Piper's Price

by D. A. Maddox

  “Sure,” he said. “Any warning, or is this another surprise?”

  Her shadow loomed over his face. “I am going to blindfold you, Robbie. The lights here are quite bright, although you would not be able to tell just yet. This will prevent retina burn as your sight returns to you.”

  He felt the cloth go over his eyes.

  “It could happen any time, at this stage,” she continued. “You have been seeing shadows. I can tell by your reactions to things. Once you are at that point, the full resolution of your vision accelerates rapidly. But I will wait with you half an hour longer before removing the blindfold, to be safe. By then, it will only be like waking up to a sunny day.”

  “Good to know. So—no warning, then?”

  “Such persistence,” she said. “Very well. I shall remain on topic. Your visitor is being introduced to the cable television audience as we speak. Yes, I am able to provide you with some limited warning and instruction. Indeed, I have to. There are certain stipulations to this part, which you may—or may not—find agreeable when the critical moment comes.”

  “You mean, like, conditions?”

  “Yes. They are very important. You will need to attend to them most closely in order for us to remain within the boundaries and safeguards of this program. To begin, I shall warn you that when you see your visitor for the first time, you are going to experience feelings of acute mortification and distress. You will think we have made some mistake, that we have overstepped or misread your profile. All perfectly normal and part of your prescribed discipline, I assure you.”

  “Is it Heather and Jasmine? Is it … Maddy?”

  Robbie couldn’t imagine anything as awful or intimidating as being presented naked to the people he had wronged, though he rather suspected it was part of the program. Even given Maddy’s assurances she wanted nothing bad to happen to him, what people did in the heat of the moment—as he knew only too well—was often contrary to their essential nature.

  “No. Do shush up and listen. Your visitor is allowed to touch you but does not wish to hurt you, Robbie. Your visitor may feel any part of you except for your genitals. Those remain off-limits unless you should give your visitor permission to handle them. Do you follow?”

  “Yes, Matron,” Robbie said, although he mentally noted the repeated use of “your visitor” with rising trepidation. Still, it didn’t sound too terrible.

  He had no intention of giving permission. He’d been handled quite enough over the past two days.

  “And this is the tricky bit, Robbie. You are not permitted to refuse nor to grant permission by spoken word.”

  “Um, what? Then how—”

  “If your penis becomes erect in the presence of your visitor, that is permission.”

  Robbie drew in breath, but he found himself unable to immediately answer.

  I pop a stiffy and that’s permission? he thought, flabbergasted. Matron, it’s not the kind of thing a guy can always control.

  He hadn’t had an erection in hours. It wouldn’t take much. Under these circumstances, maybe a stiff wind.

  “I see you understand,” she said. “That is all you need do. The matter is not open for negotiation.”

  ****

  At that, Robbie fell silent. Until tomorrow night, Nurse Reyes-Garcia’s word was Robbie McNeal’s law. He simply waited, inwardly thankful for her company as she pulled up a chair and waited by his side—even though she, too, was done speaking for now. He didn’t object when she reached past the wrist restraint and held his trapped hand, either, and occasionally squeezed it.

  Over the next several minutes, Robbie was able to discern the whiteness of his blindfold, as well as the gradual phasing in of the ceiling lights beyond it. Turned out, the covering over his eyes was almost see-through. Long before half an hour had passed, he could make out the familiar rectangles of the ceiling panels. He could see his Matron more clearly, and also Officer Kersey and her camera at the foot of the bed.

  Never has much to say, that one, he ruefully thought, until she does.

  But if Kersey was running a live video feed right now, the interview with his “visitor” was over. The twenty million people following his story on Consequences, Live! already knew what was in store for him.

  Everybody does, except for me.

  “I—I think I can see, Matron,” he said. “I think you can take the blindfold off.”

  She kissed him on his forehead. “My brave boy. Close your eyes first.”

  Robbie closed them, and the blindfold came off, slipped from behind his head with cautious fingers. He felt the light hit him like the onset of a migraine, a blast of pummeling energy that quickly settled to a dull ache. He didn’t like to think what it would have been like if he had left his eyes open.

