3
Later that afternoon, Oswald waddles into my office, escorted by a pair of guards. He glares at me miserably. I see that he's still wearing the straight jacket.
"Come in, Oswald, sit down," I greet him warmly.
Oswald waddles over to a chair in front of my desk and sits down. The guards stay by the door and watch him silently.
"Good afternoon, Doctor," he answers me bitterly. His expression has not changed much.
"Good afternoon," I greet him in reply. Then, I walk over to the lie detector machine by the side of his chair.
"Today, I'm going to hook you up to the lie detector machine and ask you a few questions about your childhood," I tell him. "You will answer truthfully."
"...What if its none of your business?" Oswald mutters bitterly.
"You will answer truthfully," I repeat as though he hadn't heard me the first time.
I proceed to hook him up to my machine, which is a lie detector combined with a remote control electric shock dispenser. First, I remove his straight jack and strap his arms down to the sides of the chair. Then, I strap something resembling an electrode-studded leather halo around his greasy head. I lift up his shirt and attach electrodes to the bare skin on his chest and belly. The shirt falls back down over the wires when I am finished.
I walk back over to my desk and sit down behind it, ceasing my clipboard in one hand and the remote control (with which to administer the electric shocks) in the other. Owald's got that cornered rat expression again. His eyes grow wide and his thin lips contort spastically. That's right bastard, you're going to suffer, I think sadistically. You're going to suffer and suffer and suffer until you're a blubbering mess, and then you're going to suffer some more.
I turn toward the guards by the door.
"You can leave, now. I've got everything under control" I say to them. "Let's give Oswald his privacy. I'll call you if I need you."
The guards leave the room and close the door behind them. I turn back toward Oswald.
"Tell me about your childhood. What were your parents like? Your mother?"
"My mother is an extremely wonderful lady," He tells me. I can see from the readings that the lie detector machine is giving me that he believes he is telling the truth. "She is among the rare few decent people in this world."
"Interesting. What about your father?" I ask him.
"I'd rather not talk about him," he says.
"Fair enough. We'll come back to that one. Were you abused as a child, Oswald? Physically? Emotionally? Sexually?" I ask him.
"No," he says and the machine loudly shocks him. He lets out a yelp of pain.
"Really, because it seems like you're lying to me," I say.
"I-I would never lie to you, D-doctor," he stutters fearfully and then lets out another pained yelp as the machine shocks him again.
Oswald slumps forward in his chair and whimpers, closing his eyes tight against the residual ache of the electric shocks.
"Tell me about the abuse," I say.
"I wasn't abused!" Oswald shouts in frustration.
"Aagh!" he screams as the machine shocks him again.
"Tell me about the abuse," I say again.
"I told you, I wasn't abused!" Oswald shouts again.
"Gaaagh!" he shouts as the machine shocks him yet again.
"Tell me about the abuse," I say a third time, anticipating his next pained yelp with delight.
"This is horrible!" he whimpers loudly. "I don't want to do this anymore!"
"Very well," I say. "We can revisit this topic at a different time. What about friends? Did you have any friends as a child, Oswald?"
"Very few," Oswald admits.
"That's too bad. Why not?" I say.
"I'd rather not talk about it," Oswald says.
I push the button on my remote control and give him another shock. This time the shock makes his body convulse and he shouts: "Ouch!" in a pathetic, teary voice.
"Alright, I'll talk about it. Just please don't hurt me anymore," he pleads. "When I was very young, I didn't have many friends. I was a chubby kid, and the other kids always said that I was really ugly and stupid looking. They all started calling me a penguin."
"Why?"
"I don't know. I guess they thought that I looked like a penguin," says Oswald.
I have to admit that Oswald does remind me somewhat of a penguin. His sharp nose combined with the stark contrast of his dark black hair against his pale skin, causes him to bear an unusual resemblance to one. The fact that he has pointed out the resemblance only makes me see it more.
"Once," Oswald tells me. "There was this formal event at my school and my mother dressed me in a tuxedo. The kids all laughed at me because they thought that I looked more like a penguin than ever. Then, as soon as the adults weren't looking, they started shouting: 'Penguin, penguin, Cobblepot's a penguin!' over and over again. They pushed me down and started kicking me, and they kept laughing at me and shouting that I was a penguin, and I cried and cried but they just kept kicking me and laughing at me, and before the adults pulled them off of me, I wet myself."
"What a terrible story. You must hate to be called that," I say.
"For the longest time, I hated it more than anything. But then...I learned to embrace the name. The Penguin. That's what they call me. Its my gang name... and I embrace it because...I like the idea that the name that a name that once hurt me...is a name that people now fear. That's what I call irony. That's what I call artistic justice. I am The Penguin and people fear me. Because I am a man to be feared."
I dislike Oswald's self indulgent "man to be feared" speech so much that I give him another electric shock. He screams out in pain and starts hyperventilating.
"Why did you shock me!" he whimpers indignantly. "I told the truth!"
"Crazy," I tell him tauntingly. "I shocked you because you said something crazy."
"I'm not crazy!" Oswald shouts. "I lied about being crazy so they'd stick me here instead of jail!"
I push the button on my remote control and administer another shock.
"That's just like something a crazy person would say," I tell him, smirking.
I pause my interrogation momentarily, during which time, Oswald hyperventilates and rocks himself back and forth in the chair.
"Did you make a prison shank today, Oswald," I ask.
Oswald glances fearfully down at the wires sticking out of the front of his shirt and then answers me honestly:
"Yes."
"You attacked a man with it today. Is that right?"
"Yes."
"What was your intention when you did that?" I ask.
"I was going to slit his worthless throat open," Oswald hisses angrily.
I push the button on my remote control and give Oswald another good shock. He screams as his body convulses with electricity.
