Atonement Chapter 7
I drove through the thickening twilight towards Elkins. The pain had subsided a bit, but it would be days before I could sit comfortably. That old admonishment, "you won't sit for a week!" resonated in my memory. I had had a "right smart ass whuppin'" as they say in W. Virginia. But I had bigger problems than the state of my tender backside. I still did not know exactly where Libby Mason was, and I had to waste time trying to help the girls.
I was able to convince my friend the judge to issue the Habeus writ. The next day found me back in Goshen presenting the writ to the sheriff. It was timely. They were scheduled to be whipped again that day at 3pm. If they had scheduled it in the morning, I would have been too late. I could visualize Lori, the "executioner" warming up her arm, swishing the martinet with those thickly muscled shoulders, and the girls, their eyes wide with fear, bound to the frame, their tender behinds stuck out, bare and vulnerable. This time I really could sympathize since my own backside was welted and sore.
By this time, though, the girls' parents had arrived and were hard at work on their own to secure their release. The combination of the federal writ and pressure brought to bear by angry parents was too much for prosecutor in Pendelton County and the remaining sentence was suspended.
So now what? I needed help in the form of intelligence into the workings of the Revelation Church of Atonement . Then an idea came to me. There was a guy I knew in DC, William Wolfe. Bill and I had gone to school together. After undergrad, Bill had gone into the service where he had made his way into Naval intelligence. From there he was recruited by the CIA, but had left after a few years to form his own security firm in the DC area. We had talked over the years, and I had once extricated his teen-age daughter from a nasty situation involving underage drinking and vandalism. She had said she was only along for the ride. I believed her. She's a nice kid.
Bill was happy to hear from me. And there was another surprise.
"Rollin, I can't believe the timing on this. We are working for a company whose CEO has a daughter who has joined this Church of Atonement, and he's very concerned. His name is Dave Kraft and he believes his daughter Elaine has been brainwashed. At his request we have started an investigation. Come on up and meet with us and we'll share information."
Bill had an office in Tyson's Corners. The name of the firm was JLO Security.
"So what does JLO stand for?" We were sitting in Bill's office catching up with each other.
"Not a damn thing," said Bill. "When Kim was little she went through a phase when all she would eat was Jello. I guess that memory stuck with me. How have you managed to stay unwed?" He asked, changing the subject.
"Luck. Timing. The ones I wanted got away, and I escaped the ones mom warned me about." I shifted to the business at hand. "So this church--what do you know about them?"
"Ah," said Bill, "not much now, but we will soon. Not a whole lot is publicly known and they have a reputation for silencing detractors. We have someone on the inside, a woman from our organization. She volunteered to go undercover to see if she could get a line on our client's daughter."
"Where is she now?"
"She has entered the Church's commune in Goshen--where you were turned away. She is posing as a novice, eager to go through their program, whatever it is. But here is the thing--we are using some brand new technology, small wireless fiber optic lens cameras and audio transducers. She took these in with her and can hide them all over the commune. They will actually be transmitting data continuously. So if our client's daughter is there, she will find her."
I was astonished. "How long have you had this stuff?"
"It's brand new in the civilian security market, the spooks have had it for some time."
"What's this girl's name?"
"Lisa Tallmadge, but under cover she is 'Cathy Riggs'. She came to us from a police department in Minnesota. A little green, she's only 24--and looks 19, by the way--but very bright."
"Bill, I don't want to alarm you, but do you have any idea what these people do in there?"
Bill didn't, so I told him. Everything that Christy Connor had told me.
"Holy shit, Rollin. You are telling me that Lisa is very likely going to get her ass shellacked several times over."
"There's more." I told him about my run-in with Anna Klochek, and the story of how I came to make her acquaintance.
"Then we'd better get going. These people are seriously whacked. And that could be dangerous. That cult mentality lumps the world into two factions--us and the enemy. I was going to give Lisa a week to get in and get acclimated before we set up the monitoring station, but now it looks like we need to get going."
"Where is the monitoring station?" I asked.
"Oh, yeah, that's the thing. It has to be within about 400 yards of the subject. These tiny transmitters run for a long time but they don't have much range. This is a clandestine op, and we need to be in the field close by. It means infiltrating the property and setting up in the woods near the commune. We set up a dish, connect a laptop and start recording."
*************************************************
The away team was me, Bill, a partner of Bill's named Jim Groves, and a woman named Wendy Savin. Wendy was an attractive blonde in her 30's, and was the field link tech and computer expert. She knew her stuff about the equipment and was pleasant to have around. She smiled a lot and had a dry wisecracking sense of humor. She wasn't very "outdoorsey" though, and I wondered how the camping out would go with her. She seemed willing to try though. Jim was the outdoor type. He would do the climbing and the close-in surveillance. He was an ex SWAT team cop and a veteran. The field link would transmit via satellite back to JLO.
