“That’s true. Elves can sustain ourselves on a variety of forms of energy, we just choose to eat, so we don’t always remember that the other humanoids need food to live.”
“Like you forgot about Derek, that gark-lizard?” Basil bantered, getting a punch in the arm for his trouble. Basil remembered vividly the time when Flin had brought a pet gark-lizard on board. The nasty creature had turned from sludge brown to pale orange before Flin had worked out that it had needed to be fed. When he’d found out it only ate live bunnies, he’d passed it on to a gark-lizard enthusiast.
“Don’t worry, I’m making sure she eats properly while she’s here,” Basil said. “So hopefully she’ll look closer to her age soon. In the meantime, how do we raise the issue of literacy with an almost-twenty-two-year-old woman?”
“She clearly finds it a source of distress that she can’t read. We need to be tactful so she doesn’t think we’re ganging up on her or laughing at her. I don’t think I’m cut out for nurturing her.”
“Don’t worry, I’m not asking you to teach her to read. I’m actually looking forward to that. You know she ain’t Karissa. She hasn’t bratted once.”
“I noticed—aside from just now with the recipe,” Flin pointed out.
“That was different.”
“Different how?”
“She wasn’t doing it to get attention or spankings, she was just reacting to the situation in front of her. In my book, that ain’t bratting.”
“If I was taking her in hand, I’d have spanked her for it. End result’s the same,” Flin observed.
“Yeah, but you’re still bent out of shape about something that happened five years ago, so I’m making decisions when it comes to Laila. And the result might be the same, but the action I’m going to take is different. You can’t punish someone for being human,” Basil said, getting up to stretch his legs.
“Humanoid!” Flin replied as Basil walked out of the cockpit; he could just hear Flin calling after him, “and I can punish them for being humanoid if they’re out of line!”
Basil went to the galley and looked out of the same window he’d seen Laila staring out of earlier. The depths of space were a good focal point for his eyes while his thoughts drifted. Flin was probably right about the spanking. It seemed a bit harsh but they really ought to nip this behavior in the bud sooner rather than later.
Then there was the problem of what to do about Laila’s reading. The education law applied to all children, and they were all supposed to be educated until age eighteen. Unfortunately, law enforcement never extended beyond the Prime planets, so there were entire planets—such as Pombos—in the backwaters of space where children’s education was seen as optional. Worse still were the planets whose curricula taught things that were vastly wrong.
The most famous example had been the planet Zirkos, an overpopulated monstrosity with twenty billion inhabitants, all of whom were indoctrinated at school age to believe that their planet was created by a talking iceberg that was locked in an eternal battle to protect its vast frozen expanses from the sun. To aid this, the inhabitants had created a huge sunshield to get rid of the sun’s rays. Everyone had subsequently died from cold, but not before bumping into one another a lot due to absence of light.
The law was that children must be educated to a standard decided upon by each planet, so there were plenty of adults in the galaxy who believed their planet was the most superior planet, that their species were the most superior species, or, in the case of the five-legged ant-creatures of Balaria, that their feet were the most superior feet. However, none of them seemed able to recall basic physics, so the chances of them developing their own space travel and waging war on one another were slim to none.
At least Laila hadn’t been brought up to think that her feet were too special to stand on, he reflected. Undoing that sort of conditioning was much harder than teaching someone to read. Not for the first time, Basil appreciated the fact that he’d grown up as the only child on Howell Outpost, that his schooling had come from a computer, and that his parents—engineers—had spent time helping him when he got stuck.
Basil waited several hours, until it was nearly time for him to take over the ship from Flin, before waking Laila, to ensure she’d had a chance to rest.
“Hello, sleepyhead. Now, why don’t you sit up and talk to me.”
“M’kay.” Laila sat up slowly and rubbed her eyes.
“Can you read?” Basil decided to ask her outright. If she gave him an honest answer, he thought, he could let her off the spanking she should get for the tantrum earlier.
She looked at him like a deer caught in the headlights. That, and the fact that she said nothing for several seconds, before saying, “Of course I can read!” pretty much proved that she couldn’t.
“Great. What’s this say?” He passed her a card with the words Fun in the Sun Travel Agency written on the front.
“Uh… well… my eyes haven’t woken up yet!” she grumbled.
“Go on, just the first word, three letters long,” Basil said.
Laila widened her eyes at him as her resolve seemed to crumble, then she looked at the floor.
“I don’t know,” Laila conceded. “There’s a picture of sunshine and a palm tree though.”
“So you don’t have any major problems with your eyes; that picture’s minuscule. In that case, you need to learn to read. And you, missy, shoulda just told me you couldn’t read when we were gonna make cookies. You could’ve saved us both all the unpleasantness of the last few hours. You’ve got a spanking coming for ruining a nice afternoon with a silly tantrum and continuing to lie about whether you could read or not,” Basil told her. “Now come into the galley and let’s get you something to eat.”
“Okay then.” She seemed reluctant to move, and when she did, she moved heavily, as if the weight of the world was dragging her down. Basil couldn’t understand it at all. Was the prospect of a spanking really bothering her this much? There seemed to be something deeper.
