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Fic! I wrote something! It's been months.
This is a weird little story that popped into my head and ended differently than I'd planned. It's not a romance, it's not exactly our world, and it's less about getting what you want and need as it is about being true to yourself.
Basically, a cop pulls a woman over for speeding and she decides not to pay the fine but take another option. Bow-chicka- bow time? Not exactly.
It's around 4,000 words, there's discipline in here, and it's more head games than sex games.
It's also on AO3 here
Invocation: The First Offense
The road was empty, dusk falling, blurring the cornfields waiting to be harvested and the faded lines on the road. The car lost speed and drifted, the kick of gravel as tires hit the unpaved shoulder jolting her out of a daze. She'd lost ten minutes, driving without seeing, thinking about nothing.
Dangerous. Reckless. But it hadn't felt that way. She'd just been dreaming. Pressing her lips together, she adjusted her position, sitting straight, hands correctly placed on the wheel, and increased her speed to make up for the dawdling. And the wind whipping her hair across her face as it snuck in through the rolled-down windows shredded her dreams so why not go a little faster still?
The police car waiting for her to do just that pulled out from a side road and got on her tail, lights gaudy, the siren silent.
Shock kept her driving. Not for her, couldn't be her. Maybe there was a crash up ahead, an emergency in town. But the lights stayed behind her and the cruiser edged closer.
She gave in, indicated, pulled over, and heard the gravel spatter the underside of her car again. Engine off, she waited, not even reaching for her purse to take out her license.
Not her. No.
Male. Big. Blocking the breeze through the window her lack of motion had gentled the wind into becoming. She stared ahead, hands in her lap. But her gaze drifted as the car had done and she saw black cloth of a uniform, a leather belt, a holstered gun.
And it was real. She forced her head to turn, her mouth to curve in a bright, false, foolish smile. She was a woman. She could charm and flirt her way out of this. She was wearing exercise clothes; yoga pants clinging to her legs and a T-shirt her breasts made interesting. She was attractive. Not young, no, but still—
She met his gaze and hope faded with her smile. Not this man. Fifty, maybe, thinning hair an indeterminate shade, a body past its prime, muscular, but lacking definition. One too many beers a night showing in his belly. Experienced. Bored. Immovable.
"I was going too fast," she offered. Another form of propitiation then.
"Mm-hmm." He held out his hand and she fumbled in her purse, clumsy with embarrassment. She'd done something wrong. Broken a law. It didn't make her a rebel, but a criminal. She hated that. Her perfect record spoiled.
He took her license, unhooked his scanner from his belt and ran the card. "Record's clean."
"Yes, officer." Was that his title? All those cop shows she'd watched and she didn't know because shock had wiped her mind to a glossy blank in places.
"Doesn't matter. You were speeding. Going to cost you some dollars and points."
She could afford the fine, but the points… She didn't want them. Marks on her record, there for everyone to see whenever she produced her license and these days it seemed everything required it to be shown.
"Please. I won't do it again. I didn't hit anyone or overtake, or—" She stopped, words stuck in her throat because he'd tapped his middle finger against the scanner and oh God, he was wearing a ring. She'd seen the gun, discounted it. It wasn't a threat to her because she wasn't going to do anything to make him draw it. But the ring…why hadn't she looked for the ring?
Her mind supplied the answer. He was twenty years older than her. Ordinary. Nothing objectionable about his face, but nothing remarkable either. Cops with rings were powerful, dominating, leather jackets zipped up, leather boots kept shiny by an adoring acolyte's efforts. They were handsome, hot, a walking fantasy.
This cop was nondescript. But he'd offered her a way out.
Hesitant, doubting herself, she said the words she'd memorized in class years ago, gaze fixed on the black band of metal. "I invoke my right to be disciplined."
Once a year. Only for offenses up to a certain level. Administered at the scene, in public. The phrases marched through her head, uncompromising, plain. She knew friends who'd used their invocation rights, shamed giggles punctuating their whispered accounts. Knew most people died without ever saying the words. She'd expected to be one of them.
Was it worth it? For this?
Yes, she told herself. Because I'll never do it again. Ever. And because…oh, because…
His hand tightened on the scanner. She'd surprised him. He'd drawn her attention to his ring, but he had to do that. He hadn't expected her to take this way out. Not with him.
"You sure about that, lady?"
She nodded, then jerked up her chin. She had to look at him when she did this. "Yes. I'm sure. I invoke."
"Been a while," he said and those words weren't for her, but himself.
"Those who wear the ring are not simply sadists," her civics teacher had said years before. "They get pleasure from administering a judicial punishment, yes. But a deeper satisfaction must be present. They are upholding the law. Providing a deterrent. Keeping the community safe. Without that element to their character, the ring will never be placed on their finger. Know that if any of you take this alternative what is done to you will not trouble the officer, the way it might your parents. They have no emotional tie to you and they're trained to channel any arousal into the punishment itself. Trust also that nothing inappropriate will occur. The code forbids it and every invocation is recorded as a further safeguard."
Ringed officers who broke the code were disgraced for life, stripped of rank and dignity. Publically punished in the square with a jeering crowd as witnesses.
She shouldn't ask. It was none of her business.
"How long?"
