"Write Fifty Times"
by Ellie Dauber (2024)

The old academic punishment of writing something fifty times doesn't always work. Just look at Bart Simpson. But when Sandy Bradwyn uses it, it can be VERY effective.

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Write Fifty Times
By Ellie Dauber © 2024

They called Sandra Bradwyn “The Punisher.” As assistant principal at Chapman County High School, she served as disciplinarian to the 1800 plus students enrolled at the school. Mr. Santini, the Principal, served as a court of appeal, though he seldom overruled her.

Despite her role as disciplinarian, she was generally popular with the students. The first reason for that was because she was Ms. Bradwyn M.S. Ed., a friendly, attractive brunette in her mid-thirties, who cheered for the Chapman Cougars at most of their games – football, basketball, and baseball, attended the annual student play, and bought munchies from the bake sale. She also maintained an open-door policy for her students, sometimes wore a green and yellow Chapman sweatshirt to work and encouraged teachers and other staff to do the same.

The second reason was that, as a disciplinarian, she was a person much more given to student courts, second chances, counseling, and work programs, than to suspensions and expulsions.

The final reason, known only to two other persons at the school was that she was also Mistress Melisandre, leader of the local coven of white witches. The others who knew were Ms. Scanlon in the English Department and Katy Lindstrom, the girls’ basketball coach, both members of that same coven. On those occasions when a normal punishment failed to work, the trio would carefully use magic to correct a wayward student’s behavior.

As she was about to do now.

Al Persky had been a thorn in the side of his teachers since the fourth grade. That was the year that his father Alvin Persky, Senior, was elected head of the Chapman County School Board, a position that he still held. Persky Senior was also the president of Champman Manufacturing, the largest employer in the county aside from the hospital and the city/county government.

He was not a man to cross. And his son knew it.

The boy was smart, though cunning or sly might have been a better word. Teachers learned that punishing him for missing homework or misbehavior in class was a guarantee of a poor faculty evaluation score and the loss of salary that went with it, maybe even dismissal. If he was in a fight, it was always the other boy’s fault, and his enemies often met with unexplained accidents. And no adult who worked for – or had a family member who worked for -- Chapman Manufacturing ever complained about Al’s behavior.

But Al had far overstepped his boundaries at the town’s Labor Day Picnic. So now, only a week into the school year, he was due to be… corrected.

She looked up from the file – Al’s file – that she had been reading. Al was slouched in the chair in front of her desk. He was smiling, showing no fear and, actually, a bit of arrogant self-confidence.

“I see you had a bit of trouble over Labor Day,” she said. “Rae Zimmer…”

He nodded. “I was walking around the woods near the picnic grounds, killing time before the fireworks. I ran into Rae Zimmer. She’d been drinking… whiskey, I think. I, umm, I don’t know much about alcohol. When she saw me, she started saying how much she loved me and – is it okay to say it? – how much she, umm, she wanted me. She started pulling on her clothes and yelling for me to make love to her. She even yanked my shirt open.”

“Your clothes and her clothes? That must have taken a while. Why didn’t you run away? Or did you like it?”

“Surprise… yeah, surprise. I never thought she’d do something like that. I mean, she’s a pretty girl, and I –”

“You like it, didn’t you? Maybe even enough to help her.”

“Yeah, I – No! I’m not like that. Besides, she was, she was drunk.”

“She must have been yelling something more than that she loved you. A few people heard her and came running. They had to pull you off her, didn’t they. You had your pants down around your knees, and you were tearing her blouse –”

“That’s a lie! I don’t know where you heard that crock of lies. The police report – I read it, myself – it told things the way I just said.”

She checked the file again. “Of course it did. After all, you and your father wrote that report. Your father paid off at least three of the witnesses. And he made sure that Rae’s father got a nice raise and that his – your company’s health benefits -- covered her going to that facilty two states away to recover from her breakdown.”

“I don’t know where you’re getting this shit, but it’s… it all lies. Ask anybody. Ask my dad. He’s over at the school board offices, this morning. Working on the budget, I think. Maybe even the faculty budget.”

Ms. Bradwyn closed the folder. The report inside was hardly official. It had been prepared by Ms. Scanlon and Coach Lindstrom using the coven’s scrying bowl to witness the entire episode. “And, of course, you have no reason to be sorry about what happened? You being the innocent victim and all.”

“Well,” Al said, “I-I guess I’m a little bit sorry that Rae had all those problems. I didn’t really know her, but she always seemed like a nice girl, kind of shy… quiet, even if she was so pretty.”

