Eloise stared at the booth and sighed. The sigh itself was a lie: A lie because it was her way of pretending it was all too much to care and nothing more than a bothersome inconvenience. The truth was the booth filled her with dread.

The booth was an Enders Leigh and Steven’s deluxe punishment installation. It had been installed by Eloise’s guardian, Peter Vaughn, as a condition of her being allowed to move unescorted to Regis for her studies.

At 23 she was under legal obligation to Peter for another seven years. A consequence of her participation in the hedonist riots two years earlier that had cut-short her scheduled schooling.

“Peter I’ll be ever so good if you let me go to Regis,” she remembered saying.

“I know your idea of good,” Peter had replied sitting back at his desk and folding his arms to stretch out his long firm legs. He was in not bad shape for a man nearing middle age, the greying hair at his temples the only sign of his advancing years.

“I will fill out all of the disciplinary report forms on time, really I will and if you think I have earned a spanking at half-term I’ll understand,” Eloise felt like a wheedling kid again, but two years under virtual house arrest and getting a traditional maintenance spanking every week on principle was becoming a drag.

“There is no way I am letting you go that far without some kind of supervision, for one thing it would be a breach of your sentence conditions,” Peter had sighed. “Maybe next year I’ll be able to afford a freelance governess to accompany you but until then…”

Eloise gaped in horror. A governess! That would be worse than living at home.

Then Peter had heard about the booths; fully interactive and networked synthesised-reality punishment installations. At first he had been dubious but then he had been given a demonstration.

“Alright, I think this may work.” He had relented at last. Not that Eloise had been enthusiastic.

“Two minutes until a penalty is incurred,” the machine voice in the booth said.

Eloise began to rapidly undress. Penalties were something that she did not want to entertain.

The worse thing about the booth was that one’s guardian always had control of the punishment and Eloise never knew what was coming. At least at home she could see the implement in advance and would have had a pretty good idea if she was to have an audience or not.

An audience; the idea made her shudder. That was the other thing about the booth. At home most spankings were private affairs, but the booth had two settings: one to 10 for severity and one to 10 for humiliation.

Eloise had never had a mere 1/1, her maintenance spankings were always 2/2, but at least she had never had a 10/10. She could not even imagine what it would be like.

“One minute until a penalty is incurred,” the machine intoned.

Eloise was naked now and decided to waste no more time. She glanced at her black skirt and burgundy top folded on the bed and then with a sigh turned to face the booth. Detecting her proximity, the black polished curved outer-door slid slowly and silently open to reveal the leather-like padded roll bars on which she had to kneel on and bend over.

Eloise was a little shorter than average height and her straight chestnut brown hair was cut page boy-style with a low fringe to her eyes. Her figure was nipped neatly at the waist so that her slightly broad hips flared a little too much for perfection, but this only served to emphasise her round well-defined bottom.

“Ten seconds until a penalty is incurred.”

Eloise stepped forward and knelt on the first rung of the padded bar and eased herself forward until the third, fourth and fifth padded bars pressed neatly into her belly, below her breasts and along her collarbone.

“Five, four, three…”

Eloise gulped and her heart raced. “I am in,” she wailed, but she knew the booth would not respond to her. However, to her relief the count stopped and she heard the door seal with the merest of clicks.

She felt the psych band close automatically on her forehead and then after a long pause of waiting in the dark the machine seemed to grip her. Then the booth took her.

*

She was standing in the corner naked below the waist. It seemed so real. Eloise didn’t understand how it worked exactly; a mix of physical interactive VR and a neural-psychotropic direct input interface of some kind, she had read.

“You cut that a bit fine.” It was Aunt Tara.

It was so humiliating to have Aunt Tara know about her spankings, and her aunt had spanked her more than once in lieu of Peter. Eloise hoped that maybe it would be just the two of them and she was to have nothing worse than a 2-2.

“One missed assignment and two tardys,” Aunt Tara was tut-tuting.

