Cruel and Unusual Punishment (Patreon)

Story by: Inwiththebooks (@Inwiththebooks1) / Twitter

Chelsea spent most of the time after becoming a mant invisible to most folks. Former friends, even family. There was a sort of glaze to the eye a lot of folks got, overlooking you. She was there, but not seen. Alive, but in some eyes basically dead. A general apathy the world had for mants. Of course, the one moment she was seen and wasn’t invisible was the worst possible time. That's how it always went for them it seemed, all it took was one moment. One person that noticed you and took an interest. Then it all crumbled down.

When the world weighed on you as much as it could for a mant it wasn’t at all strange to turn to substances for help. It made things easier, for Chelsea it certainly helped cope with what her life had become. To come to terms with the movements of a vast, enormous world moving above her without care. Weed was her substance of choice. Tame. Easy. But also super illegal for mants technically. It wasn’t like they got searched often so no one really gave a fuck about that law… well. Not until they got caught. It had just taken smoking on the wrong corner with a cop looking out her rear view. Hawk eyed big bitch saw her and that was that, next thing Chelsea knew she was behind the very tiny bars of the holding cells they kept mants in.

Which brought her to her current situation. She was seated on a smooth brown table, biting her thumbnail. A bad habit. The tiny brown haired woman stood out starkly on the brown surface in her orange jumpsuit. Booming steps and voices all around the room added a constant jarring background that only increased the pit in her stomach. mants were killed out of hand by folks and those same folks at most faced a fine. Technically though, they did have rights. Technically. So well. Here she was. She turned her gaze to the vast presence next to her.

“So… I’m gonna get off from this, right?” Chelsea asked, trying to keep her nerves down.

Kim was her name, a public defender. Naturally it was all Chelsea was gonna get because her family didn’t spend a fuckin dime on her defense, hell they didn’t even show up for the trial or the sentencing today. A stern faced blonde with her hair pulled back into a bun almost as wound as tight as she was. Stern, serious, and took her job quite seriously it seemed. She was looking through a folder she’d brought with her and was rifling through paper. The paperclip in the corner of one of the packets was as big as Chelsea, the shuffle of papers occasionally kicking up some air.

No answer. Chelsea swallowed thickly. “L-like they aren’t gonna kill me over- over some weed right? T-thats crazy.” She said with a nervous little laugh.

Kim’s blue eyes flicked to her, a tinge of annoyance flashing through them as she looked down at Chelsea. It was enough to make Chelsea wish to melt through the table she was on and vanish completely. The icy stare was stern enough to make anyone straighten out. Should have been a school teacher clearly, no kid would *ever* misbehave with a glance like that.

“Stop talking. Please.” She said as held the look a moment longer before returning to her documents.

She might as well have told her to shut the fuck up or die, please be damned. Chelsea swallowed thickly and returned to biting her fingernail. She looked out into the distance. The Judge was looking over some documents as well. Evidently Chelsea was the last case of the day. Fuck why didn’t anyone just say something? The tension was going to kill her before a shoe did. She didn’t want to die. Not over this. Even living life as a mant was life at least. It was *something*. Yet as ever, that was all out of her hands. It always was.

“You’ll live.” Kim finally said as she clicked her pen and scribbled something onto her documents nearby.

“Eh? How do you know that?” Chelsea asked. Just that confident? Or maybe because mants weren’t worth punishing. Humiliating but well, she’d take it.

“I entered a plea bargain for you. The prosecution accepted. Judge is basically going to just sentence and then the court is over.” The blonde said absently, marking down some other notes on her papers.

Looking over a bit at the bigger words on the paper Chelsea could see the papers actually had nothing to do with her. Like at all. Was some Amy chick. Which meant Kim was basically just doing some extra work while waiting for this all to finish. A formality. Everything was done before Chelsea ever set foot in the room. For some reason… that didn’t comfort the tiny woman at all. She swallowed thickly and at risk of drawing her lawyer’s ire again she spoke up.

“What was the deal though? Like are we talking jail time or…”

She didn’t even look up from her work this time. “You’ll live.” Is all she said and she put enough emphasis on that where Chelsea decided yeah, okay. Living was good. Maybe don’t piss off the very busy lady that evidently had managed to save her from the bottom of a shoe.

Things went on for a minute before the Judge, an older woman, adjusted her glasses and looked over a single piece of paper on her desk. “Lets see, Chelsea Heltis, Possession felony amount.” She said as she looked at the desk where Chelsea was at. “Ah, right, the mant case.”

The casual manner she was referred to, it burned Chelsea. It really did. She’d heard it so long now from everyone. They all talked so casually about her. ‘Oh the mant. Oh that little thing there. Oh, you mean the mant.’ Over and over again. Now it just felt like she was being treated as something tacked onto the end of the day. And indeed the folks in whatever audience seats there were already were packing up and leaving. A lot of folks were just heading out. They didn’t care about Chelsea. The rather bored prosecutor across the way wasn’t even looking up from his work.

Kim spoke up. “She’s present. A bit hard to see, but present.” The blonde said.

“Right. I see here you entered for her to be stricken from the registry?” The judge said.

At first she didn’t think she heard that right. The booming words must have been distorted or different because it sounded like she said. Stricken. From the registry. Chelsea’s blood turned icy cold as she looked up at her lawyer in disbelief. *That* was the plea deal? When people became mants, essentially their names were entered into a registry. It meant you had some minor protection. People had to pay a fine if they, like, killed you or something. It wasn’t much, but if your name wasn’t in the registry you basically lost all your rights. Just like that. Gone. Poof.

“What!? No that has to be a mist-!” Chelsea spoke up.

