The CP Club

It was 4:30pm. School had let out some time ago. Coach Johnson stood up from his desk and opened his office door. He greeted the gaggle of students outside his door with a smile. "Come on in," he said warmly.

The small group of students followed him in. Coach Johnson grabbed his paddle and held it up. "Is there anyone here who would like to avoid being paddled?" he asked.

He knew it seemed like an odd question. One would think that everyone would want to avoid one of his legendary painful paddlings, but these weren't ordinary circumstances. Two of the students raised their hands. Coach Johnson nodded. Those two had been paddled quite recently. Obviously, they would want to avoid another so soon.

He removed two slips of paper from the bucket on his desk, and verified that neither was the winning slip. He directed each of the other students to draw one slip of paper each. Whoever drew the winning slip would be paddled.

None of the students was in any trouble, and they weren't being coerced into this. Any observer would wonder what possessed these students to volunteer for something like this. The answer is that these students are part of the "CP Club".

The "CP" in the club name was said to stand for "Couch Potato". It was supposedly just a few students hanging out doing nothing. However, the real meaning of the acronym was "Corporal Punishment".

They met once a week after school. Each meeting, one of the members would be paddled while the others watched. Paddling as a punishment was commonly used for serious rule violations in an official capacity, but what made paddlings in the CP Club different was the social nature of them. Even though only one person was being paddled, the others had fun watching.

One would think that watching from the sidelines would be preferable to actually being paddled, but it's quite easy to underestimate the effect of peer pressure on high school students. Coach Johnson understood this social dynamic quite well, and that's how he was able to set this whole thing up.

He had anonymously prowled the social media hangouts of students at the school using a variety of fake profiles. He spread rumors of a cool club that was a good way to seem cool. He had seen enough teenagers doing stupid stuff as a part of social media challenges, so he figured he could exploit that tendency for his own purposes. He directed all interested students to report to Coach Johnson Fridays at 4:30.

Nobody truly wanted to be paddled, just like nobody truly wanted to eat laundry detergent, but social pressure to look cool could be a powerful motivator. After his undercover social media infiltration campaign had its intended effect, he wasn't shocked to see groups of students showing up at his office door, eager to have their butts paddled.

There were no rules about what could be worn for a paddling. Some of the more cowardly students would wear multiple layers of underwear for extra protection. Coach Johnson could tell by the sound, and he would mention it out loud. Mockery of the student's cowardice would soon ensue.

As a result, some students developed an unofficial uniform of wearing the thin shorts used for gym class. The girls in particular were prone to wearing ridiculously thin garments such as leggings with thong panties underneath. Occasionally, a really bold student would take the paddling on their bare butt. This would usually be a girl who was trying to impress the boy students in attendance. Coach Johnson would make sure to commend these students on their bravery. He certainly never went easy on any of them.

For actual punishment paddlings, the theoretical maximum the school could give was ten swats, and there were specific circumstances under which that number was allowed. Although not mandatory for the CP Club, that was the number that students would commonly try to take. They were allowed to stop at any time though. Coach Johnson just asked that they try to take at least a minimum of three swats just to make it worth everyone's time. Almost all of them were able to do that.

Coach Johnson watched as the students unfolded their slips at the same time. One of the boys, Justin, was smiling when he looked at his slip. He held it up. The other students cheered him on as he approached the chair Coach Johnson had setup.

Justin looked at the girl he obviously had a crush on and smiled at her. Her name was Trish. Showing off for the opposite sex was a pretty common motivator for these students.

Justin trembled a bit as he bent over the back of the chair. Coach Johnson found that amusing. They all tried to act tough, but they were all secretly terrified of being paddled, and for good reason. Coach Johnson was known to give the hardest paddlings.

Justin was wearing the usual thin gym shorts. However, Coach Johnson could tell that he had on underwear beneath those shorts. As long as they didn't wear more than one pair, Coach Johnson didn't call them out on it.

The other students started doing something they had made up themselves called the "Paddle Dance" while making loud ape noises. They did this every time as a form of encouragement. Coach Johnson rolled his eyes. Teenagers were a weird bunch.

The performative aspects were a big part of the appeal, and Coach Johnson really played up his role as a performer. He made a show of lifting the paddle up and back until he was in a wide sideways stance with the paddle raised up towards the ceiling.

He remained like this to let the anticipation of the students reach a fever pitch, and then he swung the paddle as hard as he could in a wide arc that ended when the hard wooden surface slammed into Justin's butt.

"ONE!" came the shout from the other students in unison. It was likely that Justin had cried out in pain, but the noise from the other students drowned it out.

After a good long interval to let the excitement build up again, Coach Johnson gave him another swat. "TWO!" came the celebratory cheer.

Justin lasted for six swats before he jumped up from the chair, clutching his butt and screaming in pain. He realized what he had done and looked back at the chair but it was too late. The rule was that the paddling ended if a student got up for any reason.

"Let's cheer for Justin!" said Coach Johnson. The ape noises and the Paddle Dance resumed as Justin wiped his eyes and rubbed his sore butt. As he headed back to his peers, he looked at Trish, but she looked away from him, seemingly not interested.

After a few minutes of the students hanging out and joking around with each other, the meeting came to an end and everyone except Justin left. Coach Johnson liked for the one who had been paddled to stay behind for a few minutes so he could make sure they were alright.

Justin's shorts and underwear came down for a quick examination. His butt would be bruised for a few days, but nothing was out of the ordinary. "By the way, I noticed how Trish was acting," said Coach Johnson as Justin was pulling his shorts back up. "I know you were wanting to impress her. You weren't here when this happened, but I recently paddled Trish. She took eight swats bare. That's why she wasn't impressed. She's a tough girl. Better luck next time."