Tension

That morning, Korra saved a kid. Seeing him fall off the ledge of one of those too-damn-tall apartment buildings while he chased a ball, Korra scaled it quickly to get him. The boy had been saved but the window ledges has split like tinder with the force of her body.

In the Chief's office, Korra said, "Property damage? My ass."

Chief Bei Fong replied, "Put out your hands in front of you."

Korra frowned. Saving the kid at the expense of breaking off a window ledge didn't seem like it deserved a punishment, but she'd take it just to prove she was better than this old bitch. She put her fists our straight in front of her. She could handle handcuffs.

Chief Bei Fong, however, brought out a twig. Just a long, bamboo stick thin as a pinky. Thinner. She scowled as she held it. Then she cut it through the air: swish. A thick sound.

"Palms up," said the Chief.

Glowering at the little stick, Korra obeyed.

The Chief, all business, snapped it down on Korra's open hands. Once, twice. Korra didn't even register what was going on until the Chief put the stick back in her desk.

Korra kept her hands in the air. They stung but not badly, as if she had just done a push-up or two on hard asphalt. "Did you just whip me?"

Sighing, the Chief sat down. "It's what parents do to bad children, at least here in the city. Your parents clearly didn't discipline you. I thought I'd help."

Feeling hot and indignant, Korra wheeled her arms back down. "Do I have to go to the cell, now?"

"Why?" When the Chief wrinkled her nose, a line appeared between her eyebrows. She didn't look like she really understood Korra. "That was it. Go back to Tenzin."

Korra, feeling at a loss, left. She found herself rubbing her hands for bruises, checking them periodically as she walked along the bridge to where Naga was tied up at the end of it. A small red mark finally appeared about the shape and color, Korra thought, of a sharp kiss.

Korra was whipped on her hands twice more: a peach ice cream stand was overturned when she was out walking Naga and then when she had to dive off the bridge to get Bolin after he fell in the water.

"We need to stop meeting like this," Korra said in Chief Bei Fong's office, hair soaking and clothes drip, drip, dripping on the floor. She smiled, feeling flushed and pleased with herself.

Chief Bei Fong looked stricken. "I hope you don't consider disciplinary action a joke, Avatar! Every visit to this station is being put on your permanent record, accessible by any station in the world."

"If they look for it." Korra brought up her hands in a stiff parody of a hug. She raised an eyebrow. "If they care. Do you really think they will?"

The Chief colored. "Over my desk!" she roared.

Stiffening, Korra kept her hands up. "What?"

"Lean over my desk right now! Hands in front! Brace yourself on the edge!"

Korra didn't feel very good. "I didn't mean to insult the police force. I know you care for them." This lady had given her life to them--who was she to disrespect it?

"Over the desk."

Korra complied, fingers gripping the edge. She saw papers upside down on the desk, wanted pictures and forms with tic boxes that had spaces at the bottom where Bei Fong would have to put her signature to make sure the police kept doing its job.

The first hit was a shock, smacking the back of her pants. It was worse than her hands.

Korra cringed.

The Chief hit again. Then a third time. Fourth, fifth, and some time after the sixth (or was it the seventh?) Korra lost count. She felt shamed and wondered if anyone would come into the office.

"Is the door locked?" Korra whispered after the switch came down to meet her buttocks again.

"Not your concern. Eyes down." Chief Bei Fong then reached forward rolled down her pants.

Korra squawked. Bare! Like a little kid!

The switch HURT when it met her ass, now. She could feel the burning lines. Sweat ran down her back but, as far as she was concerned, it might have been blood.

"Oh Spirits," she said.

"Eyes forward," said Bei Fong through her teeth, resting an ice cold hand on Korra's back as she pushed up her shirt.

Korra could feel the woman's fingernails. She could take her down, she thought. It would be easy as hell!

The switch split across her back, her spine, and it ripped a scream out of her throat.

"Now you count," said Chief Bei Fong, and was there something hungry about her voice? Maybe. Korra might have been imagining it. She wasn't sure.

