Piper's Price

by D. A. Maddox

  And she did see. It was hard for her to feign a casual demeanor, knowing what she was here for and unable to wholly quash the guilt nipping at her heels as she approached the building. But nobody bothered her. Hardly anyone looked her way as Counselor Lavallee led her through the front doors and into the lobby of the station.

  I’m here for three days, she thought. Like a prisoner myself.

  But, no. Not really. She was under contract. Later today, she’d be identified as one of the “volunteers”—which she didn’t feel was an entirely accurate designation, as she was being paid. She felt more like an employee. Either way, she’d be glad to be cloistered within these walls of brick and concrete. She wondered what it would be like, trying to get home anonymously when it was all over.

  As for the station’s clerical office, it was in full swing with the business of the day. There were a few cops signing out at the end of a shift and a few more checking in to replace them; there was one rather harassed-looking young officer wearing a mic and a headset who was soloing dispatch duties in front of a laptop. But most of the activity seemed to be … well, clerical. No one took much notice of Maddy here, either, until Lavallee brought her to a sign-in desk.

  “Clean sweep for you, huh?” the sign-in lady said to Counselor Lavallee, who didn’t acknowledge the question.

  What does that even mean? Maddy asked Lavallee with her eyes—and got nothing in response.

  The sign-in lady, whose badge identified her as K. Hazard, finally saw fit to acknowledge her. “Madison Louise Piper? Put your signature on this, please. You’ll need to access your suite via that hallway—” And she pointed.

  “I’ll walk her down,” Lavallee said.

  Hazard shrugged. “Anything metal on your person? Keys or pocket change? No weapons or contraband, I assume?”

  Maddy handed her purse over. “This would be everything,” she said. Then added, “Except … no weapons or contraband.” No playfulness in her tone, and no sarcasm. Hazard didn’t seem like a terribly funny person. There was a wing of holding cells on the other end of the building, Maddy knew, and they weren’t far from protective custody, where Robbie McNeal would be. She didn’t want to piss anyone off.

  She signed the admittance form, and with Lavallee guiding her, passed through the metal detector, got her purse back on the other side, and went to her suite. Lavallee opened the door for her, and she passed inside.

  And found both Jasmine and Heather waiting for her. They cheered her upon entrance, and she let fly a sigh of relief she hadn’t realized she’d been holding in since yesterday. “Well, thank God,” she said. “I don’t know if I could have done this alone.”

  Then, judging by the shared look in their eyes, she thought, Poor Robbie. You really are in for it.

  Chapter Nine

  Grooming

  “How was breakfast?” Nurse Reyes-Garcia asked, wheeling in what might have been a surgical tray, from all Robbie could see from his position.

  He lay flat on his back on an X-shaped bed, his wrists and ankles strapped down snugly, not quite tightly enough for chafing. The arms and legs of the bed were adjustable. They moved on swivels and could fix him to lie straight or spread-eagled, as he was now. He’d been allowed to put on his clothes after the shower for breakfast, but after that they had taken them from him again, and apart from a warm towel Kersey had tossed over his loins, he was buck-ass naked once more.

  He strained to get a better look at the tray. Anything was better than looking straight up, where a mirror on the ceiling served as a persistent reminder of his current predicament, or across his body to his feet, where one of the cameras peered straight up the lower edge of the unsecured towel. “Taint shot,” Officer Kersey had called it. “If you even know what that means, cherry.”

  He guessed she was referring to his perineum, but he wisely kept his mouth shut.

  “Robbie,” Nurse Reyes-Garcia said, “I asked you a question.”

  I need to own this, he told himself. I need to get a grip, take some control over the situation. If all I do is whimper and cry every time they do anything to me, I’ll never live it down, not if I live to be a hundred and twenty.

  “Good,” he said, straining for offhandedness. “Wasn’t exactly waffles with almond butter and a fruit smoothie, but I like sausage and eggs as much as anyone. How are you, Matron?”

