Piper's Price

by D. A. Maddox

  He screamed. His whole body shook. If he’d had anything in him, he’d have pissed and shit right there, all over the floor. There would have been no stopping himself.

  “Oh, shush, you,” Officer Thompson said with a half-smile. “You’re fine. Don’t be such a wimp.”

  She withdrew three paces, allowing herself some running room. She drew the paddle back over her shoulder again before lunging forward, maximizing her swing velocity, crashing the paddle over his ass a second time in nearly the exact same place. Robbie had time to catch his breath before it struck home. He bit his lip, squinting his eyes. Still, he couldn’t keep from crying out again.

  God, it hurts. Oh, dear God, it hurts so bad.

  When he opened his eyes, it was like trying to see through a waterfall. The room was blurred, distorted, and sight didn’t matter anyway. All that mattered was the burning, which she let him feel for ten seconds, twenty…

  Surely, he was bleeding. Surely, she would stop. She would see that she had, in fact, hurt him, had injured him. She’d call off the punishment, maybe even say she was sorry…

  He only knew she was coming when he heard her hard shoes over the hard floor, coming for him fast.

  “Stop! Please! No! Wait!”

  Over the thighs the paddle crashed this time. He let forth another wail—partly from pain, mostly from sheer disbelief—and yet he was grateful she hadn’t tripled his misery by striping him a third time in the same place, where he could already feel the skin rising in a long, sizzling welt.

  Robbie hung his head, weeping. His body now hung loose in the restraints, exhausted. Even his cock sagged as though it was, itself, shamed and defeated.

  “There now,” Officer Thompson said, returning to him, setting the paddle on the horse next to his head. “That’s done.” He flinched when her hand went back to his bottom, then relaxed as she spread a cool, soothing lotion over it. She went slowly, but she was quite thorough at the points of contact. “This will relax the swelling, but you’ll still feel the sting for a couple hours. Nothing unusual. Just a reminder, going into tomorrow.”

  He nodded. He didn’t trust himself to make words, and she hadn’t asked him to anyway.

  “You survived your first paddling,” she went on, undoing the restraints at his ankles first. “How are you doing, Robbie?”

  He took in breath, let it out in a sob, and managed, “I’m okay.”

  “Yes,” she said, sliding the jockstrap back off, then freeing his hands. “You are. With any luck, this is the last you’ll ever see of me.”

  From the table, Officer Kersey yawned. “Anyone wanna bet?” she asked.

  Robbie had forgotten she was there. He wiped his face, restrained himself from glaring at her. He didn’t want to see her eye to eye. He wanted some privacy, a cool bath to soak his ass in, and the company of someone—anyone—who wouldn’t work so hard to make him miserable.

  “Put your briefs and your uniform back on,” Nurse Reyes-Garcia said. “Quick stop at the med lab for allergens screening. Then it will be time to get you fed and settled in for the rest of the day.”

  Chapter Seven

  Candidates

  [Official Release and Consent to Service Document 10286a: Heather Westley. Page 3: Candidate Interview Transcript (partial)]:

  Officer: Okay, we’re on air. You’re aware that you’re being filmed, miss?

  Heather: Yes, ma’am.

  Officer: Would you give a verbal consent to your likeness and voice being used in this broadcast?

  Heather: I consent to my likeness and voice being broadcast.

  Officer: Confirm your first and last name for the record, please.

  Heather: I’m Heather Westley.

  Officer: And your age? We need to verify for the audience that you’ve reached the age of transitional adulthood.

  Heather: Yes, ma’am. I’m eighteen, just like the driver’s license says.

  Officer: Last week, you responded to our request for this interview of your own free will, uncoerced, aware that your parents had already signed a release for your participation in the program? You are aware that you may decline at any time, leave at any time?

  Heather: Yes, ma’am. Mom and Dad are really mad at him. They said it was my decision, that I had to learn about these things sooner or later anyway. Said it would save them a few awkward conversations. [Laughter] I want to be here, yeah.

  Officer: Can you confirm that you have read the punishment program brochure and are aware of what may be expected of you if you are chosen to participate?

