The Wanderings of Amy
Copyright 2002, 2004 by EC
http://www.ecgraphicarts.com
(Warnings: Adult sex, erotic discipline, public nudity)

Chapter 19 - Burnside's Ghosts

Leaving Burnside's house, Amy, Paul, and Wendy were too tired to notice that the 
front door stayed open a couple of inches until they drove off. The professor 
quietly watched the three students as they made their way down her sidewalk; 
Paul and Amy holding hands and Wendy close to Amy. She watched Paul open 
up the back passenger door for Wendy and the front one for Amy. She watched 
Paul get into the driver's seat and close his door. He turned on the ignition and 
they were gone.

The silent woman in the doorway thought about Amy for a few minutes, and 
about the huge break she had given her that night. Was that student really so 
special? Did she really deserve all the attention and chances her professor had 
given her? She saw something in Amy, something that set her apart, but what?

Burnside's thoughts turned to Paul. He truly loved Amy. The professor reflected 
that she never had a boyfriend like him. Her love of fetish and her violent temper 
had made any normal relationship out of reach for Ruth Burnside. Sure, she had 
enjoyed plenty of sexual relationships. She loved sex and always had at least one 
lover at all times in her life; usually more than one. But she never had experienced 
having a boyfriend walk her to his car, holding her hand, and opening the door for 
her.

She had big plans for Amy, which fortunately had not been derailed by her 
student’s failure to comply with the student aide contract. Still, the professor felt a 
pang of regret that her plans probably would force Amy to break up with Paul.

Burnside closed her front door and contemplated the mess in the living room and 
kitchen she had to deal with. She walked over to her coffee maker and helped 
herself to what was left of the coffee. The coffee tasted bitter after having sat out 
all night. Appropriate. Matches my mood.

Burnside took a shower and stood looking at herself in her hallway mirror. My 
fucking tits, she thought; God they look nasty. Just a few years ago she had been 
proud of her large breasts. They still looked all right in a bra or corset. But 
recently they had fallen. Loose, they sagged like two partially deflated water 
balloons, according to the woman’s critical view of herself. Her skeptical eye 
scanned the rest of her body. It still looked OK. But for how much longer? 
Menopause was staring her in the face. Two, maybe three years more at the most. 
Then she would look like shit. Just another single old woman. With that on her 
mind she crawled in bed.

She could not sleep. She was up after a few minutes, dressed in a sweatsuit. She 
did what she always did when she was depressed; turn on CNBC. As an 
economist, the lies and cheerleading coming out of CNBC and the other stock 
channels held a morbid fascination for her. What a bunch of bullshit, she thought. 
These people belong in jail, promoting stocks that could not hold their value, 
predicting big things for sectors of the economy that were already over-inflated. 

She stared quietly at the screen, remembering her own bitter experience with 
“high finance”, and what happens when foresight gets in the way of profits. Dr. 
Ruth Burnside saw the telecommunications crash coming, long before the sector 
peaked. The law of supply and demand. Wasn't anyone paying attention? Too 
much capacity was being built, too many losses being hidden in acquisitions. Yes, 
she saw it all coming, and tried to warn the public. The only reward she got for 
trying to tell the truth was to be blacklisted from the stock channels. They wanted 
cheerleaders, not the truth. Yes, she had been right, but in the end it didn’t matter. 
Her warnings went unheard, and all those investors (the small ones, that is) lost 
out.

The embittered economist sipped her cold, bitter coffee as she sat listlessly before 
the TV, listening to the latest flood of lies spewing out. Men, especially, seemed 
to be real suckers for this crap. The female announcer had just the right mix of 
beauty and professional appearance to play to male egos. The professor felt that 
she could put herself in the heads of the men watching this actress pretending to 
be an analyst. 

Yeah. They were going to be the next Rockefeller by watching CNBC.

The new economy. The new era. New technology. What total shit. The 
fundamentals never change; they haven't in over 500 years. Go back to the law of 
supply and demand. Look at history, that's where you will find the truth about the 
"new economy". But no one was listening.

After torturing herself with CNBC and cold coffee for an hour, Burnside noticed 
it was light outside. Time to walk the dog.

Old Maynard was on the back porch. The dog, named after the famous economist 
John Maynard Keynes, was 17, and looked it. His muzzle was white, his eyes 
covered with cataracts. The dog wagged his tail feebly and struggled to his feet.

Maynard, you're not looking too good today, thought Burnside. The animal 
seemed to perk up when he saw the leash. The dog’s owner was relieved. She had 
promised herself the day Maynard did not care about his walk would be the day 
he would have to be put to sleep.

