This story was inspired by Joe Whatever's "AI: Future Imperfect." Unfortunately, he is quite incommunicado, but I imagine he will see it here, and I hope he approves. CYBERDYNE ASM5 by C. Lakewood "I have never cared much for this sort of machine," Headmistress Lauren Templar said, with a half-sneer. The fat salesman smiled broadly. "But there IS no other machine that can be compared to the Cyberdyne Systems Automated Spanking Machine, Mark 5. Our competitors have barely advanced beyond where our first model was twelve years ago -- and, frankly, while it was pioneering back in 2017, we've gone far beyond that with each new model...culminating in the ASM5. I'm sure that this machine will more than meet all the demands of Berkshire School...." "It's pronounced 'BARK-sher,' the headmistress interrupted, frostily. The salesman bobbed his head and apologized, then paused a moment to recapture his train of thought before soldiering on. "This machine is built like a Porsche or Ferrari. You can rely on it being state-of-the-art now and for years to come. As a matter of fact, the hardware is fully warranted for fifteen years and the software for ten. This model has all the bells and whistles -- super-polygraph, high-end camera and monitor, tri-def recorder, and restraints that are both safe and infallible. The A/V, which automatically records each session, is absolutely tamper-proof and accepted as evidence in any court, nationwide -- so you needn't worry about any unfounded cruelty charges. In addition, the design and construction have the highest ergonomic rating. The padded bench is covered in genuine leather -- not synthetic -- and domestic hides, mind, not cheap foreign stuff. This one is pigskin, terracotta color, but other choices are available. And all of our leathers are conditioned -- by an exclusive, proprietary process -- so that, regardless of the inevitable staining, they are actually enhanced as they absorb the punished girls' sweat and...ah...other secretions." He had a thoughtful look in his eyes as he stroked the leather surface. "The machine's hardware is completely modularized so that you can easily incorporate any future changes -- or not, as you choose. The software, of course, is the brains of the system, and we're always tinkering with that...improving, adding more functionality. But you would receive every successive upgrade free, for the life of the warranty...." He stopped for breath and noticed that Miss Templar still looked skeptical. ("Sour old broad," he thought. "But I guess she's not really that old -- early 40s, probably -- though she dresses older. Well-built, though, from what I can tell....") "Nothing that is in production is 'state-of-the-art' -- unless the 'art' is at a stand-still," she said, tartly. "And animals 'sweat'; people 'perspire.'" "Errr...yes...well...." He wiped his brow. "So, what can I do to convince you of its merits, ma'am? A test. perhaps?" "Miss. Perhaps.... But on whom could it be tested? There's no one else around. Students, faculty, administrative staff -- even the cleaning ladies -- have already gone off on their 3-day weekend. What about you? He smiled, sheepishly. "Ah. Much as I would like to oblige, ma-miss, the equipment's not safety-rated for subjects over 225 pounds.... And, while it could really hold more than that -- even 250 pounds -- easily enough, I'm afraid that I, well.... I don't suppose that...ahem...you...." She fixed him with a withering glare. "No, I suppose not," he finished. She softened a bit. "If you would care to leave the device here for a few days, with an instruction manual, of course, I might possibly be able to find an appropriate...'subject.' You could come back toward the middle of next week." "Splendid!" he said, rubbing his hands together. "And it is time I was going. There's the book; it should tell you everything you need to know. And, in case there's any...ah, confusion, just hit the red 'EMERGENCY STOP' button. That'll clear the program. Here's my card, with my sat-phone number -- any hour, day or night, if you have any questions at all. Oh, I should mention that, while you can always upgrade if you want more...ah, serious...implements, the junior cane, top-grain leather paddle, and light, Lochgelly-style tawse come standard with this machine. Furthermore, you don't have to waste time detaching one and attaching an alternate. There are three activator arms; each implement has its own arm and is therefore instantly available." "Two things may be 'alternates'; three or more are 'options.'" "Errr...of course. Well, I'll see you, say, Wednesday afternoon. Good-bye, then. I can see myself out." After making sure he had driven off, Lauren Templar settled down with the operating manual and the remains of a pot of tea. She had already decided who was going to test the machine -- but she'd have been hanged before telling that odious salesman. Fifty-seven minutes later, the tea set had been washed up and the essential points of ASM5's operations digested. She drew the curtains, locked the door, and undressed down to camisole and French-cut