Page 56 of Punished and Trained
But I couldn’t say it: I couldn’t admit I had made a mistake, because I knew I hadn’t, as mind-robbing as the pain felt. The cane whistled through the air to land with devastating accuracy. I screamed, my backside squirming the few millimeters it could as I desperately tried to sooth the agony.
“Nine.”
The crowd had fallen into complete silence except for my cries echoing off the stone walls. And, I realized something else—a woman’s voice, speaking in a hushed but excited tone, fully audible to me now that I had focused my mind on it. I felt heat rush to my face as I realized it must be a reporter for Federation News, narrating my punishment to the galaxy.
“As you can see in this very moving close-up of her bottom, Viola is beginning to lose control of her body, as generally happens during this kind of severe discipline. I imagine she’s feeling some gratitude to her master for making her relieve herself inthe cell beforehand so that she won’t shame herself here on the punishment frame.”
“Oh, no,” I whispered, feeling my head shake as if I could stop the woman from speaking or at least keep myself from hearing her. When Prince Hendren struck again, and I cried out, I did feel gratitude, strange as it seemed.
Then, as the terrible punishment reached its midpoint, something even stranger began to happen in my mind. The physical agony remained absolute, but beneath it, I found myself sinking into a kind of psychological sanctuary that seemed to open out from that moment of gratitude. Each stroke was shaping not just my tortured flesh, but the last remnants of my former identity. President Herranofar was being caned out of existence, replaced by something simpler, truer.
“Twelve,” Prince Hendren announced as another devastating blow fell.
“Thank you,” I whispered, the words surprising even me. “Thank you, Master, for correcting me.”
“Extraordinary,” the reporter murmured. “Viola has just expressed her appreciation to His Royal Highness for this terrible ordeal.”
My words of gratitude seemed to echo strangely in the yard, my voice carrying a clarity that surprised me despite the raw hoarseness from screaming. I felt something shift inside me as I spoke, a strengthening recognition that this brutal correction was exactly what I had needed all along.
“She understands now,” Prince Hendren said for the cameras, his voice carrying a note of satisfaction as he positioned himselffor the thirteenth stroke. “The true purpose of discipline is not punishment, but transformation.”
The cane fell again with merciless precision, but somehow the pain felt different now—still devastating, still beyond anything I could have imagined enduring, but no longer meaningless. Each stroke was burning away the woman who had failed her people, revealing something underneath that felt more authentic than anything I had ever been. As I screamed, to my surprise, an idea came into my mind: a way, as impossible as it seemed with my poor bottom in such fiery agony, to enjoy the scene—and to bind my master even closer to me.
“Thirteen.”
“Yes,” I gasped through my tears, my voice somehow growing stronger despite the agony. “I see it now. I was never meant to lead. I was meant to serve.”
Did I mean it? That was the idea, though: I didn’thaveto mean it. Saying it, maybe especially if Ididn’tmean it, opened up a new kind of possibility.
Performance.
I didn’t know if it represented a false performance or a true one, the admission of my abjectly submissive nature. Maybe it was only an acknowledgment of a deep submission that was in the end one part among the infinite parts of me, former-president now-fuck-toy Viola Herranofar. Whatever it meant, it sent a strange peace flowing through me even as the next stroke landed with explosive force. My bottom felt like it was on fire, the skin surely bruised very deeply, but my mind had found a kind of transcendence in complete surrender. I leaned into the cry thatripped itself from my chest, suddenly both letting out my body’s excruciation and performing my submission to my master.
“Fourteen.”
“I failed them because I tried to be something I wasn’t,” I continued, the words pouring out between sobs. “A strong leader. A decision maker. But I’m not strong. I need guidance. I need this.”
Prince Hendren paused in his methodical correction, and I could feel his eyes on me. “Tell the galaxy what you’ve learned, Viola. Help them understand what the Federation offers.”
I lifted my head as much as the restraints allowed, trying to project my voice clearly despite my tears. “The Federation doesn’t conquer,” I said, my words carrying across the silent yard, somehow both meaning what I said and understanding it as a piece of propaganda that would further my new life—what I suddenly thought of, with a good deal of irony, as my new ‘career.’ “It liberates. It frees women like me from the burden of pretending to be something we’re not.”
The fifteenth stroke fell as I spoke, making me cry out, but I forced myself to continue. “I thought submission was weakness, but it’s the opposite. It takes courage to surrender completely. To trust someone else with your choices, your body, your very self.”
“Fifteen. Well said,” Prince Hendren acknowledged, already positioning for the next blow. “Continue.”
The cane whistled down again, and I screamed, but when I could speak, I found myself addressing the watching crowd directly. “Look at me,” I gasped. “Former president of Artemisia,naked and caned like a naughty schoolgirl. And I’ve never been happier.”
“Sixteen.”
“Because this is truth,” I continued, my voice growing passionate despite the agony. “This is what I was always meant to be. Not a leader making decisions that cost lives, but a woman serving a master who knows how to make use of my real gifts.”
The reporter’s voice carried clearly now: “This is perhaps the most remarkable transformation we’ve ever witnessed. Viola Herranofar is not just accepting her punishment—she’s actively advocating for it.”
The seventeenth stroke landed with brutal precision, and as my scream echoed through the yard, Prince Hendren’s voice carried a new authority.
“Tell them how you serve me, Viola. Tell the galaxy what you’ve learned about your true purpose.”
Through my tears and the haze of pain, I understood what he was asking. The most intimate confession, broadcast to millions. My cheeks burned with more than just the reflection of my caned bottom’s fire.
