The Punisher

Copyright July 2023 by FIT529

Started May 10, 2023

Disclaimers: All persons depicted are over 18 years old, by Divine Edict. This is NOT BDSM, at all, in any way!

High school guy finds himself saddled with two girls who have (off screen, not explained) caused a death by bullying. These two girls have a choice: ten re-incarnated lifetimes as abused animals (torture to match karma of taking a human life), or one lifetime as obedient, subservient wives of a friend of the person they bullied.

The guy awakens to find the world altered - everyone knows / assumes he is now married to these two. They have to do what he says, but aren't happy about it, and he Very Much isn't either. He's seriously not into dominance, it's mean and he doesn't like the Karma it gives him. From there, life Keeps Getting More Complicated.

Did we mention he already had life plans? Is his life ruined, or is there a path that bends towards justice?

Preface

I bear no ill will to anyone, but I've been forced to be an instrument of justice. I didn't sign up to do this. I'm not into dominance or BDSM or whatever, not my thing, okay if it's yours but keep that to yourself.

I'm aware I'm describing talking with a God, or Godlike entity. Life got complicated. I'm also being very Explicit about some sexy-times I had.

My story, I hope, can help you decide to be a Good Person. I hope so. I found out it's possible to have a swingin' good time PLUS keep your chances for the afterlife/next-life/moving-on-time.

What you do, matters. Your Ethics Determines Your Next Reality.

Judgment may not be confined to the afterlife.

== Life with Autism In New Brunswick (Canada) ==

Sorry for the travel brochure, but it matters to the story - context.

WHERE:

I grew up, not in the USA, or Eng-Lund - in Saint John, New Brunswick ("SJNB")!

(That's SINGULAR spelled-out-Saint John, NOT St. Johns, Newfoundland ABBREV. PLURAL. They're 1000 miles from us and chock full of wankers and knobs. LOL. Not really. They're nice, too, they're just NOT us, and vice versa. Honestly, I'd be okay renaming our city to be Mispec or some other First Peoples' name, it'd simplify everyone's life).

Sorry, sore point.

Saint John isn't that big (70k), but we do okay. Same stores as I saw in Bangor (Maine, USA).

We're an okay place, prosperous enough. Nice people, LOTS of pretty/rugged nature nearby, good schools/hospitals/colleges/water-park, whatever. All you need. Like the slogan says, "Canada! It's Just Better Here!"

Though, to be fair, whether you want wilderness or not, yes, we have that; 99.9% of NB is ten minutes from the wilderness. Beautiful stuff, but not everyone's taste.

WHO:

Growing up, my father was the asst. city engineer of SJNB public works. Mom was a CPA and she set her own hours, working out of the house and from a storefront nearby.

Now, I grew up knowing I was gifted, but also knowing that I was different. After a while the doctors and teachers figured out I was autistic.

There's lots of types of autism. My type was mostly surrounding not reading social cues very well, sometimes perseverating (talking about a specific topic that interests me regardless of who's listening), getting suddenly and irrationally angry when subjected to loud, high-pitched noises, and hyper-focusing on specific topics in or out of school.

Those are the bad parts, the hard parts to live with.

On the good side, I got coping skills from Health Canada, school counselors, and a few good friends. That is, I had "crutches", but it was still hard. I had to be far more introspective and self-aware than norms.

Most of my friends are your average set of geeks, but through school I've met some oddballs (harder situations than mine) and I'm friends with them, too.

SCARS:

There's another Huge Huge Huge factor setting me apart, socially.

Growing up, I had a giant scar on my cheek, and couldn't see out of my left eye.

I was in an accident when I was about five, in the basement, and a power tool dropped off a counter and cut me. The doctors said they could do restorative surgery but I'd have to wait until I was mostly full grown so the repair-scar didn't grow and stretch the wrong way.

It was a lot of baggage, sure, but I did okay, and amongst my friend group it mostly didn't come up, or if it did, I'd make a joke like a DND troll being _Almost as ugly as me, and they could laugh along. I didn't worry too much, we were all good people if somewhat clueless.

BULLIES:

As you can imagine, socially awkward and massively scarred didn't make me popular.

In fact, there were a set of people in school who continuously taunted me, and several other disadvantaged kids, bullying and making fun of us. This was despite us getting decent anti-bullying and diversity classes, etc., but both my friends and I have had to deal with the special few people who are just plainly mean-spirited.