The Chief kept hitting, a flurry of slaps that rang over Korra's naked ass and the small of he back.

"Next...time...I catch...you..." She grunted as she worked Korra over. "I'll...whip...you...in front...of the whole...hrn...city..."

Korra tried to steel herself and gripped the desk tighter. When the rain of the switch ceased, the heat of the marks it had caused swept over her back and ass, and she collapsed forward. Her breasts squished uncomfortably into Chief Bei Fong's things and she panted.

"It burns," she said, trying to cover her face, but Bei Fong's hands were on her, prying them away.

"Dress," said the Chief who, if satisfied, didn't show it. "I want you out of this office for good."

Korra stood up slowly and rolled up her pants over her ass, hissing as her fingers ran over the marks. Was there blood? She wondered.

Chief Bei Fong was sweating, stray hairs glued to her forehead. She sat down. "I don't want to see you here again any time soon."

Korra surprised them both by bowing forward. It was the way one would greet a master. She breathed in as she looked at the ground, breathed out as she looked back up. "Yes, sir," she said and left.

------------------------------------

If Korra, Mako, and Bolin had lost while on track to the pro-bending championship, that would have been fine with her. No, really. Korra would have been disappointed, she might have even committed some of the property damage she had so steadfastly kept herself from inflicting since her last private encounter with Chief Bei Fong ("Chief Bayhound Dong," Bolin snickered before Korra told him to shut it), but she would have gotten over it.

No, she had to get the whole team disqualified. Just her, on her own.

Mako had nearly been decapitated by the stone disc slicing toward him. Reeling from the deadly strategy their opponents, the Wu Chen Team, were using, Korra deflected the stone disc. With fire.

Not water. One of the other elements she wasn't supposed to be using in the ring.

The ref blew the whistle and the match was called off. The audience screaming foul all around her, Korra started to yell, too. "No! I didn't mean that! I was trying to save his life!"

But another ref saw Bolin do the same thing--legally, even--and the judges had gone ahead and disqualified both teams. Korra, along with her fans, had done her share of yelling at the panel. It had come to nothing.

She had ruined it. They told her she didn't, but she really had.

That night, she visited Chief Bei Fong, who opened the window on the fire escape on which Korra was standing with, "What's wrong with you? Do you know what time it is?"

Mud poured off Korra's boots as she climbed in over the Bei Fong's kitchen sink. She had meant to have them muddy. "Did I wake you up, ma'am?"

Bei Fong, who wore a Fire Nation kimono to bed it seemed, said, "Not even a little." Her arms were crossed and her chin was as stiff as it was in uniform. "Why are you here? Is there trouble in the city?"

"It's...the pro-bending championships." Korra rubbed her arm.

"Oh for--! I heard all about that on the radio. Why commiserate with me? I don't pay attention to the sport unless it's during the championships." Bei Fong huffed. "Have YOU slept? You look like the walking dead. Do you want tea?"

Korra pulled out the switch she took from Bei Fong's desk back at the bureau before arriving. "I screwed it up. And no one wants to tell me I did the bad thing."

Bei Fong fell back. Her lips parted, a perfect, sharp mouth that Korra had been dreaming of for weeks now. Then her lips became an "O."

Korra stepped forward, the weight of her guilt hard on her shoulders, so close to being thrown away. "I keep running it all in my head. How I could have made it different."

"I...didn't realize you were still at a very impressionable age." The Chief gathered her kimono in front of her in a tight fist but there was red on her face. "This isn't the effect I wanted my...minstrations to have on you."

Korra broke the air with the switch herself. "Then help me feel better for what I did! I need someone to tell me I did something bad! How else will I feel better?"

"You saved that boy's life," said Bei Fong hesitantly. She was staring at the switch, though. Her tongue poked out of the corner of her mouth.

"From a team that was going to be disqualified anyway. Mako would have deflected it." She held out the switch.

It was between them for a long time.

Bei Fong, to her overwhelming relief, finally took it.

The Chief still looked at the switch uncertainly. "You should...get ready."

