1. THE P.P.U.
That morning the wardress left me in my tube, while the other convicts were being got up and prepared for their day's suffering. I was filled with foreboding. Were they going to carry out the sentence at last, despite its having been commuted to a life sentence at the PPU? Or was some new punishment going to be added to those I had already accumulated, despite the blind, almost robotic obedience I had learnt to adopt lately.
All my old fears came back. My hands went to my neck, which they could hardly touch because of the anti-m device that was locked on me. In a way I was glad to feel it there, however much I hated it: the steel collar and the short chains that held my wrists away from my breasts were almost a consolation when I thought of the rope that might be waiting for me, and the slow death from suffocation, (A PPU hanging had no drop... you just kicked your chained heels a few inches off the ground when they took the stool away, and your fellow prisoners watched you die. The poor girls had to look on without making a sound or the slightest movement, for fear of punishment, for while the wardresses would be supervising my agony, the assembled convicts would be being filmed on the CCTV. so that they could be punished later, if necessary.)
The video would be scrutinised and the appropriate punishments applied later: jougs, branks, punishment chains, the whip, the cane....
I must confess that I urinated and defecated for panic in my nappies as I lay in my tube. I was so terribly frightened that I turned myself into a filthy, cowardly creature lying restrained in her own excrement, trembling, whimpering and snivelling. Another terrible thing about spending one's nights in a tube was that it was impossible to get into a foetal position and somehow compress the fear in the stomach. Though having to spend the rest of my life at the PPU was hell on earth, I thought, it would at least be life of a sort, and on earth. Anything rather than being hanged! I knew some hangings took place in the morning and the fact that I had not been allowed to go to breakfast seemed a bad omen. Why would they waste food on a corpse-to-be?
I heard the the rhythmic steps and rattling chains of the other prisoners being marched back to their tubes. I could imagine them standing there to rigid attention staring at the floor, in front of their tiny cubicles, waiting to be despatched to their tasks. There were no sounds except an occasional lash from a whip and a grunt from a girl who must have moved a little or inadvertently glanced at another prisoner,. Or the clank of the punishment chains some of the wretched lassies were wearing. Any audible clink earned them another stinging lash. Nobody spoke except the wardresses giving orders.
Nobody ever did.
Eye-contact was forbidden. Speaking was even more forbidden. It occurred to me suddenly that I had not exchanged a word with a fellow prisoner in the eighteen months I had been there and that the only words that passed my lips now, in my state of abject obedience, were “Yes Ma'am” or “No Ma'am” as I obeyed the wardresses. The two occasions on which I had made eye contact with another girl had meant standing for hours in the jougs for both of us. And when I was caught whispering to another prisoner a couple of times, (without even looking towards her) we both had to stand in branks during Repentance, chained to the wall of the Assembly Hall. It was not fair to other girls to try to communicate: they were punished too, guilty or not..
I heard the wardress shout: “Convicts will face right!... Right turn!...” Then “Convicts will march to …Tasks... Convicts!... Quick march!”... And off they went. Left, right, left right, their hands clasped behind their backs just below the plaque behind their identity belts... Unless of course they were shuffling along holding their punishment chains in front of them and struggling to march in time despite the fetters.
But I am getting ahead of myself.
2. DAILY LIFE IN THE P.P.U.
I 'm not sure how best to tell my story.
Perhaps it would be as well to continue from where I had got to before. But...
… But some filling in might be in order before that: the answers I was to give during the interrogation that followed may help to explain the situation (and many other things too...)
In the PPU – the Productive Punishment Unit – prisoners sentenced to life imprisonment (life imprisonment meant just that: imprisonment for the rest of your life) or long sentences (thirty or forty years with no hope of parole or reprieve) were put to work from 6 a.m to 4 p.m. With a short break for something to eat. The work one did depended on what talents one had acquired before being certified as a criminal and condemned to hard labour.
All of the tasks were hard. Slacking was punished (the CCTV cameras were everywhere) as well as any form of communication between girls, disobedience, dumb insolence and anything else you could think of.
Being good with my hands and having been a sculptress, I had been apprenticed to a toy-maker and spent my day carving, gluing and painting the toys, which wasn't too bad. Sometimes I even enjoyed it.
When there was outside work to be done we were marched out in gangs, handcuffed and handcuffed again to each other in little groups of three, then uncuffed, fettered and set to work digging ditches, cleaning streets, or being useful at building sites, to the delight of the workers there. Any semblance of communication with these men or even looking at them was punished in situ: six lashes on the back. To the great joy of the workers who tried to attract our attention for the fun of seeing us being whipped with our breasts bared.