---------- 

The professor reflected about her past as she slowly walked behind her decrepit 
dog. For the first time in a while her thoughts went back to her childhood. She 
thought about her religious, optimistic parents. They were so naive. They were 
suckered time and time again, with their house, with their cars, with their 
insurance, with their investments. No matter how many times her father was 
ripped off, he always seemed to maintain his faith in the goodness of humanity 
and the generosity of God. The family lived in poverty, not because there was no 
money, but because her father was such an idiot about spending it. There always 
seemed to be bums hanging around, asking her parents for handouts. Invariably 
they received what they wanted. Ruth and her sister may not have had enough to 
eat, but the bums always got theirs.

Ruth Burnside grew up hating many things. She hated weak people, and she hated 
optimists. She hated people who looked on the bright side of things, because the 
bright side of life was something she never experienced. 

From a very early age Ruth hated her parents, a hatred that eventually expanded 
to everything associated with their lifestyle and beliefs. She hated their fake 
cheerfulness, she hated their optimism, she hated their religion. She hated her 
used clothes and meals of Hamburger Helper. She hated seeing the money that 
should have been used to make her and her sister comfortable instead go to all 
those fucking bums. She hated being told that God smiled upon those who made 
sacrifices for the less fortunate. Ruth developed a foul temper and a controlling 
disposition, even at an early age.

Ruth’s feelings towards her parents were more hostile contempt than actual 
hatred, but towards their pastor she felt nothing but pure loathing. She blamed her 
church for making her parents into hapless puppets who were detached from any 
sense of reality. The sight of that deranged man screaming at his pulpit week after 
week, with his eyes wide with fanatical belief and sweat pouring down his face, 
did much more to make Ruth into an atheist than anything she could have learned 
in her science classes.

----------

As she strolled behind Maynard, waiting for him to dump, the professor's 
thoughts turned to sex and S&M. Her interest in sex first began as an act of 
rebellion against her parents. Of course, in her household anything having to do 
with sexual expression was savagely condemned. The message was pounded into 
her and her sister constantly, not just by her parents, but also by her shrieking 
pastor and various Bible-study leaders.

At a very early age Ruth engaged in sexual play with other young teenagers, 
precisely because she knew that she was violating the most strongly-felt values of 
her parents and defying the most treasured beliefs of her pastor and bible-study 
leader. The girl’s plunge into sexual adventure was not something she drifted into; 
it was a decision she took on her own. Sex became Ruth’s early obsession in life. 
She became as fanatical about sexuality as her parents were about their religion. 
Ruth pursued her secret life with combination of research at the library and sexual 
play with her friends. She took advantage of every opportunity to find out what 
she could and already had picked up a surprising amount of information by the 
time she was only 13. Even before she finished middle school Ruth knew more 
about sex than most adults.

Ruth’s friends were a group of neighborhood boys, some of who were slightly 
older than she was. They began experimenting when the older boys reached 
puberty. Ruth, at age eleven, started to use the boys' interest in sex and the fact 
that she was the only girl in the group to control them. Ruth's increasing control 
over the boys was a gradual process. She learned to play on their weaknesses. The 
boys learned that everything with Ruth had its price. She loved forcing the boys to 
strip completely, sometimes in exchange for something as small as a kiss. 
Anything more than that had a much heavier price. 

By the time she was 13, Ruth became interested in punishing her group-mates. 
She used her own body to bargain punishments with her friends. From the group 
there was one boy in particular with whom she spent her time. He let her punish 
him as much as she wanted. His parents were never home until after six, so Ruth 
and her friend spent hours at his house after school. He was the only boy in the 
group for whom she took off all of her clothes. She let him feel and kiss her body. 
She started to experiment with massaging him. Ruth's price for letting him see 
and touch her was that he had to lie naked on the sofa while she slapped his 
bottom and legs. She told him that he could not get up until she allowed him to. If 
he did, she would never let him see her again. She had him under her control.

Ruth's love of this fetish quickly increased. She loved the sense of control that she 
had over her friend. Hitting him seemed to give her power that she did not have in 
any other area of her life. She loved the sight of his naked adolescent body, 
covered with pink marks and squirming on the sofa. After a couple of months 
Ruth found an excuse to punish him with his father's belt. The sight of the reddish 
belt marks on her friend's bottom excited her even more.

