Author's note: This story uses the same characters as Auction in Limoges but there is no link between the two stories - this is a completely separate story, fleshing out a new fantasy that 'Sophie' has had recently.
"Guilty!"
As the gavel banged down, Sophie's stomach lurched. She knew she had been playing with fire and now she had been caught.
For as long as they had been together George had encouraged Sophie to flaunt her body, making it clear that the idea of her being publicly (semi-) naked turned him on. Sophie's family was very private, though, to the extent that she grew up very careful never even to change in front of her parents.
It had taken years of gentle persistence from George before Sophie had started to relax her views. A big breakthrough had been when Sophie had started wearing lacier bras (which she loved anyway) whilst pregnant. Her breasts had grown so that her bras were quite tight, and her nipples had become huge. When erect (which they often were around George) they poked straight through the lace of the bra and formed prominent nubs under her t-shirt.
Sophie pointed out her erect nipples under her t-shirt to George one day in public, which had delighted him. To Sophie's surprise, it had also lit a fire in her belly, especially when she noticed other men also staring at her chest. Egged on by George, she had stoked this fire by wearing more and more revealing clothing, and starting to put herself in situations where she wasn't in control of her nakedness.
One thing had led to another, and she had found herself locked out of their London hotel, on the balcony overlooking a busy street, utterly exposed. George had refused to unlock the balcony door until she took, and sent to him, explicit photos of her engorged pussy lips.
Throughout her initial outraged refusal, her dawning realisation that George was deadly serious about keeping her locked out, and her eventual acquiescence, two things happened. The first was that her pussy leaked all over her thighs as she became more and more turned on by the lack of control. The second was that members of the public passing by saw and photographed everything.
Eventually, after the photos had arrived on George's phone and he had studied them intently (and infuriatingly slowly), he had let her back into the hotel room with a mischevious grin on his face. And then fucked her until her pussy ached.
That was until the police arrived. She denied everything of course, but her denials became futile when the arrestingly handsome police officer showed her the explicit pictures taken by the police photographer...which were undoubtedly now doing the rounds on police WhatsApp chats. At least George would be happy.
The trial had been humiliating, especially when the prosecuting lawyer had displayed the police pictures of her on the courtroom projector for everyone, including the public gallery, to see. Sophie had wanted the ground to swallow her up. She had refused to acknowledged the part of her that saw that her photos had the rapt attention of almost every man, and many of the women, in the courtroom. She was never going to admit how much that turned her on.
And now she had been convicted for indecent exposure. Which carried a jail term. She couldn't afford this - it would destroy her career and take her away from her young son. The reality of her situation hit home and she could feel tears welling up. "I WILL NOT cry in the courtroom", she told herself again and again.
"We will adjourn for sentencing later today", the judge announced. As she filed out of the courtroom behind Aaliyah, her lawyer, Sophie despaired. She knew the sentence for indecent exposure had recently been ramped up: 3 years minimum with only weekend release.
As the room emptied, the court clerk hurried over to Aaliyah and thrust a slip of paper into her hand. Aaliyah looked down to read it, a frown creasing her forehead. Aaliyah was brilliant, Sophie knew, but the frown wasn't one that gave Sophie cause for optimism. Something had disturbed her lawyer.
As the two of them retired to the holding room to await the sentencing, Aaliyah explained what was on her mind.
"You want to avoid prison at all costs, don't you?" she asked.
"Yes" said Sophie dejectedly. "But that's just it - there's no hope of that now is there?"
A surprise win for the new Conservative party leader in a snap election earlier in the year had been in large part because of a promise to 'reverse the moral decline' in the country. As soon as she had won the election she had ramped up legal punishments for any indecent behaviour, and instituted a system of 'moral police' on the streets on Friday and Saturday nights. Romantic or sexual behaviour in public was strictly curtailed, and controversial new clothing laws regulated how much cleavage women could show, and what skirt length was allowed.
Sophie noted with distate that men's clothing wasn't similarly regulated.
Perhaps recognising, however, that an outlet was needed for natural human desires, the new laws had included a provision for the first Saturday every month when the rules would be relaxed. Or, rather, removed entirely.