"That's bad," I say. "Slitting throats open is bad, Oswald. You'll have to be punished for that."
I walk over to him and remove the electrodes from his head and torso. He breaths a cautious sigh of relief-but then I tell him:
"Do you see that hospital cot over there? I want you walk over there and bend over it so that your bottom is in the air. Its time for a spanking."
Oswald becomes visibly upset again almost immediately. He glances over at the cot and then back at me, his body trembling. He gives me a pleading look, and then bites down on his lower lip.
"Come now, doctor, I'm sure that's not necessary," he says.
"I'm waiting, Oswald."
"Y-you can't treat me like this. I'm not an animal."
"You're going to have you to cooperate with disciplinary procedure, Mr. Cobblepot, or you will be restrained while I administer your punishment," I say.
"I will do no such thing," Oswald answers indignantly.
It seems that he's determined to find it some way to save himself from his impending beating. He tries to flatter me; assumes a false sense of familiarity, which I find detestable. When that doesn't work he tells me that he has to go to the bathroom, and when that doesn't word he falls down on the floor and pretends to be having a heart attack. Ofcourse, I believe none of his lies and except none of his excuses. Instead, I watch with a calm indifferent expression on my face as he flops around on the floor, gripping his chest. I take a sip my of coffee. He flails stupidly for a few minutes and then collapses from the exhaustion of his performance, breathing hard.
I can see that I'm not about to convince him to cooperate. I call the guards back in and have them escort Oswald over to the cot. I think that Oswald accepts his powerlessness now, because he walks with them without much of a struggle. I catch a glimpse of his expression before the guards push his head down onto the cot, forcing him to bend over. He's blushing and looks like he's about to cry, at long last, resigned to his humiliating fate.
I open one of my desk drawers and retrieve a large, heavy paddle. I've also got a steel pipe in the drawer but I'll have to wait until no one is watching me to hit him with that.
Then, I walk over to the place were Oswald is bent over the table. The guards watch incase he gets up and tries to attack me.
I yank Oswald's pants down, just enough so that his round white butt pokes out. Oswald is relatively slim, but his bottom is chubby and sticks out a little bit. I can't help but think that it reminds me of a penguin tail. It's very undignified.
I bring the paddle back as far as I can and then bring it down hard against his chubby little penguin butt. A loud SMACK echoes throughout the room. Oswald's butt cheeks clench involuntarily and his back arches, but he doesn't make a sound. His silence infuriates me.
A subtle redness spreads across Oswald's bottom. I strike him again, reproducing the loud SMACK and the redness grows. His fat little butt giggles when its struck, but again, he doesn't yelp or cry out.
SMACK! SMACK! SMACK! SMACK! SMACK!
I bring the paddle down on his behind hard and fast, it gets redder and redder with every blow. Now I'm spanking him as hard and as fast as I can, filling the room with the sound of those loud undignified smacks. He begins to yelp involuntarily when struck. His body finches. Bloody welts and bruises are raised on his behind. I don't stop. I keep hitting him as hard as I can. His yelps dissolve into whimpers and then into fits of quiet sniffling.
Oswald's trying to hide the fact that he's crying now. He covers his face with his hand and breathes hard to try and control himself. I smack his bright red ass a few more times with the paddle and he breaks down into a fit of uncontrollable sobbing.
"Please, don't hit me anymore!" he begs we in a pathetic tear-choked voice.
I ignore his plea and strike his bruised red ass again, the skin there is starting to shift from bright tomato red to dull murky purple. I keep spanking him while he sobs and the bruise spreads. It grows darker and in places the skin begins to break open and bleed out.
"Please! No more! Have pity on me!" he weeps pitifully.
Again I ignore his irritating plea, and continue paddling his black and blue tush as though attempting to pound it flat. Oswald begins yelping: ow! ,every time he's struck. I enjoy the broken hopelessness in his voice, the incredibly pathetic self pity. He's not trying to act tough now. What was left of his dignity is broken.
"Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow! Oww! Owwwie! Wahhahahaa! Mommy!" he snivels pitifully. I think he wants me to feel sorry for him but I don't. Whether this is a ploy for his release from the punishment or not, his sniveling makes me hate him even more.
Perhaps this fresh mental break down is making the guards uncomfortable. I hadn't paid much attention to them before, but now I glance over at them and see that they're looking at Oswald with pity in their eyes...and at me like I'm a monster. Do I have to remind them that this man is a killer? All of the adorable blubbering in the world can't change that. He deserves to be punished.
I strike the weeping Oswald a cross his fat butt cheeks with the paddle again.
"Ow!" he sobs.
I put the paddle back down on my desk, but leave his pants down for awhile longer to further humiliate him. His ass is bloody and purple and he's sobbing uncontrollably. I must say, I'm very satisfied with the results of this first punishment. The only thing that could have made it better is if he had wet himself.
"Pull your pants back up, Oswald." I tell him. "Your punishment is over."
For now, I think to myself sadistically.
Oswald straightens up and pulls his pants back over his purple swollen backside. He flinches as the fabric brushes against his tender damaged flesh. Then puts his face in his hands and breaks into a fresh spasm of awkward sobbing. As he does this, he leans sideways against the cot to take pressure off of his damaged leg, the one which causes him to limp and waddle like a penguin.
I cries for a few minutes and I listen to it as I sip my coffee indifferently. Then I say:
"You may leave now, Oswald. I'll see you again at this time tomorrow."
Oswald waddles out of my office, still crying. He rubs his aching butt. The guards leave as well, and when they are gone. The door closes behind them. The instant I feel that I am alone, my professional mask slips off and I smirk sadistically, Oswald's pain-filled sobbing still ringing in my ears.