Korra couldn't wait. She went over to a wooden cabinet, which appeared to have a radio on top of it, and braced her hands on either side.

"Pull down your trousers. A little." Some of the steely imperiousness in Bei Fong's voice was back.

Korra exposed her rump to the cool air. How cold did Bei Fong keep the apartment, anyway?

"A little more," said Bei Fong, suddenly very close. "Past your thighs."

Korra obeyed immediately. She pulled her pants all the way off and found herself with only a shirt in the middle of this woman's small, utilitarian apartment. The cool air hit her legs and the moist-tipped curls between them.

"Oh," said Bei Fong. "Why do I imagine you as so much younger than you are?"

Korra, desperate leaned back over the cabinet. She was shaking for it. The welts had healed from their last time together a while ago but she had spent some time examining, petting, and touching them in the mirror. They had stung. They had stung good.

"Put your ass out further," Bei Fong growled and Korra thought she heard pleasure in her voice.

Thank the Spirits. She couldn't stand to be the only pervert in the room.

The first touch to her posterior was not the switch, however, but the tips of Bei Fong's calloused but thin fingers. "I remember when my flesh used to be this springy. This good." She squeezed.

Korra exhaled.

Bei Fong turned the squeeze into a savage pinch.

She jumped. Under her shirt, Korra could feel her nipples harden into tiny points.

Bei Fong held the pinch for a long time. "I wonder if you know how bad a thing you are."

"Not so bad," said Korra.

"I disagree." Bei Fong gave her a hard spank. Then another. "Lean down further."

Korra did so immediately, taking care to lean down so far, she could see the patterns in the wood beneath her nose.

Bei Fong's fingers wandered into Korra's cleft, right into the thatch of hair there. "Further. I want your tits against the table, like that day in my office. I want you laid out and ready to let me have you." To punctuate this, Bei Fong brought the switch down with a sting.

Gasping, Korra began to shake as she leaned down, fingers massaging her cleft. She parted her ankles a little so that Bei Fong--bad, evil Bei Fong--could access her a little better. She sighed unhappily when the hand was removed.

Then a switch replaced it, burying itself in her thatch. It kissed her clit gently, lightly, and Korra squirmed.

"Oh you bad thing," said Bei Fong. "Are you trying to impale yourself on my stick?"

"No, ma'am!" Korra shook her head quickly. "I'm not! I promise!"

"No talking. Squeeze your tits down." Then Bei Fong removed the switch from her pussy lips--"How wet and shiny it's gotten!" she said--and brought it down on the curve of Korra's ass.

Korra convulsed under the hit. It stung as badly as it did before, but it was better. Delicious. She deserved all of it, now, and that made an enormous difference. She had broken the hearts of everyone in the stand without thinking, had strained her friendship with Mako and Bolin horribly, and the judges had stared at her like she was dirt, like they had always known not to trust the wayward Avatar arrested her first day in the city.

The switch came down like a bite. "No, you have to count."

Korra tried to look up. She kept her breasts flat against the cabinet top and so found it difficult to turn her head. Bei Fong was a mean figure in the corner of her eye, a shadow cloaked in red. "Count?" she rasped.

"Yes. That was two, if you were paying attention." Bei Fong sniffed. "But we'll try again if you're still too slow to see. From the top." She slapped the end of the switch on Korra's inner thigh. "Now. What's that?"

"One?"

"Very good." Bei Fong slapped the switch against Korra's rump twice, burning an "X" into the left cheek.

"Two... Th-three..."

A hard snap between her legs, striking the lips of her pussy.

"Four!" She flinched.

Now a smack delivered over her bottom again. Lighter.

"Five...?"

Here, more harshly along the small of her back.

"Suh-six," Korra breathed.

Three more strikes against her thighs.

"Seven... EIGHT. AH, NINE." They were really beginning to burn.

"Part your cheeks," said Bei Fong.

Korra paused.

"You heard me. Reach back and pull your cheeks apart. I want to see your hole, you dirty girl."

Hesitantly, and sweating profusely, she obliged, reaching back to pull her ass apart for Bei Fong to see.