He'd cut himself shaving. A bead of dried blood marked the underside of his chin. A tiny wound, a momentary flash of pain. Her question cut deeper than the razor blade. She saw him wince, one side of his face locked in a spasm he smoothed away a moment later. Impassive again, he told her, "Get out of the car. We need to do the paperwork."
Sitting beside him in the cruiser, she answered his questions meekly. Name, address, occupation, age. No, she wasn't pregnant or menstruating. No medication, no health issues, no drugs in her system. She let him check her alcohol level, a quick stab of pleasure thrilling through her when the scanner glowed green.
There. See? She was a good citizen. She was.
She signed her name, the scanner's pen slippery in her hand. He took the scanner from her and placed it on his belt, ready to record anything he did to her.
"I don't believe in leniency," he told her. Deep voice, gruff even. "It's no kindness. You'll get the maximum penalty I can give."
Her nipples tightened, her clit throbbed and it came to her that she'd been aroused from that first sight of him beside her, the emotion stifled by guilt. Her cunt was swollen, liquid slicking it thickly. She was conscious of that part of her, acutely aware that her body was preparing itself for sex as if this was an appropriate time and this man desirable.
If he noticed the flush spreading across her face, the quickening of her breath, smelled the ripe musk emanating from her like bait, he didn't betray his knowledge. Maybe he was used to this reaction from the people he caught, yes, even him. He hadn't always been old and out of shape. As a younger man, he must've gotten his share of invocations, enough to slake his craving to dole out discipline.
Then…not so many. The tap of his finger ignored, dismissed, the culprits accepting a fine without considering another option because he was so…he wasn't… Well.
He should be grateful to me! The thought, arrogant as it was, brought her head up and she met his inquiring gaze with a defiance that shocked her as much as it clearly amused him. The twitch of his lips stung her to recklessness. "It's my first time, but you needn't think I'll be one of those who beg you to stop."
She'd never understood that. There was no going back so why demean yourself begging for something no one had the power to grant?
"Out of the car," he said, ignoring her words.
She stood on the side of the road, the cruiser shielding her, and stripped from the waist down, placing her clothes in an evidence bag. Surreal to do this out here, to see her yoga pants and plain navy thong encased in clear plastic as if they didn't belong to her.
Stranger still to feel the cool evening air against her heated skin, the light touch of it of it against the damp hair shielding her so very little because only two days ago she'd clipped it short, sharp scissors neatening the brown cloud to an orderly thatch.
"Keep your shoes on," he said without looking at her, taking a folding chair from the trunk and a flat case, well-cared for, the leather polished but showing signs of wear on the corners. "You'll cut your feet on the gravel."
She pushed her bare feet inside the sandals she'd kicked off, resenting the courtesy, that flame of rebellion still smoldering. Ridiculous to be aroused by this big man, desperate and needy as he clearly was. She liked strong men, confident and assured, expensively elegant men, cultured and considerate. No one fitting that exact description had ever dated her, but she'd come close from time to time. Compromising was part of life. Only a child refused to accept that truth.
This tired man didn't represent compromise but failure. Her arousal was down to something else. Had to be. The punishment? She'd never been physically disciplined; not at home, at school, or by a partner. How could something she'd never experienced be the cause for the wetness between her legs? How could she want without knowledge of what she sought? Crave the unknown with a certainty she'd enjoy it?
Confused, angry, she pressed her thighs together to stem the desire, close it off inside her body, hidden from the man who was – oh God, he was pulling on leather gloves, thin, supple, the symbol of the distance between them. He would never touch her with his bare hand. Leather on flesh. He worked the gloves on and flexed his hands, grunted in a way man did who was about to tackle a tiresome chore, and settled his backside onto the chair. It creaked.
"C'mere," he said and spread his knees to give her a ledge to lie on. "It's better to get it over with."
Kindness again. She didn't want it. She'd misbehaved. Broken a clearly posted speed limit. Driven before that with inattention. She deserved this and he agreed, so why the faint pity in his eyes as he finally looked at her?
Firming her mouth to a straight line as if he was the one deserving of disapproval not her, she took one step, two, then with a final step needed to bring her to his side she broke.
"No! God, no, I can't. This – I changed my mind, you hear me? My clothes – Let me get dressed, let me go!"
He didn't move. Didn't yell, or chase her down. Didn't even look disappointed.
"Come here," he repeated, voice steady, sharp-edged. And it was as if her panic had steadied him because there was strength of purpose in that order, as if he'd remembered what he was capable of doing to a woman like her. Remembered and wanted it. "There's no way out. No turning back. You chose. I can't change that. You can't change that. And for even trying, I'm authorized to add a penalty." When his lips curved this time, it was to sneer. "You think you're gonna enjoy a spanking? You might. You won't enjoy the penalty. I'll make sure of that."
She loathed him for that. Seeing her body didn't matter. She was a woman and he had to know what a naked woman looked like. She wasn't displaying anything he hadn't seen before. But to dip into her desires, tear into her fantasies as carelessly as he'd rip open a bag of chips -- how dared he?
Stiff-legged, graceless, she closed the gap and put herself over his knee, burning up with anger and humiliation. She'd been shown how to do this. Seen vids. Her hands had to touch the floor or be clasped. She couldn't hold onto him. Her legs needed to be together. She had to hold still and not struggle. Crying was permitted, but not words.
