Piper's Price

by D. A. Maddox

  Robbie shared some basic physical traits with his father: the blond hair, the pale blue eyes—a barely visible scruff of stubble that struggled to become a beard. But Senator Dusty McNeal was otherwise everything his son wasn’t—articulate, confident, aggressive. He could have his way with a simple word or a gesture. He had the power of command. His very voice demanded belief and respect. Not for nothing had he risen to the post of committee chair on the Council for the Restoration of American Family Values.

  And here he now stood, taking the Lord’s name in vain, hurling it at Robbie like a weapon. And it stung. Robbie never swore. To hear his father do it cut his very soul.

  “I made a … I messed up, Dad,” he said. “I didn’t think. I was only in there a few minutes, tops. I didn’t try to—”

  “Oh, for fuck’s sake,” his father cut in. “You knew exactly what you were doing. Do you have any idea what a pain in the ass it is, bailing you out of this shit? Do you have any fucking clue how much this is going to cost me?”

  It’s just, he’d never seen a girl naked before, not even in photographs. He’d only wanted a quick peek. They’d never know, never suspect anyone had—

  Violated their privacy, his treacherous mind supplied. You’re a criminal. And you’ve wrecked your family’s good name.

  “Let me admit it,” he said. “Let me do my time and take my punishment, whatever it is.”

  The punishments for these kinds of offenses, for those who were young enough and “qualified” to avoid jail serious jail time, were a closely-guarded societal secret, revealed along with so many other mysteries upon graduation. Those who experienced them firsthand—and the volunteers who doled them out—were sworn to silence. And, since most of a young person’s life was spent cloistered in preparatory schools and then college, the secret remained well kept. Their very mystery made for a powerful deterrent against … aberrant behavior. Or it should have.

  Robbie thought of the show his parents had been watching that night two years ago. It seemed so long ago, yet the memory was vivid.

  Robbie’s parents had told him nothing, even after he’d gotten caught, even though his father had signed the law that had sanctioned the punishments into effect more than two years ago. They hadn’t allowed his lawyer to tell him about them. He’d find out when kids were supposed to find out—when he turned twenty-two. Not now.

  It wasn’t like he would be subjected to them.

  His father shook his head, ran his hand through his thinning hair in frustration and exasperation. “Balls already rolling, son. This is bigger than you.” Then he took a breath, regarded his son directly. “Just keep your trap shut and let me handle it.”

  ****

  Before the judge could speak, the main door behind the gallery crashed open. There at last was Robbie’s mother, her face tear-streaked, running over with mascara. “Let me through!” she screamed, battling through the bailiff with flailing hands. “He’s my son!”

  A second bailiff joined the first, converging unexpectedly from her left. They had her by the arms in seconds.

  “Get off me!”

  “Let her go,” the judge said wearily. “She can be here. We’re in open court. But you’re to remain behind the barrier, Mrs. McNeal, and if you speak one more word out of turn, I’ll charge you with contempt. We’re in session, as you can plainly see.”

  Robbie was still watching, lost beyond mere confusion, as his mother unnecessarily wrenched herself free from the men who had already been ordered to release her. She marched right up to the wooden barrier separating the audience gallery from the two legal teams. She was less than three feet away.

  She was terrified. Clearly and obviously distraught—and suddenly quiet. Her very sniffles seemed to echo in the vastness of the chamber.

  What just happened?

  “Mr. McNeal,” the judge said.

  It took a few seconds for Robbie to realize she had meant him. To Robbie, Mr. McNeal meant his father, and then only when someone neglected to call him “Senator”. But he caught on soon enough. He was in adult court, after all. Legally, he wasn’t a kid anymore, even though he was still in the transitional, restricted age bracket—and even though, at the moment, he felt more like a child than he had in a long, long time.

  He turned to face her, hands at his sides. He was shaking, shaking. He couldn’t help it. “Yes, Your Honor.”

