Alternative Remedy
Summary: Tim feels guilty about messing up on the job, and thinks he knows how to make himself feel better. Warning: spanking of adult and references to BDSM. Don't like? Don't read!
Disclaimer: I don't own them, I just play with them.
A/N: This is a stand-alone story and is not part of either of my series. The idea behind this began as a tongue-in-cheek response to AislingK's story The Darker Side of Solace. She didn't think this was plausible. My Muse took that as a challenge.
For Aisling, for her birthday.
Warning: this story contains the spanking of an adult and references to BDSM. If you have a problem with that, click on that 'back' button now. You've been warned.
Tim carefully memorised the address on his screen, knowing better than to write it down anywhere. He was grateful to the dead petty officer who had been involved in 'the scene' – he never would have found the guts to run a search on this kind of club on any of his computers, without the excuse of an investigation.
Even so, he'd run across The House of Correction largely by accident. It wasn't really the sort of place where PO Harrison hung out. But it was close enough that his search pattern spit it out anyway. And it was different enough that Tim thought it might be exactly what he was looking for.
He'd known about a couple of BDSM clubs. It was impossible to work in law enforcement and not occasionally have to deal with them. It wasn't that they were particularly likely to be full of criminals, as Abby repeatedly pointed out whenever they had a case that involved one of them. But it was just statistics that any place where large numbers of human beings clustered together would eventually have a patron or employee who was the perpetrator, victim, or witness of some kind of crime. And sometimes a sailor or marine happened to be involved.
But none of those clubs really appealed to Tim. He wasn't interested in that kind of casual sex, and he certainly wasn't turned on by the idea of being spanked.
What he was interested in, though, was the possibility of being spanked, without any expectation that he would enjoy it. Punishment, pure and simple. A means of atonement. A way to deal with the guilt he was feeling, and, hopefully, move on.
He knew from experience that a leather belt across the ass was a very effective way of finding closure after a screw-up. As much as he hated it while it was happening, and feared it when he knew it was coming, he always felt better afterwards.
But Gibbs hadn't spanked him for his most recent offence.
And there was no way that Tim could go to his boss and ask for the whipping that he so desperately needed.
The website he'd found suggested that The House of Correction was everything he was looking for. The 'club' offered its patrons hard, painful spankings, with no strings, and no sex, attached. A series of testimonials from assorted doctors, lawyers, and executives praised the effectiveness of the services provided for dealing with the burdens their professions sometimes placed on the consciences. A link to a scholarly journal article about the connections among guilt, punishment, and a feeling of absolution was accompanied by a claim to provide the psychological benefits of penance without the trappings of Catholic dogma and ritual. Tim read the various declarations with some scepticism about the attempt to provide a theoretical gloss, but he couldn't deny that a spanking would help him, and that this was probably the only way for him to get it.
Tim shut down the computer and glanced at his watch. It was still relatively early on a Friday night, the case was closed, and he wasn't due back at work until Monday morning.
No time like the present, he decided.
X X X
Tim sat in the tiny cubicle where the receptionist had put him, trying to get his hands to stop shaking enough to fill in the form he'd been given.
The glossy catalogue was open on the table in front of him, the large pictures of various implements accompanied by short descriptions of the kinds of effects they created. The section for non-members was disappointingly small, and he had already satisfied his curiosity and thumbed through the pages of the members-only options. It made sense, he knew, to restrict access to the more severe implements, lest some clueless spanking neophyte find himself in over his head. But he'd been disappointed to learn that becoming eligible for the harsher implements involved several spankings over a number of weeks, before he'd even get to the big initiation. Tonight, he would have to settle for something from the beginners' level.
He settled on a small wooden paddle, and filled in the required information in the appropriate box.
Hesitating only slightly, he wrote '12' in the space asking how many strokes he wanted to be delivered.
Having made what he considered the important decisions, he read impatiently through the remaining questions.
Providing a safeword was mandatory, apparently. His mind went immediately blank; he'd never needed one before. In the end, he wrote down 'centrifuge', borrowing Abby's usual word since he couldn't think of anything better.
He didn't particularly care that new spankees weren't allowed to be restrained, since he didn't much like the idea of being tied down for a spanking anyway. He ticked the appropriate box indicating that he had read and understood the warning that he'd have to stay in position for his spanking on his own, and moved on.
