[Authors note: The earlier version of this story (written by Nathan) was titled "Lou's Judicial Paddling". This multi-part version is a much-extended adaptation by Jim of that story, with more local color (and more color elsewhere, too). The new story was reviewed and added to by Nathan. The adaptation is published here with his permission.]
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Lou was seventeen, the oldest son in a family of three kids. His brother David was fourteen, and his sister Michelle was fifteen. His dad was a businessman and did a lot of traveling. When he could, Mr Kelter liked to take his family. He enjoyed being with them and showing them things that broadened their minds.
On this particular trip, a trip that was to take him through seven mideast countries in two weeks, Mr Kelter had been really excited about bringing the kids. He'd briefed them on the sights they would see and the places they would go. They'd prearranged several tours. He briefed them on the culture, food, and weather. He briefed them not to drink the water. But he hadn't briefed them on some of the things he really should have, and that became immediately apparent as soon as they entered the first country. There, things had gone bad really fast.
Lou's father knew they had serious problems as soon as the customs officer opened his older son's suitcase. There, right on top, were two "Playboy" magazines and three "Penthouse" magazines in full view. Mr Kelter had looked at his son in disbelief. You'd have thought even a mental defective would have had sense enough not to bring magazines like that into a fanatically fundamentalist Arab country. Then Lou had been insolent when the officer had asked if they were his, asking what business that was of him. That was piling stupidity on top of stupidity. The officer had reacted by dumping everything in his son's suitcase on the floor, displaying two obviously pornographic videos plus a gay porno magazine. Talk about incredible stupidity! The porn couldn't have been more provocative.
His son was only too well aware of that now, as he stood in the courtroom cell waiting to be judged. It actually was a jail cell, complete with steel bars. It was built right in the middle of the courtroom, so small that it didn't even have room for a chair or bench inside its steel bars. That was mideast justice: standing room only. That's where Lou was right now, standing in that cell in nothing but sneakers and the baggy white cotton pants that was the prison uniform.
As he tried to listen to what was happening in the hot courtroom, Lou would have rather been anywhere else in the world. Talk about a presumption of innocence... NOT in this puritanical country, that was obvious. The uniformed customs guards had gone ballistic when they found the videos and gay porn. Talk about an overreaction! It wasn't like he was carrying drugs. They were just a few videos and magazines, for Christ's sake. They weren't even all that extreme. At least, Lou didn't think they were. He'd not actually looked at them yet.
Lou's dad had almost screamed at his kid when he saw the videos and gay porn, but of course by then it was too late. His son had made matters worse by what he'd said to the border guards. He'd obviously had no idea how serious the situation was becoming. When asked whether the videos were his, he'd snapped "of course". He told the border guards "a friend gave them to me, if you want to know" and that he'd brought them them "to look at, for God's sake!" He obviously thought the border guards were idiots and hadn't made the slightest attempt to disguise his feelings. The guards had reacted to Lou by escalating their treatment of him, confiscating his collection of pornographic material, and taking him in for further questioning. That had been the last thing Mr Kelter saw of his son until today. He'd been arrested and immediately jailed.
Mr Kelter was very concerned about what might happen to his son in jail. And with good reason. Lou was classic jailbait: a handsome blond youth with an attractive grin, slender but well-built. His five foot eleven body carried just under 150 pounds, almost all lean muscle. He was on his high school track and ski teams, worked out all the time, and had the build to show for it. He was smart too, getting good academic grades. Maybe too smart. He was overconfident and too often a smart ass, which definitely didn't help him here.
His dad was furious with Lou for getting himself in this situation. He should have been smart enough to know better. For one thing, it wasn't his first trip to the mideast. He loved to travel with his dad and had come here with his father when he was fifteen. In the past, airport customs had always been a breeze. Perhaps it was their previous complacency that had made the boy get careless. On the last trip, the customs guards had just waved him and his dad though, never even opening their bags. The real search came trying to get ON the plane back to New York, not off it. Lou's bags had never been searched. And so he'd probably had assumed they never would be.
He certainly couldn't say that anymore. After the border guards had found the videos, they'd taken him into a holding area while they took the rest of the family's baggage apart. Then they stripped Lou of all his clothes and searched him everywhere. They'd even probed his asshole with their fingers. He'd begged them not to do that, but they'd slammed his naked body down over a table and probed mercilessly. It had been totally humiliating for Lou, because the probing had given him a hard-on.
When the guard probing Lou saw that, he brought in another guard with a camera to take pictures of Lou in his embarrassed state. They'd kept him bent over the table and made him reach back to _f_u_c_k_ his asshole with his finger, keeping his legs spread apart so the camera could see his hard-on. Then they'd made him lean back against the table and jerk himself off, still with a finger up his ass. Lou was too frightened of them to disobey. All the while Lou did that, the guard kept taking pictures. God knows what they'd done with them.