  She lined the tray up next to the bed on his right side. On it was a straight razor, a shaving cream brush in a steaming ceramic bowl, tweezers, a few bottles of unidentifiable oils, two pairs of scissors, and, inexplicably, a roll of masking tape. Nurse Reyes-Garcia gave another quick check of his vitals and returned the monitor to her pocket.

  “You have calmed down, Robbie. Good for you. But I would advise against becoming too … cocky.” She patted him over the towel. “Say nothing except ‘yes’ or ‘no, Matron,’ unless I ask a question or give permission.”

  “Yes, Matron,” he said, feeling the familiar stir threaten again. Preparation and grooming, he remembered, trying to distract himself. He was going to get a shave, pretty thorough by the looks of it.

  “You will be in this room quite often on Days Two and Three,” she said. “We have most everything we need here for the activities on your schedule.”

  But not today, he deduced. As for the room’s suitability, it was hard to argue with her. Along with the glory shot camera between his ankles, there was an additional one in every corner of the room. The “horse” from yesterday was here, too—or one just like it—and the only wall without mirrors simply dripped with leather and rubber instruments of unknown and unimaginable purpose—except for the paddles, which he now understood too well. Above all that was a digital countdown clock preset at thirty seconds. The only thing that didn’t seem to blend in with all of the other surroundings was a small standalone freezer plugged in by one of the corner cameras, atop which sat a plastic box of baby wipes.

  He wished he were allowed to speak.

  It was as though she could see it on his face. “One question,” she said, rolling her eyes. “Then it is time for me to make you presentable.”

  Robbie was tempted to object, even though he knew better than to actually do it. He thought he took pretty good care of himself, hygienically. He was also quite curious about what, exactly, was on his schedule. But, then again, he’d find all that out in its course. What bothered him most immediately was his immobility. Officer Kersey must have left him nearly an hour ago, and his discomfiture was rapidly passing from mild to acute.

  “May I see her?” he asked. “Maddy, I mean. I never got a chance to apologize to her.”

  Nurse Reyes-Garcia’s features practically melted with tenderness. “Oh, you sweet boy. That account is being settled right here. I cannot answer that. I do not expect she lives very close. But good boys are to be rewarded. Have one more question, since I could not answer the first.”

  He considered, then went for it. He did have permission to ask. “Please, Matron. Could you unstrap me, please? I won’t do anything. I’ll be good.”

  She patted his face, ran her thumb along his cheek. “Yes,” she said. “I could do that. I am perfectly capable of doing that.”

  Robbie opened his mouth to rephrase—then stopped when her pointer finger went over his lips.

  She leaned in to his ear. “Prove to me what a good idea that would be,” she quietly said. “And then I may do it, or I may not. These things are not up to you. Your feelings on these things are of some interest to your viewers, no doubt—but it is I who will determine how much control needs to be imposed upon you, fun-bunny. Am I understood?”

  “Yes, Matron.”

  “Are you uncomfortable?”

  He nodded, not wanting to say it aloud. And damn it all, his true emotions were threatening to surface again.

  “Show me control,” she said, brushing the towel from his body and onto the floor. “And perhaps when I have finished with your down-unders I shall see fit to free you for the rest of your groo
ming.”

  She stirred the brush in the shaving bowl, thickening it with cream that smelled of Old Spice. She spread it on him, first over the base where the shaft of his cock met the top of his ball sack, then all around his inner thighs—and finishing with his taint.

  It might have been arousing, had it ended there. But there just wasn’t anything sexy, nor fun, about seeing her take up the straight razor and lean over him with it. “Lie still,” she said. “You will be fine. Even if you wiggle and squirm, I will not cut you—neither on purpose nor by accident. I have been at this a while, but being difficult will only prolong the experience. Do not worry. I will not take away all of your hair. You must look like the man you are for your audience, Robbie—but really, you have rather let it go down here.”

  Long moments of examination followed without Robbie feeling the touch of the steel.

