The Punishment Club

by D. A. Maddox

  “We go live again in seven minutes,” said Officer Garcia, walking past them one by one, showing them the screen of an open tablet, a live video feed of the action outside of the intake door, all faces pixelated to distortion. “As you can see, we have guests coming, and so we will need you to be at your best for your first major humiliation. You will be silent. You will be contrite. You will be accepting and obedient. Everyone you see is your superior. They have retention of all of their rights as free citizens. You do not. You are subservient. You are foot-licking suck fuckers, if asked to be so, from now until session four is over. Have I clearly spoken? Do the subservient foot-licking suck fuckers understand?”

  They nodded understanding to a one, Cassidy with a hand over her mouth.

  “If the subservient foot-licking suck fuckers understand, they will now say, ‘Yes, Officer Garcia, sir’.”

  They echoed him, as one, “Yes, Officer Garcia, sir.”

  Don’t you dare ask Cassidy to say that phrase, though, Peter thought, his ire already rising on her behalf. She’s already on schedule for punishment, and you know she can’t say that.

  He didn’t. He stepped off to the side, and Nurse Reyes-Garcia took up his place. “Here is some of what you may expect today and tomorrow,” she said, walking the line of them back and forth. “Sessions one and four are group humiliations, much the same as your processing, same as preparation and grooming. Session two this afternoon and session three tomorrow morning have been tailored to your individual corrective needs. For those we have brought in people with whom you are familiar. These volunteers bear you no ill will, or they would not have been selected. But they have put themselves forward to help you to complete the program, each for his or her own personal reasons.”

  That revelation already—though not much of a surprise—had Buddy and Cassidy in tears again, horror-struck. Emma Jo, opened-mouthed but dry-cheeked, appeared nevertheless equally aghast at the prospect. Peter supposed he probably looked much the same to them. Wisely, they all kept quiet.

  Nurse Reyes-Garcia didn’t acknowledge their distress in the slightest, but she had her palm com out. To Peter, seeing that—seeing her periodically check it—was like a lifeline, a reminder she would not let any of them sink any lower than they could without drowning.

  “For this first session, so that you may fully understand the depths to which you will be humbled throughout your stay with us, we have invited strangers to enjoy your first significant degradations. Naturally, we will have you completely undressed for this—except for the hats, as usual. Strip down, please.”

  Peter tugged the zipper down. Farewell again, O my jumpsuit, he thought, trying to set the example, stepping out of it while the others were still pulling tentatively at the tops of theirs. Hardly got to know ya.

  ****

  Once they were nude, Officer Davies stowed each article of their prison garb out of sight behind the intake table, but he left the basket of their possessions out there to be viewed like museum artifacts. He was as pervy now as ever, regarding them—particularly herself and Emma Jo. His small, rodent-like eyes never stopped twitching over their bodies, much as they tried to cover up.

  “Cassidy?” Officer Thompson called, drawing her attention. “Sweetums? Over here.”

  Kersey and Grant’s cameras tracked her as she obediently answered the summons. Officer Thompson uncoiled the first of the leather belts in her hand. It forked at the terminus. A cone-shaped rubber sucker with a tiny bulb of red glass at its base protruded from the end of each strip.

  “This won’t hurt,” she said, easing Cassidy’s hands down, affixing first one cone to a nipple and then the second to the other. On the opposite end of the leather, a hard-plastic loop for a handle—with a button, which she pressed.

  Cassidy gasped when the suckers drew on her, small vacuums, and fixed themselves into place immovably. The little red bulbs lit up.

  Officer Thompson reached a bit higher onto the strap and gave a test tug, pulling her breasts forward, the suckers holding firm. “Excellent,” she said. “Get on your hands and knees so you can be walked, love.”

  Cassidy knelt, then let herself fall to her hands on the floor, tears dripping onto tiles.

  They’re going to walk me? she thought, despairing. Somebody—God—please stop this.