  Heather: I have. It was pretty shocking, but … well, yeah. [Laughter] Yeah, I know what I’m supposed to do.

  Officer: You understand that by signing your own consent that you will be, in effect, “locked in”, so that you may be prepared to participate in the Controlled Judicial Humiliations of one Robert McNeal, who has been found guilty of offenses against your own modesty and privacy, along with other offenses?

  Heather: Yes, ma’am. That’s why I’m here.

  Officer: You understand that no part of this process, including this interview, may be discussed with anyone under the age of twenty-two, apart from the other participants, under penalty of prosecution?

  Heather: Yes, ma’am. You all have been very clear—scared me half to death. I won’t say a thing to anyone.

  Officer: You further understand that the moral and behavioral restrictions lifted from you for the purposes of this punishment come back into full effect following completion of the program?

  Heather: I understand.

  Officer: Are you prepared to execute these punishments to the best of your ability even should feelings of empathy for the convicted come into conflict with your duties?

  Heather: They won’t. I’m looking forward to this.

  ****

  [Official Release and Consent to Service Document 10286b: Jasmine Forshay. Page 5: Candidate Interview Transcript (partial)]:

  Officer: You understand that the point of the punishment is the role-reversal? The shaming, having his own intended misdeeds visited upon him, plus extra? You’re aware that the subject of these punishments is approved based on his or her potential for being indelibly affected by the experience?

  Jasmine: Yes, ma’am. Wouldn’t be much point otherwise, would there be?

  Officer: You understand that he’ll likely display acute distress behaviors?

  Jasmine: So what? He shouldn’t have gone creeping over ceiling panels to look at me with no clothes on, then. Not that he got to see anything.

  Officer: If approved, you understand you’re to report in casual clothes, the kind of stuff you’d wear when bumming around the house or turning in for the night. Stuff you wouldn’t be too fussed over if there was an … inadvertent spill.

  Jasmine: Okay. No problem.

  Officer: Recommended short sleeves or sleeveless, nothing you’d wear out on the town.

  Jasmine. Wow. Even on TV, huh?

  Officer: Let’s just say your hands might get messy.

  Jasmine: Sounds fun!

  Officer: You seem very eager, Miss Forshay.

  Jasmine: Let justice be done upon him. I am your instrument.

  Officer: Hm. Do you have … previous sexual experience?

  [Laughter]

  Officer: Well?

  Jasmine: No, I don’t. [Pause. Whispering] But I know someone who does. [Laughter]

  Officer: You don’t say? It’s a wide world, Miss Forshay, and people will talk—doesn’t always make what they say true. Is it one of the other candidates?

  Jasmine: [Laughter] No, not at all. Just somebody.

  Officer: You want to identify this person. I can tell. Okay—who is she? Remember, we’re on TV right now. Over ten thousand people are watching this.

  Jasmine: Not “she”. He doesn’t care. And the program said they were looking for someone like him.

  Officer: You mean a homosexual man?

  Jasmine: [laughter] Oh, yeah. He’s totally, totally gay. Made
friends with Robbie on the first day of school. Poor Robbie had no clue about him, not then.

  Officer: Interesting. Looking to save us some research, are you?

  Jasmine: Sure. Anyway, he has experience. You should talk to him.

  ****

  Madison Piper sat between her parents at her kitchen table at home. Before them, scattered across the table, were a dozen or more documents that all amounted to contracts and permission forms. But there was also the “punishment brochure”, a fully-illustrated document that showed in no unclear terms exactly what was meant by Controlled Judicial Humiliations. Even though the visuals were hand drawn, no photographs, Maddy couldn’t take her eyes from it. She’d never seen or imagined such things in her life.

  “I don’t know,” her mom dithered. “I’m still recovering from the knowledge that our very own daughter posed completely starkers in a room full of students without even discussing it with us first. This is … a bit much.”

  That drew Maddy’s attention, and her hackles rose in annoyance. “In art class. Good gravy, Mom, I knew you’d have kittens about it. Shouldn’t have told you anything.”

