This is the last place Joel wanted to come back to. He’s already regretful enough of what happened a week ago. Just a few beers, his friends said. Don’t worry, we got you, his friends said. So is that why his “friends” got just as plastered, if not more, and ended up having to take rideshares home?

But, ya see, Joel didn’t take a rideshare. In his drunken stupor, he thought he ordered one, but the number he’d called was to an ex-roommate. And she wasn’t particularly thrilled to hear from him. At least that’s what he gathered the following morning when he got a series of angry texts from her.

He can’t really gather what happened after that. But, after the slew of recordings that were taken which was later used as evidence, he saw he’d gone to a mattress store next to the bar. When he couldn’t open the front door due to it being closed, he broke in. Apparently, he thought he was home, because when they did open back up, he was found sleeping on one of their beds.

Then, the arrest happened, then the hearing, then the most humiliating day of his life. The judge said that since he couldn’t afford to pay, he should understand what it was like to be so disruptive while being sober. That’s when the police hauled his ass back over to this store and was going to have him lay on the bed while he had his picture taken. Joel has to admit, it’s the most unusual sentencing he’s ever heard.

And currently, this is where Joel is. At a store he can’t remember being at with a window that was just repaired because he broke it.

The store owner is standing next to the bed he was caught sleeping in. He’s got his arms crossed and is really giving Joel the stare-down.

Joel nervously nods to him while trying to wave hi. The wave is more him weakly lifting up his hand. The store owner shakes his head and says, “If you try to apologize to me, I’m gonna take one of these bed posts and beat you over the head with it.” He doesn’t break eye contact with Joel. “I do request that you get those shoes and socks off. You are not getting them on my bed.”

Joel looks behind him and sees, in addition to the group of police officers, there’s a small group of employees and they’ve all got their smart phones out.

“I, ugh, I didn’t know that I’d have my picture taken by,” he looks back to all the employees. They don’t even look that enthusiastic, more like they’d rather be somewhere else, “so many … people.”

“You heard the gentleman,” one of the officers say. “Get those shoes and socks off.”

Joel looks down to his feet for a second and then back up at the officers. “Look, um, isn’t there another way?” Joel asks, looking to the owner of the mattress store, then to the officers and all these bored people holding smart phones. Some even roll their eyes. “I just really don’t wanna relive this moment,” He waves his hands in protest. “I’m sure I’ll come up with the money.”

One of the other officers rolls his eyes and then lets out this heavy, audible sigh. It’s weighed with his voice and sounds to be exhaling on this frustration.

“LOOK!” The officer that rolled his eyes yells. He then grabs hold of Joel’s shirt and clenches his fists into the fabric and pulls Joel forward with enough force that a few tears sound. Joel’s body is jerked forward and is suddenly slammed in the face with the cop’s breath.

Joel flinches and his eyes go wide as he feels like he’s staring down the two green-tinted chambers about to go off.

“The man said to get rid of the shoes and socks,” the officer gruffly whispers. Curving the edges of his words with this gravely tone. His tongue methodically moving with this intimidating precision. “We all have things to do, places to go and you’re lucky you’re not in jail, right now. So, if I were you, I’d do what he says.”

Joel nervously looks at the cop. His eyes darting back and forth looking at the officer’s pupils and, at the same time, trying to avoid them.

“Can, um, can you let me go, please?” Joel asks. The question voiced with a shaken sound that meekly crawls out of his throat.

In response, the officer arches his eyebrow and this smirk starts forming on his face. It’s a smirk that makes Joel suspicious. Because it appears to be formed out of this maniacal glee that is slowly erupting from his expression. Like he’s had it with Joel and has just come up to a decision. The officer nods his head and says, “Sure, man. I’ll let go.”

The officer puts him down and back to where he was standing while still holding onto his shirt. He’s still got his fists clenched into the collar, enough to where it’s lifting up the bottom of the buttoned-down and a shadow of Joel’s stomach is peaking through.

