Piper's Price

by D. A. Maddox

  She was asking Professor Veda Mack, ever so politely, to remove the last of his clothing. In front of everybody.

  Then he was fourteen, and it was his birthday, and he’d had to spend most of it attending his father’s second swearing-in at the United States Capitol Building. He’d shared a look with Senator Brenda Worthington from the gallery seats. She held up a hand to him, offering her best politician’s smile, even though he knew she was an enemy of the family who wanted to destroy his father’s career…

  Her gaze was clinical, cold, flitting down to his erection and regarding it with the casualness of skimming the morning itinerary, then locking eyes with him. Probing his shamefaced features with a tilt of her head, measuring the depth of his blush.

  And finally, he was at church, singing “How Great Thou Art”, listening to the pipe organ Mrs. Merriweather played so effortlessly, so beautifully. In the dream, he was seventeen, just a hint more jaded in the matter of religion than when he’d been small. But he’d always loved her playing.

  She was sucking him, sucking him, fucking his virgin dick with her mouth. Was she thinking of her youth, of courtships she’d had back in the day? Was she imagining her husband as she fondled his balls and pressed his penis against the roof of her mouth with her tongue, rimming his tip with her teeth? Was she…

  ****

  A hand on his arm. Robbie woke up, rolled over, and found himself face-to-face with Nurse Reyes-Garcia. She’d brought in a folding metal chair, and she leaned slightly forward, now stroking his ear, then reaching around and massaging the back of his neck. “Good morning, Robbie,” she said. “You have survived Day One and do not seem too much the worse for wear. It is now Thursday, Day Two. How are you? You may speak freely, for the time being.”

  “Good morning, Matron,” he said, stifling a yawn in his fist, resisting the natural urge to pull away from her—and finding her ministrations quite nice, when he surrendered to them. “How are you?”

  “I am well,” she said, pinching his chin between thumb and finger, “but it is not polite to answer a question with a question. My wellbeing is not under duress. I am doing my work, whereas you are under corrective discipline. I need to ascertain its effectiveness each day, and also make a judgment as to your overall health, mentally and physically.”

  “I don’t know,” he answered with perfect truth. “I mean, the past two days have been the most … upsetting in my entire life.”

  “What a fine life you must have. But I understand. That is all as intended. Continue, please.”

  “And I don’t know how I can ever show my face in public again,” he went on. “Or even in private. Being home, being around everyone I know, is going to be even worse.”

  “Public may not be so bad,” said Nurse Reyes-Garcia. “America likes you, Robbie. You are so popular. You have more people watching you sleep, fully dressed, than some have had during naked punishments. It is quite remarkable.”

  Robbie didn’t consider himself “fully dressed” in the green jumpsuit and socks. He wouldn’t feel properly clothed until he had his own things back. But there was no denying the counter on the wall: 58,000, and all he was doing was lying down. Well, and talking.

  “School should not be so terrible,” she went on. “Transitionals do not generally see any of these things. And that is where you spend most of your time, among your fellow transitionals. By the time you graduate, this will all be very old news.”

  Would it? It wasn’t like he was just anybody’s kid.

  “Your mother’s visit sparked some interesting conversations on the message boards. No, I do not know what it will be like for you at home. You know those people, and I do not. But you said some very satisfactory things to your mother. Very encouraging and healthy, I think. I am no psychiatrist, but I suspect there is more you wish to say. Tell me, why will you not see Doctor Cassock?”

  “I don’t need to,” Robbie said. “I know what’s going on. I know why.”

  “He might be able to help you process it. Keep it in perspective for your reflections, later. Protect your self-image, going forward in later life.”

  “You’re doing all of that,” Robbie said. “I’m all right. Really. I just…”

  “Yes?”

  “I’m … nervous,” he admitted. “You told me the punishments would get worse every day. I don’t know how much more I can take, Matron.”

