Violations

Rachel's eyes skipped over the thing in front of her and focused on the thick window instead. And the person leaning on the wall, scrolling on their phone behind it.

Oh crap, crap, crap, he's familiar. Rachel thought. Shit!

Deputy Marceau noticed the person too. She slapped the window and shook an accusing finger at the figure behind the glass. She flipped the switch on the intercom panel right below it to add to the rebuke.

"Hey, you are supposed to surrender your phone at the door."

"Sorry deputy. There's no reception in here, but I forgot to bring a book so I'm catching up on something I downloaded about a year ago."

"There's no reception because there's a signal jammer, dummy. And you are here to observe, not goof around."

"He, he, he...he's going to watch?"

"Oh, hi Rachel!"

"Oh my god...Mark!" Rachel gasped, reeling from one horrifying layer after another being added to this shameful experience.

It was the cute, single college dropout barista from Sunbucks that Rachel had been flirting fruitlessly with since she'd moved to this dumb town.

"Oh, hi dummy," she pointed at the observer, raising her voice. "If you don't shut up now, I'll have Deputy Harrison write you up for obstruction."

Deputy Harrison chuckled.

"And, If I see that phone out again, you'll be in one of these rooms by the end of the day."

"Yes," Mark the barista said. "Yes, mam."

Deputy Marceau flipped the intercom switch back off and turned towards Rachel, eyes blazing.

"Oh my god, please just let me go."

"Oh, jeez. Sorry, Ms. Kim. This is hard enough as it is. Sorry you had to see me get mad. He should have known better."

"He's going to watch?"

"Yes. New rules, I'm afraid. We used to have cameras in here, but some of the videos leaked, and there was, well..." the deputy paused, sensing that she had said too much. "Anyway, it was bad, now we have community observers."

"This can't be happening."

Deputy Harrison grunted or laughed. Whatever the noise was, it was derisive.

"Take a breath," Deputy Marceau insisted. "Let's just both take a breath now, okay?"

Breathing. Breathing would be nice if only she could remember how.

Time seemed to skip.

The table. Or bench? Crucifix? Whatever it was called, the thing they were strapping her too was a giant, thick stick figure covered with white vinyl padding. There was a fat half-cylinder pad that rose above the surface of the stick figure's waist. The arms were spread perpendicular to the body, and the legs spread about 90 degrees from each other. There were thick canvas straps with heavy metal buckles everywhere, including the head pad.

Rachel found herself lying face down on the cursed thing, feeling the straps tighten on her legs, arms, torso.

"Going to have to lift your skirt up now," Deputy Marceau said, exposing her ass to the cold room. She finished restraining her charge by securing one more strap under across her now bare lower back.

Deputy Harrison grunted somewhere behind her. Rachel's head was still free to look around, but she didn't dare.

"That will be all, Deputy Harrison."

"Yes, Deputy Marceau, mam," the deputy said before departing with a door slam that was just a little too hard.

"He's not allowed to stay in the execution chamber when we are doing the procedures on women anymore. Makes him a bit sore, I guess."

Rachel nodded but didn't really understand. She did vaguely wonder if they were really going to execute her, like actually kill her to death, but had given up on understanding anything.

"Here's the strap I'm going to use."

Deputy Marceau held a long leather strap with a wooden handle, draping it between her hands right at Rachel's eye level.

"I've got to say this now, when I'm done you have to answer out loud."

"Okay, mam."

"Rachel Kim, you have pled guilty to two traffic violations and been sentenced," the change in the deputy's tone of voice was startling, "to thirty strokes of the leather strap, applied to your buttocks and upper thighs, while under restraint. Do you understand?"

"Yes."

"Sentence to be carried out immediately,"

"Oh, fuck." It came out as "oh, huck," thanks to the mouthguard, but the sentiment was accurate.

"I've gotten pretty good at aiming it and controlling the power. Just bite down, breathe deep through your nose and it'll all be over in a jiffy."

The deputy had switched into and out of official business mode quickly. It was easy to see why she had been given this job.

"That's good..." Rachel heard herself say.

"I'm sorry that you have to go through this, but I'm glad to be the one helping you through it. I hope you know that I mean you no ill will, okay?"

"I guess so," Rachel slurred, her mouth now filled with slobber from the bit. Rachel was beginning to think she was lied to when the deputy had said things would go quickly.

"I'm going to start now. I'm supposed to stop at ten and twenty to find out how you are doing. Since this is your first time, I'll start with five, and if you feel all right, I'll just do the last twenty-five in one go."

"Do what you've got to do."