  “You had it all worked out, didn’t you?” she asked. “Probably had the rest of your day planned. Is there a party waiting for you back home?”

  Robbie didn’t answer. He knew rhetorical questions when he heard them. But he shook his head, fighting back tears. This is bad, he thought. This is so bad.

  “It’s going to have to wait, anyway,” she said. “And if you’re wondering where your father is, he’s currently being booked on charges of bribery and obstruction. He’ll be released on his own recognizance in a few hours to prepare his own legal defense—against charges far more severe than what you’re facing.”

  Behind him, Mother—sobbing now.

  “Really,” she went on, as Robbie felt his legs weaken, as dizziness suddenly threatened to claim him, “I’m at a loss. Nothing you’ve been charged with even carries a particularly lengthy prison term. There was nothing for him to protect you from other than a bit of well-earned corrective discipline—but some people, it seems, cannot be simply told they are not above the law. Some people need to find out for themselves.”

  “But—” he started, rather desperately, not even knowing what he intended to say.

  “Shut it,” the judge said, her voice clipped, efficient, and final in its authority. “You had your chance to speak not three minutes ago—and, as I recall, you took a pass. Don’t make your situation any more uncomfortable than it already is.”

  The tears. Despite all of his efforts to restrain them, they were coming. He couldn’t stop them, and he kept his hands at his sides. It’s what Mr. Dawson had said he should do.

  “First, I’m removing all media restrictions so that there’s a public record of my judgment in this matter. We are, all of us, equal under the law, as this court is about to demonstrate.”

  At those words, silent digital camera flashes instantly lit the courtroom, and the sound of video cams being positioned on ready-standing tripods, then clicked on, briefly transformed the solemnity of the proceedings into full-on circus mode.

  They’re filming me, Robbie thought. People are watching me everywhere.

  The judge waited for quiet to fall again.

  Robbie glanced back at his mother, whose hands were clasped dramatically over her chest. Past her, Michael leaned forward in his seat. There was a strange look on his face. He seemed almost … expectant.

  ****

  Michael had said there’d be a way, had shown him where it was, how to get there.

  They were in the changing room at the gym. Robbie was quick to get back into his class clothes. He could not quite fathom how anyone could carry on casual conversations in their boxers and undershirts—but just about everyone did, including Michael. Michael was a master at it, in fact, and he didn’t even wear undershirts.

  “You want to go for it, you go through there,” he said, nodding at the ceiling, to the attic portal.

  Robbie looked up, fixed his gaze there—anywhere but at his new friend. Michael was putting on his deodorant. To Robbie, taking care of one’s own hygiene was a personal business, even just brushing his teeth.

  “There’ll be an equipment room right behind their locker room, just like we have,” Michael went on. “Just past that, the shower stalls—open, just like ours. No partitioning.”

  Robbie didn’t take showers at the gym.

  “You go up through the attic Saturday morning, when the girls go running. Your pretty little girlfriend will be out jogging with Jasmine and Heather, and they’ll come back in to wash up around eleven. Couldn’t be simpler.”

  “You been stalking them or something?” Robbie asked, hiking his pants
up quickly and fumbling at the last few buttons of his shirt as he clumsily worked them through the holes. “That’s a thousand times creepy, man.”

  “A little reconnaissance just for you, my friend,” Michael replied with a devious smirk. Then, dropping his voice, “And they’ll get naked, just for you. Not that they’ll know you’re there.”

  “Oh, please,” Robbie said, rolling his eyes. “They’ll change and go.”

  Michael shrugged. “Heard ’em doing it, Robbie. I was outside the building, of course. I didn’t actually see anything—”

  “Then how do you know the attic connects the locker rooms?” Robbie cut in. “You’re so full of it.”

  “Dude—I work here. I’ve been up there lots of times, just never when the changing room’s occupied.”

  Robbie chuckled, stealing glances to make sure no one else was paying any attention to them.

