Eloise, the Technician Ch. 01

Eloise Wendell hung her raincoat on the coat rack in her small office and sat down in her chair. Most of her day wasn't going to be spent in front of a computer but she still thought a bit too much of her job was about checking emails that didn't say much or had nothing to do with her. Ten messages were delivered since she last checked before going to bed the night before. Three were Ridgefield College updates that really were more for the faculty and students and not really for her. A couple were from a professional listserv from which she wished she could unsubscribe but, occasionally, there was a good seminar advertised there. The professional development section of her monthly report would be pretty bare without those seminars. One email was a joke from her fiancé about a show they were binging online. Three were invitations to meetings from her supervisor. Eloise was still in her first six months so she was having regular meetings with her boss, Mr. Orr, 'just to keep on top of everything,' according to him. The last one, though, was the only one the Assistant Punishment Consultant read for detail

With the subject line, Office of Student Behavior - Consultant Schedule - October 6, 2022, the email laid out what the four Punishment Consultants employed by Ridgefield College would be doing today. She ignored the two men, who punished the male students, and looked at her and the other female technician's schedules. Eloise was assigned four and her colleague, Steph, three dorm rooms to visit today. That was fine. It always evened out and four wasn't that many. There was no way to know since this was the first semester of the program, but they suspected they were going to get busier in a couple of weeks after midterms were over and professors submitted evidence of plagiarism and cheating so she was happy for the low number even if Steph got a lighter day.

Eloise went down the four names, opening the link to the students' Student Behavior profiles. The first, in slightly less than an hour, was a freshman named Meredith Booker. There was a headshot with a smiling brunette with light pink lip gloss and round cheeks. Eloise's eyes went to her offense to see she'd been caught with alcohol in dorms, perhaps the most common reason she was called to dorms. There wasn't much information about her. She had no major yet and was taking a bunch of gen eds. She had joined one chorus group and that was all the college had on her. Steph looked at the punishment: pictures and a category three corporal punishment. That seemed to be the standard that the board gave out to most students involved with anything 'safety' related, from fire code to alcohol.

Eloise quickly looked at the other three girls she would be punishing today knowing she'd be able to read their profiles more closely later. Her second appointment was a blonde education student named Victoria Morgan getting a category two for having a pet mouse, against dorm rules. After that, Eloise would have to go to an upper-class dorm to punish a new transfer, named Selena Bryant, for plagiarism. Selena had the highest punishment of the day, a category four, the highest category currently available during the pilot program, though not the highest that the OSB had prepared. Then, at the end of the day, she was going back to freshman dorms for another category three given to a physics major named Elena Tabor for trespassing. That struck Eloise as a little harsh but there was no more information in the profile. She would have to ask Miss Tabor about that.

She peeked at her phone and saw her fiancé, Nate, had sent her a message. "Busy today?" he'd texted.

"Not really. 4," she answered.

"Lucky, I got eleven, lol," Nate responded.

Eloise rolled her eyes and changed the subject, "Think about what you want for dinner. Love you."

"Will do love you too," he responded quickly.

Eloise put her phone away in her back pocket. Like her, Nate was what was commonly called a punishment technician. The two of them had met when they both worked at the Punishment Center in the nearest city, and Nate was still there. The workday back at the Punishment Center didn't have much in common with what Eloise did every day. Nate punished men and women all day who had been sent to the center by the courts. Eloise punished many fewer people a day, and only woman, but she was responsible for a much more personal touch.

The Ridgefield College program was much more humane, Eloise thought. The longer she'd been at the punishment center, the less comfortable she'd been with the conveyor belt of offenders coming before her. She really did think that these punishments were useful tools to improve behavior and reduce crime and school infractions, but they needed to be a little less cut and dry and a bit less harsh. At Ridgefield, she was proud of being part of a system where that seemed more likely.