  “You know,” she said on reflection, “you have enough of a tool down here for it to be in the way when it lies soft. This would be so much easier if your man-stick were to be cooperative and erect for the procedure. Make a boner for me, Robbie.”

  She set down the razor and dunked her hand in the shaving bowl. It came up white with foam.

  On command? he thought. His mind was quite preoccupied with the glittering straight razor. He knew he wasn’t supposed to speak, but a guy couldn’t just order up a stiffy when facing down sharpened steel. He didn’t want to get in trouble for disobeying intentionally. He had to explain.

  “I don’t know if I—”

  “Let me help you,” she said, and softly sheathed his cock in her fist.

  Robbie’s eyes went wide. He stared straight ahead, straight up at his full-length reflection, as she lubed his privates with slow, deliberate pumps. Her thumb moved independently, making small circles up and down him as she pumped him once, twice…

  “Oh, my God,” he said—and felt himself instantly swell with summoned blood. His cock went hard as a tent spike, curving slightly backward through the middle. The feeling was so intense it almost hurt. Maybe it did hurt, a little.

  She let go of him and recovered the straight razor. Holding him by the glans with two fingers, she got to work shaving him. “Once I have finished,” she said, her eyes never leaving her work, “I am going to take that touchably cute love poker of yours and milk it by hand until you squirt. It is not healthy for you to be so backed up. You are going to shoot a sizeable load, I think. Best thing for you.”

  He stayed hard as the delicate work continued, working from the inner thighs to his most vulnerable and heretofore secret place. The steel prickled at him when she spread his scrotum nearly flat with two fingers and wholly deforested it, but she was as good as her word. No cuts, no blood.

  “From what you have told me,” she said, “it will be your first conscious orgasm, and that will be a first for the pleasure of our viewing audience. They are not used to peeping Toms who do not masturbate. Right now, there are many who are taking bets on how many jets your ejaculation will produce. It is a typical bet. Two jets is most common, but for you I am guessing four, considering it will be your first liftoff.”

  She left a small thatch of pubic hair just over his genitals, a little curly blond wig, neatly trimmed. Then she went for the tweezers and got to work on the outer ring of his asshole. By the third pluck, he’d gone soft again—but as that particular zone was well out of the way, he supposed that didn’t matter much. He squinted his eyes, which leaked a steady stream as she cleared him to the red, puckered skin. But he remained quiet. He endured.

  Then she went over the whole area with a warm, damp washcloth until he was pristine and glistening. “We still have a long way to go, Robbie,” she then said, squeezing a dollop of oil into one palm, lubing her fingers vigorously. “But I am going to jerk you off now, give you some relief and take care of you—or you will end up with a set of blue balls that would make an Amazonian poison dart frog jealous.”

  Robbie opened his mouth to say no—this was a sin. Didn’t she understand that? He wasn’t married! Was she married? She couldn’t just do this to him.

  But the rules kept his mouth shut.

  Until, setting one hand on his hip, fingering what was left of his pubis, oiling it, she said, “It is all right. You may speak.”

  “Th-this is wrong,” he said, even as his penis swelled back to full length. Throughout the room, the cameras twitched with movement, rotating by millimeters, zoom lenses dilating. “Please don’t do this to me.”

  And again, the thought plagued him, My mom might see. But he would never add that to his list of complaints. The last thing he needed was to be labeled a Mommy’s boy on top of everything else.

  “No, Robbie,” she said, running her fingertip over his length from base to tip, “this is not wrong. It is prescribed discipline. What is wrong is how wound-up you’ve become over exactly this kind of thing. If you were not so terrified at the thought of pleasuring yourself on occasion, perhaps you would not have been so driven to crawl through ceilings only to catch a glimpse of young women cleaning up in the bathroom.”

  “B-but th-that’s heresy!” he said. “The church…”

  “That is your parents,” she said, now stroking him with a closed fist. “That is your church. I am not saying you should do this every day, every time you see a pretty face. Once every now and again—there is no harm in it, Robbie.”

  “What … about … you, then?” he said, eyes fluttering, heart thundering. “Your husband?”

