The Freshman
Copyright 2005 by EC
EC's Erotic Art & Fiction - http://www.ecgraphicarts.com/

(warnings: corporal punishment, erotic discipline, public nudity, sex between 
adults, references to drug use, references to violence, language)

Chapter 26 - Cecilia's fa?ade

On the first day of classes Jason returned to his job modeling for the art 
department. Although he no longer needed the credits, he enjoyed modeling so 
much that he decided to do it for the remainder of his freshman year. Because 
both Cecilia and Ken had completed their humanities requirement, Jason did not 
expect to see any familiar faces in the spring semester life drawing classes. 
However, but it turned out there would be a familiar face in one of the classes; 
Cecilia's friend Suzanne Foster. Although Suzanne already had been at the 
university for a year and a half as an art major, she had not yet taken life drawing, 
which was an art department requirement. So, this time around it would be 
Suzanne's turn to study his body in detail and render it to paper.

Suzanne enjoyed looking at Jason's body and thought about various photography 
projects she night want to try with him as her model. She approached him about 
modeling, which he readily agreed to do. He warned her that he could only model 
the nights Cecilia was duty RA, because he did not want to take any time away 
from the relationship or his studies. Also, his girlfriend had to approve of any 
modeling projects ahead of time, so it would be best if she were to approach 
Cecilia directly about anything she wanted him to do. 

However, Jason enjoyed Suzanne's work and was flattered that she wanted to 
feature him in her next project. He knew that her work would be part of a major 
spring art show and later possibly published in a nationally published 
photographers' magazine. Appearing in a widely distributed magazine appealed to 
the exhibitionist in him, because he would have the chance to show off his body 
to a large audience of photography enthusiasts.

Jason's public appearances in the nude extended beyond his modeling sessions for 
Suzanne and the drawing classes. A European news magazine approached him 
about doing an interview for a feature that concentrated on US college students 
who were nudists. During February he was also scheduled to speak on behalf of 
two nudist organizations in Indianapolis and St. Louis. He was to be among 
several speakers at symposiums in Indianapolis, and would address a college 
crowd in St. Louis. Ken, Lisa, and Suzanne had promised to accompany him to 
the Indianapolis presentation. Cecilia also had promised to go, but secretly was 
hoping that Burnside might come up with some tasking that would make it 
impossible for her to break away from the department.

----------

Jason, Lisa, and Ken began their second semester of classes without having 
Burnside's Theory of Economics class hanging over their heads. Having taken and 
passed that class cleared the way for enrolling in classes in several departments, 
making it easier for the three freshmen to think seriously about what majors they 
might want to choose. Jason decided that he wanted to double major in Political 
Science and International Affairs, while Lisa decided to major in business 
administration. Ken, still trying to figure himself out, decided to double-major in 
psychology and education with the eventual goal of becoming a counselor. As he 
put it:

“With as screwed up as I am, I'm sure I can see eye-to-eye with everyone else 
who's screwed up.”

All three students had gravitated towards departments with classes that had the 
Burnside class as a prerequisite. Even the psychology and education departments 
had started using Burnside's class as a means to cut down on the number of 
students pouring into their programs, using the justification that anyone able to 
pass that class was a serious student as opposed to a dilettante.

----------

Cecilia's future was much more set by her circumstances than were the futures of 
Jason and his two friends. She had to complete the requirements to get a 
Bachelor's degree in economics within a four-year period. She had some 
flexibility with taking electives, but not very much. For the humanities 
requirement she had thought about taking another art class, possibly with Suzanne 
as a classmate, but her decision to tackle Spanish changed those plans. She had 
decided to exchange an easy credit for one much more difficult.

Cecilia's Spanish professor turned out to be every bit as harsh as she had heard. It 
turned out he was the Spanish department's version of Ruth Burnside. Even 
worse, he epitomized the stereotype of the snooty Spaniard who looked down 
upon the variations of the language that had developed in Latin America, visually 
cringing when he heard Cecilia speaking for the first time with her rough street 
accent. In response she quickly snapped in her street Spanish: well, if I knew how 
to speak properly, I wouldn't need to take this class, would I? 

Over the first month of the semester Cecilia earned the respect of her professor by 
demonstrating she truly was interested in improving her Spanish and that she had 
taken the class solely with the goal of bettering herself. Her attitude and 
background contrasted with most of her classmates, who of course, were non-
native speakers enrolled because it was a department requirement. The class was 
perfectly suited for her immediate needs because it gave her the proper structure 
she needed to express herself in both speech and writing. 

Besides giving Cecilia proper structure, the instructor also corrected numerous 
errors she made that were not normally made by a Spanish-speaker with formal 
education. For example, she confused the letters “b” and “v”, using them 
interchangeably when she wrote words in Spanish. Her professor drilled her on 
that mistake, forcing her to memorize which letter went with which words and 
putting huge red circles around her spelling mistakes. As the semester progressed, 
Cecilia noticed fewer and fewer red circles on her papers as she memorized the 
lists of words her professor had typed out for her to study. She also noticed her 
speech improving as she began editing out the slang and anglicized words from 
her childhood. As was true for her English, her Spanish street accent was 
stubbornly resilient, but it seemed that in everything else she showed marked 
improvement.

