(Author's important notes: In the 'Yin Anecdotes', the author departs from the usual themes in order to conceptualize his brooding psyche in fiction. The stories in this series contain nudity, _s_e_x_, violence and profanity, but not always all at once. The characters and plot are merely a synthesis of actual people and events, and should not be construed as otherwise. The author would like to state categorically that he does not condone acts of violence and terrorism of any form against the weak and helpless, particularly children, women, homo_s_e_x_uals and all minority groups.
Further note: This story contains depiction of genital torture. Reader discretion is necessary. The author would like to thank 'Rob' for the inspiration to invent the tale.)
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It wasn't easy toeing the line here. Every now and again the boys were subject to reminding, but the reminder was sometimes at the expense of someone else's dignity. Someone always had to be held up as an example. It was Gawain's turn today.
Gawain suffered from amnesia. He had no notion what he was doing at this place, incarcerated for an indefinite time, but no one knew where else to put him. No one knew, either, how long it would be before he recovered knowledge of who he was or where he was from. Nor did anyone know what he had done the night before the 6th of October when he was found unconscious by some skid row wino, who had stolen all his clothes, so that he was found naked and close to hypothermic a few hours later by the police.
Gawain had no answer to all this mystery either.
The police had taken Gawain to the lockup where he soon regained consciousness, only to discover he had no recollection of anything. A missing person's composite of him was sent out to every possible avenue, even splattered on the milk cartons and a brief on television, but the effort had come up empty. By this time, Gawain had been transferred to the local community hospital.
Half a year later, when the hospital proved overcrowded, Gawain was committed to an institution for boys. It would be all right, the authorities at the welfare department had assured him, he would only be there for a year and released when he was seen sufficiently independent to subsist on his own or as soon as his memory was restored to him.
Gawain had been in tears on his arrival at the institution. No more than a facility for orphans, the homeless runaways and the vagrant of whom society had forgotten, the Gains Street Boys' Home was owned by the state. The inmates, all boys from thirteen to eighteen years old, were therefore wards of the state, committed here by the state-owned welfare department. However, the Warden and his associates were accorded carte blanche of the inmates' welfare and discipline.
The home's shadowy narrow corridors and unthawed frozen walls had foreboded negatively for Gawain from the time of his arrival. His tears had provoked the Warden's ire. Warden Xiomara took pride in his facility and its role in knuckling his boys under with its hard-nosed discipline, and so the tears had put him in a prejudicial gyroscopic spin toward the newest member of his family.
"This isn't a bad place," Xiomara said to the fair-haired youth. "It's somewhere you can call home for the time being, a shelter from the storm outside. You'll also have a family. So how bad can it be? Of course, how you get on here will very much depend on you yourself. If you toe the line, you'll find it quite pleasant to live the rest of your halcyon here."
But it was toeing the line that was the difficulty, as Gawain would find out. It was what the senior inmates had already found out.
See, there were just so many rules, and even more inconveniences, to remember, let alone follow, that were brought to bear on the inmates. Wake up time and lights out were too early, bath time was too short, as was the time to make the bed, shower and dress before breakfast at seven o'clock. If a boy were late, even by a minute, he was omitted for breakfast. Too short was also the daily one-hour time-alone when the inmates could engage in quiet reflection and personal recreation.
Lessons, on the other hand, were too long and often boring, and the teachers were very tough with their pupils. It didn't augur happily for the boys' social development or psychological state of mind that corporal punishment was used here.
Nor did it encourage the boys to endear themselves to the institution or their caretakers, who were the warders here, that all the rules seemed sprayed with _s_e_x_ual innuendo, often with repressive undertones.
Regardless of their age and maturity, the boys were all required to sleep naked. Just before they retired, they were required to stand beside their cots to be inspected. There was just a set of uniform they were given to wear everyday and this was for day use only. They had no nightwear, for the Warden had felt nightwear a disposable luxury since the boys were in the company of each other's gender. Besides, it was easier to manage the panoply of hybrid domestic, financial and community operations of the home if the boys possessed few and equal belongings. It removed the burden of weighing the boys' economic interests against one another, a ritualistic merry-go-round that seems to fuss and befuddle conventional households.
As soon as the boys heard their wake-up call at six o'clock in the morning, they were required to stand beside their cots again for another inspection. In the following ten minutes, while they remained naked, they must make their beds, including changing the linen and sheets every other day. On days when the sheets were not changed, the saved matinal minutes were applied to longer latrine time.
The beds made and passed the warders' muster, the boys were handed their uniform, light blue shirt and shorts for the thirteen to fifteen year-olds and shirt and long pants for the older ones. They were also handed a towel each, which they quickly tied around their hips in the new wave gender-bending sarong style. Like a Gauguin Polynesian maven, each boy marched in a straight line to the common bath. There the boys brushed their teeth, moved their bowel and showered while the warders kept an eye on them. After the brief shower, they dressed in their uniform and proceeded to the mess hall.