It'd seemed useless knowledge at the time, as pointless as memorizing the value of pi to twenty places.
In place, as comfortable as she could get, she cleared her throat and said the last words needed from her. "I'm ready to accept my punishment."
"Officer," he said, prompting her. "Again."
He was within his right to insist on the honorific. Knowing that didn't make it easier to repeat her words.
"I'm ready to accept my punishment, officer."
Before she'd closed her mouth, he hit her. Struck her ass with a flat, hard hand sheathed in leather. She kicked out wildly, stunned by the suddenness. He should have waited, given her a warning, not just—Another. Another. The blows rained down and for all that they were measured, deliberate, they overwhelmed her before they'd reached double figures. She'd planned to count, to box the ordeal in with defined limits. Fifty was the maximum allowed. She'd had how many? She didn't know. Couldn't ask.
This wasn't a fantasy. This was jarring, harsh discipline given by a man who'd been denied this outlet until she'd crossed his path and opened her mouth.
She panted, matching her breathing to the beat of his hand. She couldn't feel the leather now. The first few slaps, she'd been aware of it, cool, smooth, but now her flesh was burning, subsuming everything that touched it. The leather was burning, his hand inside the glove was burning, the whole fucking world was on fire and his hand would – not – stop.
It came to her between one slap and the next that she was safe. It wouldn't stop. Ever. He would spank her for eternity, hold her over his knee and punish her tender skin until those minutes when she'd been disobedient to the law were expunged.
It hurt but she gloried in it, knowing every bruising, scalding smack took away a piece of guilt. When it was over, she'd walk away clean again. Unmarked.
She wasn't thinking about him. He was a slapping hand, a lap to lie on. Then he groaned, a soft, tortured exhalation and through the roar in her ears and her shamelessly indulgent sobs, she heard it and remembered him.
She didn't hate him now. Didn't grudge him his release when she was being restored to perfection.
"Fifty," he said and it was over.
She hung in place, suspended, a dreamy lassitude suffusing her. This was shavasana, the death pose, and from it she would rise, reborn. Her ass bloomed with pain, pulses of it going through her as if his hand was still belaboring her flesh. But it was over.
"Three strokes." His voice was rough, angry even, as if she was nagging him to do chores after a double shift.
Three steps backward. She'd forgotten the penalty and his promise. Three wasn't many, but what would he use? She moaned. It hurt now, it hurt, and the restless stir of her arousal, insistent, rising to muddy the clear waters, confused her.
"You deserve it," he reminded her. "Think about why."
He wasn't talking about civic responsibility. If withdrawing an invocation were possible and she'd walked away, how cruel would that have been? She shuddered. As cruel as him refusing to spank her, or setting gentle, timid taps onto flesh that needed uncompromising resolute slaps.
She couldn't tell him she understood, but she showed him, settling down and pushing her ass up higher.
"No. For these, you stand."
She didn't want him to see her face. Her nose was running and her cheeks wet with tears she hadn't been able to wipe away. The hell with it. She got up, staggered as the change of position sent a fresh reminder that her ass was a vast ballooning ball of fire, and used her T-shirt as a makeshift towel and tissue, pulling it up to scrub at her face.
Head ducked, not meeting his gaze, she held onto the bar running along the roof of the car and spread her feet for balance.
"I'm going to use the cane on you. It'll hurt." He was close enough that he could say the words quietly and still have them sound loud to her. "Do you want something to bite down on? If you do, nod your head."
Did he want to hurt her as much as she needed him to? It was an interesting question. And thinking about it lost her the chance to nod.
He didn't show her the cane. Some officers enjoyed that, she'd heard. Not knowing what it looked like made the waiting worse. A cane. Thick and heavy, slender and springy? Which would punish her more? She didn't know.
When the first stroke landed, it ceased to matter. All his strength went into it, the power of his arm behind the whistling strike, the slash of wood against her shrinking flesh.
Screaming would be nice, but she needed air for that and there was none to be found. The blow had knocked it out of her lungs.
The second slashed down, scoring the top of her thighs. He'd spanked her there, but not often. The extension of the agony, new boundaries set – where would the third land? Then the sear of the second stroke registered, twisting her stomach. Her face ached, muscles taut as her open mouth stretched them. And this time she screamed, a short, weak cry, lost in the gulped breaths that followed. Breathing helped. Screaming helped. She gripped the bar, forcing her fingers to squeeze tightly. Couldn't let go, turn to face him, go to her knees and beg. He'd make her return to this position and add more strokes.
He would. He would do that without hesitation, she knew it. It might have been months, years, since he'd handled an invocation, but he was as ready to perform his duty as any of his peers. And if he had something to prove to himself, she'd given him this additional space of time to do it.
Because he was waiting. Not for her sake, but to savor this moment. She knew he was staring at her, taking in the stuttered breaths, the pitiful sobs, surveying the splotched, bruise-dappled mess her ass had become under his hand. It was close to full dark, but he'd left the driver's door ajar and he had light enough to see her.
He didn't want this to end, but he had one more stroke to deliver and he proved his strength again by cutting short his contemplation and giving her the final cut.
