The Punishment Club

by D. A. Maddox

  It had been every bit as painful, as breathtakingly difficult, as she had feared. Her skin yet burned with it, in spite of the cream. Her face remained hot with embarrassment. Between the tender but merciless oral ministrations of the women and the stern, calculated application of discipline from Officer Garcia, Cassidy felt well chastised. She’d paid her dues as fully as any of the others.

  She reached back to rub her scorched flesh under the jumpsuit—then immediately discovered doing so was a bad idea. “Ow,” she moaned, hitching a small sob.

  “Dummy,” Emma Jo muttered, shouldering her. “You almost made it.” Then she winked at her.

  “Kinda blew it at the critical moment, I guess,” she sheepishly replied, accepting a bottle of water from the man who had beaten her.

  They all had, eagerly. Emma Jo and Peter had already finished theirs.

  “Thank you, Officer Garcia,” Cassidy said, head down.

  “You are quite welcome, Miss Harper. Drink up, please.”

  They had a standing permission to speak until tomorrow. Tonight’s discipline, barring any further misbehavior, was over. Cassidy dared to toy with the idea they might be through the worst of it. They knew, more or less, what to expect.

  The fulfillment of prophesies, she thought, taking a long sip. The nightmares from the interview.

  Probably a few surprises, too.

  Chapter Nine

  Quartered

  The door to their shared cell, like the interview room, opened by key card. Unlike the interview room, the click was accompanied by a buzzing so loud that Buddy’s hands instinctively went to his ears.

  “You will get used to that sooner than you might think,” Nurse Reyes-Garcia said, clearly accustomed to the reaction. “It is a standard function in correctional facilities.”

  Everybody’s got to know when a door opens, I guess, Buddy thought, feeling more like a criminal than ever. One more thing the mastermind escape artist would have to work through.

  Their discipline, up to this point, had been an otherworldly experience. The VR interview, the forced nudity, the paddling, even the … things those women had done to Cassidy—all of it had been so transcendent, so beyond anything Buddy had ever anticipated, at times it hadn’t even seemed real. But this—from the stop at the med lab for internal allergens screening, the walk past other cells with prisoners inside, the constant escort wherever they went—was mundane. Everything about the recesses where prisoners were housed at Huntington was deliberately spartan, plain, boring, and unpleasant.

  No one in authority thought twice about making them wait. No one talked to them except to tell them what to do. No one explained anything—except Nurse Reyes-Garcia. And Buddy knew better than to mistake her for a softie. Already he trusted her, but he also understood that every word that came out of his mouth, however trivial, translated to information she could potentially use in his “corrections.”

  “You know what I’m not going to get used to?” Peter said, pointing. “That.”

  He wasn’t pointing to the cots—one along either of the wider walls. Nor was he pointing at the thin rectangular window, high on the wall in the back, which would allow in a bar of light but provided no kind of a view. He didn’t indicate the single desk and chair set—an amenity Buddy hadn’t expected and was almost happy about, if happiness was allowed here. There was even stationery and what looked like an (admittedly cheap) e-reader plugged into a charger. Nor was he pointing to the camera in the ceiling corner, which blinked red and swiveled in their direction with the opening of the door.

  He was pointing to the single, stainless steel wind toilet under the window—also under the camera, which wouldn’t track there, but…

  We can’t even do our business in private.

  “You were expecting a Holiday Inn, Peter Gravis?” Nurse Reyes-Garcia asked. “In you go. I shall have you in the bunk to the right and Buddy in the bunk to the left. No, you do not get to choose these things. I tell you so the two of you have one less thing to argue about.”

  Peter stepped in, Buddy following. Each went to his assigned bunk, easing himself onto it gradually. Buddy still felt the residual sting from the paddle. Peter, he supposed, had to be feeling it even worse, though he did a good job of not showing it.

  “We’re not going to argue,” Peter said. Then, encouragingly, to Buddy, “You’re my only friend here, bro. We’re going to make this work.”

  Buddy nodded. He hoped so. Peter was okay, as people went. Even people who could be on the cover of GQ.