The switch was brought hard against the opening of Korra's hole, which made her sigh before she said, "Ten!"

"Eleven" and "tuh-tuh-TWELVE" were over her calves. "Thirteen, FOUR-FOURTEEN, FIFTEEN" were stamped along what Bei Fong told her were "thick, meaty thighs."

"Mmm," said the Chief. "I bet you could have your pick of old maids to slap you senseless."

Korra imagined being literally slapped by Bei Fong. She shivered.

“Are you having an orgasm, girl?” The Chief had seen Korra shake at the last touch of the switch. This, of course, did not keep her from bringing it down once more in a terrible crack.

The pain split over Korra’s lower back in a vicious pulse. Her skin seemed to tighten there but she didn’t dare release her ass cheeks, each one spread to show her shameful entrances. “SUH-SIXTEEN. I’m not! I swear!”

“Oh?” Chief Lin Bei Fong teased the opening to the tinier hole with the edge of the switch, prodding the skin that thickened around the sphincter. She seemed curious, circling Korra’s anus. “Nice and plump there, girl. Like the back of a pony. And are you sure you haven’t orgasmed?”

Korra winced. It was sensitive there, more sensitive than she expected. She breathed in hard through her nose, smelling the fibers of the cut wooden table. “Not yet, no.”

“We’ll have to fix that, then.” The smile in the Chief’s voice was unmistakable. “Do you really feel that guilty for throwing the game?”

“The what?”

“The pro-bending game you were so upset over when you came by.” The Chief pulled the switch away from Korra’s plump anus. Instead, without warning, she plunged it into Korra’s wet sex, deep into the leathery moistness of her pussy.

Korra bucked her hips, her breasts pressing harder into the table. “Spirits!”

The Chief drove the stick in and out. It was like being invaded by the thin, reedy, and insistent cock of a lover. Each push went deeper. “I think you get upset over silly things like the game because you think an Avatar is a perfect creature. Don’t you?”

Korra could feel her wetness drool between her legs like a hungry dog. The switch was uncomfortable, in its way, but not unwelcome. It was something inside her, something the insides of her canal could hold onto dearly. “Uhn,” was all she could say in answer.

“Do you like someone in control once in a while, Korra? Do you?” This was followed by a swift spank as the switch was plunged completely inside her.

“Seventeen!” she groaned into the wood of the table, her fingers clenching the edge, fighting to keep purchase rather than collapse on the floor. She began to thrust her hips madly against the air. “Please! More!”

“You’re a good girl,” said the Chief and pulled the switch out of her. It made a thick, wet sound.

Korra exhaled. She felt relieved to be done with it though empty. She was good again, she thought. She could leave now.

“Good girls ought to be rewarded, you know.” And the Chief slid two finely manicured nails into her pussy, stretching it.

Korra embraced the burn. “Oh--!”

The Chief pulled the digits out. Turning just in time, Korra watched the woman lick those fingers clean, removing the layer of shine with her tongue. “I have a single bed. I haven’t shared it with anyone since I was younger.”

“Y-yeah?”

“Yes. Take off your trousers and fold your shirt and follow me.”

Korra carefully stood up to her full height. She kept her eye on the Chief, her welts singing wretchedly, beautifully. Not breaking eye contact, Korra bent to take off her shoes and roll her trousers the rest of the way down her shapely legs.

She only closed her eyes to pull her shirt over her head, revealing her bare breasts to Chief Bei Fong, who stared her down as she clenched her kimono around herself.

The Chief reached out and squeezed one of Korra’s breasts. Her thumb flicked across the brown nipple. Then she pushed it in and watched it pucker back out.

Korra’s eyes rolled back.

Continuing to stare at that hardened nipple, the Chief said, “I’m going to fuck you through. A thing like you deserves nothing less.”

Korra sighed. “Please, sir.”

Then the Chief slapped the breast, leaving the imprint of her hand.

Korra vibrated with the pain.

The Chief looked at her and raised an eyebrow. The corner of her mouth turned up, waiting.

