Trabbian Justice Ch. 02

"No doubt she is greatly regretting her poor choices," the Warden assured the Americans. The offender kept up her valiant struggles for 15 or 20 seconds, her muscle spasms slowly diminishing, whether from the agony ebbing or simply from exhaustion, Priya could only guess.

"In case you are wondering at the delay, we always wait 30 seconds between strokes," explained the Warden. "That way, the offenders feel the full effect."

Noting the shocked looks on the faces of her guests, she continued, "It may seem cruel to maximize the pain, but that is the best way to ensure that these criminals don't reoffend and have to go through this again."

Once the requisite time had passed, the guard called out "Two!" and the second stroke was delivered with the same implacable strength, producing another loud "Thwack!" and a second stripe, a couple of inches below the first, and the same desperate reaction from the poor offender, who was only a quarter of the way through her ordeal.

The third brutal stroke landed in the undamaged space between the first two. This drew a series of moans from the Trabbian girl, along with more fruitless struggles. Soon enough the fourth stroke was called for and delivered. It fell right on top of where a previous stroke had landed, drawing an even louder series of moans from the victim.

Susan commented that the offender's buttocks were now quivering, even well after the cane stroke. "Yes," Warden Noba explained, "It's a common reaction to the pain. Let's hope she doesn't lose control of her bladder or bowels."

Priya felt more tingling in her groin as she observed the naked Trabbian girl's quivering flesh. She shifted uncomfortably from one foot to the other, rubbing her legs together as the feelings ran through her groin. She noticed that her classmates seemed to be acting similarly. She also noticed that Thura had his hand in his pocket, though he quickly removed it when he noticed her looking at it.

After the fifth stroke, the outer layer of skin in the center of the offender's buttocks was split in several places and the entire area looked deep red and inflamed. The pain-wracked young woman began shouting some words, which the visitors, not being fluent in Trabbian, couldn't understand. "She is begging them to stop and promising that she will never do it again," the helpful Thura translated.

"Since she is sufficiently punished, does that mean they will stop?" asked Priya.

"Certainly, not," replied the Warden. "Offenders often make such appeals during their punishment. However, under our laws, the full measure of punishment ordered by the courts must be delivered and I cannot reduce it even if I wanted to."

The guard in front called, "Stroke 6"and the caner delivered it on top of already wounded flesh, causing blood to begin leaking from a particularly abraded area on the right cheek and eliciting more futile pleas from the suffering girl.

"Oh my, she's bleeding," Jennifer remarked. "Is that normal?"

Oh, quite normal for an 8 stroke caning" replied the Warden. "Each stroke strips off a layer of skin and once you get beyond 3 or 4, it's quite likely that you will hit a spot a second time, which usually produces some minor bleeding."

"Aren't you worried about infection?" asked Priya, ever the pre-Med student.

"Certainly," replied the Warden, "We use a fresh rattan for each offender and thoroughly disinfect the wounds." The seventh stroke was called out and the caner struck. The victim tried again to plead and bargain for mercy, but none was forthcoming, despite the fact that two additional spots were now leaking blood as a result of the further shredding of the young woman's skin.

After the allotted 30 seconds, the eighth and final stroke was announced and given, this time eliciting a series of wordless howls. The guard at the front announced something which Thura told the Americans meant, "Punishment completed."

The caner strode off to a table at the side of the parade ground and refreshed himself with a long drink of water. The Trabbian student lay slumped on the frame, her plump globes scored with deep marks and welts over much of their surface, a few small trickles running down her buttocks onto her thighs from the most damaged spots.

"Aren't they going to release her?" Susan asked.

"First, they must disinfect her wounds," Noba replied. No sooner had the Warden spoken, then a guard came over carrying a bucket, which he emptied onto the posterior of the young offender. At first there was no reaction, but after a few seconds the girl began to frantically wriggle her buttocks, while a piteous series of howls came from her mouth. "That was a nice dose to brine to kill any germs," the Warden continued with a wicked leer.