By her fourth semester in college, Cecilia already was taking junior-level classes 
with the economics department. Burnside's ultimate goal was to get her 
scholarship student to take a couple of graduate-level classes before the end of her 
senior year and get a feel for what she might expect as a graduate student. She 
knew that Cecilia really had no choice but to continue her studies upon 
graduating, since there was little she could do with a BA in economics. She would 
have the choice of pursuing an MBA or perhaps work towards a future in 
economic development, but, unless she had something in her background that 
made her stand out, she would have a hard time getting the financial help she 
needed to pursue the next level of her education. Burnside hoped to give her that 
something extra and get her through the MA program with some assistance. 

Although Cecilia's probation had ended and the exam crisis from the previous 
year was forgotten, Burnside was her usual unpleasant self when dealing with her 
student on a day-to-day basis. At least once each week Cecilia had to stand in 
Burnside's office justifying why she had not mentioned some famous economist 
in a research project, or why she did not have a formula properly memorized, or 
why she had not properly applied some theory to a real life situation. In addition 
to her own work, there were endless tests and essays Cecilia had to grade, her 
ongoing duties as RA, and her self-appointed project to fix her Spanish. At the 
end of each day she relieved her stress in the gym, and then relied on Jason to 
massage her and give her an orgasm to settle her nerves. She reflected how reliant 
she was on her nightly routine; without her nightly massage and orgasm she really 
would be going nuts with all the pressure she was under.

At first it seemed that the relationship between Cecilia and Jason would continue 
during the spring as it had during the fall, as least on the surface. It still was 
Cecilia who was telling Jason what to do most of the time. It would remain his 
responsibility to attend to her needs, to massage her body, give her shoulder and 
neck rubs, satisfy her clitoris with the gentle caresses of his tongue, hold her, and 
comfort her. When she needed him to be there for her, he would be there for her. 
He was taking another Burnside class during the spring, and spent hours standing 
at attention in the nude, answering her questions about what he was studying. 
Whenever he did anything to offend her, it was clearly understood he would bend 
over to receive the belt. As for his outside activities, he would ask her permission 
before making any commitments.

However, as she interacted with Jason and watched him running around the dorm 
and hanging out with his friends, Cecilia reflected that he was changing. He 
certainly seemed more self-assured than he did in the fall, which was something 
she had not expected. During the fall she had forced him to be successful in his 
studies, but that very success made him more willing to stand up for himself, 
defend what he believed in, and also defend his relationship with her. Jason had 
started growing up.

------------

During the second week of classes Cynthia Lee got together with Cecilia. Cynthia 
had spent New Year's in Danube City celebrating with her sister and brother-in-
law, and came back with some good news. The Danubian government of Vladim 
Dukov and the national government of his counterpart to the south had finalized a 
border treaty that incorporated the idea of moving the Danubian consulate to 
Sumy Ris. The consulate itself would be a compound enclosing the disputed 
church and graveyard, along with two buildings built in the 18th Century that 
would contain the offices for the Danubian diplomats. However, what was really 
exciting was that the nearby castle and several other ancient buildings in Sumy 
Ris would be sold to a private group of Danubian investors who were planning a 
restoration and tourism project. If the project went ahead as planned, Sumy Ris 
would become a major destination for Danubians making pilgrimages to the 
church and traveling south to other parts of the Balkan Peninsula.

As for the rest of the border, the negotiations had gone extremely well. About 
40,000 ethnic Danubians would be re-incorporated into the territory of their native 
country as a result of the border changes. There would be customs agreements and 
several internationally managed nature preserves. Most importantly, there would 
be a bi-lateral agreement to de-militarize the border region in exchange for better 
cooperation between the two countries' police forces. For the first time in its 
history, Upper Danubia would have completely secure borders and a formal ally.

The arrangement also would affect all criminals who were ethnic Danubians 
incarcerated in the country's southern neighbor. Once the new border between the 
two countries was demarcated, about 400 criminals of Danubian descent would be 
transferred by bus to the Duchy. On the Danubian side of the border there would 
be judges and police officers waiting for them. The criminals would be granted 
Danubian citizenship and then re-tried under Danubian laws. Those who still had 
time left on their sentences would have to finish their terms under the Danubian 
justice system, which meant they would be assigned a Spokesperson, collared, 
switched, and forced to live in the nude. It was a convenient way for Upper 
Danubia's southern neighbor to rid itself of 400 prisoners.

The arrangement could not have come at a more crucial time for the government 
of the Duchy's neighbor. Even before the treaty was finalized, Dukov's 
counterpart was forced to move troops away from the Danubian border to deal 
with another border dispute that was not going nearly as well. Had Dukov been 
less trustworthy, his government could have taken advantage of the troop 
withdrawal to grab the land in question. However, the treaty had been negotiated 
in good faith and awaited approval by both parliaments before the Danubians 
would take possession of their new territory.

Cynthia confided that she was worried, in spite of the amiable arrangement 
between the two leaders.

“The commercial attach? at the US Embassy tried to undermine the negotiations, 
and no one can figure out why. Also, it seems that Mega-Town Associates doesn't 
like it and they're trying to get the World Trade Organization to stop the treaty. I 
don't get it. You'd think that one less border conflict in Eastern Europe would 
make everyone happy, but it hasn't. Something weird is going on behind the 
scenes, and whatever it is, I don't have a good feeling about it.”