  “You need time to adjust. Do not open until you are ready.”

  Robbie kept them clamped hard shut. “Yes, Matron,” he said, feeling a weight that wasn’t there pressing onto his forehead, threatening to press his skull open. “Oh, jeez.”

  She ran her thumb above the bridge of his nose. “You will be fine. You will be fine.”

  And she kept massaging him there. The assault of light receded from pain to discomfort, from discomfort to a red haze, from a red haze to a warm glow. Robbie’s lungs unclenched and took in air, and he found himself surprised he’d been holding his breath.

  She’d kissed him. Why had she done that?

  Then, before he could think himself out of it, he blurted, “Do you have kids? Oh, God. I’m sorry.”

  A hand ran the length of his right arm. “No, Robbie. I do not have children of my own. But I do what I can to care for the charges put into my trust. My capacity to do so is limited. One does what one is able, under law.”

  Robbie choked. “You’re a good person. Better than me.”

  “No,” she said. “I am a person with a job to do. I put forth my best effort. You are a person still being made. It will be up to you, what kind of a person you will be. And you will be fine. Open your eyes, Robbie.”

  Robbie did so, and it was just as she’d promised, like waking up on a sunny day. He blinked. Adjusted. She smiled down at him. Above her, Robbie could see his reflection in the ceiling mirror, completely exposed except for the blanket over his waist.

  Nurse Reyes-Garcia checked her palm monitor. She arched an eyebrow. “Relax, Robbie. There is nothing you can do. Breathe. Calm yourself. Do not be troubled by what you cannot control. The session has not even begun yet.”

  Robbie slowed his breathing, drawing the air in more deeply.

  “Good,” she said, pocketing the monitor. “Keep that up.”

  She turned to one of the mirror walls and snapped her fingers.

  The lights dimmed, then went out—and then the room relit, but not from the ceiling. Standing candelabra flickered to life, and their soft orange luminescence cast the Preparation and Grooming room into ruddy hues. The unfamiliar carpet he had felt beneath his toes earlier turned out to be a thick, crimson shag rug. It radiated out from under the bed in a wide circle, maybe three feet in diameter.

  He turned his head, and there, just where it had been before, was the cryogenic semen freezer with the baby wipes on top. The wall of paddles and mysterious sex toys were also as he remembered. Maybe the place wasn’t so different after all, only now he understood it better. They didn’t just resolve into focus—they resolved into purpose.

  That’s a flogger, he thought. And that thing—the rubber glove with the pointy rubber prongs—that’s for “handling” me. Those balls on a drawstring are probably for my butthole.

  There was a leather jockstrap with a penis gag, a handheld cylindrical pinwheel roller with tiny metal spikes, a cock-sized plastic tube attached to a rubber fist pump, finger gloves with battery attachments that might strap into place over the wrist, harnesses of every description…

  And many, many things he still did not understand.

  “Oh, dear Jesus Christ,” he whimpered.

  Off
icer Kersey snickered, rolled her eyes, shook her head.

  “You said no one else would hurt me today.”

  “Do not be so scared,” Nurse Reyes-Garcia said. “If we had you for a week instead of three days, you might get to know all of these things. No time, no time. We have left the choices up to your volunteers, who have received counsel and instruction from Officer Thompson. She is proficient in all of them. No, Robbie—you will only get a taste of the torments we have on offer. You are not scheduled for further punishment of that sort until tomorrow, anyway.”

  He turned his head again, and he found a small table on the other side of his bed. On it was an unlabeled plastic bottle of clear red liquid next to a small wooden locker, no bigger than a shoebox. Its hasp was already open.

  Robbie’s eyes focused on the bottle. “I’m too young to drink, Matron,” he said feebly. “I’m not twenty-one.”

  “That is true,” she agreed. “And seventy-year-old women sucking off eighteen-year-old men is likewise frowned upon in decent society. Nor are you supposed to take a vibration ball up your ass during your transition years. But you are here, Robbie, until tomorrow night. This is not decent society.”

