Piper's Price

by D. A. Maddox

  …

  Answer the question, sweetie. There is no bad answer if it is the truth. You will never be punished for telling the truth, no matter what it is.

  Yes. I mean, I don’t want it to. I know it’s wrong. I … can’t help it.

  Do not concern yourself. It is not ‘wrong’. It is only who you are—and you are an honest, thoughtful young man, so far as I can tell. The interview is done, Robbie. You have done well. Very well. You may now ask your own questions, if you wish.

  Please, Matron. What happens now? I’m kind of upset.

  ****

  Nurse Reyes-Garcia shut down the laptop. “Soon it will be time for lunch. Then you will be quartered in your cell. You will be offered a book menu to pass the time until I return to update you on your status—whether you have been approved for the program or will need to be transferred to the general population. After that, assuming you are approved, you will be allowed to arrange for a meeting with our resident psychiatrist, Dr. Cossack.”

  She sighed. Robbie was a mess, elbows on the table, face again in his hands, crying but quiet—more shell-shocked than anything. Right now, she supposed, his mind would be overflowing with contemplations, making predictions against his will.

  She waited for him to calm down and compose himself. It took a few minutes.

  When he recovered enough to dry his face and blow his nose, she said, “I do not think you need fear actual prison time, Robbie. This is a formality, a process. Look—you see? You are very popular.”

  She was indicating the view counter, which had surpassed five thousand.

  “He’s a freakin’ senator’s son,” Officer Kersey uncharacteristically chipped in from behind the camera tripod. “Closest thing to a celebrity we’ve had. I mean, this kid’s doubled the previous record for interviews, and his answers were as boring and predictable as they come.”

  Nurse Reyes-Garcia never looked away from him. “And he is a cutie,” she said, allowing a little hint of the sultry to creep into her voice. “Time to finish your processing, Robbie. Cut the feed, Officer Kersey. No more filming until tomorrow.”

  Officer Kersey shut it down. “We’re out, boss,” she said.

  At the same moment, the entryway door opened again. Behind it stood yet another female corrections officer with a punishment warden badge.

  “Officer Thompson,” she said. “You’re right on time.”

  Chapter Six

  Horse

  She was young, like Officer Kersey. She was blonde, like him, her hair tied in a ponytail, not unlike Michael’s. Her sapphire eyes were kind but expectant, eager but sympathetic. Her hands were sheathed in black latex. In one of them she held a heavy but flexible red strip of rubber at least a foot and a half in length. Its handle fit neatly into her palm, but it flattened and widened out at the end.

  Robbie felt his breath shorten, his skin pale. “I thought we were done. I thought I wasn’t in the program yet.”

  “This is our new temporary resident,” Nurse Reyes-Garcia said to Officer Thompson. “His name is Robert McNeal but goes by Robbie. He has made his three strikes, all documented.”

  “They always do,” Kersey said, turning from them, packing up the gear on the table. She seemed to be talking to herself.

  “Very sad,” Nurse Reyes-Garcia went on. “but likely to benefit to him in the end.”

  “That’s exactly where it will benefit him,” Kersey muttered.

  Thompson remained silent, but she approached Robbie. She circled him in slow steps, her eyes sizing him up.

  “Matron, I’m sorry,” Robbie said. “Truly sorry. I—I’ll be good. I promise.”

  “You will not be on camera for this,” she answered him. “You should be grateful, receiving your first punishment in this way. Do you not agree, Robbie?”

  Behind Officer Thompson, the cop from Intake reemerged, wheeling in a wooden gymnastics horse fitted with restraints on either end. This time, Robbie noted the name on his badge: B. Davies. But all he did was wheel it directly in front of Robbie, slide it off the trolley, fix it to the floor, and depart, all without sparing him a direct glance.

  “Do you not agree?” Nurse Reyes-Garcia repeated, her tone sharpening. “Answer me, young man.”

  “Yes, Matron,” Robbie said, head down. “Thank you, Matron. But if I have to be honest—I mean, those were the orders, right?—then I have to tell you I was hoping you’d let me off the hook. Just this once.”