  Her father scratched his chin, poring over one of the contracts. “It’s done, Rachel. She’s not a child anymore.” His gaze never left the paper. “Hard to argue with the paycheck, anyway.”

  Right, Maddy thought. Was kind of fun, too. Like winning a dare.

  She didn’t like them talking about her as though she weren’t right there, without addressing her directly.

  Across from them sat a “government counselor” named Paige Lavallee. She wore a stiff, dark blue pants suit, a tie, and a badge. She had a thin briefcase with a small key-lock by the handle, and claimed to have brought everything they needed to be done today. All she needed was an answer.

  In order for the answer to be “yes”, all three of them would have to agree. As long as Maddy still listed her parents’ home as her personal address, they retained custodial authority under law. Which made it hard not to feel like a child sometimes, Maddy reflected.

  Counselor Lavallee drummed her fingers on the table. “Normally, this would just be a lead-up to the in-station interview,” she said, evidently concerned with returning them to the topic at hand. “But I got that detail waived prior to coming. Time is a factor—and, frankly, we want Madison for this. She was the primary impetus for the crime, and as such—”

  “Enough,” Mom said, holding up a hand, her features betraying distaste. “We get it.”

  The home visit was on account of the fact that the Piper family had neither answered nor acknowledged receipt of these documents—which Maddy herself hadn’t even known about until this morning.

  Her father leaned forward, elbows on the table. “Personally, I wouldn’t mind seeing the little punk go away for five years, if we could actually make that happen—especially after his precious daddy tried to buy everyone off, including us. But you mentioned something about ‘release compensation’.”

  “It’s in the contract,” Counselor Lavallee said, “and a volunteer stipend for Madison, but I guess you didn’t read any of that.”

  “I did,” Mom cut in, “and I’m going to tell you what I’ve already explained to my husband: I will not whore my daughter out. I won’t have half the country watching her on TV doing … those kinds of things. Not for twenty-five thousand dollars, not for fifty. You’re wasting your time here, Ms. Lavallee.”

  Maddy’s father’s eyes went wide. “Honey, what? You didn’t say a word about—”

  “How about a hundred, then?” the counselor asked, unperturbed. “Plus, a matching sum for Madison.”

  ****

  “You wouldn’t be ‘whoring your daughter out,’ Mrs. Piper,” Lavallee had gone on to say. “This isn’t prostitution. It’s volunteer service to the Justice Department, and the young man under sentence won’t lay so much as a hand on her.”

  Sitting alone with the counselor now, her parents having been dismissed from their own kitchen after finishing their half of the paperwork, Maddy ventured, “I don’t understand, Ms. Lavallee. Why so much? It’s not like I’m from a famous family or anything, like Robbie is. I’m nobody.”

  Counselor Lavallee placed the release form in her briefcase, then placed the newly revised contract in front of her. “Nobody is nobody,” she said firmly, but not without compassion. “You’re an exceptional student, for one thing. But it’s the story, Madison—”

  “Maddy, please.”

  “Don’t mistake this as generosity, Maddy,” Lavallee said. “You’re the first girl the condemned senator’s son ever asked out, and the principal victim of his crime. The ad revenues from TV and the livestream will pull in a lot more than two hundred thousand dollars. The government will get more than its share. Trust me.”

  Maddy nodded. She supposed Lavallee was right.

  “And you’re also exceptionally pretty,” Lavallee said. “The people will sympathize with you. They’ll love you. But listen to me. You’re the only one—well, you and your family—cutting a check from this. It’s dead secret. Got that?”

  Like all of it, she thought. Except for what they’ll show to millions of people on the Internet and TV. “Does that mean Jasmine and Heather said yes?” she asked. “Can I talk to my friends first?”

  “No,” Lavallee answered flatly. “That’s not what it means. And I’m afraid you’re not allowed to talk to them until this matter is all said and done. They’ll either volunteer or they won’t. They’re … not critical, Maddy. And the law is clear—each person makes her own choice, uninfluenced by anyone outside of family and government.”