Sandra smiled. A predator’s smile that should have warned Al, but he was confident that she had believed his lies and ignored that smile. “I apologize if I seemed rough on you. This file…” She held it up. “…is a collection of all the rumors that had been going around. It was my job to see if there was any truth to theme.”

“And there wasn’t, was there?”

She tossed the file into a waste basket next to her desk. “Your version certainly seems to be correct.” It was as well backed-up set of lies as she had ever seen.

“I’ll be going then.” He turned towards the door. School had been out for almost an hour, and he had plans, plans that now included boasting to his father that evening how he had fooled the mighty Ms. Bradwyn.

“I wonder – just to show that you have no hard feelings -- if you could do me a favor. It would only take you a few minutes.”

More to boast about. And getting the school disciplinarian to owe him a favor wasn’t a bad idea either. Nick Gruber and his other friends could wait a few minutes more before he joined them. “Okay, what do you need?”

“Some supplies were delivered to the school this afternoon; they’re in the conference room next door. They must be sorted out, but I’m afraid that they’re too heavy for me to lift onto a table to open. Would you mind?”

He took a muscleman pose for a few second, then laughed. “Sure, let’s go.”

“Thank you.” It was so much easier when the… prey cooperated. She followed Al out of her office and down the hall to the next door and on into the conference room.

The conference room was large. A blackboard ran the length of one wall. There was a table with five chairs near it. About fifty seats with desks were set up in facing it in three rows. Two long tables were set against one wall, with a computer and projector on a wheeled cart along the other. Three heavy-looking boxes were on the floor next to the front table.

Al went over to the table. He got his arms around the first box and carefully lifted it onto the table. It was heavy – books, maybe, they weighed the most. The other two followed.

“Let me just check.” Ms. Bradwyn took a scissors from a drawer in the table and used the blade to cut the packing tape on the first box. She opened the lid and took out an odd-looking piece of chalk. It was about four inches long and – here was the surprise – bright pink in color. “Would you hold this, please?” She offered the piece of chalk to Al.

He took it from her, but as his fingers closed around it, he felt a sort of electric shock. It ran up his arm and he felt dizzy for a moment. He tried to drop the chalk, but, somehow, he couldn’t open his hand. He just stood there, as if waiting for something.

“I’ll bet you’re wondering what’s going on,” Ms. Bradwyn said.

He tried to speak, but he couldn’t respond. In fact, he couldn’t move. What the Hell was going on?

“I didn’t believe those lies of yours about what happened with Rae for a minute. You followed her into the woods and managed to get her drunk. Then you tried to rape her. When you were stopped, your father paid off the witnesses. The chief of police has been your father’s lacky for years, and he wrote – and signed – the report that your father dictated to him. Your father is paying for Rae at a juvenile psychiatric facility. When they finish “treating” her, even she will believe your story.”

She knew! She knew every last, damned detail. There were a few rumors around the school that Ms. Bradwyn was some kind of witch, and now he knew that they were true. She was a witch, and she was mad at him. Just what was she going to do.

“Scared?” She said, almost too calmly. “You should be, but since we’re in a school, you’ll get a traditional, academic punishment.” She let him wonder for a moment, then added. “Go over to the blackboard, Al. You’re going to write some lines.”

‘Like Hell,’ he thought, but he couldn’t speak, couldn’t refuse. His body started walking, even as his mind fought it. He tried to drop the chalk, but it was as if his fingers were glued to it. He stopped at the far-left side of the blackboard. Arm raised. Waiting.

She smiled; the predator had spotted its prey and was spiraling in for the kill. “You will write, fifty times – and number each time – the following: ‘From now on, I will behave like the sweet, demure young girl I truly am.’”

Al stared at his outstretched arm and at the hand holding the chalk. “No.” He gritted his teeth and “shouted” in his mind. ‘Don’t write. Don’t write.’ He kept mentally repeating the order, even as his hand moved to disobey.

1. “From now on, I will behave like the sweet, demure young girl I truly am.”

As he wrote the sentence, his body started to feel odd, like it was being pushed at from every direction.

2. “From now on, I will behave like the sweet, demure young girl I truly am.”

He began to grow shorter. The chalk didn’t move on the board, but the angle of his arm rose.

3. “From now on, I will behave like the sweet, demure young girl I truly am.”

He lost more than height, he lost muscle, as well. He was thinner now, as the effects of years of hard exercise vanished.