BOOM

Chelsea flinched back with a squeak as suddenly, right in front of her, was the vast pale hand of Kim. It had come down like the blade of a guillotine, cutting her off from sight from the judge. It had been so close she felt the force of impact from the pale fleshy wall before her. Her fingers curled ever so slightly, it would be *effortless* for her to curl her hand into a fist and crush her. And the scary thing was, all it would cost right now was Kim would be down some money for it. There was a price on human life it turned out, in Chelsea’s case it was a thousand dollars. And it was about to be revoked.

“That’s right, your honor, it was a felony amount but death seems a bit too much. Even for a mant. Striking her name should be enough.”

No! Nononono, this couldn’t be happening! She scrambled to get up and say something, anything! She’d defend herself if she had to!

“Done. Sounds reasonable enough. Anyway, I don’t know about the rest of you, but it's been a long day. We’re adjourned.” The judge said, all too eager to just be done with it and leave. Much to the relief of basically everyone in the room aside from Chelsea.

Chelsea… had slumped down to her knees. Two minutes. That whole interaction from bringing up the topic of her trial to sentencing had taken two minutes. And now everyone else was packing up for the day and getting ready to go about their business like normal. Two minutes was all it took to strip away even the thin veil of protection Chelsea had. Gone. Dust in the wind. Her name was going to be removed from the list of registered mants. Like she didn’t even exist. Wiped clean. When people looked up her family, her name wouldn’t even be *listed* as being under her parents. She was truly invisible now.

She looked at Kim, who was already storing her files and folders away in a suitcase down near her feet. Rage. Anger. It welled up in Chelsea and she surged to her feet, seeing red.

“You bitch! What the fuck was that!? *That* was your idea of a plea deal? I’m as good as dead now! I’m not even a person now!” Chelsea shouted, anger overriding her fear for the moment. “I might as well have been killed instead! How could you do that to me!?”

“I said you’d live, didn’t say you wouldn’t have consequences. Actions have consequences after all. If you didn’t want to deal with them, maybe you shouldn't have broken the law in the first place.” Kim said with a shrug as she finished packing up. She’d be the last one to leave it seemed.

The answer infuriated Chelsea. She opened her mouth to keep arguing but then she saw Kim shifting around a bit and bending over under the desk itself. She cocked her head… and then her eyes widened as the woman leaned back and shifted her legs up onto the table. The shadow of a soft bare heel soared overhead and Chelsea screamed as she dove out of the way. It slammed down hard upon where she had been standing not moments ago, shaking the desk beneath the mant.

“Besides. Honestly. You might want to rethink how you’re talking to me. You just lost your rights, remember? That means I can do whatever I want to you now, legally. Eat you, crush you, toss you in a garbage can, really nothing stopping me from any of it.” Kim remarked as she crossed her feet at the ankles and leaned back, her toes idly curling above

Chelsea was taken aback. There had been a few times in her life since becoming a mant she’d been forced into. Namely with her older sister and her mother. The sight always sent an almost animal fear through her. The sight of Kim’s feet towering above her, slightly tinged by the sweat of a long day in court, was overwhelming. It was so much more. It made her *feel* like she was a bug, like she was that worthless thing so many people called mants.

“B-But you’re my lawyer, you were supposed to defend me!” Chelsea stuttered out.

“And I did. Took you down from a sure death to you are just a mant without legal protection. Which, let's be honest here Chelsea, not too different from a normal mant. The only difference between you and a legally protected mant, is I pay a thousand dollars to step on one of them. I can step on you for free.” Kim remarked. “Should I?” She said with a lifted brow.

All the fight went out of Chelsea when the sheer gravity of her situation was driven home. Kim had entered the plea deal and now she got herself a free mant. She was a job perk. No one would argue. No one would save her. No one would intervene on her behalf. Kim could do whatever she wanted to her, legally, and it would be treated as legally wrong as stepping on a fucking ant. This wasn’t an arguement or anything Chelsea could worm out of. This was Kim saying it was this way, or she died anyway. Life or death.

“Seems like you’re getting it. Good. Now, since I went ahead and saved your worthless mant life, I’d say I’m owed some appreciation. I don’t think I have to tell you how to show it.” She said, her stern mask cracking if only for a moment to show a slightly smug look.

Chelsea looked at the towering soles above her and felt like crying. She felt like screaming. Felt like yelling defiance into the void. But she knew, she knew only too well that Kim wouldn’t hesitate to make her a stain. To kill her. So, with tears in her eyes, she fell to her knees and shuffled forward while blue eyes absently watched her in the distance. Watched her debase herself. Watch her become lesser right before her eyes. The legal technicality finally matched reality.

The brown haired woman leaned forward and felt like retching, her body and mind wanting to reject this. Her tongue lolled out from behind her lips as she cried and she placed it onto the flesh before her, the slight taste of sweat prominent upon her taste buds. She dragged her tongue up, lapping at the bare heel of the woman that had been her lawyer not minutes ago. Tears flowed freely down her cheeks as she lowered herself to a state below any she had been before. She licked, and lapped, and worked all while she knew Kim probably only got some passing amusement watching it. A funny show for her, the ultimate humiliation for Chelsea.

“There you go. Might even live out the week, long as you remember who owns you now.” Kim’s voice boomed in the distance.

It was then, in a moment of desperate clarity she realized the real sick irony of her doing this. It wasn’t life. It was a stay of execution. One day, at some point, Kim wouldn’t be looking where she walked. Or she’d get bored of Chelsea. Or something would just happen and Chelsea would die. And Kim, wouldn’t give a single fuck. It might be this week. It might be in a month. Maybe a year. It would happen though. All she was doing was humiliating herself to postpone it as much as possible.

And yet, despite all of that, she licked and would lick for as long as Kim told her to. Chelsea wasn’t human anymore. She was a mant. Only now when she lost it all, did she realize what that really meant.