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Lakewood Avenue - Part 2

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Tester86
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Lakewood Avenue - Part 2

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Lakewood Avenue 2
High Cotton


Turning off the interstate onto State Route 292 leads deeper into the county, past dilapidated farms, rolling hills, ancient cow pastures, and broken rock walls that looked like something out of an archeological dig. Twenty miles later State Route 292 becomes Hammond Pass, named after a State Trooper, that had been killed during a routine traffic stop. Hammond Pass became Birch Street as it meandered leisurely through a tiny backwater town that consisted of two dozen houses, a gas station, a Post Office, and one tiny municipal building housing the police station, the courthouse, the Water and Gas Authority, and the mayor’s office which was nothing more than a tiny closet with faded olive walls housing a lone desk and a well-worn leather chair. Two miles (two point three miles if you were being precise) further on, Birch Street became Highway 292 again for another fifteen miles. That was when State Route 292, Hammond Pass and Birch Street finally morphed into Lakewood avenue.

Lakewood avenue was a two-laned nightmare for Theresa. She felt the eyes of everyone on her as she was led from the courthouse. The judge, a fat man with thin, white hair, and eyebrows that reminded her of molting caterpillars had slammed the gavel down, sentencing her to ninety days of hard labor. “In the fields or on your back, makes no difference to me.” She had recognized him, of course. He had stood in line with the rest of the amassed throng to perform her humiliating cavity search. How could she receive an impartial verdict when the man passing judgement was as guilty as the rest?

Still, Theresa had tried to protest. She was a good judge and an even better lawyer, but the law had not mattered nor had her numerous degrees, awards, and merits. She had been nothing more than a fresh piece of meat, standing awkwardly in a burlap sack that prevented any movement if her modest was to be maintained.

“I object,” she had shouted before the sentence was passed. She had gone to voice her argument, but the leering Judge smacked the gavel down and shouted right back, “the defendant will keep quiet! Bailiff, if she speaks again, gag her.”

“Yes, your honor.”

So, she was left seething, rendered impotently mute, knowing her protests were useless.

Ten minutes later, a chain was wrapped around her waist and fastened with an impossibly heavy padlock. Ankle fetters were affixed in place with a thick chain, far shorter than it should have been. The fetters were attached to the tether around her waist, forcing her to bend forward slightly, causing the hem of the burlap dress she wore to ride up, revealing more than she wanted to show. Her hands were cuffed behind her back.

The Sherriff, standing beside her, grabbed her arm, “let’s go princess. It’s off to the prison with you.” He uttered the word prison with quiet, almost religious reverence.

She was led from the courthouse and onto the street where the crowd that had at first watched her humiliation strip, and then had participated in the cavity search, was still milling around. They were all there, waiting to catch another glimpse of the Supreme Court Judge, shackled and shamed.

She heard the crowd long before she saw them. At first it sounded like a muted dinner party, then, as she got closer to the door that spilled onto Lakewood avenue it sounded like the buzzing of an angry hornet’s nest. When the doors opened and light spilled into the dirty foyer, she saw the crowd. The commotion stopped as all eyes turned to her crimson face, hunched body, and wide, shock-filled eyes. How could this have happened? She had been her to stop this very thing and now here she was, bound and ashamed, being led away in handcuffs to face the beginning of a three-month prison term where she would be stuck picking cotton in the fields or picking pubic hair out of her teeth. Neither prospect appealed to her. She was a judge, and a damned good one, at the top of her field. She had always been the apex predator. She had been salutatorian in high-school, and that one blemish had both pushed and pursued her for the rest of her career. In college she had earned her valedictorian by giving up meaningless, parochial pursuits. While her peers were out partying, she had been sitting in her dorm, studying. She absorbed everything she could.

In law school, both her peers and her instructors commented on her skill, talent, intelligence, and work ethic. Like college she had stayed away from parties and pubs. Instead she could be found in the library reading everything, studying case law. She interned for one well-known judge who had been on the Presidents short list for Supreme Court justice. The same list that she now found herself sitting comfortably upon. So how had she, the career-minded, diligent, intelligent and driven Supreme Court Judge find herself blushing all over again as a young man, barely old enough to vote, called out, “I can see her crack!” The man had followed that up with a loud, braying laugh.

She blushed crimson. Surely the Sherriff could feel the heat on her skin as he paused just long enough to glance at Theresa's unprotected behind. “You sure can,” he drawled. The Sherriff took the opportunity to raise the burlap dress Tracy was wearing even higher, tucking the hem into itself, like rolling biscuit dough. “Now you can see it better.”

The catcalls became even louder. She blushed furiously at the cackling men and leering women. “Nice ass,” one said. “Is she wet?” Another asked. When one called out to see her tits the Sherriff was more than happy to oblige, spinning Theresa around just long enough to grab the neck of her shift and yank, tearing the thin material away, leaving her standing naked and shamed with the remnants of her dress hanging on the chain wrapped around her waist. The burlap flapped like a pennant before the Sherriff gave it another tug, dropping her dress to the ground.