At the college, she got to meet the offenders and talk them through their ordeal and both the technician, and the rule breaker got a lot more control over the process. When she got to Meredith's dorm in about forty minutes, she wasn't there just to punish the girl. Instead, she was there to help the girl understand the process and get through the ideal. She'd be punished for breaking the rules, but Eloise's goal was for it to be as easy as it possibly could be for Meredith to learn her lesson. Hopefully, Eloise could keep Meredith at ease as she walked her through her punishment, which Eloise knew could be quite devastating if the technician didn't take good care of the offender. She was proud that her charges learned their lesson without being traumatized.

After checking all of her emails, Eloise made a quick run to the bathroom and made sure her uniform was in good shape. Assistant Punishment Consultants wore scrubs and this morning she had grabbed a black pair from her bedroom drawers. She usually wore dark colors. Somehow they seemed more professional than light blue or pink. Maybe professional wasn't really the right word, but they made her feel less like a nurse. Not that it was bad to be a nurse but she felt like her job was a different realm. Her relationship to the young women she punished was less clinical than nurse to patient, and she wished the uniform didn't bring the medical field to mind. However, she didn't yet have a choice as rules were rules. She finished up making sure she was put together. She made sure her top was straight and tucked in, pulling down on it to get rid of any wrinkles. Then she redid her ponytail which sat high on her head, and, happy with her appearance, she returned to her desk.

She grabbed her supply bag and double checked she had everything that she might need. She was going to come back to the office before her second appointment so she didn't need to pack everything she would need for the day. At Ridgefield, students who got in trouble weren't sentenced to a particular punishment. Instead, they were given a certain category of punishment, of which there were seven, though this first year the Office of Student Behavior was only using the four of lowest severity. Each of the students she visited today were going to have four options, so Eloise had to prepare for any choice they could make.

Meredith was going to have to choose between having her butt caned, her breasts groped and pinched, her vulva spanked, or her anus fingered. For all four, Eloise was going to need gloves so she double checked that her box of small-size gloves was plenty full. She also packed lubricant in case the girl chose anal and a collapsible cane if the girl went that way. She also had a blindfold, which the girl could choose to use if she wanted, and restraints which Eloise could use if the girl couldn't stay still, though she did have to have permission to use them. It's not like she was going to wrestle a girl into submission. She also packed her tablet, with a cover with the Ridgefield logo. She would use it to submit official documents to the Office as well as to take pictures of the offenders.

Girls, and guys too, were photographed before their punishments. There were four pictures, front and back, fully clothed and then fully nude. For now, though, even though the pictures got taken, nobody was ever going to see them. The system just wasn't ready yet as it was being built in-house and bugs still needed to be worked out. Eventually, maybe next semester, but more likely the one after, pictures taken before punishments were going to be made available to people on a special site where the pictures couldn't be saved and only accessed by people with a college login account. For now, though, taking pictures was just a little extra embarrassment for the students and some practice for the future for Eloise.

Having checked and rechecked, Eloise was certain that everything was ready and it was time to head out. She ducked her head into Steph's office and clued her into the day's plan. They decided to meet for lunch at noon to catch up and then Eloise headed out of the office building and went to the van that the school provided to technicians for travel during the workday. She got going, ready for just any other day as an Assistant Punishment Consultant.

Ten minutes after leaving the office, Eloise parked in the staff parking spot outside of one of the two freshman dorm associations. Through the windshield, she looked at three four-story brick dorms with windows ringing all four walls, each of which was one dorm room with two students. From left to right, they were Parks Dorm, King Dorm, and Gates Dorm. There was a door in the center of each of them and the bases of each was ringed by a hedge, still green even as fall was beginning.

The technician checked her tablet to double check the address and saw Meredith Booker was in Gates 132. She could have sworn ten years ago, when she was a student here, that they never put girl's dorms on the first floor out of a fear of peeping toms. Perhaps that was just old fashioned or even never true or maybe that a higher percentage of the class was girls every year that there wasn't enough room. That seemed a bit strange but she didn't question the college. That was above her pay grade though she did file away the reminder to make sure the blinds were closed first thing.