  “More than you might expect,” she said kindly, drawing back from him, checking her palm reader. “Yes, your vitals are now slightly elevated—but they were steady most of the night as you slept, until the past twenty minutes or so. I suppose now is as good a time as any for me to remind you, as is my duty under law—you may withdraw from the program at any time. Do you wish to do so?”

  Robbie shook his head. We both know what that would mean, he thought. I’m not that dumb.

  “You have to say the words, Robbie. So the cameras hear you. Tell me you wish to continue in the program, that you submit to its requirements of you. For today, I am required to warn you that these will be particularly degrading and invasive—there is a punishment session, also, which we will have done before breakfast—but again, you will suffer no lasting injury or harm.”

  “I’m already in it,” Robbie said. “The time to back out would have been yesterday. I’ve got nothing left to hide from anyone. No, I’d rather just get it over with. I don’t want to go to real jail.”

  “Very wise,” Nurse Reyes-Garcia said. “And just what I expected. Such a smart young fuck puppet.”

  By now, her casual objectifications of him and her pet names hardly even registered. However, his mention of Mom’s visit brought a different visit back to his mind. “What about tomorrow? What happens then?”

  “Tomorrow is tomorrow,” Nurse Reyes-Garcia said. “Preparations for that continue. You need to focus. We are about to begin. Do you need to use the toilet?”

  Robbie shifted up on an elbow. “No—but, wait—”

  She urged him back down by the shoulders. “We have had several people volunteer to assist in your second major humiliation. We could not possibly fit them all in. Now, pay attention. As of this moment, your permission to speak is again suspended.”

  Robbie shut his mouth.

  “Some of this will be alarming at the beginning—the more you know, the less you will fear later. Understanding is the key to courage today.”

  He listened and did not speak.

  “The volunteer spots—along with your semen sample, in a separate event—were auctioned last night. The only ones allowed to bid had to meet certain criteria. Your punishers today are new citizens, just graduated from college at the end of last term. These volunteers have all avowed they have not seen an adult male in the nude before, much less handled one. You are an asset to their essential post-graduate education. They will be wed soon, and their experience in the bedroom will far transcend what they do to you this morning. But they will never forget you, Robbie. The memory of you will be burned into their minds, filed away in that small, special place we reserve for all first experiences. So, you see, it is not all about the retribution of the state upon your person. You are providing a service, making yourself useful in your prescribed penance.”

  All right, he thought. Score one for having a purpose in life.

  “They will not know what they are doing. They will be clumsy and experimental. You will be like a mouth-to-mouth dummy for CPR certification, but I do not believe they will play with your mouth much—could be wrong. They are all quite excited to get started.”

  Robbie looked down his front. No stirring from down under yet.

  Hold on to your helmet, buddy. You’re in for a day.

  “They will also administer today’s punishment. In this they have been given instruction, and I will be on hand to monitor its execution. I tell you this because you will never see them. You will be quite blind until it is time for breakfast.”

  Nurse Reyes-Garcia unhooked a small, red leather bag from her bel
t and unzipped it.

  Blind? Robbie thought. As in blindfolded?

  “To protect the character and integrity of our volunteers, the video will be on delay, their faces pixelated and their voices distorted. The only recognizable persons on display will be me and you—and Officer Kersey, whenever she is out from behind the main camera.”

  Her hand came up with a syringe, and although the needle wasn’t especially large or nasty looking, Robbie instinctively recoiled in the bed.

  “Hold still, you,” Nurse Reyes-Garcia said, grabbing his arm. “No lasting physical injury, Robbie, I promise. Your sight will come back to you in an hour or two.”

  The initial panic was such that Robbie very nearly opted out right there. But Nurse Reyes-Garcia was firm with him—was stronger than he was, in any case—and her face was so utterly calm that some of her serenity actually transferred over to him. To his lasting confusion and surprise, he didn’t resist as she swabbed his arm and tied it off with a blue, rubber tourniquet. He watched, helplessly, as a vein sprang prominently forth from under his skin.

  She injected him.