Then, the cop angles those fists still onto his shirt upward. The officer then takes one big inhalation and whips both his fists downward. Taking the front of Joel’s shirt with him. The material is savagely torn from Joel’s chest. The sound of ripping fabric sends a jolt through Joel’s ears.

“There,” the officer says, lifting up his hands and letting go of Joel’s torn shirt. It’s still connected and just hangs from the connecting pieces. “I’ve let go.”

Joel looks down at his bare chest then back up at the officer a few times. Each time he does, there’s this growing tension in his eyes. Compressing his pupils into paranoid pools of blue. He picks up the detached pieces of his shirt and plasters them against his chest. There’s a jagged sliver of his skin showing between the torn lines and the buttons that were popped off when the officer ripped his shirt open.

“Ummm, o-okay, I’ll, I’ll do the pic,” he says nodding his head while the rest of his body moves up and down with him.

The officers look at each other and then look back at him, slyly, while carrying this slow blink that makes their faces appear like they’ve got this malicious focus all of a sudden. The circle of uniformed men then start walking forward, closing in on him.

“Okay, di-did you hear me? I said I’d do the picture,” Joel says as a nervous laughter undercurrents his voice in an unsteady stream.

“Oh, we know,” two of the officers in front of him say.

The two look to each other and one says, “Shall we?” as if they both know what the other is talking about.

“I said I’d take the damn picture!” Joel yells.

While he’s yelling this, the officers take hold of the opened flaps of his shirt that Joel is holding against his body with one hand each and yank down on them, whipping from under his grasp. Joel flinches as he feels the heat flame against chest from the fabric being forcefully pulled from his hands. The ends flick against his shaken hands like the pointed tongue of a viper.

He looks to the men, darting his head back and forth between them as he says, “But, I said I’d take the pic.” His voice buried underneath his wavering breath, trying to swim against the tide of his frantic nerves.

The officers are holding onto the disconnected pieces, the ends still connected to the bottom of the shirt. “We heard you, man,” one cop says, doing a dead stare at him and then coldly snaps his hand back, severing the connection between it and his shirt. The shirt pops open further in response and hangs on the right the right side of his chest.

The other officer holding onto the other piece says, “You are, but,” he then whips his hand back more forcefully, taking a bigger chunk of the bottom of his shirt with it, “you’re gonna do it our way, now.”

Joel takes what’s left of his shirt and tries to pull it together, but can’t hide much of his now-revealed chest. He’s crossing his arms, hard, the hair on his stomach shining against the sunlight from the window that anyone could look into. “What, umm, what’s your way?”

“We think you know,” one of the officers say as Joel feels two hands on his shoulders. He feels the fingers clawing underneath his collar. The hands pull in opposite directions, Joel’s body forced to bob back and forth. The back of his shirt tears, strings of fabric sliding against his bare back as it slits all the way down. The officers are pulling up and then down, his shirt stretching and then viciously gashes open, his exposed skin coming into contact with the light. They just rip everything that’s left of his of his shirt off of him. The only thing Joel has left are the pieces of fabric he’s holding against his chest. But two other officers take hold of the ends between their thumb and index finger and pull upward, sliding them out from his grasping, sweaty palms.

As they’re leaving the crevices of his hold, feeling them pull up against his chest hair, Joel says, “This is illegal, y-you can’t do this.”

He sees the people holding the smart phones over the shoulders of the now very tight circle of cops. They’re not looking so bored, anymore. In fact, some of them even are even smirking and others have this cool, calm look of … intrigue??