  Hard shoes next to her face. Nurse Reyes-Garcia taking a knee next to her, patting her bottom as Officer Thompson called Buddy to step forward. Through her periphery, Cassidy saw that his particular freak leash had only one vacuum sucker on it, which rolled down the shaft of his swiftly swelling member before inhaling itself into place.

  “I have made it clear to our visitors,” Nurse Reyes-Garcia said. “Yes, you and the others will model our new suction leashes, and you will do everything you are told. But, unlike certain other cases we have had in the past, we will not permit our guests to make you bark like a dog or anything like that. You shall crawl as what you are, as people who are made to do so as a matter of atonement, not as animals.”

  Subservient foot-licking suck fuckers, her mind supplied against her will, her head hanging between her arms, rocking up and down, sobbing. Got it.

  Nurse Reyes-Garcia’s finger, probing between her cheeks, under them, then farther on until—right … there. Cassidy’s head jerked up. Nurse Reyes-Garcia was sliding her finger up and down her sex.

  “Cassidy, you are moistening like an octopus about to ink,” she said. “You will be fine.”

  Then, when Peter was called for his roll-on penis tugger:

  “I’m sorry, Officer Thompson, ma’am. Got anything ribbed? You know, for her pleasure.”

  Cassidy didn’t understand what he meant, but something in the tone made her laugh anyway, even as Peter was added to today’s punishments.

  Then came the chains, two sets for each prisoner, each ending in wrist or ankle clasps, each two feet long to allow for movement.

  After that came the blindfolds, black strips of cloth with two words in white lettering: LEAD ME. The police—now unseen and effectively anonymous—turned the caps around backward so that the words on the blindfolds might be easily read.

  Then they allowed the guests inside.

  ****

  “Come in, come in,” Officer Garcia welcomed them. “Right this way, please. You can see our new inmates are ready to welcome you. You shall be guiding them to our presentation room. We ask that you take turns, that no one hogs them.”

  The disembodied voice, slightly amplified above the visitors’ (by what device Buddy could not guess), echoed down the long hall.

  “We do ask that you refrain from any skin-to-skin physical contact with the prisoners until we reach our final destination and have them properly mounted for your examination and enjoyment.”

  What? Buddy thought, swallowing the growing moan and trapping it in his throat. Mom, tell them they can’t.

  His brain simply could not help but go there, even though Buddy knew that his mother, so adept at getting him out of minor fixes in the past, was far away and powerless to stop any of it. She and Daddy had done their best. They’d gotten him the best lawyer they could. It was over. This would happen to him.

  One of the guests, female: “Oh, shit—look! They’re totally naked, just like on TV!”

  Another guest, male: “Well, duh. You expected something else?”

  Laughter.

  “Yeah, but this is real. You know, like ‘in the flesh’ real?”

  Matron, he thought, let me go hide. Protect me.

  But he said nothing, even as footsteps—so many of them—grew louder in his ears. Even as he felt the ambient heat of somebody reach down under his chin to take hold of the leash that, on the other end, was vacuum packed to his stiffened penis.

  Officer Garcia: “Ah, here we see a realization of the phrase ‘the early bird gets the worm’ in practical application. Go ahead, miss. And please, do not tug until we are walking, and none too sternly. He will go where you lead him without complaint. If h
e does not, I shall correct him.”

  “Please, Officer, just a little tug? A teensy weensy one, just to see if I’m applying the right amount of … you know, force and stuff? And can I see his face? He’s hiding it.”

  “Turn your head up, Buddy. Let the nice woman see your face.”

  Buddy turned his head up, as though trying to see through blinded eyes.

  “Oh, look at him. So cute. Can I give it a tug?”

  No. No. No.

  “Oh, very well. Let me see your technique. And let us use this moment educationally. Everyone, gather ’round, and we shall have a demonstration as to how much pressure to apply when leading our prisoners to our various tour stops.”

  No!

  A quick tug drew Buddy’s penis forward and to the left. He yelped helplessly, then quickly crawled that way, chains rattling, arms and legs shuffling two paces forward and to the left. And, with the exertion, the sheath on his organ lubricated on the inside and seemed to breathe over him, keeping him hard, making him wail in violation and surprise.