Ruth's friend desperately wanted to have sex with her. Slowly she used his desire 
as a bargaining chip for more severe punishments. She experimented spanking 
him with other household items such as breadboards and bath brushes. She began 
to experiment with different positions, such as having him bend over a chair. She 
delighted in forcing him to do risky things such as streak outside around the 
house. A couple of times she locked him outside nude, and forced him to stand at 
the back door negotiating what he had to do to be let back in. Very slowly she let 
him do more and more with her, but the exchange was always in her favor.

Finally, after two years, Ruth let him get inside of her. After the first time she 
loved it. She learned at a very early age the joys of combining pleasure and pain.

The first time was on a hot summer day. Ruth and her friend decided to go out 
into the nearby forest park. She could tell he was desperate to have her. They 
walked a long way and came upon a growth of willows. Ruth suddenly 
remembered that willows were what you make switches out of. While her friend 
watched nervously, she cut some and cleaned off the bark. They found a clearing 
with a fallen tree lying on the ground. Suddenly she turned to him and took his 
hand.

"Do you still want me?"

He nodded.

"You gotta to prove it. Get your clothes off."

Ruth took hers off as well. The boy bent over the dead tree and she began 
switching him. The stripes on his bottom were darker than anything she had seen 
before. She was totally aroused. The feel of the hot sun against her own body 
exhilarated her even more. She grabbed his shirt and threw it on the ground. She 
kissed him and massaged him until he was totally hard. She lost her virginity on 
his shirt. The blood fascinated her, even though it was her own. She did not enjoy 
the pain of the first time, but she knew it got better once the first time was out of 
the way. She made him wear the bloody shirt on the way back.

From that point she had several sexual relationships in school. However, she did 
not want a normal relationship with tenderness and commitment. What she 
wanted was the feeling of control that always accompanied punishing her 
boyfriends. At that time Ruth's sister worked in a pharmacy and was able to 
supply her with condoms, so in high school Ruth stayed out of trouble. Taking a 
whipping and wearing a condom, those were to two conditions for anyone who 
wanted to have sex with Ruth Burnside. She was surprised how many of her 
classmates were desperate enough for sex to be willing to meet her two 
conditions.

Ruth spent much of her youth avidly studying S&M literature. When she was 16 
one of her old group-mates got a job at a bookstore and was able to get her some 
books on S&M, both fiction and pictures. The pictures with leather interested her. 
She loved the black clothing and its contrast with white skin. She still could not 
get into the adult bookstores to see this stuff for real. She had to wait another two 
years. But her imagination was fired. The feeling of control, of power, that she 
experienced by inflicting pain on guys desperate for sex filled her fantasy life.

Ruth took full advantage of her teenage classmates' desperation for sex. She made 
herself available to a lot of the guys who, for whatever reason, could not have 
anyone else. But there was always a cost. Sex was on Ruth's terms; a few minutes 
of pleasure in exchange for a punishment. By this time she had collected some 
breadboards, bath brushes, and belts and knew how to use them to maximum 
effect. She knew how to dominate her lovers. More than anything else in her life 
she loved the sight of a 16- or 17-year old classmate on his knees, nervously 
looking up at her, waiting.

----------

As a young teenager Ruth Burnside became as obsessed with money as she was 
with sex. She knew that understanding money was just as important as having it, 
just as understanding sex was just as important as experiencing it. Ruth’s early 
experience with money began as soon as she entered high school, a clandestine 
career that gave her much more control over her daily life than her parents could 
have envisioned or would have granted.

An unexpected result of Ruth’s fixation with learning about the forbidden topic 
was that, by age 14, her research skills matched those of many college students. 
When she entered high school Ruth already knew how to search through card 
catalogues, conduct investigations, and rapidly go through shelves of books for 
selected information. She became an expert at locating everything from obscure 
medical passages about sexual intercourse to sex scenes in novels. She had to 
learn how to search for the information by herself, because she was not about to 
let the library staff know what she was looking for.

High school research projects that daunted her classmates were nothing to Ruth. 
Upon entering the ninth grade, she began earning illicit income by writing term 
papers for various classmates. She did excellent original work that was not 
traceable as cheating and forced her customers to take the time to learn what was 
in the papers they were turning in to avoid being caught. As Ruth’s reputation 
spread her prices went up. She had no qualms about taking advantage of a 
classmate’s desperate situation to extort more money, or forcing two classmates to 
bid against each other to get a paper. Her knowledge of plagiarism and her total 
contempt for people unwilling to do their own work began at a very early age.

