In the Bureau’s trainee barracks, surrounded by the morning scuffle of dozens of other trainees preparing for the day, Kristen and Zach spooned in her narrow bunk.

No one paid them any attention. As far as anyone else knew, they were both locked inescapably in their standard-issue chastity devices, just like any other subjects of the Bureau and if they wanted to indulge in what physical closeness they could manage, compounding their frustration in the process, that was their prerogative.

In a room this far from private, their confinement was fairly real. Zach wasn’t about to use his trick ring to unlock either of them here, a matter of feet away from the other trainees, but still, the ring was there, on one of his fingers interlaced with hers, a giddy reminder of the “tutoring” session they’d shared the day before.

“First shift starts in a couple of minutes,” Kristen noted reluctantly.

“Yeah.” Zach nodded behind her, chin touching her shoulder. “I don’t suppose we could both be sick today, spend it all in bed.”

“Like one of those couples in the posters about unregulated life?” Kristen joked. “Letting the world pass us by, ignoring all of our responsibilities?”

“Sure. They can take our picture if they want,” said Zach, kissing her neck.

Kristen shook her head, trying to shake off the temptation in the process. “I’m shadowing my mentor this morning.”

“Wouldn’t want to miss that,” said Zach, with a faint edge to his voice.

“I learn as much from half a day with her as I do from three whole days of classes,” said Kristen.

Zach didn’t dispute this.

“Just remember, you don’t need any points from her. From any of them.” He leaned forward to give Kristen a sideways kiss on the lips, reminding her what it was like to be able to taste his skin, without the experimental drug blocking her receptors. “Whenever you feel like you have to please the Bureau for the sake of being let out, come to me instead, and I’ll do it.”

“Oh, so now I only have to worry about pleasing you?” Kristen asked, only half teasing.

“Worry about not fucking me over,” Zach whispered seriously. “That’s all I ask, and I’ll let you out whenever you want. You can do stuff with me, or on your own, even with other people, just,” he took a breath, “you need to be damn sure it’s someone we can trust before you get them involved, okay?”

Kristen squeezed his ring hand and sat up, triple checking that the chains of her device were secure. “Promise.”

#

“We’ve got a very serious case today,” said Officer Deacon. “I hope you’re ready for it.”

“Whatever you need, I’m there,” said Kristen, matching her mentor’s severe demeanor and smoothing the wrinkles out of her short tunic.

She was unusually aware of the air on her bare legs on the way down the hall to the visitor rooms. It felt as if there must be evidence on her somewhere that she had forgotten to hide, something that made it perfectly obvious what she and Zach had done behind their mentors’ backs, right under the nose of the Bureau itself.

Just as a thrill began to build in Kristen’s chest, the thrill of really, truly getting away with it, having a secret from the all-powerful Bureau, Officer Deacon explained.

“Our subject today somehow managed to trick a Bureau-issued chastity device into opening without approval.”

The floor seemed to drop sharply under Kristen’s feet. “They did?”

“I’m afraid so,” said Officer Deacon gravely, stopping in front of a visitor room door and reaching for the ID card clipped to her dress. “It’s rare, but it’s been known to happen.”

Kristen leaned against the side of the doorway in front of her.

“So, what’s the procedure for that?” she asked, nervous but sly, holding Officer Deacon’s gaze.

“Obey and learn, I’ll explain as we go,” said Officer Deacon.

Obviously, when the door opened, there was going to be no one in the room. Just the table and two empty chairs, where Officer Deacon would show Kristen firsthand what the consequences were for undermining the Bureau’s power in such a fundamental way.

Kristen was breaking a sweat just thinking about it, for more reasons than one.

The punishment would have to be extreme, far worse than what she’d gotten for cheating on a quiz, or for a brief lapse of restraint in her first session as a subject. With her pleasure deprivation so recently broken, the thought of having her clit punished, just for the sake of having it touched at all, had lost most of its appeal.

The thought of having Officer Deacon’s full attention to herself was appealing, however. Kristen had gotten much less of that during her training so far than she’d hoped, and very little of it had involved sensation. That was the main reason she’d stolen those few extra strokes during her first session, the day she had first met her mentor. She had wanted the strokes, but not as much as she had wanted to bring this stunning, powerful woman’s attention down on herself, hard.

Even if the attention she was about to get was all pain, it would be between the two of them. Kristen would apologize and beg and plead to make this up, and Officer Deacon would show her the way back to the Bureau’s good graces.

