Schooled Read online

  Schooled

  Copyright © 2021 by Tanya Chris (www.tanyachris.com)

  All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the author.

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Epilogue

  Chapter 1

  It was worse than he’d expected. Kelvin turned the paper face down on his desk so he wouldn’t see the D+ written in red sharpie in its upper, right-hand corner. He should probably be grateful it wasn’t a flat-out F, considering he’d written the paper by hand in the cafeteria right before class. He’d had some good ideas for it, all bouncing around in his brain. He just hadn’t been able to make himself sit down and organize them into coherency until he was out of time with no choice but to word-vomit in a mad scramble to at least turn in something, even if it was trash, which it apparently was. D+ trash.

  Kelvin put his head down on his desk and spent the rest of class zoned out in misery, completely failing to take in Dr. Abidi’s lecture. Dr. Abidi was an engaging teacher, and Theories of Behavioral Intelligence was one of Kelvin’s favorite classes, but all he could think about was what would happen if he failed this class, in addition to all the others he was on the verge of failing. His parents would be pissed. They would refuse to pay for another semester after already having paid for one that hadn’t resulted in very many credits. If he couldn’t go to college, he would have to move back home, where he shared a bedroom with his little brother, and he’d probably end up working for his parents’ lawn care company where there wouldn’t be any hot college boys to screw around with even if he had a private space to bring them to.

  All of which meant he should be supremely motivated to complete his assignments diligently and turn them in on time. And he was motivated. He just couldn’t for some reason. It always seemed like it would be better to do it later—after he’d eaten or exercised or showered or napped. Or he would manage to get started but then something would distract him. A friend would send him a TikTok or his dormmate would come home or a cute guy would walk by. Kelvin was the very definition of that dog/squirrel meme, except that when it was your life and you were failing at it, it wasn’t so funny.

  When class ended, Kelvin picked up his D+ paper and carried it to the front of the room where Dr. Abidi was being swarmed by students wanting to talk about the role of machine learning in robust autonomous systems. Kelvin hadn’t listened to the lecture, so he didn’t have anything to say on that subject. He waited to the side, running his fingers through his bangs, trying to get his hair out of his eyes so he could do a good puppy dog when it was finally his turn to talk. Maybe Dr. Abidi was gay and would be impressed enough by his fae good looks that Kelvin could sweet talk him into a higher grade. He had a delicate face surrounded by blond hair, which he kept long in order to show it off. He didn’t look like a girl, but he was almost as pretty as one, and he was willing to use any advantage he had.

  “Dr. Abidi?”

  “Kelvin.” The look Dr. Abidi gave him wasn’t encouraging.

  “I was wondering about this grade.”

  “Why? Do you think your paper deserved a better one?”

  Well, no. It probably didn’t. “I was hoping you’d give me a chance to bring it up.”

  Dr. Abidi scrubbed a hand over his face. He looked exasperated, as if he had this conversation ten times a day, which he probably did.

  “You have some good ideas, Kelvin, but you don’t apply yourself.”

  “Yes, sir. I want to, sir.” Kelvin was being super, extra ingratiating here, standing in front of Dr. Abidi’s desk at attention. “If I could just get my average up to a C minus somehow? There must be a way I could earn a little extra credit.”

  “I give extra credit to students who participate in a study I’m running. You might be a good candidate for it, actually.” Dr. Abidi pulled a form out of his briefcase and handed it over. “Five points for applying, then another five for every session you attend if you qualify. I’ll even give you an extra ten if you complete the entire study.”

  “Corporal Punishment as an Avoidance Incentive in Cases of Extreme Executive Dysfunction?” Kelvin read from the top of the paper. He knew what all the words meant, but the ones his mind fixated on were— “Corporal punishment? Like spankings?”

