A Suitable Penalty

This story is inspired by the absolutely excellent writings of Literotica user "writingsomethingnew" whose work you should 100% check out.

...

Four minutes was all it took.

The deadline for the first year student's Engineering essay had been due on Monday at 12:00 and no later. So, of course, Yasmin submitted it at 12:04. It wasn't her fault, she told herself and anyone who might read her semi-pleading emails -- the submission point had been hidden away in folder after folder and so it had taken her almost ten minutes just to find the ridiculous thing. But, said her supervisor, maybe this was evidence that she should be submitting a little earlier than ten minutes before the deadline. IT issues were no excuse. And then came the horror of it all -- a choice. Either swallow a ten-mark deduction for the late submission, which could drag her average grade down into the gutter for the semester, or accept what this university liked to call "correction."

It was a word whispered through the corridors of Crownbird Academy, the vast campus where Yasmin and thousands of others lived and studied, bringing with it all sorts of foreboding feelings. Yasmin had known since before she started, since she signed her contract of attendance and saw lurking among the pages a little section under STUDENT CODE OF CONDUCT which read, in part:

"In the event that a student should commit an infraction contrary to the code of conduct, in the event that this infraction does not constitute illegal activity then the student will face mandatory disciplinary action in the form of corporal punishment. The specific nature of the corporal punishment to be administered will be determined on a Faculty basis."

What corporal punishment meant, of course, was a few slaps on the wrist, or the hand, maybe with a wooden ruler -- or so Yasmin had assumed. Then she started to attend. Then she heard the stories. But she never imagined that it might come thundering down upon her like a black cloud of humiliation and shame. She didn't even know what might await her -- for each Faculty had their own policies but these were not written for students to see. Mystery surrounded them -- they were known only to those on the receiving end and, though some surely shared their experience, Yasmin's circle weren't the type to engage with those sorts of conversations. Yasmin had heard of other students being punished, even seen it -- one girl, whose name she never knew, had been paraded naked around the campus with her wrists tied behind her back. Her arms tattooed and her hair dyed blue, she had stood up straight, trying to be as stoic as possible in the face of disgrace. Yasmin had glimpsed the scene through her window before she retreated, as fast as she could, back to her desk and put in headphones to block out the jeers. She desperately, desperately hoped the same fate wasn't about to befall her. She knew what it would mean; she'd have to leave. Her education would be forfeit for she could never accept such a penalty. There was no life available to a Muslim woman like her which was worth living after being put through such shame. Nobody would forgive her -- least of all herself.

These thoughts kept Yasmin occupied, the anxiety raging like storm clouds in her head, as she sat in the reception area of the Engineering building and awaited her fate. She hadn't been sure what to wear, besides the compulsory hijab, of course, so had opted -- given the weather -- for jeans and a black-white stripy shirt, the sleeves stretching all the way down to her wrists. A receptionist -- young man, ginger goatee, in need of a haircut -- sat with his side to her and didn't glance from his screen. All Yasmin could do was sit there, shifting in the seat, adjusting her black hijab more out of nervous habit than need, and stare at the ticking clock above him. Seconds never used to pass this slowly, she thought.

Finally, after more time than could possibly be fair, a door across the room opened and a woman of about thirty -- dirty blonde hair to her shoulders, rectangular glasses, freckled around her nose, deep laugh lines, wearing a blue plaid shirt and jeans of the same colour as Yasmin's -- appeared, a purple strap around her neck from which dangled a lanyard holding her plastic university ID. The woman clocked Yasmin immediately and approached.

"Yasmin, isn't it?" she asked with a toothy smile and a disarming perkiness about her manner. As she stood, her ID swung back and forth like it was trying to hypnotise Yasmin.

"Yeah -- that's me," Yasmin mumbled, then cleared her throat, trying and already failing when it came to disguising her anxiety.

"I'm Lucy." She offered Yasmin a hand, which she took, trying not to let her arm be too limp. "Do you want to follow me?"

"Sure." Yasmin pulled on her backpack and followed, more shuffling than walking, just behind Lucy as she was led through the door from which she had come, unlocked by a thumbprint scanner, and down a corridor past offices a third-full with administrative staff at laptops and monitors.

"You got here okay?" asked Lucy, still cheery as she tried to make small talk.

"Yeah -- I don't usually work in this building but I knew where it was. Study, I mean." Yasmin's mouth felt dry. She had little clue what was about to happen to her and, really, that only made it worse.