I called Henry and brought him up to speed. He agreed this needed to be done, since it seemed to provide a reasonable chance of finding his daughter. Once we had evidence of what was going on, we might get a court or the police to intervene. Still this aspect bothered me. There was no evidence of kidnapping. It appeared to be a religious cult that practiced corporal punishment rituals out of a sense of guilt. Sounded to me like my old Catholic grade school. The sex part didn't. We had never had that at Saint Alphonse's. No little eighth grade beauty had ever been appointed to "comfort" me after a paddywhacking from Sister Mary Josephine's trusty ruler. But there could be more. The Punishment Hut didn't sound very consensual and the thing Christy had said about "initiation" and being a "handmaiden" to a "Confessor" sounded ominous.
I also got in touch with Jane and asked her to find out anything she could about Corpun and Noah Chrossman and the Revelation Church of Atonement. She promised to get right on it. "I wouldn't want you to think I was slacking off, boss. I would just dread the Friday reckoning when you got back if I had no results."
I'll just bet you would, I thought, but I didn't say that.
It had been awhile since I had gone backpacking, but once again I found myself laboring up a hill through a wooded ravine, keeping out of sight. We had entered from the opposite side of the property and were on our way up to a ridge which overlooked the commune from the South. Our plan was to climb trees to situate the dish antennas which were camoflaged. We set up tents and prepared for a long stay. There was no telling how long we would have to monitor to get something useful and didn't know how much of the commune Lisa had been able to cover.
One option she had was the use of fiber optic hand held camera/ mic combination but this would require her to "spy" from a hidden location, a risky strategy. We hoped to iron out the details of the operation once we were in contact with Lisa.
We opened up the link on a Wednesday evening. Lisa had been there since the previous Monday. She had picked a spot off a trail in the woods to speak with us directly. Otherwise the only way she could do it was in code in conversation with others. When we turned on the computer, we saw where the equipment had been placed. We could toggle between several different inputs and thereby monitor a number of spots in the compound.
First we had a view of the common area inside Lisa's cabin. Then another scene showed the open courtyard outside and the ominous pillories. A third camera/mic combination went into a large room, a day room or classroom, we couldn't tell which. Yet another view was of a large ampitheater. We hadn't heard of this before. It was built into a hillside and covered, but was otherwise an open air structure. At the center was a stage with an upright wooden post on it. The post had an iron ring at its top. "It looks like a whipping post," marvelled Wendy. I nodded. "Fits what we know so far. It's probably for some big ceremony." Wendy gaped. "Would they really use that?" She seemed fascinated.
We could see groups of people moving through the field of view of the various scenes. We could also zoom the cameras to get closer. This was useful, especially with the ampitheater cam, because it had what appeared to be a major traffic area or crossroads in its far field of view.
The first thing of note that we saw took place in the "classroom". A group of men and women entered and sat around in a circle. The women wore plain dark tunics over white blouses, the tunics hemmed above the knee and white knee socks. This made them look like Catholic schoolgirls although some were plainly in their 30's. The men wore dark trousers, crisp white shirts and striped ties. An older man and woman conducted a session that sounded like group therapy. Lisa was there, and from time to time she would cast glances at the camera. She looked nervous.
The facilitators, who referred to themselves as Brother Robert and Sister Marian were leading a general discussion about the need for atonement when a pretty girl named Linda spoke up and shared how she had felt bad about drinking in college, how it had wrecked her grades. She had flunked out and felt like she had let her parents down. The discussion went around the room with everyone weighing in about Linda's failings and how they had done similar things. It looked and sounded like a 12 step meeting. Then the discussion apparantly reached a turning point. "Sister" Marian said, "So Linda, are you prepared now to atone?" This was the big question. Each one of these participants would be asked to pick an incident about which they felt especially guilty, share it in group, have it discussed and dissected, and suggest their own way to pay the debt and relieve their guilt.
"Y-yes, Sister, I am ready," quavered a nervous Linda.
"How do you hope to atone, Linda?" asked Brother Robert.
"W-well," said Linda, "my friend Emily came home drunk once after a date and her dad took off his belt and wh-whipped her. She told me about it later. He put her over the end of her bed the next morning and gave her a hard whipping across her u-underpants with a thick leather belt."
Addressing the group now Brother Robert asked everyone if that punishment seemed fair. Some did, but most thought that she should get it bare. After all it was a long series of infractions, not just one.
"I think, Linda, that it is time for you to experience the cleansing pain of correction for this sin. Are you prepared, sister?" asked Marian. She said, "I, uh, g-guess so." She was like a deer in the headlights.
We watched as another surprise unfolded. "Who would be willing to play the part of Linda's father?" asked Brother Robert.
"I will," said a rather clean cut, serious looking young man in his early 20's. So they were going to allow a fellow novice to act as disciplinarian--an interesting touch.
Brother Robert addressed him. "So, Ethan, can you suggest how Linda's father should have dealt with her, and how you would assume that responsibility?"
Ethan spoke right up. "I think Linda should have a sound whipping--with a leather strap. I will punish her, brother, for her own good." Heads nodded in approval, but beneath the formal sanctimonious posturing there was a palpable sense of excitement at the ritual about to unfold.
Sister Marian spoke to Linda. "Do you accept Ethan's suggestion for your atonement, Linda?"
Linda blushed and stammered, "I-I do, I guess..."