  “And that’s not alcohol, dumbass,” Kersey chipped in from behind the camera.

  Well, how would I know? Robbie wanted to say. But he found it more practical to ask, “What is it, then?”

  “You may never know,” said Nurse Reyes-Garcia. “Or perhaps you will. We shall see.”

  Robbie’s eyes followed her as she strode away from him, to the wall with the various implements of known and unknown torture. From it she took down a strip of black leather like a long belt with a small buckle on one end and fitting holes pressed through on the other. At its center was a bright red ball of silicone, bigger than a golf ball but smaller than a baseball.

  She came back to him, leather trailing. “Open your mouth, please.”

  Robbie hesitated. On one of the mirror walls, the digital countdown clock lit up with thirty seconds. By the time it hit twenty-six, she was standing next to him again, waiting patiently.

  Robbie opened his mouth. The clock kept ticking.

  “Wider, please. Far as you can go. Imagine I am your dentist.”

  Robbie stretched his jaws wide, his chest heaving. This wasn’t supposed to happen. They were supposed to simply tell him to be quiet, and he would obey. He’d been good at that, mostly.

  The ball went in, fixing his mouth wide open, immobilizing it. The belt, which was much too large for his head—or even for his pants, when he had pants—she trailed past his head, over the pillow upon which it rested, and down either side of the bed. Officer Kersey locked her camera in place and came over to help Nurse Reyes-Garcia buckle it under the bed frame.

  Above him, the small ceiling cameras twitched, seeming to focus on his face, showing the audience the same wide-eyed terror Robbie saw reflected back at himself in the mirror.

  Nurse Reyes-Garcia tightened the belt, not so much as to be painful but sufficiently to pin his whole head immovably in place. Why?

  What about my escape word? he tried to say through the gag. His attempt amounted only to a garbled nothing.

  But, as ever, Nurse Reyes-Garcia either anticipated the question or read his mind. “Since you will not be able to speak properly during this session,” she said, “I am going to offer you the opportunity to withdraw from the program right now. It would be a shame if you opted out at this point. You are more than halfway done. Still, blink your eyes once to surrender yourself to what is coming, or twice to activate the mercy clause. Quickly, now. Your visitor is waiting. If you submit, I will need to leave the two of you alone for a short time, but Officer Kersey will remain.”

  Kind of hard for me to make an informed decision before I see who she is and find out what she has in mind for me, Robbie couldn’t help but think. And, somehow even worse …

  You’re going to leave?

  Nurse Reyes-Garcia was firm, uncompromising, and when it came to it, pretty merciless with him. Yet she was still the resident “good cop” in Robbie’s mind. She was always on hand to make sure things didn’t go too far. She’d see to it Robbie paid the full sum of his penance, but she was also his guide through it all. She wanted him to come through all right on the other side. There was safety, with her in the room.

  Only then did Robbie realize that the counter had started again, and was already down to fifteen.

  “Robbie,” she said, running her hands through his hair, “you have been such a brave fucknut so far. The bravest in some time. I know this does not seem very fair to you. Still, you must make a decision.”

  Back behind the camera, Officer Kersey straightened and let fly a sigh of pure exasperation. “Now, fucknut.”

  Robbie blinked his eyes once. He would not withdraw. Whatever would be, would be.

  The clock reset again, this time staying at thirty.

  She nodded. Her smile was almost sad. “You will be fine,” she said.

  And left. The door opened and shut. Robbie sensed that a person had taken his Matron’s place, but he could not crane his head far enough forward to confirm it.

  “Close your eyes, 186,” Officer Kersey commanded him. “And don’t open them again until you’re told.”

  Robbie obeyed, and forced himself not to hold his breath.

  ****

  Michael Schulsky had opted for ankle socks and no shoes. A softer footfall would hold the surprise longer.

  “Be firm with him,” Officer Jenny had said. “No compromise. It’s for his own good. Remind him what the alternative was, if you have to. He’ll understand, eventually.”

  He wore a white leather vest with no shirt underneath. Open down the middle, it fell quite nicely over his pecs. He was proud of his pecs.