God! he hated this place. Things were so strict here that even little girls had their faces covered. Even the jail was puritanical. He'd been thrown in a holding cell with two other recently jailed Americans, one of whom had his ass beaten brutally just for lying naked on his cot jerking off. God! All the guy had been doing was trying to stay comfortable in the hot fetid jail. They'd joked about it as the guy jerked off and Lou had become turned on. In fact, he'd been just about to join the guy in doing that when the guards burst in and dragged the poor guy away. What the jail guards did to the guy's ass was indescribably brutal. The guards were animals.
He'd not been allowed to see his family. A consular official had talked to him briefly, telling him that his dad had hired a local lawyer who was trying to get him released. But the consular person had also told him that a religious trial was unavoidable. God! There was nothing religious about the stuff they'd taken from him. They were just magazines and videos, for Christ's sake! The lawyer had talked to him too, though not for long. The laws over here were barbaric. The lawyer had told him he could be looking at 30 years for each video! He couldn't believe it. While he had known the laws were strict here and had even seen some of their barbaric punishments, he'd never in all of his life imagined that some magazines and two-bit videos could ever be such a big deal. He'd sure never thought he'd personally have to worry about any of their stupid punishments.
He was certainly worrying now. And not just about the trial. After what had happened to the other American in his cell, he shook with fear every time a prison guard grinned at him. He wasn't just afraid of being beaten. He'd read all the stories about what prisons were like here and knew only too well what a slender American teenager could expect in a mideast jail. He sure hoped his dad had hired a good lawyer!
Even if he got out, he'd pay for his mistake. Now, three weeks after being thrown in jail, he was missing the beginning of school, all his friends had heard about him on the news, and he was a poster fool for everyone back home to laugh at. More important, his chances of getting out of this free and clear were slim. The lawyer had told him that there wasn't much he could do for him in a trial. Porno of any kind was illegal, especially videos. And the facts couldn't be argued. He had imported them, they were in his bag, and his fingerprints were all over them. Besides, he'd admitted they were his to the border guards. So far as the evidence was concerned, Lou was screwed. Further, he was over sixteen, would be tried as an adult, and could expect no mercy merely because of his young age.
His lawyer had told his dad to plea bargain, and here bargaining meant bribes. The lawyer had advised the family that money was the only thing that could keep their boy from that prison sentence of sixty years. Here, sixty years meant sixty years. There was no chance of escape, no parole. If he got sentenced to that, his life was over. OVER. And one thing Lou already knew was that prison here was hell on earth, especially for a good-looking young American with an attractive ass. If he got sixty years, he would die here. He'd never get out.
And so, money had changed hands. Lots of money. His dad wasn't all that rich, but he'd willingly spent everything he had to try to save his son from jail. His dad had emptied his life savings, but it had not been enough. Lou knew more had been borrowed. He'd also learned that they had even taken up a collection at the company for which his dad worked. Most of his father's fellow employees were sympathetic, but not all that generous. They'd raised a few thousand dollars, mere peanuts compared to the need.
Even after a large sum had been paid, there was no guarantee what the panel of judges would say. So far his dad had paid out more than US$100,000 to the lawyer. And then yesterday, the day before the trial, the lawyer had asked his dad for another US$25,000. There was no way Mr Kelter could raise that kind of money on that kind of notice.
The lawyer had told Mr Kelter that it was terribly risky for the case to go to trial. The magazines and videos would almost certainly be shown to the court and no one knew how damaging they would be. None of Mr Kelter's family had seen them. Nor had the lawyer. The videos and magazines had been confiscated by the border guards and in the hands of the prosecution ever since. The prosecution had also indicated to the lawyer that they had discovered additional _d_a_m_n_ing evidence, which they'd present to the court if additional money was not forthcoming. The lawyer had again urged Mr Kelter to raise the extra $25,000. Lou's dad had to tell him it wasn't feasible.
So here it was, the day of the trial, and here Lou was in the court, trying to understand what was happening. His parents and brother were there too, accompanied by the consular official who'd interviewed him in the prison. By now, the trial had been going on all day. He couldn't understand what was being said. Occasionally something was said in English by an interpreter, but for the most part the trial was conducted in gibberish.
The worst part had come in the middle of the trial, when the prosecution had shown the videos. The presiding judge had stopped the trial even before the videos started. The courtroom had been cleared and sealed. In a country where the women were not allowed to show their faces, even the idea of a pornographic _s_e_x_ video shocked people to the core. The witnesses and observers had all been forced to leave, even his younger brother. Then, with only the prosecutor, his attorney, and his mom and dad present, the three-man panel of judges had ordered the videos to be started again.