----------

The final two weeks of January passed by very quickly, but at the same time were 
hectic for the residents of Huntington Hall. Cecilia had to choose her spring 
semester research topics for Burnside, which took time away from her efforts to 
learn correct Spanish. She and Lisa continued to work out together, more out of 
habit than anything else. Cecilia was in much better physical shape than she had 
been during the fall and knew as much about using the gym equipment as Lisa. 

Of course, among the things that interested Cecilia were the latest details of Lisa's 
love life, because the Californian had given up a boyfriend the RA respected for 
one who she thought was a total idiot. 

Cecilia made no effort to hide her disdain for Ken and clearly expressed that she 
felt Lisa had made a very poor exchange. Lisa, in trying to justify herself, gave up 
more about her relationship with Ken than she had intended, giving her friend a 
full account of Ken's desire to be punished and the real satisfaction she felt having 
him over her lap.

“I don't know how I can say it so you'll see where I'm coming from. The truth is I 
totally love punishing him. When I have him tied up and I'm hitting him…I don't 
know…I just feel really good. It's a total adrenaline rush. And he likes it too. As 
soon as I do anything to him, spank him, slap him, or best of all, give him a really 
good pinch…it's like flipping a switch. He's as hard as a dildo. And it's total, you 
look in his face, and you can tell he wants it so bad…”

“OK, that's real nice. So he likes you whippin' his ass and you like whippin' his 
ass. And what else is goin' on between you two, besides his sore ass?”

“You make it sound like there ought to be more. Why? Why should there be 
more? Right now I'm having fun. He's got a lot of imagination and he's willing to 
try anything, which was something Mike absolutely refused to do. It's fun, and 
that's what I want. I'll tell you, I've never had sex like what I'm having with Ken.”

Lisa's relationship with Ken was very different from Cecilia's relationship with 
Jason. The level of personal commitment between Lisa and Ken came nowhere 
near the commitment Cecilia and Jason had with each other. Outside her room 
Lisa saw Ken as her equal, so she was not trying to raise him or influence his 
personality like Cecilia was trying to do with Jason. Lisa never disciplined Ken 
with the goal of influencing his behavior. Her viciousness was a manifestation of 
her sexuality, nothing more. Unless they were building up the mood for a 
sexual/discipline encounter in her room, Lisa never told Ken what to do, what to 
wear, or how to behave. There was no hint that she wanted to control his life or 
form his personality, so the punishments she inflicted were just for sexual 
stimulation and had no larger purpose. 

In contrast, in Jason's life a belt-whipping served a completely different purpose 
from an erotic spanking. Cecilia felt that she was finishing the job of raising her 
boyfriend and was trying to form his personality. She wanted him to behave 
responsibly and used the threat of the belt to keep his weaknesses under control. 
She threatened him much more than she actually punished him, one example 
being her insistence that he quit driving. If she ever caught him behind he wheel 
of a car she really did plan to flog him to the point of drawing blood, but she also 
expected never to have to carry out that threat. She had warned him, and if he 
knew what was good for him, he'd obey her.

A second difference was that Ken wanted a more intense experience that focused 
on pure pain. He enjoyed being tied up, slapped hard, savagely pinched, and 
cruelly humiliated. During their sexual sessions, “fucking little pervert” was only 
one of many insults Lisa hurled at him. As serious as Lisa might be at the 
moment, both she and Ken knew that her insults were not what she really thought 
of him, they simply were part of the mood they needed to make his punishments 
truly satisfying.

As for Lisa, the punishments gave her a way to vent her anger and frustrations, as 
well as satisfy her craving for combining cruelty and dominance with physical 
stimulation and sex. She loved attacking Ken by jumping on him, digging her 
fingernails into his skin, slapping him hard across the face, and above all, 
viciously pinching him. All that was on top of punishing his bottom, 
photographing him, and telling him what a little pervert he was for getting so 
aroused. The savage animal in Lisa's being had escaped its cage and now roamed 
freely in her room whenever Ken was there. The inner tension in Lisa's soul was 
gone now that she had a partner who could satisfy her. She was much happier 
than she had been in a very long time.

With that Lisa concluded her response to Cecilia's doubts. There was no question 
that Mike was smarter, more worldly, and had a stronger character than Ken, but 
none of that mattered. It was Ken who satisfied her needs. It was Ken who was 
feeding her inner animal.

Cecilia shook her head. Most of that stuff Lisa was doing to Ken she couldn't 
even imagine doing to Jason. Her boyfriend did enjoy being spanked, but what 
Jason considered erotic paled in comparison to what Ken wanted. During an 
erotic spanking, the moderate pain from the smacks of her hand or the leather 
paddle were only one out of many ingredients of a much more complicated 
experience, which also included caresses, sensuality, foreplay, and love. The raw 
meanness Lisa inflicted on Ken was absent from the sessions during which 
Cecilia spanked Jason.

----------

Jason's public responsibilities took him to Indianapolis the second Saturday of 
February, where there was yet another conference for naturists concerned about 
increasing the appeal of nudism to college-age people. The conference not only 
emphasized the idea of nudism as a fitness movement, but also its philosophy and 
perceived conflicts with organized religion. It was a far-reaching conference that 
also sought to address some of the moralistic arguments being used in the US to 
keep the movement as restricted as possible.

