"Do you know why I pulled you over, miss?" he asked.
Maud had no idea at all. "No, officer," she said, trying to sound as innocent as she could.
"I didn't think so," the policeman said with an even deeper frown, if that were possible. "I'm going to have to ask you to follow me to the station. It's just around the corner."
"What?" Maud asked. "I... why?"
"Miss, I don't think you want to be arrested for failing to comply with my instructions."
"No... n–no, of course not, officer, but... can you just... what's this about?" Maud's heart, having calmed its thudding pace after the encounter with the man in the suit, now seemed to race as if she were running for her life. Policemen. She had never gotten over her childhood fear of them.
"You'll find out at the station. We can do this the easy way or the hard way, Miss..." He looked down at her license by the light of his flashlight, the sun nearly having set by then. "...Fredricks."
Maud realized that her breath had started to come in pants. "The easy way, please, officer," she squeaked.
"Alright," he said, letting his frown turn up into a smile that relieved, and pleased, Maud more than she thought it had any right to do. "Just follow me. I'll pull out, and by you, and then I'll take a right turn." He handed her back her license and registration. "I'm Officer Miller. I'll see you at the station."
"Okay, officer," Maud replied meekly.
The little police station to which Officer Miller led her in his cruiser had a parking lot around the back. One "visitor" space was open, to Maud's relief, and she took it. She worried that David might get anxious, but his apartment was only ten minutes away, and hopefully this thing with the police wouldn't take long to clear up. Officer Miller got out of his cruiser and waited for her to cross the parking lot to him. Then, wordlessly, he led her to the glass door and opened it for her. As she passed inside, he said, "We'll just go into that first door on the right."
Maud felt a surge of relief that he wouldn't be taking her to stand in front of one of those big desks with the sergeant sitting behind it, or into a big open office where criminals might sit handcuffed to their chairs. She loved cop shows despite her fear of real policemen, but she had no desire to experience that stuff for herself.
"Go ahead and sit down at the table, Maud," Officer Miller said, taking off his peaked cap with its police insignia and laying it down on one of the several chairs along the wall. As she obeyed, Maud noted with unease the big mirror that anyone who watched TV knew let the people on the other side see what was happening and the metal staple in the table for securing suspects in cuffs and chains and things.
To Maud's surprise, though, Officer Miller neither sat across from her nor told her that she must wait for someone else to arrive. Instead he said, "Maud, it's a shame you have to experience real discipline for the first time here in a police station, but you've had a lot of chances to follow some very simple instructions, and yet you haven't managed to conduct yourself properly. So I'm going to have to ask you to get up and bend yourself down over the table, and then I'm going to paddle you. Twenty good hard swats on your naughty backside, to teach you to behave yourself."
What? was of course the word that sprang to Maud's mind, but she couldn't say it because she couldn't say anything at all. Her mouth hung open, and again her heart raced as again her breath came in little gasps. Her chin quivered a little, as if trying to decide whether to attempt a "w" or simply to tremble in fear.
Officer Miller, who Maud now noticed stood more than six feet tall and had burly forearms, one of which sprouted thick, fiery hair as he began to roll up his sleeve, looked back at her. She saw his eyes glance over towards the wall, and involuntarily Maud's own eyes followed his gaze to find a feature of the examination room she had not noticed: an old-fashioned wooden spanking paddle, with irregularly spaced air-holes to allow for greater velocity, hung on the wall.
Maud gave a little cry of alarm, and shrank back into the red plastic of the chair. For a moment she felt a strange sort of admiration at Officer Miller's having told her to sit down before he delivered the news of why he had brought her there: Maud might well have fainted otherwise at the sight of the paddle. A thought from somewhere deep inside her mind—a place she wanted to pretend did not exist—pushed its way to the surface: These men know how to punish naughty girls.
Then, at last, as if shocked into speech by the sight and the terrible thought it had occasioned, Maud managed to say, "What kind of police station is this?"