Eloise had been orphaned in the Fusion War of 2186 and Aunt Tara and her two daughters were her only living relatives. Her aunt had been unable to serve as her guardian because both her own daughters had been convicted during the same riot and two adult women was the maximum the state allowed for legal guardianship in lieu of a re-education centre. Eloise had only narrowly escaped a re-education centre herself because of Peter’s intervention. Peter, an accredited justice and educationalist, was a good friend of Aunt Tara and luckily for Eloise had agreed to step in.

“The others will be here shortly,” her aunt continued.

“The others?” Eloise was close to panicking now.

“Yes of course. You didn’t think you would get off with anything less than 4-4 did you? In fact Peter has authorised a 4-6 up to a 6-6.”

“Who…? I mean what is… going to happen?” Eloise blushed.

“For a start I wanted your cousins here as a warning to them and Peter has invited one outside witness, but they may not attend.”

Eloise wanted to cry; an outsider? Damn this booth, she cursed. The booths were networked so that the gatekeeper, in this case Peter, could invite anyone anywhere on the network to observe or even participate. At higher settings the punishment could even go global for maximum embarrassment to the recipient. There was even a dedicated pay-for-view HD-3D channel.

It was the humiliation that Eloise feared the most, although since the booth couldn’t harm anyone, any level of synthesised punishment was permissible. It felt like the real thing and even the marks and post-punishment soreness was authentic. A level 4 up to level 6 pain setting could be quite… bad, Eloise thought.

She tried to work out what a level six humiliation setting meant in practice. How bad could this get? She knew that one was completely private and two was private with corner time but outsiders who tried to contact her either via her apartment intercom or over the net were informed a punishment was in progress.

A level three, she remembered, meant that her punishment would be posted for three days. She blushed, this was going to be so humiliating. Please God don’t let this be a six, although she had no idea what that might mean.

“Please Aunt Tara, who is the outside witness?” Eloise was desperate now.

“Oh just a colleague of Peter’s, a fellow justice educational professional who wants to see the booths in action, but I would be more worried about the guest disciplinarian if I were you.”

“What?” Eloise broke from the corner and turned to confront her aunt.

“Breach of corner time, penalty incurred,” the machine voice intoned. Eloise stamped her foot in frustration and turned hastily back to face the corner. “Damn,” she cursed.

“That was a silly thing to do,” Aunt Tara scolded.

In the brief second of her rebellion, Eloise had seen the room behind her. It was a standard family apartment set-up, similar to the one that Peter usually used to spank her in. There had been an armless straight-backed chair to her right and three couches facing her with enough room for up to nine people. The low table in between them had held various spanking implements.

“Please Aunt Tara,” Eloise pleaded, “who is going to be spanking me?”

*

Over the last half hour Eloise’s cousins and Peter with his colleague, Helen Ventures, had arrived one-by-one, although, Aunt Tara had refused to tell Eloise about the mysterious guest spanker. Helen had been a shock. A complete stranger was bad enough, Eloise had met Helen socially and having her witness this humiliation was almost too much to bear. No one but her aunt and Peter had spanked her before and apart from her cousins, no one had even seen her spanked. Now she had to contend with not only two outsiders, but too people she might have to face again over the dinner table.

“A participant has joined this session,” the machine voice said. Eloise squirmed and resisted the urge to look round at the most recent fully interactive avatar sitting on the couch.

“Ah Daniel, glad you could join us,” Peter said evenly.

Eloise’s eyes went wide. Daniel? Who the… oh, she realised as the full horror sank in.

“Hello everyone,” Daniel said casually.

Peter began to speak and the background chatter fell away. “Now that our guest spanker has arrived I think I should outline the extent of Eloise’s punishment and the reasons behind it.”

Eloise desperately fought her rising panic, the fact that Daniel was to spank her was enough to make her consider using the emergency override and bailing out of her punishment altogether.

“As you know I only allowed Eloise to attend college in Regis after careful consideration and on certain conditions. She is a reckless and often selfish young woman who has a long history of failing to internalise the consequences of her actions.” There was a pause and someone shifted uncomfortably in their seat. Although Eloise couldn’t see, she suspected that Peter had just thrown one or both of her cousins one of his inclusive looks. She knew that Aunt Tara had often recruited him to deal with both of her cousins at one time or another.

