The Outsider Ch. 16

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Over Friday and Saturday night Ruthie slept in her old bedroom. She had been away from home for only three months, but she felt uneasy sleeping in that room, as though she didn't belong there. Already she was changing...leaving behind the person she had been in Salinas: she had changed and the room had not.

Still, the bedroom had many memories for Ruthie. For six years it had been both her refuge and her prison, where she spent most of her time hiding out from the gang-life of her neighborhood. It was the place where had made all those discoveries through her reading, where she had progressed through her knowledge of the outside world, and ultimately where she had acquired the facts she needed to abandon her faith. There were other memories, brought back to her by a full-length mirror on the door. She had spent endless hours standing in the nude, looking at herself and sinfully exploring her own body.

She looked through her meager possessions, wondering what she additional items she might want to take with her to Davenport...and perhaps show to Mike. There were a couple of books she decided to put in her backpack, and a few pieces of clothing that she had forgotten to pack in August. Not much else...just a picture album of some photos from Nebraska...might as well take it and show Mike what she looked like when she was in grade school...and her grandmother...and her father...

She slammed the album shut when she saw her father's face. She tossed it back into the drawer. She did not want to be reminded...at least not now. Then she reconsidered. She took the album out and put it in her backpack. At some point she'd have to face her memories...maybe the best way to do that would be to share them with Mike...or perhaps with Dr. Hartman.

There was another item from her past that Ruthie came across...an old-fashioned wooden bath-brush that her mother had brought up from Mexico. The implement was heavy and made from solid wood, with a smooth wide back. It was totally different from the flimsy plastic bath-brushes normally sold in the US. Ruthie held the brush and ran her palm over the uncompromising surface. She touched the bristles with her fingertips, noting that they were almost new. The bath-brush had spent most of the past four years in a drawer hidden behind her clothing, and had never been used for its intended purpose. Ruthie grabbed the brush by the handle and tapped the flat side against the palm of her hand. She closed her eyes for a moment...remembering how, for about half a year, it was a very important part of her "me time".

She first saw the brush when she was in the ninth grade. She was cleaning the apartment and saw it under the bathroom sink, pushed behind some bottles of detergent. She knew that her mother must have left it there and forgotten that she had it. For several months Ruthie gave the brush no further thought, but one day she overheard a classmate talking about her sister being spanked over the weekend. Ruthie sat quietly and listened with fascination as the other girl described how her mother forced the girl to pull down her shorts and hit her on the bare bottom with a "big long brush". Ruthie's heart beat faster as she listened to the classmate's casual remarks. She so badly wanted to ask the other girl for details, but she had to stay quiet because she was merely overhearing the conversation, not participating in it.

The next morning, after her mother had left for work, she got up and retrieved the bath-brush. For a long time she stood with it in front of the mirror, touching it to her bottom and masturbating. The thought of being punished on the bare bottom with a brush like the one she was holding was a total turn-on for her. She fantasized about being punished along with her classmate's sister, being told to bend over with her bare bottom on prominent display and her knees trembling, waiting for the agonizing swats.

Ruthie's punishment fantasies never included any thoughts about her own mother. Doña Lisette was very strict with Ruthie and frequently grabbed her hair or slapped her, but always struck her across the face. To punish Ruthie by pulling down her panties and forcing her to expose herself was something she never would have considered doing, given her views on modesty. Anyhow, at that time Ruthie hated her mother, so the girl's fantasies always involved other authority figures...never Doña Lisette.

For several days Ruthie contented herself with masturbating in front of the mirror and taking pictures of herself posing with the brush. Finally, she decided to start punishing herself. She knew that she was a sinful girl who needed a proper punishment. She was full of religious guilt over her constant sexual adventures in the apartment, so if she could figure out how to spank herself...

She tried to give her bottom a couple of swats with the brush. Her aim was bad and she hit herself on the hip instead of the bottom. She tried several positions before she figured out that the best way for her to reach her bottom was to hold onto the arm of a living room chair and bend over slightly, but not all the way. She learned the best grip, one that would allow the brush to hit both sides of her bottom with equal force.

After several mornings of trial and error, Ruthie finally was ready to give herself a proper spanking. She struck hard 10 times, alternating bottom-cheeks and wincing at the hot sting. The pain was scary, but she was totally aroused. She rubbed herself but did not allow herself to climax. She struck her bottom another 10 times...took a deep breath, and then hit herself 10 more times...as hard as she could.