Lucy led Yasmin to a wooden door halfway down the corridor, on which was drilled a plastic sign reading ADMIN OFFICE 1.07. She opened it, the door squeaking, and Yasmin followed her inside as the motion-sensitive lights blinked on. The office was spartan and small and square, four arm lengths wide on all sides, with a pair of black swivel chairs, one in the middle of the room and one at a bare wooden desk. A poster on the wall lent the room some colour with its educational notes about lithium batteries. Outside, through the sole window, Yasmin saw only a glimpse of green countryside. Birdsong fluttered in. In the corner of the room, though, was what struck Yasmin most immediately -- a silver camcorder set on a tripod, high enough to look her right in the eye, and she stared at it for a moment as Lucy pulled out the swivel chair from the desk, turned it, and sat down.

"If you'd like to have a seat," she said nicely, gesturing to its friend.

"Yeah, thanks," mumbled Yasmin, sitting. The seat wheezed at her weight and sunk a couple of inches. Yasmin fiddled with the lever and forced it to raise as Lucy regarded her.

"How're you feeling?" asked Lucy. Terrified. Frightened. I want to run away and never stop running. My heart's going a million miles an hour. I'm so scared I'm going to cry in front of you and nothing's even happened yet.

"I'm fine."

"That's good." Lucy smiled. There was a gentleness in her blue eyes that Yasmin found strangely reassuring. "So, tell me a bit about yourself."

"Uh..." Suddenly Yasmin's mind was blank. She couldn't think of a single thing about herself -- she had ceased to exist. Only when Lucy prompted her with a follow-up did the words come.

"Where are you from?"

"Oh. Kuwait." It wasn't hard to tell that she was foreign but English people tended not to be able to differentiate between different Arabic accents. Yasmin didn't hold it against them -- she was still trying to tell the difference between the Scousers and the Welsh.

"And you're studying engineering?

"Yeah," said Yasmin, nodding. "Civil engineering."

"Do you enjoy it?" Yasmin just nodded again and adjusted her hijab. Her heart wouldn't calm down. Any moment now, she thought, as they carried on through the stilted small talk, Lucy's hands weren't shaking. Maybe she had nothing planned for her after all. Maybe she'd just get a bit of a talking to and that'd be that.

They carried on for a couple of minutes, with Lucy introducing herself as the Faculty Disciplinary Officer -- a role she combined with her general role as a manager to the Administration Team. Yasmin asked if she liked the role, and she said she did.

"So," Lucy suddenly said, with a tone that told Yasmin the topic was shifting, "what do you know about the correction policy?"

"Just the same as everyone else, I guess," replied Yasmin with a shrug she worried seemed dismissive. "Corporal punishment, right?"

"Right," said Lucy, nodding.

"But..." Yasmin sniffed. "I don't know, like, what this faculty's policies are. Not specifically, I mean. I once saw this girl have to walk naked round the campus and I really don't wanna do that. I can't do that. I can't-"

"You won't," said Lucy, and Yasmin shut up. "The Engineering faculty doesn't have anything public in its policies. All corrections take place privately."

"Okay." Yasmin took a deep breath and glanced down at her Converse trainers. "Okay. That's good."

"First, perhaps we should talk about why you received the Disciplinary Notice in the first place," said Lucy. "It's your first, yes?"

"Yeah." Yasmin looked back down at her shoes. Her toes curled, uncurled, curled, uncurled. The mystery of her fate was tearing her into pieces. Stomach acid bubbled away in her tummy. Her hands wouldn't stop fiddling with each other.

"I've looked at your report -- academic misconduct."

"I missed a deadline by a few moments," grumbled Yasmin. "I don't deserve to be punished."

"The university guidelines disagree, I'm afraid."

"I'm usually such a good student, too," whined Yasmin. "I never miss deadlines."

"It happens from time to time."

"I'm kinda wishing it didn't."

"Hopefully this experience keeps you away from such silly mistakes in the future."

"Well..." Yasmin sniffed and looked up, putting all the effort she could into maintaining eye contact. "I still don't know what the experience even is."

"Ah, well, I'll explain for you now."

"Okay." Yasmin crossed her legs and tried to look attentive but, all the while, wondered how petrified her face might look.

"Obviously, as you said, it involved corporal punishment. That's not negotiable, I'm afraid. But what is negotiable is what form it takes. That's up to you."