  “I will allow one more question,” she said, taping cotton over the puncture. “Only one.”

  “How—how soon?”

  “They are already here, Robbie. They are only waiting for you.”

  They, Robbie thought. I’ll never know who “they” are. I could run into one of them at the grocery store later, and I’d never know it. Only “they” will know.

  And just like that, his whole world went black. He let out a small cry, blinking his eyes frantically, straining for sight that wouldn’t come. She leaned over him. Took him by one hand and the back of the head, guiding him to a sitting position. Shushed his trembling lips with a strong but gentle finger.

  “Do not speak,” she said. “You will stand now. I will help you walk. I will see you do not bump into things.”

  He heard the door to his cell hiss and click open. He stood, and he heard the camera in his room make an adjustment. He heard the blip of another camera coming on, this one from the doorway.

  Officer Kersey’s voice: “Morning, boss. We good and ready? Are his lights out?”

  Nurse Reyes-Garcia urged him forward from behind, hands on his shoulders. He didn’t even have a chance to put the stupid hat on—but no matter. Before they made it out of his room, he felt it placed on his head.

  The sound quality changed in the hall, the hard footfalls of the prison staff growing in volume, widening in scope. Even the sound of his shuffling socks grew loud in his ears. And he sensed a fourth person had joined them, and then a fifth, well before they reached their destination, wherever it was. There was a regular procession walking together down the hall now. Another pair of hard shoes. One might have had on sneakers. He could smell them before he felt them, could sense their shadows converge over his.

  Then, a breath over his ear. A finger tracing down his chest to the belly. Soft laughter.

  “Slut,” one of the women said to her friend. The voice was unfamiliar.

  The woman who had touched him snorted. “Just for today.” Another stranger. Robbie was certain of it.

  Robbie kept walking, somewhat buoyed by the continuing presence of Nurse-Reyes Garcia’s hands on his shoulders.

  Cheering from the other end of the hall, distant and echoing. At least three more of them. They were catcalling him, whistling.

  “Fresh meat!”

  “Celebrity meat! Breakfast is served, ladies!”

  “Oh, just look at him—he so scared…”

  Then, the woman he knew only as “Slut”—another of those words Robbie had never spoken aloud in his life—ran her hand over the front of his pants. “What ya got down here, convict?”

  He hadn’t been hard until that moment—and he could never recall going hard so quickly before in his life. It was as though his cock had just gotten a blood transfusion at the speed of light, and his hands went to cover the tent in the lower-middle of his jumpsuit of their own accord, without his brain telling them to do it.

  No one scolded him. From Nurse Reyes-Garcia, there was no command for him to let her keep touching him. Indeed, “Slut” withdrew her hand with a delighted titter, and his Matron simply urged him on. He kept walking, mind racing, wondering what horrors awaited him at the end of the hall.

  Robbie hadn’t been able to memorize the various turns, nor the number of doors, that led from this place to that within the protective custody building. But he thought, without being sure, that they were leading him toward the Intake processing facility. It had been pretty much a straight line between that and his cell, he seemed to recall.

  When they stopped before another door that clicked and hissed to unlock, that possibility seemed more likely than ever. Within the room, sound echoed in a familiar way, and he thought he could smell soap. Nurse Reyes-Garcia withdrew from him, but his volunteer tormentors—of whom there were at least five—more than occupied the void she’d left behind. They converged on him. Their fingers went for the jumpsuit zipper, and for his arms.

  I’m in the Intake bathroom again. What am I doing in here?

  He didn’t struggle. He knew what was coming, knew there was no way out of it. He didn’t resist.

  From feet away, Nurse Reyes-Garcia said, “There is a table in front of you, my infernal little tent-pitcher. The ladies will help you onto it. You will not stand. You will be on all fours with your knees amply spread and your perpetual wood-popper on full display.”

  “You sure he won’t fight?” one of the ladies asked, nervously.

  Let me answer her, Robbie thought. Stop talking about me like I can’t speak for myself.