She gasped at the pain and her eyes filled with tears. She looked at herself in the mirror. Already her bottom had changed color and was a deep pink, almost red. She set the timer on the camera and posed for several pictures, with her reddening bottom on full display in the shots.

Ruthie was totally aroused by what she had just done to herself. The red color on her skin and the warm burning sensation coming from her backside excited her in a way she had never experienced before. She spent the next several minutes enjoying the best orgasm of her life. Finally she calmed down, totally scared of what had just happened. God had seen all of that. Surely she would suffer for her sick behavior. Frightened, she put the brush away, got dressed, and prayed for forgiveness. Badly shaken, she went to school.

A month passed before Ruthie worked up the nerve to spank herself again, but the excitement and guilt from that first self-inflicted punishment never left her thoughts. She hid the electronic card from camera so she would not have to delete the pictures she had taken. During her "me time" she looked at the images and replayed the memory of the swats in her mind. She felt guilty, but not guilty enough to delete the pictures.

The second time she spanked herself, Ruthie was determined to take 50 swats. The second spanking was different, because the pain was so intense that she found it very hard to finish. When she completed the fourth set, tears were running down her cheeks, her arm was cramped, and her knees were shaking. She did not really want to continue, but she realized that she would berate herself if she did not give herself the full punishment. She took a deep breath, positioned herself, and hit as hard as she could. She hoped that, maybe if punished herself hard enough, she'd get over this sick desire.

POP! POP! POP! POP! POP! POP! POP! POP! POP! POP!

She looked at herself in the mirror, admiring the deep red color left by the 50 swats. Her bottom was swollen, numb, and much darker from the second spanking. She couldn't resist taking more pictures. The familiar sexual desire hit her, stronger than ever. She stood in front of the camera and played with herself, masturbating as the flash went off. She set a new goal for herself: to photograph herself having an orgasm.

Over the next six months Ruthie's thoughts and sexual desires went through the same cycle. About once each month she would spank herself with the brush, take some pictures, and enjoy a series of intense orgasms. Then she would feel guilty for being such a pervert and worry about God punishing her. Eventually, when nothing happened and there was no Divine punishment, the desire for another spanking would build up.

Each spanking was more severe than the previous one. She learned to hit harder and space out the swats to prolong the punishment. She was strict with herself: if a swat landed badly or was not painful enough, it did not count and she would repeat it. As her endurance improved she committed herself to more swats. She was especially proud of herself on her 16th birthday, when she managed to give herself 100 hard smacks. She loved it when she could get welts to form on her bottom. When she went to school after each spanking, she enjoyed the secret sensation of sitting in class, feeling the bruises on her backside.

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Ruthie's exploration into self-inflicted punishment ended as quickly as it began. One morning about a month after she turned 16, Ruthie managed to give herself the most severe spanking ever, 150 hard swats. She knew that her bottom would be badly bruised from the punishment for several days, but that was what she wanted. However, the bruises were meant for her eyes only, she had no intention of letting anyone else see them.

Unfortunately for Ruthie, on the same day that she spanked herself, the school's female gym teacher conducted a body-mass test and weigh-in for all of the 10th graders. The girls had to line up in the hallway, go one-by-one into the medical office, and strip to their underwear for the weigh-in and body mass index measurement. Ruthie's heart pounded as she stood in line, but she could not figure out how to get out of doing the test and stripping to her underwear in front of a school official. She was too much of a "good girl" to simply get out of line and run off the school property.

When she entered the medical office, she reluctantly followed the order to take off her shirt and skirt. She tried to keep her back against the wall, but the more she resisted moving to the center of the room, the more suspicious the teacher became. Finally she snapped:

"Ruthie, this physical is a school requirement. You will move to the center of the room. Now. If you don't, you will flunk Phys Ed and you can just repeat the 10th grade."

Ruthie did as she was told. She gasped and went white when the older woman saw her bottom and whispered:

"Oh my God..."

Ruthie's underwear consisted of normal white panties that covered most of her bottom, but the dark bruises and welts were clearly visible around the garment's edges. She knew that. Her secret had been discovered, by her gym teacher, no less.

The teacher let her get dressed without doing the weigh-in or body-fat test, but told her that during lunch time she needed to return to her office for a "private conference". Two hours later a tearful and terrified Ruthie returned and took a seat in front of the school official.