  Officer Thompson put her forefinger under Robbie’s chin, guided his face back up so that they looked each other in the eye. And then she spoke, every bit as kindly and implacably as Nurse Reyes-Garcia. Her voice was low and hungry.

  “I like him.”

  “Robbie,” Nurse Reyes-Garcia then said, “it really is best this way. If you are to receive this kind of punishment in front of others, in front of cameras, you will first want to know what to expect. You will want to be able to properly prepare—or, as they say, ‘brace’ yourself. There is no getting out of it. It will be over in a moment. Now be a good boy and do as Officer Thompson tells you, instantly and without question.”

  Officer Kersey had finished stowing the equipment. She slung the black duffel bag over her shoulder, and watched him, arms crossed. Why didn’t she leave?

  “Face the punishment horse, honey,” Officer Thompson said, setting the rubber paddle on top of it and easing him around by the shoulders until he faced away from her. “Yes, good, good, just like that. Tell me, have you ever been beaten before?”

  “No, Officer Thompson.”

  “Are you scared?”

  “Yes, Officer Thompson.”

  “Best we get it out of the way quick, then. Take the mystery away. Now drop your underpants and kick them behind you a little.”

  Robbie looked behind him, saw Officer Kersey studying him.

  “Finally getting somewhere,” she groused, looking right at his scarcely-covered ass.

  He took a deep, steadying breath, hooked his thumbs into his shorts, hauled them to his knees. Let them drop. Kicked them far enough away that his feet wouldn’t get tangled in them. And stood there wearing only the shirt, his butt on full display. Officer Thompson gave it a light pat. Officer Kersey wolf-whistled.

  I’m not on camera, he reminded himself. They see people like this all the time, like doctors. It’s no big deal. They’re only pretending it is to embarrass me. That’s the whole game. It’s their job. They don’t care. They’re not really … staring at me. They’re not getting off on it.

  “You’re doing well, Robbie,” Officer Thompson said. “Keep it up. Now be a dear, won’t you, and lean over a bit? Spread your arms across the front of the horse—good, good, just like that—and put your wrists over the cuffs on either side. There. Excellent. Very obedient, like a puppy dog. Well done.” She ran a finger down the inner course of his bare right arm, then over the back of his neck, then down the right arm, giving him a light squeeze at the crease of his elbow.

  Robbie closed his eyes, tried to blot it all out—especially the trepidation, which mounted by the second.

  She cinched the cuffs tight.

  “Break free,” she said, returning to the back of his neck with her hand, now giving that a squeeze as well.

  “I can’t,” he said weakly as she gently massaged his neck muscles.

  “Try anyway,” Nurse Reyes-Garcia said. “And try hard. You would not want this to count as another strike against you. Would you, my little apple-bum?”

  Robbie pulled against them. Nothing. He summoned strength, then heaved against them with all he had, grunting with exertion. He tried a long, sustained pull of at least seven seconds, maybe ten, before he gave it up and simply leaned against the horse as though already spent.

  “You see now,” Officer Thompson breathed in his ear. “This is going to happen to you. You cannot break free.”

  “Yeah,” he managed. Then, quickly, “Yes, Officer. Ma’am. I … I already knew. Like I said—”

  “You
knew, but now you see,” she cut in. “And that is different, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” he admitted. It was different. He was utterly immobilized, and would remain so until they saw fit to free him.

  Officer Thompson took a knee, bringing her face so near to Robbie’s bared ass that he could feel her breath on his skin, passing over the tiny hairs at the top of his crack. She reached around his waist on both sides, and from underneath the horse she lowered a long steel rod fitted with a second set of restraints. “For your feet,” she said, taking his left ankle in both hands, lining it up, and securing it.

  Robbie had never felt so exposed in his life when she drew his right ankle away from his core, separating his lower extremities like a Thanksgiving wishbone, leaving his body splayed in a ridiculous X over the punishment horse. He trembled all over, nearly convulsing.

