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A Very Judicial Caning

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windar

windar

Teller of Tales
This story is a commission I recently completed for a member here, Totila, who is a fan of judicial corporal punishment stories, as I am, and as I hope some of you are as well. It's not too long, so here goes...

Chapter 1

“So, Carrie, when do you think the Department of Corrections will have the Corporal Punishment Centers up and running?” Judge Vanessa Porter asked her colleague and long-time friend, Judge Carolyn ‘Carrie’ Stevens, before taking a bite of her chicken salad sandwich. They were at the café around the corner from the courthouse, where they often lunched together during breaks in their busy judicial calendars.

Judge Stevens was mid-fifties, about ten years older than Vanessa, and had often mentored her younger colleague when Vanessa had first been appointed to the bench. Vanessa knew that Carrie was well connected with the people in various branches of state government and would likely have a good sense of the real state of affairs beyond the public pronouncements from the bureaucrats.

The older woman swallowed her mouthful of salmon, put her fork down and replied, “I think another month or so is probably reasonable. It can’t happen soon enough.”

“Yes,” Vanessa replied. “The legislature passed the bill almost six months ago and we still can’t sentence anyone to actually receive the cane.”

Judge Stevens nodded. “It’s so frustrating to have these young criminals appear before you, perfect candidates for a good flogging, and you’ve been told to wait to apply the full measure of the law. Meanwhile, our neighbors across the river to the east have seen almost a 30% drop in petty crime since they instituted caning.”

“The worst part is we’re really a bit in the dark about how it’s going to work in practice,” Vanessa replied.

Judge Stevens raised her eyebrows. “What do you mean, Vanessa?” she asked.

“Well, I’m not really sure how many strokes I would feel comfortable awarding for a given offense.”

“You worry too much,” her friend replied. “You’ve been sentencing people for years now. “

“Yes, to prison.” Vanessa said. “There’s well over a century of established practice and plenty of guidance. This is all new.” She watched as Carrie lifted another piece of her fish to her mouth. “I want to be fair to both the offenders and society and I don’t feel I have enough information to do that right now .”

“I plan to just do what I always do-the max for a repeat offender and something less for a first timer.”

Vanessa looked at Carrie. “I just wish I knew more about the whole thing. How they do it, how painful it is…”

Carrie laughed. “How painful? Really? It’s supposed to hurt like hell and from what I’ve heard from across the river, it’s that and more. If it didn’t, it wouldn’t be much of a deterrent, would it?”

“I suppose not,” Carrie replied. “Still, it’s hard to really know.”

Judge Stevens put her fork down and looked across the table at her friend. “I believe I’ve mentioned my old law school friend, Judge Marty Powers across the river in Dorsbury.”

“Maximum Marty?”

“He’s been known to answer to that,” Carrie said, smiling. “I’m sure he could arrange a tour of their facility. You could witness the whole procedure from start to finish.”

Vanessa took a deep breath. It was now or never-she trusted her friend completely, but, still, it was hard to reveal one’s darkest thoughts and desires to anyone. “A tour would be interesting,” Vanessa said, “But that wasn’t exactly what I was thinking about. I mean that wouldn’t really tell me how it would feel for the offender to go through it.”

Carrie looked at her friend for a moment and nodded. “What are you getting at, Vanessa?” she asked, sympathetically.

Vanessa’s head was spinning-what was Carrie thinking of her? “I mean..” she stammered.

Carrie reached out her hand and touched Vanessa’s palm. She could feel that it was damp with perspiration. “It’s OK, Vanessa. I save my judging for the courtroom, not for friends,” she said gently.

Carrie sighed with relief. “I know I could just go across the river and commit some type of offense that would get me a caning sentence,” she allowed. “But that would inevitably be disclosed to the State Bar and the Commission on Judicial Qualifications back here. It’d be the end of my career as a judge and even as a lawyer. I couldn’t have that.”

“Of course not,” Carrie replied. “The whole thing would have to be done in secret under a false name.”