"I need to take a report from you and find out who it was that hit you. You understand that we are required to report cases of physical abuse to California social services."

Raw terror swept through Ruthie. She was panicky and fidgeting wildly. What on earth was she going to say? She couldn't tell the truth, because that would sound too bizarre. She thought about inventing a boyfriend and blaming him, but it wouldn't take much to figure out that story was not true. So she made up a lie, saying that it was her mother who had punished her because she had caught her with a CD that she had shoplifted. At first it seemed that Ruthie had just made the situation much worse, because the teacher replied that her mother would have to be ordered to get some counseling. In a panicky voice Ruthie begged the gym teacher not to say anything. She added another lie to her story, claiming that her mother was undocumented, and if she were deported, Ruthie would have no where to live.

"Please...please...you can't get her in trouble! It was my fault! Really! I stole the CD! Please don't get the INS on her!"

The gym teacher realized the girl was in a no-win situation. It was true that any possibility, no matter how slight, of her mother being picked up by the INS and deported would ruin her life. She was one of the school's best students, one of the few who did what she was told and would definitely graduate if her life was not disrupted. Suddenly the teacher decided to back down on her plan to file the report. She contented herself with telling Ruthie that if she needed to talk about her troubles at home, "her door was always open".

The crisis passed, but the panic Ruthie felt that day stayed with her. She was weighted down with guilt for what she had done to her mother; blaming her for something that was not her fault at all, and on top of that lying about her immigration status. In spite of the gym teacher's assurance that she would stay quiet unless there was another incident of abuse, Ruthie was terrified that Doña Lisette would somehow find out what had happened and what she had said about her.

Ruthie resolved never to spank herself again. It was not hard to keep that promise, because the memory of the terror and humiliation she had felt in the teacher's office would totally ruin the experience in the future. Besides, Ruthie knew that the gym instructor would be watching her and would tell other teachers to keep an eye on her as well. She pushed the brush to the back of her dresser, buried it under some clothes, and forgot about it for three years.

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As Ruthie examined the brush, she thought about putting it back in her dresser, or perhaps finally returning it to its proper place under the bathroom sink. However, in the end, she decided to sneak it into her backpack and take it with her. Like the photo album, the brush was part of her experience growing up and was associated with some of her most intense memories.

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On Sunday afternoon Mike called Ruthie and asked if she wanted him to give her a ride back to Davenport. She eagerly accepted. Gerardo had offered to take her back in the evening, but Ruthie was more than ready to get out of Salinas, after having spent two days at church trying to humor her mother and her friends. When Doña Lisette overheard Ruthie talking to her boyfriend, she told her daughter that she wanted Mike to come into the apartment. Ruthie cringed, but dutifully relayed the request.

Doña Lisette was still excited about benefiting from God's mercy and still convinced that Jesus had spoken directly to her by saving her and her daughter from the stampede. She was eager to share the miracle with anyone willing to listen, which made Mike an obvious target. Ruthie fidgeted nervously as Doña Lisette recounted, in graphic detail, the stampede and the family's narrow escape. Ruthie noticed her mother exaggerating some of her facts. For example, Ruthie knew that the real danger had lasted only a few minutes, but to listen to her mother would make one think that they had been crushed and trampled for hours. Ruthie knew that her mother was not lying; that she believed what she was saying. However, as soon as they were out of earshot of Doña Lisette, she'd have to set Mike straight on what really happened at the Mega-Center.

As they drove northward, Ruthie filled in some details and corrected her mother's exaggerations. She also repeated the promise that she and Rosa had made to each other, that neither would ever set foot in a Mega-Mart again. For a few minutes she sat quietly, watching the vegetable fields pass by. Mike could tell that, in spite of her calm retelling of what actually happened to her on Black Friday, she still was traumatized. He said nothing, thinking it would be better to let her talk again when she wanted to. Finally she did have something to add to their conversation:

"Mike...I uh...kinda have a favor to ask from you."

"OK."

"You know your Mega-Town t-shirts? With the pig insult?"

Mike looked at her and nodded.

"Can you get me a couple? I'm gonna guess I'd take a size medium."

"Sure...you bet! ...and you'll wear 'em?"

Ruthie nodded. Like her boyfriend, her hatred of Mega-Town Associates now was personal. After what she had just lived through and observed, she too would wear the infamous slogan:

MTA - The Pig is your Mistress! Serve her well!