Just a silly little tale…
“And so you claim you did not in fact pat the victim on the bottom?” the prosecuting counsel asked in a bored voice.
Her opponent leapt up from her seat at the other end of the leading counsels’ bench. “The alleged victim, M’Lady” she corrected.
“Alleged victim then” said the prosecutor, waving her hand wearily as if to indicate the distinction was barely worth the least effort.
“Oh no, Ma’am – and Your Ladyship” the man in the witness box replied with a nervous glance towards the judge. “I would never disrespect a female in that way.”
“M’Lady”, the prosecutor said, directly addressing the judge. “I believe the accused is
lying and so in the interests of justice I request that he be fitted with a zapper.”
“A ‘zapper’, Ms Meadowes?” the judge replied, raising her eyebrows. “I am not sure I am familiar with the term. Perhaps you mean an MMRS? A Male Memory Recollection Stimulator?”
“I am indebted to Your Ladyship for the correction” the prosecutor murmured. “An MMRS, indeed.”
“Well, I suppose if it helps us all get in with it” the judge grumbled. “Clerk of the Court,
would you be so kind?”
The clerk, a heavyset woman, stepped up to the witness box.
”Hands on your head, boy” she said brusquely. Unhappily, the accused complied.
The clerk loosened his trousers in a practised manner then busied herself with wires and clamps for a minute. The accused man let out an occasional mild yelp, but knew better than to remove his hands from their position clasped tight atop his head.
The clerk inspected her work, nodded, then stepped back and handed a small black object to the prosecutor.
“Thank you, clerk. With your Ladyship’s permission…?”
“Do get on with it, Ms Meadowes” sighed the judge, at which the prosecutor pressed a button and the courtroom was suddenly rent with an ear-piercing howl of anguish. Her knuckle whitened as she kept the button pressed, while the man in the witness box thrashed frantically from side to side, screaming hysterically, all thought of maintaining his position abandoned in his agony.
Around the courtroom, pairs of female eyes watched this display intently, while the few males standing ready in the room to transport boxes of heavy files or serve tea mostly stared fixedly at the darkly varnished wooden floorboards . A young stenographer, an intern intent on the heavy responsibility of taking the transcript for the first time in her career, paid particularly close attention, her eyes widening and shining and her breathing increasing in tempo as the screaming continued. Nonetheless, her fingers continued to flicker over her machine, from which an accurate transcription of the courtroom sounds emerged, reading “OHHHHH! OHHH GOD, PLEASE! PLEEASE!!! NO MORE, I can’t… AAARGHH!!!” and suchlike.
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| Ms Meadowes conducts a rigorous cross-examination. |
Eventually the prosecutor released her grip and the screaming ceased abruptly, the only noise in court being the hoarse breathing of the accused, forced down by pain onto his knees in the witness box.
“Now, Jason” she said calmly. “I’ll ask the question again – and before answering this time, I want you to think very hard about what happens to boys who tell lies. Did you pat her bottom?”
Terrified, the man just shook his head mutely.
“Could you speak up for the record, prisoner?” the judge asked. “Ms Meadowes, would you mind?”
The prosecutor nodded and gave the button a quick press eliciting another howl.
“No, Ma’am, Your Ladyship” he sobbed. “I didn’t, I really didn’t… I never – “
And he broke off, into further shrieks of pain as waves of agony tore through his body. The
prosecutor was wiggling a dial on the control back and forth, while keeping the button pressed down, and it seemed to have a dramatic effect.
“Let me put the question in a different way” the prosecutor continued. “Did you pat her bottom?”
Defending counsel jumped to her feet, waiting impatiently for a lull in the screaming in order to make herself heard. The judge waved her hand in a downward motion at the prosecuting counsel and the button was released.
“M’Lady, that was exactly the same question as before!” she objected, indignantly. “Surely the question has been put and answered – in the negative! It is time to remove the MMRS and move on.”
The judge noticed a movement below her bench and glanced down to see the stenographer’s head turned around to look up at her, her eyes pleading mutely.
“I think we might allow Ms Meadowes to have a few minutes more” she smiled, indulgently. “In the interests of justice”
In fact, it took less than three minutes for the accused, now writhing in agony at the bottom of the witness box, to admit freely and fully to the alleged crime. The prosecutor briskly set out, step by step, exactly how the crime had been committed, and the accused frantically agreed with her
characterisation of every particular.
