Bala frowned as the strange woman claimed to have swallowed the key. She tried to ignore her but caught sight of the thing's tongue and fangs. Cringing slightly, she hurriedly went back to rummaging through the pocket. Bala wasn't sure how long she could control the situation. She had handcuffed the grey woman. But she didn't want to hit her again. Her hand was still sore from the punch.

Bala's eyes opened wide as the key fell to the floor. A victorious grin spread across her face. Replaced by a look of despair when she noticed that the key was useless.

Bala's spine felt colder than ice when she heard the soft, but unmistakable hiss. She couldn't move as the serpent began its assent of her leg. Then she stood bolt upright, hands on either side of her face, and screamed. Standing up allowed the serpent to continue up her calf, above the knee, and to wrap around her thigh. While the serpent seemed pleased with how things were going, Bala most decidedly did not.

Bala hopped on one foot as she kept the leg with the serpent as far away as she could. She hopped back, bouncing off the freezing table, and over to the open drawer of the tool box. She lost her balance and crashed into the drawer, knocking it off its tracks and most of its contents onto the floor, before she herself fell to the floor. She lifted the leg with the offending serpent up and grabbed a 'stick' from the former contents of the drawer. She held it with both hands and began trying to pry the vile thing off of her leg. Screaming the entire time, "GET IT OFF! GET IT OFF! GET IT OFF!"

As Bala hopped and squirmed in fear at the friendly little snake, it nuzzled its cool head into her thigh, trying to take warmth from her body. Its eyes shone a soft, pale blue, and the tongue tickling at the student's skin was a deep navy that seemed at home amongst the silvered scales. It continued its climb as Bala fell back and scrambled desperately, taking no heed of her cries.

The gray woman turned to watch this spectacle with her face bunched up in anger. She rolled over onto her stomach and began to drag herself with powerful arms towards Bala, scraping gray skin behind her on the floor.

"He doesn't have the key, stupid girl, I do," Steel half-growled and half-hissed. Her legs dangled loose behind her and seemed to melt against each other and the ground. Bare feet crossed over one another and lagged behind the crawling, scraping body as they melded together to form a long, serpentine tail stretching farther back. The gray woman rose up on arms dug into the floor and hissed sharply, everything below her waist rapidly becoming an oversized snake's body.

The gray woman's hiss blended into the silver snake's as the 'stick' started to pull the creature away from Bala's leg. It bared sharp, white fangs at the girl as it rose away from her skin and hissed as loud as any viper could.

Bala screamed again as the viper bared its fangs. She stopped trying to pry it off with the stick and instead used it to keep those fangs away from her leg. The serpent, no longer hindered by Bala's stick, re wrapped itself around her thigh.

The situation was getting worse and worse for Bala. In desperation, Bala turned to Miss Steel and said, "help me...". She then saw that the grey woman somehow had turned half woman, half snake. She was transitioning from crawling to slithering towards Bala. Bala blinked. Then she blinked again. Then she let out her loudest scream of the night.

Through that shrill, endless scream, the small viper drew back away from the weapon in Bala's hands, turned, and drove its fangs into her calf. Pain stabbed into her, pain she was sure couldn't be real, pain that overrode her mind and forced it to shut down.

Everything went dark.

The young woman woke with a start, her head drooping towards her chest and a soft cramp in her neck. She was sitting in a plain desk in the room she'd been in before. All the other furniture was replaced with other basic student desks and a large one at the head of the room. The woman from before was standing at Bala's side, arms folded under her chest, and was tapping a gray shoe on the floor. Her skin was perfectly normal now, albeit a bit pale, her hair was solid black, and her eyes were a more natural shade and shape of green.

"Young lady, did you doze off?"

Bala looked up at the... pale woman and blinked. She looked down to see she was wearing her vest and jacket. And her shirt wasn't missing any buttons. She quickly looked at her calf and saw no bite marks.

She stuttered, looking back up at the woman. "No! Yes... I'm sorry..." Bala couldn't think of the woman's name. So she finished with a generic, "ma'am."

Bala looked around. Except for the room itself, nothing was a she remembered. Confused and nonplussed, she looked at the woman and asked, "did I give you my detention slip when I came in, ma'am?"

"You did, and then you fell right to sleep. I thought you had a book on your desk or something like that because you kept mumbling to yourself like you were reading," the pale woman said, capping it with a frustrated sigh. "Now, since you've missed so much of your punishment, we'll have to accelerate the rest of it. Stand up and walk up to the front of the room."

The strange woman stood back to give Bala a clear path and folded her arms tightly. Pale fingers drummed softly on one arm, and another frustrated snort escaped matching nostrils.