She stood there, her head hung low, showing everything she had to everyone around. These were the same people who had felt her shame and still it wasn’t enough. They wanted more. They always wanted more. With her hands shackled behind her back she couldn’t cover a thing. Her hands folded into impotent fists before unfurling like the burlap dress lying on the ground. Open and closed. Open and closed. A silent protest to her rising shame.

“Them’s some fine titties,” some redneck drawled. It was the kind of man Theresa would ignore. Once, a cowboy with a thick accent had asked her on a date. She hadn’t meant to, it was rude and unbecoming a woman of class, but she had laughed in the young man’s face. The laughter had rushed out of her in an unexpected braying. The dejected look on his face had caused her cheeks to redden but it had not been enough to stop the laughter. Now some man with the same deep drawl was commenting on her breasts. He didn’t deserve to see them. Not many people did.

The Sherriff left her standing on the pavement with countless gawkers gawking. He turned her around, making sure the assembled throng got a good, long, penetrating gaze. She could see his police cruiser sitting in front of the courthouse, ready to take her away. She had never been arrested; no, that was the wrong side of the law for her, but that police car was like an oasis in the desert, ready to rescue a dying man. It could take her away from here. Away from the prying eyes and the loud, raucous taunts that left her feeling angry, afraid, and ashamed.

“She going to The Victs?” someone shouted.

The Sherriff nodded. “Eventually. She’ll work up a good stink in the fields first.”

A black man with a wide nose and even bigger eyes laughed at that. “Can’t wait to see that, no sir!” His voice rose at the end like he was giving benediction at Sunday mass.

Theresa could imagine the joy that black man would get seeing a white woman plucking cotton from the fields. Turnabout’s fair play, missy. Serves you right. Hope you get to feel the lash. Maybe get a brand on your skin markin’ you a slave.

Theresa took a tentative step towards the police car. The Sherriff promptly pulled her back.

He kept her there, standing naked on the sidewalk, shackles on her ankles, her hands cuffed behind her, as dozens of people leered, sneered, and jeered. She was called names, each one more humiliating than the last. Each one stung. Each one seemed to throb in her skull, making her think that maybe she did deserve this. How could so many people be wrong? It wasn’t until people started to wander away, like leaving the scene of a horrible traffic accident after the ambulance had driven away with the lights flashing and the siren blaring, that the Sherriff escorted her to his cruiser. He put her in the back seat and shut the door.

On his face he wore a smile.

Driving down Lakewood avenue, Theresa felt a sense of relief so palpable that her whole body shook. She was beyond the gaze of the townsfolk that had both enjoyed and participated in her humiliation. She suddenly felt exhausted, as if every bit of adrenalin had been dumped into her bloodstream and had finally dissipated, leaving her tired and spent.

Lakewood Avenue split, becoming a one-way road that ran parallel to Hibiscus lane. Two blocks further on, Hibiscus one again merged onto Lakewood Avenue. The Sherriff was talking into his radio, announcing the arrival on “one prime piece of tail.”

“She going to Convicts?”

As he’d answered on the street, the Sherriff repeated, “eventually.” She watched as he glanced at her through the rear-view mirror. “Once she begs for it.”

Theresa thought she would never beg. Not for anything but the surety in his voice and the way his dark eyes latched onto hers made her change her mind. She had no doubt that she would beg and by the way the voice on the radio laughed in response she got the impression that it wouldn’t take long to drop to her knees and promise anything to get away from whatever they had planned.

The Sherriff turned off Lakewood Avenue and onto Magnolia Pines Boulevard. Two miles further on he turned again, this time down a long, two-laned gravel patch of unkept road. From the back-seat Theresa saw the prison in the distance, a squat, two story cinder block building. It was painted a dull gray, like the color of the sky on a blustery winter morning. Four guard towers made up the corners of the compound. A thick stone wall lined the prison. The wall was topped with barbed wire. Every twenty feet a singular spotlight was mounted. Theresa almost vomited as a wave of trepidation washed over her. She tried to swallow but couldn’t make the spit. She shut her eyes until she heard the Sherriff’s braying laughter. That laugh reminded her of high school and the anger she felt by not being top of her class. It was a mocking laugh, full of disdain and not an ounce of pity.

Parking his cruiser at an iron door marked with the singular word intake, the Sherriff got out of the car. He chatted briefly with the guard about the Crimson Tide, whatever that was, as if the naked woman, trembling in terror and shame in the back seat, shackled both fore and aft was nothing out of place. She was like a piece of litter on the side of the road. A nuisance to be ignored until finally it wasn’t.

The Sherriff escorted Theresa into the prison. The door behind her clanged shut with an angry finality. A buzzing sound let her know that the door had been unlocked. Someone was watching, tracking their progress. She was a prisoner, and this was a real prison. Until that moment she had held onto something, hope maybe or the foolish notion that this was nothing but a huge prank, and in a few moments, she would be set free. Hearing that buzzer, knowing that her even movement was being monitored convinced her that she was truly a prisoner. That buzzer slammed home what she was more than the handcuffs had before.

“This her?”

“Yup.”

The Sherriff handed her off to a pair of brutes. “Take care, princess. Sheila’s working up a nice surprise for ya.”

