Tweed is the story of a visiting American Literature professor in England and his somewhat reluctant introduction to corporal punishment. The time is 1998, and Professor Peter Evans is stunned when one of his English Dept. colleagues suggests that Prof. Evans take a firm hand (or belt or paddle) to his recalcitrant college-age students:
“Have you given any thought to corporal punishment?” That’s what Barty said as soon as he put the two fresh glasses of Guinness down on the table, sat back down, and took a drink. He said what he said quickly and with the unexpected air of either sage wisdom or stating the obvious. I blinked. “Corporal punishment. The palm of your hand. A paddle or a nice cane. Give ’em a good twenty wallops on their backsides. You’ll see. They’ll take their studies seriously when their bottoms are red and stinging. Trust me. I remember getting a good thrashing when I was at Cambridge. Straightened me right out. Old Professor Wallace, I think it was. He and I…”
“You can’t be serious! You’re pulling my leg. Right? These are college-aged men and women we’re talking about. We can’t even do that to our own children back home, never mind someone else’s grown ones.”
“This isn’t the Pennsylvania suburbs, Peter. It’s England. Swats are as much a part of our culture as mushy peas and double-decker buses.”
Naively, Professor Evans believes he won’t ever need to or want to spank his students. But that’s before his tutorial sessions with Ms. Sarah Sawyer. She wants to improve her marks in his module, and he wants to help. So, they sign a “motivational agreement” he assumes won’t ever be needed. Yet, somehow he soon finds himself needing to discipline this third-year student whose intentions may not be as they first appear:
The colorful ovals on her butt cheeks were a deeper reddish-pink now as the pin-prick red spots had started to expand into small red splashes. Her skin was tightening as it swelled. I put the brush down on her back and ran my hand over her skin. So warm. I caressed that warmth for a minute or two before picking the brush up again and resuming.
Somewhere about two-thirds of the way through, I landed a hard blow with the brush on the underside of the far cheek. “No!” Sarah’s right arm flew up, trying to get a hand between the hairbrush and the next swat. I let go of her side, grabbed her forearm, and brought it around across her back. I pinned it beneath my forearm and gripped her hip to steady her on my lap. Her other arm was of no use. She wasn’t going anywhere.
“Do you really mean no? Should I stop?”
“No, Sir.” She sniffed. “You shouldn’t stop.”
Tweed is a three-part erotic short story cycle, written by S.A. Harper.