He made her a bowl of powder soup, and set it in front of her. She stared at it sadly for several seconds, then picked up the spoon and started chasing the little noodles and croutons around the surface, eating any she could catch before resuming the pursuit with her spoon.
Once the bowl was empty, Basil took it away and washed it, then took Laila’s wrist and led her back to their cabin. She followed him without saying anything. He sat on the edge of the side of the bed, with his feet on the floor, and pulled Laila over his knee. As he did, he saw that her face was ashen.
“Do you have to?” she quietly asked.
“Yes, little one, I do.” He was steadfast, although he just wanted to wrap her up in a blanket and make her the cookies she’d gotten upset over. She had to learn to behave.
Basil tried to ignore the fact that she was still wearing the sailor dress from before her nap, but it fitted her form so well. Feeling the frothy lace under his fingers, he took the hem of the dress’s skirt and flipped it back, exposing her underwear. He peeled her cute white panties away from the peachy flesh of her bottom, exposing her deepest secrets. Laila inhaled sharply and pressed her legs together. Leaving the garment around her calves, and resisting the urge to caress her beautiful moons, Basil tried to focus on the fact that this was supposed to be a punishment spanking. He could tell that she was scared, and he wanted to be sure that she understood why she was in trouble.
“Do you know why I’m spanking you?”
“Because I can’t read,” Laila said in a dead voice. Basil frowned.
“No, sweetheart, I’d never spank you for that; it isn’t your fault. You’re getting a spanking because you threw a tantrum, and when I asked you a question you lied to me.”
“Oh,” Laila said. “Sorry.”
“I’m going to give you ten spanks, Laila. Do you think you can be brave and take that many?”
“Yes.”
Given how she’d behaved earlier, and at other times since she arrived on th
e ship, he was surprised that she wasn’t fighting him, but then, he’d never had to take her in hand before. Basil disliked spanking her like this; she was being too pliant. He knew it was necessary though, so he brought his hand down and swatted her ass for the first time. Her cheeks wobbled slightly, and he saw her shoulders tense up as he brought his hand down again, landing it hard on her sit spot.
After the third swat, he paused and rubbed her back to reassure her.
“You’re taking your spanking like a good girl, Laila,” he said.
She didn’t respond. She seemed to calm down a little, though, because she stopped pressing her legs together and her spine relaxed back into its natural shape, making her bottom curve more pertly now than a moment ago. When he started again, he saw that the place where her cheeks met had turned slightly pale pink, contrasting with the lighter skin around the rest of her behind.
All in all, he only swatted her bottom ten times, and her skin built up to a soft pink glow as she lay there, perfectly still, not fighting him, which was somewhat strange. Ten was plenty, he decided, and once he’d finished, he gently slid her panties up, covering her glowing cheeks. Basil had spanked enough naughty bottoms to know that it wouldn’t sting for long. He tipped her back upright then sat her on his knee, where he drew her into a hug. Her bottom felt warm against his legs. She still looked miserable, but she put her arms around him anyway.
“I forgive you, Laila, but if you cross the line again, I will spank you harder and longer.” Basil rubbed her back with the flat of his hand.
“I really am sorry,” she said, looking glum.
“Put it outta your mind now, it’s all over. You’ll learn to read, then you won’t have to worry about getting upset like that again over it,” Basil said. Laila just stared at him. “Why don’t you go take a shower and find something fresh to wear. I’ll show you how the clothes cleaning device works once you’re all freshened up. I’ll even take the body lotion out of the shower this time so you can tell which one goes on your hair.”
Chapter Five
The spanking had been much lighter than Laila had expected, but knowing she had let Basil down was worse. With a heavy heart she followed him to the bathroom, and waited for him to move the body lotion. As if it wasn’t bad enough that she had been unable to read the cookie recipe, now she realized she had actually used lotion instead of conditioner on her hair. And he had noticed. The embarrassment was more than she could bear. He must think she was the stupidest girl in the galaxy about now.
She turned the shower on, getting one last go at using the touch-sensitive controls she’d been so taken with when she arrived on the ship a few days ago. Under the jets of water, she stood with her eyes closed and began to cry. Sobs racked her body and soon she crumpled onto the floor, feeling the water running over her face and down her body as she sat, leaning on the cold metal wall of the shower for support, and cried.
They would be returning her to Pombos now, she supposed. Gar-Kon would be far harsher with her when he got her back. It would only be a matter of time before he found her on her home planet.
She felt angry at herself for not being able to read, and wondered why it had never gotten inside her brain. Of course this ship had been too good to be true. She wasn’t allowed to be happy, and she should have known better than to think her life could ever start going well.
“Come on, Laila,” she said to herself. “Get yourself together. You need to get dressed and face this with your head held high.”
She stood up slowly and perfunctorily rubbed body wash over herself before letting the water wash it away, then she unfastened her braids, which had tangled in the water, and ran her fingers through her hair. Maybe if she had straight hair, like most other girls, then people would like her and stop hurting her.
The shampoo got into her eyes and stung, and she held her face under the running water while she tried to clean her eyes out. She ran some conditioner through the lengths and ends, then rinsed it off and finally, she knew she couldn’t put it off any longer; she had to get out and face the universe.