She wished she'd have given Sheila more thought but there were too many other things on her mind. Two men, one black, lean and tall. The other was a stocky with a mullet hanging down past his shoulders. When he spoke, spittle flew from his mouth. Their hands on my unprotected arms kept me from pondering Sheila and her surprise. Other things distracted me as well. The sound of crying from somewhere deep in the prison. The smell of bleach and some other, stronger chemical. The way my bare feet felt on the icy linoleum. Yes, my mind was overwhelmed with new, angry sites and smells, but I wish I had paid more attention to Sheila other than the way she seemed to take a perverse joy in my suffering.

“See ya, princess,” the Sherriff said. Then, with a friendly tone, “take good care of her, boys. She’s a real muckety-muck. Supreme Court justice.” He followed that up with a whistle that made the two men holding me taut laugh.

Mullet-man said, “oh, she’s supreme, alright. Tight little ass.”

“That’s a mighty fine snatch,” the black one said. “For a cracker.”

In her courtroom, Theresa wouldn’t allow racist or sexist talk of any type, giving out contempt violations as easily as a toddler making toast. Hearing it now she felt a new wave of anger. She was infinitely more than a piece of meat or a piece of white bread. She was a judge and a damned good one. She opened her mouth to speak, to protest their actions when the black man slapped her ass, “shut up, bitch. We own your ass.”

She opened her mouth again, anger racing past her shock when he slapped her again. Then again. A fourth time. By the fifth time her ass was burning. By the tenth she was promising herself she’d keep her big mouth shut. Protesting wasn’t worth the sting in her ass, but it was the shame she felt that wounded her more. She hadn’t been spanked since she was a little girl. The last time had been when her father had told her to was the dirty glass she’d left in the sink and out of defiance or maybe just learning her place in the world she had thrown the glass away instead. When her father found it later, he’d taken her to his bedroom and spanked her. That had hurt more than the swats from the guard striking her now, but it had been the disappointed look on her father’s face that had wounded her the most. As with that last childhood spanking, it was the psychological aspect that caused the most hurt. Shame now. Her father’s disapproving gaze so long ago.

“Good one, Marcus,” Mullet-man said. “Whoop her good.”

“She ain’t gonna give us no lip, right,” he then grabbed onto what the Sherriff had called her, cutting her again, “princess.”

“No.”

“That’s ‘no, sir.’ Got it?”

Theresa nodded, sniffled, and blubbered, “yes, sir.”

Grabbing her arm again he pulled her down the hallway. Mullet-man was squeezing her arm so hard that she was certain she would have a bruise. Marcus was pulling her after him. She shuffled as best she could with the shackles still ensnaring her ankles. She tripped and almost stumbled but the tight grip by her two jailors kept her from falling to the ground. Marcus growled for her to keep moving. The fear in her stomach and the lingering heat in her behind kept her moving.

Theresa was led into a room labeled “intake showers.” Marcus let her go; mullet-man followed suit. “Take a shower, princess,” Marcus said. Then, “Duane, get the powder.”

Theresa shuffled forward. The room held nearly two dozen shower heads. Each nozzle had its own isolation valve. Rust stained the lone drain in the center. A few tiles were cracked, and even more were missing, like gaps in a young child’s smile waiting happily for the tooth fairy. Standing by one isolation valve, sitting low enough so that she could reach it with her arms locked behind her back, Theresa turned around to switch the flow from “off” to “on.” There was no temperature control. She could control when water came out but could not regulate how hot or cold the water was. She flashed Duane an angry glance when Arctic water poured from the shower head.

Duane laughed. “This ain’t no fancy hotel, princess. Get in, get out. Showerin’ or whorin’, it’s all the same.”

Theresa ducked under the frigid water. The water was too cold to enjoy. The cold of it caused her teeth to chatter and her skin to awash in goosebumps. She stayed under as little as she could and would have called her intolerant shower over if Duane hadn’t pushed her back in. “Come on, princess. Wash off that stink.”

She hated him. She didn’t stink. She showered daily and washed her hair with two-hundred dollar high-caliber shampoo. She wore the best perfumes. She was a clean woman with clean morals and even cleaner standards and this miserable shower was far below her standards.

Theresa rinsed herself; her handcuffed arms didn’t allow her to do anything more. She hated the icy water. She hated the way the focused stream stung her skin. She hated the rusty drain and the broken tiles, stained with both tears and time. It wasn’t her shower at home where a huge nozzle rained water hot enough to steam the pure, pristine glass and the expansive mirror above the long, double vanity. This was a hateful place and she hated it.

When Duane returned, Marcus told her she was clean enough. Theresa happily turned the water off only to go temporarily blind as Duane threw two large buckets of some stinking white powder onto her. It was as fine as flour, falling onto her in a milky haze. The powder stuck to her wet body. Some of the power got in her eyes, her mouth, her nose. She coughed before spitting a big wad of phlegm on the wet floor. “I can’t see,” she moaned, blinking rapidly. The powder stung her eyes and soon she was crying. The tears rinsed the burning powder away. The room became blurry then began to clear as her vision returned. She coughed again, spit again. She tried to wipe her eyes, but the handcuffs rendered it an impotent action.

“Had to make sure you ain’t got no lice,” Marcus said.