“Eighteen,” Korra said after a moment.

“Better.” Chief Bei Fong turned away, her kimono sweeping out behind her.

Korra followed her into her bedroom.

It was a small, Spartan living quarters with a bed that was indeed narrow with angry looking bed posts. It appeared hard. Korra confirmed this when the Chief turned around, took her by the shoulders, and pushed her down.

Korra’s back hit the unrelenting mattress and her welts and cuts seemed to give tiny cries. She moaned.

The Chief went to her bureau, a small, ugly piece of furniture with many scratches, and produced from the top drawer several black strips of linen and...well, Korra wasn’t sure what she was looking at. She propped herself on her elbows to get a better look. It looked like a bent, ceramic mushroom with two flared heads, one on each end.

“What’s that?” Korra asked.

“Well, you’ll find out, won’t you?” The Chief, grinning, laid the ceramic toy beside Korra and climbed on top of her, straddling her hips. “Wrists up,” she said.

Smitten and heart fluttering strangely, Korra did so.

Each wrist was tied to a bedpost. The knot wasn’t tight, she realized. She could slip out of it if she really wanted to do so.

She didn’t.

Then the Chief blindfolded her, wrapping a piece of black linen around her eyes and over her hair. “If you want me to stop at any time, you have to say that. Stop. Do you understand?”

“I won’t say stop,” Korra said.

“I said ‘if.’” Chief Bei Fong gave her hip a hard slap.

“Nineteen,” Korra said automatically.

The Chief laughed and did it again.

“Twenty.”

“Such a good child.” The Chief leaned forward and pressed a dry kiss to her cheek. It was the first kiss that passed between them.

Korra winced, finding it alien and strange.

She felt the Chief draw back. “Let me get ready, now,” she said. “I was serious about tearing you apart. That’s what I’m going to do.” She pried herself off of her.

Korra was left by herself on the bed, missing the weight of the other woman. She tried to listen for the Chief, but she moved much too quietly for her to approximate the position.

So Korra instead concentrated on the oddness of having no sight. She could smell her own sweat, salty and human, and the fevered drip of wetness between her thighs, smelling like old pennies, feeling slick and good. It was as if her insides had been opened up and lovingly spilled from her.

She tried not to panic or think the Chief had left her alone in that room, to be stranded there all night and found shamefully by an unsuspecting neighbor in the morning.

When she was touched again, it was on her clit. Korra could tell from the cold, inhuman hardness that it was the ceramic toy.

“It’s going inside me?” she said, quivering. She felt suddenly very small.

“And me, too,” said the Chief, whose cool skin Korra now felt against her thighs.

The end of the toy was pressed inside of her and Korra’s hips began to hump upward again. She spread her legs wide as it pressed inside of her slowly. It produced a delicious sort of burn but her pussy pulled it inside, needed it.

It filled her sex completely.

The toy felt huge, as if it were shoved up as far as her throat. When the Chief began to move it in and out, Korra whined. Her wrists strained as she wriggled against the toy, wanting it further inside her. It fit so snugly, it seemed to want to pull her inner lining out with it.

Then she felt it press in at an angle. The Chief straddled her once more. “Oh yes,” she said, her voice husky. The woman began to bounce on her thighs and the toy, in unison, moved inside her.

Korra realized the Chief was indeed fucking her, sharing the toy with her, holding it inside her as Korra did.

Korra began to move her hips, too, panting. The breath seemed to be pushed from her lungs with each thrust.

“That’s it, girl, that’s it.” The Chief spoke feverishly. “Yeah, yeah. Fuck it into me, too. I want it there. I’m right there with you, you bad thing.”

Korra cried out, feeling the Chief’s wetness mingle with hers. Her hips continued to thrust forward. She could feel them move together like either side of a machine.

“It’s good,” Korra finally managed, feeling dumb and empty-headed. Unburdened. The toy was so slick inside them, growing warm and wet and making delicious squelching sounds. “It’s really, really good!”