Prisoners at the female PPU are chaste in in mind and body. This did not stop us, stop me at least, from getting crushes. I felt passionate love for the girl in the tube next to mine; the only part of her I ever saw was her back and pretty bottom, her calves and plimsolls (though I often risked punishment by glancing up at her neck and sort-cropped blond hair.) Her hands clasped behind her back above the plaque on her identity belt were small,white and looked soft and clever. How I loved her! And how I suffered for her when she spent a month hobbled in punishment chains. (I don't know whether “suffered” is the right word: I confess to my crush being increased a hundredfold by her chains and penitence? Such is the hypocrisy of the sex-life in the PPU! And such is the capacity girls have for any form of love in any circumstances.)
I even remember feeling a great wave of desire for one of the wardresses. A slim golden-haired woman who was in charge of my tube every two weeks. I spend hours hoping and praying that it would be her who would put me to tube, snap my identity belt on, lock me into my punishment chains if I was to wear them, tether me to the punishment wall for some offence or other and if I was to be whipped or caned, that it might be her who flogged me. It made a lot of difference! To be punished by someone you are passionate about made the pain almost bearable.
In general, the wardresses were not overtly unpleasant. They never shouted or insulted you. They were simply coldly and clinically sadistic, and meted out discipline and punishment “fairly” , mechanically, and pitilessly according to the rules of the Unit. I suppose that, in that way, they left us less opportunity for feeling anger or offence. Immediate obedience was enforced; that, hard work and the no-communication rule, summed up the norms and regulations.
The great building in which we were housed (if housed is the correct term), some 120 of us, was suitably grim, Gothic and Victorian. All the windows had bars and the doors could only be opened by the wardresses' keys. It was however, kept warm enough in winter for us not to have to need clothes other than the regulation rough cotton, grey, knee-length, dress that was removed every afternoon before exercise. Plimsolls were provided. And underclothes. The dresses were buttoned in front down to the waist so that they could be undone easily by the girl herself to expose her back for the whip. Behind, they had buttons from the waist to behind the knees, so the girl could expose her buttocks for the cane.
When she is to be whipped ex tempore, which might happen at any moment during the day it pleased a wardress, the girl's dress is opened in front and pulled down over her identity belt. She then places her palms on a wall. In the case of an ex tempore caning, the skirt of the dress is opened behind, pulled aside and held to the identity belt by the punishee when she is ordered to bend over and during the entire beating.
What a useful thing the identity belt is!
Our hair was cropped very short... but as there were no mirrors and we couldn't look at each other, it didn't really matter so much. We bathed every evening, after exercise. Our identity belts were taken off. The bath consisted in a kind of sheep-dip: first we passed through a trough of warm soapy water and then then a second one of cleaner water to rinse off in. Every prisoner was handed a towel, dried and put her plimsolls on quickly and stood to attention, waiting to have her belt snapped on again and be marched to Repentance.
Naked.
Girls with periods are sprayed with soap and run through a shower.
We always marched everywhere, in step (woe to the prisoner who gets out of step, even if she is wearing punishment chains. That was no excuse.)
The PPU food is simple but nourishing and abundant. Clearly it was in the interest of Production (PPU stands for Productive Punishment, remember) to keep the prisoners healthy and strong.
But before I tell you about Repentance I must tell you how the days – every one of them... there are no Sundays or holidays there - are spent.
5.a.m.. Reveille. Our tubes, are opened the beds pulled out and the few girls who are not restrained by anti-ms can clamber out and be dressed and processed. Then the naughtier prisoners have their necks and wrists freed till next tubetime. The girls who need to wear nappies are allowed to remove these and use the bidets opposite their tubes and/or make use of the lavatories there too.
Cleanliness is insisted on. Dirtiness in punished. Like everything else.
Once clean, the prisoners can put their grey dresses on. Girls who have been sentenced to punishment chains have their chains locked on. (Punishment chains consist of fetters joined by a linking chain to manacles which are joined by another linking chain to a collar. The chains and the fixtures are of stainless steel lined with neoprene rubber to protect the neck wrists and ankles. Thus punishment chains are a punishment only in that they are heavy and remind the girl at all times that she is a criminal being punished (and thus redeemed) while no harm is done to her skin. You might almost say they were “comfortable”. Their weight and their continual clanking has a humiliating, taming effect. Punishment chains are only removed at night. They are worn all day, at the refectory, at work, at Repentance. The bath is taken wearing the chains and the girls must dry their restraints very well afterwards, or...
… You guessed...
