9.

Oh, God, did I get whipped.

Days after y punishment, I could still feel Father Ransom’s strap on my poor butt. The theory, he explained to my mom, was that if I learned to associate nudity and sex with pain, I would stop touching myself and taking my clothes off in front of other kids.

It would also put the fear of God into me, giving me a taste of what hell is like for little sluts.

“I’m sorry to have to use that word,” he said.

“No,” mom said. “She has to learn. I don’t know what I’ve done wrong.”

“Nothing,” Ransom said. “Some children are just wicked by nature. It’s a theological truth. They are closer to original sin than we are.”

While they were talking so calmly about what a dirty little whore I was, I was stark naked, hung from chains in the rectory basement. The chains ran from hooks screwed into an oak beam in the ceiling to the fur-lined leather cuffs around my wrists. My arms were spread apart, and my toes barely touched the floor. I was posed like Jesus on the cross, except He at least got to wear a loin cloth. To keep the priests upstairs from hearing me scream, Ransom stuck a red ball in my mouth. He told my mom to buckle the strap around my head, I guess so she could feel like she was part of the ritual. While she was doing that, he stood in front of me, whooshing the strap in a figure-eight. A rectangular strap. Long and black. With a thin leather handle. And two rows of holes that whistled as it sliced through the air.

“In the Age of Faith, this was known as ‘showing the instruments,’” he said. “I miss those days.”

I was already crying.

“Nuh, “ I said. “Nuh! Puh-ee! Ah own’ do I’ uh-geh. Ah pam-is ah own’ e’er oo i’ uh-geh. Puh-ee! Puh-ee!“

But this wasn’t fun, like with Lisa and Eddie. With them, it was just pretend, and they said they’d untie me whenever I wanted. This was for real. Father Ransom had his cassock and surplice on, and his purple stole from the confessional, and there were candles lit, like whipping me would be some kind of sacrament.

“What’s the matter?” Ransom said. “I thought you enjoyed being bound and gagged.”

I called for my mommy — “ah-ee! ah-ee!“ — but she just stood there and nodded sadly, the way she used to when dad would spank me. It was her way of saying I brought all my troubles on myself.

I never hated her more than I did at that moment.

“Mrs. Purple, I’m going to ask you to leave the room,” Ransom said. “I promise, not more than twenty.”

“All right,” Mom said. I heard the door click shut behind me. Ransom took a long black something out of his cassock. In a second, everything went dark.

“That will help you focus your senses,” he said.

He put his hand between my legs and groped around before he managed to work a finger into my vagina. It felt rough, because I was so tight and dry. He moved the finger around inside me, brought it out again, and rubbed it around the outside, but it didn’t lubricate me any because there was no juice up there at all. That’s what happens when you’re terrified.

“We have one more instrument, which we couldn’t show your mother,” he said.

Something else went up inside me — not his finger. It was hard and round, like a cat’s-eye marble, but bigger, and it pushed the walls of my vagina apart. I heard a click, and something pinched my clitty-button, It didn’t hurt. It just felt snug. If I hadn’t been so scared, it might have even been nice. Then I heard another click, softer this time, and the ball in my vagina and the clip on my button began to vibrate. I heard a buzz. It started out muffled, but got clearer as the vibrations spread to my nipples and back to my ... well, my asshole. Soon I wasn’t so dry anymore.

I leaned my head back and moaned a little.

“Feel good?” Ransom said. His voice was behind me now.

“Uh huh.“

“Enjoy it while you can,” he said. “It’s all part of the conditioning.”

I heard a sudden whuff! — like he was smacking his leg with the strap. The sound made my tongue swell and that metallic taste well up in my mouth. I wanted to puke. Instead, I bit down on the ball between my teeth.

“Now,” he said, “let me hear you say you’re a sinful little girl.”

“Ah a shi—fuh—li’l—guh-ll.”

“That’s fine. And say, Father, please save my soul.”

“Uh—”

“Say it!” — Whuff! — “Contrition is never genuine unless it’s voluntary. Say, Father—”

“Ah-eh.“

“Please—”

“Puh-ee—”

“Save my soul.”

“Shay—aye—sho—“

“Return me to a state of grace and union with the Lord.”

“‘Ee—huh—ee—hoo—ug—shtay—”

That’s all I got out before the strap stung my ass.

It wasn’t fair. I was the only who got punished. The strange thing was, Mr. Szywicki wasn’t all that mad when he found me naked and tied up on his floor.

“Well,” he said. “Where did you come from?”

The whole time I was on the floor with Eddie and Lisa teasing me, I’d been trying to give myself a come from the rope in my crotch, and wouldn’t you know it? Now is when it finally happened. Mr. Szywicki — a fat, bald cop in a blue shirt and badge — blinked at me like he was trying to understand what he was seeing. He had no idea I was having an orgasm there in front of him, and he was the one who put me over. Maybe that was what confused him: this girl was wasn’t only naked and tied up. She was also having tiny convulsions. I was shaking with the excitement — and the fear. In fact, it was the fear that set me off.

Mr. Szywicki called out, barely raising his voice: “Edward?”

I could only imagine how Eddie and Lisa reacted upstairs, since they were naked, too. Eddie could run up to his room to get dressed, but Lisa was stuck, because her clothes were on the floor next to the sofa There was dead silence from the kitchen upstairs. Mr. Szywicki tried again.

“Edward, if you’re up there, you had better answer me.”

“Yeah, I’m here.”

“Come down here, please. Now.“

I heard a chair scrape the floor upstairs. That was all for a little while. Then Eddie’s bare feet appeared on the steps, followed by his bare legs, and finally his full naked self.