You could have heard a pin drop in that courtroom. Of the two videos, the first one they viewed, the "Cherry Poppers," clearly got an intense look. There were murmurs between the judges. Lou could tell that the judges were intrigued by what they were seeing. He had tried to figure out the look on their faces, and at first he thought they might actually be enjoying it. But then they looked at him directly with such obvious undisguised disgust that he couldn't help being frightened. The second video shocked everyone, Lou included. He wished he had seen it first! It was a gay video his friends had given to him, with scenes that even Lou had never imagined possible. There was no way he'd ever have brought a video like that if he knew what kind of scenes it portrayed.
When the judges saw "The Boys of Summer", Lou knew he was in serious trouble. And the shocked expression on his parents' faces as they turned to look at him put tears in his eyes. I mean, what could he say? It was unmistakably a gay video and unmistakably hard porn. Anyway, he wasn't allowed to talk to them. He couldn't even tell them he'd never seen it.
After the videos had been viewed, the judges' look of contempt was unmistakable. After the witnesses and observers were allowed back in, the judges started asking Lou questions through the interpreter. His dad had tried to speak up and had been silenced. The judges asked questions about the videos which Lou could not deny. Then they started asking more personal questions about Lou's morals and behavior. The judges obviously thought Lou was gay and utterly corrupt, and kept asking him questions of the most embarrassing kind about his _s_e_x_ual activities and inclinations.
Lou had answered their questions as best he could. On the whole, he thought he answered them pretty well. But his answers weren't being translated correctly. He would talk for three or four minutes trying to explain and apologize. The translator would then look at the judge and say one or two curt sentences. It was incredible! One or two sentences? He had no idea what the judges were hearing, but it couldn't have been what he was saying. There was certainly no way the judges were hearing his explanations. And the look of contempt on the translator's face made it only too clear that he didn't believe Lou's explanations. Lou kept looking at his lawyer, expecting him to object. But his lawyer just shrugged, looking at Lou with the same look of contempt. Lou was getting desperate. No one seemed to believe him.
The judges' follow-up questions made that disbelief even clearer. The longer the questioning went on, the more contemptuous the judges' expressions became. At one point early in the questioning, the prosecution had countered Lou's denial of being gay by introducing two of the _d_a_m_n_ing photos the border guard had taken of Lou _f_u_c_k_ing himself with his finger. From that point on, the judges showed clearly that they had made up their minds. They'd even threatened him with punishment for contempt if he continued to lie to them.
Lou felt more and more frightened of the disaster looming over him. It wasn't fair! He wasn't gay. He'd not lied to them about that, or about anything else. Even if he were gay, why should it matter to them? He'd apologized for bringing in the porn, couldn't they accept that? His answers became even more confused as he tried to find some way of countering their disbelief.
Finally the questions stopped. His lawyer said some words, the prosecutor said some words, and the judges got up and left. Lou remained standing in his cage and waited. And waited some more.
His lawyer talked to his dad and then came over briefly to Lou's cage. With his ragged gray hair and beard, the lawyer looked totally decrepit. His hot breath stank from the stench of a rotting lunch. When he told Lou he'd delivered the money his dad had paid and that everything possible had been done, given the circumstances, it didn't make Lou feel a lot better. He didn't trust the lawyer. For all Lou knew, "the circumstances" meant that the money had just gone to the lawyer's Swiss bank account. He asked the lawyer why he hadn't objected to the interpreter's perfunctory translations. The lawyer looked at him contemptuously. "A full translation would have been worse."
Finally, the judges walked back in. Lou's heart stopped. Time stood still. The chief judge pulled out a paper and began to speak. As he did so, Lou and his parents crossed their fingers with hope as the translator began to translate what was said:
"Louis Kelter" he read "you are found guilty of smuggling obscene material of the worst kind into our country. The material you smuggled in depicts acts that defy God and Nature. You yourself have engaged in disgusting degenerate acts. Your immorality is so profound that you do not deserve even to breathe the air we breathe. In the light of all this, all three of us would be ready to sentence you to be hanged by your neck until dead."
Lou stared at them. Hanged! God! He'd never even considered that! Hanging as a penalty for having a couple of porn videos and a few titillating pictures? That was unbelievable! _f_u_c_k_, this country was so medieval it was out of the pre-dawn-of-man age. He looked at his parents longingly. God! he wanted to be home! Why the hell had his dad picked this place to bring him for a vacation? Back home in the good old USA, he was free to think whatever the hell he wanted to think and see whatever the hell he wanted to see. After all, if he wanted to watch an adult video, why the _f_u_c_k_ shouldn't he? He was almost 18, almost an adult, for Christ's sake.
