The Alternative

I waved at the gate, trying to conceal the dread I was feeling, nodding half-hearted replies to greetings from the other parents at drop-off and turned to go. Half an hour to kill.

“Dan, hi! Walk with me?”

It was Liz, a parent of one of the other boys in my son’s class. Dark curly hair, dark eyes in an attractive tanned face face. She usually dressed casually in jeans and a loose fitting shirt but today wore a smart well-fitted dark jacket and skirt over a white linen shirt, showing off her athletic curves. A single mother. I’d been subtly trying to encourage my boy to become friends with her lad so we could perhaps move beyond brief conversations about the weather and our kids’ reading levels. Any other day I’d be thrilled, but not today.

“Sorry, I, er… have an appointment.”

“I know.”

“You what?”

The implication suddenly sunk in and my stomach plummeted.

“Oh god.”

“Yes, you’re my 9:30. I’m really sorry about this. Would you like to just come with me now? We can have a cup of tea first and I can talk you through the procedure.”

“Sure.” I croaked, and cleared my throat. “Yes, thanks.”

She put her hand on my arm and squeezed sympathetically as we headed off to what turned out to be her address.

I had received the text message at work on Friday: Appointment for correction, Case 125447 Monday 0930. Induction 15 minutes, correction scheduled to commence at 0945. Please arrange for someone to collect you afterwards at 1030 or further penalties will apply. You will be issued with a medical certificate for that day and the subsequent day off work. Please reply Y to confirm attendance or N if you cannot attend. Failure to attend will result in further penalties.

With a shaking finger I typed Y and sealed my fate, realising that the address was just two blocks from my house. I wondered if I knew the person who was going to cane me.

It was a beautiful crisp morning.

“Lovely day for it…” I started, realising that in this case “it” was going to be far from lovely.

She caught my change in expression and laughed, then quickly stifled it.

“Sorry, this is no laughing matter. If it helps you’re the first client that I know personally, so it’s equally awkward for me. No hard feelings I hope.”

“I suppose I was going to get a caning from somebody today, so it might as well be you. Perhaps you could…”

“You know I can’t go easy on you. Anyway, you were doing 11 km/h over the limit in a school zone.”

“I was coming to pick up Ben who was ill! It was midday, there was nobody on the road!”

“I know, I know, I read the judgement! I’d probably have pushed it myself under the circumstances. Nonetheless.”

As part of a new crackdown on speeding, ten km/h or more over in a school zone brought a mandatory $500 fine and six months’ suspension from driving. No mitigating circumstances were allowed to be taken into account but as I had explained that as a single parent whose job involved local travel I would be unable to function without my licence, under a new trial law, the judge gave me the option to receive alternative punishment in lieu of suspension.

The program had been surprisingly successful, with a significant drop in repeat offending from those receiving corporal punishment compared to those who came back from suspension. When offered a caning as an alternative I had jumped at the chance. The law mandated that only female Justices Of The Peace with special training were allowed to administer punishment. How much could a caning from a woman hurt?

“I did wonder what you did for a living.” I said, desperate to break the silence.

“I do this a couple of days a week and do some paralegal work the rest of the time. Means I can work from home.”

“You’re pretty dressed up for working from home.” I remarked, admiring the way her backside filled out her skirt.

“It would be disrespectful to cane you in my jeans and a flannel shirt!” She retorted, opening the gate leading into the front yard of a suburban home with an upturned scooter on the lawn. It felt unreal that I was about to go inside and Liz was going to give me a caning.

“Well thanks for taking the trouble, you look great.” I said.

She caught me glancing at her well-filled skirt and smiled, “Compliments on my ass won’t save yours, but thanks.”

We walked into the spotlessly tidy front room. Liz closed the curtains and flicked on the lights. It was a large room with a lounge suite around a coffee table on which sat a long black cane, with which I would very soon become intimately acquainted.

“Nice place.” I said.

“Thanks.”

There was an awkward pause.

“Take a seat. Tea?”

I sat

“Sure. Milk and one sugar.”

She headed for the kitchen.

“You can pick it up if you like, as long as you promise not to hide it.”

I couldn’t think what to say to that. “It” was obviously the cane. It was about a metre long, about a centimetre in diameter with a leather handle at one end. I swished it through the air, it was quite flexible. With a horrible sort of fascination, I swung it harder and it made a “whoop” noise. I smacked it on my left hand. It stung. Shit, I thought.