After a minute or so, the girl tired herself out and the struggles stopped. The guards came over and undid the restraints. Even once she was freed, her exhaustion and loss of will kept her from standing up, so the guards each grasped an arm and pulled her up off the frame. It was quite obvious that the poor young woman was too unsteady on her on feet after her ordeal to walk unaided, so the guards helped her limp off the parade ground.

The visitors had their eyes fixed on the girl's brutalized ass as she receded. "Where are they taking her?" asked Susan.

"To the camp hospital for treatment," replied the Warden. "She will lie down, on her front of course," she continued with a smile, "and will have the wounds further disinfected. In a couple of hours, her ass will be quite swollen and she will have to stay here for a few days until the swelling goes down and the cuts scab over. Then, once she is able to wear loose clothing, she will be released. Of course, any contact with her butt will continue to be painful for some time and sitting or lying on the back will be uncomfortable for several weeks. But eventually she will heal."

Sarah asked, "Will she have scars?" The Warden answered,

"After 3 or 4 strokes, probably not, but after 8, it is likely that there will be some permanent marks that would be visible in bright light. Certainly after a dozen or more, there would be quite obvious scarring. Let's just say that most of these reformed criminals will probably prefer to have sex in the dark. Now, we really shouldn't keep her friend waiting any longer."

With that the warden guided the party back to the administrative area, where she picked up the second folder and called for the second offender. Two guards went out through the door and a moment later re-appeared with the other offender.

She was shorter and somewhat stouter than her friend, and appeared even more frightened, perhaps from having heard the vicious sound of the cane hitting her friend's butt and the pitiful moans and pleas it had drawn in response.

Either way, when she got about halfway to the area where the Warden sat with her guests, she stopped and burst into tears. Noba shouted at the girl in a very stern tone, which Thura translated for the Americans. "She is telling her that she had better get herself over here or the guards will drag her over and she will get extra strokes for failing to cooperate."

With obvious reluctance, the Trabbian student approached the canopied area. As she had done with the other girl, Noba reviewed her name and the nature of her crime and sentence. The girl sniffled her confirmation of the details.

Once again, the female guard approached with the basket and the Warden issued the order to strip as she had done with the first student. This elicited a fresh round of tears and a fresh warning from the Warden. Thura told the Americans that if the offender was not completely naked in 3 seconds she would get 2 additional strokes.

The girl looked terrified and quickly stripped until she stood stark naked facing the Warden and her guests, her coffee-colored skin covered with a sheen of sweat from fear and her wait under the tropical sun. The visitors examined the young woman in her turn, particularly admiring her breasts, which were considerably larger than her friend's.

The Warden decided to move the proceedings along, signaling for the guards to take her to the frame, where she was quickly secured into the same immobile position as her friend.

The Warden suggested to her guests that they observe this punishment from the front, so they could see the girl's reactions to the punishment.

They walked around to the front of the frame and sat in the chairs arranged in a semicircle in front of the offender. They could look right into the terrified girl's eyes, as the guard held her chin up. Seeing the foreigners, the bound young woman called out something in Trabbian. "She is very afraid and is begging you to help her," Thura explained, laughing, "She must think you are powerful people who can stop an official proceeding."

Warden Noba responded to her in a loud voice; Thura translated, "They can't help you girl; they are just here to observe your punishment. You are going to get exactly what the judge gave you. That is the law."

Looking annoyed, Noba signaled to get started. The punishment- 8 strokes- was announced. The visitors saw panic in the young Trabbian student's eyes as the punishment was called and the cane whistled through the air. They heard the solid crack as it struck home.

For a second or so after the impact, nothing registered on the girl's face. But, then, the visitors saw her eyes widen and her jaw clench as the fire, even worse than her darkest thoughts had imagined it would be, burned across her rump. They saw the girl's hands grip the crossbar tightly and her head shake as if to deny how much something could hurt and they heard her labored intake of breath.

The guard called for the second stroke which hit home with appalling force. The only freedom of movement the helpless student had in her desperate struggle to manage the pain was the ability to turn her upper body, which caused her prominent breasts, which hung down from her torso, to move sinuously from side to side. This had a rather pronounced effect on the audience, especially Thura, whose hand was deep in his pocket, and Sarah, who squirmed anxiously, rubbing her legs together.