The judge looked at Lou in disgust. "However much we are inclined to sentence you to that fate, your lawyer begs for mercy from the court and apologizes for your insolence and corrupt mind. He reminds us that you are a foreigner, young and stupid and untaught. We do allow for that and for the widespread immorality that prevails in your country, difficult though it is for us to condone immorality so flagrant as what you have exhibited. We also respect the pleas of your father, who has pleaded with this court to show you mercy. We are not a country without mercy. In light of your father's requests and the work of your attorney, this court will show mercy and your neck will be spared. You should be grateful for your attorney's hard work on your behalf and for your father's pleas."
Lou's heart was pounding now, hoping against hope that he was hearing that his dad's money would buy more of their mercy. With luck, he'd be released with just a stern warning. But his hopes were quickly dashed almost before he'd had time to form the thought.
"While we will show mercy, you will not go unpunished. We cannot allow foreign perverts like you to corrupt members of our society. We must consequently make an example of you. The sentence you are about to receive will show perverts and degenerates what they can expect from the laws of our country, even when accorded mercy."
The judge paused and looked at Lou. "Louis Kelter, you will receive a sentence of sixty years in prison, to be suspended after the initial year of imprisonment upon evidence of good behavior in prison and as detailed further. And you will receive public punishment to your body for your immorality and degenerate acts. May your punishment deter other degenerates from coming to our country!"
Lou's mouth dropped. He looked at the judge in shock, horrified by what he was hearing.
"You will be taken to the state prison immediately" the judge went on. "You will be held there in solitary confinement until your first public punishment has been served. At noon on the first Saturday on which public punishments are scheduled, you will be taken to the central prison square, where you will be tied to a punishment trestle and there receive the minimum of 100 strokes of the prison lash on your bare buttocks that the law prescribes for _s_e_x_ual perversion. After the completion of that beating, you will remain imprisoned for a year, following which you will receive another public strapping, in the same place and of the same amount."
"Oh my God! NO!" Lou shrieked. "NOOOO!!!"
"Silence!" the judge ordered angrily. "You will not interrupt this court."
"You can't do this to me!" Lou screamed. "I'm an American! You can't do this! You mustn't!"
The judge looked at him contemptuously. "Your nationality is not relevant. You are in contempt of this court. For that, you will be sentenced to an additional two months in prison and will receive an administrative caning." He looked directly at Lou's family. "I will not tolerate any further outburst by the prisoner or by anyone else present in this courtroom. Any further outburst will result in similar punishment."
"No!" Lou whispered in horror.
The judge ignored him. "We also hold you in contempt for your evasion bordering on perjury in answering our questions. For that, you will serve a further six months in prison and receive a public caning."
"NO!!" Lou screamed. "NOOOOH!!"
"Silence!" the judge demanded.
Lou sobbed in utter despair as the judge went on. "You will receive the public caning no less than two full months after your first public punishment, during the first day of public punishment following the end of that period."
There was a sudden commotion among the spectators. His mother had fainted. A strangled moan escaped from his father's throat. He'd tried to rise in protest but had been quickly pulled down by his lawyer.
The judge waited impassively while Lou's mother was attended to. Then he turned back to Lou. "After you receive your second public strapping, you will serve the additional two sentences for contempt. You will then be deported to the country from which you came. The remaining fifty-nine years of your sixty-year sentence will be suspended, to be served immediately and automatically if you are ever so foolish as to return to this country."
He paused, looking at Lou scornfully. "The suspension of the last fifty-nine years of your sentence will not be automatic. In the event of further misdemeanors or degenerate acts on your part prior to being released, prison officers are hereby authorized, as administrative punishment and at their sole discretion, to hold you for additional time in prison up to a maximum of an additional year and to administer corporal punishment as they deem appropriate. If the prisoner's behavior should warrant punishment beyond this additional amount, this court can be asked to review the suspension."
The judges stood and exited the courtroom without further comment. Their decision was final and not open to appeal.
Lou was not the only one shocked. His dad was holding his mother, who was sobbing in his arms. His younger teenage brother was crying, looking at his father in horror and bewilderment. Lou looked to the lawyer, who just shrugged and looked at the ceiling.
Mr Kelter was really angry. He had paid his family's life savings and more to the lawyer, only to get his son a twenty-month sentence in a _s_h_i_t_-hole of a mideast jail along with a public punishment of 100 lashes. Two public punishments! And a public caning on top of that! It was his worst nightmare. He wasn't sure his son could survive it. He started protesting to the lawyer, who just shrugged, grabbed his briefcase, and walked out of the room. Lou was screwed, Mr Kelter realized then. Totally _f_u_c_k_ing screwed.
