From the Top Shelf - Privatised Punishment, part 2

Before you read the second half of "Privatised Punishment" by Tim Starfield, I must warn you that if you thought part one was over the top, part two is off the chart. There is a happy ending, though, once you and Caroline have endured eighteen strokes.

The next morning, she was awakened by an invisible alarm bell, and a familiar adenoidal voice stating over and over, "Get up please, Room 36, it's nine thirty." Can't see a loudspeaker, thought Caroline fuzzily, perhaps that's whats behind the panels of darkened glass? A sudden pressing urgency sent Caroline to the toilet where the promised 'Mother of all bowel movements' came and went without too much distress. Nurse Dawson arrived. She gave Caroline two more tablets. "Glucose and vitamins, to keep your strength up. Sorry you're not allowed a tot of rum," and led her out of her cell, along yet more identical corridors (the place is a rabbit warren, thought Caroline) to a shower room.

She was made to stand in the shower cubicles for a full twenty minutes while a high-pressure jet of water that was almost too hot to bear gushed all over her.

"Softens the skin," explained Nurse Dawson. When the shower was switched off, Caroline expected to be handed a towel, but, instead, she was given a small scrap of flimsy scarlet material.

"Put this on, please," said Nurse Dawson.

It was an armless, backless, high-cut leotard in filmy fishnet. Caroline got it on with considerable difficulty over her wet skin. It fitted her very tightly, clinging to the contours of her body like a second skin and, being fishnet, she might as well have been naked. I don't know if this is better or worse than those bloody shorts, thought Caroline. Her wet hair hung limply down over her shoulders.

"Shoes, please," said Nurse Dawson, handing her a pair.

"God, I can't wear these!" wailed Caroline. They were patent leather stilettos in matching scarlet. The spiky heels were at least six inches high.

"Nonsense. They're regulation. Do wonders for your posture. Now come on and don't argue!"

Caroline had to be helped into the shoes one at a time. Then Nurse Dawson bent down and did up a strap at the ankle of each shoe. Once the strap was tight, Caroline could no longer kick off the shoes, and so she teetered on them, clutching Nurse Dawson for support. With Nurse Dawson leading the way and a wet, uncomfortable Caroline, half bent double, clinging to her, hobbling behind, they travelled slowly along a new, unfamiliar corridor.

They came, eventually, to a long low room, about twenty by thirty feet, lit by dull blue fluorescent lights. Down the centre of the room, at about six foot intervals, stood three perspex columns, each about eighteen inches square, and reaching to the ceiling. Caroline realised they were hollow only when Nurse Dawson unlocked a door in the side of the centre column.

"In you go," she said. "Put your hands on your head first. Home Office rules state that you have to stand where you can be clearly seen. Well, we've obeyed that because anyone could see you if they wanted to. But they don't have to see you, because we know you're there and you're not going to move are you?"

Caroline stepped into the see-through tube with her hands above her head. Nurse Dawson shut and locked the door. Now Caroline could not even turn round, let alone sit down. She began to panic.

"Now, don't worry," said Nurse Dawson soothingly. "You've got air-holes. And we've got you on close-circuit monitor in case anything goes wrong. But it won't. Just enjoy yourself. You've got two hours. According to the Government, this is when you should be bitterly reflecting on your crime. But if I were you, I'd let my mind go blank, imagine I'm on a beach somewhere, and just relax."

Relax? If you were me, thought Caroline, you'd be quaking and shaking just like I am. Especially in these bloody girlie-mag shoes. The muscles in her calves, thighs and buttocks were stretched taut.

But Nurse Dawson was gone. Suddenly Caroline realised she was not alone in her plight. Out of the corner of her eye she could make out that the far pillar was also occupied. By a tall, blonde woman, in an identical outfit to her own but in bright electric blue. She too had her hands on her head. She had her back to Caroline and her legs were wobbling uncontrollably, as though she were about to fall over. Which of course she was securely prevented from doing.

"Er...I say, there...hello?" said Caroline.

The woman didn't respond . Caroline could see her shoulders quivering. She was obviously crying.

"Sorry. Didn't mean to intrude," said Caroline.

The blonde muttered something indistinct, which was probably an expletive.

"Are you OK?" asked Caroline, sympathetically.

"No, of course I bloody well ain't," snapped the woman, viciously. " And mind your own bleedin' business!" And she resumed sobbing.

Silly cow, thought Caroline, and minded her own bleedin' business by trying to build up a daydream of a lazy boating holiday in Canada, without much success, for her imaginary lake kept turning out to be infested with sharks . But when, after a long while, a nurse and a white-coated orderly came to release the blonde woman, and escorted her, sagging and wailing, through a door at the far end of the room, she felt a stab of pity for the 'silly cow'.