  Dr. Abidi nodded. “Exactly like spankings. As a society, we’ve moved away from the use of corporal punishment to control behavior, and rightfully so in nine cases out of ten. But this study posits that for some percentage of the population, corporal punishment isn’t only an effective mechanism, it might be the only one that works. You’ll have to complete the screening procedure to see if you qualify, but I have a feeling you’ll qualify.”

  “Yeah, but, um…” Kelvin shifted, involuntarily backing up a step. His right hand clenched the paper he’d gotten a D+ on, but he let the other paper—the one that said corporal punishment on it—drift down to Dr. Abidi’s desk. “I’m not going to let you spank me.”

  Dr. Abidi laughed. He was a good-looking man, a Pakistani silver fox with medium-dark skin and greying hair. The idea of being turned over his lap for a spanking made Kelvin feel both excited and sick. Or maybe sick that he was excited. But that couldn’t be right—a teacher spanking you. He would refuse to allow it.

  “I don’t administer the spankings,” Dr. Abidi said when he’d finished having a chuckle at Kelvin’s expense. “That would be a conflict of interest.”

  “Who would do it then?” As if getting spanked would be okay if someone other than his professor did it.

  “One of my TAs. I don’t know which one. That will be randomly determined per study protocol.” Dr. Abidi waved his hand like Kelvin ought to understand how a spanker got selected. As if this were science. Spanking people. What a ridiculous study.

  Kelvin shook his head. He needed to get his grades up, but he would have to find another way. Start his assignments earlier. Pay more attention in class. Study harder. All those things he hadn’t been doing.

  “Take the assessment.” Dr. Abidi picked up the form Kelvin had let drop and handed it back to him. “You’ll get five points for doing it, and you’re not obligated to go through with the study if you’re selected. Maybe you won’t be selected.” He said that last part like he didn’t believe it, and Kelvin understood why. If the criteria was suffering from extreme executive dysfunction, then he surely qualified.

  He knew all about executive dysfunction. He knew it from an academic point of view, because he was a psychiatry major, but more importantly he knew it from a life point of view because it was the bane of his existence. His Psychology 101 textbook said “individuals with executive dysfunction struggle with planning, problem-solving, organization, and time management,” which was a lot of words for “can’t get far enough out of his own way to get anything done.”

  “What’s involved in taking the assessment?” he asked suspiciously.

  “If you’ve been paying attention in class, then you know what a pre-study questionnaire looks like.” Dr. Abidi quirked an eyebrow. “Don’t worry. No one’s going to touch your precious ass.” He looked so wicked saying it that for a moment Kelvin wanted his precious ass to be touched. Dr. Abidi came across as formidable, despite not being so much bigger than Kelvin himself, but it wouldn’t be Dr. Abidi doing it, he’d said, and anyway the assessment was just an assessment. Checkboxes and “on a scale of 1 to 5” and so on. Just like they’d learned in class.

  “Five poi
nts?”

  “Enough to bring that D plus up to a C minus. You’ll still need to pull up your other marks, of course.”

  Kelvin nodded. Not just in this class either. All his marks needed pulling up. The hopelessness of his situation swamped him with indecision. What was the point of improving one mark in one class when he would still fail out?

  “That’s the executive dysfunction talking,” Dr. Abidi said, as if he could read Kelvin’s mind. “Take the assessment. One task for this one day. Simple steps.”

  Simple steps. Right. He could fill out a form and earn five points and make one thing better, even if nothing else got better. The spec sheet said the study was being run out of the Bio building, down where the labs were in the basement, so Kelvin went straight there before something could distract him or change his mind.

  Chapter 2

  At least there weren’t any windows. Kelvin felt conspicuous knocking on the door marked 085, as if everyone would know why he was there. The door was solid, no glass window to give a peek into what lay on the other side. He half expected someone to ask him for a password, but a voice shouted come in, and the fact that it was a female voice almost had him sprinting right back down the hallway.

