It was just a second, I swear

Story by Lisa and Josephus

The clock on the dashboard read 2:47 PM. My fingers still smelled like the stale coffee I’d been brewing since four that morning, the kind that leaves a film on your tongue and a jitter in your bones. The sun was high and harsh, glaring off the hood of my old Civic, and my thighs were sticking to the fabric of the seat. I’d been running on fumes and spreadsheets for ten hours.

The Johnson account.

It hit me halfway through a yawn. The filing deadline was midnight. I’d left Ava a stack of notes, but she didn’t know the quarterly adjustments the way I did. I’d spent three days reconciling those numbers.

I fumbled for my phone in my bag, the bag wedged between the passenger seat and the door. My fingers found the cold glass of the screen. The car drifted slightly as I glanced down.

“Ava, the Johnson file needs the adjusted—”

My thumbs moved fast. Auto-correct tried to change “adjusted” to “adjusted,” and I corrected it with a frown. The pavement hummed under the tires.

The lift of my eyes was casual. A glance up to check the road, like I always did. Like every other time I’d sent a quick text at a red light or pulled into a parking lot while finishing a sentence. This time there was no red light.

The yellow line was gone.

No. No, the line is under me.

The bus filled my entire windshield. Its grille was a wall of yellow metal closing the gap between us with terrible speed. I saw the driver’s eyes go wide. His hands yanked the wheel to the right. A face in the window—a little girl with pigtails, her mouth opening in a silent O.

My foot slammed the brake.

The Civic shrieked. The bus swerved, its bulk tilting like a ship in a storm, and the side of its body kissed a metal street sign. The impact was a hollow thump that I felt in my chest more than heard.

The world spun. I’d cranked the wheel left, overcorrecting, and the curb caught my front tire. The Civic lurched, bounced, and settled with a shudder on the sidewalk. The engine coughed once and died.

Silence.

The car smelled hot. My hands were still gripping the wheel so hard my knuckles were white moons. My heart was a trapped bird in my ribs.

Then the sounds came back. A child crying. Somewhere, a woman screaming. The bus’s air brakes hissed.

I got out of the car on legs that didn’t feel like mine. The pavement was rough under my flats. My skirt was too tight, my blouse soaked through at the armpits.

The bus driver was already descending his steps, his face a mask of fury and shock. “What the hell is wrong with you? There are kids on this bus!”

“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I was just—I had to send a message. I didn’t mean—”

Sirens. In the distance. Getting closer.

The bus driver looked at my phone, still clutched in my hand. “You were texting.”

It wasn’t a question.

Two squad cars arrived. Then an ambulance, because the bus driver said his neck hurt and one of the kids had bumped her head on the seat in front of her. No one was bleeding. No bones broken. Just a universe of fear and paperwork and blame.

The first officer asked for my license and registration. I handed them over with shaking fingers. She asked if I’d been drinking. No. Any drugs? No. Had I been using my phone while driving?

The silence stretched.

“Ma’am, I need you to answer the question.”

“It was just a quick text. Two seconds. I looked down for two seconds.”

She took my phone. Bagged it. Read me my rights.

The handcuffs were cold. They cinched tight around my wrists, the metal biting into the skin. She guided me into the back of the squad car, one hand on my head so I wouldn’t hit it on the frame. The seat was hard plastic. A mesh screen separated me from the front.

Through the window, I watched a mother run toward the bus, her arms outstretched. A little boy in a blue shirt jumped into her embrace. She held him so tight.

I started crying.

The ride to the station was a blur of streetlights and left turns. The booking process was a series of humiliations—fingerprints, mugshots, my pockets emptied, my purse inventoried. A woman with dead eyes and a badge told me to remove my jewelry. I took off the small silver hoops my grandmother had given me. The chain from around my neck, the one with the tiny crescent moon charm.

They put me in a holding cell with a woman who smelled of cheap whiskey and regret. She kept muttering about a man named Tommy. I sat on the metal bench and stared at the wall.