“Sorry,” an officer behind him says as he digs his fingers the back of not only his shorts, but Joel’s anxiousness shoots up when he feels the guy’s knuckles against the top of his ass as the cop taking a firm grip of his underwear, too. “But we can do whatever we want, buddy. So, if we want you to get on the bed and pose,” the cop pulls back a little harder, the fabric of his shorts rumbling underneath the weight of the pull, “You’ll do it. And….” while still holding onto his shorts and underwear, the officer leans and whispers, “And if the owner says to take your shoes and socks off, you’ll do it. And if we want you to model for this pic while wearing, ughhh,” the officer looks down and then looks back up and whispers, “a lot less than your shoes and socks, then, well,” the officer stands back and then bends down as he puts all his body weight into his arms and yanks on the back of his shorts and underwear hard. Joel gasps as he instinctively clasps his hands on the front of his shorts as the entire back of his shorts and underwear come flying off. Joel feels the air suddenly expand from his back down to his ass and the back of his legs. His legs waver back and forth as his butt bounces while rebounding from the back of everything he had on being torn from his body. Holding the torn-off pieces of clothing Joel had on like he’s holding a badge of honor, as if he’s proud of what he’s just done, he says, “You’ll do it.”

Joel is holding onto the front of his shorts as strong as he can. The shorts are now just this loose flap of cloth that are hanging in front of him. The tattered edges extending into the stringy remains of what is left. He’s got his body hunched over while laying one hand in front of the other, his head bowed while his entire backside is showing.

“Well, he may be a fuck up,” one of the officers say, “but one thing’s for sure. He’s got a nice ass,” the cop says while slapping his left butt cheek. Joel’s body jumps up while his firm butt bounces underneath the officer’s slapping hand.

He hears the officer’s laugh at that response. But then hears other voices join in. And he can swear that he hears the voice of the mattress store owner. The laughter is subtle, but tumbles towards his ears in the jagged resonance of sharp little bullets.

One of the other officers looks at Joel up and down and then raises his eyebrows a few times. Joel can’t help but notice this when he moves his eyes up to the officer as his mouth slightly gapes open. This can’t be happening to him.

“Bet he’s got a nice everything,” the officer says and cruelly laughs at the end of that statement.

“Only one way to find out,” Joel hears the one person say he hopes wouldn’t say it, the mattress store owner.

“Guys,” Joel says, putting one hand up defensively holding onto his torn-and-tattered shorts. While he’s doing this, the officers start laughing while picking up what remains of the material. Joel slams his other hand down on the shorts saying, “Gu-guys, please.”

The officers pull harder, slowly lifting up the shorts from Joel’s body. The hair on his stomach slowly and steadily extending into his pubic hair. “C’mon, guys. Please!”

He then feels hands on his arms, lifting them up, forcing his hands not only off of his torn shorts, but also off his body being quickly exposed. “GUYS, PLEASE!”

They’re prying his fingers off the cloth as others are trying to snatch them out of his grasp. The bottom of his penis is starting to show, the head swaying underneath the flap of torn fabric going from vertical to horizontal.

“PLEASE!” he pleads as the shorts are whipped out of his hands and as his arms and hands are pulled to his sides, giving him no choice but his penis to be fully exposed, now. His chest with hair creating a shadow around his nipples are having this slight bounce as he’s struggling. His stomach is tumbling underneath the patch of dark hair that everyone can now see merges into a heavy bush of pubic hair. His medium-sized dick flops in different directions as the exacted shape of his head moves in the blush of pinkish red. His testicles, also covered in hair, sways with his dick. As he struggles, the officers untie his shoes and then pull both his shoes and socks off.

The drag him to the bed, holding his legs and arms, his butt firmly bouncing as his penis sways upward. He’s yelling in protest as they throw him on the bed.

“I’ll just have the sheets cleaned,” the owner says, “This is better.”

Joel is out of breath and panicky as he covers up his dick. His bush peaking through his clasping hands.

“Sir, we need your hands off,” one of the officers say.

“C’mon,” Joel heavily whispers.

“You wanna another night in jail.”

He sighs while feeling mortified.

“And smile,” the officers say.

Joel lifts up his hands then pulls his fingers away from each other, laying one hand closer to his dick while the other lays near his waist. He then plasters a nervous smile on his face. His mouth and eyes expand into this wavering edge of uncertainty.

“Let’s have him stay like this for the day,” the owner says. “I think we could drum up more business with some, ugh, exposure.” He stifles a laugh.

He looks to the officer for reassurance. To his horror, one of them says, “You heard the man.” Fuck. This really is the most humiliating day of Joel’s life.