Chapter 1
Madison didn't know what she had gotten herself into. A month ago, she had gotten a citation for jaywalking. She had the bad luck to cross the street in front of a cop who was having a bad day, or maybe he had nothing better to do. Due to recent legal reforms she did not have to go to a courtroom to have her case for such a minor crime. Instead a couple weeks later she had received a manila envelope stuffed with a thick packet of documents stapled together.
She could tell that the giant document, titled Penal Summons and Judicial Punishment Codebook, was sent to everybody. Not everything applied to her. Somebody had handwritten the personalized detail of her case on the page titled Penal Summons:
Madison Cain
, you have been adjudged guilty of
jaywalking
. You have been sentenced to
private, short-term, physical punishment
. Please refer to the punishment codes located in the Judicial Punishment Codebook that is included in your document packet. The codes that refer to you are
J21, J25
. Please follow the directions located in the Codebook. Schedule a session of the appropriate length on the Judicial Punishment website.
She anxiously flipped through the dense document. She struggled to translate the dense, technical language. The best she could tell she was going to be whipped or caned on her bare behind. What worried her the most was that it gave directions for how she had to groom herself down there but why wasn't totally clear. "
Why did that matter,"
she wondered
.
She had thrown herself into researching her predicament over the following few days. She was disheartened to learn that she had waived her right to appeal when she had signed some forms when she received the citation. She spent an hour waiting on hold with a very unhelpful lawyer who only confirmed what she had already feared. There was nothing she or anyone else could do to get her out of her predicament. Resigned she had scheduled a four-hour session on the Judicial Punishment website.
Now that it was the morning of her appointment, she was wracked with apprehension. She daydreamed about running away and going on the lam, but she knew that wasn't a real option. Somebody would come to fetch her when she was absent from her appointment without an excuse. She was sure it would make the punishment worse. No, she had to go to her punishment session. She followed the directions that had been sent to her. She wore comfortable clothes, a white cardigan and tight blue jeans and no jewelry as she left her single-bedroom apartment.
A half hour later Madison had exited the metro and walked to the newly built Justice Center. Arriving fifteen minutes before her scheduled time she walked to a side door of the imposing concrete edifice. She entered and approached a reception window. The middle-aged woman in the window checked her ID and confirmed her information. After consulting her terminal, the receptionist pointed Madison to a waiting area located through a door next to the window. When she sat down in the waiting area another employee handed her a clipboard with forms that she had to read through and sign.
It was mostly legalese wherein she affirmed her identity, mental faculties, and that she did not have any medical ailments that disqualified her from the punishment. "
Curse my general good health
," she joked to herself.
After she handed the clipboard to the attendant, he gave her a room number and pointed her to a hallway with several identical doors on the sides and ended with a heavy metal door. She entered room four and sat down on a comfortable, rolling chair that was next to the oval, wooden table in the middle of the room.
Almost immediately a woman with a business suit walked into the room and placed a paper filled folder on the table. She sat down and started, "Alright I have to get this out of the way first. Do you affirm that you are Madison Cain and that, under the threat of perjury, you have not taken any substances that could change your mood or cognitive functions?"
"Yes, ma'am"
"Ok, good, sign this for me," she directed, pushing a form across the table.
Madison scrawled her name on the oath, as the woman continued.
"I'm going to explain to you a little bit about what is going to happen today and answer any question you have." She hesitated.
Madison thought her pause was an invitation to speak, "Ok, I don't really know what's going on."
The woman nodded.
"I bet most people have no idea what's going on,"
Madison decided.
The woman flipped through her papers. "You will be given a private, short-term, physical punishment. Private means that only the staff involved will witness the procedure, short-term is that it will take less than a day, and physical that it will be corporal punishment."
Madison had deduced all of that over the last two weeks but she still grimaced hearing it read aloud.