What made it even worse was that both Mr Kelter and Lou knew something of the prison punishments. For one thing, they had seen one. During his first visit, almost two years earlier, his local business friend had taken them down to "chop-chop square" as it was known by the locals, and let them watch the show. He had had no idea what they would see, otherwise he would never have taken the then fifteen year old. But he had, and because he had, they both knew something of what was in store now. These 'shows' were always carried out on Saturday and usually once a month. The local population came for miles to see them, as they were open to the public. Crowds were sometimes in excess of a thousand, especially if there was a beheading or a hanging. When an American or other foreign visitor came to watch, the crowd usually pushed them forward, right to the edge of the stage area, just to make sure they got to watch everything. Such had been the case during their visit, and the close view had made the memory clear and intense.
He remembered that he had wanted his son to see the paddlings. Yes, and he remembered that they'd both been turned on by them. He was somewhat embarrassed at the memory. Lou had watched them with a very obvious bone in his pants. Mr Kelter especially remembered one dark haired youth and how he had cried and begged and jerked on the trestle, all the while that his ass was turning redder than Mr Kelter had ever believed possible. Yes, he had to admit he'd been turned on by that too. But God, NOW!!.. Now it was going to be his son's turn!
Lou was crying as he was led away. He looked at his dad and their eyes met. They both knew that this was going to be worse than their worst nightmare. As the boy was led away Mr Kelter was lost in thought, the memory of his previous visit flooding his mind.
Punishment days always begin with the punishment of the most violent criminals; rapists, murderers, and drug dealers. They were always punished first. The beheadings were quick, the prisoners made to kneel with a blindfold over their eyes, the sword taking their heads with a single slice. The hangings were slower, the prisoners made to stand on wooden crates, hands tied behind their back, the rope around their necks tied to an overhanging pole. After the sentence was read, the crate was pulled out from under him and he would flop and twist and jerk until he suffocated. While he did so, the next prisoner to be hanged would be processed. And so it would go, until the last person to be hanged was twitching and jerking on a rope. Sometimes it would take up to fifteen minutes for them to die. He had remembered his son's reaction and how he had freaked out. At the time he'd laughed at his boy. Now... Oh GOD... His son was going to be part of it.
The punishment of the robbers was a memory he could never forget. They were always punished after the executions. It was brutal, the leather wrist strap used to pull the prisoner's wrist across the wooden chopping block, the axe slamming down to form a bloody fountain, with a single swift chop severing the hand at the wrist. It was always the right hand too. For a man to lose his right hand in a country that had no toilet paper was a disgrace like no other. In this society, the left hand was used for only one purpose, to splash the water from the cleaning bowl onto your ass in order to clean yourself after taking a _s_h_i_t_. NO ONE touched anything else with their left hand. So, to lose your right hand doomed you to a life of absolute humiliation that would never go away. In addition, most prisoners were branded, either on their forehead or their ass, so that anyone who saw them would know their punishment.
But it was the last set of punishments that Mr Kelter was remembering now. When individuals were given corporal punishment, they were usually tied to a trestle, a large A-frame device that kept their arms outstretched over their head and their feet tied securely to the bottom of the frame. Prisoners who were flogged were kept in a standing position. For strappings and canings, the frames were bent forward at the prisoner's waist to prop up the buttocks and expose the ass as a target. Depending on the prisoner and the nature of the offenses, usually the buttocks were the only part exposed and naked. If the offender was a boy, then he was usually paddled bare and naked. Small wooden paddles were used for young boys, while heavy leather straps were used for adults. Adult offenders were usually kept clothed with only their buttocks exposed. In the interest of public modesty, even the offender's ass was usually covered with a thin cotton or linen cloth. The cloth kept the skin covered but offered little protection. Only for individuals convicted of _s_e_x_ual crimes, like his son, was an adult offender punished naked.
For Lou, sitting back in his cell later, he too was thinking of his visit a couple of years back with his father. But he spent no time thinking of the hangings or the beheadings or the amputations. He thought only about the strappings and the canings and the agony of the men and youths he'd seen receive them. He was sentenced to a strapping, which he knew was normally done with a prison punishment strap. He also knew generally how the punishment would be administered. He knew that a strapping was meant to be a public humiliation and that, because of the _s_e_x_ual nature of his crime, his body would be bared completely. His pants would be pulled off and removed as if he was a teenage delinquent, which of course he was, he realized. Then he'd be tied to the trestle on the stage and beaten savagely.
