I knew I was caught as soon as I put the lipstick in my purse. I'd been shoplifting since I was ten years old, a full decade of swiping sticks of gum and flimsy shirts and anything else I could fit in my bag, my bra, my pants. Half the time, I didn't even want what I stole. I would give it away, or throw it in the garbage can just outside the store. I only wanted to see if I could get away with it.
But now, for the first time, there was no getting away with it.
"Miss?" One of the clerks, a tall guy with an earring twinkling from his left ear, beckoned to me, but I pretended that I hadn't heard him.
I started walking toward the exit, trying to look like I was any other customer, done with browsing and ready to move on to the next store. But there was a broad-shouldered security guard waiting for me, and he stepped in front of the exit.
"Come with me, miss," he said.
Before I could second-guess my decision, I took off running. My purse slapped against my ass and my sneakers pounded the linoleum tiles of the mall as I tried to weave my way in between the crowd. But from behind me, I could feel the security guard gaining, and I hadn't made it halfway to the Food Court when he grabbed me from behind and wrestled me to the ground. His large hand was pushing my head down to the floor, his knee in the small of my back as he gathered my wrists behind me and snapped handcuffs around them. My skirt hadn't felt particularly short when I left the house, but now it felt positively indecent as it rucked up around my waist, only the thin strip of my thong giving any coverage to my bare ass cheeks as they were presented to onlookers who'd stopped to gawk.
All this over a lipstick?
"Show's over," he tersely told the crow¬¬d as he pulled me to my feet. But as he escorted me back to the store, he whispered in my ear, "Or is it only beginning?"
What did that mean?
I tugged on my handcuffed hands, not because I thought I'd actually get away, but because I wanted him to know that I wasn't willing. My daddy was a high-profile attorney. He wouldn't let them get away with treating me like this. In my mind, I documented all the offenses so far - physical assault, emotional distress, public humiliation . . .
And all over a lipstick.
The security guard dragged me into a back office and sat me down on a chair. "Don't move," he said, and then he left, locking the door behind him.
"I get one phone call!" I shouted. But the door was thick metal - surprisingly sturdy, actually, for a dinky office in the back of a mall store - and I doubt he heard me.
Half an hour probably passed before the door opened again, only this time it was the clerk who walked in. His face was long, the thin slash of his mouth cruel, and he regarded me as if I were some kind of bug he'd like to stomp beneath his shoe.
"I'd like to call my father," I said imperiously, before adding, "he's an attorney, you know."
The clerk's diamond earring winked at me, mocking me. "You can make whatever phone call you'd like in two hours," he said. "Providing you're a good girl and do everything we say."
For some reason, his words caused heat to flood my lower abdomen, and I pressed my thighs together, squeezing the inner muscles of my vagina as if to stop the juices from flowing. The clerk smiled slightly, as if he knew exactly what I was feeling.
"Stand up," he said.
I wanted to disobey him, just to prove that he couldn't tell me what to do, but I saw no reason to not stand. The way my hands were cuffed behind my back made my tits thrust out proudly, and I raised my chin as the clerk's gaze drifted over my body. I knew I was hot. My waist was small, my legs long, my breasts larger than average. I'd only had two boyfriends, but they'd both told me over and over how fuckable they found my body. Despite that, I'd always felt slightly disappointed by both of them in the bedroom, our sessions lasting no more than twenty minutes apiece.
That was why I felt this excitement coursing through me, I told myself, even though I didn't want this. The clerk had taken a pair of scissors from the desk and was calmly cutting through my shirt, as though he were simply cutting a tag off of merchandise.
"You can't do this," I said, trying to pull back. He rested the blade of the scissors against the swell of my breast that showed now above my exposed bra.
"Careful," he said, and kept cutting. He cut it into ribbons until I was standing in only my bra, my shirt in pieces on the floor. When he was done, he sliced my bra off, too, until I stood before him completely topless, my hands still bound behind my back, my large peach-colored nipples erect.
"Does this excite you?" he asked.
"I only stole a lipstick."
"Ah, yes." He cut the strap of my purse until it fell away from my body, and then rifled through it until he found the tube of lipstick. He turned it over to look at the sticker on the bottom.
"Berry Bliss," he said, and opened the top, turning it until the slanted color rose from the tube. It reminded me of my clitoris suddenly, which felt like it was rising, too, bulging against the thin fabric of my thong.
He reached out to apply the lipstick to my mouth, slathering it on thickly. I yanked my head away and felt the lipstick slide on my cheek, and he chuckled softly. Gathering one bountiful breast in his hand, he painted my nipple purplish-red with the lip color, and then did the same to the other side. I felt myself trembling. When I looked down, I realized he had drawn X's over both nipples, as though marking the spot.
Then he pulled on the stretchy elastic of my skirt, taking my thong with it, and tugged them down my legs until I was completely nude except for my sneakers. He removed those last, kissing my calves as he did so.
I longed to kick him in the balls, but I would lose my balance. I longed to cover myself, but the cuffs were tight, and every time I strained against them I could feel the chafe of the metal against my wrists. I closed my eyes. Could this really be happening?
Something prodded at my shaved labia, and I felt the pressure of the lipstick as he drew an X over my most secret place before turning me around and drawing a large X over my ass, too, his strokes strong and sure. Oh god. He was marking me, like a pirate might mark buried treasure on a map.
I started to cry, hot tears streaking down my cheeks, and he capped the lipstick. "That's okay, baby," he said, pinching one of my nipples, leaving purplish-red streaks on his fingers. "It's okay to cry. You've been a bad girl."
"I don't w-want this," I said. "Let me call my father, please, and he'll p-pay you, I promise. He'll pay you hundreds of dollars, more than the eight dollars the lipstick cost. Or send me to jail. P-please, just don't . . ."
His face was very close as he jammed a finger inside of me, twisting it and swirling it around in my juices in the most agonizing rhythm before adding another finger, and then another. "Do you steal a lot, bad girl?"
Something told me that he would know if I lied. I bit my lip, tasting the slick lipstick that covered it. "Y-yes."
"Then don't you think you deserve to be punished?"
He withdrew his fingers, and for a moment it felt like that was to be my punishment, to be denied the relief that I'd been careening towards. But then I felt something else nudge my slit, and he'd shoved the tube of lipstick inside me. After the glorious movement of his fingers, the tube felt too small, too inert, and I squirmed against it, unable to help the moan that escaped from my lips.
The clerk stood back. "Run in place," he commanded, "and don't let it drop."
I clenched my vaginal muscles as tightly as I could to hold the tube in as I started to run, picking up my knees when he told me to, feeling the heavy weight of my breasts bounce against my ribcage and then up toward my chin. For a few minutes, the only sound in the room was my panting and the slap slap slap of skin against skin.
"Try to see if you can catch your nipple in your mouth," he said, "and don't stop until I tell you to."
I was surprised when he left without even waiting to see if I'd obey, but of course I did, running faster and faster, my mouth opening spasmodically every time my tits were on the upswing, taunted by the purple X's that teased me as I struggled to catch my nipple between my lips. This is impossible, I thought, but the challenge only fueled me further. My tears became tears of frustration and humiliation as I kept running in the empty room.
I ran for a while, my breasts aching painfully, my ankles and calves like jelly, before the clerk re-entered the room, this time with the security guard in tow.
"Turn around and lift your hands," the clerk said. "Keep running."