“In recent weeks Eloise has forgotten that she is under close restriction and has reverted to type. Most of you here have witnessed previous spankings,” Peter continued. “Well it seems that it has not been sufficient for her and I need to raise the game.”

“Please Peter…” Eloise started to protest.

“’Please Peter’ nothing, you will be quiet.”

Eloise squirmed. This was beyond humiliating. Not only was Daniel sitting there seeing her bare bottom, albeit a VR HD/3D rendition of it, but he was now party to every detail of her failings and punishment.

Daniel had been her advocate at her hearing and had successfully helped keep her out of a re-education centre. But he was barely 30, and far from being friendly, he had scolded her like a child and had even said on one occasion that if his sister had had anything to do with the Hedonist Riots he would have spanked her until she couldn’t sit down for a month. This had been particular embarrassing as under other circumstances Eloise would have hoped to manoeuvre Daniel into asking her for a date.

“Daniel has kindly agreed to help me upgrade Eloise’s punishment, which by the way will be a 4-6. I pressed for a harsher punishment, but to his credit, Daniel would only agree to a level four spanking.”

Eloise shifted angrily at the phrase ‘kindly agreed’ and barely took note of the fact that she had Daniel to thank for a lesser punishment.

Peter ignored his charge and continued with his explanation. “A level four application calls for an over the knee spanking with any implement of Daniel’s choice for just about as long and hard as he sees fit. Personally I think she needs the strap or the cane. A level six humiliation level, means that apart from suffering the spanking from someone outside the immediate family, Eloise’s punishment will be posted on her personal profile for one month and be generally available on her permanent record. That, to be clear, means any interested parties listed as a known associate or friend of Eloise will be able to access a recording of these proceedings for 28 days.

Eloise whipped her head around angrily to confront her guardian.

“Breach of corner time, penalty incurred,” the machine voice intoned. This interjection and Daniel’s hard stare made her turn back to glower angrily at the corner just inches from her nose.

“Please Peter, not that,” Eloise wailed. “Everyone will know, even people I don’t like or have anything to do with will hear about it. I’ll take a 6-4, anything…”

“You will take what you’re given, you have already earned a penalty 2-2 next week as it is; one more outburst of any kind and I’ll make it a 3-3.”

Eloise shuddered. She had come to almost welcome her intimate 2-2s with Peter. She knew where she was with them and it made her feel that someone cared enough to afford her such intimacy. Even the slight risk that her personal e-profile would tell the world she was being spanked, added a little frisson to the proceedings, but this was way too much. However, Eloise knew she had been warned and she knew she had been pushing it, but everyone knowing and even being allowed to check it out, was a nightmare.

*

“I think you have been in the corner long enough for the moment.” Daniel took charge of her now. “Turn around and come here.”

Eloise slipped her hands down in front of her and reluctantly turned around. Daniel had placed one of the armless chairs so that it faced the assembled company and now stood next to it watching her.

“Come here.” Daniel spoke sternly now, much as he had when they first met and he had explained the severity of her situation following her arrest. Then as now she pouted a little and pretended open disdain. If only the man wasn’t so handsome, she cursed inwardly, risking an upward glance. This gesture of defiance brought her face to face with her audience and she blushed.

Daniel pressed a short stiff leather paddle into his palm and sat in the chair. “Come here.” His tone brooked no argument.

Eloise took small hesitant steps towards him, noticing as she did so the mocking looks on her cousin’s faces and the look of disapproval on Peter’s. “Peter please…” she appealed to him.

“Address yourself to me young lady,” Daniel snapped.

Eloise pressed her chin into her chest and took the final step towards her temporary master.

Daniel wasted no time and seized her gently by the ear and tugged her nearer until she stumbled forward, bent double towards his lap.

“You were given a privilege and more freedom than you have earned and yet you abuse it,” Daniel scolded pulling her firmly down so that she felt his hard warm thighs pressing into her belly and legs. She could never get over how real it all seemed.

“It is real, in every way that counts,” Peter had explained that first time.

Didn’t she know it, she thought ruefully as the paddle was patted firmly against her bare bottom. It felt all too real.