He could hardly bear to think about it, but could think of nothing else. He'd been trying to imagine what it would be like for ten days now, isolated in his solitary confinement. But he knew that nothing he could imagine could be as bad as what would actually happen. What was ahead of him was unimaginable.
At that, he realized, he was lucky. Without the bribe money his dad had paid, he certainly would have been sentenced to a much longer prison sentence, if indeed not hanged. And all the public punishment could have been with the cane. He couldn't imagine a hundred strokes with the cane. It would have killed him, just as surely as the noose. Even fifteen strokes had come close to doing that, he'd discovered to his horror. He'd been given the administrative caning the day after he'd been taken to the state prison from the court.
Upon his arrival, they'd stripped him, searched his body cavities, and brutally administered an enema. Then, after giving him back the baggy cotton pants to pull on, they'd put him in a solitary confinement cell with no food or water.
He'd been kept without food in the courtroom cell all day and was starving. After a couple of hours in his cell with still no food, Lou banged on the bars of his cell until a guard finally came. He complained bitterly about his hunger and demanded to be given food. The guard's only answer was to come back with another guard. The two guards grabbed him by his arms and dragged him from his cell to a larger room, where they forced him down over a large leather-covered wooden punishment block, tied his wrists to rings on its side, and stripped off his pants.
"What are you doing?" Lou screamed. "You can't do this! Let me up!"
The guards' only answer was to hold him down firmly and strap his waist to the block. There wasn't much doubt about the purpose of the block. It had been cut at odd angles, so that from the side it looked more like a rounded trapezoid than a cube. The way Lou was tied, his arms and shoulders were lower than his ass. The block pushed into his belly, raising his buttocks up to make them a better target.
The guards left him there like that and for some minutes nothing happened. Then a new guard entered, carrying a prison strap. Lou's screams of fear echoed through the prison as he looked at the huge muscular guard and saw the strap.
He looked at the strap in terror. He'd remembered what it looked like from the public beatings he'd seen in the square two years before. But now he was seeing it from a very different perspective. The strap looked bigger and heavier close up. The guard brought it over and flung the end of the strap out so that Lou could see its full length.
The strap was an implement that came right out of the British penal system. It had a long wooden handle, to which was attached a thick leather strap. The leather strap was easily a quarter of an inch thick, three inches wide, and two and a half feet long, with a series of half-inch holes that ran down the center of the strap. The handle added another foot to the implement's overall length. The thickness of the leather gave the impression that it was more of a paddle than a strap. But it would curve to the shape of the prisoner's buttocks, and the pain was said to be intense and unbelievable. Lou would soon have personal experience of that.
An English-speaking official was with the guard. "You get fifteen this time" he said curtly. "Next time, twenty-five. Time after that, forty."
"Why?" Lou screamed, sobbing in terror. "All I did was ask for food!"
"You don't ask for anything here, pervert. Learn from this or get it again."
He said something to the guard. The guard laughed and said something in return, jerking his head at Lou. The official laughed and nodded. "He asked if you're the American pervert" he grinned at Lou. "Everybody here has heard about you."
The guard asked a question. "Sure, why not?" the official smiled, still speaking English. He switched to gibberish and then left, leaving Lou alone with the guard. The guard looked at Lou and grinned dangerously.
Lou shrieked in fear as the guard took the strap out to Lou's left. Holding it with two hands, the guard reached back with the strap, paused momentarily, and then swung. Lou heard the sound of the strap whistling through the air ..Swisssssh.. "NO!" he screamed. "NO!" Then ..SLAP!!.. the strap smashed into his buttocks. "MY GOD!" Lou shrieked. His legs jerked up off the floor as a white-hot line of pain seared across his ass. "GOD!!" The pain spread out from his buttocks all up and down his body, consuming him totally. The guard waited until Lou's shrieks subsided slightly and then reached back again.
Lou saw the guard reach back. "NO!! PLEASE!!" he screamed, thrashing wildly on the block. The guard swung. ..Swisssssh.. "NOOO!!" Then ..SLAP!!.. it slashed across the bottom of his buttocks, right where they joined his thighs. "OH MY GOD! JESUS!!" Lou shrieked, his legs flying up again. "JESUS _f_u_c_k_ING CHRIST!!"
In all his young life, Lou had never been beaten or even seriously hurt. He'd never come close to experiencing pain like what he was experiencing now. He shrieked and swore as more blows smashed into him, thrashing and bucking on the block as the pain swamping his body kept growing. The guard kept walking around him, smashing blows down over his buttocks from all angles.
