6.
This is not at all how I imagined this going down, thought Barb to herself, as she wrenched her arm free of Sergeant Miller’s grasp and independently walked the rest of the way over to the bench in front of the lockers. She had decided that, if forced to strip in front of all these people and that fucking camera with it’s annoying blinking red light, they were going to see as little as possible.
Reaching over the bench, she opened a locker door and was grateful to see that the inside was rust free, unlike the outside. Removing her black Northface down-filled coat from where it had been draped over her left arm since entering the Center, she very slowly and deliberately hung it on one of the two inside hooks.
Turning to Sergeant Miller, she held up her little convertible backpack questionably.
“That too,” replied Sue, “Now stop stalling and get on with it! We haven’t got all day!”
Barb hung the pack on the other hook and turned to face the camera and the crowded room. She hesitated a moment, playing for time, then slid her gray suit jacket from her left shoulder, withdrew her arm, and shrugged the garment free. Folding it in half, she bent over and laid it carefully in the bottom of the locker.
Then she sat down on the bench, lifted and crossed a leg, unzipped and removed a boot. She turned to look for a place for it in the locker, but was stopped by Sue, who wordlessly and emphatically pointed to the floor. Barb nodded, laid the boot on the concrete and proceeded to remove the other.
“Shit! I’m running out of non-essentials,” she muttered to herself as she stood to face the room. Squinting into the bright glare of the portable LED light panels, she surveyed her audience, reckoning that she could make out as many as a dozen faces, all staring at her expectantly. It seemed as though the number of onlookers had grown.
Most of them, she didn’t know, thankfully. But Dean Windar’s surprising presence ... and the prospect of stripping naked in front of him ... her college Dean and supervisor ... the man who held in his power her academic future ... was quite unnerving ... not to mention the look she detected in his eyes.
“Don’t just stand there, you stupid cunt!” bellowed Sue, poking her in the side. “Take it off, NOW!”
“Alright! Alright!” hissed Barb, reaching for the buttons on her shirt which she slowly and methodically began to undo from top to bottom. Moments later she shed the shirt, again taking the time to fold it neatly and then refolded it before laying it in the bottom of the locker.
She turned to face her audience again, this time the harsh lights glinting off tears forming in her eyes. Undoing the fasteners and zipper holding up her skirt, she bent forward ... uncomfortably aware that by doing so, her dark-blue Bali half-cup was about to offer them an all too generous glimpse of cleavage ... and wriggled her skirt down over her hips before letting it slide down her legs to the floor.
Someone beyond the glare of the lights whistled ... presumably one of the male guards, although she couldn’t be certain ... and as she straightened up she couldn’t help but notice the way Dean Windar licked his lips, or the intensity with which Judge Powers was watching her.
Deciding she had had about enough, Barb placed her hands on her hips and ... standing there in nothing but bra, matching thong and dark thigh-high stockings ... launched into a passionate speech of protest.
“Look, you bastards!” she began diplomatically. “This is exactly why I have dedicated my academic career to researching and exposing the unjust and degrading treatment to which women have always been and continue to be subjected. I am giving notice, here and now, that I will participate no longer in this demeaning charade of justice .. not until I am allowed to read my statement and am assured that my words will be conveyed to and broadcast by the media!”
Judge Powers was the first to react to this sudden display of overt defiance, stating calmly, “You are on camera, Dr. Moore, as you most surely must have noticed. Let me assure you that the press is well aware of the deplorably criminal circumstances of your arrest, of your conviction and your sentencing; and that they have been duly informed of the disciplinary nature of today’s court-decreed proceedings; and have agreed to receive, for their use on all media outlets, an appropriately redacted video version of your statement as well as of your corporal punishment ... hence the presence today of video recording equipment and crew. As explained to you earlier, you will be allowed to read your prepared statement on camera, but not until you have completed this initial phase of today’s proceedings, which requires that you strip naked and submit to a full body search. Have I made myself understood?”
Barb blinked, her mind racing, uncertain how to respond.
“You heard the Judge!” intervened Sue. “Off with the rest of it now, or I’ll have a couple of the guards from ‘the pen’ do it for you!”
Barb hesitated a few moments more, casting a quick glance at Dean Windar, who nodded affirmatively. Then she turned, stepped over the bench, and facing the lockers, back to her audience, reached behind, undid her bra and tossed it into the locker.