  Peter snorted, looked back to Nurse Reyes-Garcia, thumbing Buddy’s way. “He’s okay, Matron. Just doesn’t talk much.”

  Nurse Reyes-Garcia tilted her head in acknowledgment. “Some people speak when they have something to say, Peter. Others are more like you.”

  “Okay, that’s me burned. Ouch.”

  “We are late in getting finished, so dinner will be brought to you this evening. After, you shall have an opportunity to speak to Dr. Cossack or—”

  “Not me,” Peter said, pulling his feet up and putting his back against the wall, tucking the pillow behind it. “Not tonight. Thanks, Matron. I’m good.”

  “Buddy?”

  Buddy was looking at his hands pressed together in his lap. The stupid jumpsuit he was wearing. The hat, now in those pressed hands, that made him feel like an idiot every second he had to wear it.

  I’m in jail. This morning, I woke up at home. Tonight, I’m sleeping in jail.

  I want to go home.

  “Buddy? They do say the first night is often the most difficult—”

  He collapsed to his side, drew his feet up. Faced the wall. And wept.

  From the open doorway, he heard Nurse Reyes-Garcia sigh. “Shall I make the appointment?”

  He shook his head. He knew why he was here, why he was being treated as he was. No analysis necessary.

  He heard Peter rise again from his bunk. He was relieved when Nurse Reyes-Garcia spoke for him.

  “No, Peter. Leave him be. This, too, is quite normal and nothing for you to worry about. People deal with things differently. He will have it out of his system soon.”

  Still crying, Buddy made himself nod, hoping Peter would see. He just needed to do this. That was all.

  Sorry, Peter. Awkward for you, huh?

  He jerked out of reflex when the door closed, locking them in together.

  ****

  “Yeah,” said Paige Lavallee, “we’re avoiding that.”

  Toni leaned forward from the shadows in the back, poking her head between the driver and passenger side seats, gawking, stunned to silence. The parking lot of Huntington Regional Adult Detention Center looked like an outdoor party at a rock concert before the doors opened or a tailgating ritual before a nighttime professional football game. Cars had lined the sides of the road going nearly a mile back, most of them abandoned. And now Toni could see why. The people were all here—pitching tents, sitting on the rooftops of vehicles, more than one cluster of them cooking barbecue, their lanterns pooling light over their grills. Even in the closed car, Toni got a hint of their smokey flavor, the whiff of meat cooking.

  The greatest cluster was packed in front of a huge movie screen, faces of all colors paled by the shifting screen scape. The film was split-image: On the left, Peter Gravis sitting on a cot with his head bowed and that other boy curled up on another and facing away from the camera. On the right, Emma Jo Swanson and Cassidy Harper were being marched by a burly cop down a blank white hallway. They were all in jail clothes. And at the bottom of the screen, a running timer, counting up, with the label Time Served—and also MH Sessions Served, which at the moment read 0/4.

  That crowd had to be more than a thousand strong. Maybe two thousand.

  “All these people,” Toni said, feeling a swift but severe case of second thoughts flash through her mind like a cloud of stinging insects. “They’re going to be watching?”

  Counselor Lavallee turned the car away from all of it, started
down a smaller “Restricted Access” road for “Approved Staff Only.” The car’s headlights cut the dark, but not the oppressive feel of the place.

  “Oh, honey, that’s not even the tip of the iceberg. You’re not taking the home audience into account. There’s no way our Big Two Hundred is going to rate under ten million viewers. All part of their prescribed shaming. All in the name of justice. All normal.”

  Toni sat back, flabbergasted.

  “Hey. Don’t you worry about a thing, Antoinette. You’ll be in uniform. You won’t have to be naked for any of it. Our girl, Cass, on the other hand—”

  “She hates being called that,” Toni interrupted, unable to restrain herself.

  “Really? Oh, you’ll have to make use of that. Just like college hazing, right?”

  She stopped the car at a gate, flashed the bored-looking sentry some ID that he didn’t even look at. He just waved her through.