Liz entered the room with a tray and sat down on the chair across from me. She poured the tea and we sat back and sipped, my hand trembling but not so much I spilled anything.

“Biscuit?”

“Sorry, not much of an appetite.”

“Perfectly understandable.” She took one and nibbled it rather adorably. “The cane is made of a plastic called delrin. We use it firstly because it’s easy to sanitise and secondly because it is incredibly painful. You’ve been sentenced to twelve strokes and I will be administering them while you are strapped down on a bench. You will have raised weals and will be severely bruised for up to and possibly longer than two weeks, you may be cut though I very rarely break the skin. That usually only happens when a stroke crosses a previous one and I am extremely accurate.”

She said the last part with a certain pride.

“Do you have any questions?”

“Do I need to be strapped down? That sounds a bit…”

Marie stood, placed a cushion on her chair then picked up the cane. She struck a surprisingly graceful pose with the cane held above her head, reminiscent of a martial artist, then with one smooth movement struck the cushion with a whoosh and a mighty thwack that made me jump.

“Holy shit.” I breathed.

She turned to me, gently flexing the cane.

“Dan, don’t be fooled by the cosy living room and the cup of tea. I’m simply trying to make this as easy as possible for you, so I want you to be as calm as possible during what is about to happen. This is a judicially imposed punishment for committing a crime, it is intended as a deterrent. To put it bluntly, it’s designed to be a traumatic experience. I am going to hit you very very hard. You would not be able to remain still for twelve of those strokes on your bare backside. If you move, I may strike you in the wrong place and that could be very bad, especially if I hit your testicles.” She saw my wince and smiled quickly. “I could damage your cocyx. If you put your hand back to protect yourself, and god knows I would if someone was hitting me that hard, I could easily break your fingers. My job is to inflict a great deal of pain to your backside, not do lasting damage. It really is safer to strap you down.”

“You had me at testicles.” I said weakly, trying to joke but genuinely afraid for the first time. “Are you really going to hit me that hard?”

“Yes, I’m really sorry. You will probably scream, and that’s okay, this room is reasonably soundproof, but please don’t swear, that comes with a mandatory extra stroke penalty.”

My eyes widened.

“It’s okay, we can overlook that holy shit earlier on, but please refrain once we get started. It’s a ridiculous rule in my opinion, but I don’t make the rules, I just enforce them. Look, we’re still ten minutes before the appointed time, but doing this to someone I know is weirder than I thought. Do you want to just get this over with?”

I thought about ten more minutes of anticipation and nodded dumbly.

“I know it’s a bit much to ask you to help prepare the room for your beating, but do you mind?”

“No, it’s fine.”

We moved the coffee table and pushed the lounge suite to the wall. Liz then unlocked and opened a large wardrobe and pulled out a solid looking padded bench with straps hanging off it. There was no mistaking what it was for.

“Could you give me a hand with this please?”

Together we moved the coffee table aside and slid the heavy bench I was about to be punished on to the centre of the room.

“So I can get a proper swing at you.” She said matter-of-factly.

In a couple of minutes a pleasant living room had been efficiently transformed into a bondage dungeon.

“I really hope you don’t hold this against me.” She said. “I feel for you, but I am legally obliged to carry this out impartially.”

“It’s okay.” I said. “I might feel differently during, er, my caning, but I do understand. I shouldn’t have been speeding.”

“For what it’s worth try and relax your buttocks as much as you can, it minimises the bruising. Unless you pass out or are in genuine medical difficulty, I’m obliged to continue until you have received the mandated number of strokes. Please don’t fake it. Unless you receive the full number of strokes, you’ll simply get the full suspension on top of the beating. Begging me to stop or go easy won’t help. People often beg, and again I do understand, I probably would too, but I’m sure we agree this is already awkward enough.”

I nodded.

She took a big breath.

“Okay, let’s get you caned. Please remove your clothes and put them in this basket.”

“Everything?”

“Yes, you can leave your socks on if you’d like, but honestly, it’s not a great look.”

“Well I’d hate to look a fool getting caned naked strapped to a bench.”

“Your choice, get on with it.”

Her tone had suddenly changed from banter to business. I shut up and complied while Liz removed her jacket. I had pictured us removing our clothes together more than once, obviously imagining a different outcome, and I couldn’t help picturing her lithe body with her small firm naked breasts. As I reluctantly dropped my jeans, to my horror, I felt my cock stiffening.