The most important lesson Ruth learned from her high school career of writing 
black-market term papers was the power having money could give her. As she 
increased her small hoard of cash, she learned that to have money was to have 
choices and freedom. No longer did she have to ask her parents for anything (not 
that she would have gotten it anyway), because whatever she wanted she could 
purchase with her own cash. Apart from items she could pass off as school 
supplies, she couldn’t buy anything expensive-looking that her parents would see 
at home. However, in her school locker she kept several pairs of new shoes, some 
books, cosmetics, a large collection of cassette tapes and a Walkman, and other 
small luxuries that would have outraged her parents and pastor. Whenever she 
wanted to get something expensive to eat, she bought it. By the time she finished 
high school the only thing she needed or wanted from her parents was a place to 
sleep.

Ruth Burnside graduated from high school with a vast knowledge of academic 
topics. However, her intelligence was not reflected in her grades, because she had 
spent so much of her time doing other people’s work instead of her own. Her 
grades were slightly above average, but not outstanding and definitely not good 
enough to earn her any scholarships or grants. Of course, from her parents there 
would be no money for college. The church, the bums, and the con-artists had 
taken it. Like her sister before her, Ruth enlisted in the Navy and later would go to 
college on the GI bill.

----------

Just before she enlisted, Ruth celebrated her 18th birthday by touring several sex 
shops. She did not have enough money to buy the expensive items, but she would 
be in the Navy in a few weeks and then would have some income. Her ability to 
extract a heavy cost for sex took off when she put on her sailor's uniform. There 
was no shortage of desperate guys willing to do anything for a few minutes of sex 
in the Navy. Seaman Burnside now had money, so she could buy the leather sex 
toys she craved. The Navy gave her a steady supply of lovers to use them on, 
including a couple of officers.

Burnside reflected that it must have been in the Navy when everyone started 
calling her and thinking of her as Burnside instead of Ruth. Briefly, as an 
undergraduate, people did call her Ruth again, but she still thought of herself as 
Burnside, and signed all of her papers and correspondence with just her last name. 
By the time she entered graduate school, not many people even knew her first 
name.

Burnside liked the military. She liked the discipline and attitude about weakness. 
She liked having plenty of spending money. She liked her growing savings 
account. She would have stayed in had she not become pregnant. The pregnancy 
hit her a few months before her first contract was about to finish. She wanted an 
abortion, but her ship was at sea and she did not have access to a clinic until it 
was too late. Rather than sign up again, she returned to civilian life to wait out the 
pregnancy. She applied to several universities and lived off her savings until the 
baby was born.

She gave up the child for adoption. She had to, not because of her financial 
situation, but because she knew that her violent temper would make her an 
abusive parent. She cared for her daughter enough to know that she could not 
raise her. She was brutally honest about herself with the adoption agency. When 
her adoption counselor suggested that she seek help for controlling her anger, 
Burnside snapped "My temper is part of who I am. I can't fix it. That's why I'm 
here."

Burnside avoided sex for almost two and a half years after she had her daughter. 
She was disgusted with having allowed herself to become pregnant. She knew 
better. She punished herself by staying celibate until she finished her 
undergraduate degree.

Burnside's self-imposed punishment ended as soon as she had her undergraduate 
diploma. Her fantasies returned with a vengeance when she joined a Chicago sex 
group. She began to have longer-term relationships with other graduate students 
and professors who also were into fetish. One of her old professors, her first 
mentor Jim Halsey, was still her most trusted lover to this day, after nearly 20 
years. Burnside started hosting small S&M parties at her apartment. Those 
gatherings later evolved into the elaborate parties that she currently hosted three 
times a year at her house.

Burnside started college two weeks after the baby was born and disappeared from 
her life. She took double loads of classes, getting her undergraduate degree in just 
two and a half years. She had her Masters Degree in a year and a half, and her 
Ph.D. two years later. She was obsessive about studying and good at her classes 
and projects. She became a student aide and quickly bullied any of the students 
she felt were not working to their potential. By age 27 Dr. Burnside was teaching. 
By age 31 she was tenured.

---------- 

The final turn in Burnside's sex life took place when she became a teaching 
assistant. Having taken double-loads of classes as an undergraduate and still 
maintaining a GPA of 3.8, she had little sympathy for undergraduates who, taking 
half the classes per semester that she had taken, still could not handle the material. 
Nearly every undergraduate who came into her office complaining about her 
harsh grading was there because of personal irresponsibility. Burnside learned 
how to question the undergraduates to get out of them the fact that they had gone 
to a party the night before they took a test, or how they obtained a plagiarized 
term paper. She loved reducing irresponsible undergraduates to tears by probing 
them with their own words. It was only a matter of time before Burnside's 
dominating of irresponsible students went a step further.