  Here the complex rose like a multi-tiered castle cast in silhouette. It blocked out the moon. Thin windows illuminated its side, but not by much. Dull light in a dungeon tapestry of gloom, greenish bars that glimmered faintly against a background of deep, monolithic black. Were those cells? They seemed awfully close together.

  Poor Cassidy. And with her image being thrown around like that. Toni would just die in her shoes.

  “Come on,” Counselor Lavallee cajoled. “It’s a weekend stay. They’ll learn a good, old-fashioned lesson in humility over the next couple days—nothing more. And make no mistake: You’re in it now, baby cakes. Don’t worry. You’ll have guidance. And remember, have fun with it. Very important. Their degradation, our delight. No harm done. Ratings gold, public servant.”

  Cassidy did look more than pretty in red. And the feelings that welled up in Toni’s core at the sight of her in such trouble, such desperate and helpless circumstance were … well, they were undeniable. It was somehow—awful as it was to admit to herself—sexy.

  I shouldn’t even be thinking like that.

  But she did. All the time. Hell, everyone did.

  Counselor Lavallee stopped the car at a much smaller structure—some kind of admin building, Toni guessed—just outside all of that scary-looking fencing with the glittering metal loops running over the top.

  “Question?” Toni ventured.

  Lavallee killed the engine, doused the headlights. “Go ahead.”

  “What does MH mean?” She couldn’t help but be curious.

  Counselor Lavallee looked back at her, one eyebrow arched. “Major humiliations,” she said. “They haven’t started those yet, though I don’t doubt they’ve had their eyes opened and been warmed up a bit already by now.”

  “And would it be dumb of me to ask, exactly, what a ‘major humiliation’ is?”

  Lavallee smiled. “For Cassidy, you are.”

  After a moment, Toni smiled back.

  ****

  Emma Jo and Cassidy were halfway down their much shorter hall in the women’s protective custody wing when every prisoner door to the left and to the right of them opened at once. That accounted for only twelve doors, but the resultant cacophony just from the doors themselves was hellish. From each one, first an echoing clack and then an electronic buzz like a fire alarm nearly caused Emma Jo to jump in place. They both stopped. Sudden quiet.

  Officer Garcia, who up until that moment had been content to pace them from half a yard behind and point directions with his finger, took each by an arm. “It is the recreation hour before bed for your fellow inmates,” he said, urging them on. “See? Here they come.”

  Out they came—and from either end of the hall emerged an officer to oversee them, both unknown to Emma Jo, both of them women. As for the prisoners, as soon as they were in the hall, each put her back against the wall by her open door and awaited orders without speaking. A few, however, waved at the girls and smiled. Awkward as it was with Officer Garcia at her arm, Emma returned the courtesy and waved back, noting that Cassidy did as well.

  They were older than Emma Jo and Cassidy. None appeared younger than thirty. One, who smiled upon them with grandmotherly pity, might have been in her eighties. She was one of the few with a cell to herself. Most of the other rooms had an inmate on either side of the door.

  As they passed, the female officers moved in without acknowledging the new arrivals and led them, in file, out of the hall down its opposite end. And though it hadn’t come from everyone—less than half, more like—she couldn’t help but feel like some had been sizing her up. Cassidy, too.

  Emma Jo shook it off. She was the new fish. That was all.

  “Officer Garcia?”

  That was Cassidy. She seemed unsure of herself, and that was hardly surprising. The only sound was the echoing clack of Officer Garcia’s hard shoes. Emma Jo was still getting used to padding around everywhere in socks.

  “Yes, Miss Harper. You may ask whatever you wish. I have been surprised not to find the two of you more talkative at present, since you have a standing permission to speak now for the first time all day. Understand that I cannot promise I will be able to answer. But I will answer anything that is fit for you to know, if I can.”

  “Please, sir—I mean, not to be obnoxious or whiny or anything like that—but when’s our rec time?”

  He laughed a little at that. “You just came from it.”

  They were at the door. Like the others, it was already open. Emma Jo sized it up.

  Good thing I’m not claustrophobic, she thought. Two days. I can do this.