There had to be a way. That much she had learned from her training so far. The Bureau didn’t reject sincere efforts to serve and comply with it, regardless of the mistakes a person had made before. That was part of why it was so powerful.

Kristen would make those sincere efforts, and maybe, along the way, Officer Deacon would let slip some hint of whether she was simply performing her duties, or reveling in the outlet for her own feelings. The woman was hard to read, but Kristen thought she’d be able to feel the difference in the fall of the whip, or cane, or whatever implement she ended up using on her. Was she personally angry that Kristen had stolen pleasure? Was she more upset that she had done so with someone else?

Kristen very much wanted to know.

Then again, she realized, the room might not be for the two of them after all.

Officer Deacon might just as easily open that door to reveal Zach, marched over here through the back way by some other officer for dramatic effect.

That possibility was more alarming. Zach probably wouldn’t handle getting caught as well as Kristen would. But maybe, if they were together in this, she’d be able to protect him. She could imagine his trick ring getting him into much worse situations than being locked in a room with her and Officer Deacon.

Come to think of it, she could imagine a room with the three of them being quite a nice place to end up, under the right circumstances.

Officer Deacon tapped her card to the door’s sensor and opened it. Kristen stepped in after her, hair standing on end in anticipation.

The visitor’s seat was not waiting empty for her.

Nor was Zach waiting in it.

“Piper?” Kristen had to ask, to make sure she was matching the right name to the right face from the back row of the training classroom.

“Hey, Kristen!” Piper waved at her from her seat, as if they were best friends meeting in line for the greatest show in the world. “So, are we doing this?”

After sharing the barracks for over a month, this was the first time Kristen had heard Piper speak above a mumble.

Piper tucked her curly red hair behind her ears and grinned, transforming her face from lifeless background noise to vibrant chaos the way someone else might change clothes.

A female chastity device, presumably Piper’s, lay open on the table in a tangle of its own chains.

Officer Deacon closed the door, took her seat across from Piper, and took a moment to bring up the right file on her tablet.

Kristen hung back to watch, disoriented and stifling panicky laughter, as she realized that she and Zach might not have been found out at all.

“Piper,” Officer Deacon began. “You were found alone in an officer’s lounge, with your chastity device unlocked, performing unauthorized stimulation on yourself.”

“Fuck yeah, I was,” said Piper. “Are we going to make a video about it? Let’s make a video about it!”

Officer Deacon paused, thrown from her script for a moment, but only a moment.

“We’ll get to that,” she answered. “Because you were unlocked while alone, we’re forced to assume the worst and dock you one thousand points for an unauthorized orgasm. Recording your debt recovery process, for use as an example to others, is required in this case.”

“Oh, I’ll be an example, officer,” said Piper, reaching for her unlocked crotch. “But you don’t have to assume. I totally came. Do you want me to show everyone how?”

Part of Kristen’s cooped-up laughter clawed its way free, but she clamped a hand over her mouth before Officer Deacon could even begin turning her head to censure her.

The officer kept her sharp gaze on Piper and folded her hands.

“At this point, you have two options,” she said. “I recommend that you begin cooperating now, name any co-conspirators, and tell us about the design flaw you exploited to save us the trouble of finding it ourselves.” She rested her hand on the tangled device. “In return, we will waive the cost of any lesser, associated transgressions up to this point. Trespassing in the officer’s lounge, for example. Your debt will be limited to the fine for the orgasm itself, and you will be allowed to repay it in installments over the course of up to a month, and even allowed to remain in the training program on a probationary basis, though of course, you’ll have to start your mandatory deprivation over from the start.”

Some of the tension eased out of Kristen’s chest at the confirmation that the program could be that forgiving.

“Right, right, right,” Piper nodded. “And what’s the other option?”

“Continue wasting time and making things worse for yourself,” answered Officer Deacon.

“Ooh, I’ll take wasting time, please!” Piper clapped her hands. “Lots of time. And other resources too, if you have them handy. This is literally what I came here for, so that’s perfect.”

Officer Deacon sighed, began cleaning her glasses on her gray uniform dress, and turned to address Kristen as if Piper were no longer there, except in the form of her file on the tablet.

“Saboteurs,” Officer Deacon explained. “They’re even rarer than the ones who try to escape for pleasure alone. This one probably thought she had what it took to infiltrate us at the officer level, and when she realized how demanding the program actually is, she decided to get herself kicked out in the most flamboyant possible fashion.”