Burnside was in her final semester getting her MA degree when she punished her 
first student. She remembered the incident with loving detail. It started when she 
graded a term-paper. She already had seen this paper four times before. It seemed 
to be circulating between two sororities. The first time she saw the paper the TA 
had graded it and returned it. The second time she saw the paper, she realized that 
she had been tricked. She was furious, but there was nothing she could do against 
the first user of the paper. The second, third, and fourth times she saw the paper 
resulted in expulsions of the users from the university. Now was the fifth time. It 
seems these stupid sorority bitches don't learn. Burnside laid out copies of the 
second, third, and fourth versions of the paper on her desk and waited for the fifth 
user to show up.

The girl's name was Jessica. The offender was not the stereotypical rich-bitch that 
Burnside most loved to humiliate. She was blond, but naturally. Her face and 
figure were so stunning that even the TA was attracted to her, but she carried 
herself in a quiet, shy manner.

The student came in to the instructor's office shaking. The TA, with her typical 
severe demeanor, silently pointed at the three previous versions of the paper. 
Burnside began sarcastically:

"Well, Jessica, it seems you took this class three times before, under different 
names. You really like the class that much?"

Jessica went white. There was no way that she could argue with the three term 
papers on the desk, staring at her like three witnesses. Burnside waved the 
student’s paper in the air and laid it next to the others.

"Looks like I have copy number four for my collection. You understand what 
happens next, right?"

Jessica did not break down crying like the others. Her voice trembled, but she 
clearly was determined to get out of her situation if at all possible.

"Ruth, please. I'll do anything for you. I...can't get kicked out."

"Well, you should have thought about that before you turned in the paper. I can't 
help you. You did this to yourself."

"Ruth, please. Anything. I'll do anything. Whatever you want. Please give me a 
second chance."

"The matter is closed. You fucked up. That's the end of it."

"Ruth...I'll do anything you want. Anything."

Burnside suddenly realized what Jessica meant. She was offering herself to her 
TA. 

Burnside opened he mouth to reject Jessica's plea yet again, but then paused. The 
girl was stunning and being totally submissive to her. Burnside, who liked women 
as well as men, was attracted to her. This was a chance to have some real fun. 
Why not?

While the student sat nervously watching, Burnside typed up the following on her 
computer for the first time:

I, __________, admit to having attempted to commit plagiarism on __________. I 
have read and fully understand this university's cheating policy, and am fully 
aware of the consequences for committing an act of plagiarism under the student 
code of ethics.

In lieu of disciplinary action from the university administration, I, __________, 
freely and willingly choose to accept the disciplinary alternative offered by my 
TA, Ruth Burnside. I understand that upon completion of the disciplinary 
alternative to Ms. Burnside's satisfaction, I will continue my coursework and no 
further action will be taken against me.

Signed __________.

Her heart pounding, Burnside printed the sheet and handed it to the trembling 
undergraduate. "OK Jessica, here's your second chance."

The TA knew what she was about to do was risky. But the temptation of Jessica 
was simply too much for her to resist. She told the girl to be at her apartment that 
night, and let her know that the "disciplinary alternative" would be physical. 
Jessica, overwhelmed with relief that she was not going to be kicked out of the 
university after all, grabbed Burnside's hand with both of hers.

"Oh Ruth, thank you! I'll do whatever it takes to make you forgive me!"

"Well, we'll see how grateful you are tonight. Remember, what happens between 
us will be to my satisfaction. You signed that."

---------- 

A few hours later, Jessica was standing at Burnside's door, shaking. The TA 
greeted her wearing regular clothes. Her habit of wearing outfits during discipline 
sessions only started after she bought her house.

The girl was scared. The earlier elation of avoiding expulsion had worn off. She 
realized that this was going to be a rough experience, when her TA picked up two 
sets of leather cuffs. Ruth loved the expression in the undergraduate’s face when 
she saw the cuffs.

"OK, get your clothes off."

Jessica shook even harder as she took off her clothes. Burnside took the clothes to 
her bedroom. She returned to the living room to find the girl trying to cover 
herself.

Burnside wrapped the cuffs around Jessica's wrists and ankles. She then clipped 
the offender’s hands behind her back as tears started rolling down her cheeks. She 
cupped one of Jessica’s breasts in her left hand, while gently brushing the tears 
off the girl’s cheek with the fingertips of her right hand.

"Jessica, you made you first mistake tonight by trying to cover up. I made you 
take off your clothes precisely because I want to see you. I am going to look at 
every part of your body and touch you where I want. You will spread your legs 
when I tell you to. You will touch me where I tell you to. When I tell you to do 
something, you will do it. Do you understand?"