She wanted to scream in both anger and frustration. She was a judge! A dependable, well-respected member of polite society. Of course, she didn’t have any lice. She started to say something but before she could Duane and Marcus were once again leading her deeper into the prison. They escorted her past a half-dozen closed doors. They were numbered but gave no other indication what they were for which only fueled her imagination as she pictured the indignities each closed door concealed. Did any of the rooms contain other prisoners? Were they naked, their skin red, with watery eyes, burning with some awful delousing powder or were they shackled, spread-eagle to the wall or the floor? Did those closed doors hide women in straight-jackets or unforgiving metal yokes, keeping their arms spread and their naked bodies defenseless. She found herself shivering from the cold and her heated imagination.

The last door on the right was open. Marcus pushed her inside. There was another table, almost identical to the one at the courthouse. The brown leather seemed to say, “remember me?” It wasn’t a sight she would ever forget. Hadn’t that famous actress said the same thing? “Every time I shut my eyes, I picture that ugly table with its hungry stirrups. I’ll never forget it. Never!” Now Theresa was feeling the same way. With her eyes opened or with them shut she could see the heavy table with its thick leather padding and the stirrups stuck on the ends and spread so terribly wide.

Marcus finally unshackled her. As she was rubbing her sore wrists, Duane slapped the table. “Hop on up,” he said, reminding her of the Sherriff who had uttered the same exact words. It was like they were operating from a script.

When Theresa hesitated, Marcus gave her ass a swat. The slap echoed in the tiny, claustrophobic room.

Theresa jumped then hopped onto the table. Marcus pushed her down as Duane strapped her knees into the stirrups with thick leather bands. Marcus did the same to her hands before running two additional straps over her chest, one at her shoulders and the other just below her breasts. She pulled at her bondage, finding that she was as trapped as an insect pinned to a corkboard in a middle school biology class or a prisoner in a cell.

“We’re gonna shave ya,” Marcus said.

Theresa struggled against the straps upon hearing that, but she could not move, and she could not close her legs and so she would be unable to stop this newest degradation. She’d had pubic hair since she was fourteen, seeing it as a sign of her womanhood. She’d trimmed it and kept it neat, but she had never taken it away and now it was going to be taken from her. And why not? They had taken her freedom and her dignity. What was her pubic hair when compared to that?

Duane left the room and came back a few minutes later with a pink disposable razor, a can of mentholated shaving cream, a small green towel, and a jar of some ointment she couldn’t place. He was humming a song she couldn’t place. The song didn’t matter. He was having a good time. Music must have made it better.

With Marcus watching, a huge grin on her dark face, Duane lathered her pubes, taking delight in the way the menthol made her squirm. She wanted to close her legs. Oh, how she wanted to. Exactly as before and exactly as that famous actress had uttered. There was a fire in her crotch now as the shaving cream began to burn. She felt fresh tears in her eyes as the heat got to her. Those tears were replaced by newer ones, tears born of humiliation, as her pubes were shorn away. The Sherriff had pulled on the wispy tufts, uttering that it had to go and now, with Marcus smiling at her and Duane pulling the razor along her skin it was happening. She was being shaved bare.

Eventually it was done. Duane used the towel to clean away the last few remnants of shaving cream. He ran his hand over skin, feeling how smooth she was now. “What do you think, Marcus?”

Marcus aped Duane’s actions, running his fingers along the naked skin. “Smooth,” he said, drawing the word out like taking a long pull on a cigarette.
Marcus grabbed the jar of ointment. “This here will keep you bare, princess,” he said. “With enough of this that hair will never grow back.”

“No!” Her voice echoed in the room.

Both Duane and Marcus laughed, first at her outburst and then at her useless flailing. She wasn’t going anywhere. They knew it and she knew it. Marcus opened the jar and slathered the cold, blue gel against her crotch. He worked the gel into her skin, rubbing it around, making sure he reached every possible nook and cranny.

Theresa struggled against the straps. She tried closing her legs. She strained against the tight bands that held her, wanting to reach down, to gather the cold, hated goop and throw it at Marcus, at Duane, on the floor. Anywhere but on the skin at the apex of her widely bound thighs.

“Just sit still, princess,” Duane said. “We’ll be back for you in a bit.”

They left her there, lying on her back, her legs tied wide apart as that hated cream worked its horrible magic. Gone, her pubic hair was gone, never to return. Her first period was the first thing that had marked her as a woman. Her pubic hair had come next, even before she developed breasts and now that hair was gone, never to return. Fresh tears accompanied that hurtful realization.

She lay there for about twenty minutes, feeling a rising heat in her crotch. She struggled to close her legs, but the straps were too strong. The heat began to sting and then burn. Her hips began to rise and fall as the burning became more intense. What started as a heated ache became a nuclear fire. Fresh tears spilled from her eyes. Her thighs ached from trying to close them. She found herself pleading for help, calling into the empty room. “Please, help me,” she begged as her hands curled into fists so tight that her fingernails dug into her palms. “Please. It burns!”

She didn’t notice when the pain began to wane. It wasn’t until it was almost gone that she realized that her crotch was no longer aflame. The ointment had done its damage, rendering her bare forever. That thought made her cry again. She didn’t sob. That came later, but new tears followed the milky trail of the older ones that had washed away part of the delousing powder.

