Dr. Priya Raman clicked out of case files on her laptop and rubbed her eyes. The clinical trial she was running was underway, with several active sites and more coming on board shortly, mostly burn units and trauma services at large medical centers.

It was a randomized, double-blinded placebo-controlled trial of Trabco Pharmaceuticals' wound-healing cream, a proprietary mix of extracts from plants found in the jungles of Trabbia, formulated by a Trabbian physician, Dr. Fong. Patients would receive either the actual ointment or a placebo designed to look and smell as close as possible to it. Neither they nor the doctors treating them would know which was which.

Priya had spent the last few hours looking at photographs of trial subjects on the dedicated server. Their wounds were photographed at the beginning and then at various times following treatment. It was clear that around half the patients were healing very rapidly, while the rest healed much more slowly. Priya thought it likely that the first group were the ones who had received the real cream, though they were coded and the code would only be broken at the end of the study. She and her boss, Dr. Fong, would certainly be ecstatic if that proved to be the case.

In addition to the hospitals, the cream was being tested at two sites run by Priya's former employer, the Department of Corrections of her state. The studies were being run at two sites where severe corporal punishments were administered to nonviolent offenders in lieu of jail or community service. One site flogged males and the other, females.

Up until a couple of months ago Priya had worked at the Female Corporal Punishment Center #3, located on the outskirts of Dorsbury, the college town where she lived now and had studied as an undergraduate. As Medical Officer at the facility, it had been her job to certify offenders as fit to receive their caning and to ensure that they did not suffer permanent damage that would render them unable to be contributing members of society.

Priya had left that job for the position with Trabco, tempted by a large salary increase, stock options and the chance to bring the benefits of the cream, which she had seen with her own eyes, to a large number of patients who she believed could benefit greatly from it.

Although she liked her new job very much, the challenges and independence, not to mention the ability to work at home in a T shirt and pajama bottoms as she was doing at present, there were things Priya missed about her former position. She had reveled in the official, almost ceremonial nature of the process, the offenders being checked in, made to strip, being subjected to an invasive search of their bodies, followed by the medical exam that she got to perform. The parade of women fascinated her, the different builds, ages, ethnic backgrounds, social status, all made equal in their nakedness and fear.

Most interesting and, sexually arousing-though Priya didn't like herself for finding it thus, was the raw power and authority of the state, as wielded by the guards and she herself and the submission that it produced in even the most assertive offender.

The two regular guards at the facility, Sgt. Sue Miller and Ofc. Beth Timmins, had a well-practiced set of threats, insults and intimidation that turned even the most recalcitrant offender into a compliant object resigned to accept her punishment.

And of course, observing the punishments had been an essential part of Priya's job. Even after having worked at the Center for over a year, she couldn't help feeling a small frisson of excitement watching the naked offenders being strapped down to the flogging frame, immobile, their ass presented to the caner, their most intimate parts spread wide open by the bent over, legs apart posture.

Priya had never tired of watching George, the muscular caner, slash the flexible rattan with all his might against the helpless butt flesh, dragging the tip against the skin so as to create maximum damage. But it was the reactions of the poor offenders that had really excited Priya. First, the attempt to suffer stoically, which rarely lasted beyond the first few strokes. Then, the moans, howls, useless pleas and imprecations as the pain built to unbearable levels. Finally, the silence, as the sufferer became too drained of strength to react to the lashes, no matter how much the mind wanted to protest.

At the end, they would be untied and helped, usually limping, to Priya's clinic, where she would disinfect their wounds, which would usually set them to howling and squirming as the alcohol made its way into the weals and cuts left by the cruel rattan.

Then, she would apply the salve, not Fong's cream, but some reasonably soothing off-the-shelf ointment and they would be sent off to pass the night in agony in a cell before Priya would examine them and discharge them the next morning.

But her pride in her former job wasn't just in observing the women suffering, but also in knowing that, unlike the patients she had seen in the hospital before she had joined the Dept. of Corrections, their suffering was for a purpose. Their pain was part of demonstrating the majesty of the law and impressing upon them the need to obey it.

And the experience of the offenders had been all the more meaningful for Priya because of a dark secret from her past, a secret she had never told her husband, Sanjay, her parents, or any of her colleagues at the hospital or the Punishment Center. Many years ago, as an undergraduate at Dorsbury College, Priya had gone to Trabbia with her professor, Susan Gelden, and two of her classmates.

There, they had watched two young Trabbian students being caned and later had been caned themselves, an experience that Priya had found horrifying, but also extremely arousing. As she thought back over her experiences in Trabbia and at the Punishment Center, Priya found her right hand straying inside her pajama bottoms. She quickly pulled it out and sniffed the musky smell, then flicked out her tongue to taste the wet secretions.

Sanjay was visiting a client in the state capital a few hours away and wouldn't be home until that evening. Priya knew she couldn't wait. She stood and lowered the pajama bottoms to the floor and stepped out of them. Then she lay down on the sofa, and rested the laptop on her stomach.

