Prologue

In the twenty-third century, after a terrifying holocaust, New Victoria rose like a jewel out of a wasteland of ruins. Unlike other upstart nations, New Victoria is known as a place where moral purity thrives, minds think as one, and creativity and sexuality-the demons of discontent-are controlled by Law. In order to reduce the threat of dangerous uprisings, lawbreakers are subject to harsh and often public punishment. Such extreme measures guarantee that order prevails within the bounds of New Victoria's austere and inflexible design.

Conformists believe New Victoria paradise. The restless find it hell. But since it's commonly believed that what is outside its borders is savage and dangerous and wholly without redeemable value, the people submit, and the State of New Victoria enjoys prosperity. The masses endure the deprivation of liberty with good grace in order to secure their peace in what is otherwise an arbitrary and uncivilized world.

1

 

Tobacco smoke colored the air gray, as the balding magistrate puffed on the stub of his cigar while listening to testimony. Coughs and aggravated squirming were the only noises except the sound of the witness, Rafferty, as he answered the prosecutor's questions. When Delila coughed the judge glared in her direction so that she squelched a second cough.

"You may proceed," the bespectacled magistrate instructed the prosecuting attorney who waited politely for some instruction.

The attorney nodded and returned to the witness. "She seduced you?" the angular man with horned rimmed glasses asked the nervous blonde man who sat uncomfortably on a small stool in the witness box.

"It was mutual," Rafferty replied.

"Did she not bare her breasts for you? Open her blouse and taunt you with them?"

"She did," he agreed. "But that was only after our conversations."

"Conversations about what?"

The witness paused, anxiously pursuing words in his mind that would explain. "Conversations about our mutual urges," he finally said.

The attorney was piqued. "Can you be more specific?" he asked.

"We talked about what we were feeling."

"And what were those feelings?"

"They were sexual, sir."

"I see. You talked about having sex with each other?"

"Yes," Rafferty spoke quietly.

"So when did the conversations end and the fornication begin?" The prosecutor's voice rung shrill throughout the room.

"It's hard to say, sir. It just sort of happened."

"Out of the blue?" he inquired.

"Yes, out of the blue."

"I see." The attorney moved from the witness box strolling about the area, his eyes staring up at the ceiling as if he was deep in thought. "Perhaps you ended your conversations about sex, and the fornication took place when Delila Armand opened her blouse and flaunted her breasts for you."

There was a ripple of response in the crowded courtroom, though the murmurs were squelched by the glaring eye of the judge.

The prosecutor, not having an answer from the witness, returned to the box, and stared at the young man. "Mr. Rafferty, tell me please, did not the defendant, Delila Armand, open her blouse and flaunt her naked breasts for you? Is that not when this fornication began?" The third time repeating the question, he enunciated each word.

Rafferty bit his lip, as if he wished he could hold back his reply. "Yes sir," he finally spoke. "Though she was just teasing."

"Did you ask her to stop?"

"Not exactly."

"What did you tell her?"

"I told her we probably shouldn't be doing this."

"And what did she do?"

"She stopped."

"Stopped? Or did she just close her blouse, only to expose herself to you later?"

"I . . . I, I can't really say how it happened," Rafferty said, scratching his head as if he didn't know the answer.

"Mr. Rafferty," the prosecutor leveled another mean stare, "you're not on trial here, but you could be charged. You understand that? We're here to get to the bottom of the story and nothing more. It would be wise for you to tell the truth in the simplest terms possible." The prosecutor's threat was hardly disguised, neither was his power over the witness.

"Yes, sir, she teased me," Rafferty said. "It was a little game we both played."

"Did you display your private sexual parts to her? To tease her?"

"No, sir," Rafferty replied.

"But she did?"

"Yes, sir," the witness agreed.

The prosecutor took another momentary pause and then began again in his most sweeping style. "Isn't it true, Mr. Rafferty, that the defendant, Delila Armand, shamelessly, without regard to her married status and to the laws that she was violating, teased you with her body in various states of undress until you were drawn into her sexual advances and gave in?"

"I wouldn't say it that way," the witness replied.

"A simple yes or no, please," the prosecutor pressed. "Did she seduce you?"

"Yes," Rafferty declared in an angry snap, though he turned his head away so his eyes would not meet Delila's.

No one spoke, no one even coughed, and even for that instant the Judge sat motionless, the incessant jawing on his cigar halted. Delila, in the defendant's chair, bowed her head. Her once wild dark hair pulled tightly back made her face look drawn, the weariness of the last several weeks written in the faint lines on her pretty face.

"How many times did you and Armand's wife engage in sexual intercourse?" the prosecutor went on. By then, the details were simply formalities.

"Five times," Rafferty whispered.

"Repeat that, so that all can hear," the prosecutor said.

"Five times," Rafferty repeated. Looking closely, one might see that the man was close to tears, though not one would trickle down his cheek at such a public moment.

"Five times," the prosecutor repeated for the benefit of anyone that might not have heard. "Five times this fallen wife seduced this man, fornicated with his hallowed body, defying every convention of this prudent society."

The fixed eye of the prosecutor had turned to Delila as he finished his remarks; and zooming in on her, he stared in an emotionless vacuum until he finally turned away and returned to his seat at the prosecutor's table. "Nothing more from you," he said of Rafferty as he sat down.