Kristen watched, with no small amount of awe, as Piper rock happily back and forth in her chair while she waited. Kristen had always thought of herself as a bit of a button pusher, always testing the limits, but she could never imagine sitting so fearlessly in Piper’s position, as if how much trouble she was in meant nothing at all.

“What do we do with her?” Kristen asked, ready to be even more awed by the elegantly effective way Officer Deacon would no doubt bring this tough case under control.

“She thinks she wants to waste time,” said Officer Deacon. “Fine. We control what that time is like for her.”

Officer Deacon got up, opened one of the wall panels, and retrieved a device Kristen had learned to dread in class. It resembled a cattle prod and served roughly the same purpose, though it was calibrated for safe human use.

The officer flicked the switch to make it spark menacingly.

“You see, unlike an impact device, I can use this safely no matter what position the subject is in,” she explained to Kristen, though Kristen suspected the words were mostly for Piper’s benefit.

“A subject like this one might try to make you spend the length of a normal session just trying to get them over the table, or onto their knees. There’s no need to allow that. With the prod, it’s not a problem.”

She jabbed the end of the prod into the back of Piper’s steel chair in demonstration, making her yelp and jump to her feet when the charge conducted across the seat.

“Glad Zach didn’t think of that,” Kristen muttered to herself.

“What was that?” asked Officer Deacon.

“Nothing, just something from class.”

Piper was now bouncing on her feet across from Officer Deacon, keeping her distance but darting back and forth like a boxer looking for an opening.

“The prod can also be used from anywhere in a standard-sized visitor room,” said Officer Deacon, standing as still as a stone pillar.

In her own time, she pointed the prod at Piper and pushed the button to extend it, catching her on the upper arm as she tried to dodge backward.

“Ha! Is that as high as the charge on that thing goes?” Piper taunted, rubbing the spot on her arm where the prod had connected.

“No,” said Officer Deacon adjusting a dial under her thumb. “This is.”

She struck again, this time just under Piper’s navel, leaving a scorch mark on her white tunic.

Piper shrieked and then rested a moment with her hands on her knees, probably fighting twinges in the irritable nerve that ran from navel to clit.

“I’ve… had worse,” she gasped, straightening up. “How many points is that now?”

Officer Deacon let slip the smallest smile.

“Oh, this doesn’t count toward your debt,” she said. “This is just an incentive to treat time with more respect.”

She dialed the power down slightly and touched the prod to Piper’s right breast, making her jump back and clutch at her nipple, which must have hardened painfully under its pastie.

“This will continue, once every fifteen seconds, or whenever the hell I deem it necessary, until you select the actual method for your first debt recovery installment,” Officer Deacon explained. “At least ten points must be recovered through genital discipline, and I recommend you get them out of the way first. That plus forty points for the video itself will do for today.”

She touched the prod to Piper’s calf. Piper jerked her foot away from the floor and grabbed the back of her empty chair to steady herself. Officer Deacon promptly sent another charge through the chair, without waiting the fifteen seconds.

“If you have difficulty making decisions under stress,” said Officer Deacon. “I will give you one chance to review the list undisturbed. I strongly suggest you make a good-faith effort at it.”

“Okay, okay, stop.” Piper raised her hands, breathless. “I’ll do it.”

“See? Only…” Officer Deacon paused to check the clock on her tablet, “…three and a half minutes from ‘let’s waste time’ to ‘I’ll do it.’ The right tool for the right job.”

She shut down the prod and handed it to Kristen for safekeeping.

Kristen held it with due respect for its weight and power.

“May I sit?” Piper asked. “May I take that undisturbed look now?”

“Yes. Don’t waste it,” said Officer Deacon, placing the tablet with the debt recovery menu queued up in front of her.

Piper scrolled through the menu quickly and purposefully.

“Ten strokes of pussy paddle two,” she said, pushing the tablet away. “Please.”

“Fine,” said Officer Deacon. “Remove your clothes and sit on the long edge of the table, legs wide. Kristen set up the camera and get the paddle.”

Kristen opened the wall panels that concealed the video camera and screen and turned them both on so that the screen displayed a live feed of the room. She kept herself out of the way so that Piper could see the larger-than-life image of her own body, naked except for her pleasure-proof pasties, pussy displayed front and center. Every detail was captured with perfect clarity, down to the lightest freckles on her gently rounded belly.