Vanessa looked down at her lunch plate and shook her head. “It’s a really stupid idea. I’m sorry for bringing it up, Carrie.”

“I never said that, Vanessa. I think I understand where you’re coming from. Let me have a chat with Marty and see what can be arranged. No promises and absolutely no judgements.”

***​

It was a couple of days later when Carrie stopped by Vanessa’s office, a legal folder in her hands, shutting the door behind her. “I spoke with Marty. You know, my friend, Judge Powers,” she continued when Vanessa didn’t reply.

“Yes, I remember,” Vanessa replied.

“You’re still interested in doing this?” Carrie asked.

To be honest, Vanessa was having a few doubts at this point, but she nodded and replied. “Yes, I am.”

Carrie took a sheet of paper out of the folder and slid it across the desk to Vanessa, who picked it up and began reading.

“Cynthia Johnson? That’s me?” Vanessa asked.

“Yes,” her friend replied. “If you decide to go through with this, we’ll take a picture of you in front of a white background and Marty can have a driver’s license from across the river made that will list your name as Cynthia Johnson with an address over there.”

Vanessa read further. “I’ve been convicted of drunk driving,” she said, her voice trembling. She had always been diligent about having no more than one drink if she were driving.

“Yes, fortunately you didn’t hurt anyone,” Carrie said, smiling. “You were caught at a roadblock.”

“I am to report to Female Corporal Punishment Center #3 in Dorsbury on March 12 to receive twelve strokes of the cane according to the standard procedures of the Department of Corrections. That’s about a week away.” Vanessa’s heart was pounding with both fear and excitement. This looked completely official.

“Yes,” Carrie replied.

“A dozen?” Vanessa asked. “Is that a lot?”

“Marty assures me that will give you a pretty good idea of what’s involved.”

Vanessa looked pale, but she nodded.

Carrie continued. “If you agree, Marty will file the paperwork with their DoC. Once he does that, you’re in the system and there’s no backing out. Now, I have to warn you, the staff at the Center will have no knowledge of this and they will treat you like any other offender.”

“That’s exactly what I want,” Vanessa said. “No special treatment.”

“I understand,” Carrie replied. “When you’re at the Center, you can plead innocence of the crime, beg for mercy-those are things that some offenders do, though of course, it does them no good. But you can’t breathe a word about this scheme or you will be in deep trouble, along with Marty and probably yours truly. We’re trusting you, Vanessa.”

“I won’t do that. I promise.”

“I want you to sleep on this before I get back to Marty and have him enter you into the system, OK?”

“OK,” Vanessa replied nodding. “You think I’m crazy to do this, don’t you?”

“It’s going to be the worst experience of your life, Vanessa. Exposing yourself in front of strangers, being tied down and flogged mercilessly. It will be humiliating, degrading and extraordinarily painful. Your ass will hurt for weeks afterwards, or so I’m told.”

“I’m due a few weeks vacation, which I’ll use to recover.”

“That’s good. Look, it’s not something I would ever consider doing myself, but I think I do understand where you’re coming from,” Carrie said.

Vanessa just smiled. It was good to have a friend like Carrie. “I’ll let you know for sure tomorrow,” she said. Carrie stood and left the office.
 
Chapter 2

Judge Vanessa Porter lay in bed that evening staring up at her bedroom ceiling. Was she crazy to go through with this scheme of hers? She thought about the many young offenders who had stood before her convicted of petty crimes-drunk driving, drug possession, shoplifting, prostitution, misdemeanor assault.

She had heard their life stories-so often the products of broken homes, poverty and neglect. So unlike her life- raised by two loving parents, her father an accountant, her mother a teacher-educated in the best schools, with a career in a good law firm and then an appointment to the bench.

Even her marriage to a fellow lawyer, though it had ended a few years ago in an amicable divorce due not to major conflicts or infidelities so much as just drifting apart, had been mostly good. The one child it had produced, a son, was grown and living in a city some distance away. While she had had the usual ups and downs in her life, to have termed it a struggle would have been a gross exaggeration.