"Stand in front of my desk and put your hands on it," the detention monitor instructed, her voice growling slightly.

"I'm sorry ma'am. I don't know what happened." Bala thought about what she remembered. Or what she dreamed? She was so confused. But here she was - in front of a very normal looking detention monitor inside a very normal detention room. "Excuse me", she said as she got up to walk to the front of the room. She put her hands on the desk as ordered. She had to lean over a little to do so, giving the woman a view of her skirt covered behind.

"I'm sorry about dozing off, ma'am. That never happens", Bala said, looking back over her shoulder. She was very confused. She never had such vivid dreams as she apparently had when she came in this room. And where did it come from? Why would her mind make up all those things, especially the... Bala shivered a bit. Especially the s-snake? She briefly smiled as she thought that her current position was ideal for spanking. (Fortunately, she was facing forward again so that the woman did not see it.) She was sure that the school didn't practice corporal punishment.

"Ma'am, I apologize if you already told me. But what should I call you?" This confused Bala the most. Bala most certainly would have asked the name of the detention monitor if she hadn't volunteered it. Why didn't Bala know what her name was?

The tall woman's feet clicked on the smooth, hard floor as she took even steps across it. The sound echoed slightly in the room and built itself into the light rapping of a judge's gavel, sentencing Bala to her fate. The clicks were punctuated by a small shuffle of fabric on skin, first from the pale woman and then from Bala as her skirt was carefully lifted over her waist.

"You can call me Miss Steel," the pale woman said flatly. She sighed thoughtfully for a moment, then grinned, though Bala couldn't see it. "Though you won't be calling me much. Open your mouth," Miss Steel commanded the student. A finger slid over the curve of Bala's rear and snuck just under her panties, pulled them back out into a more comfortable and covering position, then let them settle back on her tanned skin. It repeated itself on the other side, then vanished from the student's senses.

"There. Much more decent. Keep your hands on the table, dear, or I'll have to make it all worse," Steel said. Her hands slid into a pocket and came back with an item concealed between her palms, which she held at the ready, waiting for Bala to obey the command so it could be slid into her lips to hold them open. Hidden in the darkness, between Steel's fingers and away from her captive's site, was a plastic, perforated ball gag.

The sounds of Steel's footfalls flustered Bala. They really did sound like a judge's gavel and quite ominous. That sound and her current position made Bala think of spanking again. This time though, it didn't seem funny. Did this school practice corporal punishment?

Bala was trying to remember what the student handbook said about discipline when Miss Steel lifted Bala's skirt. She just couldn't recall what punishments the school meted out. Bala hadn't planned on defacing school property and stuff so she really hadn't looked over the punishments section. Bala squirmed uncomfortably at Steel's adjusting of her panties. She was about to say something about that when Miss Steel commented that they were 'more decent'. Had Bala violated part of the dress code? She knew it specified the kind of panties. She wasn't sure about anything now. Hopefully Miss Steel would overlook that infraction.

Once her panties were in order Bala said, "Ok. Um. I'm not going to be spanked am I? This school doesn't practice corporal punishment does it?" After speaking she remembered Miss Steel's command. "I-I have my mouth open, Miss Steel." Bala opened her mouth to a comfortable distance and turned her head to the side to show the woman. Even though she was looking at Miss Steel through the corner of her eyes, Bala could not see the ball gag concealed in the detention monitor's hands. She wasn't sure what was going on. But she figured that the best thing was to obey this woman for now and check later for any rules violations. Bala's earlier dream had her very confused and she was trying to make sense of this whole situation.

The gag found itself quickly and harshly forced into Bala's waiting mouth, where it was rapidly secured. Miss Steel bent close as she tightened it, tugging back on the young woman's head.

"We practice whatever sort of punishment I want to practice. You are here with me and will be until I say you're free to go, and before you get smart and think you'll report me for abuse, consider who they're more likely to believe, their colleage, or the delinquent. Now, if you do not keep your hands on that desk, young lady, I am going to be forced to punish you more, so I suggest you keep them there. Oh, and to answer that first question, yes," the tall woman said, her voice somewhere between a predator's growl and a playfull purr.

She stepped back to look the student over, her eyes alight, and cracked her knuckles loudly. One hand settled at the small of Bala's back, and the other snapped quickly forward to leave a stinging mark on her uncovered rear. The soft crack echoed once in the room, ricocheting off the walls and returning quickly.

Bala reached up with both hands to try to pull the gag out before Miss Steel could secure it. The woman had secured it so that Bala couldn't even get her fingers between the strap and her cheek. She protested the gag with a muffled and unintelligible complaint. That protest was cut short by the woman's harsh words. She was right, of course. Without physical evidence, the administration would believe the detention monitor, even though Bala was not a delinquent.