Kristen pressed the record button and moved on to the impact implement section to find the right paddle.

Pussy paddles were narrower than the standard kind, so as to land cleanly between the hip joints. Some of them had slight padding, in acknowledgment of the density of nerves they were designed to hit, but not this one. It was covered all over with a smooth but hard vinyl finish.

“Read this statement,” Officer Deacon directed Piper, tapping her tablet to start the newly customized text scrolling across the screen.

Piper cleared her throat nervously.

“I was totally out of control today,” she read. “I wasted a huge amount of time and energy on stealing an orgasm I hadn’t earned. I—”

Piper’s voice cracked, and for a split second, Kristen thought she might be shuddering or sobbing in anticipation of the punishment to come. Then she tossed her head back, and the sound resolved into a cackle.

“Actually, it was three!” she stroked her exposed labia, giggling. “So, now I’m required to beg the Bureau’s charitable attention, to correct my flaws and redeem me for my willful self-indulgence. This should be fun!”

“What are you doing?” Kristen hissed, without even thinking to modulate her voice to a dominant tone.

“Reading the statement!” said Piper, all false innocence. “Mostly.”

“She’s incurring an additional fifty-point fine, which we’ll deal with later. That’s what she’s doing,” said Officer Deacon. “Do I need to turn the prod back on?”

“I mean, you could try,” said Piper. “But honestly, I could have kept going with that for a while. I just really wanted to skip ahead to starting the camera.” She waved at the lens. “Hi, everyone! I masturbated without the world falling apart, how ’bout that!”

“You don’t think there’s actually anyone watching this feed, do you?” Officer Deacon asked.

Her tone sent an unexpected chill down Kristen’s spine. It was cuttingly derisive and even more jarringly loud. Not once, in the days she’d been shadowing her, had Officer Deacon ever needed to raise her voice. The effect was harsh and unsteady, like an off-balance piece of heavy machinery that might soon rip itself apart.

“This will all be edited down to the most useful material for the good of the public!” she went on. “In fact, there’s no reason it has to be captured in the standard order. Kristen, begin collecting the debt. Take as many strokes as you need to in order to get ten good ones.”

Warily, Kristen handed the prod back to Officer Deacon and positioned herself between Piper’s legs, off-center enough to block the camera as little as possible.

“For every stroke, you will give me a reason why you got yourself into debt,” Kristen told Piper, the words feeling less like an order and more like a tentative prediction in her mouth. “Any stroke not accompanied by a different, true reason will not count toward your point deficit.”

“Awesome,” said Piper, drumming her hands on her thighs and prompting an excitable-looking jiggle. “Ready when you are, bureaucrat babe.”

She held Kristen’s gaze hard, grinning.

Kristen brought the paddle down with the usual, middling force she used for a first hit, listening to the smack of skin and moisture.

“I was horny!” Piper started simply.

“Harder,” Officer Deacon directed.

Kristen gave her a second, sharper smack.

“I wanted to cause trouble for the Bureau,” said Piper.

Smack.

“I wanted to get caught.”

“Why did you want to get caught?” Kristen prompted.

Smack.

“So that you’d be obligated to put my face on TV!” Piper crowed. “And have to figure out a way to turn whatever I say into a PSA for you instead of for me. I’m really, really curious if you can pull it off. My guess? By this time next week, this footage will have run just once, to avoid showing ‘favoritism’ to a pain in the ass like me, and then been buried. And people will still be talking about that crazy chick who was able to get out of her device, and hey, maybe we can too!”

Smack.

“And, and,” Piper went on rapturously, raising her hips as if she thought she could grind on the paddle before Kristen pulled it away, “I did it for the chance to play with a good little trainee like you.”

Smack.

“I know you love making people feel,” she told Kristen in a voice low and breathy enough to sound like an attempt at privacy, while still easily reaching the camera. “I love it too. Can you imagine what it would be like if we could do this whenever we wanted, however we wanted? Imagine that, while you hit me again.”

Kristen felt dizzy, and much more conscious of her locked-up clit than she would normally be after such a recent release. She did love making people feel, and she tended to love it more the harder they embraced it. Piper’s enthusiasm made her daunting to control, but a guilty delight to punish anyway. Her wild sort of beauty certainly didn’t detract from the experience.

Kristen didn’t trust herself to say anything more than, “That wasn’t a reason.”

Smack.