Once we are clean, new dresses are given us, a wardress locks our identity belts tightly round our waists. These have a lock which only a wardress can do or undo. They are made of stiff thick leather about four inches broad. They are inscribed with the prisoner's number and sentence so that she can be identified for punishment. At the back they have a plaque which the girl marching behind you must look at in order for her eyes not to wander. And a Prisoner who has nobody in front of her must keep her eyes on one of the many lines that are painted on the floors.
A large steel ring hangs down in front of the prisoner's identity plaque. It bumps against the lower abdomen and groin as one walks or runs. At night, when our belts have been unlocked and our dresses and underclothes have been taken off, we put them in the little cupboard each of us has beside the door of her tube (which resembles an oven door). Our nights in our tubes are spent naked except for the different restraints that the tube contains or any additional punishment we may have warranted, such as an anti-m device.
The tubes are just that. Tubes. Rather like those rented to Japanese salary-men who get drunk and have to sleep it off. If you are incontinent you are given a nappy. The bed part is pulled out and you climb up onto it and lie on your back waiting to be fastened down. If you are on anti-m, your collar and wrist chains are fitted. The bed is pushed back in, the door is quietly closed and you lie there in the darkness, unable to move till next morning.
The tubes are rather like the cabinets corpses are kept in in morgues. A door is opened and the prisoner can be pulled out on her bed, which is on runners. This bed is very narrow, allowing next to no movement. To put her to tube, the wardress orders her to lie on her back, then lowers the knee bar to make sure she cannot lift her legs, next she lowers the chest bar to just below the breasts, to make sure she cannot sit up or turn over on her side. The door is then shut and no light can enter. The tubes are soundproofed. Some girls think they can communicate with other prisoners by tapping on the walls. The tubes are monitored. Attempts of this kind are punished the next day (usually by a six of the best caning) and from then on the culprit has to sleep with her wrists held fast by rigid rings at the tube's side, completely unable to move them.
Obviously all this enforcement of discipline, punishing, chaining and unchaining, marching of squads of prisoners to their different tasks, the refectory, the baths, etc. needs a lot of staff. One wardress is in charge of five girls. You might think it would be possible to overpower these women and rebel. The tubes however are lined up in groups of fifteen, each group being separated from the next batch of 15 by a locked door. Fifteen tubes, three wardresses. The convicts are released from their confinement one by one and watched over by two of of the staff as the poor things use the lavatories and bidets. The other wardress supervises the line of girls as they come to attention, her whip in one hand, a Taser in the other.
The wardress's work seems popular and is probably well-paid. There seems to be no lack of women who want to do this job and enjoy authority over the convicts. Not to speak of the VSs. Usually several VSs are present when we are got up or put to tube. These volunteers are only too ready to help stifle any revolt or resistance.
While the wardresses are impersonally sadistic, never showing the least pity, even administering the beatings, whippings and canings coolly and politely, they seem to derive enough personal satisfaction from their professional duties alone. Not so the VSs who are always on the lookout for a reason to whip, and if there is none, find a pretext. There are always substitutes for wardresses away on holiday or off with maternity leave. Part-timers. Not much chance of maternity for us, Periods are catered for hygienically. Any attempts at masturbation, known as “self abuse” merits an anti-m device, usually for the rest of the girl's sentence.
No male person is ever seen in a female PPU.
Ever.
3. BLACK BEETLES
Oh yes, there are older women here. They are treated as productive prisoners until they are cannot maintain the rhythm any longer. At that time, or when they reach forty, their status changes. When a convict can no longer keep up, or when she reaches forty, she becomes a Black Beetle: They are called that because they wear black overalls. They no longer sleep in tubes, but in a dormitory with tiered bunks. They are given the tasks of cleaning, cooking, laundering, maintenance and so on. They are subjected to strict discipline.. It is not unusual to see old women in punishment chains performing their menial tasks or being caned in situ.
Talking among Black Beetles, and especially communication with the younger prisoners, is impossible: their tongues are split. They can only make incoherent sounds. Eating is a problem and communication virtually impossible. Looking up from their chores is impossible. A blinker-goggle is attached to their heads every morning so their field of vision is about two square feet and, however much they raise their chins, they can see no higher than, for example, a girl's identity plaque. Thus accoutred, they can be seen anywhere at any time, doing their chores.
For some reason it has become a custom for the wardresses to kick them as they go by. When they are considered to be of no more use, they are deemed to have paid their debt to society.
A statute says “Any incapacity to perform useful tasks is to be declared an act of terrorism directed against the State.” The punishment is death by hanging. Two or three are hanged during Repentance every month or so, as an edifying momento mori for the rest of us.