"The kind you need, Maud Fredericks. The kind where a young woman who can't follow instructions goes to start learning the way things are going to be for her, from this point on." Officer Miller's face seemed disappointed now, as if he knew Maud were more intelligent than to ask such a question. "Now, do as I've said. You'll have to raise your skirt for me, but I won't make you take down your panties for the paddle. Frankly, I think you deserve to have your bare backside tanned, but I don't think that will be long in coming, at this rate."
Chapter Three: Consequences
Maud could hardly locate a rational thought inside her head. The one that seemed to keep floating to the top of her roiled wits said that she probably couldn't get out of having her bottom paddled by this fake policeman. Or maybe he was a real policeman, but he worked for whomever David had hired to... to play this stupid sex game. In any case, "Officer" Miller was big and strong, and the idea that now Maud simply had no way to avoid doing as he said, and learning a painful lesson in obedience seemed to dominate her mind so thoroughly that every other thought ran away from it in terror.
David's stupid game. Only when you hired a man in a suit to lean against a telephone pole, and then you hired a man to impersonate a police officer, or a real police officer to detain your girlfriend on no charge at all, because you wanted to have sex with her in some kinky way, it couldn't still be a game. David had most definitely gone way too far, now.
"Tell David... tell him that it's..." Maud stammered, trying to regain her composure as she looked at "Officer" Miller and feeling her cheeks burn with the shame of the very suggestion that she might get up from the chair and bend over the table.
He folded his arms, the right one now bare to the elbow, across his chest and looked back at her with a nearly expressionless face. "You're going to call him, Maud, after I've paddled you, and tell him that you remembered you had an errand to run and you'll see him Saturday. Then you're going to go home and get a good night's sleep, and tomorrow you'll go to work. After work you'll drive down to Highfield, and you'll keep your appointment with the tribunal."
"B–but...," suddenly Maud felt a good deal less sure that she knew what was going on than she had a moment before.
"Did you not read the summons, Maud?" the police officer said. "How you're not to discuss your disciplinary session with anyone? The summons makes perfectly clear that the society has instructed you to appear on behalf of the man who will take you in hand, to whom you will belong after tomorrow."
"What?" Maud said. Yes, the bizarre invitation-thing had said that, but that clearly made part of David's game.
Officer Miller shook his head, as if at a disappointing student, and said, patiently, "The society will give you to David tomorrow night as a surprise, ready for punishment and for pleasure—his pleasure, that is, unless he chooses to reward you with pleasure of your own. We have watched you for the last few weeks and observed that your well being will be best served by precisely what David has offered you now on more than one occasion."
"How do you know that?" Maud demanded, feeling her face go blazing hot. Her hands had clenched into angry fists. "That asshole! How could he?"
"Watch your language, Maud," Officer Miller said calmly. "You just earned five more swats for disrespect. David has a friend whom you haven't met, who has been a mentor to him. David mentioned to this friend in January that he had concerns about your relationship: that he thought he could tell that you would find happiness submitting to him, and
letting him guide you and take care of you, but that he didn't think he could get you to see that for yourself. He told his friend that he loved you, but that he was going to break up with you."
Maud felt the blood drain from her face. Her brow creased as she tried to keep from crying. She looked down at her hands, which now clenched and unclenched.
Officer Miller continued, "David's friend convinced him to wait. He told David that he thought you could be brought to see how much you need to be taken in hand by an intelligent, dominant man like David."
Taken in hand. That phrase again. Every time this "officer" said it, it made Maud's heart do a funny little leap that she told herself must be pure fright at the chauvinism of the idea.
Maud almost said bullshit, then, to show the strength of her rejection of all of it, but she stopped herself, sure that she would earn more paddling. Instead she said, "It's not true," but her voice came out in a whine rather than the declaratory tone she thought she had meant.