Piper moaned happily with the impact. “Okay, I want to corrupt you. How’s that for a reason?”

Smack.

“I was sent here,” said Piper. “My resistance cell chose me for this mission because I loved pain the most. They knew I could take Bureau attention like nobody’s business.”

Smack.

“I did it because I believe it was right.”

Smack.

“I did it for freedom.”

Smack.

“I did it because I fucking wanted to!”

“Stop!” said Officer Deacon.

“She owes one more,” Kristen noted.

“Give me that!” Officer Deacon reached for the paddle. “I’ll show you how to put your weight into it.”

“Aw, don’t blame her,” said Piper. “She’s doing fine.”

“Are you afraid of the way I’d do it?” Officer Deacon asked Piper. “Because I could be convinced to let Kristen finish the set for you if you’ll read the statement. Correctly, this time.”

“Yeah, no, I’m afraid I can’t do that,” said Piper. “You see, as a subject of the Bureau, I’m supposed to be honest at all times when in the presence of a pleasure control officer.”

“You’re also supposed to be respectful and obedient,” Officer Deacon reminded her.

“I know, right?” said Piper. “So many contradictions. I thought the Bureau was always supposed to provide a correct path, no matter what.”

Officer Deacon slammed the paddle against the side of the table with a deafening clang, threw it across the room, and grabbed Piper by the hair to drag her face close.

“Do you want your cunt wired shut?”

“Woah, officer!” Kristen grabbed Officer Deacon by the shoulder and wrist of her hair-grabbing arm and tried to pry her away.

“Because that’s an option!” shouted Officer Deacon. “And you’re running out of others!”

“Back up. Back. Up.” Kristen pulled more firmly on Officer Deacon’s shoulder and squeezed her hand, finally coaxing it to release Piper’s fiery curls.

Ignoring Piper’s wide, unreadable eyes following them both, Kristen led her mentor toward the door, feeling more disoriented than ever. It was as if she’d suddenly found herself holding up the floor, instead of the other way around.

“Shackles,” Officer Deacon muttered. She seemed to be having difficulty finding words. “Chain her to the table so she can’t touch herself while we… confer.”

“Okay,” said Kristen. “I got it. Wait for me.”

#

Officer Deacon paced the lounge, taking vicious bites out of a chocolate chip cookie from the coffee bar.

Kristen watched her from one of the couches. When she’d wished for a glimpse of her mentor’s feelings, this hadn’t been quite what she’d imagined.

“Do you want to talk about whatever that was?” Kristen asked.

“Whatever what was?” Officer Deacon snapped.

Kristen raised an eyebrow.

Officer Deacon shook herself and grunted, “Above your paygrade, trainee.”

“All right, then,” said Kristen. “Well, she definitely thinks we’re playing a super basic game of ‘good cop, bad cop’ with her now. Which means she’s not going to trust me any more than—”

“Fucking saboteurs,” Officer Deacon snarled to herself. “We’re not going to get any useful material out of her. She knows it. She knows we know it. And the more she misbehaves, the longer we’re required to keep her, which is exactly what she wants!”

“But we control what the time is like for her, right?” Kristen reminded her.

“Have you felt that prod in training yet?” Officer Deacon asked.

“Yes,” said Kristen, shrinking in on herself slightly at the thought.

“It should have worked,” said Officer Deacon, returning to pacing. “It should have taken the swagger out of her almost instantly, with no lasting damage. That’s what it’s for.”

Kristen reached to the bar for an Oreo, twisted it in half, and popped one side of it in her mouth.

“Are you hungry, trainee?” Officer Deacon asked.

Kristen thought for a moment, then openly placed the rest of the cookie in her mouth, chewed slowly, swallowed, and licked her fingers as only someone who could enjoy taste would bother to do.

“Not really,” she admitted steadily. “Comfort eating.”

“I see,” said Officer Deacon. “When were you planning on telling me your sense of taste had come back?”

“Probably at testing today,” Kristen answered.

“Oh, ‘probably’?” Officer Deacon repeated. “How reassuringly precise. Well, enjoy it while you can. We’ll replace the test with your next injection.”

“Actually,” the apprehension dried Kristen’s throat, but she finished her sentence, “I was thinking of opting out of further trials.”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake, not you too,” Officer Deacon heaved a heavy, exasperated sigh and shook her head. “No, I don’t need this today. You stay there, I’ll get the syringe. We’ll take care of it in two minutes.”