She felt the Chief shift her weight. Then her sweet breath was pouring over her face. “I’m glad,” she said to Korra genuinely, kindly, and then bit down on one of her nipples.

Korra cried out, coming, skewered. She felt well fucked.

She went limp, but the Chief wasn’t done. The woman continued to fuck into her prone body, again and again. “Yeah, yeah,” the woman said. “You good girl, you good, wonderful girl.”

The Chief finally collapsed forward, leaving the toy between them. Her chest heaved into her, their breasts meeting and pushing together. “You learn quick,” she panted.

“I do.” Korra was glad she was tied down. She was spared the embarrassment of trying to get up.

“And I’ll teach you as long as you like,” said the Chief pressing another small, dry kiss onto Korra’s forehead.

They remained like that for a long time, together and warm.

---------------------------------------------------------------

“You…burned down a building”

The chief dropped the report onto her desk and glared at Korra. She was biting her lip and her knuckles were clenched white.

“There was a waterbender right behind me” Korra said, “I really thought…”

“He was overpowered and could have been seriously injured!” Bei Fong shouted, slamming her hand against the desktop so hard that Korra flinched visibly. “If my officers hadn’t arrived when they did he could have died!”

She took a deep breath and put a hand to her temple, closing her eyes against an obvious headache. “Sergeant,” she said at last, “escort this prisoner to a cell and hold her until further notice.”

The officer standing behind Korra hesitated for a moment and began to speak, then thought better of it. Korra stood up and followed him out of the room without having to be manhandled. As he bent the cell bars closed behind her he whispered, “I am sorry about this Avatar. If there’s anything I can get for you, please don’t hesitate to ask.”

Korra thanked him, but said she wouldn’t need anything. She sat down on a low bench and glanced around the prison. Clean, well maintained, light and airy, with a thick blanket over the sleeping pallet and a toilet comfortably far away from it.

The chief really cared about her job she thought, to have put this much effort into keeping prisoners company. An earthbender of firebender could break out of the cell pretty easily, but she didn’t want to hurt the guards and...

>>In front of the whole city

Korra closed her eyes and breathed deeply, trying to drive the chief’s words out of her head. It wasn’t the first time they’d come back to her, but her current situation gave a new urgency to what had been an idle thought.

“Spirit’s breath” she muttered, “what’s wrong with me?”

Not that it was going to happen she assured herself. That would be beyond belief.

The chief came to her as the light from the window stated to dim. She was stony faced and straight backed, and she carried a scroll in front of her like a talisman.

“This is an order from the district court” she said, her voice cracking very slightly, “Giving you a choice between standing trial and accepting pre-judicial corporal punishment.”

Korra’s stomach lurched into her mouth as the last few words came out.

“What kind of corporal punishment?” she replied, gulping down her shock.

“Public exposure in the prison courtyard, followed up restraint and as much physical chastisement as the presiding officer deems necessary. The punishment will not be advertised or the prisoner named.”

Korra felt suddenly dizzy, her head spinning as she cast about for an answer. Bei Fong stared down at her with cool self control, but she was sure she could see the ghost of a smile on the woman’s lips.

“I’m the avatar” she at last, “what will happen when people find out?”

“They will know that the law is fair, that vigilantism is not tolerated and the equalists will have one less thing to scream about” Bei Fong replied, “you have until tomorrow to make your choice.”

She turned to leave but Korra stood up and spoke suddenly, rushing forward to the front of the cell without knowing why.

“I’ve already decided” she said, “take me and do it to me.”

The chief left without answering.

It was a long time before Korra could force herself to sleep. She lay under the mattress as still and heavy as a stone, wondering what she had gotten herself into. She wasn’t scared as such, not for her safety at least. But her honour, the honour of avatars past…

It was a new world she thought, a new world that needed nurturing and the chief was right: this lesson was important. She’d have to take it and then do something to win people back, something really spectacular.

Then again, maybe people would be impressed by her daring as much as her body.

Maybe.

Korra lay on her back and slowed her breathing as Tenzin had taught her, letting her fear flow through her and out of her until only she remained. The sounds of the prison block became clearer, the movement of the air and the minute shifts of the earth beneath the building coming into clarity along with them.