After sitting a couple more minutes, letting the clock tick, Eloise decided to get a move on at 8:55, five minutes before the appointment. It was going to rain later, but right now it was just gray, so she decided to leave her raincoat in the car. She took her bag from the passenger seat and left the car, cutting the corner of the quad between the dorms and walking over the grass. A small ramp went up to a double door that was unlocked and led to a foyer with locked doors blocking the entrance to outsiders. Eloise swiped her ID card and the lights blinked green allowing her inside.

On the other side, there was a tiled lobby with an elevator on the right and a door to the stairwell on the left. Further back there was an office that was currently empty but was staffed by an RA in the evenings and a lounge with couches and a TV for students to have a place to hang out other than in their rooms. The lobby split off into two hallways, right and left, that Eloise knew would lead to Meredith's room.

The technician glanced at the signs to figure out which way to go and then walked briskly down the right hand hallway. The tile turned into light blue carpet, the school's color though it was faded from use. Eloise paid attention to the room numbers, figuring out the pattern, odds on the right and evens on the left. She looked left and started to count : 124, 126... 132. She stopped and checked the time, 9:00. "Perfect," She went through the mental checklist : Meredith Booker, Category 3, tablet - check, gloves - check, cane - check, lube - check, restraints if they were necessary - check. Yep, she had everything she needed no matter which option the teenager picked as her punishment.

Eloise knocked on the door and listened. She thought she heard a gasp of surprise and then the scooting of a wooden dorm chair across the tile. The technician was patient as time ticked by and she thought it took at least fifteen seconds for her to hear footsteps approach the door and then the handle turning.

The door opened inward, away from Eloise, and, on the other side, stood the hesitant freshman a couple inches shorter than the 5'8" technician. Eloise smiled, trying her best to appear unthreatening and greeted the girl, "Good morning, I'm Eloise Wendell and I'm from the Office of Student Behavior."

"Mmmm," Meredith mumbled with an imperceptible nod. The girl turned her body to unblock the door and allow Meredith to enter.

So far, there was nothing out of the ordinary and Eloise helped it stayed that way. Most of the time they did but there was always the chance of uncooperative offenders who made it much harder than it had to be. As Eloise entered, she examined Meredith. The teenager was, predictably, less put together than she was in the picture in her profile. She didn't have any makeup or lip gloss and her brown hair, slightly below her shoulders, wasn't perfectly brushed. She wore a blue V-neck t-shirt and yoga pants, tight around her butt and thighs but looser as they ended half way down her calf. She was barefoot with red toenails, which was fine with Eloise, and had a white scrunchie as a bracelet on her left wrist.

After Meredith closed the door, Eloise tried again to greet her, reaching out a hand, "Nice to meet you."

"Oh, yeah, um, Meredith... Booker," the brunette answered shaking her hand meekly.

"I can tell you're worried," Eloise said, "But I'm here to make this as easy as it can be."

"Sure..." Meredith answered, not sarcastically but clearly skeptical of those odds.

"I know it's hard to believe, but I can be an ally if you work with me," the technician continued.

Meredith mumbled again, unintelligibly. She crossed her arms and shrugged.

"Let's get started then if you want to just get it over with. Can you show me your ID please?"

Meredith nodded and stepped back toward the back of the room. Eloise took her time to get her bearings and found this dorm looked just about like every other one she'd visited. There was some variety in layouts but this was certainly the majority. It was rectangular, shorter on the side with the door and the opposite window, which Eloise noted already had the blinds pulled. On the long walls, the beds were pressed against the sides into the corner with the back wall. Between them there was a wooden dresser underneath the window with drawers. The dresser was one of the things that varied from room to room, with others having one of the dormmates' desks placed there. With the dresser under the window that meant that each bed had a desk, with matching wooden chair, at their feet. Across from the desk that wasn't facing the door, there was a tall wardrobe that acted as a closet. The beds were tall, to give more storage space, and each roommate had plastic drawers and boxes under their beds and the bed on the right had a refrigerator tucked underneath and the opposite bed, a microwave.