Priya noted that the offender was gasping for breath, trying to fuel her hopeless exertions. The third remorseless stroke caused her to moan imprecations unintelligible to the Americans. Thura told the visitors those were very bad words that he was not going to translate. Not surprisingly given the hot day and the severe stress the offender was under, her entire body was coated with sweat, her hair plastered against her forehead.

The fourth lash caused the offender to moan more curses and pleas. The guard at the front of the frame holding the girl's head said something to her in Trabbian.

"What was that?" asked Susan.

"She is telling her to be brave, that it is half over," the Warden replied. That seemed to provide very little comfort to the poor student, judging by the copious tears flowing down her cheeks and the mucus dripping from her nose. The girl looked piteously at the Warden and babbled something in Trabbian.

"She is telling the Warden that she cannot take 4 more, that it will kill her," Thura translated. Noba just looked away. The fifth stroke was called and delivered, drawing more struggles and moans from the young student.

However, the sixth stroke was met with only silence. The guard holding the prisoner's head held her hand up and said something to the Warden. The doctor stepped forward to examine his patient.

"It seems the offender has fainted," the Warden told her guests, noting that the girl's eyes were no longer looking at them plaintively, but had rolled back in her head.

"What happens now? Does the punishment stop?" asked Susan.

"Not usually," responded the Warden. "The doctor can stop the proceedings if he feels that the offender's life or health is in danger. That is unlikely with such a healthy young woman. Most likely he will revive her with smelling salts and we will carry on."

Indeed, the Warden's prediction proved correct, as the doctor extracted a jar from his black bag. He unscrewed the cap and held the jar under the young woman's nose. She coughed and began moaning as she had after the earlier strokes. He knelt and pressed the stethoscope against her chest for a few moments before looking at the Warden. "She can take the full dose," he pronounced. "She's just a bit emotional, but her body is very strong."

And indeed, despite her protests, the girl did take the last two strokes, suffering the full sentence awarded by the court. Once the punishment was completed, Noba led the party around to the other side of the frame to inspect the damage done to the second offender's buttocks. As bad as the first girl had looked, the second looked perhaps even worse, with blood flowing more freely rather than trickling as they had seen with her classmate.

After the guard doused her behind with salt water, she howled like a banshee and struggled violently against the restraints as the stinging salt worked into the wounds. Finally, she was released from her bonds and helped by the guards off the parade ground.

"Now I would propose that we go to the camp hospital and see the treatment that is given to the offenders. You could ask them about the experience and how it has affected their propensity to abide by the law in the future. It should be most interesting for you" Warden Noba asked.

Susan hesitated before replying, "That's really kind of you, Warden. Unfortunately, we really need to get back to our dig. We have many discoveries to catalog."

"I understand and I certainly wouldn't want to take you away from your important work," the Warden said sympathetically, as she led the party back to their car. "I hope you all enjoyed our little demonstration. I am quite confident that these offenders have learned the error of their ways and will not be back for further treatment."

"We thank you for your hospitality. It was very interesting," Susan told her. The students all chimed in their agreement with their professor's words.

"Perhaps we will have an opportunity to meet again during your stay here. If not, I hope you will have a pleasant stay here in Trabbia," the Warden replied, shaking each of the visitor's hand as they got into their car.

Thura stopped at the main gate, where their phones were returned to them, and they drove out through the gate, without further ceremony. During the short drive back, the women sat in silence, each contemplating what they had just witnessed.

When they arrived at to the archeological camp they decided to head straight to the dig site, eager to make up for the lost time. As they were walking there, Thura turned to Susan. "What did you think of what you saw, Professor?" he asked her.

"It was shocking, brutal," Susan replied. "I've certainly never seen anything like that."

Sarah added, "I couldn't stop thinking about the fact that they were students like us who were getting punished like that for smoking dope. I mean all of us have done that and much worse."