“The prosecution rests” Ms Meadowes announced happily, sitting down and waving the remote in the direction of the clerk.
“Your Ladyship” began defending counsel, rising to her feet. “This is a most unexpected turn of
events. My client has changed his story while in the witness box and in order to defend his interests I believe I really must be allowed to press him on this topic. I realise it is unusual for a defending counsel to seek to cross-examine her own client, but I believe you will find there are ample precedents, so in the circumstances…?”
“Very well Ms Blaine” muttered the judge, apparently lost in admiration of the stenographer’s deft fingerwork as she tapped out the transcript.
“And if I may, er…?” defending counsel persisted, gesturing towards the object in her prosecuting counterpart’s hand.
“You want to zap your own client, Ms Blaine?” the judge asked in surprise.
“If I may make so bold, I imagine Your Ladyship intended to ask whether I wish to use the MMRS to assist him with his recollection? If so, then, yes, that is indeed my request, M’Lady. In the interests of justice.”
The judge’s eyes narrowed but she nodded curtly. A barely-suppressed giggle of excitement seemed to emanate from the stenographer’s seat.
The next five minutes were a mirror image of the earlier cross-examination. Ms Blaine initially
gave her client a few good hard jolts, then proceeded to demolish the veracity of the earlier confession, point by point. It finished with her client, curled up in foetal position in a pool of sweat and tears, having apparently retracted his confession and sworn to his absolute innocence.
“Well, this is all most unsatisfactory!” grumbled the judge. “The accused has at the very least committed perjury once, perhaps twice! Do you understand the oath that you swore to
the tell the truth, young man? That oath should be absolute… no matter what, erm… pressure you might feel yourself to be under. I hope you realise I intend to deal most severely with this, most severely. I cannot abide lying males at the best of times, certainly not in my courtroom!”
“Ms Meadowes, your witness! Again!” she snapped, as the shattered male tried to control his juddering jaw sufficiently to stammer out an apology. The remote was passed between
the two lawyers and the screaming began again, more hoarsely this time.
Five minutes later, the judge was furious, the two barristers were almost physically tussling over who would next use the remote and the stenographer had a huge dreamy smile on her face, as she continued to tap out the transcript.
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| The stenographer – from a judge’s eye view, so to speak. Sadly, as she is not looking around, we cannot see her pretty eyes, but we can see her skillful long fingers, the rapid and delicate movements of which seemed to fascinate the judge. |
The judge brought out her gavel and banged it repeatedly down in frustration.
“This is intolerable! By my count the accused has now confessed and retracted his confession four times! This court will not be made a mockery of – find a solution or I will declare a mistrial and we will all have to start again!”
“And I don’t mean by fighting over that thing like schoolgirls!” she added, as Ms Meadowes made a grab for the remote, which Ms Blaine foiled by whipping her hand high up into the air while hissing “Mine!”
“Sit down! Both of you. And clerk to the court – please take possession of the zap… the recollection stimulator control.”
The two barristers subsided into their seats, Ms Blaine giving up the device with ill grace.
“Any suggestions?” the judge asked.
Ms Meadowes just sighed and blew her lips out with a frustrated ppphhhh.
Ms Blaine looked thoughtful. “We could… toss for it, Your Ladyship?”
“Toss a coin?” the judge replied in scorn. “Allow the process of justice to be decided
by the random fall of a piece of metal?”
“At least we’d have an answer, Your Ladyship”.
“And we’d all go home early” chipped in her prosecuting counterpart, helpfully.
The judge glanced down, to see the stenographer’s dark eyes once again gazing up at her. How odd she’d never noticed before how deep those dark pools were, the judge mused to herself. She could almost be lost in the…
“Your Ladyship?”
She jerked herself awake again. “Oh very well” she snapped. “Clerk of the court, do you have a coin?”
Less than a minute later, the verdict was in.
“The prisoner will rise” the judge said. “Help him please, ushers”
Two large uniformed women strode over to the witness box, leaned down and hauled the sobbing, shattered remnant of the accused to his feet and held him there.
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| Ms Blaine, contemplating her eighth successive defeat in court. If she wants to improve her record, she really needs to stop defending males, as they are almost invariably guilty, but such cases can provide opportunities for a young barrister to develop her skills before she is ready to take on important cases for full citizens. |
“Prisoner, you have been found guilty by a properly constituted court of law and the toss of a fair – well, anyway, you have been found guilty of a Category Two sexual offence. For which the maximum sentence, which I do not hesitate to impose, is 12 years in a male reformatory camp, with hard labour.”
