The Punishment Club

by D. A. Maddox

  “Take two steps forward,” she instructed, “then stop.”

  Next to him, Peter was no longer rubbing sleep from his eyes. He was quite awake now, his expression resigned, a mask of calm. Buddy made sure to walk in step with him, to stop right where he did.

  Giggling, a forty-ish woman with ash blonde hair and a neck tattoo went right to Peter, knelt in front of him, lifted his foot by the Achilles, and peeled off a sock. “Small stuff to start,” she happily declared, standing, making a show of holding the thing between pinky and thumb before dropping it daintily—if such could be said of a woman in handcuffs—into the bag. “Can’t believe we get to do this.”

  Then she took Peter by the chin, kissed his cheek, and stepped back. Even though it was only a sock and a quick peck, color rose in Peter’s face. Buddy could relate.

  “Again,” said Nurse Reyes-Garcia, and together, the boys took two more steps forward.

  ****

  Cassidy recoiled when the first man came for her.

  Don’t, Emma Jo thought. That’ll just—

  Recoiling only backed her up right into the arms of Officer Garcia, who had come forward with the first hint of a flinch. He held her firmly by both shoulders, but his voice was somehow soothing when he said, “Miss Harper, you shall have to be a good, cooperative prisoner if you wish to avoid chastisement. You know that we will allow you to come to no harm.”

  Cassidy shook her head, breathing hard, almost gasping.

  “What frightens you? You may speak for the moment.”

  What frightened her, Emma Jo was reasonably certain, was the man with the Grizzly Adams beard who came for her with both of his hands out in the grabbing position.

  “You have nothing to fear from our Gus Winslow. He is a model prisoner, completely harmless, and is only serving six months for possession of entertainment contraband. What was it, Mr. Winslow?”

  “Stack of KISS records left me by my daddy,” he said. Then added, “I ain’t gonna hurt you, miss. Just help you pay down that sentence of yours, I swear.”

  Again, Cassidy shook her head. Emma Jo wanted to speak up, say something both forceful and encouraging, but she was in no mood to have her behind lit up again. Then Cassidy—who did, unlike her, have permission to speak—explained herself.

  “My parents,” she moaned. “You’re filming this, and they—they have cable, Officer Garcia. They could be watching. M-my sister … could see this.”

  Collette, Emma Jo recalled from last night’s lights-out conversation, who was everything in the world to Cassidy. Yeah, Emma Jo was none too thrilled about any of her own brood seeing this, either.

  “If they have cable,” Officer Garcia said, “then, yes. It is an age-restricted channel with an advanced recorder scrambler to prevent pirating, but if your parents are subscribing, then what you say may be true. In fact, I would be much surprised if they were not watching, Miss Harper. It will be important for them to see that we treat you no differently than others they may have observed for their own entertainment purposes. Only now it is not the turn of strangers. It is your turn. Be silent and step forward. Let it happen, Miss Harper.”

  Cassidy, thank God, bit her lip and did as she was told.

  “You’re shaking like a leaf,” Gus observed, coming into her personal space again, cuffed hands reaching for her jumpsuit zipper. “I’ll be quick, miss. I won’t draw it out. You’re just so damned pretty.”

  Officer Garcia said, “You have received a compliment, Miss Harper. Thank him.”

  “Th-thank you, Mr. Winslow,” she said, catching her breath again.

  Gus brought her zipper down in one quick tug, then had her jumpsuit off the shoulders and down around her feet in a single motion, leaving her in only her halter top, panties, and socks.

  All down the hall, the echoing cheers and laughter of convicted male criminals.

  Gus Winslow leaned in, kissed her on her shoulder by the halter top strap, and stepped back. He even bowed. But his eyes never stopped drinking her in, savoring the sight of her like high-end brandy.

  Officer Garcia, at her feet: “Step out, please.”

  She did, leaving the jumpsuit behind.

  It’ll be me next, Emma Jo thought.

  “Both of you, step forward again.”