Jason's part of the presentation would be to discuss his love of exercising in the 
nude, and how, without any prompting from anyone else, he had become 
accustomed to being naked at home while he was still in high school. The point he 
was making was that he considered himself fortunate because his privileged 
upbringing allowed him to have the privacy to pursue his beliefs. His argument 
was that other young people should have the choice of exercising naked 
regardless of social class or privacy and society needed to accommodate that 
need. He would conclude by citing research about Danubian high school students 
who exercised nude in their gym classes. The research clearly demonstrated that 
the typical Danubian high school student led a lifestyle that was far healthier and 
free from vices than the lifestyle led by a typical student in the US and did not 
have the same sexual hang-ups.

When Jason informed Cecilia that a representative of the Danubian Clergy was 
planning to be present to discuss traditional Danubian values and the Church's 
attitude towards nudity, her interest in going was sparked. She was curious to see 
a Danubian religious leader in real life, given the Church's importance in the 
society of the Duchy. She dropped her idea of trying to get out of going, instead 
asking permission from Burnside to be excused from any duties to the economics 
department that weekend. She would go, partly out of curiosity about Upper 
Danubia, and partly because she wanted to see why Jason was becoming such a 
popular speaker at nudist events. The two couples piled into Ken's car and drove 
into Indiana towards the state's capitol. Suzanne, who originally had planned to 
travel with the group, had a contract to take pictures and already was at the 
conference site getting set up. 

The conference was at a rented country club, which made the entire affair surreal 
to Cecilia. Outside there was nothing unusual about the entrance; it was just a 
parking lot full of cars like anywhere else. Inside was a different story. There 
were lines of people checking in, still dressed in winter clothing. However, 
beyond the check-in there was a sign that read:

“Nudity required beyond this point”

Beyond that sign, not a single person was wearing anything except shoes. It was 
when Cecilia saw the sign it hit her that she would have to surrender her clothes 
and, for the first time in her life, appear naked in front of a bunch of people, most 
of them much older, who did not know her. She struggled to catch her breath, 
thinking: what the fuck have I gotten myself into? It was too late to reconsider; 
now she had to go through with it. 

As Cecilia nerved herself to go into the women's locker room, she saw Suzanne 
off in the distance, loaded down, as usual, with her photography supplies. Apart 
from the black camera bag straps crisscrossing her shoulders, she was as naked as 
anyone else in the corridor. Cecilia called out to her, and she waved back. 
Suddenly Cecilia became more concerned about talking to Suzanne than anything 
else, so she rushed into the locker room and quickly pulled off her clothes. As the 
cool air hit her bare body, she felt extremely exposed and vulnerable, but she 
quickly ran out to greet her friend. 

Cecilia posed for a snapshot with Jason and Suzanne, the three students standing 
completely naked arm-in-arm. Only later would Cecilia see a huge irony in the 
photo, standing as she was between her boyfriend and her one-time lover. Lisa 
and Ken stood together for another picture, her fit, deeply tanned body contrasting 
with Ken's somewhat lighter skin. Fortunately the couple had toned down their 
sexual adventures prior to coming to the event, so Ken's skin was unmarked. 
Cecilia noticed Ken glancing at her body, and then remembered he had never seen 
her without her clothes before. The closest he came was that night he saw her in 
her underwear during the Poker game when she had battled Lisa and narrowly 
won.

Cecilia's initial unease diminished after a few minutes. While Jason took off to 
meet with the group organizers, Suzanne recruited her friend to help her with her 
equipment, carry camera bags, and reload film. Cecilia stuck close to the 
photographer, grateful to have something to do that kept her mind off the fact she 
was naked for the first time in her life in front of hundreds of strangers. It also 
helped that Suzanne was equally naked, looking perfectly at ease as her 
statuesque body moved about the main conference room.

It was mid Saturday afternoon when the first of two presentations that interested 
Cecilia was given, the speech by the Danubian Clergy. A severe-looking older 
man, accompanied by a somewhat younger but equally severe-looking female 
companion, entered the room. Both were dressed in their religious outfits: a long 
black robe with a tall hat for him, and a long black dress for her. The dress looked 
like a typical Danubian formal gown, except the color. Cecilia later learned that 
the Danubian Clergy had to wear their religious garb whenever performing 
official duties or representing the Church. That was why, even at a nudist 
conference, they had to stay dressed. 

Cecilia then had the shock of her life. Cynthia Lee followed the priest and 
priestess onto the stage. She was completely naked. The two representatives of the 
Danubian Clergy stood at attention while she moved in front of them, knelt, and 
touched her head to the floor. Then she stood up. The two Clergy members 
saluted her and she saluted back. It turned out that Cynthia was a convert to the 
Danubian Church. She really was taking Danubia seriously.

Cynthia and the Priestess took their position at the main podium, while the older 
man stood behind them. The purpose of the arrangement became evident when 
the woman started speaking in heavily accented English. Cynthia was there to 
make sure she could be understood and translate any questions posed by the 
audience. The Priest was there to back her up if she had any theological doubts, 
but the presentation would be mainly her show.

The Priestess gave a brief history of the Danubian Church, but quickly moved to 
the topic of interest to the conference, the role of public nudity in Upper Danubia 
and how it was viewed by the Clergy.