A portable gallows is wheeled in. It has with the number of nooses that corresponds to the number of hangings to be carried out. The hooded BB or BBs are stood on a bench with their necks noosed, the bench is removed and we watch them kick and strangle.
4. MORE DAILY LIFE
Ah, and there have been attempts at rebellion, escape and so on. They have always failed. The punishment for such misbehaviour is so gruelling that no prisoner dares to try to escape or attack a wardress. Or indeed do anything that might be interpreted as revolt. I underwent it this punishment twice and from the second time on I became a model prisoner. I expect I'll tell you about it later, if I can bear to. It is painful to have to recount the terrible things that have been done to one. But probably very salutary.
Videos of how any revolt is crushed and punished are shown at Repentance, whenever there is no whipping or caning or hanging to be carried out, that is to say very seldom, they are shown to improve morale.
Back to my story!
It's 5.a.m. We are untubed and prepared for the day. We line up and march to the refectory where a rota of girls has prepared and served breakfast. We are seated to order at long tables, each prisoner in her own numbered place, with our food. eggs, meat, porridge, bread, tea set before us. Good nourishing food! We eat everything. Should we take our eyes off the plates a good lash on the shoulders will probably be the penalty. Misbehaviour in the refectory is a caning offence. Never have a hundred or more women been so quiet and well-mannered at table!
Then, “heyho, heyho, 'tis off to work we go! “
Work is work but does not set us free. The products of our manual labour are sent off to department stores and places like that, to be sold, while other skilful computerised and financially aware prisoners play the markets to earn more and more money for the PPU, (a privatised prison, of course.). Woe to them if their investments fail!
At 12.00 a sandwich is brought us by the rota-girls. Everyone is on rota every two months. You are got up at 4.30 to organise the distribution of the food of the day, etc. while the BBs toil in the kitchen, tongue-sliced and blinkered as they are. As there is always the risk that rota-girls might pass messages or grab food to eat themselves as they serve the tables or hand out sandwiches, they are kept naked while on duty. Two two-foot-long steel bars run from their collars to rings on their wrists, impeding any possibility of getting anything they are carrying to their mouths or secreting anything anywhere at all, but at the same time allowing them to serve their fellow-convicts.
At 4 pm. Pause for lavatories, etc.
4 pm to 5 pm was the time reserved for physical training. P.T. To keep us healthy and fit..
Five minutes for elimination of waste and personal hygiene. Then we slip off our dresses leaving us bare till the next day, but keeping our identity belts on. P.T was done naked so the skin could breath and toxins be eliminated. And so that lashes could sting more.
“Left, right, left” on the double to the exercise hall, hands clasped behind our backs, breasts flopping up and down.. The hall was an enormous glass-covered inner patio. The exercise machines stood waiting for us.
The PPU prided itself on its auto-sufficiency. We produced its own energy. The exercise machines were marvels of efficiency: forty-five minutes of convict labour connected to dynamos and the batteries were topped up and electricity could even be sold outside. There were several machines. The treadmill. The rowing bar. The pump, The wheels. And the pedals. To ensure holistic physical conditioning, each group of prisoners changed machines daily. We were divided into gangs of 20. Each gang was marched to its machine of the day.
A long chain was passed from one side of the machine to the other. Each prisoner had to thread it quickly through the ring that hung from her identity belt. The free end was padlocked to the other end of the apparatus. The girls then installed themselves in or at the machines and set them in motion. They would be straining at them till 5 pm, with no let up possible. Such girls as were wearing punishment chains and were thus unable to take proper exercise, stood at the side of the machines, shaking their manacles and chains and stamping their feet in rhythm without stopping, for the duration of the session.
The exercise machines were, first, the treadmill. We all step on to it at the same time, left foot first, grab the chains hanging down from the overhead beam. (God help us if we let go of these!) Then treading and treading, harder and harder, faster and faster till 5. Then there were the pumps. Once the linking chain was threaded and padlocked. Two girls worked one pump. It was like a see-saw. One girl lifted a bar that ran to a fulcrum, to above her head, the other lowered it to the ground, like those manual rail-road wagons you see on old westerns. The mechanism was stiff and the effort tremendous.
The rowing beam needed two gangs of prisoners, twenty to push, twenty to pull. The pushing girls took four steps forward, left, right, left right and the pulling girls four steps backwards, right left, right, left, moving the heavy beam.