The pain was unbelievable. Lou bucked and pulled on the ropes, trying somehow to escape. By the time the guard had given him fifteen blows, Lou had bucked and jerked up with such intensity that he was totally drained. He thrashed on the block, shrieking in agony, as the guard continued to beat him. The guard finally stopped after another half dozen blows.
He was left there for some time, shrieking and sobbing from the incredible pain. Every time there was a noise outside, he thrashed on the block in terror, thinking it was a guard coming back to give him even more. He wasn't sure what the official had said, but he remembered him saying the second one would be more. The pain of what he'd received kept coursing through his body. Even half an hour later, he could still feel in his mind the shock of the strap smashing into him. He couldn't imagine how he could take a second beating.
Finally, two guards entered, the ones who'd brought him to this room. He thrashed wildly against his bonds, terrified they'd come to beat him again. But they just untied him, dragged him back to his cell, and dumped him on the concrete floor, throwing the thin cotton pants in after him. He lay there sobbing and screaming as the pain kept washing through him.
He was left there without food until the next day. Somehow, during the night, he dragged his body onto the metal frame of the bed and fell asleep. But his brain was still reliving the shock of what his body had received. He kept waking up screaming as, in his mind, the strap smashed into him again.
Lou could tell that the next day had come from the changing light in the cell's high small window, but nothing happened for a long time. He was totally isolated and lost track of time. He hoped against hope that his caning had been postponed. His buttocks were so sore from the previous day's beating that surely, he hoped, they'd be given time to recover.
That hope was dashed some hours later when the door of the cell suddenly crashed open. Two guards came in, picked him up by his shoulders, and dragged him to an outside yard. The yard was surrounded by cell blocks. He later found out that it was the prison exercise yard. It was also used for administrative canings so that the prisoners in the cell blocks would hear the victim's screams. The guards dragged him to a punishment trestle on one side of the yard, draped him over it, and tied him down so he couldn't move. All that happened so quickly that he hardly had a chance to look at the trestle. Then nothing happened. The guards stood waiting. He could see prisoners looking down on his naked body from windows in the blocks.
After some moments, the prison offical he'd seen yesterday came out, along with a heavyset guard and an older man. The guard carried a long thin cane.
"The court sentenced you to a caning for contempt" the official said curtly. "You're receiving that punishment now."
He nodded to the guard, who went out to Lou's left. Lou shivered with fear as the guard reached forward and laid the cane on top of his naked buttocks. After what he'd received yesterday, he couldn't imagine how anything could be worse. But he knew or had been told that a caning was much worse. The way he was positioned, he was draped over the trestle with his torso angled down slightly and his legs spread out behind him, angled down at about a 45-degree angle. His body was just enough bent at the hips to make his buttocks an easy target.
The guard moved a little further out and reached forward again, this time reaching up with the cane to bring it down on Lou's ass with force. Lou screamed and peed in terror. The guard laughed and said something to the official. The official nodded and said something that sounded like an order.
Lou screamed in terror as he saw the guard reach back over his head. He could see how powerful the guard was. The guard's massive shoulders rippled as he got ready to swing the cane down on the youth's quivering ass. Lou peed again, or tried to. Then the guard swung. "NOOOOH!" Lou shrieked. He heard the ..hissssss!.. of the cane. "NOOOOH!"
The impact of the cane was so electrifying that it knocked Lou's breath right out of him. It felt first like a severe electric shock but quickly expanded to an overwhelming shock of pain that ran up and down Lou's body. As the full impact of the pain registered, Lou screamed like he'd never screamed before.
The guard waited for Lou's shrieks to subside. Then the older man came up to Lou and took a stethoscope out of his pocket. The doctor placed it on Lou's back, listened briefly, and said something to the official. They spoke briefly and then the offical turned to Lou.
"You're getting twenty now" he told Lou. "You'll get the rest after your public punishment."
Lou hardly heard him. He was watching the guard. When he saw the guard reach back, he screamed again, a shrill shriek of terror. Then he saw and heard the cane move. ..hissssss!...WHIPP!.. His shriek of terror climbed another octave. "OH JESUS!" Lou screamed. "JESUS!!" The cane had slashed into his buttocks a little lower down this time. The pain was even more electrifying.
The guard waited again. And then, finally, swung. "NOOOH!!" Lou shrieked. ..hissssss!...WHIPP!.. "OH GOD!! NOOOH!!"
The pain got worse with each blow. Each time, the guard waited until Lou's screams had subsided before reaching back and slashing another cut down on his ass. The wait was terrifying for Lou. The cane would slash into him and then nothing would happen for maybe half a minute. He never knew when the next cut would come. The guard never waited less than fifteen seconds before swinging in again. But a couple of times, the wait was easily triple that.