And then she realised it was really self-pity. When she was completely alone, arms and legs now aching badly and troubled by occasional spasms, she realised that she and the blonde were in exactly the same boat. Two people in an identical horror movie separated only by an hour's screening time. Two distinct stages on the Ludgate Clinic's cold-blooded punishment production line. She tried to see if anyone had come in to the room behind her on this dreadful conveyor belt system. But she saw no-one. Heard no-one. She was quite alone. Suddenly, just like the blonde woman before her, Caroline was racked with helpless, uncontrollable sobbing.

* * *

Eventually, they came for her too. This time it was the ever cheery Nurse Dawson, accompanied by the orderly, who was a gangling youth of about nineteen, sandy haired, with terrible acne, and wearing cut-off denim shorts and a black heavy-metal T-shirt under his flapping white coat. Nurse Dawson unlocked the door of the column, and Caroline collapsed into their arms.

"This is Scott," said Nurse Dawson, by way of introduction, "He's our Youth Exploitation Scheme trainee. Scott, give Mrs Devereaux a tissue."

"Thag you ver buch," said Caroline, blowing her nose violently and drying her eyes on the proffered item.

Supported on either side, she was led through the door at the end into a much larger room. It must be right in the centre of the building, thought Caroline, because it's at least two storeys high. It was a very bright room. The floor was of stone, the walls were whitewashed. The only items of furniture were a large table about six feet square, with a polished white marble top, and a single white-painted wooden chair behind it. The table, in the centre of the room, was drenched in light from a score or so of spotlights fixed at various angles to an iron grid in the ceiling. At various points on the walls were those little squares of darkened glass again. Then the penny dropped! They're the spy-holes for video cameras, Caroline realised.

Behind the table stood Dr. Ludgate and Sister. She was dressed as immaculately as ever , in her starched white tunic and cap. Dr. Ludgate was in shirt-sleeves, collar open, no sign of his bow-tie. In his right hand he had a clip-board. In his left hand he held the cane. It was about three feet long, half an inch thick at the base, tapering almost to nothing. It looked evil and Caroline shuddered.

"Right," Dr. Ludgate cleared his throat, and read from the clip-board. "Caroline Elizabeth Devereaux, you have been found guilty..."

It was the same mumbo-jumbo that Mr. Stephens, the magistrate, had spouted, only now it meant even less to Caroline. The only phrase which cut clearly through the turmoil of her mind was the last.

"...consented to receive eighteen strokes of the cane upon your bare and willingly offered posterior."

Willingly offered! What a joke, thought Caroline.

"So, if you've understood, and you consent, perhaps I could just ask you to sign here."

He was thrusting the clip-board at her and pushing a pen into her trembling fingers. She knew she should try and read what she was signing, but she couldn't, it just wouldn't keep still for her. So she signed anyway, on what she hoped was the dotted line. So that's it, she was thinking bitterly, it's as simple as that. You just sign away your freedom and all rights to how your own body may be used, just as easily as you sign the credit-card slip in the supermarket.

Dr. Ludgate handed the clip-board to Sister.

"Jolly good," he said. "Right let's have you bare then. Get out of that leotard."

Quickly, in spite of her nervousness, Caroline peeled it off and stood naked before them.

Then Scott and Nurse Dawson led her to the table. When they had manoeuvred her so that her tummy was pressed right against the edge of the table, Scott knelt down and pulled her legs apart as far as they would go. She was now teetering on high heels, barely able to stand.

"That's necessary for when your thighs are caned." Dr. Ludgate announced almost apologetically. "We don't want every stroke hitting both legs do we?"

Caroline said nothing. She was past caring, for her modesty seemed to be way down her list of concerns at this point in time.

"Thank you, Scott," said Sister. "Now would you go and set up the video recorders?"

Scott left and Nurse Dawson moved to the side of the table and sat herself in the chair.

"Give me your hands, my love," she said softly.

Caroline did so, and was then pulled forward with sudden violence by the little nurse, so that her torso was flat on the table top. She squeaked as her naked breasts were squashed against the cold, marble surface. Her hands, stretched in front of her, were held tightly by Nurse Dawson.

This is it, she thought. Now I'm not a human being any more. I'm just a huge naked bottom served up nicely for the rod, a side of meat on a butcher's slab. From what seemed a long way off, she heard the smooth tones of Charles Ludgate.

"I shan't require you to say any more than just the number of the last stroke I gave you," he was saying. "One, two, three and so forth. Got that? Good. Well, prepare yourself, Mrs Devereaux, you're as ready now as you'll ever be."