“No,” Kristen repeated. “We won’t.”

Officer Deacon’s eyes widened, then narrowed sharply.

“Unless the injections have become a requirement?” Kristen asked. “Rather than a volunteer option for additional points?”

Officer Deacon huffed, stormed through a full circle of the room, and turned back toward Kristen as if preparing to charge.

“You realize who this falls on, don’t you?” she asked. “I was appointed to handle those trials, and if they turn up inconclusive because I couldn’t retain a large enough test group, that’s on me. The woman in that room is my subject, and if I can’t make a useful example of what she did, that’s on me. You’re my mentee, my recommendation to the program, and if you turn out to be a fraud, if you turn out to be another one like her, that’s on me too.”

“Do you think that’s what I am?” Kristen asked.

“You’re enough of a troublemaking smartass to be one!” Officer Deacon snapped.

Kristen swallowed, stung. “If I remember right,” she said, “those are some of the same reasons you picked me for this in the first place.”

Officer Deacon marched toward Kristen, who stood up to meet her.

The officer dug her delicate fingers into Kristen’s hair and pulled her into a sudden, savage kiss. Her teeth pressed Kristen’s lower lip as if ready to devour her, for whatever comfort and intimacy that would bring.

Kristen wrapped her arms around her and kissed her back. Her heart lifted in her chest, but the rest of her remained poised and cautious, ready for the moment to break off in any number of directions.

“This is the life you’re pursuing,” Officer Deacon whispered, pressing her forehead to Kristen’s. “If you’re who I’m hoping you are, you need to understand that. Becoming a pleasure control officer doesn’t keep you safe. You get to control some things, for some people. And some days, that’s enough. But the more you control, the more you can be blamed for. It doesn’t matter if there was no way to see the problem coming, or no right answer to choose. When you fail, you’re punished.”

Kristen rubbed Officer Deacon’s back, sympathetically tracing the chains at her waist.

“How long has it been for you?” she asked.

“A while,” Officer Deacon admitted. “Not as long as you, but long enough.”

A completely insane part of Kristen wanted to correct her.

She laughed internally as she imagined the chains under her fingers clicking free, allowing her to relieve her mentor’s frustration. She knew exactly where that power could be found, and of all the people she could fantasize about sharing it with, she’d picked someone Zach would never trust. Someone who probably wouldn’t even accept it if he did.

The thought passed.

“If I could just touch you…” said Kristen, as though it were impossible, which it might as well have been.

“I know,” said Officer Deacon. “But that’s not what I need most right now. I need to know that I can count on you.”

“You can.”

“Then you’ll stay in the trial?”

A warning prickled along the back of Kristen’s neck.

“Control hasn’t felt steady in your hands for a while, has it?” Kristen murmured against Officer Deacon’s neck. “How satisfying would it be right now, to make a subject literally give up her senses with a kiss?”

Officer Deacon kissed her again, slower.

With great effort, Kristen put her hands over Officer Deacon’s and pulled gently away.

“How about I help you find a solution to our Piper problem instead?”

Officer Deacon groaned and returned to her pacing.

“That one’s already a lost cause. The best we can do now is stop the failures from piling up and compounding each other.”

“Why is it a lost cause?”

“She has no shame, no respect, no gratitude,” Officer Deacon explained. “Which means we’ll never be able to make her display those feelings authentically. The best we can hope for is fear. Fear is an inferior product, absolutely bare minimum, and to get even that, we either need foolproof, sustainable control of her pleasure, or we need to break her down with pain. And with a pain tolerance as high as hers, and no way of fixing her standard, minimally invasive device, the measures it would take to do either of those things will make us look like brutes. Spanking someone who thanks you for your mercy and goes on to live a more productive life is a PSA. Beating streaks of blood out of a brave holdout who’s cursing your name is an invitation to riot. Piper is right, every second of footage we take of her will make the Bureau look either monstrous or ineffectual, both of which are a liability. And besides that, I just…” Officer Deacon sighed. “I don’t want to. I don’t want to do that kind of work ever again.”

“Really?” asked Kristen. “Because it seemed like you were ready to rip her head off a few minutes ago.”

“It never makes me feel better,” Officer Deacon said bitterly. “Our job is to motivate people for the better, not truly hurt them.”

Kristen had to hold herself back from putting her arms back around Officer Deacon.