4. “From now on, I will behave like the sweet, demure young girl I truly am.”

His arms were slimmer now, his shoulders closer together.

5. “From now on, I will behave like the sweet, demure young girl I truly am.”

He knew somehow that the same was true of his legs, though he – nor his classmates -- couldn’t see them grow slimmer beneath his jeans.

6. “From now on, I will behave like the sweet, demure young girl I truly am.”

His clothes had shrunk, so that they still fit despite all the changes.

7. “From now on, I will behave like the sweet, demure young girl I truly am.”

He had lost ten inches, going from six-foot one to five-foot three; gone from 205 pounds to 125 pounds.

8. “From now on, I will behave like the sweet, demure young girl I truly am.”

With his smaller head, his hair now hung down over his ears.

9. “From now on, I will behave like the sweet, demure young girl I truly am.”

It lengthened even more, so that he felt it slip over those ears and down to bunch about his shoulders.

10. “From now on, I will behave like the sweet, demure young girl I truly am.”

Al’s eyes seemed bigger; his nose smaller.

11. “From now on, I will behave like the sweet, demure young girl I truly am.”

His lips had become fuller.

12. “From now on, I will behave like the sweet, demure young girl I truly am.”

His cheekbones raised slightly, even as his jaw rounded, giving his face a more oval shape.

13. “From now on, I will behave like the sweet, demure young girl I truly am.”

His neck was slimmer, as his Adam’s apple shrank away.

14. “From now on, I will behave like the sweet, demure young girl I truly am.”

When he next talked, his voice would be a soft, feminine alto, rather than the strong male tenor it had been.

15. “From now on, I will behave like the sweet, demure young girl I truly am.”

He looked at his right hand, the one holding that damned piece of chalk. It was smaller, slimmer, like the arm it was attached to.

16. “From now on, I will behave like the sweet, demure young girl I truly am.”

And now his fingers were growing a bit longer, more graceful and with shaped nails.

17. “From now on, I will behave like the sweet, demure young girl I truly am.”

His slight beard vanished, leaving a smooth, creamy complexion.

18. “From now on, I will behave like the sweet, demure young girl I truly am.”

All his body hair vanished, except for an inverted triangle covering his “privates.”

19. “From now on, I will behave like the sweet, demure young girl I truly am.”

Now he felt a sort of… of stretching on his chest, as his strong pectoral muscles flattened out, grew flabby.

20. “From now on, I will behave like the sweet, demure young girl I truly am.”

They began to expand outward as the tissue re-formed into budding breasts.

21. “From now on, I will behave like the sweet, demure young girl I truly am.”

When Al’s new, larger nipples were pushed against the fabric of his undershirt, he felt a sort of tickling sensation.

22. “From now on, I will behave like the sweet, demure young girl I truly am.”

A sensation that continued as he began to feel the weight of new, still forming breasts.

23. “From now on, I will behave like the sweet, demure young girl I truly am.”

Something was pressing at his waist now, pushing it in, narrowing it.

24. “From now on, I will behave like the sweet, demure young girl I truly am.”

At the same time, he felt that same stretching sensation below his waist. His hips rounded outward.

25. “From now on, I will behave like the sweet, demure young girl I truly am.”

The round hips appeared to affect his male genitals.

26. “From now on, I will behave like the sweet, demure young girl I truly am.”

His testicles flowed up and into his body to become their female equivalents.

27. “From now on, I will behave like the sweet, demure young girl I truly am.”

The now-empty scrotal sack diminished down into two folds of skin, one on other side of a slit that was forming between them

28. “From now on, I will behave like the sweet, demure young girl I truly am.”

His penis was erect. It shrank down, smaller and thinner, until it sank into the still-widening slit to become a sensitive clitoris.

29. “From now on, I will behave like the sweet, demure young girl I truly am.”

That moment, he felt another “stretching”, as his butt grew outward into the inverted heart of a female backside.

30. “From now on, I will behave like the sweet, demure young girl I truly am.”

His legs, hidden beneath his jeans, were slender and smooth, with an interesting curve.

31. “From now on, I will behave like the sweet, demure young girl I truly am.”

The pressure was on his feet, now. His feet were smaller, delicate.

32. “From now on, I will behave like the sweet, demure young girl I truly am.”

Al’s toenails were longer, too, and, like his fingernails, were shaped and polished.

33. “From now on, I will behave like the sweet, demure young girl I truly am.”

