Priya was torn. A big part of her wanted the flogging to be today, or, at the latest, tomorrow, to get it over and done with. That it would be horrible, an ordeal beyond anyone’s ability to bear, was beyond dispute. To be displayed naked in front of the whole town in the basketball arena, with, no doubt, endless looping of the video on-line, even if “respectable” news outlets might black out her most private parts, would be the most humiliating thing she could imagine.
Then, to be tied to the frame and made to suffer twenty four excruciating lashes would be unspeakably painful. Priya remembered the eight strokes she had received in Trabbia as having been painful beyond description. She knew that this would be much more than three times as bad, because the pain built with each stroke; the rattan landing on bruised and battered flesh hurt immeasurably more than when it landed on virgin skin.
And as bad as having an audience of leering Trabbian officials had been, this would be psychically much worse. That hadn’t been her country, people whom she had lived among for most of her adult life. Dorsbury, however, was her home, the place where she had gone to college and practiced medicine and lived as a respected member of the community. This public spectacle would end all that, for how could she show her face in the supermarket or the dry cleaners when everyone would know that she was the one who had been publically disgraced?
Despite all that, a fair part of her wanted to just get on with it She had seen too many patients who had delayed coming to the ER for fear of hearing bad news, only to hear worse. Better to face your fears head on, Priya knew.
But the other part of her wanted to delay as long as possible in the hope, vain though her logical side knew it to be, of some miracle arising to save her from this awful torture. Maybe she could come up with an escape plan if she could somehow free herself from that damned ankle bracelet. She reached down to tug at it, to try and work it over her heel.
But the wretched thing was much too tight. Priya’s ankles were slender, her feet dainty and small, and the prospect of them shrinking enough for the bracelet to slide over them any time soon was non-existent. If anything, with her exercise options limited, and little to do except eat, they were likely to get fatter, rather than thinner in the time between now and whenever the Department of Corrections decided to summon her for punishment.
And of course, cutting the bracelet would immediately trigger an alarm that would have the cops there inside of a couple of minutes. That would only earn her additional strokes, that she could be sure of.
Her guilty plea had foreclosed appeals and Maximum Marty was as likely to reduce her sentence after the fact as the sun was to rise in the west.
There was the possibility of a pardon from the Governor, of course, but the benefits of corporal punishment had been part of the platform he had been elected on and he would hardly win points with the public by backing away from that now. It wasn’t like Priya had any political connections anyway.
Besides, even many of those opposed to corporal punishment seemed to feel, if what Priya saw on line was representative, that it was justly deserved in her case, given how many women had suffered the cane under her supervision. “What goes around, comes around,” one of them had written. The comment had gotten dozens of “likes”.
There was always the possibility of a medical exemption, but Priya knew the chances of Dr. Alison Taylor granting her one were zero. Given the severity of the punishment, Priya knew it was possible, perhaps even likely, that she might faint, but she could count on her former colleague using every medical trick to revive her so she could suffer the full measure of agony ordered by the law.
No, any hope of getting out of her punishment was simply fantasy. However unbearable it was going to be, Priya would have no choice but to bear it. The sole comfort she could find was that she would not be totally alone in this ordeal. No, Barbara would be suffering with her. Priya didn’t know if they would be caned at the same time or separately, but, either way, they would be joined as sisters in pain.
‘Why had Barb done what she had done?’ Priya wondered. It was such a pointless, useless gesture and so like Barb.
Priya thought back to the first time she and Barb had been together.
It had been a little while after she had gotten back from Trabbia. Priya hadn’t wanted to go home and face her parents and have to lie to them about her experiences in Trabbia, so she had stayed on campus and taken a work study job performing routine assays in one of the research labs on campus.
Priya had stopped in for a latte at one of the coffee stands at the Student Union, where Barb was working. They had recognized each other from one of the intro Biology classes they had both taken in freshman year-even history majors had to take a few science classes at Dorsbury, just as Priya had taken Dr. Gelden’s history class that led to her having been invited to Trabbia-and they had gotten to talking, as customers at the coffee stand were not that numerous over the summer.
Barb had heard through the campus rumor mill about Priya’s trip to Trabbia, though not about the canings and whippings that they had suffered, only that they had come home early for unexplained reasons. Curious, she had asked, “So how was Trabbia?”
Priya had looked down at the floor. “Interesting,” she had replied, non-commitally.
“Well,” Barb had replied, “I’d love to hear all about it.”
“I have to get back to the lab,” Priya had replied.
“Would you be free for dinner? Antonio’s? Maybe at seven?” Barb had named a pizza place near campus that was very popular with the students. “Because if Professor Gelden is going back next summer, I might be interested.”
Priya knew that Susan had been banned from Trabbia after their caning, as she had been, but she was a bit lonely and Barb seemed very nice. “Sure, I’ll be happy to tell you about it. See you at seven.”
And, oddly, though Priya had told no one about what had happened in Trabbia, so shameful and embarrassing had the whole experience of the caning and subsequent abuse been, Barb was so open and sympathetic that she had ended up relating the whole story, or at least the main points to her.
“Oh, my, that just sounds so degrading and horrible. Like something out of a medieval torture chamber,” Barb had said reaching out to take Priya’s hand. “How can that be allowed in this time and place? To strip a woman naked and beat her? That’s appalling!”