Vanessa had often wondered how she would have turned out had she been born into the circumstances of the offenders who appeared before her in her courtroom. Would she have had the strength of character to surmount the obstacles that would have lain in her way or would she have ended up like them?

And did the lectures she gave them and the sentences she imposed-fines, community service, some prison time in the more serious cases- really change their antisocial ways? From the number who re-appeared in her courtroom on multiple occasions, she had to conclude that it most often didn’t.

And now she would have caning as an additional option. Would that work any better? The data from across the river said it very well might. But if that was so, why was that?

Maybe it was the pain- Vanessa believed Carrie that it hurt like hell. Maybe it was the humiliation, being made to strip naked and display oneself in front of fully clothed strangers, then to be manhandled onto a wooden frame and restrained like an animal. Maybe it was all of the above. Something deep inside Vanessa wanted to know, not just at a theoretical level, but to experience it for herself, just as the offenders she would sentence would have to.

Vanessa knew that if she did this, she would likely hate every moment of the ordeal and deeply regret her decision. But she feared if she chickened out she would regret that even more. She picked up her phone and dialed Carrie’s number.

“Vanessa?” Carrie said.

“Yes, it’s me. I hope I didn’t wake you Carrie.”

“No, Bob and I were watching a movie. It just ended.”

“Anything good?”

“Meh.”

“Listen, I want to go through with it.”

“You’re sure?”

“100%. And I don’t want to give myself a chance to back out. So this is my final answer, as they say on that game show.”

“OK, I’m going to text Marty as soon as we get off.”

“Thanks for doing this, Carrie. You’re a real friend.”

“You may feel differently afterwards.”

“Whatever happens, this is my decision and I won’t blame you or anyone else.”

“I wish some of the people we deal with in court had that attitude.”

“Maybe after their canings some will.”

“We can hope, Vanessa. Sleep well.”

“You, too, Carrie.”

***​

The next day, Vanessa had a sentencing for a young woman who had been part of a shoplifting ring with her boyfriend. She had the background one would expect, having dropped out of school and worked a series of menial jobs. The young woman appeared contrite, though Vanessa suspected it was more or less for show at the urging of her attorney, a public defender fresh out of law school.

The boyfriend had been convicted a year or so previously of drug possession and given a brief prison term, so Vanessa assumed that they were stealing to support drug habits. The offender admitted to drug use, so Vanessa had decided to sentence her to a drug treatment program and some community service.

Vanessa assumed neither would work and that the offender would be back in court all too soon, facing some jail time. She was convinced that this offender would have been a perfect candidate for corporal punishment, which would have been much more likely to change her behavior, but alas that option wasn’t yet available.

She imagined the girl stripped naked and bent over a heavy wooden frame to which she had been securely fastened, her bare ass up in the air, striped with several angry-looking wheals, the girl crying and begging uselessly for mercy. ‘Now that might do the trick’’ Vanessa thought.

Then, though she tried to stop the thought from taking over, she imagined herself suffering that punishment, as she soon would be. A bit flustered she gave the young woman an abbreviated scolding and almost blurted out, “I sentence you to twelve strokes of the cane across your bare buttocks,” before stopping herself and pronouncing the actual sentence of community service and treatment.

Back at home, Vanessa poured herself a generous glass of Riesling and began imagining a life for Cynthia Johnson, since she had to be prepared to respond to that name when she arrived at the Corporal Punishment Center.

Cynthia was the girl who had appeared before her that afternoon, she imagined, but twenty years older. She’d led a hard life in and out of rehab with short stays in prison. ‘No, that doesn’t work,’ Vanessa thought. ‘Someone like that would look at least ten year older than her actual age and have a bunch of bad tattoos and needle marks.’

Vanessa had always prided herself on her clean appearance and kept fit by running several times a week, and playing tennis in summer and cross-country skiing in the winter. She was prepared to suffer, but not to look like a cheap trollop or become an addict for the sake of this experiment.