“Okay,” she said, thinking fast. There were enough pieces here to put together into something that wouldn’t be too horrible for anyone. “The Bureau just wants us to use Piper to teach their values and make them look good, right? The effect is more important than the format. I mean, you rewrite the script a little each time anyway, to fit the case. So, there’s no harm in getting a little extra creative, is there? I mean, people are already so used to seeing the same old statement readings and beatings, showing them something different would be even more effective.”

Officer Deacon rubbed her tired eyes behind her glasses. “I’m open to suggestions.”

#

“Here’s how this will work,” said Kristen, securing the choke chain around Piper’s neck and feeding the end of it into one of the discreet tracks that ran through the seams of the room.

With a tap of Officer Deacon’s tablet, the chain raised itself mechanically to the ceiling and moved itself to hang over the empty stretch of the floor in front of the camera. Once in place, it wound itself short enough to just barely allow Piper to stand directly beneath it, with her back straight and feet flat, without incurring any uncomfortable pressure.

“We’re not going to hurt you.” Kristen cuffed Piper’s hands behind her back and showed her the thick wand vibrator from the pleasure implements section. “The opposite, actually. This tool isn’t normally used for debt collection. Normally, you would have to spend points to feel this.”

She turned on the vibrator and brushed it very briefly over Piper’s clit.

Piper’s knees bent reflexively, tightening the chain. She took in a strangled gasp and then hurried to regain her footing in a sturdier stance.

“We’re not going to charge you for it today,” said Kristen.

“Oh, thank you for your mercy,” said Piper sarcastically. “That’s what I’m supposed to say, right?”

“You’re not going to be saying anything, at least not for a while,” said Kristen, reaching to accept the ball gag Officer Deacon had already gathered for this purpose.

“Ooh, am I going to be the first televised subject to be gagged?” Piper asked, though her exuberance now felt more forced, tinged with disappointment. “People are really going to wonder now what I was saying, that you felt the need to hide from th—”

Kristen stuck the ball in her mouth and secured the straps behind her neck.

“When you’re ready to tell us how to fix your device, tap your foot twice. Then, once you’re locked back up and your service video is done, you’ll be allowed to sit down and discuss repayment for the rest of your debt. Because of the trouble you’ve caused, you’ll be choosing from a pared-down menu. I expect you’ll be spending a lot of the next month in stocks, sensory deprivation tanks, and other dull, uncomfortable places where no one will have to pay any attention to you.”

Piper’s eyes followed her intently. Kristen could only catch so much of her expression with her mouth fixed around the gag. She might have been annoyed, impressed, or both.

“Is the camera still running?” Kristen asked.

“It is,” said Officer Deacon. “Wow me at your leisure.”

Kristen stepped in front of Piper, face to the camera.

“Hi there!” she waved at the lens. “I’m Kristen, and some of you might remember me from another PSA that ran a few months ago, where I was receiving the Bureau’s mercy for my debt. Well, I’ve come a long way since then, and today, I’m here to give you a different kind of visual demonstration of how the Bureau’s mercy actually works. This,” she smacked Piper’s ample ass, “is Piper. She stole a lot of pleasure, so, naturally, she got caught.”

Kristen coughed away a sudden, sticky feeling in the back of her throat, and then quickly recovered her announcer’s voice.

“She needs a lot of correction.” Kristen spread Piper’s labia gently with her fingers. “We could spank this overindulged vulva all day long and still not recover what she owes. But the Bureau is about more than that. Let me show you something.”

She brought the vibrator wand back to Piper’s clit. Piper was ready for it this time. Her legs trembled but held.

“Piper understands that if she loses her self-control now, it’ll cause a serious problem.” Kristen rattled the chain around Piper’s neck. “Just like in so many of the situations we all face every day. She understands that, and yet…”

Kristen pulled the vibrator away and watched the feed on the screen, to make sure it had fully captured the way Piper’s hips followed the vibrations until they were completely out of reach.

“Yet she can’t help pursuing the pleasure, even knowing it could kill her. Now, here’s where the Bureau comes in.”

Kristen put the vibrator back on Piper’s clit and watched her closely, mentally timing the slight gyrations of her hips, the bursts of tension in her thigh muscles. Right before the point of no return, Kristen pulled the vibrator away, leaving Piper clenching her legs together against the nothingness in front of her, moaning behind her gag.

“We protect people from the collapses and pitfalls they can’t steer out of themselves. It doesn’t always feel good, but with reasonable cooperation, it’s painless, and a whole lot better than falling into life’s nooses.”