She felt the cold tip of the cane gently tap-tapping on her naked defenceless rear. My God, she thought, he's measuring me up; he's getting his bloody eye in. She tried to look up and around at him but could see nothing either side of her except a curtain of her own red hair. In front of her Nurse Dawson was smiling reassuringly, but nevertheless tightening her iron grip on Caroline's slender wrists.

Still the cane was tap-tapping, oh so gently, marking out its target on Caroline's poor exposed bottom. Little tingles of electric current were racing all over her skin. She was biting her lower lip, she realised, and tried to stop, but couldn't. Her bum felt as big as a battleship. She could feel her heart pounding in her ribcage.

And suddenly the tap-tapping stopped.

Caroline's stomach turned through three hundred and sixty degrees.

Silence.

And then, a sudden low hiss, and a vicious 'CRACK!' like an exploding shell bursting behind her , and a searing pain that Caroline knew she simply could not cope with. She was twisting, turning, trying somehow to run away from the fire that was raging across the cheeks of her bottom, struggling to free her pinioned hands, and screaming "No! No! No!" through warm mouthfuls of red hair.

Someone was saying, "Come on! One, One One!" It was Nurse Dawson.

Caroline remembered. "One!" she shrieked, and then, as if exhausted by the effort, sank back onto the table top and was still.

There was another hiss and then 'CRACK!'

Caroline jerked violently, almost pulling herself upright, and nearly dragged Nurse Dawson with her. "T-Two" she said, almost involuntarily and through clenched teeth before subsiding, to sob and snuffle quietly. The muscles in her legs seemed to be pumping of their own accord, and her bottom was out of her control, shimmying like a blancmange on a plate.

Dr. Ludgate waited patiently for quite a long time until she was still again. Then he raised the cane high and brought it down again with a sharp whistle and 'CRACK!' Another war-dance from Caroline, but she shouted, "Three!" almost before the stroke was complete, as if somehow responding promptly and on cue might hasten the end of her punishment. A third livid line of red snaked its venomous way across the girl's alabaster-white cheeks. Charles Ludgate noted with satisfaction that so far he had created perfectly parallel lines. He smiled happily. He was good at his job - and he loved it.

Eventually Caroline's hips stopped gyrating. And the awful cane began its work again.

Strokes four and five followed, and there there was a longish pause while Dr. Ludgate took up his backhand stance. Once again he tap-tapped with the tip of the cane across Caroline's by now burning bottom, for he was a methodical man, and he liked to get his strokes just right.

During this break in the proceedings, Caroline had managed, with a great effort, to collect herself slightly. She was now breathing heavily and fast, like a marathon runner after twenty miles, or a boxer, groggy and spent in the tenth round. Her poor arse throbbed, battered and swollen as if stung by a swarm of angry bees. But she felt euphoric, almost light-headed. She was alive. She could cope.

Hisssss - CRACK!

It began all over again , and she knew that she had been wrong. She couldn't cope at all. Her body began again to duck and dance of its own volition, and she knew she must speak, but she couldn't, there was a low ululating howl in her throat that wouldn't go away. At last she sank back onto the table, and through a mist of tears and snot managed to whisper the word "six" into the face of the concerned Nurse Dawson.

Dr. Ludgate looked at Nurse Dawson and she nodded her silent confirmation that Caroline was fit to continue. Dr, Ludgate took aim, raised the cane and struck.

Caroline's legs buckled, and she lurched backwards, like a toddler off-balance, as if she wanted to sit on the floor. Only the strength and determination of the young nurse held her in place. "Seven, seven, seven, oh God, seven!" she sobbed hysterically.

Eight, nine and ten followed painfully and slowly. The woman across the table was shaking uncontrollably and crying piteously. Dr. Ludgate stepped back to admire his handiwork. Yes, got to say it, that's pretty damn good! Ten neat almost symmetrical lines. Only one intersection, where a nasty looking purple-yellow bruise was already forming. Not much room for many more though. Oh yes, five-five-four-four, wasn't it? Well then, four across the backs of her thighs. He smiled. This is the best bit.

Caroline became aware that Nurse Dawson was trying to whisper something.

"This is the worst bit, " hissed the nurse. "He'll cane your thighs now. It's awful. Just try and breathe deeply and repeat the numbers after me."

Hissssss - CRACK!

A pulsating line of fire it into the soft tissue of Caroline's right leg.

"AAAAAAAAAAAAEEEEOWWWWWWWW!!" she screamed.

"ELEVEN!" shouted Nurse Dawson.

"Eleven!" wailed Caroline.

Hisssss - CRACK!

The left leg.

"TWELVE!"

"Twelve!"