  ****

  Peter felt like he was getting the raw end of the deal even before Veronica joined in the festivities. Buddy was only down by his socks, but Peter lost his jumpsuit to Nurse Reyes-Garcia’s magic Plastic Bag of No Modesty while he still had a sock to spare. Technically, by points alone, they were even, but he was definitely more in the open than his new friend. And the damned briefs they’d assigned to him, unlike Buddy’s, fit him like a damned Speedo.

  “Shit, Martha, that college boy is toned. I could fucking eat those legs.”

  “De-lish!”

  Yeah, I make this look good, I know.

  “Jeez, Pam, look what you did. He’s going hard…”

  If only he could control the stupid blush reflex. If only he didn’t want to fucking cry and ask for his mother. If only they didn’t stare like that at the growing bulge between his legs, rising like bread dough under his tighty-whities, threatening to poke out the top. He could feel the tip of it scraping urgently under the waistband.

  It was largely for Buddy’s sake that he kept the tears in, but also a guard against even further embarrassment for himself. Peter Gravis didn’t cry—well, not without a vibrating toothbrush up his ass, anyway; no one would blame him for that, but Buddy hardly even tried to keep himself from doing so. When they stepped forward again, and when the next woman came for him, Buddy let the tears fall. No sound effects, no blubbering, just a steady drip like an old-fashioned coffee maker.

  Officer Kersey shook her head behind the camera, but fortunately didn’t ask Nurse Reyes-Garcia for permission to spank him.

  Then Veronica—appearing from the end of the hall while they still had half of it yet to walk—came skipping though a door with her phone held out, twirling a circle or two as Buddy’s jumpsuit fell to the floor.

  “Just in time for the guy-meat, my streamers and creamers!” she trilled to her phone, then tapped it, presumably to change the camera angle to them, away from her. She aimed it directly at Buddy, who moved his hat in front of his tented briefs.

  Whoops, I just looked at that, Peter scolded himself. So far, he felt he’d done a reasonable job of maintaining stand-up john protocol when it came to Buddy. Yet he was relieved that he wasn’t the only one with a case of morning wood. Solidarity, bud, he thought. He would have said it aloud, had he permission to do so. As for using the hat for cover, that seemed only natural. He was about to follow suit until Veronica spoke again, maintaining that innocent, girlish tone that was nothing short of infuriating.

  “He’s the shy one, Buddy is,” she said, forcing Peter to rethink his hat options. He was just fine with that role being assigned to Buddy, who did nothing to deny it himself.

  “Peter,” Nurse Reyes-Garcia said from behind, “Buddy. Step forward again, please. Miss Cruz, mind you don’t obstruct Officer Kersey’s view.”

  Stepping back with them, easing the camera with her without looking up from it, Officer Kersey said, “Somebody’s filming the real show, Ronnie.”

  Another prisoner stepped up, an almost gaunt-faced, middle-aged woman with an explosion of curly black hair peppered with gray. Veronica went for her at once, positioned herself for another side-selfie, arm extended, getting both of their faces in frame. “You know,” Veronica said in a lower, slower voice, “you could go for one of the bigger guns right now.” Then, addressing the unpaying audience, “What will she choose, streamers and creamers? Shirts or shorts? Place your bets!”

  God, Veronica, Peter thought, staring at her as though betrayed while the woman pushed herself past and came right for him, why the hell you gotta—

  She knelt. And hauled down his underwear to a roomful of delighted laughter and screams.

  “That better
be pixelated, Ronnie,” Officer Kersey said, focusing her camera on his loins.

  “No worries!” Veronica assured her, catching him from the side. “You’re the one who did the settings, remember?”

  Peter looked down on himself, past his tank and at his raging hard-on an inch from this strange woman’s face. Wearing only one sock made him feel even more undignified. Silly.

  “Not bad, convict,” she said. Her tongue darted out, took a quick lick from the helmet split, causing Peter to let fly a yelp of teased distress. Then she took his underwear out from around his feet, tapped his organ with her finger, kissed it on the side, and stood from him to go to Nurse Reyes-Garcia and the plastic bag.

  “You are doing well, Peter,” Nurse Reyes-Garcia said. “Step forward again, please. Buddy?”