It was no harder than the previous two, but it was placed over the part of her ass he'd spanked the most and it drove the pain bone-deep, drawing a line under the events of the evening, clean and straight.
He wasn't permitted to touch her. No comfort, no medical attention because he wouldn't have split her skin. Trained not to draw blood. She had to dress herself unaided, sit – sit! – in her car until he deemed her ready to drive, then be followed home to make sure she arrived safely.
She used her T-shirt again to wipe her face, then stumbled to the trunk of the car and found the bag with her clothes in it, conscious of him close by, a silent man, his breathing even, unhurried, as if what they'd done was nothing to him.
It was a lie, that quiet hush of breath. It had to be. She dressed, throat closing as cloth rasped raw flesh, and stepped aside to let him replace his equipment in the trunk.
It slammed shut as a car went by, momentarily lighting them up, flashing by, the driver curious perhaps, but relieved that it wasn't him in trouble.
And that was it. He was a police officer; she was a civilian. Their connection severed, she had nothing to do but return to her car.
Sitting, squirming, more tears slipping from her eyes, she couldn't analyze her emotions. What had she expected? This was judicial discipline, as impersonal as it got. He wasn't permitted to make it more.
He appeared at her window again. "You’re good to go. I'll be behind you."
And she could end this on her terms at least. Tell him…tell him… What? Thank you? Was she grateful? She had been. When she'd understood the beauty of the exchange; her agony for absolution. That clarity had faded. Her cunt was wet. Still. Still.. She wanted to push her fingers inside that tunnel of flesh, all of them, fill it, stretch it. Knew one quick, purposeful rub at the root of her clit would trigger a climax intense enough to match that moment when his hand had struck her for the first time.
But she wouldn't. Pleasure from this would ruin the perfect balance he'd created. She'd misbehaved. She'd been corrected. There was no room in the scale for the vast, aching joy that she could bring down upon herself with a touch.
So she looked up at him, taking in that plain, tired face one more time, nodded, and drove away.
***
For the next few weeks she took an alternate route home from her yoga class. The bruises had faded, the three welts faded until she could only see them in her imagination.
And hammering in her head was the date of her offense. One year. One year until she could do this again.
One year was too long.
She drove home from class using her usual route, past the cornfields, along the quiet roads. Saw his cruiser tucked almost out of sight, glanced inside to make sure it was him – and let her speed shoot up, ten, twenty over the limit, for a short space of time.
He pulled out behind her, lights flashing and she parked in the same place she'd used before and waited, window down, license out.
"Your brake light's out and you were speeding." Flat voice. Did he even recognize her? Disappointment grayed her world. She was pathetic. The man was doing his job and she was making a fool of herself, dreaming up a connection that didn't – couldn't – exist, deliberately breaking the law (why did that feel less reprehensible than doing it through carelessness?) to get his attention if only for the time it took for him to write her a ticket.
Pathetic.
Hating herself, she nodded. "I'll get the light fixed tomorrow, officer, and I won't – I won't go too fast again. Ever," she added, bitterness salting the words. Never again. Because what he'd given her couldn't be found anywhere else, with anyone else. If she did this again in eleven months, if it was even he who pulled her over, it wouldn't feel the same.
That had been it. It was over.
"How much is the fine?"
The silence drew her attention from her wallet as she tried to pull out a credit card wedged too tightly. She turned and looked—
His finger. Tapping.
Oh God.
"Once a year," he said. Soft voice. Understanding. Not judging. Not on this. "The records show you've never used your invocation right."
"But—" The scanner, recording everything, the forms she'd signed –
"This is your first offense," he told her. "There's no record of any other."
He'd made it easy for her, but it was based on a lie. She didn't want that. "I'll pay the fine. Take the points."
A pause. "Your choice, lady."
"I made a mistake," she told him and looked at him as she said it, letting him see her. "I wanted what happened to happen again, but it can't. Not like that. It was real and this wouldn't be. Even if I waited a year and then --You understand?"
He rubbed his hand over his face. Sighed. Resigned, accepting. "Yeah. I get it." He clipped the scanner to his belt. "Drive home, lady. And get that light fixed."
She put out her hand. Touched his belt. Cool leather, smooth against her fingertips. "We can make it real a different way. When your shift ends – you know where I live. You could take off the ring, just be you, just--"
She faltered, horrified at herself. Desperate. Abject. Hungry.
His breath hissed out, indignant. She'd shocked him. "That's not the only ring I wear, lady. I'm a married man."
Oh. And she'd—oh.
It was an awkward moment, made worse by his muttered, "Drive safely." He stepped back, hesitated, then added, "Thanks. For not letting me do it."
She shook her head. "I shouldn't have put you in this situation in the first place. I'm sorry."
"Lot of that going around." He slapped the top of her car, making it rock, making her ache with a memory. "Night, lady."
She watched him walk back to his car with brisk, confident steps. The next time he pulled someone over, maybe they'd see what she had and invoke. Or maybe she was his last invocation as he'd been her first.
She drove away, leaving him behind her, speed steady, because that was who she was. A law-abiding citizen with a clean record.
That was all she'd needed from him, really, and he'd delivered.
Twice.