No, Cynthia would be someone like her-a professional woman, except one who had made a serious mistake and was paying the price, as she should, and would afterwards return to her life, but chastened and reformed, with a newfound respect for the law.

And so passed the week leading up to Vanessa’s-or Cynthia’s-date with the cane.
 
Chapter 3

Although it was across the state line, Dorsbury was only an hour’s drive away from Judge Vanessa Porter’s house. The summons required her to present herself at Female Corporal Punishment Center #3 at 9 AM, so 7 AM was earlier than she needed to leave.

However, the consequences of failing to show on time were very severe-a warrant would be issued for her arrest, which would blow the entire scheme wide open and likely result in the end of Vanessa’s career as a judge, along with a prison sentence and an even harsher sentence of corporal punishment. Just to avoid any possibility of being late, she allowed herself plenty of extra time.

Besides, she was far too nervous and exhausted to sit around the house any longer. She had barely slept the previous night, feeling sick over the prospect of her ordeal the next day. How much would it hurt? How would she feel exposing herself in front of whoever would be present? Well, she’d find out soon enough.

Vanessa had barely managed to swallow a few sips of coffee and a half a piece of toast after showering and dressing in a T shirt, her loosest fitting sweat pants and sneakers. Taking only the summons instructing her to report, the driver’s license identifying her identifying her as Cynthia Johnson and some cash in case of an emergency on the road, she threw on her down jacket, as it was still chilly in the early morning this time of year, and got into her car.

The drive was uneventful; the road was clear, though there were patches of snow left on the shoulder in less exposed spots. Vanessa passed the sign welcoming her to the neighboring state. Just beyond that was a sign warning ‘Drive sober or bend over!’ Obviously, Cynthia Johnson had ignored that warning.

She arrived in Dorsbury a bit before 8 AM and quickly found the Punishment Center, a non-descript building in an office park on the edge of town. Unlike most of the other establishments in the complex, there was no sign out front advertising the occupants, nor were there employees busily arriving for their day’s work.

However, the address matched the one on her summons, so Vanessa knew that it had to be the place where she would soon suffer. Just to be certain, she parked and went over to the front door. A small sign read ‘Female Corporal Punishment Center #3. Offenders will be admitted only at the time specified on their summons.’

‘I guess I’m an offender,’ Vanessa thought. She tried the door and found it locked.

It was chilly and Vanessa didn’t want to stand out in the cold for an hour, so she drove back to a coffee shop she had noticed on the main street. She was much too nervous to take more than a sip of the espresso she had ordered. Her heart was already pounding and caffeine was the last thing she needed. She stared at the clock on the wall counting down the minutes to her ordeal.

Finally, able to sit no longer, Vanessa drove back the short distance to the Center, arriving about 15 minutes prior to 9 AM. In front of the door, waiting, was a fellow offender-for that was how Vanessa had to see herself from now on.

She was a rather scrawny Black girl, looking to be just barely over the age-18-at which offenders were subject to an adult punishment. To say that she looked scared would be a gross understatement-she looked absolutely petrified at the prospect of the punishment she was facing.

The girl barely glanced at Vanessa, registering her presence then looking down at the ground. Vanessa wondered what would be an appropriate greeting: ‘Hi, I’m Cynthia Johnson; what’s your name?’ No, this wasn’t a Rotary Club meeting. ‘How many are you getting?’ No, Vanessa supposed, they’d find that out about each other soon enough. Instead, she looked down at the ground as well.

The girl was shivering, dressed in only a thin jacket. Vanessa thought about offering her down jacket, but decided that was too familiar a gesture in the circumstances and she suspected the shivering had as much to do with fear as the cold. After all, she felt none too steady herself.

Her watch showed almost 9 AM. ‘I guess it will be just the two of us today,’ Vanessa thought. She was pleased with that-the fewer witnesses the better.