"Will Delila Armand be speaking on her behalf?" the judge addressed the defender sitting next to the raven-haired woman.

"No, sir," her lawyer replied. "Though I do have closing remarks to make."

"Proceed," the judge said, motioning him with his hand.

The defender rose from his seat and walked to the center of the room, no sweeping gestures like his more flamboyant counterpart. He looked first at the prosecutor, then at his client, and then at the judge.

"I believe, sir," he began speaking quietly, "that Delila Armand is guilty of nothing but an innocent dalliance, a simple flirtation that swept two lonely people from their best judgment. Her husband missing for weeks, it seems more of a means to find some comfort than a serious breach of law and the morality of marriage. I do contend, as you have heard the witnesses confess, that Delila Armand had every reason to believe that her husband would not return from the dangerous mission to which he'd been assigned by his job. She believed he was dead. Such a state would stress anyone beyond their ability to think in the most reasoned way. And now, sir, that her husband has been found alive, indeed sitting behind her in this courtroom, willing to forgive her sin and be on with their lives together, I think it only prudent that this court show mercy and leniency, allowing these two to reunite without another unfortunate separation."

The defender finished keeping a steady eye on the man behind the bench.

"Sir, it was just an innocent and misguided dalliance, certainly no crime."

The judge listened, sighed, and then took his cigar from his mouth. "She admits to breaking the law?" he asked.

"Yes, sir, but the extenuating circumstances should be weighed here. There's her family to consider . . ." the lawyer tried again.

"But she admits to breaking the law, just as the evidence shows, just as the last witness testified?" the Judge interrupted.

"Yes, sir, she does."

"Then take your seat. Unfortunately for your client, social status and fancy explanations don't sway my judgment. Does the prosecution have a summation?"

"No, sir," the prosecuting attorney said. "The state rests its case on the evidence presented."

The judge sat immobile deliberating, staring at the young woman, Delila Armand, wife of Armand, guilty of the most extreme of morals crimes, having sex with a man outside the sanctity of marriage. The decision for him was easy, the rules proscribed by long held laws, it almost seemed ridiculous to go through the formality of trials anymore. But he'd figured long ago that institutionalized humiliation was part of the punishment, and if he could in some small way add to the distress of this despicable soul, he'd certainly do his best.

"Delila Armand, please stand," his voice suddenly boomed, jerking even the most sound asleep from their slumber. "Armand, husband to Delila, rise also."

Standing, the husband and wife rose above the crowded courtroom honoring the judge's command. The remainder of the room waited for the sentence to be read.

"Delila Armand, despite your attorney's attempt to explain your adulterous and indecent behavior, the unfortunate situation with your husband can bear no weight in this matter. The law is clear and unequivocal. As such, this court finds you guilty of five counts of seduction, five counts of fornication outside the vows of marriage."

In a near faint, the blonde woman slumped into a chair, as her husband turned his head aside and closed his eyes.

"Delila Armand," the Judge boomed out once more, rapping his gavel on the thick wooden bench. "You'll stand until I am finished with you."

Her lawyer pulled her to her feet so her eyes could not waver from the jowl-cheeked magistrate as he chewed the end of his cigar and continued to speak.

"For violation of the Sex Crimes Act," he started again, "you will be appropriately marked as an offender by identification tag, and are sentenced to be flogged in the public courtyard, once for each count, that is five times on separate occasions, each one week apart. At the end of this preliminary punishment, you will be remanded to a State workhouse deemed suitable for your crimes. You'll serve two years re-training at the discretion of the State Prison Authority."

Hearing the sentence, the defendant couldn't help the tears that were spilling down her cheeks.

"And, on orders from the District Re-training Committee you'll be assigned conjugal privileges after the initial four months of your sentence." Reaching that point, the judge took his glasses from his eyes so his one beady eye with the lowered brow could fix her with its fast stare. "The purpose of such visits will be to repair the breach your contemptible behavior has wrought. At such occasions, your husband, in accordance with guidelines from the State for such visits, will have the liberty to use whatever means he chooses to punish you beyond what this court has sentenced. You are obliged to comply in full. I urge you, Delila Armand, to take advantage of his intent to restore the contract of your marriage. Under the circumstances, it is a rare woman that has such an opportunity."

It was not Delila's place to speak. After hearing the stern words, she bowed her head again.

The judge restored his glasses, and sitting back in his chair, rapped the gavel.

 

Delila: I felt Armand behind me. I could almost feel his breath at my neck, almost taste his lips as they might have kissed me. I felt him go limp when the sentence was read. For myself, I didn't know how to react to so many words. They were just that, words with no meaning, no power to compute in my mind. But I imagined the impact would be devastating by the way Armand's whole being seemed to crumble in that instant. I realized then the degree of hurt that I'd unwittingly caused him.

 

Armand: My wife was led away from me between two strong armed matrons that held her delicate arms so firmly, I'm sure they'd bruise. At the door she was able to look back to me just once. I had no idea that it was mostly such furtive glances that would define our marriage for months. I suppose if I'd known that, I would have paid more attention to them, savored each one. For the past two months before my rescue, I could think of nothing but seeing her face again. Confined in the detention cells of the distant isles, I worried over her constantly. I knew they'd tell her I was dead, or nearly so, since it was the custom, and since I would likely have died if fate hadn't intervened in such a capricious way.