The Freshman Ch. 35

At the 47th stroke Kim raised her hand. The second set of lines was rapidly swelling and some of the weals looked like they were just about to break. Vladik stopped, with an irritated look on his face as Kim examined the welts to see if any were oozing blood. So far, so good, thought the Apprentice, but better to be safe than sorry. She pointed at the criminal’s shoulders, directing the police officer to finish the strokes on her upper back to spare her bottom any further damage. Vladik tightened his lips, because he did not like striking a criminal on the back. However, in that one detail of the punishment he was obliged to follow Kim’s direction. He obeyed, repositioning himself to quickly lay four cruel lines across his sobbing victim’s shapely shoulders.

Finally Cecilia counted the fiftieth stroke, immensely glad to have made it to the end of Tiffany’s whipping. She exchanged glances with Kim and the two women raised their hands simultaneously to conclude the punishment. Vladik was breathing heavily, but Cecilia could tell that he also was glad to be done with Tiffany’s yearly switching. In spite of the importance Tiffany attached to the punishments as part of her redemption, he did not like hurting her. It had to be done and he was the one who had to do it, but flogging Tiffany was not something that he enjoyed.

Criminal # 98946 continued to tremble and sob as Officer Dukov unbuckled the straps. He freed her legs first, then her hands, and finally, keeping a hand on her waist to steady her, he unbuckled the large strap that immobilized her torso. He spoke quietly to her and she seemed to nod. She struggled to push herself off the table as Vladik and Kim each took an arm to help her get upright. She was still crying as the other two turned her backside to the judge to allow him to verify she had taken 50 strokes.

He signed the certificate, and with that Tiffany’s third switching came to an end. As directed by protocol, she knelt and kissed Vladik’s shoes. Between sobs she managed to get out:

"Spakeebo dakub moigu."

She kissed Vladik’s shoes and then put her forehead to the floor. Kim and Vladik saluted each other to signal the transfer of custody of Criminal # 98946 from Officer Dukov back to her Spokeswoman, Apprentice Lee-Dolkivna. Vladik then approached the judge’s desk to sign several papers verifying he had administered the punishment in accordance with the sentencing conditions of Criminal # 98946.

Tiffany continued to remain crouched on the floor crying, her entire world reduced to the cruel burning tearing at both her body and her soul. The pain was her annual penance, the yearly cleaning out of her memories and thoughts by the intense biting pain that forced her mind off everything that had tormented her over the past year. He mind was cleared, ready to start a new year with new challenges. As horrendous an experience as the switching might have been, it was what she needed.

The judge told Apprentice Lee-Dolkiva that she needed to clear the room for another criminal’s punishment. After saluting the judge Kim directed Cecilia to take one of her client’s hands to help her get the sobbing criminal out of the room. Officer Vladik Dukov looked on in sympathy, but he could not touch Criminal # 98946 because doing so would violate courtroom protocol. He could only watch as Kim and Cecilia struggled to get the taller woman through the doors and up two flights of stairs. As soon as they approached Kim’s office, Vladik grabbed the door and held it open. As soon as the women passed through, he closed it behind them.

The normal custom following a switching was for a punished criminal to lie down for several hours on a recovery table until she had recuperated enough to get up and walk out of the office. However, instead of settling down on the recovery table, Tiffany reached out to Vladik and collapsed into his arms. Now they no longer had to be Officer Dukov and Criminal # 98946, but instead could return to being Vladik and Tiffany. He did what she needed him to do, hold her and not say anything. She needed to have plenty of time to cry, and she needed to be held and reassured. And cry she did, leaning against him as her tears stained his shirt.

Kim silently tapped Cecilia’s shoulder and walked out of the office. Cecilia gladly followed, suddenly feeling very uneasy about what she was witnessing. The two women left the police station and made their way to the parkland along the river.

Tiffany’s suffering had put both of them in a very pensive mood, which prompted Kim to suggest going to the park bench where she had been arrested four years before. For a long time the two Americans gazed out over the East Danube River, while they talked about Tiffany.

The relationship Kim had with Tiffany was very different from the one Cecilia was having with her. To Cecilia, Tiffany was a housemate and somewhat of a friend. The fact that both women were wearing collars made them social equals, and that was how Cecilia saw Tiffany, as a fellow American and a fellow college student in a foreign setting. Because Tiffany was a recent acquaintance, Cecilia had not seen her before the chaotic events that so completely changed her over the past four years.

To Kim, Tiffany was very clearly a subordinate. The two women were close, but they were not friends in a way that most people would define the concept of friendship.

Kim realized that Cecilia felt uneasy about how she treated her client and that she needed to explain the purpose of their relationship.

“I got a question for you. I guess you find it kinda weird how I treat Tiffany?”

“Yeah, Kim, I do. I mean, you’ve been friends with her since you were 13. How can you treat a friend like that?”

“I’m her Spokeswoman and the Path of her Life is to obey me. I treat her that way because I have to.”

“…and so she’s not your friend any more…”

“No. I care for her and I want the very best out of life for her, but no, we’re not friends anymore. We can’t be friends, because I am responsible for her. I’m her custodian and I’m sworn to watch over her. It is my Path in Life to protect Tiffany from her addictions and her tendency to self-destruct. To do that, I have to be strict with her. She knows that, and it’s what she expects. She needs to obey me, because it’s the only way I can keep her from killing herself.”