Institutional corporal punishment was indispensable for discouraging any willful defiance of rules as well as for indiscipline during classes. The latter was always handed out immediately by the teachers who caned their pupils' bottoms, either on their underpants or on their naked bottoms. This depended on the extent of aversion caused and the teacher's mood that day. The boy was brought to the front of the classroom, forced to turn around to face the blackboard and place his palms flat against the blackboard. Then his pants or shorts were pulled down, his shirttail was lifted up and his bottom was caned while his classmates were compelled to watch the unpleasantness of the punishment taking its course.
For serious infraction of rules that was committed everywhere else on the facility's premise, including attempting to run away, slacking on a duty or chore, fighting, showing disobedience to a warder, and badinage after lights out, the charge would be brought up against the alleged offender during the weekly assembly. If the offender were proven guilty, he was caned before the assembly.
One of the rules all the boys found tough to follow had to be the one that outlawed masturbation anywhere in the institution. For after all these were adolescent boys who were at the ne plus ultra of _s_e_x_ual development, and deprived of an environment for natural social-_s_e_x_ual skills to nurture and thrive, they had little choice but resort to masturbation or, for some of the older boys, even homo_s_e_x_ual activities.
And so, it was for the infringement of this rule that Gawain found himself facing a charge this morning. Brought up by the Warden, the charge could not be refuted since Gawain had been filmed while engaging in the offensive act. Gawain had not known about the post-'1984' Orwellan cameras concealed at strategic points of the institution for the surveillance of the boys.
The Warden had shown the video during Gawain's hearing at the assembly. Gawain had been humiliated and shamed. There he was for everyone to ogle: though it had been dark in the room where he had been masturbating himself, there was no shadow of doubt that the principal in the nefarious video was Gawain. His face had been in the camera's eye when for five minutes the apparatus was angled for a close up.
Gawain's face had been a picture of torment and ecstasy. His fingers on his right hand had been grasped tightly around his elongation and pumping on it urgently. His middle finger of his left hand had been gripped by his sphincter muscles, _f_u_c_k_ing his own anus. His legs were drawn up and spread wide. Intermittently, he had thrown up his buttocks, arcing himself into a bowl shape and spreading his own cheeks wider so that he could plunge his finger more deeply into his anus.
This part of his activity had been extracted in freeze frame, and Warden Xiomara had drawn attention to the finger inside the anus. Xiomara had seized the chance to point to the abomination, describing it as the catchall for worse future indecencies: sodomy, bestiality and buggery.
"It starts with the finger," Xiomara declared, "and later on, man proceeds to persuade his conscience of the acceptability of what are acts reserved for beasts. This must not be encouraged. Our youth must not be allowed to develop a taste for anal pleasures."
Gawain had tried to muffle his groans throughout his self-masturbation, but even this had been picked up by the acoustic-sensitive audio function of the video camera, now leaking audibly into the auditorium and being heard by everybody. And then when Gawain had screamed as he shot out his load, he had incriminated himself with that all-too-recognizable sonorant pitch of his.
The end of the video presentation, put forward as evidence for the Discipline Council, depicted Gawain licking up his own slime that had collected on his chest and on the bed. The entire assembly was watching this segment next. Gawain had felt mortified to witness himself in such an embarrassing posture.
But what had sealed Gawain's hapless fate for him was that he had been too idiotic not to wash out the sheets. During a chance necrotopsy, the discipline council, while investigating the allegation, had recovered collateral evidence of Gawain's spilled seed on his sheets and cot. With pinpoint accuracy, the lucky call gave the cat's seat to Xiomara. Ergo, the council that had sat in judgment of Gawain handed down his guilty verdict nem con.
"There's no shadow of doubt," Xiomara pronounced after the verdict, "that you, Gawain, had on the afternoon of the 3rd of June, been found engaging in an act that is strictly forbidden by our institution, that of masturbating yourself. You are, therefore, guilty of an infraction of one of the rules of this institution and shall be punished this day itself. Your punishment, which shall be ten lashes of the cane to your backside and five to your penis, shall be handed out immediately. Warders, please conduct the young man to the proscenium and have all articles of his clothing removed from his body."
Gawain struggled between his captors while he was forcibly committed to the stage before an assembly of three hundred people, including his fellow inmates. Stood up on the proscenium, right at the center of the stage, he was then disrobed of his uniform: his canvas shoes and socks, the blue shirt and pants, and then his white but tight underwear. Shortly after, the warders turned him around, placing him bent over a table that was a permanent feature of the stage. They spread apart his legs to expose all his genitals between his thighs. His scrotum hung low surrounded by an untidy plumage of thick pubic hair. His cheeks were wide open to expose the anus the spectators had just seen being stimulated on celluloid. Now everyone was watching this same hole completely exposed once more.
Below the stage, inside the parterre at the front of the center aisle, perched a video camera on a tripod. The camera was pointed at the subject on the stage. Its recording had already been activated, the tape within it running silently on its spools. The taping of a punishment caning was an institution regulation that kept a record of the inmates' punishment.
Gawain's hands were now spread across the length of the table and his wrists tied to the upper section of the legs of the table. Afterward, the warders were heard informing Warden Xiomara that Gawain was ready.
Xiomara took the microphone again and made a short speech to all present at the assembly about the importance of rules for the discipline and training of young men. He emphasized to the boys the severity of the penalty that would be imposed on all miscreant offenders, who would henceforth be deemed a security risk to the home.