  “They’re not very modest,” Michael reflected, sliding his straight, longish brown hair neatly into a tail. “Not like you. They’re all chatty and laughing and giggling…”

  “Michael, stop. You are some kind of weird, you know?”

  “I know you like her. Hard to blame you. She is pretty.”

  Robbie shook his head. “No way am I doing that,” he said. “It’s crazy. Not worth the risk.”

  Michael slid his shirt on, smiling slyly, not answering.

  “But,” Robbie said, “if I did, you would have to come with me.”

  “Ha!” Michael barked, sitting down on the bench and pulling on his shoes. “Oh, no. This one’s all you, pal. You’re the one who’s got it bad for her. Oh, Maddy … love of my life, if only you would speak to me…”

  “Uh, huh. What’s the matter?” Robbie said, playful in his turn. “You scared?” Then, doubling down, “Or are you gay?”

  Robbie rather suspected that he was, but it didn’t bother him. In recent years, laws against homosexual behavior among adults had been first relaxed, then eliminated entirely. Overpopulation, in poorer parts of the country, was becoming an undeniable crisis. Senator McNeal had fought hard against those changes—and lost. A rare victory for common sense, his opponent had called it.

  People liked who they liked. Robbie couldn’t see what the big deal was, why his father had fought so hard to “keep America straight”. What business was it of his?

  Michael stood up, chucked Robbie on the shoulder. “I’m not scared,” he said, and left.

  ****

  The judge’s voice drew him back. He corrected his posture. He took a breath, tried to summon a little bravery—for his mother, if no one else.

  “You declined the right to a trial by a jury of your peers,” Judge Stephens said, all business, without a scrap of empathy that Robbie could detect. “And so it has been left to me to weigh the evidence on its merits and make a judgment on each of the charges.”

  He tried not to think too much about the cameras, about the shame being cast upon his family for all the nation to behold. Dad, he thought, how much trouble are you in?

  Because Robbie knew that this was not his fault—not all of it, anyway. He had wanted to own this. There would at least have been some small shred of dignity in that.

  The judge forged ahead. “I see no reason whatever to doubt the word of your accusers, all of whom are in good standing with the university as well as the community at large. In making the decision not to testify on your own behalf, you lost the opportunity to contradict their sworn testimony. But it wouldn’t have mattered, given the rest of the evidence.”

  The pictures, Robbie thought. I never had a chance.

  Dad, why did you even try?

  “Therefore, on the counts of criminal trespass, invasion of privacy, and misdemeanor voyeurism—which doubles as a count of sexual mischief—the court finds you guilty as charged. I will therefore pronounce sentence.”

  Robbie brushed away fresh tears, shooting Mr. Dawson a frantic, pleading glare of desperation. Could he object, somehow? Was this a good time to make an appeal?

  But you’re guilty, he thought. Suck it up.

  “Under the law, such offenses, taken together, could net a grown man five years’ prison time. Up until two years ago, I would have had little choice other than to impose that sentence upon you. You’d lose your college years—wouldn’t see the light of the sun again until you were twenty-three years old. By then, most of the people you know, the friends you have, would have finished their education, gotten married, gotten on with the business of their lives. You’d be left behind, scrambling to catch up—and all for one dumb mistake. I can still do it, you know. This might still happen to you.”

  Please, he wanted to say. I know. I’m sorry.

  But he kept quiet.

  The judge continued, “It isn’t lost on this court how young you are—what a sheltered life you’ve led up to this point. Nevertheless, Robert McNeal, you are legally of the age of majority, and a prime candidate for our alternative punitive plan. In order to qualify, you have to pass a special interrogation session with one of our trained interviewers. If you can do this successfully, without the utterance of a single false word—if you can answer the questions honestly, and if your answers commend you toward this alternative, then this whole business will be over for you very soon.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” he said, his voice hardly audible even to himself—but the judge, it seemed, had heard him just fine.

  “Am I then to understand you consent?”