  “That is not too bad. Very close, miss. You may lead him a tad more urgently next time, but not too much so. Well, then. Officer Davies, will you be so kind as to explain to our guests the process of taking in new transitional prisoners?”

  Buddy remained functionally still, but his whole body shuddered as Officer Davies talked them through the process with each prisoner, one basket of possessions at a time.

  ****

  “Head up, criminal,” the anonymous man said, giving the leash an unnecessary pull, causing the tiny, rubber, somehow insectile feelers inside the suction cups to tickle her nipples to protrusion again. “Up, criminal. Up.”

  Criminal, her mind echoed. He’s using that word, and he means me, and no one is correcting him.

  Emma Jo scuttled forward, head up—as if it made any difference. She couldn’t make out anything (not that she especially wanted to), and really, how much of her face could he even see with both the blindfold and the hat on?

  He sounded young-ish. Happy.

  “That’s a good criminal. Girl, you got a hell of a blush goin’ on.”

  Of course, I do, asshole! she wanted to scream at him. I’m fucking naked!

  How long, she wondered, before I get used to this?

  From the cold, hard floor of intake and back to tiles she crawled, periodically helped along by the leash, trying to ignore the rubber nipple ticklers.

  “Here,” Officer Garcia said, “our new prisoners must give up the last of what they own and place everything in these plastic bags—”

  Another tug. No one stopped him. Maybe they didn’t notice. Emma Jo didn’t dare protest.

  Another voice, right next to her walker. “That’s long enough for you. My turn. Give her over, please.” Older and female. She kept her voice low. It would have been impolite to talk over the nice police officer.

  “Fine,” the younger man groused, passing her off.

  “…and here we require, in addition to the standard cleansing of the outer body, an interior anal scrub with the soap you see in this small vial here. Sir, if you would be so kind as to lead Mr. Gravis into the stall with me, he shall demonstrate to us how this is done.”

  From Peter, an uncharacteristic whimper.

  “Really? He’s gonna do that here in front of everyone?”

  “He will if he does not wish to spend the remainder of this tour with suction cups on his testicles, which would cause him significantly more discomfiture than the simple shaft attachment. For the record, we also have labia attachments—all easily and quickly fetched. So many different options. Mr. Gravis, will you come forward, or do you wish to be led by your fun nuggets?”

  Footsteps. The sound of another tug, rattling chains. Hands making tentative, leading steps, like flippers.

  Water coming on. A quick exclamation from Peter. Perhaps it had come on cold?

  “There you are, Mr. Gravis. Now do it, please. Show our guests what a good boy you can be.”

  Small grunting sounds, punctuated by familiar popping noises as his finger went in and out, as his butt tried to make room for it. Smaller Peter-crying sounds.

  And from the guests:

  “Jesus Christ, the poor son of a bitch really is doing it. Oh, my God.”

  “Oooh, my, crime really doesn’t pay, does it? Just look at him. What a nightmare.”

  “Gross out. Moving on, please?”

  ****

  The tour led them through the interview room, the storage annex where they’d first been punished—Peter had thought he might be in for some more unpleasantness there, but no—then through both protective custody halls, first the men’s, then Cassidy and Emma Jo’s. But if Peter had been in any way curious as to whether the women had better (or worse) accommodations than the men, he never found out. The blindfold stayed on the whole time.

  “We shall now go to the presentation room, where we have some activities planned for you. After that, we will take you to other places with which you may be familiar but our inmates know nothing about. Therefore, this shall be their final stop. No fun if we spoil the surprises before their time, yes?”

  Peter was brought along by his third handler, a young woman with an unnervingly throaty chuckle, whose eyes he could all but feel on him every crawl-step of the way. But now, hearing the whole dreaded business was nearing its end for him—for all of them—he recovered somewhat. His breathing returned to normal. The inside of his blindfold started to dry.

  Yep, but that was definitely a “major” humiliation back there, he reflected ruefully. Nothing “minor” about that humiliation.