panties. Hesitating momentarily, she reminded herself that the girls were always spanked on the bare, then shrugged, murmured, "In for a penny, in for a pound," and went on to strip completely naked. She laid a folded tea-towel on the padded bench, wanting to avoid staining the expensive leather with, as that toad of a salesman had put it, "other secretions." Then she typed in the name of the offender, selected the implement (tawse), severity (medium), and number of strokes (6). Consulting the manual, she found the offense code for "masturbation" and, nodding, entered that into the machine as well. Finally, she chose the ASM5's voice module at random -- #7 -- without bothering to look it up; that feature was a matter of indifference to her. On the other hand, she did want to test the machine's supposed lie-detector capability, so she carefully attached the sensor pads to her head and chest and the blood pressure cuff to her arm, before stretching out on the bench. Her normally disdainful features softened as she luxuriated in the almost sinful contact. Squirming on the sensuous domestic pigskin, the role of naughty-schoolgirl-awaiting-punishment came easily, but it was harder to simultaneously maintain her other persona: punisher-of-perversion. She positioned the waist-strap and slipped her wrists and ankles into their waiting cuffs, and all the restraints automatically tightened until they were snug and she was firmly spread-eagled. The green "START" button, was conveniently within reach (although, she noted in passing, the red "EMERGENCY STOP" button was not). The blinking green light beckoned to her. She pressed it. The bench on which she lay rose slightly in the middle, elevating her pink, well-toned bottom. "So, heah's another naughty little girl caught playin' with herse'f, eh? How often do yew do it, Laurie? Tell the truth, now," the machine asked in a thin, oily, malicious red-neck voice. Lauren blushed. She had a pang of doubt regarding the wisdom of her choice of offenses. "I-I DON'T! NEVER...sir!" A moment later, the machine responded, "That theah's a lie an' will get yew nothin' but extras." Lauren was startled to see the "number of strokes" counter roll over to 12. The voice continued, "What we've got heah is...fail-yah to commun'cate...." She recognized the voice now and immediately wondered if the machine's AI keyed its personality to the voice, and if she could have chosen, say, Jane Darwell or S. Z. Sakall.... But the nasal voice was insistent. "HOW often?" She hastened to reply, "Th-three...or-or maybe four times a week, sir...." And then blurted, "Sometimes more." "'More'? When...and why?" ("Oh, god!" she thought. "But I've got to tell the bastard the truth...or maybe a half-truth....") "Well, weekends...when I have more time...sir." "The WHOLE truth, missy!" "Well...sir...s-sometimes when I p-pun-ish a girl...or witness a punishment...or even just THINK about it...." "Well?" "I-I get s-s-so...ex-cited that I must go off somewhere private and f-fin-ger myself...." She was trembling. She despised losing control like this; yet it did seem to enhance her arousal.... And she was, after all, a naughty schoolgirl, wasn't she? And she did have to confess her transgressions to the headmaster, didn't she? And they were alone, weren't they? And...and...after confession, came the penance, didn't it? And Lauren Templar (starchy headmistress) looked down upon Laurie Templar (teachers' pet who had always yearned to break a few prudish rules) and smiled her thin, judicial smile. Thus encouraged, Lauren/Laurie began her confession, a tangled skein of sins and misdemeanors that stretched back thirty years or more...while the ASM5 listened patiently. How much of it was authentic and how much mere fantasy, perhaps not even Lauren could say.... Not that it mattered much. ****************************** After she ran out of breath at last, the machine roused itself. "Now, missy, foah what yew'ah about to receive, yew should be truly grateful...." She could envision him now -- a sly, stupid little man in a rumpled white suit, fanning himself and running his lecherous eyes over her naked body.... There was a soft whirr as the ASM5 went into action. Laurie felt a drum-beat of very light, rapid strokes on her buttocks. She was quite aware of what it was -- it was to prepare her for the caning proper that was to come, and she was interested to find that, while it stung, it was also (as she had suspected from the actions of the girls who had squirmed under her cane), all in all, not unpleasant. Had she not been bound, she would have lifted her bottom, shamelessly inviting more. She was getting hot -- all over, in fact, as the cane teased her rosy rump, on and on. ("Cane"? The left side of her brain reasserted itself momentarily, while the rest of her writhed there in her own sweat -- yes, "sweat"! Surely she had selected "tawse".... Hadn't she?) Then the cane strokes slowed, but became much more powerful, lines of fire burning across her sinful butt. She writhed, to the limits of her ability, and the tea-towel slipped