  Only an assessment, he reminded himself. Five points, no spankings. He took a resolute breath and opened the door to reveal not a speakeasy or a BDSM bordello but a regular old cinderblock room, about twelve by ten with a woman sitting behind a metal desk that looked like what Kelvin’s grade school teachers had had and a row of three tired upholstered chairs across from it. One of the chairs was occupied by a guy about his age. Was he waiting to get spanked? Kelvin made a point of not looking at him.

  “Can I help you?” the woman asked when Kelvin continued to hang by the door, not looking at her either. Instead he looked at the name plate on her desk as he handed over the sheet of paper Dr. Abidi had given him. Mynna Stevens, not that he cared.

  “You’re here for an assessment?” Mynna asked.

  When he nodded, she walked him over to a computer sitting on top of a table not much bigger than the computer itself. She fiddled with the keyboard, then straightened back up. “Let me know if you have any questions.”

  Kelvin had a lot of questions, but he assumed he was meant to sit at the computer and do whatever the screen told him to do, so he took a seat on the small wood chair. The assessment started out routinely enough—his name, his gender, his age. The usual. Then there was a spate of those 1-to-5 questions where he had to say how often he experienced a particular outcome or issue or a result. He answered with a lot of 1s and 5s, which he knew meant he was a good candidate, but he’d known that as soon as he understood the criteria for qualifying.

  “Do you say ‘I’ll do it later’ and then forget all about it?” the assessment asked. Kelvin needed a number higher than five for that one.

  “Do you have difficulty figuring out what’s most important or what you should start with, given a list of things to do?” Yeah, that might be why Dr. Abidi had practically had to order him to come here.

  “Do you start tasks with enthusiasm but lose interest quickly?” Oh my God, this assessment was killing him. It was like a detailed version of “Are you a total failure as an adult, Kelvin?” Because he so was.

  And then the tenor of the questions changed, became more personal. “Were you ever spanked as a child?”

  Kelvin hadn’t been, except for once when he was eight and had accidentally left the front door open and the dog had gotten out. For the third time that week. They lived right off a busy street, and Smudge was only a puppy then, so it was really dangerous for him to be outside without a leash. Kelvin loved Smudge. No way he wanted Smudge to get run over, but there he would be, leaving the house with his mind buzzing about everything he going to do, and he would manage to forget what he needed to do first, which was shut the door.

  His father had been ripping about Smudge nearly getting hit by a car, and Kelvin had been so genuinely sorry that when his father whapped him five or six times on the ass, he didn’t even complain. He cried, but he didn’t complain. Then he’d been sent to his room, which was his usual punishment, so his father could calm down. Through the bedroom door, he’d been able to hear his mother lecturing his father about violence never being the answer, but those swats had felt like a small price to pay for nearly killing Smudge. And maybe they’d worked too because he never did leave the door open again.

  Kelvin selected no. He didn’t think one time counted. But the memory left him wondering if Dr. Abidi had a point. Maybe he would respond better to corporal punishment than he did to the usual repercussions. Like timeouts. Or failing his assignments. Because he didn’t want to fail any more than he wanted Smudge to get hurt, and yet he kept leaving that metaphorical door to failure open without ever learning his lesson.

  He finished the questionnaire and turned around to look at Mynna, asking her what to do next. The row of chairs across from her was empty now. Kelvin had been so wrapped up in taking the assessment he hadn’t noticed the other guy leaving.

  “Is that it?” Kelvin asked.

  “If you stick around a minute, I can check your results. See if you qualify.”

  Kelvin didn’t tell her he wasn’t planning to do the study. He went over to the row of chairs and sat in one. If he left, he would have to figure out what to do next, which was either eat lunch, which he was kind of hungry for, then work on his Sociology paper while lunch digested and go for a run later, except the run would have to wait until after his Anatomy lab when he would probably be too tired for it. Or else he could run first so he didn’t have to wait for lunch to digest and eat after, except then he wouldn’t have time to work on his Sociology paper before Anatomy.

