Corrective Treatment Read online

  The doctor was different. He could read her body, her eyes, her tone, even her breathing spoke to him. He could read her, and he wasn’t buying any of her usual tricks. Even when she had looked as plaintive and pathetic as possible, he had not relented even a little.

  With her fingers between her thighs, cupping her swollen pussy, Sophie fell asleep.

  * * *

  A nurse woke her up early the next morning with a tray of what was supposed to be breakfast. Sophie was hungry, but the meal consisted of a simple gruel that she could not bring herself to touch. The same nurse also brought a simple white shift dress in place of clothing. It was better than nothing, but not by much. It was short, the hem falling just below her bottom. It wasn’t much, but it was enough to restore a tenuous sense of modesty.

  In addition to the unappetizing nature of the meal, Sophie was too nervous to eat anyway. She found herself looking forward to seeing the doctor again though she was not sure her aching nether regions could take another day of his particular torment.

  The nurse returned after a few minutes, glanced at the untouched tray and ignored it. “The doctor will see you in his office,” she said. “Come with me.”

  Sophie thought about resisting, refusing to leave her cell, but truth be told she would have given anything to leave that claustrophobic little box. So she followed the nurse meekly through the pristine sterile halls until they arrived at the doctor’s office.

  “In you go,” the nurse said, leaving Sophie the task of actually pushing the door open and delivering herself into the doctor’s clutches.

  Sophie opened the door and found the doctor sitting at his desk, reading something on his electronic pad. He was not wearing his customary white coat. Instead he was wearing a pressed crisp white shirt, the sleeves of which were rolled up, revealing muscular forearms. Sophie found herself staring at him.

  Something about the scene didn’t quite make sense. He was obviously one of the upper echelons. He had the status and the job to prove it, and yet his body was built as powerfully as a laborer. Men of the upper echelons were usually fairly waif-like and lacking muscular development. What had been hidden under a lab coat yesterday was much more visible today: the hard line of his shoulders, the unmistakable slabs of pectoral muscles. The way his pants fell from his waist indicating a muscular ass and powerful hips. Wait… no. She was wrong. He was not built like a laborer. He was built like a soldier.

  Sophie stopped just inside the door and stared at him with a curious gaze. The nurse had shut the door, leaving her alone in the room with the man who had ignited a feminine need like no other, first with his exploration with her body, now with an appearance that revealed more of his true character.

  She looked around his office. There was a large desk, which he was sitting behind, and the wall behind it was full of shelving. There were technical models of spaceships placed here and there on the shelves in between medical tomes and crystal geodes. That made sense. Everything on display was hard. Smart. Complicated. Just like him.

  “Hello, Sophie,” he said, rising from behind his desk. “I hope you slept well.”

  She did not respond to his pleasantries. She stood with her hands clasped in front of her, watching him with a gaze that took in every aspect of his motion. Yes. She was certain of it. He had seen some kind of military action. It was in his bearing and gait as well as his build. She would have noticed it sooner, if she had not been so distracted by his intimate introduction the day before.

  “You are not from the upper echelons,” she said. “I thought only the highest echelons received medical training.”

  He stopped dead, his eyes narrowing ever so slightly. He was trying not to look shocked, but he was. A slow smirk spread across her lips. She was right.

  He spoke his next words very carefully. “What makes you say that, Sophie?”

  “It’s obvious,” she said. “How did you become a doctor? Your kind is not allowed medical education.”

  “My kind?” His smile faded slightly. “If I did not know how hard you fight against the notion of echelons, I would be offended.”

  “You wouldn’t be,” she replied quickly. “You are not the type to take offense.”

  “Ah, you know me already?”

  “If you somehow were educated, though you were born to the military echelon…” Sophie spoke slowly, connecting the dots as the words left her mouth. “Then you must be on my side. How can you punish me when I want everyone to have what you have? The chance to be something other than what they were born as?”

  “We are not here to talk about me, Sophie,” he said, his expression closing to stern granite. “We are here to treat you. No matter what you think of me, you have been sentenced to corrective treatment. That is why you are standing in my office stripped of status and I am charged with the duty of disciplining you. And that is what I will do.”

  Was he shaken? She couldn’t tell anymore. The masculine stern demeanor was back and it seemed impenetrable.

  “We are here because you are servant to a corrupt system, and I refused to be frightened into submission,” Sophie corrected him.

  “We are here because you played up in court, and yesterday in the chair, and we will continue to be here until you see sense,” the doctor replied evenly. He walked toward an armless but comfortable-looking stuffed chair in the corner of the room. He sat down in it and beckoned her over with a crooked finger.

  “Come here, Sophie.”

  She rolled her eyes and tossed her head. “I don’t think so,” she said. “I’m not going to make your job easier for you.”

  “Apparently you’re not going to make your life easier for yourself either,” he drawled darkly, smoothing his hand along the length of his thigh. The motion drew Sophie’s attention to his legs, how long and powerful they were. If he’d wanted to, he could have crossed the room in a heartbeat and hauled her over to where he wanted her to be. But he wasn’t doing that. He was putting pressure on her to surrender to his will and give herself up for punishment.

