✅ A Dose of Humiliation

10. Out of Choices

This chapter is dedicated to Santoro, with thanks again for all the support you have given me to let me keep on writing.

"Not tonight, I already..." I mumbled, and then I recognised the sound of the alarm buzzing, and dragged myself quickly back to wakefulness. It wasn't a normal school day, or I would have set the radio to play the latest Thunderpone album with slowly increasing volume until I awoke. The buzzing sawtooth beep-beep-beep was reserved for days when I needed to be up quickly for something important or awesome.

Or terrible, I thought as I managed to drag the sheets off my face and swung my legs out of bed. Today was the day I would be humiliated in front of my friends, with no idea what lay ahead of me. I rubbed my face and groaned. How had I gotten into this situation? I wanted to believe there was a way I could have escaped, but every path I could think of would have meant somebody else being hurt when I was in a position to stop it. I couldn't have left Clint to face Todd Becker and his gang again; both attracting my parents' disapproval and Becker's wrath. I couldn't have let Marcie face her mother's punishment for Elspeth's lack of self control, and I couldn't have shielded her without giving a confession that made this punishment an option.

"Lorna!" Dad's voice bellowed from outside the door. "What are you playing at? We need to be getting to the Mercer Center."

"Just getting dressed, Dad!" I growled, and dashed across the landing to the bathroom. I cleaned up as quickly as I could, sprayed myself with deodorant instead of showering – laughing inside about whether it would be enough to save me from humiliation in a few days – and ran back to my room to pull on my school uniform. The uniform was more complex than most, I think, and looked more like something out of anime than what a real school would use. Some people hated it, but I thought it was kind of cool. It wasn't, however, good for putting on in a hurry.

I put on my blue Converse, close enough to the uniform colours that nobody noticed I wasn't following the letter of the rules, and balled up my socks in my bag. The fancy collar went in the top of my bag as well. I grabbed a pair of plain white boyshorts – what I normally thought of as granny panties – from the back on the drawer. I wanted to show off as little skin as possible if that creep Andy Becker decided it was appropriate to lift my skirt up again. A skirt, and a tshirt made me presentable, and I could put on the rest of the details after this appointment. I'd probably have ten minutes to get used to my punishment before I had to plunge back into class.

It took like three minutes for me to get ready, close to a personal best, but Dad was still standing outside my room tapping his foot like he'd been waiting hours. He grabbed my arm and led me all the way to the car, while Mum took my bag from me. I felt like a real prisoner now, and all the worries were bubbling to the front of my mind, and I didn't know if I had as much courage as I'd claimed.

"I can't do this," I said, as the huge glass-and-chrome edifice of the Mercer Center came into view. I'd had plenty of time to think on the drive; I would probably have arrived sooner if I'd taken the bus, being able to jog across the pedestrian areas in the town centre and then get off at the Center Bus Depot, right underneath the central food court, rather than navigating a byzantine one-way system to loop round all the parking garages and find one that wasn't currently full. My parents wanted me in sight at all times, and that meant there was too much time for contemplation.

"You have to do this. You don't get to run away now."

"I'm sorry, Lorna," Mum spoke from the back seat. "You're the one who started down this path. You're the one who didn't listen to us before it became a criminal matter. You can't just change your mind now to escape punishment. I wish there was some way, but–"