Kristen put the vibrator back in place.

“Unfortunately, when people try to fool and hide from us, we can’t always get there in time. That’s when a little safe pain becomes the only option.”

With so little recovery time, still so close to the edge, it only took a few seconds for Piper’s knees to buckle, bringing her weight down on the chain. Her face reddened, and the beginnings of an orgasmic moan turned to a gurgle in her compressed throat. She kicked, trying to force sense back into her legs.

All of these reactions took place over the course of less than a second, the same time it took Kristen to retrieve the paddle from the table behind her and give Piper’s pussy one more good smack, cutting her off and slamming her back to earth.

Kristen wrapped her arm around Piper’s back to support her as she righted herself, though she no longer needed much assistance.

“When you fall into overindulgence,” Kristen told the camera, “you can count on the Bureau not only to catch you but to put you back on your own feet.”

Kristen swapped the paddle for the wand again.

“And if you let us, we can even teach you to recognize when what you think you want is about to turn on you.”

She pressed the vibrating tip hard against Piper’s clit while it was still reeling in tainted, pleasureless orgasm recovery.

Piper screamed into the ball gag, wobbled heavily against Kristen, and then tapped her foot, not twice but eight times in a rapid drumbeat.

Kristen pulled the wand away immediately and reached behind Piper’s neck for the clasp of the gag.

“You know the line,” Kristen whispered low, as she unfastened it and gently tugged the ball free.

“Thank you.” Piper coughed and failed to remove the sound of strain from her throat. “For your mercy.”

Kristen wagered that was close enough.

“You’re ready to tell us?” she asked.

Piper nodded weakly. “Just let me out of these, and I’ll show you what I did.”

Kristen looked to Officer Deacon, who tapped the command on her tablet to release the choke chain, with a hint of cautious optimism hovering at the corners of her mouth.

“Did you believe any of what you said?” Piper croaked low to Kristen, as Kristen uncuffed her hands from behind her back. “I can usually tell, but you’ve got me. Are you a true believer or just a really good dancing monkey?”

Silently, Kristen led Piper back to the table, sat her down, and pushed the open chastity device toward her.

Piper waited a few more seconds with a questioning look on her face. Kristen only raised the wand and gave it a quick, harsh, buzzing pulse.

Finally, Piper sighed and picked up the device, following one of its chains to the latching device at the end and holding it up to the light.

“See how it’s bent just a millimeter or so off?” she asked.

Kristen and Officer Deacon both leaned in close to squint at the nearly imperceptible irregularity.

“Don’t worry, I couldn’t do anything to it while I was wearing it,” said Piper. “I made the modification during a ‘legitimate’ unlocking session, while the officer’s back was turned. And now….”

She fed the chain into the mechanism and held it out for Officer Deacon to tap her keycard to its sensor. The officer entered the command to secure the device, and it tightened itself around an imaginary person.

Once the chains were finished reeling themselves in, Piper grabbed the chain on the side she’d been demonstrating, applied pressure at a very precise diagonal angle, and popped it free.

The trick was so subtle that Kristen almost missed it.

At the same time as making such a show of getting the perfect leverage, Piper pressed her thumb against the device’s sensor. She had a slight lump under the skin of her thumb pad, easily mistaken for a callus, but exactly the same shape as the stone on Zach’s ring. When it touched the sensor, it emitted the briefest flash of light.

Piper was looking at Kristen at the moment when the flash happened. She continued looking as the appropriate time to call out her deception arrived, and then passed in silence.

“I’ll go set up a new device,” said Officer Deacon. “Kristen, re-gag her, let her rest for a few minutes, and then start working on her again, slower. I want her right on the edge when she goes back in. She can start making up for all the necessary discomfort she’s cheated her way out of before.”

“Yes, officer.”

Kristen held the wand and waited, watching Piper’s body language, returning her occasional challenging smirks with stony blankness.

Locking her back up, even at the most inconvenient of moments, would be a futile gesture for as long as she had that hacking gem hidden under her skin. Still, Kristen treated the task with the same seriousness she would for any other subject. She waited until Piper was ready to lean into the wand’s lowest setting, coaxed her slowly back toward the edge with it, and eased off at intervals to make certain she wouldn’t get there before Officer Deacon returned.

The camera kept running.

If Piper knew what Kristen knew, she forced no hint of it through her gag.

***

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