The classes didn't affect them. They actively rejected those 'be nice' and 'defend powerless people' lessons, then laughed and pushed and called names - ugly, losers, wanna-be's, undeserving, etc. Some people just suck.

For them, being not-pretty or socially-awkward was a lack of morals or willpower?

Among those people were two girls: Karabeth Kroger and Emmaline Paulsen.

They found fault in everything about me, and told me (frequently loudly) when I'd said the wrong/dumb thing, or otherwise been awkward.

Of course, coping with them, I knew my limits.

I had good coping strategies, up to a point. Trouble was, these girls would keep at it until I broke - either I'd start crying openly, or have to go fidget, or go somewhere and run for a while to work out the tension in my system.

There wasn't ever a danger I'd be self-destructive, or hurt anyone else, but there were times when I got so upset I'd go running and do strength-moves on the playground equipment, but inevitably I got huge muscle aches the next day.

Granted, I did this enough that I got pretty good at pull-ups or one-handed negatives or inverted push ups, sit-ups, yoga, etc. It really let me focus on my body and I had a good time with it.

Now, before you get the idea I was musclebound, I wasn't. After I read about true strength being the 30th pull-up not the tenth, I did sets of 25 of whatever and it let me relax into the counting - a very autistic pattern that helped me self-calm.

I also took piano lessons, which let me single-mindedly focus on musical tones.

Music is a great help to some autistics. Others? Drives 'em batty. Me, I loved it, I could shut out a disturbing, too-loud, too-busy, frenetic reality.

My workouts led to success in track and cross country, and my music led to solace and joy in our school's chorus. Plus, halfway through sophomore year our chorus' accompanist moved away, so I got to take over that job (and LOVED it!!).

As much fun as music was, my focus/fun was sci-fi and science classes, though I had troubles with ADHD-based procrastination. About half of autistics have some ADHD - which is called 'executive functioning disorder', but it's a fancy name for either being a perfectionist or just easily distractible towards whatever Moar Cool thing is nearby.

That's the backdrop, that's who I was... Almost. Or, Mostly. Before.

== THE Night ==

I turned 18 years old on Tuesday, February 2nd. Being mid-week, I couldn't have a b-day party until Friday, but on the plus side, my Dungeons and Dragons (DND) group met on Fridays.

Thus, the night I'm talking about is Friday, February 5th. My friends grabbed a b-day cake and we had a great time running our normal DND campaign, and it was a perennial sleepover party anyway.

We usually crashed about 2 am, going to our sides of the basement, unrolling soft pads and sleeping bags, and turning out the lights.

We were an integrated group - four girls and three guys.

The 'sides of the room' idea was a long habit, demanded by Mindy. She was super-smart, really creative in-game, and frankly pretty sexy too but I wouldn't have said that out loud. The 'sexy' was a topic we avoided about ourselves (awkward!), but we loved innuendo in-game.

Mindy had a super-arch-over-the-top AOG Evangelical conservative Christian family. She could only have sleepover permission if we set it up as separate sleeping areas.

Living with that was fine - it wasn't a burden and frankly we weren't going to get funky with our group. We just wanted to crash and keep the game going longer.

Even after she graduated and left for Moncton we stuck with sleeping on opposite sides of the basement of whatever house we were in, and with me being the last to turn 18.

We had absolutely no reason to be so prudish. Granted, wearing sweats or at least long PJ pants and shirts was a Good Plan for NB winters, some of our houses were drafty.

Oh - and I should mention, we weren't all seniors - Mary had graduated and was a college freshman at UNB in town (expensive; I was headed to NBCC, also in town).

It wasn't like we were all prudes in other contexts. Heck, I ran track and cross-country and as a guy, I changed in the locker room around other guys, it didn't matter. Plus, Jo and Mary had both been in madrigal chorus with me since Junior year.

If you're not clued-in, madrigals is something like theater. People change costumes all the time in front of each other. It's accepted. So of course I'd seen them in bras and panties. Really, though, we had a swimming unit in gym class sophomore year and spent an hour a day wearing swimsuits near each other, and that's about the same as a bra and panties, or underwear.

Anyway, so that was the situation.