My arraignment was the next morning. I’d spent the night on a mattress that was more plastic than padding, wearing a jumpsuit the color of dishwater. No makeup. No phone. No idea what time it was.

The courtroom was all pale wood and fluorescent lights and the smell of floor wax. My lawyer was a public defender named Mr. Hartley, a thin man with a tired face and a briefcase held together with duct tape. He’d met me for exactly seven minutes before we walked in.

“The prosecution has your phone logs,” he said. “Timestamped text at 2:48 PM. The bus driver’s dashcam shows you drifting across the center line. They’ve got you dead to rights.”

“What happens now?”

“New safety law. They’re making an example out of texting and driving. Especially when kids are involved.”

The prosecutor was a woman with sharp shoulders and sharper eyes. She stood at the podium and read the charges in a voice that carried to every corner of the room. Reckless endangerment. Operating a vehicle while distracted. Violation of the Safe Streets Act.

The judge looked at me. His glasses were thick and his hair was gray and he didn’t seem impressed by anything in his courtroom.

“How do you plead?”

Mr. Hartley touched my arm. “Say ‘guilty,’ Luna. We talked about this.”

“Guilty.”

The judge set his pen down. “Then here is your sentence. You will serve five days in the county correctional facility. In addition, you will receive three separate corporal punishments, one on each of the first three days of your incarceration. This is not negotiable. The law is clear.”

My breath stopped.

“Day one is today,” the judge continued. “You will receive twenty lashes with a judicial strap at 1:00 PM. Day two will involve a single-tail instrument. Day three will be determined based on your conduct. If you survive all three, you will complete the remaining two days of your sentence in general population and be released.”

Survive.

The word echoed in my skull.

“Do you have anything to say before I remand you to the custody of the Sheriff?”

I tried to speak. My throat was closed. I swallowed and tried again. “I made a mistake. A terrible mistake. I’m not a dangerous person. I just—I was tired, and I was trying to do my job, and I looked away for one second. One second. Please.”

The judge’s face didn’t change. “One second behind the wheel of a car traveling forty miles per hour is fifty-nine feet. You crossed those fifty-nine feet into oncoming traffic. There were forty-three children on that bus. Your sentence stands.”

The gavel fell.

Day one was twenty lashes. A leather strap, three feet long, four inches wide. They made me sign a form acknowledging the procedure. They offered a sedative. I refused, thinking it would make me brave. It did not.

The room was small, windowless, painted a shade of institutional beige that looked like the color of illness. A concrete floor with a drain in the center. A bench that looked like a wooden sawhorse, padded with black vinyl. A metal bar across the middle, a longer one at the top, with leather restraints dangling from each.

Two officers brought me in. A woman named Sergeant Bryce, with close-cropped hair and a face that could have been carved from granite. A man named Officer Dixon, younger, with a nervous way of not meeting my eyes.

“Strip,” Sergeant Bryce said.

I froze.

“I said strip. Everything off. You can’t be punished through clothing. That’s the rule.”

My fingers moved to the zipper of the jumpsuit. They felt thick, clumsy. The fabric rasped as I pulled it down. The air hit my skin. Goosebumps rose across my arms, across my belly, across my thighs.

I shrugged the jumpsuit off my shoulders. It pooled at my feet.

I stood there in my bra and underwear. A cotton sports bra, no wire. Plain gray panties that had seen better days.

“Everything.”

My eyes burned. I reached behind my back and unclasped the bra. It slid down my arms. I stepped out of my panties, feeling the cold floor under my bare feet.

I was naked.

Completely, utterly naked in a room with two strangers, under fluorescent lights that seemed to illuminate every flaw, every curve, every part of me that I usually kept hidden under layers of fabric and modesty. My C-cup breasts felt heavy, exposed. My hips were wide, soft, the skin marked with the faint silver lines of a body that had changed and settled and learned to live with itself. The belly that pooched out slightly, no matter how many crunches I did. The dark triangle of hair between my legs.