This is a weird little story that popped into my head and ended differently than I'd planned. It's not a romance, it's not exactly our world, and it's less about getting what you want and need as it is about being true to yourself.
Basically, a cop pulls a woman over for speeding and she decides not to pay the fine but take another option. Bow-chicka- bow time? Not exactly.
It's around 4,000 words, there's discipline in here, and it's more head games than sex games.
It's also on AO3 here
Invocation: The First Offense
The road was empty, dusk falling, blurring the cornfields waiting to be harvested and the faded lines on the road. The car lost speed and drifted, the kick of gravel as tires hit the unpaved shoulder jolting her out of a daze. She'd lost ten minutes, driving without seeing, thinking about nothing.
Dangerous. Reckless. But it hadn't felt that way. She'd just been dreaming. Pressing her lips together, she adjusted her position, sitting straight, hands correctly placed on the wheel, and increased her speed to make up for the dawdling. And the wind whipping her hair across her face as it snuck in through the rolled-down windows shredded her dreams so why not go a little faster still?
The police car waiting for her to do just that pulled out from a side road and got on her tail, lights gaudy, the siren silent.
Shock kept her driving. Not for her, couldn't be her. Maybe there was a crash up ahead, an emergency in town. But the lights stayed behind her and the cruiser edged closer.
She gave in, indicated, pulled over, and heard the gravel spatter the underside of her car again. Engine off, she waited, not even reaching for her purse to take out her license.
Not her. No.
Male. Big. Blocking the breeze through the window her lack of motion had gentled the wind into becoming. She stared ahead, hands in her lap. But her gaze drifted as the car had done and she saw black cloth of a uniform, a leather belt, a holstered gun.
And it was real. She forced her head to turn, her mouth to curve in a bright, false, foolish smile. She was a woman. She could charm and flirt her way out of this. She was wearing exercise clothes; yoga pants clinging to her legs and a T-shirt her breasts made interesting. She was attractive. Not young, no, but still—
She met his gaze and hope faded with her smile. Not this man. Fifty, maybe, thinning hair an indeterminate shade, a body past its prime, muscular, but lacking definition. One too many beers a night showing in his belly. Experienced. Bored. Immovable.
"I was going too fast," she offered. Another form of propitiation then.
"Mm-hmm." He held out his hand and she fumbled in her purse, clumsy with embarrassment. She'd done something wrong. Broken a law. It didn't make her a rebel, but a criminal. She hated that. Her perfect record spoiled.
He took her license, unhooked his scanner from his belt and ran the card. "Record's clean."
"Yes, officer." Was that his title? All those cop shows she'd watched and she didn't know because shock had wiped her mind to a glossy blank in places.
"Doesn't matter. You were speeding. Going to cost you some dollars and points."
She could afford the fine, but the points… She didn't want them. Marks on her record, there for everyone to see whenever she produced her license and these days it seemed everything required it to be shown.
"Please. I won't do it again. I didn't hit anyone or overtake, or—" She stopped, words stuck in her throat because he'd tapped his middle finger against the scanner and oh God, he was wearing a ring. She'd seen the gun, discounted it. It wasn't a threat to her because she wasn't going to do anything to make him draw it. But the ring…why hadn't she looked for the ring?
Her mind supplied the answer. He was twenty years older than her. Ordinary. Nothing objectionable about his face, but nothing remarkable either. Cops with rings were powerful, dominating, leather jackets zipped up, leather boots kept shiny by an adoring acolyte's efforts. They were handsome, hot, a walking fantasy.
This cop was nondescript. But he'd offered her a way out.
Hesitant, doubting herself, she said the words she'd memorized in class years ago, gaze fixed on the black band of metal. "I invoke my right to be disciplined."
Once a year. Only for offenses up to a certain level. Administered at the scene, in public. The phrases marched through her head, uncompromising, plain. She knew friends who'd used their invocation rights, shamed giggles punctuating their whispered accounts. Knew most people died without ever saying the words. She'd expected to be one of them.
Was it worth it? For this?
Yes, she told herself. Because I'll never do it again. Ever. And because…oh, because…
His hand tightened on the scanner. She'd surprised him. He'd drawn her attention to his ring, but he had to do that. He hadn't expected her to take this way out. Not with him.
"You sure about that, lady?"
She nodded, then jerked up her chin. She had to look at him when she did this. "Yes. I'm sure. I invoke."
"Been a while," he said and those words weren't for her, but himself.
"Those who wear the ring are not simply sadists," her civics teacher had said years before. "They get pleasure from administering a judicial punishment, yes. But a deeper satisfaction must be present. They are upholding the law. Providing a deterrent. Keeping the community safe. Without that element to their character, the ring will never be placed on their finger. Know that if any of you take this alternative what is done to you will not trouble the officer, the way it might your parents. They have no emotional tie to you and they're trained to channel any arousal into the punishment itself. Trust also that nothing inappropriate will occur. The code forbids it and every invocation is recorded as a further safeguard."
Ringed officers who broke the code were disgraced for life, stripped of rank and dignity. Publically punished in the square with a jeering crowd as witnesses.
She shouldn't ask. It was none of her business.
"How long?"