"Frankly, Maud," the man replied smoothly, "at this point it doesn't matter whether it's true. David's friend referred your case to the disciplinary tribunal of the Society of Saint Valentine. We observed you, and we found compelling evidence that David was correct. Tomorrow night, you will be taken in hand by the man who loves you, and you will learn to please him as he deserves, after he punishes you for the disobedience and disrespect you have shown him."
Maud's mouth opened, but no sound came out.
"Enough delaying, young lady," Officer Miller said. "It's time for your paddling. After you've had it, I think you'll understand how important it is to make the call I spoke of and then, tomorrow, to keep your appointment. If you don't start obeying our instructions, as you will soon obey your new master's, you'll get your punishment on your bare behind next time. You'll learn very swiftly just how sorry a man like me can make a naughty girl, unless you start improving your conduct."
Master. Obey your new master. Maud shuddered. She watched Officer Miller walk slowly and deliberately to the wall and take the paddle from its hook. He turned back to her, holding the horrible thing in his right hand, and tapped it on his left palm, three times, looking into Maud's eyes all the while. Then, with his left index finger, he pointed to the table.
"P–please...," Maud choked, starting to cry in fear. "Please don't. I'll... I'll be good. I'll o–obey."
"We both know that's not true yet, Maud. You know how badly you need this lesson as well as I do. If I didn't paddle you now, you'd never show up tomorrow, because you would think we weren't serious about ensuring that you start a new, happy life as a strong, successful man's submissive girl. Now get yourself into position for your punishment, or I'll have to put you there."
Maud, crying harder, put her hands over her face. Her mind refused to take it in, refused to consider the man's words or think them through at all. Moving as quickly as she could, as if trying to flee both Officer Miller and her own confusing response to his declarations, she jumped up and ran for the door, shouting, "Help! Please, someone! Help!"
The door knob wouldn't turn: somehow it had gotten locked from the outside. Behind her, Officer Miller said, "Yell all you want, Maud. As you've guessed, although I happen to be a real police officer, this isn't a real police station. Behind the two-way mirror are only more members of the society. This is your last chance to avoid me carrying you to the table and holding you down and then giving you ten more swats for my trouble. It's time for you to get used to the idea that you're going to be held accountable for your behavior in the old-fashioned way you need. That begins with learning to get into position, to show the man who is taking the trouble to correct you that you understand your need for discipline and acknowledge his right and his responsibility to provide that discipline." His voice suddenly became much sterner, though it remained devoid of apparent anger. "Get over the table and raise your skirt, Maud. I'm going to paddle you now."
Her knees very weak, Maud turned around to see him still standing in the same place, still holding the paddle, still pointing to the table. She saw in his eyes that he knew how much more difficult he had just made it for her to obey him. If bending over the table would mean that she had acknowledged this thing... whatever it was... this stupid sex game or this bizarre ritual or this taken in hand business—that she admitted she needed it—well, "Officer" Miller could forget that.
His face took on a severe, almost grim look. "Clearly you're not ready for that, Maud," he said in a disappointed tone. "I promise you, though, that you will be." Then he put the paddle on the table and stepped towards her.
Maud cowered against the door, and then she kicked and hit and yelled, but Officer Miller simply took hold of her around her waist, turned her around, and hauled her to the table. Once he had her there he pushed her over it, the standard fake wood hard against Maud's cheek and the wooden paddle right in front of her eyes, lying ready there. Though she tried to move them away, make it more difficult for him somehow, he gathered her hands in his big left hand and held them behind her back.
Then he yanked up her grey work skirt. "The society has a bylaw," he said matter-of-factly, "that only a girl's master may uncover her nakedness. In the case of a girl like you who hasn't yet been awarded, unfortunately, that means that I can't give you what you truly deserve, Maud, which is some really severe bare-bottom discipline. You don't have a master to give me permission. Thankfully, I can promise you that it won't be long before your panties come down."
Then she watched him take the paddle from the table. Then she heard the soft whistling of the air through the holes in the paddle's face. Then Maud's first punishment had begun: upon her bottom-cheeks, covered in her boy-short gray cotton briefs, hard swats landed in quick succession, as Officer Miller counted, "One... two... three... four..."