The logic was that, once per month, people could lock their doors and stay inside to protect themselves. This left those with pent-up sexual desires to roam the streets free to act on those desires with no sanction.
The cynic in Sophie noted that major donors to the leadership election campaign of the new Prime Minister had included CEOs of many of the most popular porn websites. She suspected that this hypocritical clause in the new laws was to keep those CEOs, and their clients, happy.
Still, Sophie had to admit that she had been tempted to walk the streets on that monthly Saturday, leaving herself open to the sexual assaults that had been so breathlessly reported in the same newspapers that had cheered on the new PM's 'moral crusade'.
Anyway, all of this had meant that the punishment for indecent behaviour had been explicitly written into the brand new laws, and there was no room for manoeuvre for the judge. Except...
"It appears there IS a way to avoid a jail term, or even a criminal record."
Sophie had been so lost in her thoughts that she had to rewind several minutes to re-engage in the conversation with Aaliyah. Ah yes, the note that the clerk had passed.
"But, this is great news!" Sophie exclaimed. "Why does your face look like you have just eaten a mouldy apple?"
"You haven't heard the alternative to a jail term yet." Aaliyah responded. "In fact, I'm not sure it is even worth discussing. You know I don't approve of these new laws, and would do anything to help you get back to your normal life. But this is beyond the pale."
Sophie's heart sank. She trusted Aaliyah, and knew her to be ruthlessly efficient in searching out the best outcome for Sophie in this current mess. No stone was left unturned, and so Sophie couldn't imagine what the clerk could have informed Aaliyah of that she would dismiss out of hand like this.
"If it can help me avoid jail time and a criminal record, we need to discuss it!" Sophie pleaded.
"Alright" Aaliyah replied reluctantly. "But it makes me so angry. This just exposes the hypocrisy of this 'moral crusade' all the more. It so clearly has the porn CEOs' hands all over it. I just can't belive the public are buying it."
"WHAT IS IT?!" Sophie exclaimed impatiently. "TELL ME!"
With a sigh, Aaliyah handed Sophie the note that the clerk had hastily scrawled to her.
The judge wishes to inform your client that an amendment to the Morality Act 2022 has just received Royal Assent. Upon conviction for a first offence of indecent exposure, an offender may choose either: 3 years in jail with weekend release, or one day in the newly installed stocks in Trafalgar Square, on the first Saturday in the month following conviction. Following a day in the stocks, the offender's criminal record will be wiped and their crime absolved.
"The Saturday where all laws about sexual behaviour are suspended", Aaliyah spat out. "Their
alternative
to jail time is gang rape. Eugh, something like this was bound to happen sooner or later."
Sophie knew exactly what Aaliyah was referring to. The 'first Saturday orgy' as the tabloids had gleefully proclaimed it, had turned out to be a damp squib. As could have been predicted by any sane observer, almost every woman was safely locked up inside as gangs of heterosexual men marauded the streets looking for female victims.
Almost
being the operative word here - in the few months that the new laws had been in effect, Sophie had noticed (and surreptitiously joined) some very interesting internet sub-cultures that had sprung up.
As well as the usual 'reclaim the streets' protests, there was a hidden but vocal set of forums with innocuous-sounding names such as 'weekend women'. Once through the sign-up and vetting process (which had been fierce) Sophie was able to read and show George forum posts about women's experiences venturing out onto the streets during the first Saturday of the month.
The posts were wild, terrifying and, in many cases, left Sophie turned on in every way. She would read them to George, rarely getting more than half-way through before begging George to fuck her as she imagined being bold enough to venture out herself.
Nevertheless, despite these hidden corners of the internet, the 'freedom Saturday' plan (as it had been labelled by its supporters) was seen as a failure so far. And so when Aaliyah said that "something was bound to happen", she meant that the backers of the new morality laws and their monthly exception needed to shake things up rather than admit that things weren't working.
What better way to shake it up than to force women to be outside on that first Saturday? And even better, to be trapped in stocks so that they were helpless and unable to escape public humiliation and gang rape?
Added to that, since the pandemic the criminal justice system had been on its knees. There was no space in the prisons and so, when the new PM had announced the morality laws, there had been an uproar in the press.
Build more prisons