Caroline was trying to inch her way up the table, wriggling on her belly like a salmon out of water, in a vain attempt to get her thighs away from the scorpion that was so savagely stinging her. Alas, all she succeeded in doing was presenting Dr. Ludgate with even more exposed and tempting targets of flesh.

Hissss - CRACK!

The top of the inside of her right thigh.

"AAAAAAAAAEEEEEEOWWWWWW!" Caroline was a helpless, blubbering, squealing mess.

"THIRTEEN, THIRTEEN!" Grimly determined, Nurse Dawson was like a coach on the touchline, willing her to win through by sheer will-power. "COME ON, GIRL, SAY IT..THIRTEEN!"

"AEEEEEEEEOWWWWWWWWWWWW ..OOOOO..THIRTEE....."

Before she'd even finished, hisssss -CRACK!

The unkindest cut of all. Top inside left. Right on her most sensitive spot.

Caroline howled and writhed in agony. Somehow she managed to spit out "Fourteen!" without prompting.

"Worst over," murmured Nurse Dawson, soothingly.

But, in truth, if the next few strokes were no worse than the preceding four, they certainly weren't much better either. To lay four hard strokes into an already well-wealed bottom is particularly cruel, and Dr. Ludgate took to his task with relish. Caroline, however, was buoyed by that courage that comes when the end is in sight, when you can see the light at the end of the tunnel, when you know for certain that however dark and desperate the night, the morning will surely come. She called out "Fifteen," "Sixteen" and "Seventeen", strongly and clearly on cue, and, with a supreme effort of will, maintained her position over the table.

The very last 'hissssss- CRACK!' was especially vicious but Caroline called "Eighteen!" in a voice resonant with triumph.

* * *

Nurse Dawson and Scott helped her back to her room to recover from and 'reflect upon' her punishment. She lay face down on the hard bed, and despite her intense pain, drifted off into an exhausted sleep. When she eventually awoke she found that her hideous red shoes had gone and that she was completely nude.

Her arse was on fire. She tried to turn her head to see it but her back ached and the effort was too great. Even the touch of her exploratory fingertips as she tried to count the ridges proved unbearable. Caroline sighed deeply, her mind pulsing with many emotions.

At that moment, the door opened and in walked the ever-smiling Nurse Dawson.

"You stood up extremely well to that," she beamed. "You'll be marked for about three weeks, but then the evidence will fade and you'll be as good as new." She looked appreciatively at her employer's handiwork. "I don't suppose you appreciate it, " she said, grinning, " but it's a beautiful pattern. He does a wonderful job."

Caroline moaned. "I never wanted my arse tattooed with the Stars and Stripes, you know!"

Nurse Dawson smiled. "I've brought you some cream. Would you like me to rub it in for you?"

Caroline nodded. At first the coldness of the cream stung as badly as the cane itself. But then it started to soothe her, and the raging fire in her buttocks began to subside to a more tolerable heat. Nurse Dawson's fingers were gentle and expert, and she was lavish with the cream. Soon the warmth was spreading through Caroline's loins and, after the dreadful tensions of the last three weeks, and the awfulness of her ordeal, she began for the first time to relax, stretching and purring like a cat.

Nurse Dawson's expert gentle fingers began to stray away from Caroline's bottom and started to stroke the deep cleft between her legs. God, this is weird, thought Caroline, I've just been caned half to death and now I'm beginning to feel horny. Jesus, after all I've been through...and she's turning me on! She growled deep in her throat.

Nurse Dawson withdrew her hand immediately. "Do you want me to stop?" she murmured.

"God, no! Don't you dare," said Caroline. "I didn't think I could feel so wonderful."

"Good," said Nurse Dawson with a smile, and resumed her gentle probing, kneading and stroking.

"Actually," she said, slowly, "I am officially off-duty after this. Would you like me to stay with you for a while?"

Caroline reached up and pulled the young nurse onto the bed beside her, leather boots and all.

"I'd love it," she murmured. "You've been the one bright spot in this whole ghastly experience. Without you I'd have become suicidal. And I'd be bored stupid until four o' clock tomorrow. Just don't stop doing those wonderful things with your hands."

"Right, " whispered the pretty young nurse. "But fair's fair. Maybe I deserve a little pleasure too."

She grasped Caroline's hand and thrust it inside her starched white tunic. Caroline found a warm, plump, pliable breast squeezed into a heavy support bra. Unfastening the bra, Caroline freed the waiting breast and, sighing softly, she began to stroke the nipple, kneading, stroking, fondling....

High above them, a video camera whirred into life through a spy-hole in the wall. Scott sighed, unzipped his shorts and began to film all over again.

All's well that ends well!