I couldn’t stop my hands from covering myself. My arms crossed over my chest. My thighs pressed together.

“Hands at your sides.”

Sergeant Bryce’s voice was flat. No anger. No sympathy. Just procedure.

I lowered my hands.

“On the bench. Face down. Straddle the center bar and reach forward to the top bar.”

The bench looked like a piece of medieval furniture. I walked toward it, my bare feet slapping on the concrete. The vinyl was cold against my thighs as I swung one leg over the center bar. I lay forward, my chest touching the padded surface, my arms reaching out.

The restraints were leather, lined with something soft. Sergeant Bryce wrapped them around my wrists and cinched them tight. The buckle clicked.

“Feet. Spread them.”

I did. Another restraint closed around each ankle, pulling my legs apart. I was completely spread open, completely vulnerable. The position arched my back, pushing my ass up into the air. I felt the cool draft of the room against the most private parts of my body.

My face was hot. My whole body was hot. Tears spilled from my eyes and dripped onto the vinyl.

“Do you want the gag?”

I shook my head. I thought I could be quiet. I thought I could take it.

Officer Dixon stepped forward. He was holding the strap. It looked like a piece of dark leather, heavy, with a handle at one end. He held it with both hands, testing its weight.

Sergeant Bryce stood at my side. “You will receive twenty strokes. After each stroke, I will count. You may not speak. You may not move your hands or feet. You will take your punishment.”

“Please,” I whispered. “Please, I can’t—”

The first stroke fell.

It was not a slap. It was an impact that went through me like a shockwave, a sound that was more of a deep thud than a crack. The pain bloomed across both cheeks of my ass, a wide band of fire that spread and deepened and refused to stop.

I screamed.

My whole body jerked against the restraints. The leather bit into my wrists. My legs kicked uselessly. I couldn’t breathe. The pain was too big for my lungs.

“One,” Sergeant Bryce said.

The second stroke landed lower, catching the crease where my thighs met my ass. A different kind of fire. Deeper. I screamed again, and this time I didn’t care that I was supposed to be quiet. I didn’t care about being brave.

“Two.”

The strap fell again. And again. And again.

I stopped counting. I stopped trying to be anything other than a creature of pure sensation. The world shrank to the sound of the leather striking my skin, the explosion of heat, the humiliating position of my body, the wetness of tears and snot and drool on the vinyl.

My back arched. My hips bucked. The strap caught me on the upswing once, the leather snapping against my thigh, and I sobbed.

“Nine.”

I was babbling. Begging. “Please, please, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, I won’t do it again, I swear, I swear, please, God, please—”

“Ten.”

The middle of the punishment. I was raw. I was crying so hard I couldn’t see. My ass was a single sheet of fire, throbbing with my heartbeat. Every nerve ending was alight, sending signals of pure distress to a brain that could barely process them.

The eleventh stroke landed.

I screamed again. It was not a human sound. It was the noise of something being unmade.

“Twelve.”

My legs were trembling. My hands had gone numb. The cold air of the room touched the hot skin of my ass and the contrast made me gasp.

“Thirteen.”

I stopped begging. I just cried. Deep, wracking sobs that shook my whole frame on the bench.

“Fourteen.”

The strap hit a spot that was already split, and a new sensation joined the fire—sharp, specific, the feeling of broken skin. I whimpered. The sound was small and pitiful.

“Fifteen.”

Sergeant Bryce’s voice was the only anchor in the storm. She counted without emotion. She watched without flinching.

“Sixteen.”

I was shaking. Shivering, even though the room wasn’t cold. My teeth chattered. The edges of my vision were going dark.

“Seventeen.”

The strap landed. I heard a wail, and it took me a moment to realize it was mine.

“Eighteen.”

Two more. Just two more. I held onto that thought. Two more and it would be over.

“Nineteen.”

The strap landed high, right at the base of my spine, where the curve of my back met the curve of my ass. The pain shot up my back and into my shoulders. I screamed into the vinyl. My body was a live wire.