Holding back the urge to cry, Jessica nodded. Burnside then led the student to the 
middle of her living room in front of her sofa.

"Stand up straight. Spread you legs."

Burnside sat down. She spent a long time looking at the naked body in front of 
her. Jessica forced herself to stay standing straight with every bit of her 
willpower. The TA then stood up and started to touch the undergraduate’s 
shoulders and breasts. She kissed and licked her nipples until they got hard.

Burnside reached between the girl’s legs. She ran her hand up and down the 
insides of her thighs. She put one hand on Jessica's bottom and ran her other hand 
through her pubic hair. She stroked her labia and clitoris. In spite of her fear and 
embarrassment, the girl became wet. Burnside rubbed her fingers back and forth 
soaking them with her lover's arousal. Then she held her hand to the student’s 
face.

"I don't want this on my hand. Clean it off."

Burnside grabbed Jessica's hair with her clean hand and pushed her fingers from 
the dirty hand against the girl’s mouth. Jessica licked the fingers clean. Feeling 
the young woman’s tongue on her fingers aroused her even more.

Burnside then took off her skirt and panties. She lay on her back on the sofa, with 
her legs spread wide. Jessica, her hands still behind her back, knelt in front of her 
TA. Burnside grabbed Jessica's hair and guided the girl's head between her legs. 
Jessica knew what was expected of her. Her tongue moved up and down 
Burnside's clitoris and vaginal opening. At first she was a bit clumsy with her 
tongue, but she figured it out quickly enough. Burnside's breathing quickened and 
she gasped as she climaxed.

Jessica's ordeal was just beginning. Burnside forced her to get up, then kneel 
again on the floor in the middle of the room. She took a washrag and cleaned off 
the student's face. Somehow not being able to clean her own face made the 
experience even more humiliating for the young student. Burnside knew that, and 
loved the girl’s expression as she began quietly crying. The TA got a couple of 
tissues and held them to Jessica’s nose.

"Blow your nose...there, that's a good girl."

Jessica's punishment was next. Burnside unhooked her cuffs from behind her back 
and re-hooked them in the front. She then took Jessica's arm and guided her back 
to the sofa. The TA sat down and guided the student over her lap. Jessica had a 
beautiful bottom. Burnside moved her hand over her lover’s trembling bottom and 
up and down the backs of her thighs. She slipped her hand between her bottom 
cheeks and moved her fingers up and down her vagina. Then, just as Jessica was 
about to climax, Burnside began spanking.

SLAP!...SLAP!...SLAP!...SLAP!...SLAP!...SLAP!... The loud swats resonated 
throughout the living room. Jessica quickly started crying again, this time much 
louder. Burnside continued slapping until her arm began to hurt. She lost count of 
how many times she had swatted Jessica. By the time Burnside was finished the 
girl’s lovely bottom was a deep dark pink, as dark as it would have been had she 
been hit with a paddle. Her body was shaking with sobs. 

Burnside glanced at her clock. She noticed that nearly 45 minutes had gone by 
since she had started spanking. No wonder her arm was so tired. She gently ran 
her hand over Jessica's bottom until the student stopped crying. She then slipped 
her hand between the girl’s legs again. After a while, Jessica parted her legs and 
thrust herself up. Burnside gently fondled and caressed the entire area between the 
girl’s bottom-hole and clitoris as she gasped and groaned. She looked up. Her 
eyes met those of her TA.

"Ruth! Ruth, please!"

Burnside had not counted on this. She helped Jessica sit up and kissed her. Then it 
was the TA who had her head between her student’s legs, making her climax. 
Jessica lay back on the sofa, gasping with delight, her cuffed hands grabbing 
Burnside's hair.

They ended up spending the night together. Burnside took her time with Jessica, 
in contrast with most of the guys she had slept with. Both women would 
remember that night for the rest of their lives.

In spite of the intense experience they shared that night, Burnside and Jessica 
never spent another night together. Jessica had a boyfriend and Burnside had her 
various lovers. Burnside always hoped that her student might come back for 
another session, but she never did. Still, she gave her one-time lover an A on her 
make-up term paper when she should have gotten a B. Jessica passed the class 
and moved on with her life.

Jessica was the first student out of many whom Burnside would punish for 
plagiarism or cheating. The professor was able to size up the students she had 
caught cheating, to determine who would submit to a physical punishment and 
who would not. So far she had stayed out of trouble with the campus 
administration.