The wheels were just that. The prisoners were chained individually between two handles connected to the wheels that drove the dynamo. These they turned. One handle in each hand. One hundred times in one direction, one hundred in the other. Should she falter or miscount, a mechanism was installed to release a whiplash automatically at buttock level. The fear of this (and the VSs' encouragement) kept her busy.
The most feared were the pedals. There were handlebars for each prisoner to hold, and pedals to push. But there was no saddle on the bike, only a sharp spike, in case the girl should flag. The exercise period is not only cruel and exhausting, it is the most humiliating moment of the day.
Groups of women known as Voluntary Supervisors (VS) are allowed to encourage us in our efforts. It must have been very popular – it is not every day that one gets the chance of lashing wicked and sinful felons to help them on their road to repentance. Some days there would be twenty or thirty VS women at the sessions, There were seldom less that fifteen. Armed with two thonged whips like leather bootlaces, they were allowed to whip the backs of any prisoners who they thought were slacking. And if no one was slacking, to whip us anyway. For the fun of it and our own good. It was no wonder that the prisoners were in prime physical condition! Lithe, healthy and strong. Not an ounce of fat on any one of us!
Then the linking chains were slipped off our belts and we formed ranks under a rain of lashes from the VSs. And it was on the double to the baths. Nasty, sweaty, panting, aching womanflesh!
5.pm.
Bath, supper and preparation for Repentance.
REPENTANCE
Repentance? From 6.pm to 10.pm. In the Assembly Hall.
For one hour the prisoners must sit without moving at all, their eyes lowered unless told to look up at any girls being punished by having to stand in branks or jougs or punishment chains along the wall opposite them, This wall is the Punishment Wall. Backs straight. Hands on knees. The girls are enjoined to think of their own crimes and wring a feeling of total repentance from their hearts. This will, they are told, make their penitential suffering a pleasure.
To help them in this endeavour, different punishments are carried out. Girls who have emitted sounds other that yelling in pain under the whip are branked and their short (two foot) brank chains attached to a ring in the wall. Girls who have made any other kinds of mistakes are tethered in their jougs by short chains, along the same wall. The wall is fitted with nearly a hundred rings, chains, branks, jougs, etc. There they must stand till Repentance is over, for the moral improvement of the few remaining girls who are not being punished..
After an hour chained to the wall (a whipping or caning carries automatically with it an hour of “standing” and being looked at, before the actual shame and pain of the flogging) those prisoners who are waiting for their punishment are led to the whipping frame and tied to it. Their ankles are strapped tightly together with a leather thong so the kicking-leg or jiggling reflex on feeling pain is frustrated, and then they are given their six lashes on the back, with long pauses between blows for reflection, and to let the pain sink in.
Those unfortunate girls who are considered to need a caning are strapped to the caning horse and six cuts of the cane are given. Always six. Mercilessly, coldly, politely, with appropriate pauses. Prisoners are never insulted, never manhandled... only courteously beaten.
“And now prisoner 47, if you would be so good as to let me fasten this shackle round your wrist... Number 16, please could you shift up a little on the bench so I can get a better angle for the cane... Thank you my dear... That's right now... Prisoner 97, be so good as to not shy away so much, it spoils my aim... thank you!...”
Things like that.
The whippings and canings are performed by the wardresses in rota. All prove skilful in causing acute suffering, thanks to the strength and accuracy of their blows, and the dramatic pauses between cuts, prolonging the victim's trembling anticipation of the next lash or cut.
After Repentance we are marched off to the tubes. And shelved. Till the next day. And every day till we become Black Beetles and the until death do us free.
Such is life imprisonment with hard labour in the PPU.
The only way to remain sane is to lose oneself in one's work. Girls who go mad – there have been a lot – suddenly disappear too.
5. JANE'S STORY CONTINUES
And that brings us back to the morning I was left in my tube to imagine what fate had been chosen for me. When the rest of the prisoners had left, marching in time, the least fortunate with their chains clanking and jangling, a wardress pulled my bed out of the tube, lifted my bars and told me to climb out. She removed my anti-m and told me to take off my nappy and clean myself up. She didn't even beat me for being so filthy. I became more and more puzzled and frightened
Once I was clean and dressed she locked me into a different set of restraints. First went on a belly-chain with two handcuffs on short chains to either side, allowing my hands some little movement. The chains were slim but unbreakable, Another chain ran down to where my ankles were ironed. Only a short chain was allowed between my ankles, some 20 inches,. It allowed me nothing but hobble-steps. The steel shackles hurt my ankles a lot.