He didn't hesitate to choose 'boxers', checking the box firmly. He didn't want to have to bare his ass completely, and the club didn't allow its patrons to remain fully clothed, for reasons that he couldn't explain.
The next item asked him to specify where he wanted to be spanked. His hands weren't options for the paddle he'd chosen, but he still had to decide among 'ass only', 'thighs only', and 'both ass and thighs'. He hated being spanked on his thighs, and it always made sitting down afterwards almost unbearably painful. But, he reminded himself, this would only work if he really felt like he was being severely punished. Taking a deep breath, he forced himself to select the last option.
The final question on the list gave him pause. How did he want to be positioned for his spanking? His first instinct was to select 'bent over a table', since it was how Gibbs normally punished him. But then he decided to consider other options. After all, this wasn't Gibbs, so maybe he should go with something different. In the end, he chose a padded spanking bench that promised to keep his butt perfectly positioned to maximise the effect of any implement.
He gazed longingly at the 'surprise me' option. That's what he really wanted, he knew. To let someone else make the decisions, to have no choice but to accept a hard spanking with an implement he hadn't picked out for himself, not even knowing how many strokes he'd have to endure. But that wasn't even limited to members only – only 'senior' members had access to the longed-for release that only came from total submission to another's discipline.
With a heavy sigh, Tim double-checked the price list in the catalogue and slipped the appropriate cash into the pocket on the back of his form. It wasn't exactly the spanking he wanted. But, he hoped, maybe it would be enough.
Tim picked up the small tag with his identification number on it, and made sure that it corresponded to the number on the top of the form. Leaving the paper on the table like he'd been told to do, he took a deep breath and pushed open the cubicle door.
X X X
Tim stepped into the small waiting room. Whatever he'd expected, it wasn't this.
About half a dozen men and women sat on moulded plastic chairs that lined the walls. Some of them were flipping distractedly through magazines. Others just sat, eyes closed or staring at the ceiling. One young man fidgeted restlessly, his foot tapping loudly against the tile floor, earning him a hard look from a middle-aged woman who was watching him over the top of her magazine.
He took a seat, wondering impatiently how long he would have to wait. He knew that this time was meant to allow time for reflection, for anxiety to build, for second thoughts and changing of minds. But, he thought, glancing around surreptitiously, he probably wasn't alone in just wanting to get it over with.
He let his eyes drift shut and tried to focus on why he deserved this. He wanted to be in the right frame of mind for the spanking. He usually had Gibbs's scathing recital of his misdeeds to ensure that he wasn't thinking about anything else when the pain started. This time, he could only rely on himself to keep his attention centred on the reason why he needed to be punished.
He heard the door, and his eyes flew open. A young woman in a white lab coat stood in the doorway. She consulted her clipboard and called out a number. One of the other men stood up and, with obvious reluctance, walked towards the waiting attendant.
The fidgeter slumped back in his seat and began drumming his fingers on its arms. Tim sighed, closed his eyes again, and went back to thinking about the man who was dead because of his mistake.
X X X
It wasn't long before his number was called. His heart was pounding in his chest as he headed towards the waiting attendant. He wanted this, he reminded himself. He needed this.
That didn't mean that he wasn't scared shitless, now that it was about to happen.
The attendant led him down a short hallway and ushered him into a small room, leaving him alone.
The black vinyl-covered spanking bench stood in the middle of the room, dominating the space. Tim circled the ominous furniture slowly, trying to work out exactly where his various body parts were meant to go.
He was distracted from his speculation when he caught sight of the paddle he had chosen, waiting on a small table. He stared at it, transfixed, unable to think of anything except what the solid-looking wooden object would feel like when it was brought down hard, repeatedly, on his waiting backside.
Swallowing hard, he forced himself to turn away. He slipped off his shoes and fumbled with his belt. His hands were shaking as he slipped his jeans onto a hanger and hung them on the coat tree that stood in one corner.
He had barely turned back towards the door when it opened to admit his Disciplinarian. She was an older woman. Like the attendant who had brought him here from the waiting room, she was wearing a lab coat and carrying a clipboard. She scrutinised him briefly, her eyes scanning him up and down from behind her school-marmish glasses. Tim struggled to keep from flinching away from her gaze, surprised by how... clinical... this felt.