At first Maud thought that it didn't hurt as much as she had thought it would. By the time he had reached "five," though, her backside blazed with pain, and she started to cry out, and then to kick.
"Don't do that, Maud," Officer Miller said. "Keep your rear end still for me. If you kick again I'll add another ten."
Now the threat really did mean something to Maud, and she did hold still, though inside her panties she felt her bottom begin to clench uncontrollably and the thought of what that looked like to the man punishing her added shame to the terrible pain. By fifteen, she was sobbing into the table, her tears pooling beneath her face, giving little yelps at each swat but otherwise not moving.
"I'll let your wrists go, Maud, if you think you can hold still for the rest of your punishment," Officer Miller said, in what seemed to Maud a slightly less disapproving tone. She felt, to her shame, a little thrill of happiness go through her, as if to please the man who paddled her were suddenly all she wanted.
She nodded against the table, too abashed to speak, and he did take his left hand from her wrists.
"Take hold of the other side of the table," he said even more gently. "It will help. These last few are going to hurt a lot."
"Oh, God," Maud sobbed, reaching her hands out and doing as he said. The last five swats made her cry out very loud, and she couldn't help trying to move her bottom even though she gripped the edge of the table until her knuckles turned white to keep from putting her hands back behind in a desperate attempt to ward off the paddle. Officer Miller just brought his left hand down to hold her hips still, and counted, "Twenty-two... twenty-three...," as he kept delivering swat after swat.
Finally the twenty-fifth came, and he said, "You may go ahead and rub your bottom, Maud." Even though it seemed terribly shameful to do such a thing at all, let alone in front of Officer Miller, she couldn't help putting her hands back and holding her punished cheeks, cherishing them in her fingers through the cotton of her panties as she continued to weep with the pain, though the rubbing did help. She didn't like the feeling, but she found she felt grateful to Officer Miller for allowing her to touch her own bottom.
Then, to her surprise, she found that another fee
ling had begun, and that she was thinking not of Officer Miller but of David, and of his silly sex games. Before she knew it, her sobs had begun to sound much more ambiguous, as she relieved her pain with her hands upon her cotton-pantied backside.
Maud's face blazed hot and she snatched her hands away. Had "Officer" Miller known the effect it would have on her?
"You may get up, Maud," he said. She couldn't look at his face, now, but she thought she heard some amusement in his tone, and that deepened her blush even further. "Go ahead and call David, now, and then you may leave. I'll see you tomorrow in Highfield. Remember that if you don't obey, you've got a lot more punishment coming. Let the state of your bottom be your reminder to be a good girl. Take a good look at it in the mirror tonight before you go to bed, and I think you'll understand how important it is that you show up for your appointment."
Chapter Four: Preparation
David watched Maud's red Bug pull up at the grand entrance to the enormous chateau from the second story window of the bedroom where Will had told him to wait until they—whoever they were—came to get him. David still didn't understand why Will would go to the trouble of creating a fake conference to lure him down to Connecticut, but Will had always been the kind of guy who pulled mysterious shit like that, and David had always loved never really knowing what his friend had up his sleeve.
Ever since Will had taken the younger man under his wing when he was a college senior and David was a freshman, there had been surprises like snap trips to Vegas and Paris, blind dates with hot girls, and bottles of Dom Perignon "just because." This, though. This didn't just take the cake: it hit the cake with a nuclear missile.
Or so it seemed, though David had no way to tell for sure because he still had no idea what this was. Twenty hours before, he had found, in the hotel lobby, instead of a reception for software developers, Will Garland in his usual natty suit, hands spread in a sue me gesture. Since then David had enjoyed the hospitality of this mansion on the Connecticut shore instead of enduring hours of mind-numbing boredom.
Bound, Spanked and Loved: Fourteen Kinky Valentine's Day Stories Page 58