  Maddy shook her head. “I don’t know, Ms. Lavallee.”

  She supposed she would have to sign it, one way or the other. It was either that or cheat her hardworking parents—who had sacrificed so much to pay for her schooling, going back to when she was twelve—out of the only real money they’d ever had a chance at. But it wasn’t easy. Not by a long shot.

  “What is it?” Lavallee gently prodded. “What’s troubling you?”

  “It’s just,” she started, then paused to gather her thoughts. “It’s just I don’t think of Robbie McNeal as a criminal.”

  I might have said yes to him, she thought, if he hadn’t caught me by surprise in front of Jasmine and Heather.

  “What he did was wrong, Ms. Lavallee,” she continued, “and I’m so pissed at him I can’t see straight, but…”

  “But?”

  “I don’t know if I want to do this to him,” she finished at length. “He seems like a nice guy. He just … did something stupid.”

  “Yes, he did,” Lavallee agreed. “Neither one of us knows enough about him as a person to judge his character, not based only on this. But the law is the law, Maddy, and actions have consequences, even for the best of us. If you say no, I don’t think the board will approve him for this sort of punishment—and instead of four days in protective custody, he’ll spend five years in the general population of Huntington Regional Adult Detention.”

  Maddy listened, taking it all in.

  “You’d be showing him mercy, something he has no right to expect—and especially not from you, of all people. Perhaps it’s best not to think of it as punishment. He won’t be much hurt. Most everyone who goes through the program manages to go on quite happily with their lives after it’s over. He’ll recover, believe me. Ten to one he enjoys himself—although he’ll never admit it. Not aloud, certainly, and maybe never to himself. Makes no difference to us.”

  All right, Maddy thought, now you’re making no sense at all.

  “I’m lost. Why would he be approved, then, if he likes this sort of thing? Doesn’t sound like punishment to me.”

  “Poor lamb,” Lavallee said with a shake of her head. “You’re as naïve as he is. It’s not all about punishment. It’s about practicality, too. It’s about redress, about restitution—to you and to the state. There’s a lot of money involved here, as you now realize. As for Robbie, first i
ndicators after the interview reveal he has no idea what he likes or is into, at present. If he discovers along the way that making payment isn’t so bad … well, good for him, right?”

  She placed a pen on top of the contract.

  Maddy pictured him: Robbie McNeal, a bit taller than she was, sturdily built, pale blue eyes and sloppy-stylish blond hair, with a little peach fuzz straining to become a beard about his cheeks and chin. He’d wanted to see her naked in the gym showers. If she signed that contract, she’d see him naked. He’d be her first, except for a few forbidden pictures in old magazines she’d seen once. Even the punishment brochures had been fuzzed out in the critical places.

  And he’d be helpless. It was hard not to be curious. She’d be allowed to do most anything she wanted to him with impunity, all of her choices sanctioned under law.

  He had been bad, after all.

  “You’re a very clever young woman,” Lavallee said. “You suspect that Robbie does not need this treatment, and perhaps he doesn’t. But you were right when you said that what he did was stupid—and whatever else he may be, Robbie is not stupid, no more than you are. Deep down, he knew he’d be caught. He wanted this, every last bit of it. The only question is, do you?”

  “Why do I still feel like I’m being conned?” Maddy asked, eyes narrowing. She didn’t appreciate the insinuation.

  But Lavallee, it seemed, was losing patience. “My cards are on the table, Madison Piper,” she said. “One. Hundred. Thousand. Dollars.”

  And that was a hell of a lot of money.

  “Take it or leave it.”

  Maddy’s eyes returned to the pen on the table.

  ****

  Robbie faced into his room. “Do we know yet?” he asked. “Am I in, Matron? The program, I mean.”

  Behind him, Nurse Reyes-Garcia nudged him a step closer to the doorway.

  “In you go,” she said. “I will be back for you in the morning. These are your quarters until then.”

  No, he thought, putting a tentative foot over the red-painted steel threshold. Not a “room”. Not “quarters”. This is a jail cell, and I belong here.