  “To you this is a big deal,” she said, making sure with both hands that he was fully lubricated, stem to stern. “To me it is an oddly satisfying exercise, like squeezing oranges to make orange juice. There is nothing personal for me in your humiliations. Your blushes and your tears are a professional objective, just as your safety is a professional mandate. As for my husband, he carries out similar duties when young women are brought to this facility under similar sentence.”

  “Matron—Matron, wha? I … argh … Just—”

  “You be quiet, now.” Her thumb passed over the cleft in his glans, which had begun to seep. “Focus on your loss of control and your public shaming. Reflect. Think of the entertainment you are providing for so many.”

  But he could not keep himself wholly quiet. He clamped down on the words, but the grunts and exclamations that involuntarily left his lips as she continued to massage and coax and pump his organ could not be dammed.

  Nor could he, at the last. The first explosion shook him from his toes to behind his eyeballs as he let forth his first jet of ivory-white semen all over his chest. Nurse Reyes-Garcia didn’t let him go—she worked him even harder—and the second blast snaked over his body to just under his chin. His back arched as yet a third blast of milky ejaculate passed through his Matron’s hands and ran down her fingers. The fourth, as he lay there gasping, dribbled helplessly from his shrinking and defeated penis, the final heartbeat of a dying soldier.

  “Well, now,” Nurse Reyes-Garcia said, standing, looking down on him as he wept and wept, flicking the mess from her fingers onto his chest. “You have come all over yourself.”

  And with that, she went to the freezer. She made use of the baby wipes on her hands, cleaning them fastidiously until her fingers shimmered, then opened the door and withdrew a small bottle with a sticker label and a rubber nozzle on the top. The glass sides of it were frosted over like the mug his father got when he ordered his one beer at lunch.

  Nurse Ryes-Garcia tucked the bottle under her arm and returned to him, now setting it on the tray and massaging the nozzle between her hands like she was warming herself in front of a fire. “Just taking some of the chill from it,” she said with a slight smile. “This will make a bountiful contribution to our sperm bank, Robbie. On behalf of the state, I thank you.”

  The sticker label had his full name on it.

  She lowered the bottle to his belly and pressed her finger to the back of the nozzle.

  “We raffle these to our regular viewers, someti
mes,” she said. “Other times, we donate to fertility clinics. But in this case, it will be a fan auction, I think.”

  Like a small vacuum in space filling suddenly with air, it sucked at him, drawing his spunk into the small cryogenic vessel for preservation. She ran it up the path of his mess, tracing up through his abs, between his pecs, and eventually to the dollop under his chin. Then she lifted his penis to it, making him gasp with surprise, and collected the last of it from the tip. She pressed the nozzle once, twice, making the bottle inhale on him, ensuring it missed nothing. She returned the bottle to the freezer, then folded the arms and legs of the X-shaped bed into a more-or-less normal position.

  “You have been reasonably good,” she said, loosening the restraint around his left wrist, “which is impressive on a first day for an individual with your lack of experience. I expected all this to be much more difficult. And so—a small reward.”

  She undid the rest of his bonds, and Robbie made as though to stand up.

  “Oh, no,” she said, hand on his chest. “That does not mean we are finished, Robbie. Look at the rest of your body. You are a blond Sasquatch, an American Chupacabra. There is work still to be done. Turn over, please.”

  ****

  They sat together in a line on a couch in the back of the “orientation” room: Heather, Maddy, Jasmine.

  After Counselor Lavallee had sent for Maddy’s things, they’d gotten dressed in tank tops and shorts, as instructed. Maddy could not help but wonder why, as they weren’t set to begin their sessions with Robbie until the day after tomorrow. Heather in particular looked a little uncomfortable, having her arms and legs right out there in the open for anyone to look at, as if they were at the community pool and not inside a prison compound. Of the three of them, only Jasmine seemed completely at ease.

  No big deal, Maddy thought. Like dorm sisters. Not like I haven’t presented myself in more compromising situations.