The student was searching through a knitted purse that hung from the bed on the right, searching for her ID. As Eloise waited, she took stock of the options available for her. If the girl chose caning, she would probably end up bending over the dresser while the other three options would probably have her being punished on her bed. Of course, there were other options and it always mattered a little bit how the offender acted. If she was worried Meredith might resist it would be hard to cane her while she was strapped to her bed or if the girl annoyed her the she could end in a more uncomfortable position than was necessary.

That was unlikely though. Eloise always tended toward mercy and while she was slightly uncomfortable that she had the option to make a punishment more uncomfortable by choosing an awkward position, she was happy that she always had the option to make a punishment less severe, if she wanted. It was an appreciated perk that Ridgefield gave her some discretion in the punishments she performed. Not every dorm drinker was the same, after all. Nate would never get that option at the Center.

As Eloise's mind prepared for the procedure, Meredith returned with her idea after fishing it out of her purse. Eloise looked at it quickly, having already confidently identified the girl from her profile and handed it back. "Why don't you sit down and we can talk for a minute before we have to get started?"

Meredith shrugged again. She turned back to her bed and pushed herself up onto her green bedspread and sat cross legged with her hands together, fidgeting, in her lap. Eloise stayed standing but stepped back to lean back against her roommate's bed in order to give the girl her space.

"Like I said, I'm Eloise Wendell from the Office of Student Behavior. I'm here to carry out a punishment that the Office has decided is appropriate for your infraction. Is it true you don't contest the finding that you possessed alcohol in your dorm while under 21?"

Meredith frowned and it seemed like she actually was questioning the finding, "Um..."

Eloise raised her eyebrows. There was a whole process if Meredith did decide she wanted to object to the determination, and Eloise would prefer not having a hint of doubt that she punished someone who didn't commit the infraction. "If you do then you should tell me."

"No, I don't," Meredith said, looking away uncomfortably and shaking her head.

Eloise could tell the girl still wasn't sure and knew she had the responsibility to delve deeper. "Meredith, you seem unsure. Tell me why."

"Nothing, um, I know the rules say it's my fault too," she said, hesitating.

"Tell me what happened. I don't get told any details beforehand," Eloise said. If she did think that the judgement had a chance of being changed, then she would happily tell the student. Undergrads, especially the kind of good student that could get into an institution like this, were often very respectful of authority and unlikely to cause a fuss if they felt uncomfortable and Eloise didn't want her shyness to mean she was punished unjustly.

"I don't want to sound too whiny," Meredith answered.

Eloise smiled and tried to look sympathetic. It was always better if the girl would trust her even knowing what she was here to do, plus, she really did want to help her. "Whine away. It's good for me to know."

"Ok, um, so you just know there were Jello shots in the fridge?" Meredith asked, her hands fidgeting.

"I just know it was alcohol in your dorm," Eloise assured her.

"Well, it wasn't really mine," Meredith said, "It was hers." She tilted her head toward the bed that Eloise leaned against and Eloise looked over her shoulder to see multiple photos of a blonde girl with an aquiline nose, with friends and in a prom dress. "And like, I've already talked to the class dean and, like, I get rules are rules but..."

Eloise did feel bad hearing the story. This was a story as old as time, probably happening since colleges started to take alcohol rules seriously. Unfortunately, Meredith and her class dean were probably right that Meredith had broken a rule, even if she wasn't really at fault. "I understand feeling like it's unfair."

"Yeah, I don't want to complain... I get it. You're just doing your job," Meredith said.

The girl didn't need to have any sympathy for her, but Eloise still thought it was nice. "I'm here to make it as easy for you as I can. I have to punish you, but if you listen to orders then it gets a lot easier."

"Yeah, I get it," Meredith repeated.

"Ok, so let's continue. There are two things that we have to do this morning," Eloise said, already leaning toward taking it easy on this girl. She was sympathetic and innocent in every way except the one that mattered. It was just the way the policy was written that lead her to this appointment.