After the first dozen cuts, twelve scarlet welts lay in parallel lines on Lou's ass, each one throbbing in pain. The guard stopped while the doctor checked Lou's heartbeat. Then the guard asked the official a question. The official nodded. "He'll give you the last eight on each buttock separately" he told Lou.
Lou wasn't sure what he meant, but he found out quickly. The guard started from a different position, standing close to Lou's shoulder so he could slash diagonally down across each buttock. Then he reached back over his head and brought the cane down across Lou's right buttock, across all twelve welts. Some of the welts were already oozing blood. That first diagonal blow drew blood from all of them. Worse still, the tip of the cane bit into the back of Lou's thigh, opening a new cut there.
"OH GOD!!" Lou shrieked. "GOD!!" He'd thought that nothing could be worse than the first set of blows. The pain from the new blow reached a new high. And stayed there. The blows kept slashing into Lou, alternating between sides. Each blow cut more and more welts open in more and more places. By the time the eighth blow had landed, blood was beginning to run down the insides of Lou's thighs.
Lou had expected the caning to stop then. He shrieked in horror as the guard kept slashing more blows down on him, continuing to alternate between sides for another eight blows. The guard aimed the last few blows so that the tip of the cane cut down into the underside of Lou's buttocks.
By the time all twenty-eight strokes had cut into Lou's ass, blood was flowing down the insides of his thighs. Lou was so overcome by the pain that he had screamed himself hoarse. But worse was still to come. The doctor took a bottle of something out of a bag and poured the contents over Lou's ass while the two guards who'd brought him worked it into the cuts. It took a minute for the liquid to take effect, but when it did, Lou's ass was on fire. He screamed in a shrill shriek that went on for a whole minute, bucking in a frenzy. Then suddenly he slumped and fainted.
The doctor revived Lou with some smelling salts. Then the two guards dragged him back to his cell, dripping blood from his ass all the way. When they got to his cell, they just threw him in on the floor. He writhed in pain there for a long time.
The guards left him undisturbed for several days. Totally isolated except for a couple of visits from the prison doctor, he had nothing to do but remember how bad it had been and think about what he would face soon. It took a long time for the cuts in his buttocks to heal. Even now, more than a week after the caning, he could still feel the cuts sting when he moved the muscles of his buttocks.
So that he would not forget what to expect, the guards had made him witness a prison punishment a few days later. They'd tied him up in the punishment room with his back to a wall, just a few feet away from the teenage prisoner who was being punished. Lou had almost died of fear as he'd listened to the youth's shrieks of pain and terror and watched what the strap did to his buttocks. Watching the youth's agony made all his memories of his beating on the first day come flooding back. The youth was about Lou's age and build, but was receiving double the number of blows Lou had received the first day. He'd fainted after twenty lashes across his buttocks, been revived, and then fainted and been revived again twice more. By the time the prisoner had been taken down from the punishment trestle, he'd been barely conscious. He'd received three dozen lashes.
What really horrified Lou was that the teenager had received barely a third of what Lou was to receive in the public square. He kept dwelling on that, trying to imagine how he'd ever last that long. Kept in isolation, Lou had nothing to do but think about the terrors he would be facing soon. He'd been in the prison over ten days now and would receive the public punishment in a couple of days.
The guards and prison officials had taken delight in making sure Lou knew what he could expect. They'd even made him witness another administrative punishment just yesterday, this time of a man in his mid-twenties. That man had received fifty strokes of the strap, a punishment so severe that he couldn't walk on his own afterwards. Lou was even more terrified of what Saturday would bring for him after seeing that, knowing his punishment would be so much worse.
The prison doctor had warned him about what the strap would do to him. Though not as bad as the cane, the sheer number of strokes would eventually break his skin. The holes in the strap would make sure of that. They'd eventually cut his buttocks, the small holes ripping out little chunks of inflamed flesh. But it wouldn't happen right away. A beating like what the teenager had received wasn't enough to accomplish that. Even what the man had received was barely enough for such damage. It would take more time; the initial damage wasn't all that deep, like it had been with the cane. But, with a hundred blows, it would happen. And it would be intensely painful. A hundred blows would pulverize his ass.
Lou was terror-stricken as he looked forward to Saturday. The punishment was only two days away now, and there was nothing he could do now but wait for it to happen. He hadn't been able to talk to anybody other than the prison doctor since the trial, not even his lawyer or his parents. He'd been kept in solitary confinement, totally isolated except when taken out by the guards to witness a punishment or be informed of what was coming. He didn't know what his parents had been doing and felt totally abandoned and alone.
He knew he was screwed.
.
[to be continued... ]