  They stepped forward. From the other side of the hall, yet another female prisoner came forth, a younger, robust-framed black woman in her mid-thirties who clapped her hands in excitement and eagerness—and went right for Buddy. And, after a moment’s consideration, behind Buddy. She waved over his shoulder, first at Officer Kersey and her camera on the rolling tripod, then at Veronica and her phone. All the while, Buddy kept looking one way and then another, as though for help or rescue.

  “What will she choose?” Veronica wondered aloud. “Will it be the—”

  That was as far as she got before the woman took a knee, forced Buddy’s hands apart from behind, and exposed his erect penis to the world. It stuck nearly straight up, the hairs on his scrotum bristling like small wires, his cockhead red as a ripe apple.

  Buddy wailed, but he made no move to cover himself.

  When he quieted, some three to five seconds later, and after his underwear had been bagged, Nurse Reyes-Garcia again said, “Step forward.”

  They obeyed, Buddy with his head down, twin boners pointing the way in front of them.

  “I’m out!” Veronica announced, running ahead of them, back the way she’d come. “Time to go see how the other half live.”

  The echo of her laughter was still in the hall a full second after she had gone.

  ****

  “You’re a classic beauty,” her mother had told her, doing her hair, stroking her back, “the stuff of Greek and Roman statues. Paintings of the Renaissance.”

  She and Emma Jo were even now, both down to tops and panties.

  “Forward march, ladies,” Officer Garcia said from behind. “Do not dawdle.”

  From two or three feet ahead, Officer Grant caught their progress, slowly backpedaling in time with them, keeping pace.

  “You’re old enough to have a boyfriend now,” her mother had said.

  She was sixteen, then, having a mid-afternoon visit. She’d been invited to junior prom even though she was a sophomore. Mom, reluctantly, had agreed she could go.

  She was glad to be equal with Emma Jo. Relieved—and not only for herself. If they had all come only for her, she thought that might be somehow bad for Emma Jo, too. It would, in a weird way, be a form of rejection. To Cassidy, Emma Jo was every bit as good looking as she was, just different. She wished Emma Jo could only see that in herself.

  “Just remember what we told you, honey. Be good. Follow the rules. Don’t get into trouble. This is a tricky time for you right now.”

  Cassidy had rolled her eyes at that. She’d be good. She wasn’t stupid.

  “You have your homework done, right?”

  The man who stepped forward from the wall next was the youngest of the bunch, blond like Peter, probably in his late twenties. Dark-eyed like the boy who had taken her to prom, but a little heavier. Some extra weight. Muttering something lewd over his back to the others.

  Of course, she had her homework done. Cassidy wasn’t going to blow the 4.0 she had in calculus—fully two years before she was supposed to start the course—just to go to a dumb dance.

  But she was also glad that her mom thought she was so pretty, and she wondered if the boys did, too. Or that girl in fourth period with the red hair, ponytail, and cute little freckles high in her cheeks under blue eyes.

  The man came for her. She only had two things left. Everyone was watching. The camera was pointed only at her now, not Emma Jo. There was nowhere to run. Nothing to do.

  The memory she had retreated to dissolved into nothing. Her world resolved entirely to the present.

  “Lift your arms,” the man said, looking her up and down.

  “P-please,” she stammered, then jerked in place when Officer Garcia cut in.

  “That will be punishment later, Miss Harper. You have been sufficiently warned. El cielo tiene misericordia, you would think he was going to kill you. Do as you have been told.”

  She lifted her arms, let the tears come again, felt her core heat with excitement that was difficult for her to process as real, much less understand. He drew the halter top over her and off. He tossed it, his gaze never leaving her breasts. Her nipples swelled, tightened at the tips.

  The man gave one a kiss—quick, but lingering enough that the last thing to leave her was his tongue. “Thank you,” he said, returning to the wall.

  “Answer,” Officer Garcia said.

  “You’re … w-welcome, sir,” she said, not knowing his name, the first man ever to taste her.

  “You may put your arms down, Miss Harper.”

  She’d forgotten they were up. She put them down.

  “Forward march, ladies,” said Officer Garcia.

  They took two more steps forward.

  Another man left his place by the wall. One of the older crowd again. Soft, watery gray eyes like his hair, thin but hale. He seemed almost apologetic, but he didn’t speak.