"Oh," said Yasmin. "Really?" A dim hope, like a barely working lightbulb, glowed somewhere in her body that perhaps she really could just take a ruler to the hand a few times and be on her way.

"There are four options for you to choose from," said Lucy and, as she listed them, she casually extended successive fingers to count each in turn. "You can have your buttocks and thighs caned, you can have your breasts groped to the point of pain, you can have your vulva spanked, or you can take two fingers into your anus." Lucy's mouth seemed to still be moving, and words were probably coming out, but they were just smoke and foam to Yasmin. The words already spoken were taking up all the room in her head and nothing else could get in. Buttocks and thighs caned. Breasts groped. Vulva spanked. Fingers in...

"Yasmin?" The girl jolted back to reality.

"Yeah," she mumbled.

"You okay there?"

"Sure," Yasmin said, quiet as a field mouse, nodding slowly. What was she meant to pick? How could she possibly pick any of them? To have someone touch her in those places, or expose those most intimate parts of herself, it was unthinkable. Impossible. "Sorry. I just..."

"I know it's a lot to take on board," said Lucy with a sympathetic smile.

"It's just..." Lucy cocked her head. "...well, I'm sure you've noticed that I'm a Muslim. I'm not meant to let anyone see my body. And that includes other women. Nothing between the knees and the navel -- that's the rule and I've gotta follow it."

"I understand," said Lucy. "Well, your breasts are above your navel. So I suppose that helps narrow it down quite a bit."

"Well..." A hot flush of fear broke through Yasmin. She didn't want to be exposed like that, either, but if that was the only one available to her, and the more she thought about it the more she realised it might be... "I guess so. But..." She pressed her knees tightly together, trying to absorb into herself, just turn into goo and vanish into the cracks in the floorboards.

"Yasmin," said Lucy, kindness in her voice like warmth on a Spring morning, "I'm sorry but you did sign up to this policy. We have your signature and if you refuse it's grounds for expulsion. I know it's scary but it can be perfectly fine if you cooperate."

"But I wasn't told it'd be like this!" cried Yasmin, feeling a sob beginning to find its own voice in her throat. "You keep it secret."

"We keep it confidential," Lucy corrected, "and it's for your own benefit -- so that your fellow students have as little knowledge as possible about what punishment you underwent."

"I think everyone knows what punishment that girl I saw had," sniffed Yasmin.

"That's a different faculty with different policies," said Lucy. "Now, would I be right in saying that the punishment you've gone with would be Option Two?"

"Option Two..." mumbled Yasmin. "That's... grabbing my boobs."

"Yes, essentially," said Lucy, nodding. "You would need to bare your breasts and then they would be roughly squeezed, starting with your breasts themselves and then your nipples, all with the intention of causing pain. This would continue for as long as is considered adequate. You'd need to keep your hands behind your back at all times."

"Right." Yasmin shivered. "That sounds bad."

"If it's the only option you can foresee, then I'm afraid it's what you'll have to do. There isn't really any wiggle room." Lucy gave her a look which Yasmin dared interpret as sympathy.

"Can't you just..." She knew the answer she'd get -- but she saw no greater harm in asking it. "You know, say you did it, but not do it? Please?" Yasmin didn't want to beg but, if she thought it would help, she'd do it.

"No -- I'm sure you've noticed the camera." Lucy gestured with a nod of the head towards the tripod.

"You won't record it?!" Yasmin squawked.

"It's university policy. Proof that the punishment was carried out. It gets sent to our disciplinary team, they verify, and then delete the footage. It's triple-wiped from the server, the same technology they use in the Pentagon -- nobody outside the team will ever see it."

"But I don't want other people to see my breasts," protested Yasmin, who didn't believe that crap about the Pentagon in a gerbil's heartbeat. "They're a private place."

"I'm sorry, but that's the policy. The alternative is expulsion." That word, expulsion, hung in the air like a bad smell. It was the only fate that she could imagine worse than Options One through Four and back again. To go home, tail between her legs, to so deeply let down her family and prove that they were right to call her stupid when she screamed the house down that she wanted a career and not just be married off... and now...

Lucy's kind expression hadn't faded. There wasn't a hint of impatience about her as Yasmin dawdled and dithered, trying to imagine somebody's hands on her petite, sensitive breasts and unable to. She supposed she wouldn't need to imagine it for much longer and the thought shook her with fear.