It had been a long time since I had been shackled in this way. Not since my trial. I remember how the first time I was put in chains, I felt totally and absolutely helpless, shamed, humiliated, a prisoner, a thing to be judged and condemned. I remember how walking and sitting in those judicial chains separated me from the rest of humanity. How I had become a convict and everybody else could see me and be my judge. In the courtroom I could feel only their hate, not the slightest pity, only the general desire that I be punished with the only punishment the law admitted: hanging.
Every time I moved and my chains rattled a little people looked at me and my shame and misery increased.
And now, here I was again, shackled not like a prisoner of the PPU where chains were used as punishment, but shackled like a felon awaiting sentence. Kept prisoner. I was really, really frightened, but eighteen months of discipline and pain, whippings, canings, chains and the rest had taught me not to show anything but robotic obedience. I stood quite still as the wardress clicked the restraints into place, never looking at her or at the shackles.
She opened a small door and led me down a corridor I had never seen before. She didn't even lash me for the slowness of my hobbled steps. We came to another door. She knocked. It was opened by a woman who was not wearing a wardress's uniform. She wore, to my surprise, a white riding mackintosh (something I had not seen for years, and then only worn by horsewomen and foreigners) tightly belted and buttoned up. She wore boots. Her mackintosh jingled a little as she walked. I remembered then that these garments had leg-straps for riding. I could not see her face, I was conditioned not to look up.
6. MILORD
The wardress withdrew without saying anything.. The woman in the mackintosh steered me to a chair and told me to sit, which I did, expecting the worse. Was this how the condemned were told that they were to be executed?
She told me to look up- until then as I said, being a well-trained PPU inmate, I had not raised my eyes from the floor. Sitting at a desk in front of me was a man – the first male I had seen in a year and a half. He held my eyes. He was perhaps 35 or 40 years old. Not bad-looking though greying. Slim and apparently of athletic build. Was he the hangman? They could have chosen someone much less good-looking to end my days... Some consolation!
There was a long silence. I dropped my eyes and shifted in my chains, causing them to jangle a little..
“Now young lady,” he said in a quiet but authoritative voice, “I am going to ask you some questions. I realise you are unaccustomed to speaking but I would like you to reply as truthfully and briefly as possible, and add your opinion if you have one.”
“Yes, Sir,” I croaked: that was all I could get out of my dry vocal cords.
“Good. Your name is Jane Hancock?”
“Yes, Sir.”
“You are 22 years old?
“Yes, Sir.”
“You are a convicted criminal?”
“Yes Sir”.
“What is your sentence”
“Hard labour for life, Sir.”
I wondered if perhaps he was going to offer me the choice of being hanged that morning in order to avoid another 50 or so years of costing the PPU money.
“What was your crime?
“Murder Sir. I am a murderess.”
“Which no doubt is why you are so closely restrained... You must indeed be a dangerous young woman! Tell me Miss Hancock, whom did you murder and why?”
It had been years since I heard anyone say “whom”!
He obviously had my whole file in front of him on his desk and knew everything about me; he referred to it before each of his questions. “My husband, Sir. He mistreated me and I stabbed him in self-defence.”
“And...”
“My husband had a lot of influential fiends and family. It was only due to a clever lawyer that my sentence was commuted to life imprisonment instead of the public hanging everybody wanted and expected for me.”
“Do you think you were justified in killing your husband?
“It was in self-defence, Sir. But yes, I feel no remorse, only sadness that it should have happened at all, that I should ever have married him and that I have to be here now. Quite honestly, it was good riddance... he was a bastard.”, I croaked.
“Well, well! Young lady, we won't go into the details of your crime, your trial, your sentence and your punishment. Nor indeed if any of it it was justified or not. At least not now. Perhaps later it will be a relief for you to tell us the whole story and rid yourself of all the demons you are carrying inside you.
“For the moment, let's go over your record here.” He waved a couple of typewritten sheets. “Everything you have done in the last year and a half is recorded here. I would like you to comment on each point as I review it..”
I started to cry, something I hadn't done for many, many months, The PPU dries up all tears. With a rippling sound, the woman in the mackintosh, who had been standing behind me, put a hand on my shoulder and with the other, wiped my tears away with a handkerchief. I had not been touched by another human being for eighteen months, or at least only to feel myself being chained and unchained and chained up again, pushed and bent into positions for punishment, to have my anti-m put on and taken off and put on again. I broke down and sobbed and sobbed, bending forwards in my chair as far as my chains would allow.
There was a longish pause as the woman comforted me, dried my eyes and blew my nose for me. She stoked my hair... such as it was... I wondered what on earth was going on. Such kindness could only mean that I was to be put to death very soon; I supposed it had to be be something like granting the condemned man a last wish. I thought it all boded ill.. This thought became even more alarming when the woman put a glass with water to my lips and gently let me drink. Eventually I managed to get myself under control.