He'd cut himself shaving. A bead of dried blood marked the underside of his chin. A tiny wound, a momentary flash of pain. Her question cut deeper than the razor blade. She saw him wince, one side of his face locked in a spasm he smoothed away a moment later. Impassive again, he told her, "Get out of the car. We need to do the paperwork."
Sitting beside him in the cruiser, she answered his questions meekly. Name, address, occupation, age. No, she wasn't pregnant or menstruating. No medication, no health issues, no drugs in her system. She let him check her alcohol level, a quick stab of pleasure thrilling through her when the scanner glowed green.
There. See? She was a good citizen. She was.
She signed her name, the scanner's pen slippery in her hand. He took the scanner from her and placed it on his belt, ready to record anything he did to her.
"I don't believe in leniency," he told her. Deep voice, gruff even. "It's no kindness. You'll get the maximum penalty I can give."
Her nipples tightened, her clit throbbed and it came to her that she'd been aroused from that first sight of him beside her, the emotion stifled by guilt. Her cunt was swollen, liquid slicking it thickly. She was conscious of that part of her, acutely aware that her body was preparing itself for sex as if this was an appropriate time and this man desirable.
If he noticed the flush spreading across her face, the quickening of her breath, smelled the ripe musk emanating from her like bait, he didn't betray his knowledge. Maybe he was used to this reaction from the people he caught, yes, even him. He hadn't always been old and out of shape. As a younger man, he must've gotten his share of invocations, enough to slake his craving to dole out discipline.
Then…not so many. The tap of his finger ignored, dismissed, the culprits accepting a fine without considering another option because he was so…he wasn't… Well.
He should be grateful to me! The thought, arrogant as it was, brought her head up and she met his inquiring gaze with a defiance that shocked her as much as it clearly amused him. The twitch of his lips stung her to recklessness. "It's my first time, but you needn't think I'll be one of those who beg you to stop."
She'd never understood that. There was no going back so why demean yourself begging for something no one had the power to grant?
"Out of the car," he said, ignoring her words.
She stood on the side of the road, the cruiser shielding her, and stripped from the waist down, placing her clothes in an evidence bag. Surreal to do this out here, to see her yoga pants and plain navy thong encased in clear plastic as if they didn't belong to her.
Stranger still to feel the cool evening air against her heated skin, the light touch of it of it against the damp hair shielding her so very little because only two days ago she'd clipped it short, sharp scissors neatening the brown cloud to an orderly thatch.
"Keep your shoes on," he said without looking at her, taking a folding chair from the trunk and a flat case, well-cared for, the leather polished but showing signs of wear on the corners. "You'll cut your feet on the gravel."
She pushed her bare feet inside the sandals she'd kicked off, resenting the courtesy, that flame of rebellion still smoldering. Ridiculous to be aroused by this big man, desperate and needy as he clearly was. She liked strong men, confident and assured, expensively elegant men, cultured and considerate. No one fitting that exact description had ever dated her, but she'd come close from time to time. Compromising was part of life. Only a child refused to accept that truth.
This tired man didn't represent compromise but failure. Her arousal was down to something else. Had to be. The punishment? She'd never been physically disciplined; not at home, at school, or by a partner. How could something she'd never experienced be the cause for the wetness between her legs? How could she want without knowledge of what she sought? Crave the unknown with a certainty she'd enjoy it?
Confused, angry, she pressed her thighs together to stem the desire, close it off inside her body, hidden from the man who was – oh God, he was pulling on leather gloves, thin, supple, the symbol of the distance between them. He would never touch her with his bare hand. Leather on flesh. He worked the gloves on and flexed his hands, grunted in a way man did who was about to tackle a tiresome chore, and settled his backside onto the chair. It creaked.
"C'mere," he said and spread his knees to give her a ledge to lie on. "It's better to get it over with."
Kindness again. She didn't want it. She'd misbehaved. Broken a clearly posted speed limit. Driven before that with inattention. She deserved this and he agreed, so why the faint pity in his eyes as he finally looked at her?
Firming her mouth to a straight line as if he was the one deserving of disapproval not her, she took one step, two, then with a final step needed to bring her to his side she broke.
"No! God, no, I can't. This – I changed my mind, you hear me? My clothes – Let me get dressed, let me go!"
He didn't move. Didn't yell, or chase her down. Didn't even look disappointed.
"Come here," he repeated, voice steady, sharp-edged. And it was as if her panic had steadied him because there was strength of purpose in that order, as if he'd remembered what he was capable of doing to a woman like her. Remembered and wanted it. "There's no way out. No turning back. You chose. I can't change that. You can't change that. And for even trying, I'm authorized to add a penalty." When his lips curved this time, it was to sneer. "You think you're gonna enjoy a spanking? You might. You won't enjoy the penalty. I'll make sure of that."
She loathed him for that. Seeing her body didn't matter. She was a woman and he had to know what a naked woman looked like. She wasn't displaying anything he hadn't seen before. But to dip into her desires, tear into her fantasies as carelessly as he'd rip open a bag of chips -- how dared he?
Stiff-legged, graceless, she closed the gap and put herself over his knee, burning up with anger and humiliation. She'd been shown how to do this. Seen vids. Her hands had to touch the floor or be clasped. She couldn't hold onto him. Her legs needed to be together. She had to hold still and not struggle. Crying was permitted, but not words.