The physicality was provided by ultrasonics and nanites, as was the pain, she knew; safe and effective no matter how punishing he decided to be. Everything else was psychotropic VR HD/3D. “More clarity than real life,” the advertising legend claimed.

For an awful moment Eloise remembered the future audience for the networked recording and quailed to her soul. Then the paddle bit in hard and she made an unseemly wail. Her cousin June hugged herself in delight and the last coherent thought Eloise had for a while was how the punishment booth network managed that nuance.

*

The paddle landed spank after spank at a steady pace and within moments Eloise was panting hard through gritted teeth. All through this Daniel scolded her with angry words that she could not take in, although strangely, she found his tone a soothing contrast to the growing burn in her bottom.

The spanking hurt much worse than any yet given by Peter, as she had been warned it would, but still she did not cry as she had done when alone with Peter so many times before. She was determined not to and the harder Daniel spanked, the harder she fixed on a point on the virtual floor and gritted her teeth.

“OK tough-girl,” Daniel said at last, “you can go back to the corner to cool off for a while.”

Eloise got slowly to her feet thoroughly cowed and feeling as if she might cry in front of everybody. So for once the corner served as a friendly haven, rather than just a humiliating vigil.

“This really is impressive, it is so real,” Helen Ventures said, finally unable to retain her professional detachment. “And you say, no matter how severe the punishment, the booth stops at physical damage?”

“It’s rather more complicated than that, but essentially yes. Although you wouldn’t think so to see a bottom after a young lady has stepped from the booth.” Peter studied his younger colleague carefully, amused by her obvious excitement. “Perhaps you should try being on the receiving end sometime.”

Helen opened her mouth before closing it with a blush, suddenly too shy to even manage a neat comeback.

“Do you ever use this system on your girls?” Daniel asked Tara, coming to Helen’s rescue.

“Not when they live in such close proximity. It is not worth the expense. But when they go to college, well who knows?”

June and her sister Jan blushed and exchanged looks. Their mother’s spankings, as sound as they were, were at least fairly private affairs. The public network aspect was not something they wanted to contemplate for themselves.

Listening from the corner, Eloise took no comfort in her cousins’ discomfort. Here she was on humiliating display and everyone was ignoring her.

“Alright, let’s take this to the next stage,” Daniel said. “Eloise come here.”

Eloise turned from the wall, hardly daring to take her eyes off the impossibly vivid carpet. All her defiance was gone now, damn the man, how dare Peter let him spank her?

This time Daniel used a martinet on her bottom. The myriad razor like strands bit into every crevice of her bottom in a thousand places at once until instead of determined defiance, she had only vocal regrets.

“Please Daniel I’ll be good,” she wailed and then from nowhere came a cascade of tears.

*

One by one the witnesses had gone until Peter and Eloise were alone in the virtual room.

“Public access now denied,” the machine voice announced.

“Listen Eloise, I know all this seems harsh, but your behaviour during the riots and since you came to Regis suggests that you think that you can do what you like, when you like and the consequences go hang. This can’t go on.” Peter sighed, leaning forward on the couch.

“I know,” Eloise replied in a small voice.

“I really, really want to be able to sign you off with a good record when your sentence is up, but you have to work with me. You have to see that you are not the great I-am and that the world doesn’t revolve around you. If a little humility is what it takes then so be it.”

“Did you have to let Daniel spank me?” Eloise said meekly. God I hope he never does that again, Eloise lied to herself.

*

“Please Daniel I’ll be good,” the cheer leader squad chorused as Eloise past them in the refectory. Her stomach flipped and she blushed. Damn who else had she forgotten? It seemed her ‘authorised network of contacts’ included every member of every college club she belonged to. She had embarrassingly found that out in the shower after soccer practice.

“I fell getting out of the bath,” she had said lamely to one of her teammates who commented on the redness of her bottom.

“What a coincidence,” the girl had laughed, “and the day after you got a booth-spanking as well.”

Eloise had blushed until her face matched her bottom.

After leaving the booth her bottom had burned like a son-of-a-bitch and the colour had been something to behold. Small nanites had infested her skin, not only simulating a prevailing soreness and colour, but also, she was to learn, embedded needle point enzymes that would stop her sitting down for three days. So both the colour and the discomfort were there to see for anyone who had opportunity.