It turned out the Danubian Church was accepting of nudity under certain 
circumstances. People performing religious duties such as public penance or 
ancestral remembrance marches used nudity as a way to distinguish themselves 
from people living everyday lives. To the Danubian religion, to be naked was to 
humble oneself before the Creator and the Spirits of the Ancients. The Priestess 
was well-aware that the attitude of the Danubian Clergy horrified many foreign 
religious leaders who viewed the uncovered body as something shameful and 
definitely not something to be openly incorporated as part of the believer's 
personal atonement. The Danubians, on the other hand, were horrified by other 
cultures that had placed such a huge emphasis on the fashion industry and the 
“evil worship of cloth”.

To emphasize her point the Priestess held up several glossy fashion magazines. 

“This how we the Danubian view the Sin! This the real Sin, the material worship 
of thing no made by Creator! No made by Creator, but capitalist say we must give 
much money to company, and we must worship the cloth, no worship the Creator. 
This…the capitalist Sin!”

With that the Priestess tore the magazines and threw them to the ground. It was a 
rather shocking display, the Danubian version of a fire-and-brimstone sermon 
attacking the fashion industry and its materialistic values.

The leaders of the conference had invited the Danubian Church representatives to 
encourage the conference attendees and reporters covering the event to see the 
issue of religious morality in a different light. The Priestess's angry tearing of the 
fashion magazines to emphasize her point certainly caught the attention of the 
audience and of several reporters filming her. The Danubian priestess was 
presenting a moralistic and philosophical counter-argument to much of what was 
being preached in the US about the human body, which was why she was there. 
She wanted to get her audience to urge the people of the US to re-assess their 
priorities.

----------

Jason was at the podium shortly afterwards, with a much more light-hearted 
portion of the presentation. He was an excellent and very likable speaker. Cecilia 
watched him with intense interest, wanting to see her boyfriend in action. He 
commanded the stage and the room, surprising her with his on-stage charisma. He 
joked with the audience, told amusing antidotes, and confidently moved back and 
forth between serious thoughts and humorous ones. 

Dang…he's good, thought Cecilia to herself as the audience chuckled and 
clapped.

Jason continued with some jokes about the Tri-Alpha run and gestured to his 
fellow-runners Ken and Lisa, who were sitting in the audience. A light shined on 
them as they stood up and waved to the group. Jason's presentation concluded 
shortly afterwards, to much cheering and applause.

There were other presentations, but Cecilia missed them. Suzanne quickly drafted 
her to help move some lighting, pulling her away from Lisa and Ken. As she 
walked down the hallway following her friend, she had time to reflect about how 
much Jason really was changing. She had known about his changes since the 
beginning of the spring semester, but now she had actually witnessed it, seeing 
him perform so well in public. Jason was completely self-confident and clearly 
enjoyed himself on stage. For half an hour he had captivated a room of nearly 400 
people.

It was at that moment, as she walked down the hallway studying Suzanne's bare 
backside, Cecilia had an awful realization…Jason isn't gonna belong to me after 
all. It just isn't gonna happen. I’m not gonna be able to have that kind of 
relationship with him, not with the way he's goin'. 

The relationship she had envisioned, where he would be kneeling and meekly 
obeying her commands…there was no way he would be able to give that to her. 
His character was too strong. 

Cecilia had to reflect on her situation alone. She excused herself from Suzanne 
and looked for a place she could think in peace for a few minutes. Finally she 
found an indoor tennis court that was empty and poorly lit. The court reminded 
her of Jason's mother and the Schmidts' moribund lifestyle, but she pushed that 
thought aside to deal with her own inner turmoil.

Cecilia realized she was very frightened. She had promised herself that never 
again would she allow a relationship to take over her life, but now, with Jason, 
that was precisely what had happened. She had wanted to change him, and indeed 
did change him, but not into what she had anticipated. The changes in his 
character were because of her, because she had forced him to overcome his 
weaknesses and stop hating himself. She had made it impossible for him to fail, 
because she wanted to create a partner who would not be a loser. She had created 
a person whom she could respect, showed real potential for success, and could 
contribute to the world. But in doing all that, she had lost her control over him.

What a huge irony. In trying to control him and mold his character, Cecilia had 
ended up setting Jason free from his own failings. In setting him free from his 
own failings, she had made him much more difficult to control. He had 
accomplished too much, and there were too many other people and events 
influencing his life, for him to become the meek servant she had wanted back in 
September.

And yet…and yet…she knew that he still desperately needed her. Without her, he 
would not be asking the big questions about his life and reassessing the values he 
had grown up with. Without her, he still would be tormenting himself over the 
death of Heather Jones and the fact his father held him in such disdain. Without 
her, he still lacked the drive to pass difficult classes on his own. Without her, his 
inner inertia would take control of him and make him do nothing. 

He still needed her. She knew that if anything were to force them to break up he 
would be devastated. Not just devastated, but broken. His weaknesses and 
character flaws, stronger than ever, would return to take over his life and ruin 
him. She couldn't leave him. She was committed to the relationship and 
committed to him. She also realized she was committed to changing herself to 
accommodate her life with him. She had to accept the fact there were things he 
could teach her and ways over time he might influence her own life and values. 
Yes, in fact he already had changed her, much more than she previously had 
realized.

The question she now faced was; how could she let go of her obsessions and 
fears? How could she accept her life, now that her original plans were so 
completely undermined? Would she find happiness with him, even though he 
wasn't going to be the partner she had envisioned? Could she face down the inner 
terror that had been the root of everything she had done since she was 15, the fear 
that she once again would have to relinquish control of herself?