The meditation was working for sure, so why was she still so flustered? Bei Fong’s face danced in the darkness in front of her and the memory of her earlier punishments burned at the back of her mind. She could almost taste it.

Feel it, she corrected herself just as sleep claimed her.

The cry of an iguana-cock woke her from dreams of cold fire and hot kisses. Korra stumbled to her feet and gratefully accepted a pail of water from the guard who entered the room exactly as the fowl crowed. “It’s best if you don’t eat” the woman said, “not with what’s in store for you.”

Korra paced the cell like a caged lioness, willing the sun to rise faster. Get in, get it over with, get out she told herself. Don’t linger on it. Don’t think about it.

It wasn’t yet noon when they came for her, but it still seemed like an age. Two guards bent open the bars and ushered her out. Korra started to object when they cuffed her hands behind her, but was quickly told that it was standard procedure and couldn’t be changed.

She felt numb as the marched her out of the jailhouse to the open-air courtyard that fronted the building. It was really going to happen, she was going to be beaten naked in front of a crowd and there was nothing she could do about it. Well, no. She could escape any time she wanted. She just didn’t want to because of justice and making a point and the chief’s smile.

At least there wouldn’t be many onlookers – when they said ‘not advertised or named’ they meant it.

The last door opened and they marched into the yard; a high walled space with a viewing gallery around the top, accessed by stairs from the street. Korra’s heart plummeted as she looked around; the gallery was already crowded and more people were filling in. ‘Equalists’ she thought at once, ‘they’ve found out somehow and spread it about!’

The she saw another pair of officers on the other side of the courtyard with a second prisoner between them. She was a fire nation girl a little older than Korra, with short black bangs and a sour expression. It was the very same smuggler she’d been arrested trying to catch. That was it then: her own punishment hadn’t been advertised, but the other girl’s certainly had.

A tall wooden post stood in the centre of the courtyard. Four iron pegs were hammered into its back at four different heights. The chief stood close by, her hands on her hips and her uniform immaculate. Another female officer waited with her, a heavy leather strap hanging from her belt.

“Bring the first prisoner forward” the chief announced.

The fire nation girl was roughly marched towards the stake. She stood silent and sullen as her hands were uncuffed, eyes cast down.

“Zhen She, for the crime of resisting arrest you have been sentenced to pre-judicial punishment before the citizenry of Republic City, do you have anything to say for yourself?” said the chief.

“Fuck yourself copper” the girl replied. Bei Fong snorted and gestured for her aid to begin. The officer stepped forward and reached for the bottom of the girl’s shirt. She angrily batted the hand aside and began to strip herself.

Korra couldn’t help but stare as the smuggler exposed herself before the crowd. She was petite and toned with a tattoo of a coiling dragon around her navel, small tits and what looked like a gang sign branded into her ass. Several people in the gallery whistled as she slowly turned on the spot but there was less noise than Korra had expected. She supposed that the chief’s steel gaze kept everyone at least a little civil.

The aide seized Zhen by the shoulder and pushed her towards the post. She was short, so much so that they could only tie her hands to the lowest peg. Once her wrists were secure the aide bent down and Korra noticed the fifth spike driven into the wood near the ground. The aide looped another cord through the pegs eyelet and bound the smuggler’s feet to the post. She was held tight, wrapped around the post like a lover.

“Begin” the chief said.

Korra took an involuntary step forward as the aide drew the strap from her belt. She snapped it across the smuggler’s ass with a crack that seemed to echo around the courtyard. The smuggler yelped like a child and threw her head back just as the second blow caught her across the back.

It went on for an age. The smuggler’s cries grew louder and more pathetic by the moment, her arrogance dissolving like mourning mist. Korra soon found herself flinching along with each blow, her breathing growing ragged as anticipation coiled in her gut. So much for not being afraid.

Unable to bear the sight any longer she glanced around the gallery. Big mistake – several of the crowd gave her nasty leers or pointed her out to their friends and that made her feel worse still.