“All done,” Duane said, entering the room. Marcus was right behind him. “Let’s get you dressed.” He glanced the utilitarian clock ensconced behind an iron grill. “We’re to get you to the fields by three.”

It was the same time the Sherriff had uttered back at the courthouse.

As Duane unshackled her, Marcus threw a burlap dress at her feet. “Get dressed,” he grumbled.

Theresa wiped away her tears with her palms before picking up the course dress. She hastened to comply, anxious to cover her nudity. She slipped the dress over her head, slid her arms into the gaping holes, and smoothed the dress downward. It was rough and scratchy and as porous as a colander. One nipple popped out of a small tear in the burlap fabric. The burlap irritated her skin or was that the remnants of her shameful delousing?

Marcus cuffed her hands behind her back again but left her legs unfettered. “Let’s go, princess,” Marcus said, grabbing her arm.

They led her back down the same hallway she’d already seen. Behind one of the closed doors she thought she heard crying, but she wasn’t sure. With what she had endured it would not surprise her to find that some innocent woman was suffering just as she had. Was another woman lying on her back, her legs splayed as a fiery cream burned her skin or was she suffering some other, unknown, indignity? She trembled in both terror and shame.

A white panel van was waiting for her. Marcus helped her into the van. Two benches ran along each side. Large metal rings were welded into the floor. There was enough space for eight women but only Tracy was going for a ride. Marcus set her on the bench behind the driver and using a fresh pair of cuffs, he locked one to her left ankle and the other end of the cuff was attached to one of the rings, locking her to the van by that hateful little cuff. “Good to go,” Marcus said.

Duane got behind the wheel as Marcus shut her in.

It took less than ten minutes to get to the part of the cotton fields where five other prisoners, all wearing a burlap sack were bent over plucking cotton with their bare fingers. One of the women was wearing a ball gag, the rest had their attention focused on the task at hand, plucking cotton from the plants and shoving the silky white fabric into another burlap sack.

Duane parked the van and a moment later he had her uncuffed and in the field with the other five women and one bored looking guard standing next to a mountain of bags filled with cotton. The guard wasn’t holding a gun; instead, a heavy wooden paddle was resting in his calloused hands. “Got another one for ya,” Duane said.

The guard merely yawned.

Theresa was given a fresh bag and told to fill it up. “One swat with the strap for each pound you’re light,” she was told. It was a forty-pound bag, and it was empty. How could she possibly fill it up? She wasn’t built for this. She was a judge, used to sitting in a comfortable chair, in an air-conditioned courthouse, listening to arguments that mattered, not plucking balls of cotton from stubby, prickly plants. It wasn’t fair. Nothing that had happened to her today was fair. The thought of it almost made her cry again.

She glanced at the women around her. Each prisoner was unkempt, with dirty hair, filthy feet, and soiled clothing. Their faces were dirty; the only thing remotely clean about them was the area under their eyes, stained clean by silent tears. The one wearing the ball gag looked miserable, with drool running down her chin. She, like the others, were pulling cotton from the plants and shoving the stringy balls into their individual sacks. None of the women were sitting on the ground; they all kept their fingers on the plants and their legs straight, bent at the waist. Nobody was sitting or kneeling.

Theresa reached for the first bit of cotton. It was like pulling the top off a Q-tip. The cotton came off as a wispy tuft in her hand with a lazy string at the bottom. She put the single ball of cotton in her sack. How much did that weigh? Half an ounce? Less? How long would it take her to fill a forty-pound bag? The thought was maddening. The whole situation was like a terrible traffic accident, sad and tragic. She did not belong here.

“I’m a judge,” she whispered.

The guard perked up. He approached Theresa, pulled his arm back, and gave Theresa a smart slap on her ass. “No talkin’ or you’ll get a gag like Margaret there. You like that Margaret?”

Margaret, the woman wearing the ball gag just nodded as if to say, “yes, sir.”

Theresa, glaring at the guard and rubbing her behind, had her doubts that Margaret liked the gag. She knows better than to disagree, Theresa thought. Would she be the same after her ninety days? Would she say or do anything to prevent an unwarranted punishment? She wanted to think she was stronger than that, but she knew it wasn’t true. That thought saddened her, both in how shameful the thought was and how terribly adult, too.

An hour in and Theresa's bag was less than a quarter full. Her back was throbbing; her fingers hurt more. She cracked the knuckles on her right hand but that didn’t soothe the ache in her fingers. As more time ticked by, she hurt more and more, unaccustomed to the harsh labor under a blazing sun.

The sun was bright; the day was hot. Too hot. Mosquitoes, flies, and no-see-um’s buzzed around her ears. Every time she swatted some pesky insect away, it would return, sometimes alone, often with its brothers or sisters, aunts or uncles.

Time kept moving as did her fingers on those tiny, nearly weightless tufts of cotton. Her skin, slick with sweat, made her long for the icy shower she had condemned two hours earlier. God, she thought, this is horrible.

When the sun had drifted far enough across the sky to call it a day, Theresa had been saddened to hear her bag was twenty-two pounds light. The guard, an ugly, smelly brute named Gordon, weighed the bags on a cheap bathroom scale right there in the dirt. Gordon smiled and told her to “bend over.” She didn’t want to but what good would resisting do? She was wise enough to know that it would only bring her more pain.

