched the bridge of her nose. "Come on in,
Red." she said with a defeated air to her, "I know you are out there."
He strolled in and moved to the side bar where he poured himself a light scotch.
Holding up the bottle, he silently offered one to Clarice who nodded. Red fixed
her drink with the confidence of long practice and moved to take the seat on the
other side of his wife's antique desk. "You look tired." he said gently as he
proffered the amber-filled crystal to her. "Penelope?" he asked.
Clarice did not respond immediately, instead choosing to study the dark depths
of the whiskey in her glass before taking a bracing sip of the liquid heat. She
sighed as its warmth did little to thaw the cold knot that had formed at the
base of her diaphragm. Then she nodded, her movements shaky with the suppression
of emotion. "Penelope. She's just raised the stakes, and I don't know what to
do. I have read about situations like this in earlier days at the school, but I
have never faced anything like this myself."
"So what did your predecessors do in similar situations?"
"Things that I don't believe I can get away with in our modern,
litigation-happy, news-as-a-soundbite-at-eleven world."
"Ouch." Red said with an exaggerated grimace.
"Oh you." Clarice replied with the barest hint of loving exasperation. "You know
I was not talking about you."
"Well, since you are concerned about litigation, may I assume that the GWU's
attorney might be of some use to you in this crisis?"
Clarice picked up a sheet of lined notebook paper, looked it over and then slid
it across the desk toward her husband. He reached for it, looking at her for
permission, and upon receiving her assenting nod, picked it up and began to scan
it. The document was written on a piece of spiral notebook paper - likely torn
from one of the notebooks that the GWU students were given to use in keeping
their journals of their experiences at GWU.
"Powerful document," he said carefully, "And dangerous." As much for her benefit
as for his own, Red began to read the paper aloud. Sometimes it helped to hear
an angry person's words so that the emotion as well as the intent could be
understood.
"Good Wife University, May 30, 1999
From: Penelope D_
To: The Good Wife University Faculty, Staff and Whom Else This May Concern.
I, Penelope D_, do hereby inform all of the addressees of this memorandum of my
formal withdrawal of consent to any and all activities associated with the Good
Wife University. I no longer consider myself bound by the contract signed by my
husband and myself, and will consider any attempt to enforce that contract as a
direct violation of my personal, civil and constitutional rights.
In order that there not be *any* misunderstanding as to my intent or meaning,
let me be specific about *some*, if not all, of the activities to which I no
longer give my consent:
Any physical restraint will be considered nonconsensual and will construed as
illegal arrest;
Any touching of my person in an intimate manner will be considered nonconsensual
and will construed as sexual assault;
Any intimacies including, but not limited to kissing, fondling or penetration of
any part of my body with any implement or human body part will be considered
nonconsensual and will construed as sexual assault and rape;
Any use of physical force on my person, including but not limited to corporal
punishment will be considered nonconsensual and will construed as assault and
battery;
Any attempt to keep me at this place will be considered nonconsensual and will
construed as kidnaping.
Should any staff member or person upon these grounds desire to do anything with
or to me, they should *ask* first as the above list is *not* to be considered
all inclusive. Failure to obtain permission first will result in civil and
criminal actions being taken against the perpetrator and the GWU as an
organization at my earliest opportunity.
As of this date, I will no longer comply with the orders or directions of any
member of the GWU. Any attempt to force my compliance will be considered an
attack on my person and I will use all means, fair or foul, physical or
otherwise to protect myself, up to and including the use of force that I know or
should know to have potentially fatal effects.
I will attempt, to the best of my ability, to avoid causing any harm to my sadly
gullible and misguided classmates, but should they interfere in my self defense
against your staff, I cannot and will not hold myself responsible for their
safety at that time. I will attempt to warn them, but since I am currently being
held *against my will* in your solitary confinement cell, that may not be
possible. It would therefore be in your best interests to pass that warning
along to them if you do not intend to heed my warning yourselves.
I wish to leave this place immediately. While you have the power to prevent my
departure from here for the remainder of my sentence. . .excuse me, my term of
education, I will, in that case, bring civil and criminal action against you
immediately upon my final release. Even if you should somehow avoid both prison
and bankruptcy, the publicity, particularly among the fundamentalist types will
effectively destroy you and your vile little school.
Work with me or watch everything you have built come down around your ears.
/s/ Penelope D_"
Red continued to stare at the letter held loosely in one hand as he took another
sip from his whiskey, then he looked up as his wife with troubled eyes. "Quite a
letter."