With the woman's warning, Bala reluctantly returned her hands to the desk. When the woman stepped back, Bala leaned her head forward causing her hair to cover her hands and slip down the side of the desk. St Agnes had spanked girls before, but Bala was never one of them. The cracking knuckles unnerved her and the hand on the small of her back emphasized that she was about to be spanked. Bala felt humiliated.

The smack on her botttom was a severe shock. Bala let out a short, gag-muted shout whose echo followed that of the crack. Bala attempted to stand bolt upright, but the hand on her back prevented that. With her feet firmly planted, she twisted and rubbed the stinging spot with a hand. "Ow! Slough ih!", she complained through the gag.

Her eyes went wide when she realized what the Miss Steel's glare meant. Looking at the reddening palm print on her behind, Bala gave it one last rub and pulled her panties up to cover the spot. She couldn't figure out how the had come down like that. But they would likely take some of the sting away from the next spank. Then, without looking back at Miss Steel, Bala turned and put her hands back on the desk. This time, she made sure her hands were outside and free from her hair. She had to accept this spanking for now. But if Miss Steel crossed the line, Bala would be ready to defend herself.

((Sorry for the delay. I was trying to decide where to go with this when RL took up my time, mostly in a good way. Unless Miss Steel throws me another twist, I should be back on track now. And don't let that last comment prevent you from adding a twist.))

"That's better. Now I don't want to see your fingers so much as budge a milimeter from where they are now," the pale woman growled. "Or believe me, I'll do things to your ass that will make you wish I was just paddling you for two hours."

Another swat landed on Bala's rump, then another, one for each cheek. The hand skipped off the young woman's curved, soft flesh like a stone on water, leaving behind the ripples of stinging pain and lightly reddened skin. Miss Steel paused for a moment and breathed deeply of the air, taking in some scent the student couldn't detect.

"That's three. You can move your hands after the tenth. I'd ask if you understand but I don't much care," Miss Steel intoned, calmed by her deep breath. Her hand took a few practice swings, missing Bala close enough that she could feel the soft puff of air, then struck hard into the student's right cheek and dug into her flesh for the briefest moment before skipping forward. The pale woman's other hand pressed sharply at the small of Bala's back to keep her squarely in place, and a threatening growl rumbled in the monitor's throat.

Bala grunts with each of the next two swats. She hates them, but there wasn't anything she could do. She flinches at the two practice swings. She definitely did not like to be spanked. But the fact that the woman said that her punishment was ten swats made it easier to endure.

When the fourth swat hits, Bala screams into her gag. Only the grey woman's hand keeps Bala from standing. She balls her hands into fists and fights back tears. She wants to run but holds still. She refuses to wipe the tears forming in her eyes. Only six more strikes to go till this punishment is over and she can leave. She can take that. Miss Steel won't get the satisfaction of winning. Bala concentrated and managed to get her breathing under control. With a shake of her head, she steeled herself for the next strike.

The fifth blow was a mimic of the fourth on the other cheek, stinging hard at Bala's skin. The sixth and seventh repeated the pattern without pause, even striking nearly identically to where the previous blows landed to keep the skin warm and raw with pain.

The tall woman paused and traced the tips of her fingers delicately along the pink outline of the blows left in Bala's skin. A faintly sadistic smile curls Miss Steel's lips at the sight of the gagged, beaten, and humiliated young woman.

"Do you realize what I could do to you, Bala, if I were so inclined?" the pale woman teased. Her fingers continued to trace the outlines of the red marks in small, tickling motions. "No one will believe you. No one will save you. No one will punish me." The tip of one finger brushed barely between Bala's thighs before the hand snapped back and crashed hard into the young woman's rump again. "Two more."

The seventh blow elicits another, stronger scream from the dark student. Bala's head spins back and stares daggers at her tormentor. Tears flow down her cheeks, no longer able to stop them.

Bala shivered at her tormentor's threat. It seemed like a threat anyway, even if she didn't threaten Bala with anything specific. "Hu saih ohwy hen!", Bala retorted. Bala would report this woman to the school if she did go too far in Bala's punishment. Her planning was cut off by the eighth blow. The harassed woman screamed into her gag.

"SAW! PEAS SAW!", Bala cried. She slid forward until her elbows joined her hands on the desk. This was soon followed by the girl sliding forward even more until her forehead rested on the desk. While the desi girl sobbed, her new position unintentionally and unfortunately gave Miss Steel even easier access to Bala's backside.