Burnside never felt guilty about using cheating as a justification for satisfying her 
sexual desires. What was the alternative for the student? Expulsion. Being 
blacklisted. A wrecked life. Burnside's method ultimately was much more 
humane. A night of pain, and then it was over. The student could move on with 
his or her studies. Her method gave the student a second chance. The student code 
of ethics did not. Amy was not the first student that she had punished who later 
had ended up being one of her best.

Burnside knew most of her students hated her and were afraid of her. But, each 
semester, there were the few who were fiercely loyal to her. Those were the ones 
who kept her in teaching, when she could have pursued work in the private sector 
for more money.

---------- 

Ruth Burnside's thoughts returned to her daughter. She wondered if her daughter 
was in college now, and if so what she was studying. She wondered if her 
daughter would ever try to contact her. If she did, Burnside had nothing to hide. 
She would tell her daughter the truth about herself and why she could not keep 
her. She had a feeling that wherever her daughter was, she was doing great things. 
She would be about Amy's age right now.

Amy entered Burnside's mind again. Amy Debbs had her faults, but she was 
tough. She was a survivor. Burnside just recently had found out about her 
student’s months on the street and the overdose of her friend. She also knew that 
Amy's parents were dead and that she was living with that photographer. Amy 
had overcome all her losses and was now in college. Burnside liked that about 
her.

Burnside realized that Amy admired her and wanted her understanding of the 
world. She understood that Amy was desperate to please her, and not just for 
grades. There was something more to Amy's feelings about her, something much 
more personal. The professor saw that quite clearly tonight. It was the expression 
in Amy's face that caused the professor to cancel her punishment.

Suddenly Burnside realized what it was she saw in Amy. She looked into her 
student's face and subconsciously saw her daughter. She saw a girl she wanted to 
mold, to toughen, to prepare for great things in the world. Burnside was doing it 
the only way she knew how. Had she been able to keep and raise her own 
daughter, she would have been like Amy, faults and all. Amy had no parents and 
obviously had that gap in her life. Burnside obviously had a gap in her own life, 
her missing daughter. Somehow, in a weird, distorted way, Amy Debbs and Ruth 
Burnside were drawn to each other.

My daughter, thought Burnside. I guess losing her affected me more than I 
realized.

---------- 

Maynard finally dumped. His owner bent down to pick it up with a paper towel 
and dropped it in a paper bag. With her mission accomplished, the professor took 
her dog back home. Maynard had been her companion since her last year getting 
her Master’s degree. He would be gone in a couple of weeks at the most, along 
with Burnside's youth. She sensed that the dog's passing would mark the halfway 
point of her life. It was all downhill from here.

Burnside snapped at herself. Stop it! So you're no better than anyone else! You 
have 30 good years left to do something with yourself! Get your next lecture 
ready, for a start!

With that she sat down to review her lesson plans. Then she e-mailed a couple of 
co-workers to exchange information about the latest cheating scams going on. She 
got an e-mail back with a new website that had a bunch of papers posted from 
UCLA. Her e-mail acquaintance gave her a password to access the site. Burnside 
checked the website and looked over the list of papers. She was sure that 
eventually she would see some of these in her classes. Ha! She would have to tell 
Amy and her other student aide to be on the lookout for this newest batch of 
papers.

Dr. Burnside was ready for class, but still had an hour to kill before she had to be 
at the university. She began to clean up, starting with the dishes. Suddenly the 
enormity of her task dispirited her. She finished filling the dishwasher and turned 
it on. The rest would simply have to wait. To hell with it. She could clean up 
tonight. 

Her depression returned. She was desperately tired, but still could not sleep. She 
gave up on the thought of getting any rest and got dressed for class. 

---------- 

As she put on her severe dark business outfit, the professor glanced down at a 
very worn-out stuffed toy raccoon that was sitting by her dresser mirror. The 
stuffed animal seemed out of place, sitting alone on her dresser. However, in her 
life that toy was not out of place at all. Seeing the threadbare raccoon returned her 
thoughts to her childhood, and to the hatred she felt for her parents and their 
religion. She thought about that one Christmas, which more than any other event 
in her life, forged Ruth Burnside's character and personality.

Ruth was seven at the time, just about to turn eight. At that time she still believed. 
She still believed in Santa Claus, in God, and in Christmas. Like any other small 
child, she had her wish list of things that she wanted. She knew better than to 
hope for a lot of presents, but she had made it a point to be good all year. 
Certainly Santa and her parents would reward her efforts with something. Ruth's 
hopes rose when she saw a large number of toys and other presents in the garage. 
She peeked through the door when her parents and another couple from their 
church wrapped them. Then came Christmas Morning. Ruth was heartbroken 
when all she got were a couple of sweaters.