  “He is a good boy,” Nurse Reyes-Garcia assured her. “He has accepted he needs this discipline—and he knows what will happen if he misbehaves while in custody.”

  “If you say so.” Her voice remained uncertain.

  Nevertheless, the zipper went all the way down. There must have been three of the volunteers tugging the jumpsuit from his body when he felt it drop. His underwear went with it, peeled away in the same hungry, impulsive motion. He pushed the tank top down to cover himself, but they soon had it over his head and off. Again, his hands went to shield his privates, but this time the young women were having none of it. Two of them held his arms apart. Another was at his feet, peeling first one sock off, then the other.

  “Holy shit…”

  “Whoopsie—there it is!”

  “Oh, my Christ, I can see his thing!”

  “Is that what they all look like?”

  “Somebody’s all naked and stuff.”

  “Check out this freshman butt of his. You work out, convict?”

  Yeah, Robbie thought. Most days, when I’m not busy providing special post-graduate education services to women I don’t know while wearing nothing but a hat.

  Wisely, he didn’t say so.

  Hands on his body, tentative at first. They explored his belly, his back, his legs, reluctant feelers not yet ready for a more intimate touching. But close. Always close. Coming closer with each second.

  “He’s got almost no body hair at all.”

  “Little prickly, little stubbly, just here.”

  Then, the familiar voice of Nurse Reyes-Garcia: “I denuded him yesterday,” she said, “but my wayward young man-sampler regrows his foliage like a Chia pet.”

  Now there was a finger at his cock, playfully batting it back and forth. The palm of a hand buffed his behind, its flabby forearm resting against his outer thigh. One of the women holding his arms nibbled at his triceps. A hand went to his head, to the hat in question—

  From Officer Kersey: “Leave it on. Let the audience see him take his medicine while wearing it. Think of it as a message for the home audience: Better Parenting 101: Discipline at home. Keep your kid out of real trouble. Don’t let them turn out like this spoiled-ass douchebag. Head up, 186. I’m locking the camera in place and need to keep you in frame.”

  And Nurse Reyes-
Garcia: “Get him up on the punishment table, please.”

  They guided him forward until Robbie felt the rim of the table against his navel. A stool slid to his feet. He stepped up, clambered onto the table on all fours, as ordered. He tried to move forward, toward what he guessed was the center of the table, but one of the women stopped him.

  Her voice was new. Robbie hadn’t heard her speak before. It was quieter—and it bore no ridicule. “No, stay still. Right like that, Mr. McNeal.”

  The voice of Slut chimed in: “Oooh, so respectful. So fucking kind. God damn, he’s fucking four years younger than you.”

  He could feel his feet dangling over the rim at the base of his shins. Then the quiet one, the kind one, reached between his legs and traced her finger slowly over his exposed anus—which reflexively clenched—and his contracted ball sack, and finally down the shaft of his engorged penis. “You’re very attractive, Mr. McNeal. You feel nice, too.”

  “God! Shut it already! He’s a criminal deviant who got his dumb ass busted, for fuck’s sake. Treat him like the bitch he is.”

  One of the others muttered, “The ass in question is kind of right out there in the wind, too.”

  Laughter.

  Hard shoes approaching on either side of him heralded the renewed attention of the punishment wardens. One set something thick and heavy just in front of his face. The other slid a second thick and heavy object onto the table near his feet.

  “You’re going into punishment stocks, 186,” said Officer Kersey. At her words, he felt his neck being guided onto a mounted wooden rest lined with a padded leather cushion. “For your own good,” she said. “You’re going to want to kick and punch. Your limbs will lash out in spite of your best efforts, so we’re doing this for you. To keep you out of too much trouble.”

  The second half of the frame folded over the back of his neck, locking his head in place as though for the guillotine. Metal clasps cinched and clicked shut. Then Officer Kersey guided his hands through holes on either side of the frontal stockade. Once through, steel cuffs attached to the other side of the wood secured them immovably.