In my dreams the other night, I’d accompanied a girl to a judicial punishment – not some particularly intense scene with trusted roleplayers, but (in the dream) the real thing.
Bizarrely, it was taking place not in some old gaol, but on a floor of some tall 1970s office block. She was tied, naked, over a trestle; if I looked past her, I could see the hustle and bustle of a busy office filled with people, desks, filing cabinets.
They’d given her four strokes of the cane, each striping her vividly. And then… and this is where I confess that the whole thing was a little bizarre… the fire alarm went off. They untied her quickly; threw a coarse blanket over her; instructed us to follow them (she still barefoot) down the stairs.
Outside, she shivered against me – cold, sore, shocked; pressing into me to avoid the shaming gaze of the assembled workers from the office, who pointed in her direction with curiosity and mocking laughter.
Eventually, the all-clear sounded and we were led back inside. We reached the punishment room, her still in my arms; they pulled her abruptly from me, her blanket falling to the ground, and manhandled her roughly back into position, tying the straps particularly tight around her ankles and wrists. And then the officer holding the cane announced that, as per the regulations, they would start her caning again from scratch…
Yes, by all means she deserved her full punishment of the dreadfull cane on her bare bottom. Corporal Punishment, if it is judicial, must be carried on to its very end. Her bare bottom ‘end.