However, just then, a car pulled up and a woman threw the passenger side door open and stormed out, “Fuck you, asshole!” she screamed, slamming the door just before the car peeled away. She marched towards Vanessa and the other girl scowling and muttering curses.

The new arrival was perhaps a few years older than the Black girl, clad in a black leather jacket and jeans. She was heavy, not so much fat as simply big, with piercings in her nose and lips. As her T shirt rode up over her belly, Vanessa could see piercings there as well.

She glared at Vanessa. “What are you looking at, you old bitch?” she demanded angrily.

Vanessa was about to respond, but thought the better of it. She had dealt with girls like this, young punks mad at the world, in her courtroom many times. There, she’d dress them down and sentence them to a brief stay in the county lockup, with little hope that it would have much effect. But here, they were equals, lawbreakers awaiting their justly deserved punishments, and she didn’t need more trouble.

Just then, the door to the facility opened. Two uniformed female guards stood in the doorway. The younger-looking one held a clipboard. “Listen up, ladies,” she announced, officiously. “When I call your name, you present your summons and your ID.” She paused to consult the clipboard. “Davis, Shanice,” she announced. “Six strokes for prostitution.”

The black girl stepped forward and handed the guard her documents. The guard looked at the ID, then at the girl. “Inside,” she said, stepping aside to let her enter.

“Johnson, Cynthia,” she called. Vanessa looked around for a second, then realized that was her. “Twelve strokes for driving over the limit.” Vanessa stepped forward and handed the guard, whose nameplate read ‘Ofc. Timmins’, her license and summons.

Her heart was pounding. ‘What if she sees that it’s fake?’ Vanessa wondered.

But the guard looked at her and then at the license and motioned her in to the entranceway, where Davis stood beside the other guard, whose nameplate read, ‘Sgt. Miller’.

“Wilson, Sharon. Twelve strokes for assault.” The girl glared at the guard and almost threw the documents at her.

“Can the attitude, Wilson,” Sgt. Miller ordered, “Unless you want extra strokes.”

Wilson didn’t look impressed by the threat.

Ofc. Timmins examined her documents and stepped aside to let her in.

“Is that gum in your mouth, Wilson?” Sgt. Miller demanded.

The girl chomped defiantly.

“No gum in the facility,” Sgt. Miller said sternly. She handed the offender a tissue. The girl took the gum out of her mouth and wrapped it in the tissue. The Sergeant pointed to a trash can. Wilson threw the gum towards the can just missing the top.

Sgt. Miller grabbed the girl by the neck and bent her over. “Pick it up and put it in the can, Wilson,” she ordered. “This is your last warning. You do as you’re told or you’ll be sorry. You got that?”

Wilson picked up the gum and deposited it carefully in the garbage. Vanessa thought she heard her mutter ‘Bitch!’ under her breath, but she wasn’t certain.

“Alright, form a line and follow Officer Timmins,” Sgt. Miller ordered.

They passed through an inner door into a hallway and proceeded to a door marked ‘Offender Changing Room”. The officer opened the door with her card key and ushered them in. The room was bare, a concrete floor and walls painted an institutional off-green. The only furniture was a row of lockers with a bench in front of it and a table in one corner.

“Alright, strip! Everything off!” Sgt. Miller ordered.
 
Lovely build up, Vanessa (Cynthia) has now reached the point of no return. Stripping in front of an audience, a humiliating search and twelve searing strokes of the penal cane to follow. Will that be all or will the implacable Sgt. Miller succeed in adding a few penalties to her tally?
 
Gillian said:
In with Barbara on this. Look just because it’s a ‘punishment facility’ there is no reason why they have to dispense with the niceties - bathrobes, scented candles. And maybe cocktails and canapés after.
Click to expand...
Unfortunately, all the budget was consumed providing stout whipping frames, the highest quality penal grade canes, double strength antiseptic solution, sadistic matrons and doctors and large, brutal men to carry out the punishments.
 
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