  Another tug. He hurried forward, penis hardening under fresh lubricant that seemed to have no end. Before him and behind him, the ongoing chorus: chattering, whispers, sniffles, and tears.

  And all of it on TV. According to Officer Garcia, eleven million people had watched him core his own bunghole. He forced away the thought. He didn’t want to get upset again. He wanted to be the cool one. If everyone had a role, that was the one he had chosen for himself. It was his comfort zone in a decidedly uncomfortable situation.

  One session nearly down. I can do this.

  “Ah, here we are,” Officer Garcia said, speaking normally now, no amplification. “Gentlemen, ladies, the presentation room. Officer Thompson?”

  ****

  Buddy felt the hat come off, then the blindfold. Rather than return the hat after, Officer Thompson tossed it behind her head, where one of the guests caught it. “Souvenir!” she cried, delighted. “Woohoo! Go me!”

  He found himself surrounded, now, by people he could see—men and women both, and him without so much as a stitch. That he could see them didn’t appear to bother them in the slightest.

  “Hi, Buddy!” called a young man in sweatpants and a Crusher Mob t-shirt.

  “Welcome back to the world of the sighted,” crooned the old woman he had heard earlier, who dyed her hair black and wore altogether too much makeup. She waved at him.

  No, not bothered at all. They had masks, thin and probably comfortable raccoon bandannas. Their identities were protected, at least from the likes of nobodies like him.

  He crossed his arms on the floor, put his head on them, never mind that doing so put his butt straight up in the air.

  “Oh, no, you don’t,” Officer Thompson said soothingly, bending to his front, leading his chin up with a finger. Then, more sternly, “Feel it, Buddy. Acknowledge it. This is why you are here. This is how you make things right with the state.” She took him by the arm and led him to his feet. With his chin on his chest, hearing his chains click and clatter as he straightened, turning up his eyes, Buddy took in the presentation room.

  It was a perfect circle with a white marble floor and walls of deepest red. Hanging ceiling lamps with wide, conical black shades cast a soft light throughout. Cameras ringed the perimeter of the ceiling, although Officers Kersey and Grant remained on hand to catch the action at ground level.

  Rising
up from the marble floor were five square pedestals of shimmering, ivory-streaked black marble, each with small iron rings hammered into the four corners up top. Each one was wide enough to accommodate a human being at full stretch: Cassidy and Emma Jo, still on their hands and knees but spread wide at all fours, their wrists and ankles secured to the rings by the links in their chains nearest the clasps, and Peter, spread-eagled on his back with a pillow under his head, equally immobilized, his stone-stiff organ bobbing up and down involuntarily on its own.

  The guests milled about first one pedestal, then another. Nurse Reyes-Garcia and Officer Alejandro pushed a wooden ramp in the shape of a perfect right triangle up to the side of the final unoccupied pedestal.

  That’s for me, Buddy thought.

  The fifth, in the very center of the room, bore another figure—a hairless, androgynous being sitting up tall on its knees, arms at its sides, no sex visible between its legs at all. It wasn’t human, yet it moved. Its fingers trembled. Its eyes, which had pupils but were otherwise completely blank white, shot right and left, as though anticipating.

  It was animatronic. A model, like the replicants in Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep. For what kind of a demonstration, Buddy didn’t care to speculate.

  “Come, Buddy,” Officer Thompson said, tugging his penis leash, urging him to the ramp.

  Buddy went, doing as he was told, letting himself feel it the whole way, watching the guests watch him being led to his place of display. He noted that the others were allowed, seemingly, their involuntary noises as hands crossed over them or lingered on their flesh: squeezing a leg here, a buttocks there, reaching under Cassidy to circle a nipple with a finger, leaning in to kiss Emma Jo’s helpless vagina, lifting Peter’s erection or bending it this way and that, exploring it from various perspectives. So, Buddy voiced his protest without words, a small, continuing one-note song of shame passing through his teeth as he just cried and cried, all to the greater entertainment of the spectators and feelers.