  He came for her. For Cassidy.

  Cassidy looked to Emma Jo, stricken. Emma Jo returned the look with one of sympathy—and inevitability. There was nothing to be done about it.

  Her lips were trembling, as were her hands. Even her breasts vibrated with dread. There was a damp spot between her legs. She felt it but didn’t look. She was afraid everyone would see. They’d think she’d peed herself, probably, but she hadn’t. Her core, against her own will, again seeped with surrender. She couldn’t stop herself.

  Oh, this was awful. But it was inexplicably, undeniably exciting, too. She was warm all over, the burning in her blood shameful, delicious. Why did she feel this way?

  A collective noise from the men, low in the throat, anticipatory.

  And Veronica, appearing as though out of nowhere, twirling around her with her freakin’ phone out…

  “This is called an only-one-naked shot,” she said. “Don’t worry. It won’t be that way much longer.”

  Fair is fair, Cassidy supposed, feeling fingers with papery skin hook into the sides of her panties. I was the last one who had to strip yesterday. Only now I don’t get to undress myself. Now I’m being stripped.

  He took her panties down. The hall erupted with jubilation.

  I’m the only one naked, she thought.

  He kissed her at the top of her thatch, reached his bound hands around for a quick pat of her behind. Left her dampened clitoris alone.

  “You’re beautiful,” he said, his voice gravelly and thick. Then, looking up, “You both are.”

  “Thank you,” she said. Next to her, Emma Jo echoed the sentiment.

  In taking those final four steps to the door, if Emma Jo suffered the same paroxysms of humiliation and inner conflict Cassidy had, she didn’t show it. She only took Cassidy’s hand. Together, they left the protective custody hall and went on to preparation and grooming.

  Chapter Eleven

  Wax

  It was only six o’clock in the morning. At Chesapeake University, Maryland Chapter, Sierra Lavallee and Kevin Carter still sat under the Tree of Knowledge, totally oblivious to the students now starting to come out onto the quad for a morning stroll or jog or bike ride to the student deli or the gym.

  “Tap here, and you can focus on one of them,” Sierra explained, demonstrating on her phone.
She’d entered her code on his phone as well, taught him a few basic things. “Pinch the screen here to shrink, and you let another one in.” This she did until her phone was quartered, showing all four inmates at once. If the main camera was focused on one (which it tended to do if the character in question was speaking, being punished, or whatever), wall cameras picked up the others.

  Just now, the four were being transferred, fitted and strapped to cushioned X-frames in the standing position, not yet being told what was about to happen to them. But the audience knew—or, at least, the regular viewership did. “What now?” Kevin asked, staring, astounded.

  Was it possible he had never seen women naked before? Sierra wondered. Because now that Kevin understood how the screen toggles worked, he only had eyes for Emma Jo and Cassidy. Dumbass was missing half the damned show. Pathetic.

  “Wouldn’t they like to know?” she said with a wink. “God, they’re so terrified. Well, the stupid nurse or her bitch-ass husband will let them know before they do anything, but I’m not going to spoil it, Kevin.”

  ****

  Voiceover, Gloria Wholesome:

  “Here we see Resident Two-oh-Three, Buddy Ray Zimmer, aka Number Twelve, at play on the lacrosse field. Note the aggression, the determination, the fearlessness of his charge, the hairiness of those legs. Aaaaand… GOAL! Oh, look how happy he is, being swamped by his teammates. That’s him with his arms up—can hardly see him through the scrum—shouting triumph, celebrating. You’d think he was the most adventurous, the most outgoing of our new Punishment Club. But no, ladies and gentlemen, free citizens of America. At home, he’s only ‘Buddy,’ introverted, alone, content to keep his own company … except when he’s not. When he’s online…”

  They wheeled him in, like Peter before him, facedown, ass in the air, limbs strapped in and spread. Or he would have been facedown, if a small blue pillow topped with a sheet of white gauze hadn’t served as a chin rest. The X-frames had then been eased down onto wheeled carts like stretchers, and from either intake door they’d been carted inside and formed into a line: Peter, Emma Jo, Buddy, and Cassidy.