  She let out a rebellious laugh. “You want me to do your job for you. That is not going to happen, doctor.”

  His brows rose, his handsome face taking on a sterner expression still. She felt a little quiver of nervousness run through her, a tingle of excitement that made her more resolute in her resistance. May as well have a little fun toying with him before the pain inevitably started.

  He lifted his hand again, the thick, long finger crooked toward her. “Come here, young lady.”

  The way he drawled ‘young lady’ made her shiver. Sophie smiled in spite of herself, a shy little smirk that grew into a broader grin as he kept staring at her with those demanding eyes. Her heart was starting to pound as the moment drew on, the tension growing. What would he do when he realized that she was not going to capitulate to his demand?

  Her palms were sweating, her head started to feel quite light. It wasn’t until too late that Sophie realized the ringing in her ears and the growing wobbliness in her knees was not just part of the fun of defiance, but heralded the sweeping rise of darkness as she dropped into a faint.

  Sophie came to her senses a minute or two later. She found herself cradled in the doctor’s arms. They were both sitting in his chair, she on his lap. One of his arms was around her waist, her head cradled against his shoulder. He had drawn a quick blood test by pricking her finger with an instrument that analyzed blood instantaneously. He did not seem pleased by the results.

  “You haven’t been eating,” he frowned down at her. “Your blood sugars are exceptionally low. When was the last time you ate?”

  “I don’t know,” she said, returning his frown. “Maybe a day or two ago?”

  “A day or two ago? Why have you not eaten?”

  “I was in trial,” she said. “I didn’t have time or inclination. And there’s no food in this place.”

  “The nurse brought you breakfast this morning, certainly.”

  “That was not food,” she argu
ed. “That was some kind of building material at best. Nobody has offered me anything in the way of food—and even if they had, I wouldn’t eat it. I’m on a hunger strike.”

  The hunger strike had only just occurred to her, but it seemed like a good idea. They couldn’t very well punish her if she was too weak, and if any real harm came to her there would be hell to pay. Quite by accident, she had discovered a strategy to subvert their attempt to punish her.

  “You are not on a hunger strike,” the doctor informed her bluntly. “You’re not allowed to be on a hunger strike.”

  “You can’t make me eat.”

  “I can make you do anything I like,” the doctor replied with conviction. “Now, do you want to eat, or do you want to be tube fed?”

  “That’s not fair!” Sophie squirmed in his lap. She wanted to get up and get away from him. Pressed against his body, she realized how much smaller than him she really was. He dwarfed her, and held her easily in place with one arm wrapped around her waist.

  “Quit it,” he growled down at her, his lips inches from her ear. “You’ll make yourself faint again. I’m going to call the nurse to bring you some food, and you’re going to eat it.”

  “I’m not eating that gruel you serve here,” she insisted. “It’s not food.”

  He let out a sigh. She felt his broad chest rise and fall beneath her back, her body moving with his breath. The grasp he had her in was very intimate, almost more so than everything he had done the day before. Their bodies were pressed closely against one another, so she could feel the hardness of his frame and the warmth he emanated. In spite of everything, it felt good to be held. It was the first truly comforting touch she’d experienced in a very long time.

  She found herself sinking into his body, her muscles relaxing even though she wanted to tell him how much she hated him. Beneath her, Sophie felt the doctor stretch out, his long arm reaching an intercom set on a nearby coffee table.

  “Nurse, bring us something palatable to eat,” he said. “Something high in protein and minerals. And a juice of some sort.”

  Having made the order, he shifted Sophie’s weight so she was sitting across his lap, able to meet his eye.

  “You are going to eat something and drink something,” he said. “And then we are going to talk about the rest of your treatment.”

  “Treatment,” she snorted. “Brainwashing, you mean. It’s not going to work. I don’t care what you do to me. I knew I was going to be sent here. If I cared about your torture, I would have crumbled when the authority first made their threats. But what they don’t understand. And what you don’t understand…” she poked him in the chest, her finger meeting hard muscle, “is that I don’t care what happens to me. I’ll die before I give in to them.”

  The doctor looked at her with a grim expression that did not give his feelings away, but gave Sophie a real sense of foreboding.

  “You’re a troublemaker,” he said. “And troublemakers have to find trouble somewhere, don’t they.”

  “No, I’m someone who believes in something,” she replied. “And I’m prepared to die for it.”

  “So you said,” he deadpanned. “I’ve seen people who thought they were prepared to die for something before. Quite often turned out that they were more thinking along the lines of enduring minor discomfort for their ideals. When death came, they were no more eager for it than someone with no principles at all.”

  The flare of his nostrils, the paternalistic drawl of his voice, the cocking of his brow, all spoke to the fact that he clearly considered her a silly girl, not someone to be taken seriously.