I ain't got no control, she kept thinking, I ain't got no control over my life, and that 
ain't what I wanted. It just ain't what I wanted. 

She began having flashbacks, thinking back to a time when she really did feel that 
she had no control over the direction of her life. 

I ain't your fuckin' bitch, Vicente. I just ain't…

Jason burst into the room, looking for her. Seeing her standing alone with a 
terrified look on her face made him assume that perhaps she had become 
intimidated by the conference and by being surrounded by so many naked people. 
However, the conference was the farthest thing from her mind at the moment. She 
made it very clear that it wasn't the conference that was bothering her. When he 
asked if there was something he could do for her, she thought for a minute, and 
finally responded.

“You can hold me, Jason. That's what you can do for me. You can hold me and 
don't never let go.”

For a very long time he did hold her, assuring her that he would be there for her, 
no matter what. He didn't bother to ask her what was wrong, because he knew she 
couldn't put it into words. There were things about her he would never 
understand, but he didn't care. 

Finally, she pulled out of her strange mood and kissed him. She gave him that 
loving look and sarcastic smile, kissed him again, and with that they went out to 
find the other members of their group.

----------

The following morning the group headed back to Chicago. They studied during 
the afternoon, but Jason asked Cecilia to come to his room at 7:00. Cecilia 
wondered why he would want her over there so early, but she decided to satisfy 
her curiosity and show up at his door at 7:00.

When she walked in there was a loud “Surprise!” She looked around and noticed 
a banner reading “Feliz Cumplea?os” and a small cake sitting on Jason's desk, 
with 20 lit candles burning on its top. Lisa, Ken, and Suzanne, each holding a 
small gift, accompanied Jason. 

Cecilia had forgotten that she was turning 20 that day. It had been such a long 
time since anyone had celebrated her birthday that she barely noticed the passing 
of the years in her life. Her birthday simply was another day that came and went, 
another date on the calendar indistinguishable from any other day. Tonight, on her 
20th birthday, that pattern was to be broken. It turned out that Jason had learned 
her birthday by sneaking a peek at her student ID several weeks before and had 
told the others, thus allowing them to prepare a small surprise. It wasn't much, just 
a cake, a banner, and four gifts, but it was more celebrating Cecilia had been 
given for a birthday since she turned 15.

She was overcome with emotion, because the surprise had been total. Because she 
never thought about her birthday, she figured no one else would think about it 
either. She had been wrong about that, since there were four people in the dorm 
who did care about celebrating her 20 years on the planet.

Jason's gift was something Cecilia actually wanted and had been planning to buy 
for herself, a Danubian shawl to go with her formal dress. The shawl was made of 
expensive linen and imported from Upper Danubia. Upon seeing it, he could tell 
that she was genuinely excited about it and eager to see how it would look with 
her dress.

Lisa cut up the cake and passed it out, Suzanne took some pictures, Cecilia said 
thank you to her companions and hugged them, and with that her first birthday 
party in five years concluded. She escorted Jason back to her room so she could 
model her new shawl with her dress. To him it was very strange seeing her in her 
Danubian get-up, because she looked so different in that dress than she did in her 
normal knee-length skirts and tight blouses. 

Cecilia carefully took off her dress and hung it up with her new shawl. Only her 
thong remained covering her body, and she approached Jason, signaling he would 
have the honor of lowering it that night. He did so, admiring her flawless dark 
body. He stood up and hugged her. She pulled back slightly, so he could see her 
dark eyes and sarcastic smile.

“I'm in my birthday suit, and it's my birthday, and maybe I've been just a bit 
naughty. So, what are you gonna do about that, Jason? What are you gonna do 
about it?”

She was breathing heavily and he could feel her heart pounding. She was in a very 
strange mood, but was obvious what she wanted. She wanted him to celebrate her 
20th birthday with a birthday spanking. The moment Jason had waited for had 
come, the moment she would go over his lap.

To make absolutely sure he understood what she was asking from him, he ran his 
hands down her back to her bottom. He gently rubbed and patted both sides, very 
softly mimicking a spanking motion. A sensuous sigh gave him his answer. Yes 
indeed, she wanted to go over his lap.

He sat down on the bed, reached up, and grabbed her hand. He pulled her across 
his thighs and positioned her so that her backside was nicely displayed, with her 
bottom cheeks relaxed and her legs slightly spread. He ran his hand over both 
sides and gently explored the sensitive skin in between. She sighed again. There 
was no tightening of her muscles and no hint she would try to resist.

She was ready to be spanked. The only doubt in Jason's mind was how hard she 
wanted her bottom to be slapped. He already had decided on the number of slaps: 
20, since it was to be a birthday spanking.

He continued exploring her right bottom cheek with the palm of his hand, but 
began building up the tension by patting her soft dark flesh.

“So, are we keeping count, Cecilia?”

“Uh-huh…”

SMACK!… “One!” SMACK!… “Two!”

Jason had landed a crisp slap on each side, and paused to gently caress his target 
before spanking it again.

SMACK!… “Three!” SMACK!… “Four!” SMACK!… “Five!” SMACK!… 
“Six!”

He paused to let the sting sink in and change over to a comfortable warm burning. 
With loving attention he absorbed every detail: the feel of her beating heart, the 
first smell of her arousal, the sight of her sweaty skin, the sound of her tensed 
breathing and very faint groans. She was scared and excited, wanting to 
experience first-hand what Jason was feeling when she put him over her lap. Now 
it was her turn, and she was loving it.