“In addition you have committed” – she consulted her notes – “seven separate acts of perjury, each of which carries a sentence of up to fifteen years. Again, in the view of the rapidity and apparent insouciance with which you changed your story, while under oath, I have no hesitation in imposing the maximum penalty for each.”
“I would remind you that the purpose of the male reformatory camp is re-education, not mere punishment. I can only hope you make use of this experience to think about your behaviour and learn something, so that at the end of your sentence, in erm… let me see…12 years for the sexual offence, then seven times…
Ms Meadowes rose. “One hundred and seventeen years, Your Ladyship.” she said. Defending counsel politely clapped this display of mental arithmetic.
“Is it really? Goodness me. I’m grateful, Ms Meadowes. Hmm. Yes, well, as I said, prisoner, I hope you will be reformed by this generous allocation of the state’s resources to your rehabilitation. If not, it is my duty to warn you that your custodial sentence may be extended at the state’s pleasure: consider yourself warned. And I do not want to see you in my court again. Take him down!”
The prisoner sobbed quietly as he was dragged off to the waiting prison van.
***
(Later that evening)
Finding the day to have been tiresome, the judge had retired early to bed in her chambers behind the courtroom. The stenographer lay beside her, dreaming of the brilliant legal career that lay ahead of her as the girlfriend of a judge. The judge snored contently, dreaming of the stenographer.
***
Counsel for the prosecution and defence, when not in the courtroom, were Harriet and Suzie, and were enjoying a glass of wine at the home they shared. “Sorry about that” Harriet smiled. “But ‘win some lose some’, eh?”
“I suppose so” her counterpart recently for the defence sighed. “I really thought this one was
innocent, though – he seemed quite convincing.”
“Men often do – lying little toads” remarked her friend, reaching for the bottle and in doing so knocking her document bundle off the sofa, strewing papers across the floor as the red ribbon bow gave way.
“Chump” remarked her friend, helping gather the scattered papers. “Hey, what’s this?”
“Probably nothing”, Harriet replied, making a quick grab for the document, but as with the zapper control in court, Suzie was too quick for her.
“Statement of Ms Yvonne Headly” Suzie read. “Attesting to the presence of the accused,
Jason, in my bedroom at the time of the alleged – hey! This is an alibi.”
“Arguably… very circumstantial.” grumbled Harriet.
“But… but….this is exculpatory evidence!” Suzie gasped. “Proving my client’s innocence! You should have disclosed this to the court!”
“Mmmm… s’pose,” shrugged Harriet, refilling her glass.
“Well, I’m sorry, Hattie” Suzie went on. “But this is serious. Very serious. You deliberately withheld evidence material to the proceedings. That is a severe breach of professional ethics!”
“You don’t mean you’re going to…” her friend replied, her eyes widening in shock.
Suzie nodded primly. “I think I have no choice, do I? I can’t let this go – it’s not just the innocence of my client. There must be consequences: as a fellow barrister I have to uphold the integrity of the profession.”
“Oh please, Sooze” Harriet replied. “Surely you can – “
“My duty is clear and I won’t let you talk me out of it!” Suzie declared. “Take off your knickers! Now!”
“You mean you’re going to – “
“I’m going to spank your bare bottom, Hattie! Spank it until….”
“Until we both come?” asked Harriet eagerly, easing herself over her friend’s lap.
“I was going to say ‘until you’ve learnt your lesson’” giggled Suzie. “But your idea’s good
too.”
***
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| I believe this stage of the legal process is called ‘oral pleadings’. |
And far outside London, a locked van rattled down a dark country road. Inside lay Jason, his genitals now pierced in multiple places with a permanent and more powerful version of the courtroom zapper, bouncing around naked on the bare metal floor with fourteen other moaning bound males. He was trying very hard not to think of what his life would be like from now on – and failing miserably.
And with that, dear reader, we shall bring this little tale to an end.
(Epilogue)
In the middle of the night, while all our other female protagonists were fast asleep in post-orgasmic bliss, the clerk to the court suddenly awoke with a jerk. “Hey – I never got my fucking coin back!” she blurted out, to no one in particular, and turned over angrily to fall back to sleep. Beside her, her husband froze in terror, and spent a sleepless night staring at the ceiling, wondering what it was that had annoyed his beloved so much and desperately, hopelessly praying that this time it was not his fault.