'You are to receive twelve strokes with the paddle on your buttocks and the backs of your thighs,' she told him formally, the slightest inflection in her voice making him unsure whether or not the statement was intended to be a question. He nodded, just in case.
'I need to you to acknowledge that that is correct,' she continued, the curve of her lips suggesting that he had been expected to answer verbally the first time.
'Uh... yeah... uh... I mean... yes, that's correct,' he stammered, feeling very self-conscious.
'Assume the position.'
Her brusque manner was doing nothing to calm his nerves. He wasn't sure what he had expected. He'd known he wouldn't be coddled and reassured; that wasn't what this place was for. But, somehow, he hadn't realised how uncomfortable it would make him feel to be given such curt commands by someone who hadn't even introduced herself. The formality, the anonymity, was intentional – she was his Disciplinarian, and that would forever be the full extent of their relationship – but it was disconcerting nonetheless.
He turned towards the spanking bench and awkwardly draped himself over it. His face burned with shame while his Discliplinarian adjusted his position, firmly wrapping his fingers around the handholds and forcing him to move his knees until his butt was positioned to her satisfaction. He rested his forehead against the smooth vinyl that was already sticky with his breath and tried to steady himself for the punishment he had sought out.
The first stroke came without warning, and took his breath away. It was followed immediately by a second eruption of pain, this time on his other butt cheek. The pain was sharp and hardly faded at all as the seconds passed, seeming almost to increase as it radiated outward. Tim clutched frantically at the handholds and whimpered softly, surprised by how much it hurt already. He suddenly wasn't sure that he could do this, and he had to grind his teeth together to stop himself from crying out his borrowed safeword.
The next stroke landed on his left thigh, and he howled in surprise and pain. He'd expected the strokes on his thighs to come at the end of the spanking, the way they always had done when Gibbs had thought that he deserved that extra severity. He was unprepared for the agonising impact of the paddle against his bare skin. And, even though he expected the fourth stroke to target his other thigh, the pain was no less intense when it came.
Tim was moaning before the paddle connected with his butt again. The hard stroke on skin that was already burning drew tears to his eyes. It took all his willpower not to put an end to the spanking.
It had never been like this with Gibbs, he thought, stunned by the realisation that, unlike his Disciplinarian, Gibbs didn't use his full strength behind his chastisement.
He tried to force himself into a pattern of breathing through the pain, his knuckles white as he gripped the handholds in a desperate effort to make it through the rest of the spanking that he'd requested. He didn't want to admit that he couldn't take it. And, there was a part of him that still believed that hating the experience as much as he did was a good thing; he definitely wouldn't be left with a feeling that he'd gotten off lightly, and so still had something to feel guilty about.
The next stroke fell, as expected on the other side of his ass. He was halfway done, he told himself. He could do this.
A pair of hard swats to the thighs had him wondering if that assertion was overly optimistic.
He shrieked, and would have bolted to his feet if the angle of the spanking bench didn't make that awkward, when the next two strokes also landed on his thighs. He hadn't expected the order of the final cycle to be reversed, giving him repeated strokes on the sensitive spots without any pause.
The final two strokes were delivered before he'd recovered from his surprise, leaving him panting, his ass ablaze with pain and his thighs in agony.
His Disciplinarian left without a word, the door clicking shut quietly behind her.
Tim still didn't move.
It wasn't just the severity of the pain that was different, he realised, it was the emotional content as well. When Gibbs spanked him, he invariably felt chastened, miserable at the thought of having disappointed his mentor, but also cared for and safe. All of that had been lacking today. It had been pain, pure and simple, and he discovered that that was not nearly as effective at dealing with guilt as was the more complex emotions his boss's discipline produced.
It felt like a long time before he staggered to his feet and dragged his pants painfully over his tortured legs.
Reaching into his pocket for a tissue, his fingers grazed the small cards he had been handed earlier. A business card giving the club's web address, promising a link to the full catalogue and claiming that an on-line pre-order form was 'coming soon'. And his 'frequent spankees' card, which he would need to have filled in if he wanted eventually apply for membership. He pulled them, holding them for the briefest of moments before dropping both on the table next to the paddle.
He wouldn't be coming back.