“You were admitted to this institution a year and a half ago, to the day?”
“Yes Sir, if you say so. I have lost my sense of time.”
“The first day you were here, you tried to speak to another prisoner and were punished with the brank?
“Yes Sir.”
“Describe that punishment.”
“During Repentance, I was made to wear the head-cage with the brank in my mouth while the cage was chained to a ring in the Punishment Wall. The rest of the girls were ordered to look at me. I stood there for four hours, one hour every day.”
“What I must ask, is “Repentance”?”
“Every day at 6.pm. the convicts, as we are called, are marched to the Assembly Hall. Each seat there has a number which corresponds to each prisoner´s own number. Each Girl or woman must sit in her own place and watch the ongoing punishments for an hour, without moving. Should she move, even slightly, a light goes on on the wardresses' monitors and she is ordered to go to the rings in the punishment wall and stand chained in the jougs for the rest of the session. “
“And what is your number, young lady?”
“61, Sir. Look, here it is on my belt.
PRISONER 61.
MURDERESS
LIFE. NO PAROLE
“Yes, Sir. And on the back of the belt you can see: “CONVICT, DO NOT LIFT YOUR EYES ”.
“It's good advice: anyone who looks upwards at all and is caught, one is always caught, is punished, in one way or another, and the other prisoner with her. We are not given much else to read here...”
(I did not mention the axioms that were affixed framed, on all the walls of the PPU, but at ankle level so we did not have to raise our eyes. They summed up the ideology of the place.
OBEDIENCE IS FREEDOM
THE SEVERER THE PUNISHMENT - THE GREATER THE REPENTANCE
THE STRICTER THE WARDRESS - THE GREATER HER LOVE
PAIN PURIFIES THE SOUL
CHAINS ARE SALVATION
I MUST BE GRATEFUL FOR GUIDANCE
THE WHIP KEEPS ME ON THE PATH OF VIRTUE
Etc.
“And this happened three more times?”
“Yes, Sir. After that I gave up trying to communicate with other prisoners.”
“Very sensible of you. I see here that you were punished by having to stand in the jougs another eight times. Why?”
“Slowness, dumb insolence, making mistakes at work, spilling food, things like that.”
“Describe the jougs.”
“The jougs is an iron collar fastened by a two foot chain to a ring in the wall, just like the brank. One has to stand there during Repentance so the other prisoners can see one being mortified. And learn from it.”
“What did you feel when branked or standing in the jougs”
“Humiliation, shame, anger at the injustice of it all, embarrassment at looking like a stupid chained animal... despair...”
I kept breaking down. My replies were punctuated by sobs. The woman in the mackintosh consoled me. I noticed that she had thin rubber wind-cuffs in her sleeves, around her wrists. The slight smell the coat gave off made me want to cry even more, it seem so maternal.
“It says here that you had to wear punishment chains on two occasions. How and why?”
“Both times for losing my temper and making gestures that the wardresses interpreted as insolence and rebellion. The first time I was in kept chains all day for a week and the second time for a month. The chains are taken off at night when you are put in your tube, and put on again in the morning so you can spend the whole day lugging them about and clanking and rattling and struggling with every move you made.”
“What did you feel about being chained up like that?”
“Acute embarrassment, humiliation, shame, hopelessness... and physically despair at the task of getting though a whole day what with work and every thing else, which was completely exhausting. The things weigh ten or twelve pounds! I have rarely been so miserable in my life. But thanks to the chains and the other punishments, I learnt to be absolutely stoic, obedient and meek. At least on the outside.”
And perhaps that was why I was able to reply to his questions so frankly. I was so disciplined by fear and suffering that, despite my hoarseness and continual sobbing, I was able to give clear and full answers... something I had never been able to do before being sent to prison.
He went on: “Jane, you were twice subjected to punishment for, in the first instance, it says here, “He shook the sheets he was holding, “for attempting to escape, and then for attacking a wardress. What have you to say to that?”
I trembled inside. This seemed a subtle way of getting me to confess to deep and evil motives, perhaps so the commutation of the death sentence could be revoked. I looked into his eyes for some moments and felt, for some reason, that I could trust him.
“The first time was very soon after my arrival here. I thought I could get away and tried running. I was of course caught and punished. The second time was after some six months here. I just couldn't stand being pushed around any more. I slapped one of the bitches face. And to this day I do not regret it, despite what they did to me.”
“And what child, did they do to you?”