She called up one of the popular porn sites and browsed through the latest postings. Most didn't interest her, but there was one with two women, a pale blond and a black girl with a reasonably good looking guy. Priya forwarded through a few of the preliminary scenes stopping at one where the blond girl was eating out the black one while the guy was fucking her from behind.

Priya started the video and let her hand stray back to her pussy, which quickly became very wet. She could feel the tension building as the black girl moaned and grabbed the blonde's hair to pull her closer to her crotch. Priya's legs were stretched straight out in front of her, her toes pointed.

She inserted a finger inside; it slid easily into the well-lubricated passage. Her thumb was pressed hard against her clit. Priya heard the black girl say, "I'm going to come soon," but Priya wasn't really focusing on her.

No, Priya was remembering that day a few months ago when her former professor, Susan Gelden had been given eighteen cane strokes, along with her daughter, Rebecca Goldman for a foolish, ill-advised protest against the state's corporal punishment law. Priya's hand was moving rapidly, stimulating both her clit and her G spot now.

She watched the girl in the video's whole body shake as she came, but Priya's mind saw Susan's arms and legs pulling against the restraints and heard her howl her distress as Priya felt the powerful orgasm tear through her body for what seemed like five minutes at least.

Finally, the contractions ebbed. Priya lay there, panting for breath, sweaty and totally drained.

After a while she stirred, retrieved her pajama bottoms and went to the kitchen to fetch a snack and bring it back to the sofa. She turned on the TV and idly flipped channels. She was part way into one of those home remodeling shows when her phone rang. She glanced at the screen. It was Paul Roberts, her former boss at the Dept. of Corrections.

'I hope he's calling to talk about adding more sites at other Punishment Centers,' Priya thought. "Hi, Paul," she said as she answered the call.

"Hi, Priya. Is this a good time to talk?"

"Sure," she replied. "I'm pleased with the enrollment and the data from the two centers so far and I hope we can add more."

"I'm waiting to hear back from the docs at those sites Priya," Paul said. "I'll let you know soon, I hope. But there is something else I need to speak with you about."

"Oh, what's that?" she asked.

"You remember that mother and daughter who were caned right before you left for protesting corporal punishment, Susan Gelden and Rebecca Goldman? You know, the day I was there with all those students and the legislators?"

"Of course, Paul. How could I forget that? That was quite a show. And you know that the mom was an old professor of mine."

"Yeah, I know," he said, pausing. "There's something I have to ask you, though? Nothing untoward happened after their caning, right?"

Priya's heart started racing. 'What was this about?' she wondered. She had been alone with each of them. No one could have known what happened. "Untoward? What do you mean, Paul?" she asked, hoping that he didn't notice the strain in her voice.

"They've filed a complaint with the Department."

"A complaint?"

"They claim that you offered them the special cream from the trial, which, of course can't be used outside of the study protocol and then had sex with them. They admit it was consensual, but of course prisoners are not legally able to give consent."

Priya laughed. "Paul, I'm a happily married woman."

"I know that. I'm just relaying what they claim. They have similar stories. Each was alone with you. You asked if they wanted the cream, then you stimulated their genitals until they had an orgasm and then asked them to do the same to you, which they felt in no position to refuse."

"Paul, that's ridiculous. Why would I so such a thing? And of course they tell the same story, they've had a couple of months to concoct all the details." Priya tried her best to sound like an innocent person outraged at being falsely accused.

"Look, Priya, I support my staff, including former staff. I'm not inclined to take the word of a couple of criminal malcontents over a doctor with a sterling reputation." Priya breathed a sigh of relief. Surely, this would all go away. "However, you have to understand the position I'm in. It's a formal complaint. I've had to forward this to the Inspector General's Office."

"Paul, this is crazy," Priya protested.

"Perhaps, but the rules are clear. They'll sort it out. I would expect you will hear from their investigators in the next couple of days. But I felt I owed you a head's up."

"Thanks, Paul," Priya said, though to tell the truth, she didn't feel very thankful. What she felt was scared, scared that this would become a major scandal that could end her career, scared that this would mean having to tell the whole story to Sanjay and her family, even if she managed to escape charges for misconduct in public office, a crime for which she could end up in prison or caned or both, she was pretty sure, even though she wasn't a lawyer.

'Why would Susan and her daughter do this?' she wondered. They had been happy to accept the cream, which had helped them to heal much better than the ointment that the other offenders got. And they had both willingly let her get them off and had clearly enjoyed themselves a great deal. Returning the favor after that had seemed natural and even kind of sweet, Priya thought.

She wondered what had induced Susan to come forward with this now, a couple of months after the event. Whatever it was, the deed was done. Priya went back to the kitchen and poured herself a large glass of wine. It would be her word against two witnesses, admittedly convicted offenders who would certainly have a grudge against the entire system and anyone who worked in it. Still, Priya knew this was trouble. It was likely to get out at some point and the press would certainly pick it up.

She had gone back and forth in her mind for a long time over whether or not to tell Sanjay about what had happened in Trabbia and the real reasons why she had gone to work at the Corporal Punishment Center. She had almost confessed to him more than once.

In the end, the fear of how he would react had stopped her. But now, with the very real possibility of public exposure, Priya knew she would have to bite the bullet and hope for the best.