Korra stared at her feet and tried to shut out the noises. It ended all of a sudden, without a word from the chief. She looked up to see the smuggler being untied and led away, leaning heavily on one of the guards. Her face was sodden with tears and her entire body seemed to blaze scarlet.

‘I must do better’ thought Korra, ‘for everyone’s sake. For my sake.’

“Second prisoner” said the chief. Korra started forward, willing her legs to stay strong. She kept her eyes pinned to Bei Fong’s forehead as she walked, shutting out the muttering of the crowd as much as she could.

“Prisoner, you have agreed to pre-judicial punishment in lieu of further action, do you have anything you want to say?”

“No sir” said Korra, keeping her voice as toneless as she could manage. She stayed as still as she could while the aide undressed her, trembling only a little under the woman’s questing fingers.

Off came her tunic. Off came her leggings. Off came her bindings, baring her stiff nipples to the air. Off came her underwear, revealing everything.

Korra shut her eyes and breathed deep again, but the sounds of the crowd broke through her concentration like a thousand grains of sand in her shoes. She was sure she heard someone shout “that’s the avatar!” while another, a woman’s voice, cried “look at those!”

The chief must have done something, because the mob went quiet as she was lead to the post. It seemed much taller now, looming over her like a furious parent about to discipline a child. Korra could reach the highest peg and was made to do it, even though it left her standing on the balls of her feet. The cords pressed tight about her wrists and ankles; she knew that she’d be numb in a few minutes.

Her breasts were squashed painfully against the wood, her bottom thrust out and vulnerable. The pole had been polished at some point, so at least she wouldn’t end up full of splinters. It was cold though, and the blazing mid-day sun only made the contrast worse…

“Begin!”

The chief’s voice jolted Korra out of her daze moments before the first blow took her across the back. Korra gasped heavily and pressed her head to the pole, biting back a yell as the next strike landed on her bottom.

It was quite different from the cane. The strap was more like being slapped, a wide smarting pain that spread out and across her skin. Three! Four! Five! Smack! Smack! SMACK! The blows came like a whirlwind, not leaving her a second to catch her breath or brace herself.

The jeers of the crowd vanished entirely as the blood pounded in her ears, but Bei Fong’s voice came perfectly clear. “Slower!” she said.

Korra groaned in relief and rolled her eyes to the sky. Her ass blazed as the next blow connected and she realised her mistake: the gap between strikes only gave time for anticipation to do its work.

Snap! Snap! Snap!

Gathering her strength Korra inhaled with each pause and breathed out as each blow landed. She fell into the rhythm quickly and found that it helped a little. The pain was constant now, throbbing, burning and spiking with each new assault. She rode the waves of pain and wondered if the chief was at all impressed by her strength.

“Keep still prisoner!” said Bei Fong. Korra puzzled for a moment and realised with a horrible shock what the chief meant. She’d been writhing on the pole, pushing her self up and down on the tiny amount of slack the cords gave her, humping the stake.

Had anyone but the chief seen it? Oh merciful spirits, please let them not have noticed!

“Switch” said the chief. Korra blinked stupidly as the rhythm broke and then yelped as the familiar bite of the cane met her ass.

Her concentration was shattered and her resistance went with it. She started to grunt and gasp along with the blows, letting the pain take her completely. She was melting into it; nothing in the world was real except the pain and the swish of the cane and the burning presence of the chief’s gaze on her back.

She was getting hot she realised, just like she did when she saw red in fights. It was like that feeling crossed with being aroused; she thought she could feel a trickle of moisture around her cunt and didn’t know if it was real or not. Not caring who saw what she started to rub against the pole again, her eyes narrowing as pain faded to euphoria.

Then it stopped, all of a sudden. The cords were cut and she fell backwards into the aide’s arms. The world slid back into focus, the burning faded to a heavy throb. The crowd began to mutter as she limped away and for a moment Korra almost believed that they were cheering. She looked up at the gallery and smiled drunkenly, raised her arm and waved. The crowd roared in approval.