  Robbie looked back, found his mother still at the barrier, hands clasped over her mouth. Generally, she was a person given to speaking her mind, especially in matters pertaining to her family, and it was clearly taking all of her mental and emotional reserves to restrain herself from speaking now.

  “I—I…” Robbie stammered, facing the judge again. “Shouldn’t I consult with my attorney first?”

  The judge waited.

  “Maybe … with my parents?” he hopefully added.

  Laughter from the gallery behind him. Only a few, but it was plainly to be heard. He thought he recognized Jasmine’s voice in the laughter.

  “This decision is yours,” the judge said flatly. “But your attorney would doubtless recommend it against a long-term prison stay. As for your parents, it’s time for you to act like the man you legally are and make up your own mind. Mommy and Daddy can’t help you this time, Robert McNeal. You are on your own.”

  Still, he dithered. It wasn’t like this was a small decision.

  “They don’t know what’s best for you in any case,” she said. “And they’ve got new problems of their own. One way or another, the state will look after your interests for the immediate future. The law will take care of you.”

  “May I … can you tell me … could you please explain what this alternative is?” Then, thinking quickly, “Your Honor?”

  “That information is protected,” she said. “The exact measures taken, all with regard to your safety and the overall effectiveness of the discipline, are selected from a list of punishments designed for behavior modification. Which ones are best for you will be determined during the interview—and the implementation is staggered over a period of three days. You’ll have today and tonight to get oriented and interviewed, then Wednesday through Friday to receive discipline, and you’ll be home by the weekend. Or you may decline, in which case I’ll be forced to sentence you under the older statutes—although that would also make you eligible to file an appeal. Up to you. Make a choice.”

  Mr. Dawson, meanwhile, was no help at all. He was packing his things, avoiding eye contact. He was going to just get up and leave.

  From the judge, “Now, Mr. McNeal. I have three other cases after this.”

  Robbie grit his teeth. “I accept the court’s judgment,” he said, swallowing back the tears, struggling for courage. “I consent.”

  Cheering, from behind him—mostly older voices. People who knew. But he could have sworn he also heard Heather. He definitely heard Jasmine, who was making that anno
ying tchock, tchock noise of hers, clucking her tongue against the roof of her mouth. He couldn’t make out Maddy.

  And his mother, sobbing again. The squeaking of chair legs as Mr. Dawson got up and departed.

  The judge brought her gavel down. “That’s it, then. Mr. McNeal, the court sentences you to four days of incarceration with three days’ Controlled Judicial Humiliations, pending the successful completion of your qualification interview. Processing to take place immediately, with the commencement of discipline beginning tomorrow morning at the discretion of your punishment wardens. You’re remanded to the protective wing of the Huntington Adult Detention Center until your release on Saturday at 7 AM. Adjourned.”

  And just like that, the whole gallery was clearing out. Robbie stood frozen in place, watching his own mother turn her back on him and run, full tilt, back through the doors she had come in through. Two of his accusers—my victims, he thought—were giggling.

  Tchock, tchock.

  But Maddy looked troubled, somehow sad.

  One of the bailiffs was coming his way. Unclipping handcuffs from her belt. “You can keep your hands up front,” she said. “You look pretty harmless. Don’t want to make you uncomfortable.”

  The last thing he noted, before being manacled and led by the arm to a door in the back for processing, was his friend, Michael—and Michael was crying.

  ****

  He remained long after all of the other principal players, other than the judge, had gone. There was a whole new case underway, but Michael didn’t hear any of it. He saw only the wooden space of floor between his feet. He heard only his thoughts.

  This wasn’t supposed to happen. It wasn’t supposed to be like this. He was just supposed to be in trouble with the girls, with school. His famous father would get him out of it—and he’d never look at Maddy that way again. But now—now he’s going to jail. Now he’s facing secret punishments people our age aren’t even allowed to see.

  And he didn’t tell on me. He kept quiet. Kept me safe.