If his sneakers hadn’t dropped a few sizes more, he might step out of them as he moved, writing along the width of the blackboard. They were now a bright pastel blue color with gold tassels at the end of each shoelace.

34. “From now on, I will behave like the sweet, demure young girl I truly am.”

Suddenly, Al felt as if someone was touching his face. His eyebrows thinned from bushy growths to a pair of slender arches.

35. “From now on, I will behave like the sweet, demure young girl I truly am.”

Slender arches above eyes now highlighted by pale blue eyeshadow.

36. “From now on, I will behave like the sweet, demure young girl I truly am.”

And eyelashes darkened by mascara,

37. “From now on, I will behave like the sweet, demure young girl I truly am.”

There was foundation and blusher on his cheeks.

38. “From now on, I will behave like the sweet, demure young girl I truly am.”

And a bright pink color on his now fuller lips.

39. “From now on, I will behave like the sweet, demure young girl I truly am.”

His Axe deodorant became a pleasant, flowery, very feminine scent.

40. ”From now on, I will behave like the sweet, demure young girl I truly am.”

The weight of his new breasts was less noticeable as his undershirt transformed into a silky blue demi-bra, trimmed with satiny swirls, that cupped and lifted them.

41. “From now on, I will behave like the sweet, demure young girl I truly am.”

His navy blue Westerville High t-shirt faded to a pastel blue with a wide, low-cut collar that was cut low enough to show the tops of those breasts and a bit of the cleavage between them.

42. “From now on, I will behave like the sweet, demure young girl I truly am.”

Al’s jeans changed from blue denim to white cotton. The bottoms moved up his legs to form cuffs two inches above his knees.

43. “From now on, I will behave like the sweet, demure young girl I truly am.”

His black cotton socks followed the jeans, changing to sheer flesh-colored nylon as they rose up passed under his new shorts to join at his waist as a pair of pantyhose.

44. “From now on, I will behave like the sweet, demure young girl I truly am.”

His shapely legs were now clearly displayed. His sneakers opened to transform to a pair of pastel blue sandals with a one-inch heel.

45. “From now on, I will behave like the sweet, demure young girl I truly am.”

Al was not sure how he had changed, but he knew that he most certainly HAD changed. He could see it in the arm holding the chalk. ‘Shit,’ he thought, ‘what are my friends… what’s Nick going to think?’

46. “From now on, I will behave like the sweet, demure young girl I truly am.”

‘Nick Gruber… Why am he thinking of…” Al found himself looking at the image of his best bud’s face; Nick’s curly dark brown hair, his silly grin, and those so-dreamy green eyes, with the little gold flecks.

47. “From now on, I will behave like the sweet, demure young girl I truly am.”

He shook his head to clear his mind. He was a guy. He could not be thinking of Nick that way.

48. “From now on, I will behave like the sweet, demure young girl I truly am.”

But he was. He suddenly felt shy about Nick. He found himself hoping that Nick, his best friend since the third grade, liked him.

49. “From now on, I will behave like the sweet, demure young girl I truly am.”

Different memories of the Labor Day Picnic flowed into his – no, into her mind. His old memories remained, but they were cloudy, vague. She and Nick had walked into the woods after supper. They sat on a bench along the side of the trail and talked about… stuff. And he had kissed her!

50. “From now on, I will behave like the sweet, demure young girl I truly am.”

And she had kissed him back. They stared at each other for a moment, and she had kissed him again. Her body felt warm… all tingly at the thought of kissing him again, and she moaned softly, just as she finished writing that last “…as I truly am.”

“Thank you, Allie,” Ms. Sub said, pulling out of her revery. “You may may go now.”

Allie – Alicia Susan Persky nodded. She casually set the chalk down on the narrow shelf at the bottom of the blackboard. Then she turned and, hips swaying, left the conference room.

As she did, the memories of everyone else who had ever known Al Persky changed to memories of the girl he had become.

Nick, her boyfriend, was waiting in the parking lot in the front of the school. He had a car, and he was going to drive her home. She would never kiss him in public, no matter how much she wanted to, but she took his hand and squeezed gently all the way to her house.

Nick would be over that night to study for the upcoming quiz in calculus. There was a chance for a bit of kissing then, if her father didn’t catch them at it. Saturday, two days away, that was their chance. She and Nick would have lots of time for kissing and cuddling while they didn’t watch the movie at the cineplex.

She and Nick were double-dating with her best girl-type friend, Rae Zimmer, and her boyfriend, Eddy Manning. Rae and Eddy wouldn’t be watching the picture much, either.