It'd seemed useless knowledge at the time, as pointless as memorizing the value of pi to twenty places.
In place, as comfortable as she could get, she cleared her throat and said the last words needed from her. "I'm ready to accept my punishment."
"Officer," he said, prompting her. "Again."
He was within his right to insist on the honorific. Knowing that didn't make it easier to repeat her words.
"I'm ready to accept my punishment, officer."
Before she'd closed her mouth, he hit her. Struck her ass with a flat, hard hand sheathed in leather. She kicked out wildly, stunned by the suddenness. He should have waited, given her a warning, not just—Another. Another. The blows rained down and for all that they were measured, deliberate, they overwhelmed her before they'd reached double figures. She'd planned to count, to box the ordeal in with defined limits. Fifty was the maximum allowed. She'd had how many? She didn't know. Couldn't ask.
This wasn't a fantasy. This was jarring, harsh discipline given by a man who'd been denied this outlet until she'd crossed his path and opened her mouth.
She panted, matching her breathing to the beat of his hand. She couldn't feel the leather now. The first few slaps, she'd been aware of it, cool, smooth, but now her flesh was burning, subsuming everything that touched it. The leather was burning, his hand inside the glove was burning, the whole fucking world was on fire and his hand would – not – stop.
It came to her between one slap and the next that she was safe. It wouldn't stop. Ever. He would spank her for eternity, hold her over his knee and punish her tender skin until those minutes when she'd been disobedient to the law were expunged.
It hurt but she gloried in it, knowing every bruising, scalding smack took away a piece of guilt. When it was over, she'd walk away clean again. Unmarked.
She wasn't thinking about him. He was a slapping hand, a lap to lie on. Then he groaned, a soft, tortured exhalation and through the roar in her ears and her shamelessly indulgent sobs, she heard it and remembered him.
She didn't hate him now. Didn't grudge him his release when she was being restored to perfection.
"Fifty," he said and it was over.
She hung in place, suspended, a dreamy lassitude suffusing her. This was shavasana, the death pose, and from it she would rise, reborn. Her ass bloomed with pain, pulses of it going through her as if his hand was still belaboring her flesh. But it was over.
"Three strokes." His voice was rough, angry even, as if she was nagging him to do chores after a double shift.
Three steps backward. She'd forgotten the penalty and his promise. Three wasn't many, but what would he use? She moaned. It hurt now, it hurt, and the restless stir of her arousal, insistent, rising to muddy the clear waters, confused her.
"You deserve it," he reminded her. "Think about why."
He wasn't talking about civic responsibility. If withdrawing an invocation were possible and she'd walked away, how cruel would that have been? She shuddered. As cruel as him refusing to spank her, or setting gentle, timid taps onto flesh that needed uncompromising resolute slaps.
She couldn't tell him she understood, but she showed him, settling down and pushing her ass up higher.
"No. For these, you stand."
She didn't want him to see her face. Her nose was running and her cheeks wet with tears she hadn't been able to wipe away. The hell with it. She got up, staggered as the change of position sent a fresh reminder that her ass was a vast ballooning ball of fire, and used her T-shirt as a makeshift towel and tissue, pulling it up to scrub at her face.
Head ducked, not meeting his gaze, she held onto the bar running along the roof of the car and spread her feet for balance.
"I'm going to use the cane on you. It'll hurt." He was close enough that he could say the words quietly and still have them sound loud to her. "Do you want something to bite down on? If you do, nod your head."
Did he want to hurt her as much as she needed him to? It was an interesting question. And thinking about it lost her the chance to nod.
He didn't show her the cane. Some officers enjoyed that, she'd heard. Not knowing what it looked like made the waiting worse. A cane. Thick and heavy, slender and springy? Which would punish her more? She didn't know.
When the first stroke landed, it ceased to matter. All his strength went into it, the power of his arm behind the whistling strike, the slash of wood against her shrinking flesh.
Screaming would be nice, but she needed air for that and there was none to be found. The blow had knocked it out of her lungs.
The second slashed down, scoring the top of her thighs. He'd spanked her there, but not often. The extension of the agony, new boundaries set – where would the third land? Then the sear of the second stroke registered, twisting her stomach. Her face ached, muscles taut as her open mouth stretched them. And this time she screamed, a short, weak cry, lost in the gulped breaths that followed. Breathing helped. Screaming helped. She gripped the bar, forcing her fingers to squeeze tightly. Couldn't let go, turn to face him, go to her knees and beg. He'd make her return to this position and add more strokes.
He would. He would do that without hesitation, she knew it. It might have been months, years, since he'd handled an invocation, but he was as ready to perform his duty as any of his peers. And if he had something to prove to himself, she'd given him this additional space of time to do it.
Because he was waiting. Not for her sake, but to savor this moment. She knew he was staring at her, taking in the stuttered breaths, the pitiful sobs, surveying the splotched, bruise-dappled mess her ass had become under his hand. It was close to full dark, but he'd left the driver's door ajar and he had light enough to see her.
He didn't want this to end, but he had one more stroke to deliver and he proved his strength again by cutting short his contemplation and giving her the final cut.