“They do it to men too,” Priya had replied.
“Yes, that’s wrong, too,” Barb had admitted, “But doing it to women is somehow worse. It must have left scars if they hit as hard as you say.”
“They deliver every lash full force,” Priya had replied. “But the scars have faded. They give you this cream which has some plant extracts in it and it really helps to heal the wounds.”
“Would you mind showing me?” Barb had asked.
“Here?” Priya had replied, looking around the restaurant, which wasn’t as crowded as it usually was when the students were in town, but was still not empty.
“No, of course not,” Barb had replied. “I’ve got my apartment to myself; my roommate is back home for a while. I have a nice bottle of Riesling that my parents gave me. This stupid drinking age is ridiculous isn’t it? Thank goodness they don’t flog people for underage drinking here.”
Priya had looked at her shocked. “God that would just be too awful!” she had said, digging into her purse to pull out her share of the bill.
Back at Barb’s apartment, they had shared the bottle of wine, gossiping about mutual acquaintances and chatting about classes they had taken and their future plans. Finally, Barb had announced, “Alright, let’s see!”
“See what?” Priya had asked, having forgotten completely the stated purpose of Barb’s invitation.
“Your butt, silly; the marks from that nasty old cane.”
Reluctantly Priya had stood, undid the button of her jeans and lowered the pants, along with her undies. Barb knelt behind her. “I can’t see. Would you mind coming over to where it’s lighter?” Priya waddled a few steps over to Barb’s desk, not bothering to pull her pants up.
Barb switched on the lamp and shined it onto Priya’s lower globes. She peered closely at the coffee colored skin. “I see some faint horizontal lines that are a bit lighter than your skin. Are those the marks?” Priya nodded. “I don’t think you would even notice them unless you were looking for them under bright lights,” Barb added. “That cream must be pretty good.”
“I suppose so,” Priya replied, turning her head to look at Barb.
“May I feel them?” Barb asked.
“Sure,” Priya said, smiling.
Barb reached her index finger out and stroked a couple of the lines. “I can’t really feel anything.”
“Well, it’s been a few months. Right afterwards there were big ridges that would have hurt like hell to be touched.”
“You poor baby,” Barb said. “Can I kiss it and make it better?”
“Yes, go ahead,” Priya replied. She felt herself becoming wet as Barb pulled her butt close to her face and kissed the soft flesh. “That feels nice,” she purred.
“How about, this?” Barb had asked as she continued kissing down the soft curves and in between Priya’s legs.
“Mmmm,” Priya replied. “Don’t stop.”
And Barb didn’t stop, continuing kissing and licking for several minutes before rising and pulling Priya’s jeans and panties to the floor, then taking Priya’s hand and leading her towards the bedroom. In a moment, they were both naked. Priya lying on her back with her legs wrapped around Barb’s torso as Barb tongued her most sensitive places.
“Oh, my God, Barb, that feels so great!” Priya exclaimed as Barb stuck two fingers inside her very wet pussy. They both came twice in the next hour and spent the night snuggled in each other’s arms.
After that night, they had seen each other off and on during that final year of college. Despite having enjoyed her lovemaking with Barb immensely, Priya hadn’t wanted to identify herself as being a lesbian and had decided that once she started medical school, she would allow her parents to fix her up with one of the young men in her social circle, which was how she had met Sanjay.
Priya and he had hit it off and were soon engaged. And really, she had had a very happy marriage. When they had moved to Dorsbury, she had gotten together casually with Barb a couple of times, but Priya hadn’t wanted to take things any further, and they had drifted apart.
That is, until a couple of months ago, when Priya had seen the piece about Barb having been caned and had looked up her address and knocked at the door of her apartment with a tube of Trabco’s cream. Barb’s butt had looked awful-the ointment that Dr. Taylor had applied didn’t do much to heal the skin- and Barb had been so grateful for Priya’s care and had shown her gratitude in the most delightful way.
And now, they were both facing twenty four strokes in front of the entire town along with the whole world by video. At least Priya was waiting in the comfort of her own home. As far as she knew, Barb was stuck awaiting her punishment in the county lockup, since Judge Powers was too mad at her antics to grant bail and, having been dismissed from her job at Dorsbury College and not owning a house, it wasn’t clear she could have made bail anyway.
Despite herself, Priya found her hand wandering inside her pants at the thought of her and Barb suffering together as a crowd roared their approval at the lurid spectacle. Before she could get too far, though, she heard a knock at the door. She looked at the screen. It was a young woman holding an envelope.
“Yes, what is it?” Priya asked into the laptop.
“You need to sign for a document, ma’am,” the woman replied.
Priya went to the door. Her heart skipped a beat when she saw the letterhead on the envelope. It was from the Department of Corrections. She quickly scrawled her name and took the letter, ripping the envelope apart. She read the first line: “Priya Raman, you are hereby summoned to present yourself for your court ordered punishment at 1 PM this coming Saturday the 24th at Alvarez Arena. You will report at the Player’s Entrance for intake. Failure to appear will result in your arrest and additional punishment.”
There followed a series of instructions. Priya didn’t need to read them; she practically knew them by heart.