SMACK!… “Seven!” SMACK!… “Eight!” SMACK!… “Nine!” SMACK!… 
“Ten!”

He noticed a reddish tint in her brown skin as he gently rubbed her and waited for 
the stinging to fade into that wonderful burning that so many spanking enthusiasts 
seek as the fulfillment of sexual desire. He was gentle with her, but firm with his 
slaps. They had to sting for the experience to be real for her.

“So, how's it feel to be the naughty birthday girl?”

“…Mmmm…” 

She smiled slightly and wiggled her bottom to let him know she was ready to 
continue.

SMACK!… “Eleven!” SMACK!… “Twelve!” SMACK!… “Thirteen!” 
SMACK!… “Fourteen!”

He continued gently massaging, now expanding his explorations to the very wet 
region between her legs. He teased her clitoris, but just for a second, just long 
enough to force her to turn her bottom up in a desperate effort to make contact 
with his fingers. She was nicely spread, her bottom-hole on full display.

SMACK!… “Fifteen!” SMACK!… “Sixteen!” SMACK!… “Seventeen!” 
SMACK!… “Eighteen!”

“Well, it looks like we've gotten you through high school. But you know that 
college has been a lot harder. It's the last two years that really count, don't you 
think?”

“Uh-huh…” 

She sighed as he again brushed her clitoris with his fingertips. Once again she 
pushed her pelvis upwards, desperately seeking his fingertips with her vagina. 
Oh…she was so aroused…

SMACK!… “Nineteen!” SMACK!… “Twenty!”

By the twentieth slap she had a nice reddish color in her bottom, which looked 
truly sexy as it contrasted with the unmarked brown skin of her thighs and back. 
He kissed the sweaty, warm, swollen skin and was rewarded with a gasp.

“Jason! Take me! Please take me!”

“Not quite, Cecilia. You know good things come to those who wait.” 

With that he very gently brushed her entire vagina with his fingertips, and then 
leaned down to kiss her bottom. He made her get up and swept her up in his arms. 
He gently laid her back on the bed and again brushed her vagina with his 
fingertips. It was with total desperation that she watched him take off his clothes 
and slip on a condom. He kissed her, and finally gave her the long-awaited 
reward, thrusting as she groaned with delight and moved about furiously 
underneath him. She gasped as the soft burning heat in her bottom warmed her 
entire soul and filled her with sexual desire. She climaxed, but Jason stayed in 
long enough to climax a second time. By the time he finished, both of them were 
completely exhausted.

She cuddled up to him and fell asleep. For once it was not Jason's bottom that was 
sore but Cecilia's. He was immensely happy, because he understood that 
something significant had happened that night when she went over his lap. She 
had opened herself up to him and, for a few minutes, however brief they might 
have been, submitted to him. He was well-aware that she had never intended to 
surrender herself at the beginning of the relationship, but things between them 
were changing. She had learned that she would need to trust him, and in trusting 
him would discover the real meaning of love and happiness.

----------

February ended with another public appearance for Jason in St. Louis. Unlike his 
previous appearances, Jason was dressed, since he was addressing a college 
crowd in an auditorium on campus, and his presentation was part of a symposium 
titled “The Philosophy and Practice of Fashion in Modern America.” Jason’s 
audience was a very mixed group, ranging from students who were receptive to 
public nudity to ones who were downright hostile to the idea. 

Jason was dressed in one of his better suits and struck a very dignified image for 
an 18-year old. However, the truth was he felt much more at ease speaking in the 
nude than he felt speaking wearing a suit. Given that he was not speaking to an 
audience of fellow nudists, and that he was standing before the harsh judgment of 
people his own age, he realized that the St. Louis presentation would be by far the 
most difficult one he had given so far.

Jason’s presentation was restricted in other ways. He knew many of the jokes that 
drew laughter from fellow nudists would fall flat to an audience not familiar with 
the quirks and inside humor of the movement. In the end Jason realized that he 
had better set aside any attempt at humor and give a straightforward appeal to the 
idea of accepting nudism as a lifestyle.

To prepare his speech he decided to draw upon the experience of the one country 
where public nudity was a part of daily life, the Grand Duchy of Upper Danubia. 
He was able to cite the Danubian Church’s view on the matter and the sect’s 
hostility towards the fashion industry, incorporating much of the sermon given the 
previous week by that Danubian Priestess. He was able to draw upon the fact that 
swimsuits were actually illegal in the Duchy and that families spent their summers 
at public beaches in the nude and thought nothing of it. He decided to leave out 
the fact that criminals also were punished be being denied the right to wear any 
clothing during their sentences, because he wanted to play up the positive aspects 
of nudity in the Duchy, not the negative ones. However, he anticipated being 
questioned about that, and asked Cecilia to write Kimberly Lee and get her 
perspective on the Duchy’s use of mandatory nudity to punish criminals.

Kim wrote back that the reasoning behind forcing criminals to be naked 
throughout their sentences was two-fold. First of all, it made them easy to 
identify. It also was a useful means to reform petty thieves, because upon being 
sentenced they had no clothing in which they could conceal weapons or stolen 
items. Much of the temptation to continue stealing disappeared because it was so 
difficult for a naked person to take anything and not be noticed. 