It was no harder than the previous two, but it was placed over the part of her ass he'd spanked the most and it drove the pain bone-deep, drawing a line under the events of the evening, clean and straight.
He wasn't permitted to touch her. No comfort, no medical attention because he wouldn't have split her skin. Trained not to draw blood. She had to dress herself unaided, sit – sit! – in her car until he deemed her ready to drive, then be followed home to make sure she arrived safely.
She used her T-shirt again to wipe her face, then stumbled to the trunk of the car and found the bag with her clothes in it, conscious of him close by, a silent man, his breathing even, unhurried, as if what they'd done was nothing to him.
It was a lie, that quiet hush of breath. It had to be. She dressed, throat closing as cloth rasped raw flesh, and stepped aside to let him replace his equipment in the trunk.
It slammed shut as a car went by, momentarily lighting them up, flashing by, the driver curious perhaps, but relieved that it wasn't him in trouble.
And that was it. He was a police officer; she was a civilian. Their connection severed, she had nothing to do but return to her car.
Sitting, squirming, more tears slipping from her eyes, she couldn't analyze her emotions. What had she expected? This was judicial discipline, as impersonal as it got. He wasn't permitted to make it more.
He appeared at her window again. "You’re good to go. I'll be behind you."
And she could end this on her terms at least. Tell him…tell him… What? Thank you? Was she grateful? She had been. When she'd understood the beauty of the exchange; her agony for absolution. That clarity had faded. Her cunt was wet. Still. Still.. She wanted to push her fingers inside that tunnel of flesh, all of them, fill it, stretch it. Knew one quick, purposeful rub at the root of her clit would trigger a climax intense enough to match that moment when his hand had struck her for the first time.
But she wouldn't. Pleasure from this would ruin the perfect balance he'd created. She'd misbehaved. She'd been corrected. There was no room in the scale for the vast, aching joy that she could bring down upon herself with a touch.
So she looked up at him, taking in that plain, tired face one more time, nodded, and drove away.
***
For the next few weeks she took an alternate route home from her yoga class. The bruises had faded, the three welts faded until she could only see them in her imagination.
And hammering in her head was the date of her offense. One year. One year until she could do this again.
One year was too long.
She drove home from class using her usual route, past the cornfields, along the quiet roads. Saw his cruiser tucked almost out of sight, glanced inside to make sure it was him – and let her speed shoot up, ten, twenty over the limit, for a short space of time.
He pulled out behind her, lights flashing and she parked in the same place she'd used before and waited, window down, license out.
"Your brake light's out and you were speeding." Flat voice. Did he even recognize her? Disappointment grayed her world. She was pathetic. The man was doing his job and she was making a fool of herself, dreaming up a connection that didn't – couldn't – exist, deliberately breaking the law (why did that feel less reprehensible than doing it through carelessness?) to get his attention if only for the time it took for him to write her a ticket.
Pathetic.
Hating herself, she nodded. "I'll get the light fixed tomorrow, officer, and I won't – I won't go too fast again. Ever," she added, bitterness salting the words. Never again. Because what he'd given her couldn't be found anywhere else, with anyone else. If she did this again in eleven months, if it was even he who pulled her over, it wouldn't feel the same.
That had been it. It was over.
"How much is the fine?"
The silence drew her attention from her wallet as she tried to pull out a credit card wedged too tightly. She turned and looked—
His finger. Tapping.
Oh God.
"Once a year," he said. Soft voice. Understanding. Not judging. Not on this. "The records show you've never used your invocation right."
"But—" The scanner, recording everything, the forms she'd signed –
"This is your first offense," he told her. "There's no record of any other."
He'd made it easy for her, but it was based on a lie. She didn't want that. "I'll pay the fine. Take the points."
A pause. "Your choice, lady."
"I made a mistake," she told him and looked at him as she said it, letting him see her. "I wanted what happened to happen again, but it can't. Not like that. It was real and this wouldn't be. Even if I waited a year and then --You understand?"
He rubbed his hand over his face. Sighed. Resigned, accepting. "Yeah. I get it." He clipped the scanner to his belt. "Drive home, lady. And get that light fixed."
She put out her hand. Touched his belt. Cool leather, smooth against her fingertips. "We can make it real a different way. When your shift ends – you know where I live. You could take off the ring, just be you, just--"
She faltered, horrified at herself. Desperate. Abject. Hungry.
His breath hissed out, indignant. She'd shocked him. "That's not the only ring I wear, lady. I'm a married man."
Oh. And she'd—oh.
It was an awkward moment, made worse by his muttered, "Drive safely." He stepped back, hesitated, then added, "Thanks. For not letting me do it."
She shook her head. "I shouldn't have put you in this situation in the first place. I'm sorry."
"Lot of that going around." He slapped the top of her car, making it rock, making her ache with a memory. "Night, lady."
She watched him walk back to his car with brisk, confident steps. The next time he pulled someone over, maybe they'd see what she had and invoke. Or maybe she was his last invocation as he'd been her first.
She drove away, leaving him behind her, speed steady, because that was who she was. A law-abiding citizen with a clean record.
That was all she'd needed from him, really, and he'd delivered.
Twice.
Tags:
- au,
- discipline,
- fic,
- m/f,
- original