Theresa bent, resting her aching hands on her knees. She blushed when Gordon raised the hem of her burlap dress, leaving her bare ass pointing towards the darkening sky.

The first swat stung more than that first one hours earlier admonishing her to be quiet. That one had been a warning. This one was to punish. She whimpered, cried out in pain, and moved away from Gordon and his terrible wooden paddle.

“Get back in position, slut,” Gordon hissed.

Margaret and the other women looked on with sad eyes and a dejected, defeated gaze. They were familiar with the paddle and how it felt as it fell, one painful swat for each missing pound of light-weight cotton. Theresa waddled backwards and braced for the next blow from that hated, heavy paddle. Gordon brought the board down. The slap was loud, and it hurt, God how it hurt. She was pushed forward by the blow and it took all her will to put herself in position for the next strike.

She was crying by the sixth swat; crying harder at number eleven. When it was done and she was standing off to the side, shameful tears blurring her vision, Theresa could only watch as the other women received their punishment for a job poorly done. It did not matter that they were given an impossible quota. That was the point. They were meant to fail. Theresawas surprised that she had not received the most spanks. She had shown up late. The other women each had two bags to fill, “Carol,” Gordon said, “nineteen pounds light.” He gave a whistle like it was an impressive feat. “My arm’s gonna be sore.”

Carol began to blubber before the first blow fell. She begged him to reconsider. “Let me work at the club,” she pleaded, dropping to her knees. She opened her legs and pulled her burlap dress over her head, auditioning for the job at the strip club she knew far too much about. And something she didn’t know about at all. “I’ll do really good at the club. Please, please.” A hiccup escaped Carol’s lips. She followed that with another, “please.”

“Can’t rightly say that’ll be fair to the other ladies here.” Gordon glanced at Theresa, “sides, you’re not the next one going to The ‘Victs.” He smiled. “That honor is for Her Honor.”

Carol’s eyes cut to Theresa, giving her a look of pure venom. Theresa felt her throat tighten. With that one statement, Gordon had made a target to Carol, singling her out for special, preferential treatment. Putting the newcomer ahead of those that came before. Theresa was suddenly worried, imaging what new horrors she would endure, this time by the hand of a broken, dejected convict? Theresa felt even more helpless.

“So, up on your feet and bent over.”

Wailing loud enough to cause a Tom turkey a few rows over to scuttle away, squawking angrily. Carol reached for her burlap shift. “Leave it,” Gordon said. “You can have it back when the judge,” this time he pointed at Theresa, leaving no doubt who he meant, “finally begs to work as a whore.”

Carol choked back another sob then gave Theresa another icy glare.

Gordon waited until Carol was standing naked, bent at the waist, her ass pointing towards the setting sun. It took him nearly ten minutes to deliver every swat Carol “owed.” It was preposterous to owe a debt in pain and shame, but Carol paid it, enduring every swat until Gordon had collected what he was due.

When it was over all six women were crying. Margaret had her ball gag removed before she was paddled – an even twelve swats – so that Gordon could hear her “count em out loud.” He made her count each swat, even making her thank him when it was over. It was just another indignity in a whole, uneven stream of them.

Duane pulled up in the van just as Margaret counted off number twelve. All six women were led to the van and locked to the iron ring welded in place. They were quiet, except for the sniffling and the sobbing. Except for Margaret’s counting and Carol’s begging it had been an eerily mute day. The ball gag Margaret had been forced to wear only proved what Theresa suspected. Talking was not allowed. Crying was seemingly encouraged but talking was verboten.

They weren’t allowed to shower. As they passed the shower Duane informed her with more glee that she thought necessary that they’d be “left to stink.” He cackled as he said it. “It’s not like you have any customers, princess. You’ll shower when you work at the club. Otherwise, it’s back to the fields tomorrow so why waste the water.”

After a long, humiliating, and painful day she was finally led to her cell. The cell was small, far smaller than she expected. It was a squat rectangle, no more than eight feet on a side. There was a cot in one corner with a stained mattress that was too thin. I have heels thicker than that, she thought, instantly longing for those shoes. Atop the bed was a thread-bare woolen blanket and a thin pillow that looked to be missing half its stuffing. In the corner opposite the bed was a steel toilet with a built-in sink above the flush valve. Above the sink was a stainless-steel mirror bolted to the concrete wall. She glanced at herself in the mirror. Her face was filthy; her hair was greasy and matted. She wanted a shower or a bath but would have to settle for rinsing off with whatever water came from the sink.

She washed herself as best she could, wishing she could do more. There was no hot water, but even the cold water splashing against her face, her pits, her crotch made her feel a bit better. Alone in cell, she got to explore the porcelain smoothness of her denuded crotch. They had been thorough; there wasn’t a hair to be found. She felt another bang of humiliating anger with the thought that she’d never have hair there again.

Theresa sat on the bed. She hugged her knees, her back pressed against the wall. She could feel the cool concrete even through her burlap dress. The dress was all she had to wear? Should she wash it? That seamed like a good idea. She didn’t have a place to hang the dress so she spread it out on the floor. It was better than nothing.