I went to sleep like normal.

== The Trial ==

Then, normal sleep ended.

My dream suddenly didn't seem like a dream, it was Very Very Real. I was in an odd place?

I was confused!!!!

Coming awake, I realized I was standing (but I'd just been lying down?) in an open space, very non-specific, hard cold floor under my feet... but ... next to me...?!?!? Standing off to my side maybe 10 steps away and not facing me, was Karabeth Kroger and Emmaline Paulsen - my bullies!?!

Both were wearing iron collars with sharp spikes and standing in tube-drapes of some kind.

The collars were linked to each other by a super-thick, heavy black iron chain that hung in an arc between them.

The tubes were thick canvas sail-cloth held like shower curtains by a frame on their shoulders. It wasn't tight fitting, it just draped to their ankles, shackled with more super-heavy chains coming down from arm manacles.

It looked rough and nasty and very uncomfortable.

They stood side by side facing a bright light; I was off to the side, but mostly facing them.

I tried looking to my left, but it was far too bright to look at. I caught an afterimage of some kind of face, like the whole light was shaped like a person's head, but that's a guess, it hurt just squinting in that direction.

The light from the head/face was enough to see the girls clearly. I looked down at myself and saw I was dressed in what I'd gone to bed in, a white t-shirt, old sweatpants, and my 'Dr. Who' Tardis-print socks.

The girls' expressions were deadly serious but also confused, and squinting as well.

Suddenly, we weren't in the basement anymore!

We were in a park... and I recognized it. It was the park about two blocks away from Brian's house (when your dad's a city engineer, you know all the parks, lol).

They were standing in the frosty grass. I felt the February cold but somehow it wasn't too uncomfortable. The girls were obviously freezing from how they shifted, but they couldn't move much.

The light, the face, had a voice, and it started speaking.

This felt incredibly real, absolutely NOT a dream, but it was so surrealistic it couldn't be real.

The voice spoke, loud, like it was right into my head. Calm but totally authoritative, it resonated with gravitas. Somehow, though, I wasn't afraid. I was almost an observer, but I wasn't the one in trouble, and it was obvious these two girls were.

"Karabeth Isabel Kroger. Emmaline Dauphenne Paulsen. You have been convicted for callously and cruelly inflicting pain resulting in a death. Your guilt has been clearly established. You have been informed of your punishment. That is, you will be reincarnated 10 times, spending each long lifetime in severe pain as an abused animal. During those lifetimes, you will have your current complete mental capacity and awareness, but no control over your bodies. To proceed, you must admit your guilt. If so, say, 'I admit guilt'."

They did, their voices oddly calm despite their facial expressions.

"You have requested Divine Mercy, even knowing it could result in far worse punishment, depending on my whim. Confirm this by saying, 'I request mercy'."

They did, again, with calm voices but panicked eyes.

"I have examined your history, and your souls. I shall now tell you my judgment upon you. You both have potential for repairing your karma but only by a well-examined lifetime of good acts. Normal lives will be insufficient. You must be exemplary individuals to have sufficient 'good acts'. Failure will double your initial sentence, to 20 animal-lifetimes of misery. To repair your karma, you must live the rest of your natural lives in a state of loving servitude, accepting pain without outward complaint, outwardly disfigured, and weekly reminded by vivid painful nightmares of what you are avoiding with this alternate path."

The voice paused.

"Imagine what's going to happen...."

It paused.

"No, that's wrong."

The light, the face, turned more to me, so I could barely see the girls in front of me except to note that they'd turned to face me. "This is Kevin Cooper. You know him well. He will be your guardian. Your lifelong task is to give him the comfort and love that your victim will never have the chance to feel. Further, you will each bear him 16 children. Neither painkillers nor anesthesia will have an effect on you, neither alcohol nor stimulants nor any other drugs."

"Neither he nor your children will see your disfigurement, but all those around you will. Your bodies will not age until you have completed this task, but those around you will see you as getting older and more decrepit as time passes."

"Kevin. You have a choice. You can accept these women as your responsibility and help them grow. Or, you can refuse. If you do, your memory of this event will disappear, they will suffer the reincarnations, all will be as it was. You hold the fate of lifetimes over them. No harm can come to you by declining, you are not being judged."