  “Honey,” she purred, rubbing his back, “Don’t be so scared. You know we will not injure you. It is my particular task, simply, to bring you to your discomfiture threshold, not beyond it. I am very good at it, quite skilled. There will be pain, yes. Without pain there is no learning, my sweet. But I will not hurt you. Not really. You’re safe with me.”

  “Thank … you … ma’am.”

  “Oh, look,” she said, poking the back of his scrotum with a latex-shielded finger. “Oh my. He’s a dangler. One sec.”

  In his thoroughly compromised position, Robbie could not see what she next drew out from underneath the punishment horse, but he could feel her snap it around his waist. It was a button-down jockstrap. The pouch hung loose, unsecured, as Officer Thompson scooped up his testicles in her fingers. “Don’t want to slap these pretty things,” she said, now running her thumb under the base of his shaft. “At least not yet.”

  Robbie stiffened—everywhere.

  She centered his cock against his belly and snapped the pouch protectively closed over it, the connecting string riding high up his ass. She ran her hands over him, made sure his balls were completely shielded. Standing behind him, her hand between his legs from behind, her index finger slid up and down, up and down, over his engorged member.

  “So responsive,” she said. “So swollen with need. If I let you—if I made you—you’d blow like a nose with a cold.”

  He groaned. He didn’t want to do that in front of her. Only, he did want to. He needed to. And he might, whether she “let” him or not, if she kept this up much longer.

  She drew her hand away.

  “Are you embarrassed much?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Robbie said, his voice a faltering mess. And he thought, You have no idea.

  “Oh, sweetheart,” she said, now standing, rubbing his back in comforting circles, “you should have been more obedient for your Matron, then. Boss?”

  Officer Thompson stepped away. Nurse Reyes-Garcia stepped forward. Now she was wearing a pair of latex gloves as well, which she snapped theatrically against her wrists, one at a time, as she approached.

  What? Robbie thought. Wasn’t Thompson the one who was supposed to paddle him?

  “We need to be sure you will not foul yourself,” Nurse Reyes-Garcia said. “And although you think you followed instructions at Intake with regard to your cleanliness, your standards might be different from ours. I have to check.”

  “You—” Robbie started.

  “I have not given you permission to speak,” she said, kneeling behind him in her turn, taking one butt cheek in each hand. “Nor have I asked you a question—but yes, I have to check. Also, you have not been thoroughly searched yet, and that is a standard protocol. Do not fuss. All that remains is a quick cavity swab. Then we can get on with your discipline.”

  She withdrew her hands. Robbie almost dared to feel relieved at that—but all hope was dashed when he heard her uncap an unseen container and dip her finger into a squishy gel. Then she addressed Officer Thompson again.

  “Spread him.”

  Officer Thompson leaned back over him. Robbie, unable to stop her, helpless, felt her draw the jockstrap string to the side and pry his buttocks wide, exposing his anus. She held him in that position, kneading his flesh.

  From farther off—but still not far enough—Officer Kersey laughed. “If only the senator could see his golden boy right now…”

  Nurse Reyes-Garcia tapped his puckered sphincter. “You will want to relax, Robbie,” she said. “Holding yourself tight in this way will only cause you further discomfort. If you invite my finger inside you, we will be done in no time.”

  And she blew on him, gently. She circled his hole without penetrating him, then blew on it again.

  Matron, please, he wanted to say. But he couldn’t. He had not been given permission to speak. So instead, closing his eyes, he forced himself to relax as she breathed on his bunghole a third time. As degrading as this was, it was soothing, too, and Robbie found himself able to … open somewhat. To dilate.

  But he couldn’t keep completely quiet when her finger slid inside. She didn’t complain, didn’t admonish, when Robbie first gasped, then hissed involuntarily, then cried out “Oh! God!” when her finger submerged itself past the second knuckle.

  “You wish to pray?” she asked conversationally, moving her digit this way and that inside him. “I have heard that you are a God-fearing individual. Feel free. My word, this is a snug little fuck-hole of yours. I could lose circulation up here.”

  She went all the way in, three knuckles deep, straight to the prostate. Robbie spasmed at the knees. His arms jerked, wrists chafing against the restraints. “God! Oh, God. Please!”