  The Sociology paper was probably the most important thing on his to-do list, but he couldn’t concentrate on it if he was hungry. And exercise was good for his mental health. In other words, he just didn’t know. Chances were he would end up piddling around trying to decide what to do until there wasn’t time to do anything and his blood sugar got so low he was about to faint. Then he would stuff potato chips in his mouth while hating on himself, like he did every day. So he might as well sit here.

  The door to the hallway opened, and Kelvin turned to see who was coming in with a rubbernecker’s curiosity. It was a man—tall, but not very broad, wearing a turtleneck and corduroys like he didn’t realize being a hipster was already way old school. He had brown hair up in a bun that wasn’t as sloppy as it ought to be and a hipster beard—a small and well-trimmed Van Dyke in a rich shade of chestnut. For someone who had to be in his thirties and dressed like it, he was pretty good-looking.

  “Hey, Grant,” Mynna said. “Good timing. Kelvin here just qualified for the study. You want to take him through orientation?”

  Grant gave him a long once-over as if Kelvin still had to qualify in his opinion, but Kelvin must have passed because he offered his hand and said, “Grant Fontaine.”

  Kelvin shook. Grant’s hand was really warm and wrapped around his with assurance.

  “Given the nature of our working relationship, you should probably call me Mr. Fontaine.”

  “I didn’t say I was doing this,” Kelvin protested.

  “What’s the point of taking the assessment if you’re not going to do it?” Mynna asked, sounding put out about it, as if she’d done more than sit him down in front of a computer.

  “Extra credit.”

  Mynna and Grant shared a look, then Mynna heaved a sigh. “Whatever.”

  Grant smiled at her. He had a nice smile. Kelvin wouldn’t mind getting to know him better, but he was starting to get the idea that Grant was one of the TAs in charge of spanking people, and Kelvin didn’t want to get to know him that well.

  “I can give you a tour,” Grant offered. “I’ve got some time before my next subject arrives and nothing else to do with it, so it won’t put me out if you decide not to enroll. But if Dr. Abidi referred you and you qualified, chances are partici
pating would do you some good. Let me show you around, explain how this works. Can’t hurt, right?”

  Grant held out his hand, as if Kelvin might take it like a child being shepherded by his mother. Kelvin didn’t take Grant’s hand, but he did stand up. He might as well go on the tour, whatever that entailed.

  “No one’s spanking me, right?”

  “Not until you sign the consent forms,” Grant said with a wink. “Step right this way.”

  Chapter 3

  Kelvin couldn’t say exactly what he’d been expecting, but it was something better than this—a tiny, unadorned, surprisingly pink room containing a round table, two chairs, a big window frame covered by blinds, and absolutely nothing else. The window frame didn’t even make sense, given that they were underground, and anyway it was on the wrong wall. There couldn’t really be a window behind those blinds.

  Grant gestured for him to sit, so Kelvin took a seat. Grant sat in the other chair.

  “If you decide to do the study, this is where we’ll meet.”

  “And you’ll spank me?”

  “Not so fast,” Grant said, as if Kelvin were eager to be spanked. “First, we’d talk. Like we’re doing now.”

  “About what?”

  “How you’re doing on your school-related tasks mostly. Whether you’ve gotten everything done since I last saw you. If you have, then good. That’s the whole point of this exercise—not to hit you, but to help you.”

  “So if I’ve finished all my assignments, I wouldn’t get a spanking?”

  “Exactly.”

  “And I’d still get the extra credit?”

  Grant’s sigh reminded Kelvin of the one Mynna had heaved out in the reception room. “Yes, you’d still get the extra credit. I wish Dr. Abidi wouldn’t use that as an incentive. It taints the subject pool. The point isn’t to bring your grade up a little in one particular class. The point is to address your issues with executive dysfunction. To help you focus on the most important tasks in front of you each week by setting up an obvious and immediate reward/punishment system. What’s five points compared to changing your whole life?”