"Aside from the awful pain, they must have felt so degraded, to be naked and completely helpless, strapped to that horrible frame," Priya said, "I can't even imagine what that must be like."

"Have any of you taken Professor Morton's class on 'The Philosophy of Free Will'?" Susan asked her students. "I wonder what he would say about this. I mean, you have two girls who were autonomous people, students, just a couple of days ago and here they were stripped totally naked, restrained so they couldn't move and whipped at the whim of the Warden and her guards. What does that say about our nature?"

Jen pondered the question. "I suppose it shows how little different from animals we are. How we can treat our fellow humans with such cruelty, especially when we have power over them."

"And free will is an illusion, perhaps, that depends on living in a society that doesn't practice abuse," Sarah added.

"But, you must surely admit the other side of the argument," Thura interjected. "Those young ladies will think twice and three times before ever breaking the law again. I am sure they will not forget such an experience for the rest of their lives. And some of their classmates will hear about it and perhaps see their wounds and they will want to avoid such a fate, so they will make sure they obey the law also. Certainly, none of you would want such a punishment, would you?"

"Of course not," Susan told the Trabbian guide. "Who would want to suffer such a horror?"

"So, of course, you would be very careful to avoid breaking any laws, so as not to end up like those two students, wouldn't you?"

At that point the discussion ended, as reached the dig. The women worked hard to make up for the lost morning and Priya didn't have any time to think any more about what they had seen at the Punishment Center until later that night.

Even then, she hadn't wanted to dwell on the horrible sights she had witnessed. Tired from the morning's emotional experience and the afternoon's hard work in the hot sun, Priya had a shower, put on a fresh T shirt and panties, her usual sleepware for the warm nights in the jungle, laid down on her cot and fell asleep almost immediately.

Several hours later, around 1 AM, Priya awoke, her heart pounding, her shirt damp with sweat. She felt as though her body was immobilized and that something awful was about to happen. Coming back to consciousness, she tested her arms and legs and found they could move quite freely.

Slowly it dawned on Priya that she had been having a nightmare in which she was strapped to the horrible caning frame back at the prison camp, about to be whipped. Even though she knew it was a dream, she imagined herself in the place of those Trabbian students, enduring the shame of being naked in front of all those people, the strangeness of being restrained, the pain. Would she keep silent, beg and scream, perhaps even faint, as the second girl had?

These disturbing thoughts made it hard for Priya to get back to sleep. Perhaps, a walk would calm her down. She got up and slipped on her shorts and flip-flops. As she did, she glanced over at Susan's cot. The professor was lying on her stomach, seemingly asleep.

Priya strolled out into the night. It was the new moon, so it was quite dark, but she could see a dim light from Jennifer and Sarah's hut and she heard sounds, so she walked over to see if they were awake and up for a little chat.

As she came over next to their hut, Priya heard a whistling, followed by a slapping noise and Jennifer's voice saying, "One". Priya noticed that there was a knot hole in the wood siding at about knee level. She sat down in front of the hole and heard another whistle and slap and Jen counting "Two".

'What could be going on in there?' Priya wondered. She felt awful spying on her friends, but her curiosity got the better of her. She peered into the hole and was astounded at what she saw. Sarah was on all fours on the floor, naked, her ass sticking up in the air. Jen, equally naked, was behind her holding a strap that looked like it came off one of the backpacks they had travelled with.

At that moment, Jen swung the strap, smacking it down forcefully on Sarah's butt and announcing, "Three".

"Oww," Sarah moaned, "That hurt."

"Good," Jen replied, "Maybe next time there is a party, you will keep your hands off that bitch Veronica." Then, she drew the strap back, ready to deliver the fourth swat. Priya felt ashamed at having seen such an intimate scene, but, even worse, she felt shame that she found it arousing. Disgusted with her dirty mind, she stood up and walked towards the camp kitchen.

Still, she couldn't help wondering whether this behavior of her classmates was their usual habit, or whether it was stimulated by the scene they had witnessed that morning. After a brief circuit of the camp, Priya hoped that she was over the nightmare and ready to get back to sleep.