  Her finger curled, poked around. Robbie cried out, his exclamation wordless, lost between a grunt and a scream.

  “Nearly done,” Officer Thompson said. “Hold on, Robbie. You’re going to be fine.”

  Hold on? he thought miserably, feeling the back of her fingernail pressed against the jump button in his guts. What choice do I have?

  She pulled out, and Robbie could have sworn he heard his ass and his mouth exhale together as one. He slumped against the punishment horse, eyes wide with violation and shock. She heard Nurse Reyes-Garcia sniff, then heard the gloves peeled off.

  “You did do a good job,” she said approvingly, fixing the jockstrap back in place so that it kept his scrotum safely and snugly out of the impending paddle’s path. “Clean as a whistle and no blood. What a fine sub you are going to make, if you are approved.”

  God help me, Robbie thought. If this wasn’t even part of being in the program, it was impossible to imagine what horrors awaited him.

  “Heart rate, boss?” Officer Thompson inquired. “Blood pressure?”

  Nurse Reyes-Garcia stood, and Robbie heard her fish the monitor out of her pocket again. “Standard elevations. Nothing unusual. You may proceed.” Then she returned to her post by the entry door.

  Officer Thompson took up the rubber paddle. “Latex allergies?” she asked.

  “No, ma’am,” Robbie said, suddenly wishing he was allergic.

  “So, you’ve never been properly beaten. Have you ever been spanked before?” she asked.

  “No, ma’am,” he quickly said. Then, thinking back, “Well, not in a long time. Not since I was a kid.”

  “Who spanked you when you were a kid?”

  “Only my dad—and only once. I didn’t get in a lot of trouble.”

  She took a fistful of rump in her free hand, gave it an analytic squeeze. “Yes, your dad. The senator. Such a powerful man. Was it unpleasant?”

  It hurt like heck, Robbie wanted to say. Instead, he whispered, “Yes.”

  “Did you cry?”

  “Yes.”

  Her left hand moved up, under his shirt, over his back, between the shoulder blades. Softly, she ran the paddle over his buttocks. “He didn’t use any tools, then, your father?”

  “No,” Robbie answered, lower lip trembling. “Just his hand.”

  “Was your bottom bare?”

  Robbie shook his head.

  “Answer me.”
/>
  “No, ma’am.”

  “It’s very bare right now. Quite naked. And that thing you’re feeling—in your mind and heart, not in your penis—do you know what that is?”

  “I’m scared,” Robbie said. As for his penis, he couldn’t see that at the moment, but it was at half-mast again. He couldn’t imagine why.

  “No,” she said firmly. “There is nothing to be frightened about. This is right. This is just. And it’s out of your control. Do not confuse yourself. What you are feeling right now, Robbie, is regret. You are wishing you had obeyed promptly and completely before, aren’t you?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” he said, and he found that it was true. Hesitation was useless and stupid. These people had heard it all, and mercy was not in their line of work. They did the job no matter what. His quickest path through all this, whatever was coming, was to do what they said, all the time and every time.

  “You need to remember this feeling,” she said. “In the coming days, it will serve you well if you allow this spanking—your first real spanking—to have been instructive. Almost no one makes it through the interview without needing a little corrective encouragement, but the smart boys and girls require no further correction when the program begins in earnest. What I’m about to do to you need not happen a second time. Do you understand?”

  “Y-yes,” he managed, choking back his emotions.

  She withdrew her hand from his back, fixed his shirt. Reached over and patted his cheek, gave his earlobe a playful tug. “I’m going to swat you three times. If I have to do this again, it will be five. After that—if you’re particularly incorrigible, and they keep calling on me to do it—seven. And so on. Understood?”

  “Yes,” he said, wishing she would get on with it and be done, already. “You won’t have to do it again.”

  And he thought, You don’t have to do it now, either. I get it. I’ll be good.

  He was going to risk saying that, but quick as thinking, she drew back and dealt his rear a swift blow with the paddle. The crack of the rubber over his exposed flesh echoed before he felt the sting. But then he did feel it, a burning stripe across both buttocks just over the legs that seared him like actual flame.