Clarice leaned back in her executive chair and closed her eyes tightly against
the steadily worsening headache that was starting to feel like a migraine. "Yes,
it is." she answered quietly. "The question is, what do we do about it?"
"I take it that you believe her to be serious about this?"
"Very serious. I spent the better part of the day trying to talk to her about
it, and got nowhere. She just kept saying that everything she had to say was in
that letter."
"I see. And just so I know what we are dealing with here? What are those
procedures you don't think you can get away with in today's litigation-happy
world?"
An almost mischievous grin crossed the face of the GWU headmistress. "We used to
lock the miscreant up in a sensory deprivation suit for a half day or so, and
then turn the senior class loose on her with orders not to quit until their
victim had climaxed at least twenty times. Usually, that worked because it
tended to get them past their prejudices about sex and pleasure - particularly
with other women. The one or two times it did not work we brought in the husband
and had him tell her to act her age and to remind her she'd signed a contract
that she could not get out of legally - really piss her off by challenging her
feminine honor and fortitude. That always worked. Since the sexual revolution,
we haven't had to do either."
"Well, we've had our discussions on the legal defensibility of that contract in
the past, dear. While there has been some movement among the leather crowd,
particularly in California, to give legal standing to D/s slavery contracts, the
simple fact remains that your contract won't hold up in court. Your only
protection, legally, has been and continues to be that you have been given the
informed, adult consent of your students to mistreat them as you do. . . ."
"I beg your pardon!" Clarice came out of her chair, fire flashing in her eyes as
she began to defend her beloved school. "We do NOT mistreat ANYone!" she swore.
"While I agree with you personally, my dear, the only thing that makes that
statement true is that you have the students' continuous concurrence that what
you subject them to ISN'T mistreatment. That," and here Red slide the paper back
across the desk to Clarice, "says that the next time you touch her, you do so
without her consent and then it IS mistreatment. Or as she points out, abuse,
assault, battery and rape. Kidnaping might be hard to prove, but who knows what
a jury would decide. Depends on the way the case is presented. Wrongful
restraint is more likely, but still, a crime punishable by prison time."
"So, we just give up on her? Let her go and say, sorry, dear, if you're gonna be
*that* way about it we'll just pick up our toys and send you home? And, oh by
the way, don't let the door hit you too hard on the ass on your way out because
you might sue us for that, too?"
"It is what she says she wants, dearest. She is an adult. I don't see any legal
way to prevent her from leaving if she is that determined to go. I don't even
think we could charge her if she say, injured Tina if Tina tried to restrain
her. That document has made it very clear what she is doing and why."
"So my only options are either let her go or let her hurt my people, and
possibly destroy my school?"
"I would say it is far more than just a possibility, love."
Clarice's momentary burst of emotion died at that pronouncement and she slowly,
painfully settled back into her seat. "I take it," Red asked softly, "That she
simply hasn't been able to let her hair down and go with the flow?"
"If only that were the case, Red. If she'd been a misfit from day one, well, I
could better understand . . .that." she replied as she slapped at Penelope's
letter. "The truth is just the opposite. We've never, in all my years here, had
a student who seemed so determined to . . . . to be perfect. Never had to tell
her to do something twice, and Tina had to be really picky to find something she
could punish the woman for. Physically, she is in tip top shape, smart as a whip
and as far as her instructors can tell, sensuous as hell. Lord above, she is
even hormonally gifted, Red. If Lucy is right, she orgasmed during her Kegel
muscle training."
"Sounds like a very unique lady, and not one who would ordinarily need to come
here in the first place. Still, if she was doing so well and working so hard,
what happened to cause *that*?" Red asked, again nodding at Penelope's note.
Clarice went silent for a long time, and then picked her drink up and drained
it. "We don't know. She went home for her first weekend last week after having
her husband come here for the first few. She came back late. Told me to fuck off
when I told her she was in trouble and stormed off to the dorm. When I caught up
with her, all of her things were tossed out onto her bunk and she was writing
furiously at her desk. She stuffed *that* into my face before I could get a word
out and then turned her back on me and walked off again."
"Did you read it before or after you sent Tina after her?"
"Before, thank god." Clarice sighed as she poured herself another drink. "So I
told Tina not to use the heavyhanded tactics. Without them, she wouldn't come to
me, so Tina told me where she was and I went to her. Like I said, I spent most
of the day with her and got absolutely nowhere."