“Twenty.”

The last stroke fell. It hit the same spot, the same line of fire, and I felt something inside me break—not a bone, but a wall. A wall of composure I’d been building my whole life. I sobbed openly, fully, like a child.

The room was quiet.

The leather strap made a sound as Officer Dixon set it down on a metal table.

Sergeant Bryce moved to my side. Her hands were on the restraints, unbuckling them one by one. My wrists were free. My ankles were free.

I couldn’t move.

My body stayed in position, draped over the bench, my legs still spread, my ass on fire. I was panting. My cheek was pressed against the wet vinyl.

“Sit up when you’re ready.”

I tried. I pushed myself up on shaking arms. Every movement sent fresh waves of agony across my backside. I sat back on my heels, careful not to let my weight fall on the punished flesh.

My breasts hung heavy. My thighs were slick with sweat. My hair was a mess, plastered to my forehead.

I reached for the jumpsuit. My hands were shaking so badly I could barely grasp the fabric. I pulled it on, wincing as the rough material touched my skin. I left it unzipped. I couldn’t bend to pull up the zipper.

Officer Dixon handed me a paper cup of water. I drank it in small sips. It tasted like plastic and relief.

“You have to report to the medical office for an exam,” Sergeant Bryce said. “Then you’ll be taken to your cell.”

I nodded. I couldn’t speak.

They led me down a hallway. White walls. White lights. My feet shuffled in the canvas slippers they’d given me. The jumpsuit chafed against my raw skin with every step.

The medical exam was quick and clinical. A nurse with kind eyes cleaned the broken skin—three small splits, she said, nothing that needed stitches. She applied a cooling gel that stung at first and then felt like mercy. She gave me a small tube of the same gel and told me to apply it twice a day.

“You’re going to be very sore for a while,” she said. “Sitting will be hard. I recommend lying on your stomach.”

Then she walked me to my cell.

It was small. A bunk with a thin mattress. A stainless steel toilet. A sink. A shelf with a folded blanket and a second jumpsuit.

I lowered myself onto the mattress on my stomach. The fabric was rough, but it was better than the vinyl of the bench.

I lay there in the quiet, feeling my body pulse with pain. The humiliation was a second layer of suffering, one that wouldn’t fade as quickly as the bruises. I’d been naked. I’d been strapped down. I’d screamed and begged and cried like a child.

And tomorrow there would be more.

The judge had said a “single-tail instrument.” I didn’t know what that meant, but the nurse’s face had gone pale when I mentioned it.

I stared at the concrete wall.

Twenty strokes today. Tomorrow would be different. Tomorrow would be worse.

The fluorescent light in my cell never turned off. It hummed. It watched.

I closed my eyes and felt the heat radiating from my ruined skin, and I thought about that little girl with pigtails on the bus. I thought about how close I’d come to taking her life. I thought about how close I’d come to ending my own, how easy it would have been.

The tears came again. Silent this time. They soaked into the thin pillow.

I was still crying when I heard the key turn in the lock.

The door opened. A shadow fell across the floor.

“Inmate Rivera. Time for your evening medication.”

It was a different officer. Younger. Male. He didn’t come in. He held a paper cup through the bars.

I pushed myself up on my elbows, wincing. “I don’t need medication.”

“Painkillers and a mild sedative. Doctor’s orders. You’ll need your rest for tomorrow.”

My stomach turned at the thought of swallowing anything. But he was right. I needed rest. I needed to be as ready as I could be.

I took the cup. Two small pills. I dry-swallowed them. They stuck in my throat.

The officer nodded and closed the slot in the door. His footsteps faded down the hall.

I lay back down.

The pain was starting to dull, just slightly. The gel was doing its work. The sedative was creeping into my veins, softening the edges of my thoughts.

But underneath the medication, underneath the exhaustion, there was a cold, clear thread of dread.

Two more days.

Two more punishments.

And I had no idea what they were going to do to me.