  “I’m sorry, Officer Garcia,” Cassidy said, some spirit returning to her voice for the first time Emma Jo could recall since the Dare Dungeon. “If that was supposed to be funny, it—”

  “Miss Harper,” Officer Garcia said, “the inmates in this hall are not your peers. They are serving years of prison time, some of them decades. You two are the only transitional women here. All of the time you shall spend outside of your cell is fully regimented and scheduled. If it is any comfort to you, there is a chance you will be able to enjoy their company at mealtimes, depending on how long your sessions take—beginning tomorrow. Tonight’s supper will be sent for.”

  “I don’t eat animals,” Emma Jo piped up, feeling she should say something. Might as well make it something important. Her word choice was deliberate. She’d scratched the word meat off of her vocabulary list years ago, much to her parents’ consternation. But now she felt a stab of worry she might have offended Cassidy.

  “That choice shall be accommodated,” Officer Garcia assured her. “It is among your retained rights, Miss Swanson, and it is already on the form. Do not worry. Now, please, step inside and do try to make yourself comfortable if you can. I know that it is a shock at first. You will adjust.”

  If Cassidy was offended, she didn’t show it. They walked in together, looking around. It didn’t take long. Wordlessly, each went to a cot, set down the small paper bag of necessities they’d been given, and sat down. It wouldn’t have mattered who got which side. Both were identical.

  Officer Garcia’s hand was on the door.

  “Wait,” Emma Jo said. “Officer, sir—one sec, okay?”

  “You have something you wish to ask me as well, Miss Swanson? Go on, then.”

  Emma Jo bobbed her head, suddenly a trifle unsure if she really wanted to do this. Hell with it, she thought, then plowed ahead, snatching up a tissue from the nightstand box. “You honestly think we deserve this? All we did was—”

  “Let me tell you what I think,” he said with the air of a man who’d been given this question in the past. “Not that it matters much in the end, but I think you deserve to be home by Monday morning and back in school by Tuesday, getting on with the business of your life. This is the price you pay for that privilege.”

  Emma Jo nodded, blew her nose. Tried not to lose her shit. Fair enough, she thought. God, her backside still hurt. She turned on her side, still facing the door—and the man in the doorway.

  “Also,” he went on, “yes. You knew t
he law and broke it, Emma Jo Swanson. This is precisely where you should be for a short time. Be glad the correction takes place now, at an age when the law still has a mind for your return to society and the opportunity for a full life, far from places like this. I expect, when all is done, you would do much to avoid further prison time. Are you answered?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Miss Harper? Anything further?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Shall I schedule appointments with—”

  Together: “No, sir.”

  “Typical,” he muttered, shaking his head.

  ****

  Tamara waited. For more than an hour, she’d sat in front of her computer, waiting for the frame on screen to light up. By now, Vince would have seen the e-mail, read the attachments. She was sure of it.

  Well, unless he was working. After hours on a Friday night were, often as not, prime time for Vince Caster. She hoped he wasn’t sitting in the lot of some seedy motel out of state just now, waiting to take pictures of some idiot having an extramarital fling that would end up ruining lives—ruining families.

  Because Tamara Gibson needed him, and she wanted him now. She didn’t like the guy, not in any sense of the word, but certain jobs required certain tools. And Vince could be quite useful for what she had in mind.

  She’d sent him a complete list of everyone who currently worked the show Consequences, Live!, along with a shorter list of names who used to work for the show but no longer did. The only names she couldn’t dredge up from online credits were whoever “Gloria Wholesome” and “Buck Horndog” were in real life, but she wasn’t too interested in them. They were talking heads (without much inside, by her estimation), show dogs who performed tricks.

  But that list had law enforcement on it, medical doctors, physical therapists, psychiatrists, tech people of all kinds. There were producers, salespeople, copy writers, composers, set designers, prop managers, corporate sponsors, and government. Lots of government.

  Who stood to benefit from the public downfall of four college kids?

  All of them. All they wanted was a good show, and they’ve got it. Four kids chosen only for their looks, paying the price for falling for a dirty trick—one perpetrated by Internet specters who got away completely.