"We daily observe in the news," Xiomara continued, "the state of our world in societies where the legitimacy of laws is dismissed as undemocratic, and where their youths are not schooled in acceptable standards of behavior while still in their microcosmic social unit called family. It is clear that in the absence of laws thrives a life less circumspect. The fabric of laws and discipline must be woven into our lives for it is these that would hold us strong even when all else in life become unraveled. Now, let the caning proceed and let it be a refresher course on the necessity of obeying our rules for all of you boys assembled here to watch Gawain's caning today."
With this conclusion to his plea of necessity discourse, which really was nothing less than a charade disguising his coercive principles, Xiomara forsook the microphone to advance to the young man that was waiting naked to be punished, for the first time, in front of witnesses. Xiomara was handed the instrument of punishment and swiftly raised it to Gawain's backside. He made some mental calculation while he placed the cane at a parallel angle against the boy's nude bottom. Then he lifted the cane away before he restored it once more at a right angle with Gawain's trembling bottom, all the while making a note of something, but about what precisely, most of the spectators could only conjecture.
The next time Xiomara lifted up the cane, it came down to slice the air and at the same breath to connect with the youth's backside. The boy yelled and followed that with a frightful howl.
THWACK! THWACK! THWACK! THWACK! THWACK! THWACK! THWACK! THWACK! THWACK!
The cane ignored its victim's pleas but went on to discharge its function faithfully, hurling its dexterous mass against Gawain's bottom ten times with a rhythmic momentum that was timed with Xiomara's signature regularity.
At the end of this first part, the howling boy was released and turned around to face the audience. Now the warders laid Gawain on his back, his caned buttocks compatible with the edge of the table, and once more spread apart his legs and arms. This time both his wrists and ankles were tied to the four legs of the table. A brace was next cantilevered to his genitals, his penis rendered upright in a salutary posture. It was at least seven inches long, the reason for the erection being his subjection to having his clothes removed at the start of Xiomara's scapegoating campaign.
Gawain glanced down quickly on his groin and felt nauseated. He wanted to faint. Shutting his eyes to the imminent torment of his penis, he curled in his fingers, his fingernails desperately scratching the top of the table. The spectators had also seen all his toes curled inward as if on reflex.
And then the cane came down again to torture his _c_o_c_k_ mercilessly.
THWACK!
Yeagghh!
THWACK!
Ahhh!
THWACK!
Yeahhh! God, oh dear God, please stop!
THWACK!
Aahh-hah! Ahh-hahahahahah!
THWACK!
_f_u_c_k_! Mother _f_u_c_k_er! Oh, mother _f_u_c_k_er!
Someone had been counting out the lashes, and the counting had been carried through the microphone. At the final lash, Warden Xiomara dropped his arm and returned the cane to his heir presumptive, Associate Warden Emannuelle.
It was over, but Gawain had not known it. He was in a swoon, sobbing, while versions of pain and anger became stuck in his throat. He barely felt himself released from the table and assisted to his feet. His legs felt like jelly, ready to give out ...
The camera on the tripod, which was still active, was narrowing the distance between itself and Gawain's penis. The latter tool was still erect.
Warden Xiomara had approached the boy and was commanding him to stand up on the table. While Gawain did just that, clearly exposing himself naked, his penis dripping with his own juice, he was next ordered to wank himself before the crowd. Gawain, his painful lesson on obedience still fresh on his buttocks, gripped his penis between his fingers and pumped excitedly at it.
Gawain started panting and snarling like a madman. He knew the camera was watching. He knew everyone was watching. Moments later, he let out a glass shattering scream about the same time that his tool was letting out a string of wad.
But now he heard obscene laughter. The spectators were all laughing at him, drawing in a circle around him. Suddenly Xiomara emerged from behind the camera to stand in front of the crowd. He pointed an accusing finger at the youth.
"This will earn you twenty lashes of the cane to your _c_o_c_k_, young man," Xiomara snarled disapprovingly.
Feeling like a condemned animal, Gawain cried and pleaded. But he was seized by his arms and pegged down, and then put back on the table. Gawain ranted and yelled till all around him were echoes of his screams.
No, no, no, no, no!
"Hey, Gawain, snap out of it," he heard someone urging him. "You're gonna alert the warders, man."
Gawain woke up, beading in sweat. His vision gradually cleared to find the sleepy face of another boy, the one called Dion, who was the dorm monitor and something of a moderating influence on the other boys in the dorm. Dion was just leaving Gawain's side.
Realizing he had just had another bad dream, Gawain inhaled deeply and turned on his bed. He had been lying on his back for too long and now his bottom was smarting. His penis was also extremely sore. Since his public caning two days ago, he had been nursing a damaged bottom and he had been having difficulty producing an erection. He had also been having repeated bad dreams that relived the nightmare of his public humiliation. Thankfully, the doctors here had assured him that none of his injuries were permanent or long lasting.
Nevertheless, Gawain was filled with resentment and bitterness for all that he had been made to endure. He shut his eyes and wept into the pillow.