"Is she still here?"
"Oh yes. She heard that her dorm leader got the play-kidnap treatment her first
weekend home so she knows that we have people who specialize in bringing our
ladies back the hard way. The one thing she would say to me was that she wasn't
leaving until we promise to leave her alone."
"Again, you know that it is only the consent that keeps your little abduction
scenes from being capital-crime criminal offences. If she doesn't consent,
everyone involved is an accessory to kidnaping and will likely spend a lot of
time in prison."
"Don't you think I know that?" Clarice snapped angrily but she quickly regained
her composure. "Sorry, sweetheart. No, when she leaves, we won't contact her in
any way ever again so long as she doesn't bother us. The only reason I haven't
cut her loose already is that I wanted some time to figure out what happened, so
that I could fix those things for future students. If that is at all possible."
"Any ideas?"
"No, not really. I am meeting with her class leader, Shalonda, tomorrow morning
after breakfast, and her husband is coming to try and talk sense to her tomorrow
afternoon."
"Does Penelope know that?"
"Not yet. I am going to talk to her tomorrow after I talk to Shalonda, and
before her husband arrives."
"Are you going to offer her a bribe?"
"A bribe??!?!"
"Call it a contractual agreement. We pay her so much money if she willingly
signs away any liability against the GWU and promise never to divulge what we do
here to the press, etc.?"
"Would that work?"
"Dunno. I can work something up." Red stood up and putting both hands on
Clarice's desk, stared down at her with a fierce look on his face. "NOW. . .why
don't you come to bed, Good Wife. Your husband wants to work his evil ways with
you. And I don't want you thinking about anything that is not directly related
to pleasing me. . . . . OR ELSE!"
Clarice smiled up at the well loved face scowling down at her, looking so
ludicrous as he tried to appear intimidating. *the darling old fool,* she
thought to herself, *Is it any wonder I adore the man?* "Oh, sir," she trilled,
"I am not sure I am up to satisfying your . . . . beastly masculine needs."
Humor warmed Red's eyes even as his visage became more stern. "Then I will have
to find ways to encourage you to new heights, won't I? Now, get that cute butt
over here, wench!"
Really smiling for the first time in hours, Clarice made haste to get "that cute
butt over there", all the while feeling the phantom tingles and stings back
there that she was certain would soon be real. Red was very good at therapeutic
spankings, and there was no doubt that Clarice would soon be making love with a
very warm, very tender bottom.
She couldn't WAIT!
~--------------~
The next morning, Red sat alone in the apartment he shared with Clarice on the
GWU campus. The coffee was hot and strong, but that was all that could be said
about the filthy brew. One thing a Good Wife learned was how to make a decent
cup of coffee, but Clarice had been rushed that morning so Red, Good Husband
that he was, had offered to make the coffee for them both.
He should have gone to the cafeteria, but had wanted to be alone. He needed the
solitude to think clearly about the current situation that showed every
indication of escalating into a major legal battle.
Red had no illusions about the danger this situation posed. This mess could
easily, if handled improperly, spell the end of Clarice's beloved Good Wife
University. If that came to pass, then the next battle would, unless Red was
very, very good *and* very, very lucky, result in both civil and criminal
proceedings against Clarice and other members of the Good Wife University
family.
The yellow legal pad in front of Red had been new and pristinely virginal when
he'd sat down this morning. It was now half filled with notes and questions a
bare two hours later. One thing was certain. If Clarice could not reach an
accommodation of some type with Penelope by the end of the day, they would have
to give serious consideration to getting the other students out of the line of
fire. That meant sending them home without them completing the promised training
which would probably require some type of reimbursement, but that was better
than having a couple of them get badly hurt in a face-off between Penelope and
Tina or one of the other drill instructor types.
So, on top of everything else, he'd have to get their comptroller to take a look
at their current financial condition.
*You better win some type of concession on this one, sweetheart,* he thought
grimly, *or we may selling this old convent house estate just to pay the
penalties and legal fees.*
With a heavy heart, Red got up and carried the dregs of his coffee to the sink
and rinsed both his cup and the pot. Then he gathered up his notes and headed
out to find the comptroller. *Amazing that they've gone almost fifty years of
doing this stuff, and no one has ever managed to use the consensuality argument
against them. Probably just an indication of the times. Maybe Clarice is right
about the world, after all. When in doubt, sue somebody. DAMN!*