Ruth's father, beaming with happiness, gathered the family for breakfast and 
lectured his daughters on the joys of giving. Then the family piled into the car and 
drove to different charities to drop off the gifts. So that was it, the gifts were for 
charities, not for Ruth and her sister. As the trunk was emptied of presents Ruth's 
emotions went from hope, to despair, to hatred, and then to rebellion. Her child's 
mind asked the question, why were the charity children more important than 
herself and her sister? She had been good, really good, but she realized that there 
would be no presents for her, just the same crappy clothing. So Santa had not 
listened, or if he did, her father had taken her presents for the charity children. She 
was old enough to understand what her father's words, "the joy of sacrifice" really 
meant for her. The Burnside girls would sacrifice, but for her there was no joy in 
it. As they went from charity to charity Ruth quietly glared at the other children 
with hatred as they opened the presents that should have been for her.

Ruth's rebellion that day was a quiet one, but it was the first out of many secrets 
she would keep from her parents. When her father was not looking, she grabbed a 
small soft package and pushed it under her father's car seat. Later she could 
retrieve it and see what it was. Santa had failed her. Ruth had to help herself.

Ruth's heart pounded for the rest of the trip around the charities. Would God 
punish her? She was sinning. She felt the terror of religious guilt, and wondered if 
God would strike her down. But no, nothing happened. The Burnside family 
finished their distribution of presents and returned home. There would be the 
evening prayers, and then their meager dinner. Ruth's father spent the day 
blissfully unaware of the change that was taking place in his daughter's soul.

That night Ruth slipped into the garage to see what was in the package. It was a 
small stuffed toy raccoon. It was cute, but an average child would not have looked 
at it twice. She returned to her bedroom and got in bed with it, snuggling her face 
against the toy's soft fur. She called the raccoon "Rickster".

Rickster led a clandestine life in Ruth's bedroom. She made a bed for him out of a 
small cardboard box and some old washrags. Ruth wondered where Rickster 
could sleep and not be discovered. Finally she settled on the inside of her chest of 
drawers. She realized that if the bottom drawer was pulled completely out, there 
was just enough room for Rickster and his bed behind the drawer. At night 
Rickster slept with Ruth.

Ruth quit praying shortly after Rickster entered her life. She quit believing in 
Santa Claus. Once she was exposed to evolution in school, she was able to quit 
believing in God. She stopped respecting her father and stopped feeling guilty 
about loathing the recipients of her family's charity donations. And to think, 
Ruth’s entire transformation had started with the theft of a simple toy, a stuffed 
raccoon that probably did not even cost $ 5.00.

Over the years Rickster became more and more worn out, as Ruth lavished her 
attention and playtime on him. When Ruth got older Rickster went in her school 
backpack to bring her good luck. Rickster went into Burnside’s seabag in the 
Navy and to college with her. For the last 20 years he had sat in silent vigil on the 
professor’s dresser and had witnessed many strange things in her bedroom.

---------- 

Finally Burnside decided to sit down and torture herself with CNBC some more. 
The phrases of that pretty announcer and her cheerleader guests drifted through 
her mind...great investment opportunity...I see only great things ahead for 
_________ (fill in the blank)...great long term prospects...in the long run...long 
term...buying opportunity...invest...dynamic sector...bright future...

Old Maynard staggered into the living room, feebly wagging his tail. He shoved 
his nose under his owner’s hand. 

Burnside half-heartedly petted her dog, thinking about his namesake, John 
Maynard Keynes. Long term. Long run. What shit. 

John Maynard Keynes knew the correct answer. She reflected that it was Keynes 
who made the truest statement that ever came out of an economist.

"In the long run, we're all dead."


*  *  *  *  *  *  *

Author's note: The original idea behind this chapter and Ruth Burnside's 
disillusionment with financial news channels came from a report that PBS anchor 
Bill Moyers did about the hyping of IPO's in 2003. The first draft of this chapter 
was written towards the end of that year, when the stock scandals focusing on the 
telecommunications industry and IPO's were at their height. However, Ruth 
Burnside's experiences and concerns are applicable to other financial scandals as 
well. Had I written this chapter during the early 1990's, I would have referenced 
the Savings&Loan scandal. Had I written it towards the end of the second George 
W. Bush administration, it would have been the housing market and real estate 
boom. That's precisely the point I'm trying to make, that history repeats itself with 
these ongoing investor booms that are based on hype and scams instead of honest 
reporting.