"It's alright to be a bit scared," said Lucy. "Especially when you've got this extra difficulty regarding your faith. I do understand. But I'm here to guide you, to keep you safe, to make sure it goes properly when we get started in a minute." In a minute... Yasmin could have cried right then. It was coming. A many-headed monster charging over the crescent of a hill. Coming for her tits.

"I have to do it now?" Stupid question, Yasmin knew, but some tiny scintilla of hope squeaked that perhaps she could put this off. Just five minutes more. A few seconds more.

"Yes -- that's what this meeting is for."

"And... and who would do it?" stammered Yasmin. "Not a man? It can't be a man."

"No -- it'd be me." The strangest relief imaginable burst open in Yasmin like a water balloon. One tiny little glimmer of light from this whole ordeal. Cling to it, she told herself, cling to it and never let go. "That's alright, isn't it?"

"Yeah -- that's fine," said Yasmin trying not to stammer again. "Your hands aren't too cold, are they?"

"You tell me," said Lucy, reaching over and offering her open palm. Yasmin tentatively touched Lucy's pink skin and found it as acceptable as it could ever be.

"I guess it's okay," Yasmin mumbled and, as this little exchange closed, she realised that acceptance was burrowing its way into her head. "How long would it take?"

"Two minutes. I'll have a timer going."

"Right. Okay." Yasmin took a deep breath. "This is hard for me."

"I know. But it'll be alright. It's just a punishment -- and it'll be over before you know it."

"I guess." Yasmin shivered. "How do you do it? With my nipples?"

"I'll take them between my thumb and my forefinger," replied Lucy, extending her hands to demonstrate the movement of her digits, "and squeeze them. I'll assess your reactions as I do so, and of course I'll be very careful not to cause any lasting damage. Your nipples may be quite sore for the rest of the day, though."

"As simple as that..." murmured Yasmin.

"As simple as that," agreed Lucy, with a laugh.

"Well..." A tear was coming -- but Yasmin managed to blink it away. A single soldier, clambering from his trench, shot down. But could she hope to shoot down a whole army? "I suppose it might not be so bad. I hope not."

"Great," said Lucy, clapping her hands together. "So, do you think you're ready to begin?"

"I suppose." But Yasmin noticed that she wasn't moving a muscle. Just staring at Lucy.

"I'll need you to stand up, first of all," said Lucy after a moment's awkward pause.

"Right. Okay." Yasmin heaved herself to her feet, feeling unbalanced, the world spinning around her. So she was really doing this. She was really exposing herself to someone, for the first time ever outside of a doctor's office, all so she could be humiliated and abused. She felt like crying but the tears weren't coming. That sob just sat in her throat, not yet exiting, a squatter with its flag planted firm in the ground.

"Good," said Lucy, as if this tiniest of first steps was some sort of achievement. "Now, I'm going to set up the camera and, in the meantime, I'd like you to bare your breasts, please."

"Both of them?" Another stupid question. "Maybe you could do just one?"

"Both of them, please," said Lucy, as she turned away towards the camera resting atop its insectoid tripod. Stood facing Yasmin, she clicked a couple of buttons and there came an electronic chirp as the camera woke up to the sight of this desperate hijabi girl, her hands playing awkwardly with each other and clearly not making any moves to expose herself.

"I..." Lucy looked up from the camera as she aimed it to get Yasmin properly in frame.

"It'll be okay," she said. "It's not so bad."

"How would you know?" muttered Yasmin, a little streak of poison on her tongue.

"I've had it done," Lucy replied matter-of-factly. "I've had all four of them done, in fact."

"All..." Yasmin was shocked -- not just by this information but, also, that her main reaction was to be impressed. "Really?"

"Yep," said Lucy, nodding. "University rules. It's not very fair for someone to deliver the punishments without ever knowing what it's like to receive them."

"Well... I guess so," Yasmin said quietly, feeling her lip tremble. "Did I get it right?"

"Get what right?"

"I mean did I choose right? Is this the best one to do?"

"Oh," said Lucy with a smile, "it's all down to individual preference. Personally, I found that having my vulva spanked was the most..." She paused to find the right word. "...unpleasant of the four."

"Yeah," muttered Yasmin, trying and failing to imagine Lucy in some, any, position of vulnerability like that. She couldn't remember the last time she'd encountered someone who seemed so in charge of her surroundings. "I guess that makes sense. And this, the... the one where you grab my nipples, that's the easiest one?"