The pain was indescribable—imagine a paper cut the size of the Grand Canyon. Now fill it with an ocean of lemon juice. Now flick it with a fingernail the size of a shopping mall parking lot. That's how much it hurt. I grimaced, giving a ladylike little gasp, but in my head I was just waiting for this to be over. Behind me was the new girl, Alison, with a paddle, and she'd managed to catch the junction of my buttock and my thigh with the edge of it. Fortunately I was wearing the Catwoman PVC body tights and a halter top or I could have been badly marked.