"Well said, Ms. Kim."

The first five strokes were a complete shock to Rachel. It hurt like a bastard, but it also wasn't that bad. The strap felt loud. There was no better way to describe it. Tears blurred her vision and she heard herself sobbing, more from relief than from pain.

"How are you doing, Ms. Kim?"

"I'm okay," she answered truthfully.

"Want me to just finish?"

"Yes."

"You sure? It's going to hurt a lot."

"Just get it over with."

Rachel had never been in a car crash before or been so close to death that time slowed down and her life flashed before her eyes, but now she knew exactly what claims about those experiences were all about. Deputy Marceau was quick and precise and was done in less than a minute. Rachel, on the other hand, was sucked into a time warp where she could only see the present as a tiny circle of light in front of her.

The sensation had no match in her experience. She could feel every single impact separately, but they all still somehow merged together as one massive, devastating strike in her mind. It was the only feeling in the entire universe that mattered at all and she hated it while it was happening but felt curiously hollow, missing it once it had finally stopped.

Throughout it all was the distant sound of a screeching, keening wail, like an old car trying to start up in the cold.

Her vision returned, widening enough to include the observation window above her, but the angle was such that she he couldn't see much but the reflection of the ceiling and the now interested and fully engaged Mark as a shadow with piercing eyes behind that. Her mind bounced around in the aftermath to a thousand unremembered and random things, and in the quiet moment after the last stroke fell, all she could think clearly was that she was going to have to drive a little farther to get her morning coffee from now on.

-

Rachel came back to herself when she heard Deputy Marceau asking how she was for what was at least the sixth time.

"It burns," Rachel cried.

"I'm sure it does. You did well, now it's all over, okay?"

"Let me out of this thing," Rachel said, spitting the mouthguard and a bunch of drool out onto the headrest. "Please?"

"I can get Deputy Harrison back in here and get you out quickly or just me, but it'll take a little longer." She had already started undoing the belts that crossed her back.

"How long have I been here?"

"The execution chamber? Less than five minutes."

"I can hold on a little longer."

"Good call. Deputy Harrison is good as backup in a scuffle, but not much else."

Marceau moved around her spread-eagled form efficiently but not quickly enough in Rachel's opinion. When she was finally helped to her feet by the deputy, she found that trying to balance on top of her dangerously wobbly legs was made worse by what felt like every sunburn, every first sip of scalding coffee, every bit of toast grabbed too quickly from the toaster, every encounter with heat in her entire life was being relieved all at once by her poor abused ass. There was also something deeper in that region, an ache or a cramp that hadn't developed fully yet but was sure to be most unpleasant once it had been fully realized.

"Can you stand? I'll get the door so that I can help you walk back to the nurse's office if you need it."

"Yes, I think so."

"You are a real trooper, Ms. Kim."

Rachel embraced the deputy out of pure instinct and got a big, warm, strong hug in return. Then suddenly both realized at the same time how inappropriate such an act was and broke apart. Rachel found herself alone and leaning against the punishment frame. She peered into the observation window, avoiding her own reflection, expecting to find Mark still leering on but he had left the observation room sometime when she wasn't paying attention.

A moment later the deputy had opened the door and Rachel had realized something else, something too humiliating to even contemplate. There was a smear of cooling wetness running down her thighs.

"Oh my god, did I wet myself?"

"What? No, floor's dry, see?"

Rachel looked down. There was a drain directly beneath the spanking frame. It and the surrounding tile was bone dry.

"Oh no!"

"Ah, don't worry about it. Once the nurse checks you out, I'll give you all the time you need to get cleaned up so you can go."

"No. No way. This just isn't right."

"Come on, now. Sexual arousal is perfectly natural. Hell, we had to start giving men bags for their junk because of the biohazard risk from spraying their spunk everywhere during the executions."

Rachel was speechless. Surely getting hot and wet from a judicial beating was fatally embarrassing.

"Come on, Ms. Kim, let's get you cleaned up, okay?"

-

Back in the nurse's office, the blue scrubs clad male nurse ran her through an identical, and equally forgettable, round of checking her vitals from before her belting except for the scale. He did a quick visual of her butt instead.

"Deputy Marceau did a good job on your bottom. Going to be sore for a few days, maybe get yourself some ibuprofen, an ice pack too. What a pro."

"Pro?"

"Yeah, she didn't break the skin at all, but make sure you keep the area clean and go to your doc if you notice that it's not getting better."

He opened one of the cabinets and pulled out a roll of paper towels, a box of tissues, and a pack of wet wipes.