Wow. I tried to imagine the size of this decision. Frankly, I didn't want to be anywhere near them. They were horrible people.

After a pause, the voice continued, "You _also_ hold the fate, the existence, of the children you would have together. As more compensation, you will find you no longer are disfigured. You will have Demeter's power of fertility in your loins, Hera's power of happy marriage, and Dyonisis' power of bringing joy to those around you. You will also spend this duration with them without aging."

"Lastly, your life, your reality - and the minds of those around you - will fold and bend and match this situation."

"Your marriages will be accepted as inevitable, normal, and accepted by society. Everything odd about you and them will be immediately forgotten or dismissed. Lastly, should you complete this task, you will have the chance to change yourself, to be relieved of any of the onerous symptoms of your autism, or to retain some aspects of it if you wish."

"Now, Kevin. Make your choice. Will you accept the gifts, keep one or both of these women as ugly-to-the-world but eager wives? Or, decline this offer and return to your sleep and your games with friends. You can negotiate terms, or accept each by saying their name and 'I accept' you'. What is your choice?"

This feeling of calm came over me. I saw the choices in front of me.

Both of these girls, these now-women, had assaulted me countless times with hate-filled vile actions and words. They'd also assaulted (verbally, and sometimes physically by pushing and poking and bumping-hard) people I cared about.

These girls weren't random people to me. They had inflicted great harm, intentionally, with great hurtful malice and delight in the pain they caused. My emotions were immensely conflicted about this choice.

I knew I could greatly harm them by just saying, 'no'. It would be an easy choice.

Or, by agreeing, I could either do them more harm, or no harm, and had serious power associated with it. Even so, agreeing was hard to think about. My inner mind remembered their faces as they shouted painful insults in front of groups of other kids, making it okay for all of them to nickname me, beat on me, shun me, and all the other physical and emotional pain-inducing things they did.

Still, my own disfigurement might be reduced? My autism patterns might be less severe?

Having a normal life, even if it was at the cost of living with my tormentors, had some advantage. The trade off - I'd have to live with these two horrible people, half a lifetime?

Thinking about it in terms of game theory (a frequent way in DND to approach problems), I looked for the downsides, and the way they could game the system. This led to a question, and having listened to the conditions, The Voice hadn't addressed it.

I asked, "If they do nothing, ignore me forever, or run off? They get to live forever, but I am also compelled to live forever. I have read stories where eternal life is a hell, a vast tragedy, an immeasurable and eternal punishment."

I waited.

The voice returned, "Understood. Your concern is valid."

Turning to them, he said, "First, you will feel physical pain, increasing by time and distance, being apart from Kevin. You must stay near him. You must do his bidding, and you shall not feel sleep until you have done enough daily good works. Do you have questions?"

They looked at each other and back and each said, "I have No Questions."

He turned to me. "Say their names to accept them, or 'I decline'."

That was it. I had to decide.

I said their names.

The canvas fabric fell to dust. Their arms came up and their iron bindings and chains fell open but into mid-air, the metal floating slightly away and coalescing into a ball, hotter and hotter, spinning to a cylinder, divided into three parts.

The cylinder split to 3 sections, turning into toroids / donuts, rapidly rotating white-hot. That changed - they got to be blue-hot!

These donuts reshaped to be simple wedding bands, then cooled and turned gold.

The bands settled into a slower rotation, enough to see that on two of the rings, the gold had a cobalt-blue inlaid line that twisted and knotted around. The third ring had three cobalt blue lines woven and braided in an intricate, frankly beautiful way.

Their left hands rose, the single-line rings went on and a flash of light showed they were sealed there. The third ring moved towards me, and (in a flash) I was naked, my hand out, and that ring fell onto my finger, too big but condensing down to bind on me. A second flash from the ring that sent an almost-painful but totally mind-blowing shock into me, radiating from the ring but suffusing through my whole universe.

I totally and deeply felt that binding - of them to me, and me to them.

Yet, it wasn't done!

Something was holding me exactly in place, not that I wanted to move, but I felt it lift me, spread my arms and legs, and my whole body started to heat up. Looking down, I was glowing. Waves of discomfort swept me, like pins-and-needles foot-falls-asleep discomfort, but bearable. This energy flowing sensation went on for at least a minute, agony and ecstasy at the same time, utterly dominating my consciousness.