She was served dinner in the cell. A plastic tray was slid beneath the cell door. There was a lump of cold mashed potatoes and a tiny piece of Salisbury steak that was more gristle than meat. The gravy was as thin as her blanket. A tiny box of chocolate milk and a stale dinner roll completed the meal. Seeing it made her stomach grumble. It had been far too long since she’d eaten. Tracy ate. The meal was cold and bland, but it was better than nothing.

An hour later, her tray was picked up by a lecherous guard trying to peek at what she was hiding under the covers. He dropped off a plastic bag containing a tiny toothbrush and some toothpaste. She brushed her teeth and then, finally, settled onto her uncomfortably rigid cot. She thought about her day, how she had fallen so far. She had come to town to make sure what was happening to her never happened to anyone again. How could she lose so much power so quickly? It wasn’t right and it wasn’t fair and the thought of her brought fresh, impotent tears to her eyes.

That night, Theresa cried herself to sleep.

*****


The day was hotter than the day before. After breakfast - cold, powdered eggs, two strips of soggy bacon and another box of chocolate milk – Theresa, Margaret, Carol and the other three prisoners were once again whisked to the fields. They were each given two sacks to fill. “A swat for each pound light,” they were reminded by Gordon, the gleeful, grinning, gluttonous guard. Theresa groaned, remembering how much she hurt from her few hours the day before. Today promised to be harder and longer.

She glanced at Carol who was already plucking cotton. Carol was naked, her burlap dress was stilly lying on the dirt twenty feet away where it had sat overnight. Working next to the other girls, Carol looked out of place, singled out and shamed, like an old elementary school student sitting on a barstool in the corner of a crowded classroom wearing a cone-shaped hat with the word dunce written on it. She could still picture how Carol had dropped to the ground, spreading her legs, begging to become a whore. What was Carol in the real world and how long had it taken her to offer up everything she was to get away from the heated field plucking cotton with painful, cramping fingers. Was she a senator or a CEO? A professor or a cop? Theresa was sure each of the women here came from powerful careers. That was something the Barbara-wanna-be had revealed interviewing that A-list actress.

“Get to working, your honor,” Gordon drawled, slapping his paddle against his thigh to drive home the point.

Theresa got to working. She squatted, her legs opening invitingly. Her scratchy dress not long enough to hide what she so wanted to keep hidden. She scurried her body away from Gordon and his grinning gaze. She plucked the first blob of cotton and set it in her sack. Over and over she pulled the feathery fabric from the tight grip of the plant only to put it into her burlap sack.

Her hands were hurting after an hour.

Her back was throbbing after two.

The sun caused sweat to run into her eyes. When she rubbed them, she saw that Carol had inched closer.

Still, they picked the cotton, as the sun inched across the clear, pristine sky in agonizing slowness.

Theresa jumped as an ant bit her naked foot. There were still gnats and mosquitoes and flies, now there were ants. She had worked herself along a long, tedious row and was standing in an angry bed of irritated fire ants. Another ant bit her foot. A third. Two more. She squealed, hopping away from her half-full bag of cotton. She bent then, rubbing the biting bastard ants off her feet.

“Get back to work, princess,” Gordon said, apathetic to the pain she was feeling.

She pointed to her abandoned sack of cotton and as she started to complain she watched as Gordon picked the same ball gag Margaret had worn the day before from a sack of horrors that she knew nothing about. Seeing the gag, Theresa stopped her protesting. Instead, she rubbed her feet, making sure she killed any ant she found.

With Theresa distracted by the ants, Carol pounced. Carol began shoveling handfuls of cotton from Theresa's sack into her own. One, two, another. As Gordon was reaching for the ball gag and leering threateningly at Theresa, Carol grabbed another two fists of cotton. When Theresa was smooshing the ants that had had the temerity to bite her, Carol had emptied most of Theresa's sack into her own. Before Theresa returned to plucking cotton, Carol had moved herself and her mostly full sack about ten feet further away.

Theresa returned to her sack of cotton. It was far lighter than it had been. She picked it up. She glanced around the bag, then to each of the women present. Carol was grinning as she pulled another strand of cotton free from its plant only to deposit into her nearly bulging burlap sack.

That bitch, Theresa thought. She almost said something but with the treat of the ball gag and the memory of Margaret drooling over herself the day before she, she kept quiet. Besides, what would Gordon do? Nothing. Not a God Damned thing. Theresa remembered the look Carol had given her the day before and imaging what new horrors she would endure, this time by the hand of a broken, dejected convict? Now she knew. Carol had all but guaranteed she’d get paddled and by quite a few more strokes than the day before.

Carol kept on working. Every time Theresa would glance her way, Carol would give her a sweet, southern smile, the kind that would say, “well, bless her heart.” The kind that was full of hateful, undisguised malice.

Lunch was a simple bologna and ketchup sandwich that made Theresa want to puke. Under the heat of the sun both the meat and the ketchup were terribly hot. They were each given a plastic bottle of water that was just as warm as the bologna. Theresa choked the sandwich down, then drained the water in one, long, needy pull.

After lunch, she, Margaret, Carol, and the other three prisoners went back to work.