However, it was the humiliation that she found the most trying. After two days of hell she had considered running back to Peter and giving up. Then a girl she hardly knew stopped her in the corridor and said: “Did you hear? Cindy Corrigan the class president is up for a spanking. I heard it was a 6-7 in the booth from her old man for overspending on her college budget. If you have any classes with you her you’ll be able to watch. Man I had a 5-5 once, a six is going to sting.”

Sure enough in the days that followed the dorm room gossip turned to Cindy and at least three other girls, for once, Eloise managed a smile. Later that week she even accessed the networked recording. Poor Cindy wouldn’t live it down for the rest of term, if she ever did.

*

The rest of term had gone well for Eloise on the whole and she was looking forward to the holidays. Oh to be sure she had her fair share of spankings on top of her maintenance, but most had only been 3-2s with one 3-3. At least she knew that all her holiday spankings, if she earned any, would be of the manual kind as Peter only had one booth at home.

No more grievous networked humiliations for a whole month, she thought as she headed to the shuttle home. Home; when had Peter’s house become that, she wondered.

Nothing much had changed at home. That is apart from the spanking booth, which stood in the corner of Peter’s study. She shuddered to look on it. At first anyway, then she found herself thinking about the spanking she had had from Daniel and wondered if he had his own booth at home.

As she wondered she reached out to unconsciously stroke the machine. From the outside it was the same as hers. All shiny black and silver, with the same curved mirror front. She tapped it with her knuckle and studied it more closely than she ever had at Regis.

Then to her surprise the door slid open.

“Welcome Peter,” the machine voice intoned.

Eloise looked around and then into the machine. It had the same black leather roll-bars, only these were arranged slightly differently, as if designed for sitting and not kneeling. On a whim Eloise sat down inside, curious as to how the operator arranged things. The doors closed, but before she could panic a screen came out.

“No punishment settings found,” the machine said, “Do you require playback?”

“Eh… yes. Playback required,” Eloise said huskily, half-heartedly aping Peter’s voice. Maybe she could review one of her own punishments. The idea was strangely exciting.

“Select recording,” the machine said and the screen began to scroll.

Looking up Eloise saw her own name next to a date and punishment setting, but also something else, Helen Ventures’ name. Eloise’s heart stopped and she hit the button.

“Helen Ventures, 2-2, 1st December, 2198,” the machine said.

Eloise giggled as she watch Helen getting a sound spanking over Peter’s knee and then getting sent to the corner for half an hour. Then she looked for another.

“My God, there’s dozens,” Eloise gasped aloud.

Then reading the notes, she realised that Helen had more than just a demo, Peter was mentoring her and some of the punishments were quiet harsh. Although none, she noticed, had more than a level two humiliation setting.

Eloise watched another half dozen spankings and then retired to her room.

*

Despite her embarrassment, Eloise was excited to learn that she would be having dinner with Peter and Helen at Daniel’s house.

“I hear you have been better behaved since we last…” Daniel smiled, “met.”

Eloise blushed and felt a little squirmy as she remembered the circumstances.

“Oh I bet she has,” Helen said with a smirk. “Nothing better for a young girl… a good spanking and a little humiliation.”

Peter looked at her sideways in amusement, but Eloise was anything but amused. Helen might play the cool blonde, but she was barely 30 and Eloise knew her secret.

Every time Eloise tried to engage Daniel in adult conversation, Helen would butt-in with a put-down or to remind everyone that she was only 23 and one step-up from a jailbird.

Helen felt insecure living so far from Peter and to make it worse she had an elfin rival for his affections in the shape of a nubile 23-year-old ward. I bet when it comes to spankings the little brat doth protest too much, Helen thought sulkily as she threw out another jibe. By the end of the evening, the two women were firm enemies.

Peter wasn’t oblivious to the girl’s rivalry, but he knew how to handle his 30-year-old brat and shrugged it off. It wouldn’t do Eloise any harm to be put in her place by an older woman. Then the evening took a fateful turn.