to the floor. She squeezed the padded leather with her thighs, and her cunt-drool began to spread out beneath her. "Yew'ah a right juicy little thang, ain't yew, Laurie?" In a flicker of intellect, she wondered if the bench were equipped with moisture sensors -- else how would HE know. But then thought gave way to feeling, and she simply accepted that HE knew EVERYTHING. Her mouth began to blubber promises, pleas for leniency, even while her crotch ground itself against the bench, desperate to gratify her lust. A dozen strokes of the cane fell, precisely timed and precisely placed, each hard enough to hurt, but not so hard as to make Lauren forget the shame and ignominy to which she was being subjected. The machine finished by skilfully rubbing the cane up and down between her butt-cheeks for a couple of minutes, tickling her asshole and her cunt and teasing her into a rollercoaster blur of wicked thoughts. "Le's 'speramint now with a li'l change o' pace...." There was a whirr-click-whirr, and Lauren felt a broad surface gently patting her flinching bottom. A pause followed, then.... Whack! It was a brisk spank from the stiff leather paddle. Whack! Another. Whack! Another. And each paddle-spank, painful enough in itself, re-ignited half a dozen of the welts left by the cane. Whack! Whack! Whack! Whack! "Oh, puh-leez, sir.... I'll be a good girl -- I...I won't abuse myself any more.... Please!" Whack! Whack! Whack! Whack! Whack! "Juicin' yewse'f even moah now, Laurie? Ah sweah, yew'ah neah in-corrigible! Well...." There followed another whirr-click-whirr. Laurie gasped. Already well-chastised, she knew that more was to come. And she writhed; she could not remember ever being as aroused as she was now. Meanwhile, Lauren gritted her teeth, satisfied that the sordid little bitch was getting exactly what she'd needed for far too long.... Then came a distraction -- the phone rang. In due course, the call was picked up by her elderly answering machine, and Lauren recognized her own lemony voice informing the caller that she was "incommunicado" and instructing him to leave a message after the tone. And then.... "Ma'am -- Miss, this is Billy Boyle -- regional sales representative for Cyberdyne Systems.... I...err...just received a holo-mail from the head office, warning me of-of a glitch that randomizes...well, randomizes upward...certain of the variables. It was inserted, it seems, into the ASM5's software by a disgruntled, malicious programmer -- who has since been fired, of course. We'll have a patch tested and ready by the beginning of next week, and I'll come out and install it on the machine I left with you. That'll fix the...malfunction, but you shouldn't attempt to test the ASM5 until then. If you have already begun a test, use the 'EMERGENCY STOP' immediately...." Splat! Whatever else Boyle had to say was lost as the tawse intervened. Laurie's fingers strained frantically toward the "EMERGENCY STOP" button that was so tauntingly close, but just out of reach. After a few strokes, however, there was a pause for more conversation between machine and maiden. "I bet yew'ah STILL fant'sizing like some critter in heat. Tell me all yoah de-praved thoughts an' dreams, Laurie. An' remembah -- confession's good foah the soul...but lyin' gets yew extras!" Laurie's confession went on for a while, punctuated only, from time to time, by the kiss of the tawse or by her grunts and gasps as each successive orgasm swept over her. ****************************** Late that Wednesday afternoon, Boyle left the school a rather frazzled, but very happy man. He may not have been Mensa material, but he had been a salesman for a long time and knew when to talk and when to keep his mouth shut. He would not jeopardize a sale in an attempt to satisfy his curiosity about non-essentials. Still, however, he was a-boil with questions.... Why did MISS Templar insist on being able to select either program -- either the sabotaged one or the de-bugged one -- causing him untold grief and more than an hour on the phone with a tech working it all out? How many "test subjects" had she found? There must have been a few; the leather doesn't stain that easily, yet the bench had been modestly covered with a quilt. And who were they? Naughty schoolgirls? Attractive naughty schoolgirls? (He wished he'd been allowed to examine the A/V....) And why was that fat check for the ASM5 -- payment in full, tra-la! -- drawn on her personal account and not "BARK-sher" School's? Why, for that matter, was she a tad less snooty now than she had been on his previous visit? But then he sighed. He realized that, although he understood women as potential customers, they were pretty much a mystery otherwise. (Something to which three ex-wives would definitely attest.) His curiosity was in fact already beginning to subside, and it would be gone shortly, as he turned his mind to more pressing matters -- namely, how he was going to spend his commission from this latest sale...and how he was going to protect that income from the Three Piranhas. He whistled tunelessly as he drove off.