Her fingers ached, but her back hurt more. No, that wasn’t true, she thought. Her back screamed in agony, but she knew better than to drop to her knees to rest. No, that wasn’t a good idea at all. She had learned that the hard way that very first day.

Standing in the afternoon sun, sweat running into her eyes, she had perfectly aped the other women, bent over, her knees kept perfectly straight or squatting down with her legs obscenely splayed, revealing the truth of her nakedness beneath the scratchy burlap sack she wore as a dress. When her back began to ache, she had decided to drop to her knees. Immediately her back felt better. She knew why the other women were being quiet. Seeing one woman bent over, her legs perfectly straight, wearing a ball gag had taught her quickly that one didn’t talk when one was working. She learned a bit too slowly why the women didn’t drop to their knees to ease the pain in their backs and their shoulders. She had knelt on the soft ground and not ten seconds later the lone guard was there, grinning at her with a look of triumph, like that of a high-school bully making the fat kid cry.

“Well, well, honey, what do we have here?”

Theresa had glanced at the girl with the ball gag in her mouth, the tight leather straps digging painfully into her cheeks and kept my mouth shut. She shook her head as if to say she was sorry.

“A girl on her knees is only good for one thing,” he drawled.

Theresa watched in muted horror as the guard, a fat man that smelled of dirt, sweat, and day-old deodorant that had long since lost its ability to do its job unzipped his fly and pulled out his cock. Theresa had tried to protest but a slap across the face that stung so much that she saw stars stopped her cold, rendering her stunned, shocked, and compliant. Gordon had taken what he wanted, shoving his erection in Theresa's mouth until she gagged on the thing. He left his cock there. She gulped, tasting his sweat, his piss. He didn’t do anything else; he just kept his prick in her mouth until it hardened. Then, satisfied he made his point, he had pulled it free and zipped it back up. “A girl on her knees is good for one thing, princess. Sucking cock. Now, get back to work.” He turned away, paused, “you won’t get another warning.”

No, Theresa knew not drop to her knees. That first lesson had been all she needed.

Theresa and the others continued to pluck cotton. At the end of the day, Carol had filled both her bags, as had Margaret and all but one other girl. That girl nodded mutely as she stoically took three swats from the paddle.

Theresa wasn’t so lucky. Thanks to Carol, Theresa had filled one sack. The second one was nearly empty.

“Thirty-four pounds.” He whistled, clearly impressed by Theresa's failure. Hadn’t he seen that Carol had stolen some cotton from her bag? Maybe he had but it did not matter. Not one whit. She wanted to protest. In a courtroom some lawyer would pronounce, “I object,” and Theresa would listen to a sound, reasoned argument or some trivial grasping at straws and she would rule according to the law. Here the law didn’t matter. Results did.

Theresa realized at that moment that the cotton meant nothing. That the bags meant nothing. The women were brought to the field to break them. To make them beg to work on their backs with their legs in the air. Surely that would be better than back-breaking work under the hot son, where your paid for your shortcomings with pain. The fields were there simply to shatter their spirit and make them plead for something shameful. To take high-ranking, professional women and turn them into whores. She felt her mouth fall open as the reality washed over her like a giant wave swamping an inexperienced surfer.

“Bend over, your honor.”

Theresa bent. Carol, standing naked and proud in the waning light, moved in front of Theresa. Theresa saw her and knew that Carol had shifted to drive home the point. “I did this to you,” she was saying silently. It was a show of power by a powerless woman. Theresa felt even lower.

Gordon made Theresa count out each stroke. By ten she was crying. At twenty she finally started to sob. She was incoherent by the time Gordon was done.

Theresa's ass was a red, fiery mass. She had to hold her dress up because the burlap rubbing the heated skin added to the pain.

Carol was grinning. If she could she’d be whistling a happy, little ditty. “Hi ho, hi ho, I made your ass glow.”

Theresa barely got any sleep that night. She wasn’t used to sleeping on her stomach but that second night she had no choice. If her ass wasn’t bruised, she would be surprised.

*****

She had once that that she would never beg. She had been wrong. It took six days. Six days working in the fields, with her fingers knots of pain and her back screaming in agony was all it took before she begged to work at Convicts. It had to be better stripping off my clothes for gawking strangers than working in the fields, every part of her body aching, from her fingers where she plucked the cotton, to her back and shoulders from staying bent over, allowing the shortened hem of the burlap sack to ride so high that the guards, the passerby’s (including that one black man that had said he couldn't wait to see it) the other women and God himself could see everything she had to offer.

She’d been broken in less than a week.

Gordon nodded. “I’ll let the Sherriff know.” He grinned. “Sheila’s got something special cooked up for ya’.” He said it with such casualness, like it meant nothing, but he knew that thinking about it would eat her up, make her lose sleep with worry. She’d probably miss even more of her cotton quota, anxiously pondering what Sheila had planned. “Now, get back to work.”

*****

Forty-eight hours later she had her first shower in ten long, sweaty, hot, hurtful, hateful days. That was the day she got to see Convicts for the very first time.
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Re: Lakewood Avenue - Part 2

Post by SmCyber »

Loving this really well done. Perhaps rather than begging to go to the cat house the broken girls have to beg to AUDITION to be considered.
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