“Oh I didn’t tell you Peter,” Daniel spoke to diffuse the feminine claws, “my office wants to assess extended applications for the spanking booth. I wonder if you have any clients who could be used as guinea pigs? For a demo I mean?”

“I am sure Peter has plenty of recordings of sessions with Eloise,” Helen threw out.

Even Daniel gave her a daggered look. Eloise positively glowered in hatred.

“I’ll see what I can do,” Peter said smoothly. “I can’t promise anything, I am certainly not releasing anyone’s files just to satisfy your project.”

“No, no, understood,” Peter nodded sagely.

Oh I can think of some files that might fit the bill, Eloise thought bitterly as she began to plot.

*

Things were looking up for Eloise. Not only had she a plan for getting back at Helen, but at the end of the evening Daniel had asked Eloise for a date. She was already fantasising about how she might get put in her place again, only over Daniel’s knee for real this time.

That thought had consumed Eloise as they walked to Peter’s car. Then the three of them had left Daniel’s and driven home in silence. Helen was already sorry for her sniping, especially as it was now clear that Eloise was much more interested in Daniel.

Although Eloise wasn’t in a forgiving mood, as she sat watching the white and grey lights race by in the dark with thoughts of payback and Daniel.

Helen was supposed to be in the spare room, but that night Eloise heard raised voices from inside Peter’s room and after a while the unmistakable sound of a spanking. Nothing like the old-fashioned method, Eloise thought evilly, so I guess the booth isn’t needed tonight.

She made her way down to Peter’s study and entered the booth. It hadn’t been hard to find the master codes and after some elementary editing, Eloise downloaded all of Helen’s spanking files and reclassified them to humiliation level 9 and 10.

“A rising star of cable TV is born,” Eloise chuckled as she selected Daniel’s office number and pressed send.

A few days later Mark Boson grabbed a batch of punishment footage from Daniel’s in-tray.

“Hey Dan these tapes are great,” Mark said as Daniel passed his desk. “But we can’t use stuff that has been shown on TV.”

Daniel shook his head not understanding and stopped to pick up a portable viewer.

“What’s this?”

“Something Peter sent over for demo use, but it’s all marked level 10, so I am guessing it is old TV stuff.”

“Can’t be,” Daniel said as he tuned in. “The setting is all wrong these are private sessions.”

Then he recognised not only Peter, but Helen Venture as the girl who was getting a very sound spanking. He reached for the vid phone.

“Peter?”

*

“What do you mean you’re cancelling the date?” Eloise was bereft. “Please Daniel it was only a joke.”

“A joke. A joke you call it. You nearly cost Helen her career. If you think I am going to see such an irresponsible vindictive brat as you then… I thought you had started to grow up.” Daniel broke the connection.

Eloise was stricken and looked up to see Peter glaring at her.

“Helen was out of line,” he rasped, “but you… you… I don’t have anything to say to you. We both have some hard thinking to do. I think maybe I should arrange to have you live with your Aunt Tara.”

“Please Peter, I’m sorry, really I…” She started to cry. “You can punish me, please…”

But Peter was no longer listening.

Eloise walked away in a daze. She found herself wandering from room to room desperate to be somewhere else, yet knowing there was nowhere she would rather be. Looking up she found she was in Peter’s study looking at the cursed spanking booth, the cause of all her troubles. If only it were a time machine, she cursed it.

Blaming something or someone else again, she chided herself in disgust. There was no one to blame but herself, she realised. Daniel’s right, I’m just a stupid kid.

Eloise looked at the booth and wished she could just enter it and never come out.

Then her heart stopped as the idea formed. Her palms were sweaty and she felt a little sick. It could work and anyway, even if it didn’t she had it coming and she would feel better afterwards. Maybe a long time afterwards, but eventually she would feel better.

Eloise crossed the room to the master consul and entered Peter’s codes. Without disabling the default settings she made sure that Peter, Daniel and Aunt Tara’s access had priority. Then she entered her name and set the levels.

“Oh God this is going to be…” She didn’t know. She stripped quickly before she changed her mind and stepped naked into the booth.

As it closed around her, the machine intoned: “Punishment level 10-10, duration open ended.”

Ends.