UNCERTAINTY by Joe Whatever Although she was a law professor at the university, Mandy McLowery hadn't been inside the student court for years. The room was familiar, but it had definitely changed. On the wall behind the judge's bench was a new display case containing an impressive array of straps, paddles, and canes. And in the corner was a large wooden punishment block. Mandy had long fought Prof. Canebare's prurient desire to return corporal punishment to the university justice system. But the rising tide of illegal parking and underage drinking made old-fashioned discipline an attractive option. Of course, Judge Canebare never sentenced MALE students to corporal punishment. The shameful ignominy of a trip over the professor's knee -- or a humiliating bare-bottom strapping in open court -- was reserved for attractive coeds. Mandy didn't fully understand why she had taken the faculty parking pass off her dashboard and put it in her purse. The flagrant violation had guaranteed her a parking ticket. Of course, as a faculty member, she didn't have to appear in court. She could simply have paid the $5 fine. But she had just torn up the ticket instead. Why should she pay a fine for parking in her own space? And she wasn't sure why she had marked the plea form GUILTY when it came in the mail. Perhaps a trial wasn't worth the bother.... But that didn't explain why she had refused to pay the fine and had petitioned to have her case heard before the student court. It was a puzzling decision, since females in Judge Canebare's court were not allowed to testify, call witnesses, or disrupt the proceedings by speaking. Mandy rolled the punishment block into the center of the room and locked it into place. She gingerly laid herself over the block and looked up at the ominous judicial bench that now towered over her. The accused was allowed to plead for mercy only after being strapped down over the block. She shuddered as she imagined pleading for clemency from that dreadful man while some grinning fraternity boy teasingly ran the razor strap over her squirming bottom cheeks. She also wasn't sure why she had asked for a Friday court date. The Friday student prosecutor was Harvey Benton, an arrogant chauvinist who had flunked her Feminist Law seminar. Harvey hated her, and he had been bragging to his friends for weeks about how his "snooty professor would be strapped very hard...and very bare!" Why had she demanded a Friday court date? She couldn't explain it. She couldn't explain why she hadn't paid the fine, why she had waived all of her rights, and why she left herself at the mercy of a prosecutor and a judge who detested her. And she certainly couldn't explain why her right hand was in her panties as she slowly rocked her hips back and forth over the punishment block.... Edited by C. Lakewood