"So you can clean yourself. If you need to use the restroom, don't throw any of this in the toilet, 'kay? Throw it in the biohazard bin. You can leave the prison skirt in the hamper here."

"Did you hear me in there? Could everyone here," Rachel's voice hitched. She hated how close to crying again she was. "...hear me screaming in there?"

"No, they soundproofed those rooms after the first day of the pilot program."

"Couldn't stand it, huh?"

The nurse sighed and muttered, "It's just a job lady," as he left the room.

"Maybe you'll feel differently when you have to go in there."

"Maybe," he said, closing the door behind him.

-

Rachel had just finished slipping on her shoes when Deputy Marceau returned. This was a feat in itself because she couldn't sit on the chair and still felt weak and unbalanced on her jello filled legs.

"Hey, there," she began. Clearly something was on her mind beyond the manilla folder in her hands.

"Hey," Rachel replied. What now? she thought.

"Here's your paperwork for today. Hang onto it. The judge has put you on a cool-off list, so even if you get another infraction, you won't have to go through this again for at least thirty days."

"That was nice of him."

"Her. The judge that oversaw your...anyway. I got you something else."

She reached into her pocket and pulled out a watermelon BlowPop. She handed the folder over with the strange gift on top.

"You know, something sweet to help you feel better."

"Thanks, I guess."

"I'm all out of chocolate," the deputy added, "sorry."

Rachel looked the deputy hard in the eyes. The woman was pretty in a way that deeply annoyed Rachel, but she had trained herself to hold back on expressing such feelings. Instead, she asked a question that had been percolating since the moment they'd laid eyes on each other.

"What do you get out of this?"

"Well, that's kinda what I wanted to say, if you'll give me a second."

Rachel looked out the open door, past the deputy's shoulder. Marceau misread her intention and closed the door for whatever weird little moment she had clearly thought out in her head with no regard for the intended audience.

"Maybe I shouldn't, I mean I know I shouldn't be saying this, but you are so, so beautiful, Ms. Chen."

"Oh my god."

"No, I'm serious. I'm, I can't help but say something. You know, right? You've been struck by someone's, you know, beauty before, right?"

"I guess so."

"Anyway, what I get out of this is, I love my job. Love it! I never knew how much fun giving spankings could be. Even with the homeliest citizen that gets dragged through here, getting to...uh, sorry, I'm getting away from my point."

"Am I free to leave now Deputy Marceau?"

"Yes, of course, just hang on a sec, I've got something to say."

Rachel took a deep breath and tried her best to not look as pissed off as she felt. This chatty, apologetic, friendly, but slightly off, woman was quickly turning into a drunk man at last call.

"You are the most beautiful person that has come through here, ever, and it was an honor to be the one who got to take care of you."

Rachel tried to dull the eye daggers she felt shooting towards the deputy.

"Your butt is the cutest I've ever seen here, and I can't tell you how lovely it looks all striped up from my belting. And the way your face looks when you are crying. Ah..."

"Thank you, deputy," Rachel sighed. She had a thousand other things to say, or better yet, spit the woman's way, but after a moment's thought, at the risk of getting in trouble again, all she had left to say was, "Are you going to ask me out now? Is that what this is?"

"Oh no! No, no, not at all. Oh, jeez, I'm sorry. You can go, of course."

Crestfallen, the deputy opened the door and stepped into the hall, her body-wide smile gone, hopefully replaced by some self-awareness.

Deputy Marceau didn't say anything more as they moved toward the front door of the building. Getting outside into the breezy mist of the early winter storm felt bittersweet. Rachel tapped her phone screen and was shocked to find that it wasn't even 9 am yet. Rachel felt the corrections center door open behind her, heard a small, plaintive sound.

"Hey, I almost forgot," said the deputy, her smile back but her eyes hard. "Pop's Pharmacy on 3rd has a really good lotion for the marks and pain. Don't go to CVS for it, they won't have it. Just tell Pops I sent you, he'll set you up."

"Thanks, Deputy Marceau," Rachel offered, sincerely this time. She had a fleeting thought about how well the woman had taken care of her in spite, or maybe because of, what she had been ordered by law to do. "I hate that it happened, but I'm glad you were here to help me through."

"Aw, that's sweet. I am sorry."

"It's ok now, I guess. It's over now."

"You did great."

"I honestly have no idea how to answer that." Rachel turned to walk away.

"I, uh, one more thing...hang on a sec. Ms. Kim? Rachel?"

"Yes?"

"Were you really interested in going out with me? Cause, I'm like free, you know, single, and I get off at 1 pm today."