After she turned the shower off, she stood inside the cubicle for several more minutes just trying to breathe, then she opened the door and dried herself off.
Wrapped in a towel, she carried her clothes back to Basil’s cabin and carefully folded the little sailor dress. She opened the closet and stared at the contents. Nothing in here was really hers; none of it belonged to her, since she hadn’t paid for any of it. Bunched up on the floor of the closet, she saw her old petticoat, the one she’d run away in. She pulled it over her head and put her arms through the sleeves. It seemed fair that Basil and Flin could give these new clothes to a girl better suited to them. A girl who could read and bake cookies.
The hairdryer burnt her head slightly as she tried to get the water out of her hair. It always clung between the strands as if her hair was made of sponge. She loved how long she’d grown her hair, but wished it would grow straight and shiny, like all the pretty girls she’d seen wearing flowing dresses in pictures with captions such as ‘the perfectly poised wife.’ Then she knew her life would be different.
When she had done everything she could to delay the inevitable, she kissed Mr. Unicorn on the nose to say goodbye, and solemnly went to the cockpit to speak to Basil. She left her hair down. That way, she wasn’t taking a single thing away that didn’t belong to her when they returned her to Pombos.
She tapped on the cockpit door.
“Come on in, Laila,” Basil said.
The door opened and she stepped inside.
“How did you know it was me?” She stood nervously inside the door.
“Flinar doesn’t knock,” Basil replied. “Why’re you dressed like that? I told you to put something fresh on.”
“I didn’t want to take anything that wasn’t mine. I’m ready now.”
“Ready for what?”
“I’m ready for you to return me… b-b-back to the planet surface.” Even though she stood perfectly still, she couldn’t stop the sadness overflowing in her heart, and the tears tipped over the edge of her waterline and ran down her cheeks.
“No, you’re gonna have to explain this one to me.”
Laila just stared at the floor.
Basil hit a button on the console then turned toward her.
“Right, the ship’s on autopilot; now tell me what you’re talking about.”
Laila still stared at the floor, tears still running down her cheeks.
“I’m sorry I let you down. Now you know I’m completely useless and I was too stupid to go to school. So it makes sense that you’re taking me back to Pombos so you can be rid of me. I understand,” she said, still crying. “But I’m still sad about it.”
“Come here, Laila.”
Laila was sure he would spank her again, but she knew better than to resist when someone told her to do something, so she stepped forward, fighting the fear that was holding her muscles rigid. She closed her eyes, so she didn’t have to see the anger or disappointment that she knew would be on his face by now.
“Look at me.” Basil took one of her hands in both of his.
Laila unscrewed her eyes. She recognized the expression on his face from earlier. It wasn’t anger, or disappointment. It was concern. She’d upset him.
“Laila, why would you think we’d take you back to Pombos just because you can’t read?”
“You said… you said I needed to learn to read. But I got expelled from school when I was little, because I was too stupid, so they won’t be able to teach me to read, and if I need to read to be here, then you’ll have to send me back, because I can’t do it.” The words tumbled out as she tried to hold back the most important detail.
“Why’d you get expelled from school?” Basil seemed to hone in on it. Laila blanched and shook her head, taking a step backwards, but she couldn’t move any further, because Basil was still holding her hand. She couldn’t tell him about that. He’d probably fly back to Pombos twice a
s fast.
“Laila, look at me.” He squeezed her hand.
She shook her head again.
“Please don’t make me tell you.”
“Come sit on my knee.” He pulled her hand gently toward him and she sat down reluctantly. The warmth under her thighs felt good, but she forced herself to tune it out. She couldn’t get attached to this man, especially not if he made her tell him why she got expelled from school.
“Shh, stop worrying. I just need to know what happened. How old were you?”
“I was six.” Old enough to know better, as her mother had told her every single time she brought it up.
“So you’d been at school… how long?”
“A week.” The shame burned at her cheeks and the tears kept flowing.
“And what did you do?”
She shook her head again, and against her better judgment, she buried her face in his shoulder. He couldn’t know what she did.
“Laila, this sounds really important. I’m not gonna get angry about something you did when you were six.”
“You would if you heard it. You’d hate me. It’s why everyone hates me.” Her voice was muffled through his wooly sweater.
“Shh, it’s all right, you’re safe here.” Basil gently rubbed her back. It felt so good… another reason why leaving would be so hard. “I promise I’m not going to take you back, but you need to trust me.”
There was a wonderful moment when Laila actually believed that Basil might mean that, and before she could stop herself, she told him what she’d done.
“It was my first week at school. At lunchtime, I needed the toilet but I didn’t know where to go. After lunch, I asked the teacher, and he said I’d just had lunch and I should have gone then. Soon, I was desperate to go, and I asked him again but he said I had to wait. I couldn’t wait, and… and…” She started crying and covered her mouth with her hands as the memory burned to remember.
“Did you have an accident, Laila?” She colored bright red with embarrassment and nodded, tears tumbling down her face. “Then what happened?” he asked.
Her Daddy and Her Master Page 7