Next
afternoon, after having returned from Polytech, Aunty had Tanka and I
follow her to the Bazar on nearby avenue Mozart. Jojo and Cricri had been lucky to have late afternoon classes, and
avoided that promenade.
It
was a cramped shop with a capharnaum of various goods. One of the
Polytech bimbos wearing short shorts was in front of us with a lady who
was old enough to be her grandma. We saw her pay for a trique, and tell
Miss Bimbo. "Your mother is a namby pamby, I am going to apply that to
your thighs, and you won't want to be wearing such shorts!"
Mademoiselle
Bimbo was red face, and tugging down her shorts as she left the shop.
Aunty stepped up to the counter, and told. "Bonjour Monsieur, I also need a
trique to teach my girls the value of hard work." We were already
blushing when the shopkeeper told. "With the end of term around the corner I
am almost out of stock!"
She handed Aunty a mean looking rod. "This is what you need for these big girls. Its very effective with my daughter who is nineteen, and best to get two as I don't know when I'll be restocked."
Aunty agreed, paid the gentleman, handed me one rod and the other one went to Tanka. "Now run along, am going to the Monoprix."
At the terrace of that nearby café we overheard two old biddies.
"There's nothing like the trique with skirts up to teach a girl the errors of her ways."
"It works even better on a bare bottom."
We were now blushing to our ears, and ran nonstop till home. Jojo and Crici were back from Polytech, and teasingly asked us how was our promenade.
"Did anyone asked if these rods would be applied to your bare bums?"
I was first to tease them back. "We told a couple of boys, that they are for our sisters, and that we would be selling tickets!"
Tanka echoed. "We told them there would be extra charge if you have to take down your knickers!"
The
two triques, aka canes as they are called by the Grand-Bretons, joined
Aunty's armory, behind the door of the kitchen. With them, and the old
belt plus that big girl martinet, she was well armed.
We soon found out
that it would be two strokes of the trique for a D plus, four for a D,
and six of the best for a D minus. We imagined that it meant eight
strokes for an F, but we never had to verify that assumption. We worked
hard, helped each others, and even improved our chemistry grades.
Aunty
was happy with our hard work, but she also said that we have le feu
aux fesses. Tanka and Jojo translated that with having the hots which
made Cricri and I laughed. Aunty said that its quite normal for girls
our age, but our studies must come first, and warned us that she would
be fighting fire with fire.
When
our boyfriends called for a party to celebrate their engineering
diplomas, we made up a great excuse to skip our tutoring. We would be
very careful not to drink too much, to have breath mints, and respect
our curfew. We thought that we had covered all aspects, but we hadn't
told the boys we would be skipping our tutoring, and they had invited
our chemistry tutor!
When
he spotted us he waved his hand in a manner which clearly meant that we
would be given la fessée. We avoided him, and didn't tell the boys, we
didn't want to spoil their party. We even danced. Que Sera, Sera, Whatever Will Be, Will Be!
We
were back home before our curfew and Aunty was waiting for us with one
of the new trique whistling. "Skirts and knickers off, then bend side by
side over the back of the sofa. You have skipped your chemistry
tutoring, and I am going to stripe your derrieres with the trique!"
We
got five strokes, and they had stung like swarms of angry bees. For a
few seconds we imagined that we would be escaping the famous six of the
best. We were wrong! The sixth strokes was firmly applied across our
thighs, and that single strokes was incandescent!
"And you will be wearing your usual miniskirts, and everyone will see that you are still raised as schoolgirls, à la trique."
That
night, rubbing with our usual balms hadn't been of much help, and we
slept on your tummies. We didn't try to answer who's stupid idea it was!
From
that day on it was la trique, and for the worst offenses a shameful
stripe across our thighs. We sure did our very best to avoid that!
We
graduated on top of our class.
I returned to the US and married my
American boyfriend. Jojo married her French beau. We live between Paris
and New York, and we are to attend the weddings of Tanka and Cricri...
Liliane (Lili), Christiane (Cricri), Jolene (Jojo), and Tanka Rae (Tanka)
./.