Seating herself on the bench, back still to the rest of the room, she removed her thigh highs and added them to the growing pile of garments at the bottom of the locker.
“Very cute!” exploded Sue. “Keep it up, cunt. Every little act of defiance brings you one step closer to supplementals once you’ve gotten your eighteen. Officer Timmins is keeping track. How many is that now, Beth?”
“Ummm, one for the expired ID, one for late arrival, one for that little outburst, and now one for turning her back ... makes four so far.”
“Shit!” moaned Barb, getting up quickly and turning to face the room, but not before attempting to cover her breasts with one arm.
“Any attempt to cover up will get you a fifth,” snapped Sue. “Now come around and stand in front of the bench where we can all see you and finish up.”
Barb dropped her arm, baring her breasts ... nipples noticeably hard and erect from the slight chill in the room, or from embarrassment ... or probably both.
Stepping over the bench to present herself as ordered, she said in a low voice directed at Beth, since she had decided that Sue was the more hostile of the two, “I was hoping to keep the thong. Thinking, you understand, that it really wouldn’t interfere with the caning. It’s quite skimpy as you can see.”
“What are you, girl ... a fucking idiot?” screamed Sue before Beth, who was looking incredulously at Barb, could reply. “What is it you don’t understand about the order to strip naked? I thought professors were supposed to be smart. Now get that little thing off now before I rip it off you. And Officer Timmins, make that number five, please.”
With tears flowing down her cheeks, Barb slipped her fingers under the thin straps at the tops of her hips and pulled the thong down and away, nearly losing her balance in her haste to step out of it.
Straightening up, she faced the room, attempting to shield with both hands her neatly-trimmed landing strip and small-lipped vulva from the prying eyes of the Judge, Dean Windar, and all the others, not to mention the unblinking lens of the video cam.
“Show it!” hissed Sue.
Reluctantly, she complied, resting her hands at her side, a sob shuddering through her body as she felt the full emotional impact of her naked helplessness before these people.
“Finally.” concluded Sue, with a harrumph-like exhalation. “Now we can get on with checking you over. Bend over and shake out your hair.”
Barb did as she was told.
“Ok, good. Now step over to that table over there. Dr. Taylor, she’s all yours.”
Head down, Barb padded over to the table, the camera and lights tracking her.
From somewhere out of the back of the room the so-called doctor appeared. Barb wondered where they got her, given her hard, manly appearance.
The woman was all business. She went straight to the table, grabbed what looked like a stethoscope and donned a pair of latex gloves.
“Open your mouth,” she growled.
Barb did.
She looked inside.
“Hands at your sides!”
Barb dropped her arms as the woman pressed the stethoscope, first to her chest and then to her back, listening and grunting each time with satisfaction.
“She’s healthy. Heart and lungs sound fine,” reported the woman to Beth, who checked a box on a sheet of paper in Barb’s file.
The medical examination continued. The doctor lifted and glanced at the undersides of each of Barb breasts, turned her around slowly, grunted again, and ordered Barb to back up to the table, sit on its edge, lean back and raise and spread her legs.
There was some commotion in the room at this point as the camera and lights were relocated and the onlookers jostled one another in order to gather around behind the doctor, who proceeded to perform a vaginal inspection, which she carried out so roughly, and for what seemed an unnecessarily long time, that Barb found herself grimacing repeatedly and crying out twice, in addition to uttering a long string of general complaints.
Satisfied at long last, the doctor stepped back, withdrew her fingers, and ordered her resentfully sniveling charge to face the table and bend over it.
Muttering darkly to herself, Barb did as she was told, wincing and cursing softly as the doctor kicked at her ankles to spread her legs. Using one hand, she spread the cheeks of Barb’s bottom just enough to expose and spread her anus sufficiently to force a latex-sheathed finger inside and probe around.
“Ouch!” cried Barb. “That hurt! Owww!”
“You’ll live,” snorted Dr. Taylor, withdrawing her finger, slapping Barb across the ass, and turning to report to Beth. “She’s clean. You can proceed. How many is she getting again? I forgot.”
“Eighteen plus supplementals,” replied Beth, while busily checking boxes.
“A bit more than usual, then,” replied Dr Taylor with raised eyebrows. “She can take it, and from what I’ve seen, the mouthy little bitch deserves each and every one of them, and probably more. Just the same, I’d like to examine her part way through to see how she’s holding up.”
“Of course,” said Beth.
“Now can I read my statement?” asked Barb.