  The discussion was interrupted by the arrival of a nurse, who shot a sharp look in Sophie’s direction at seeing her more or less cuddled up on the doctor’s lap. Sophie gave the woman a little shrug. It hadn’t been her idea to snuggle with the doctor, and she didn’t care if the nurse was jealous either. It seemed to Sophie that everything in the facility revolved around this doctor. The nurses orbited him like little satellite planets, doing precisely as they were told like good little automatons.

  The nurse placed a tray on the coffee table containing food. Real food. Sliced meats and cheeses, and what looked like wine, but probably wasn’t. She then left the room without a word, moving silently and efficiently and according to the doctor’s will.

  “Fancy,” Sophie observed the food dryly. “Trying to impress me, doctor?”

  “The sparkling grape juice is to help your blood sugars. The meat and the cheese will provide what your assigned nourishment would have if you had eaten it. This is the kind option, Sophie, though you’ve done little to earn it.”

  “So why are you doing it?”

  “Because I think you’ve had enough for the moment,” he said. “Your resistance is not conducive to any real treatment. It is not my intention to starve you into submission.”

  He was a plain speaker. She liked that. The doctor had little in the way of a hidden agenda, unlike the authorities who habitually spoke out of both sides of their mouths at once and whose eyes gleamed with malevolent intent even as praise spilled from their lips.

  “There is little scope for kindness in the treatment,” the doctor reminded her. “I suggest you make the most of this.”

  She was very hungry, but she had declared that she was on a hunger strike, and what kind of hunger strike ended just because some cheese was brought into the room? It was with a growling stomach and more than a little regret that Sophie shook her head.

  The doctor’s large, powerful palm slid down her back in a soothing motion. “Sophie,” he said gently. “It’s time to eat. You don’t have to fight me. I am not the enemy.”

  Maybe he thought he wasn’t the enemy, but he was the one she had to resist.

  “It’s not worth it,” he said. “If we have to feed you via tube, it will hurt, and you will be strapped down for hours at a time. It will be punishment on top of punishment, torment on top of torment. If you intend to resist me, you need your strength. Once you start to weaken from hunger, your mind will weaken too.”

  “You’re giving me tips on how to resist you?”

  “I’m telling you to eat,” he said with a rakish wink, which melted some of her resolve.

  “Okay,” she said. “I won’t go on a hunger strike, but your treatment isn’t going to work either. I promise you that.”

  * * *

  Oh, but she was a rebellious little brat. Richard had half-expected her to come in crying after a night in the cell, but she was more determined than ever to give him trouble. He could respect her for that, while simultaneously wanting to thrash her bottom.

  As Sophie started to eat, the nurse returned with a message.

  “Doctor, the president is on your telecommunications line.”

  “The president,” Sophie said in mocking tones. “Well, better take his call, doctor. Can’t keep the president waiting, can we?”

  “Finish your meal,” Richard said, moving to take the call at his desk. He picked up the private receiver and put it to his ear. “Mr. President, how may I be of service?”

  “How is the treatment going with the premier’s girl?” There were no pleasantries to the conversation, just the brash, impatient statement. The highest among the upper echelons sounded tense.

  “Very well,” Richard lied through his teeth, watching Sophie nibble on a piece of cheese.

  “She’ll forget her silly nonsense and recant publicly? I expect true remorse,” the president thundered down the line. “She’s caused more unrest than the typhoon of ‘999999. I have reporters at my door daily. They want to see her repent and recant. They’re talking about insurrection. There have been protests, doctor. People abandoning their duties to march in the streets. We cannot have that. I will not have that!”

  “Corrective treatment may not necessarily alter the underlying belief system of a patient,” Richard attempted to explain. “It seeks to modify behavior within lawful parameters.”

  “Don’t give me your long w
ords and tedious explanations. I want that girl crying on the next broadcast, and I want a full list of everyone she conspired with. We will root this uprising out wherever they hide and we will restore order. The girl is the key to that. Break her if you have to. Go as hard as it takes, for as long as it takes.”

  The line went dead. Richard turned from his desk to see Sophie smirking at him brazenly, her green eyes dancing with mischief.

  “There’s trouble, isn’t there,” she said knowingly. “People don’t like what’s happening to me, do they?”

  How did she know? Perhaps she’d overheard the president. He’d certainly been loud enough on the phone. Or maybe she’d known all along what would happen when the judges sentenced her. Maybe she’d even planned this. She looked incredibly pleased with herself, that much was certain.

  “People like me,” she said, taking a sip of juice. “They’re going to be very angry at what’s happened to me. The judges should be careful.”

  She spoke like a spoiled little brat who didn’t realize the forces she was playing with.

  “There is some unrest,” he confirmed. “But it is not a good thing. People will be hurt, Sophie. Really hurt, if they resist the authority.”

  “It’s not my fault that we are ruled by corruption,” she shrugged. “I have done nothing wrong.”

  Nothing wrong. She probably believed that, seeing things as she did through the very narrow filter of doing whatever she wanted to do. Sophie was so spoiled she didn’t even realize that doing as one pleased was a luxury only someone like her could dream of.

  It was time to lay down the law in no uncertain manner. She did not seem to understand the real danger she was putting herself in, or the full potential scope of her punishment.