  “And you’re to use every word from the script. You can add things, do a little improv, but you’ll say everything we told you to say. You’ll do everything we told you to do. Be convincing, Michael, or we’ll call your stand-in after you.”

  The pants—like half the accessories in the room—were also leather. They were red, matching the trim of the room. Michael had never worn leather before in his life, and he found the sensation of his penis beginning to strain against it indescribably sexy.

  “Leather is command,” Officer Jenny had said. “Leather is control. He will understand right away that you are in charge. He will submit. He’s a natural sub. Best we’ve had in months.”

  Normally, Michael wore his caramel brown hair in a ponytail, but not today. It hung about his shoulders, loose and free. Unlike his friend.

  And, oh, Robbie was a vision. Approaching the bed, Michael got his first good appraisal of him via the ceiling mirror. His body was … flawless, ivory skin flushed with apprehension and embarrassment, his short mop of chaotic blond hair beading with sweat. Could he tell? Could he, perhaps, smell that the figure approaching him was a guy? Could he guess who it might be?

  The muscles of his arms and legs corded and flexed with each involuntary, reflexive jerk against the restraints. His eyes were pressed tightly shut, swelling with unspent tears.

  I betrayed you, Michael thought. But I would never harm you, Robbie. I didn’t think it would be this way.

  He sat on the bed, next to the table with the lube and his as-yet-unmade toy, easing himself down gently onto the patch of mattress available to him right at Robbie’s midsection. His eyes went to the blanket that still protected the last of Robbie’s modesty.

  Michael looked up at the ceiling cam and waved at it. He tried a smile. He was hopelessly aroused—practically crying, himself.

  He reached out to Robbie’s chest, made a slow circle around one nipple with his pointing finger until the rise and fall of his breathing quickened and gooseflesh ran down his arms.

  Beautiful. Just gorgeous. I’m so sorry.

  He leaned in. Officer Jenny had promised him Robbie wouldn’t be able to head butt him, would not be able to resist in any way. And that was g
ood. He didn’t think Robbie was a fighter—no one did—but neither was Michael. He kissed Robbie on the cheek.

  Unbelievably, Robbie’s eyes remained shut. He was moaning, now. Spittle ringed the ball gag. Tears down both sides of his head. He knew.

  “Open your eyes,” he breathed into Robbie’s ear.

  And he did. And his moan turned into a scream—or it would have, if the ball gag had permitted it. As it was, Robbie let forth a suffocated howl that might have been music to the audience watching at home—but to Michael, it hurt.

  “Stop, Robbie. Be quiet. Listen to me.”

  Robbie didn’t. His eyes bulged in his head like they might pop out. He yelled and yelled against the gag, frothing over it. Drool coated his chin, the candlelight almost reflecting in it.

  “Robbie, I don’t want to hurt you. I’m not going to rape you. Your ass is safe with me. I’m going to … play with you, get the sample they want for auction.”

  He waited. Robbie’s limbs continued to buck. He kept making noise. Michael was afraid he’d hyperventilate. He hardened his voice, remembering the words of Officer Jenny.

  “But if you keep this up, I’m going to the wall. You get me, chief?”

  Robbie had heard. He subsided somewhat—but not completely. It appeared Robbie wanted to say something, probably more in a controlled shout than a scream. But that wouldn’t do. No, the gag was staying right where it was.

  “I don’t want to do it, but I will.”

  It was all according to script. Everything Officer Jenny had said would happen had happened. So far.

  And it kept happening. Robbie quieted. But he narrowed his eyes at Michael, his face livid red.

  Michael cupped his cheek in his hand. His eyes traveled the length of his friend’s body, then flitted back to Robbie’s eyes. Still angry.

  No. More than that.

  “I’m sorry, buddy,” he said. “Really, I am. And it could be worse.”

  Robbie tried to shake his head. Really, the effort was heartbreaking—and undeniably cute.

  “I knew when I first saw you, Day One on campus, that I wanted to be your friend. I still want to be your friend when you’re through all this, if you’ll have me. While we’re at school, we can pretend this never happened.”