The second reason behind the sentencing practice was the Danubian religious 
concept of humility. The Danubians believed that most criminals acted out of 
selfishness, which was the logical outcome of an over-developed sense of pride 
and entitlement. The criminal’s sentence was designed to strip the criminal’s soul 
by stripping his body, and in doing so force him to accept the fact he had no 
reason to be proud and was not entitled to anything.

Jason gave his speech, dividing his time on stage between his personal 
experiences and the collective experience of the Danubian nation. At the end of 
his speech, sure enough, he was questioned about Danubian sentencing practices 
and was prepared with an answer. When his critic interjected his objections to 
Jason’s comment about the Danubian justice system, he responded:

“The Danubians have their way of looking at the world and doing things that has 
kept that nation going for 3000 years. They still have the lowest crime rate in the 
world, so obviously there’s something they’re doing right. What is it that makes 
your values superior to theirs? What is it that makes them wrong and you right?”

Jason surprised himself with his response, which threw the hostile question right 
back into his critic’s face and silenced him. Jason won that small confrontation 
and succeeded with his goal, to get his audience to re-examine their own values 
about clothing, fashion, and the human body. He left St. Louis with his reputation 
as an effective public speaker enhanced and his own self-confidence boosted even 
more.

----------

Since the beginning of the year, the Jason pondered what he should do about the 
CD of pornographic images taped to the back of the drawer of his desk. Although 
he had fantasized about presenting the CD to Cecilia and getting her to punish 
him over it, he realized that perhaps the time for doing that had passed. She had 
not given him a belt-whipping since the fall semester, and Jason sensed that she 
really had no further desire to do so. The relationship was changing and slowly 
Cecilia was becoming his equal. More and more she was letting down her guard 
and exposing her vulnerabilities to him, more and more she wanted to be held and 
re-assured. Jason realized the relationship was becoming much more “normal” 
than it had been when they were starting out.

Finally he did take the CD off the back of his drawer and spent a long time sitting 
with it, fingering its blue surface. Then, suddenly, he held it over his trash can and 
bent it with both hands. It shattered with a loud crack, exploding into plastic 
shards that shot into the can. There…it was done. Jason’s final secret from his 
girlfriend now was nothing more than a bunch of sharp pieces of plastic sitting in 
the trash.

Even though the CD no longer existed, for some reason he felt the need to tell her 
about the incident. With the CD broken and the relationship changing, he doubted 
she would lose her temper, but still, he was curious to see what would happen. On 
the very first day of March he told her, and even though he had not known what to 
expect, was surprised by her response.

“Jason, I don’t have any right to be pissed at you over that, not if you don’t have 
that CD any more.”

“No, I busted it in the trash, and I didn’t make any other copies, and now I’m 
telling the truth.”

For a long time Cecilia sat looking at the floor, obviously struggling with 
something she was trying to decide whether or not she should tell him in 
response. Without looking up, she began speaking:

“Well then, it’s my turn to confess somethin’ to you, which is why I don’t have no 
right to be mad about a CD. Last fall, there was somethin’ kinda important I hid 
from you…”

Cecilia took a deep breath and continued.

“Do you remember, them days after Halloween, I wouldn’t let you see my ass? 
That I didn’t want any massages and I blindfolded you when we had sex so you 
couldn’t see me? Do you remember that?

“Yes, I remember that. I thought you’d gotten bored with the massages or 
something.”

“No, that’s not it. I…I didn’t want you seeing me ‘cause…my butt…it was all 
marked up. I did something…something just plain stupid…and I…I got in a lot of 
trouble with the department…I mean like…a lot of trouble…and Dr. Burnside 
had to go up in front of the ethics committee, and beg them to let me off, and she 
got me out of it, and she fucked herself doin’ it. Afterwards she was really pissed, 
and I was all scared, but she got me out of trouble…”

“But what was it? What’d you do?”

Cecilia explained how she accessed the midterm on Burnside’s computer and how 
the university’s examination tracking system caught her. Then she continued:

“Anyhow, after the ethics committee said they weren’t gonna kick me out…what 
Dr. Burnside told me…was that she was gonna whip my ass, ‘cause I got her in so 
much trouble. She wanted to punish me, but she didn’t want it going in my record, 
so she found another way to do it.”

Cecilia then admitted that, right under Jason’s nose, she had endured two physical 
punishments at the hands of her professor, including the severe switching she 
received on Halloween. She described it in detail along with the party that 
followed, and concluded with her efforts to keep him from finding out about it.

“I feel bad about all this, ‘cause that’s when I was tryin’ to make you think I was 
perfect. I wanted you to think I was fuckin’ perfect, and here I was, nearly gettin’ 
my ass kicked out of the university. I wanted to fool you…and I did fool you, and 
now I don’t feel good about it.”

Jason paused for a long time, trying to think how he should respond. He was 
shocked by how quickly Cecilia’s defenses were coming down, how quickly her 
vulnerabilities were being exposed to him. He knew that he was seeing the real 
Cecilia Sanchez, the very flawed, frightened young woman who was hiding 
behind the fearsome fa?ade she had used to protect herself for the last five years. 
She had given him peek behind that fa?ade, and in doing so had placed herself at 
his mercy.

“So, I guess we’re still even, then, aren’t we?”

He took her hand. She nodded, trying to force a smile while holding back some 
tears.

“I guess so, Jason. I guess we’re just even.”