Kim gave Cecilia a chance to think over what she was saying, and continued:

“Anyhow, the Tiffany you’re looking at is not the same person I hung out with when we were in school. In my life there have been two separate Tiffanies, two women who share the same body and the same name, but who are two totally different people. The girl I knew in school is dead and there’s nothing left of her. That friend simply doesn’t exist anymore. She’s totally dead, and in my own life I’ve had to come to terms with that. Someone else took over her body, someone who’s only about three years old and needs me to guide her. Criminal # 98946 is not the Tiffany Walker I went to high school with. That’s how come I can look at her as my client instead of my friend. She’s not the same person.”

“So, what’s gonna happen when she marries Vladik?”

“Nothing, if you mean any changes in our responsibilities to each other. Vladik and I talked about Tiffany’s future when he asked my permission to propose to her. He understands how things will have to be. He knows, even though she’ll be his wife, I’ll always be the one telling her what to do. For example, they can’t set a wedding date until I say it’s OK for them to get married, and that won’t be until the Ancients tell me she’s ready. After they’re married, I’ll expect him to come over to my office every so often and talk about how things are going. I’ll need to hear his opinion about how she’s doing and what she needs in her life. In the end, however, if I tell him I want things done a certain way, I’ll expect him to respect my authority and comply with what I want.”

“Dang…so you’re even gonna be runnin’ their marriage?”

“Yes. I’m her Spokeswoman and that’s my job, to control her life. To be honest, Vladik’s happy about that, because this way he can just relax and enjoy his time with her. He won’t have anything to worry about, because legally she’s my responsibility, not his. The Path of my Life is to watch over her behavior. The Path of his Life is to love her and comfort her. I get the hard part, and he gets the easy part, but in the end we both want what’s best for her.”

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That night Cecilia and Jason went to the Socrates Club to watch “Socrates’ Mistresses” give a concert to the members of club. The songs being performed were all completely new, because the band felt most comfortable presenting their most experimental material in the safe environment where they first started out. Kimberly Lee-Dolkivna no longer was a hardened public official on stage, but instead a naked ex-criminal performing with other naked ex-criminals. The Club was where she had come to terms with her life as a criminal and where she had found friendship with the four other women singing on stage with her. She was home on that stage: she was where she needed to be.

Jason took Cecilia home very late that night, after the musical presentation was over and the couple had spent their nightly hour of lovemaking in one of the “intimacy rooms”. They returned to Victor’s house on the last trolley of the evening, unable to take seats because of the restriction against collared people that forced them to remain standing on all public transportation. They walked the short distance from the trolley stop to Victor’s house, and with that Jason kissed her goodbye. He had to get on another trolley by himself to go to his own home, but Cecilia was not worried about his safety. Assaults and muggings were almost completely unheard of in the Danubian capitol.

She returned to her room to take a shower and brush her teeth before going to bed. She was careful to run a dry washcloth under her collar, a standard precaution among criminals and Temple penitents to prevent the skin on their necks from chafing. She decided to check in on Tiffany and see how she was holding up following her punishment. Not surprisingly, she was lying on her stomach. She was still awake, given that the pain from her welts was still too intense for her to be able to sleep properly. As for the marks themselves, they had darkened and were clearly visible, even in a room barely lit by moonlight coming in through the window.

As Cecilia sat down on the bed, Tiffany asked about the concert at the Socrates Club and commented that she was sorry to have missed it. That comment struck Cecilia as rather strange. Had she been so severely punished and lying in her bed in such pain, missing a concert would have been the last thing on her mind.

She asked Tiffany if she was OK. The criminal’s answer was “Yes”. By the tone of her voice Cecilia could tell that she was very serious about that. She was fine, now that the dreaded annual punishment had come and gone. Criminal # 98946 had endured her allotted dose of suffering for the year and now could look ahead to enjoying the rest of the summer. She would be returning to her job at the city’s largest music store the next morning, and would be getting together with Vladik in the evening. She would move ahead, largely free from the crushing guilt that had so much tormented her before she was sentenced.

Tiffany had found happiness, in spite of knowing that she faced another 32 years of harsh restrictions resulting from her conviction. She never would be a free woman, at least not in the way that most people would define freedom. However, the sentence had freed her from herself, freed her from own weaknesses and self-destructive personality. She had been liberated from the certainty of dying at an early age from drug abuse, freed from her psychotic tweaker boyfriend, freed from dancing in a smoke-filled strip club, and freed from servicing her unsavory clients. She was a meth addict, would always be a meth addict, and if left to herself would spend all of her time, day in and day out, pursuing her addiction.

The price of her existence in Danube City was nothing compared to what she had been able to reclaim in her life. She had her health, she had her studies, she had her friends, and most importantly, she had her relationship with Vladik. In spite of the ongoing punishment and restrictions, Tiffany was much freer than she ever could have been in the United States. She was actually proud of her collar. The collar was an important symbol to her; the sign that in exchange for the harsh sentence, she had taken her life back, a life that now was worth living.