"Very well," said Brother Robert. "There is a punishment strap hanging from a nail in the closet, Ethan. You may proceed."
We watched the monitor, transfixed as Ethan retrieved a short leather strap dangling from a wooden handle. He apparantly had decided to put her over his knee because he sat in an armless chair and motioned for her to approach. Linda looked very unsure of herself as she reluctantly edged towards Ethan, now seated with the strap held in his right hand. Gingerly she laid herself across Ethan's lap. With much ceremony he slowly lifted her skirt revealing a very attractive bottom clad in white full cut panties. Linda blushed as Ethan admonished her to hold onto the chair leg crosspieces. He asked her if she was ready and she stammered a reply indicating assent. Ethan slowly peeled down the white panties exposing a fully rounded white bottom. The panties came to rest at Linda's knee hollows. He hefted the strap and announced the sentence, 39 strokes.
It was an astounding sight, an attractive, fully grown woman in a childish schoolgirl tunic suspended over the lap of a man close to her age, her bare bottom luridly exposed to the gaze of the dozen or so participants. Ethan raised his arm and brought the strap down with a sharp thwack! leaving a pink band right across the lower portion of her hind cheeks. Her twin moons wobbled with the impact, and she emitted a shocked gasp of pain. Thwack!...Thwack!...Thwack! The cracks of the strap came through loud and clear on the hidden mike. The others began to count the strokes, like it was a ritualistic chant. 7...8...9...they intoned as the strap continued to smack the redenning globes of Linda's fanny. Linda started to squirm. By 20 she was emitting groans of distress. By lick number 30 she was softly drumming her toes on the floor and the wriggling had become more pronounced. At the last few strokes her body arched backward and she tensed up and yelped as if it were all she could do to hold on and endure the shameful licking. The strap had colored her seat a bright red which stood out sharply against the whiteness of her lower back and thighs. Having delivered a very thorough smacking with the short strap, Ethan now gently lifted Linda and set her back on her feet. Linda's hands went immediately to her injured nether cheeks and she rubbed her bottom under the skirt which had fallen back down while shifting from foot to foot in obvious discomfort.
"Congratulations, Sister Linda, you have taken a major step on the path toward total atonement," stated Brother Robert somewhat formally. "Everyone, let us rise and embrace our sister."
Everyone stood up and one by one, each gave Linda a hug. Ethan was last. She approached him shyly but everyone clapped as she hugged her punisher. Apparantly there were no hard feelings. As the meeting drew to a close a smiling Sister Marian asked Linda if she would like "comfort" from Ethan. She blushed demurely but accepted with a nod. Hand in hand Linda and Ethan headed for a back room.
We were watching for Lisa's reaction and she turned toward the hidden camera and gave us a wink as if to say, "Get a load of that!"
There was even more activity later on. The "housemother" was a woman known as Sister Edith. Sister Edith ran a tight ship. In front of the assembled household she announced that two of their company had failed to do properly assigned chores and had snuck off into the woods to avoid work instead. This was a serious offense. We watched as two of the young men in the group dragged out of a storage closet an apparatus with a padded top that looked like a half barrel on legs. Two women, both in their 20's were the culprits. They had long downcast looks on their faces as they endured a thorough scolding from Sister Edith. During the scolding we could see their eyes shifting apprehensively toward the ominous looking barrel apparatus.
When the lecture was over Sister Edith retrieved a sturdy rectangular paddle of the school/fraternity variety which hung on the wall from a hook. Slapping the paddle smartly in her palm she pronounced sentence on the two delinquents. They were sentenced to 10 swats each.
So, one at a time, in full view of the company, each woman lifted her skirts and bent over the barrel to take her ten licks. Each woman wore nothing but thin panties under the skirts.
Joanne, a medium height brunette, was first. She leaned across the "barrel" and lifted her skirt to reveal a plump seat in panties that could not cover all of it. The lower part of her bottomcheeks bulged out of the leg bands on the side making her fanny almost bare. Sister Edith took her position, tapped Joanne's quivering seat a few times with the paddle, then methodically applied 10 hard smacks to the seat of each woman's panties. The crisp Smack! of the paddle hitting flesh and a screech of anguish defined each deliberate lick. The paddle was heavy and caused Joanne's ample fanny to flatten momentarily on impact before spring back into a fully rounded shape. The deliberate paddling caused much frantic wriggling and elicited fervent pleas for forgiveness. It was a serious punishment and Joanne's reaction told us she had been thoroughly chastised for the indescretion.
A blonde named Anne was next and if anything she reacted more vociferously to the painful paddling. The steady Splat! Whap! Smack! made Anne wriggle shamelessly and beg forgiveness between yelps of pain. Twice she leapt up clutching her bottom and twice she had to be ordered to assume the position once again and present her bottom for correction. The treatment caused more than a few tears to flow and we could see the pained expressions afterward as both punished women rubbed their bottoms trying to ease the sting during the after-punishment lecture on obedience to the rules.
We watched in amazement. Wendy just shook her head. "Oh my God, what has Lisa gotten herself into?" We all wondered that.
Built by Text2Html