Oh it was all very polite, legal and administrative. A counsel of wardresses was convoked and after a three minute debate I was sentenced – the first time – to a month of extreme punishment and the next time to two months. It was that that broke me and made me the obedient prisoner I have become.
“How I hate them all!”
“Tell us Jane what the extreme punishment is.”
“I shall try to, Sir. Please forgive me if I can 't get the words out, the memory is so humiliating and painful.”
“Try.”
“Well, you wear the heavy punishment chains all day and every day and you spend your daily hours of Repentance standing in front of the Wall so everybody can see you. Once a week you are taken to the frame and whipped on the back, the next week you are strapped to the bench and caned on the behind, and so on, week after week, alternating back and buttocks till your time is up. Your pain is permanent, especially at night when you cannot turn over because of the bars over your body and have to lie on your welts and bruises, like it or not. And just as you are beginning to get over the beating, you are whipped or caned again. Hell!
“So after the second time, after two months like that, I decided to blindly and uncomplainingly obey and suffer in silence till death freed me once and for all.”
“Did you ever attempt suicide?”
“I thought about it. But the vigilance is so strict and the penalty for attempted suicide is a whole year in extreme punishment, that I chickened out even though I always had sharp tools within reach at the toy workshop. Perhaps at bottom, I felt that things might change one day. Now I realise they will only get worse.”
I broke down completely and fell off my chair. The kind woman helped me to my feet and I was able to see her face. It was the face of a beautiful girl (woman?) of about thirty, with a gentle smile and wise eyes and a slim body encased in her rippling canvas.
“Oh, one more thing... I almost forgot. You speak of an anti-m device. What might that be?”
As if the bastard didn't know! It was all in the file he was holding. I swallowed what little pride I had left.
“The first few nights I spent in my tube, my hands were relatively free despite the body-bars and I was able to... pleasure myself. But the sound detectors installed in the tube gave me away.
I spent the whole next day in punishment chains with a big sign hanging round my neck which said “I MASTURBATE”. I was caned at Repentance and from that night on an anti-masturbation device was fastened on me when I was put to tube. An anti-m device is a steel collar, neoprene-lined with two very short chains which go to manacles. I couldn't even reach my nipples and caressing them with my forearms was not enough. The chains rattled all night. My frustration was almost unbearable.
“OK so now you know! As if you didn't already!”
He laughed. I felt some warmth was being created between us. What did he intend to do with me? I already saw myself being sold to a brothel in Bombay or Bangkok, now that I had confessed to being a shameless masturbatrix. Oh God!
7. WHAT HAPPENED TO JANE
The man sat back in his chair, seemingly satisfied, and rang a bell on his desk. The wardress appeared. I feared the worst.
“Yes Sir?” she asked.
“Get those chains off her”, he ordered, “Now!”
The wardress protested: “But she's a dangerous convict, a murderess, a trouble-maker, a...”
“Shut up woman and unchain her. I accept full responsibility for her from now on...”
“But the law says she must be kept chained and punished at all times, for the rest of her life...”
“And so she will be, and much more severely that anything you can imagine here. I have punishments prepared for her that would make you go pale. So do as you are told and unchain her before I register a complaint.”
Grumbling, the wardress removed my shackles, and angrily stomped out of the room with them, slamming the door behind her. I wondered what would happen now. What the man had said made it sound as if I had fallen out of the frying-pan into the fire... out of a Puritan prison into an Inquisition dungeon.
He told me to remove my prison dress: “That dress is most unbecoming. Slip it off under your belt and give it to the wardress when she comes back.. That's right. Well done!”
I waited, naked, my hands covering breasts and genitals, clad only in my identity belt, looking as appealing and submissive as I could. Perhaps he would take pity on me. Perhaps he would not torture me when he had me in his power.
“We must be quick, Jane. That idiot woman will be back in no time with her superiors to claim you for themselves. You see, as a potentially dangerous criminal, the law says you must wear chains at all times. If they catch you unrestrained they will not let me have you.
“Sally” he ordered the person in the raincoat, “ Hurry up and get her properly shackled!”
She went to a large bag I had not noticed before, opened it and took out what seemed an enormous amount of chain.
“Quick, quick!” he urged her.
She came up to me with all that chain in her hands. “Listen darling, I've got to put you in these, otherwise we'll never get you out of here. So be good and do as I say. Stand up and offer the parts of your body I tell you.”
I was so surprised by all this, and so ingrained was my obedience reflex and my training to silence that I stood up.
“Neck.” I extended my neck and she closed a steel ring round it with a sharp click. There was a ring at the back to which what must have been two or three yards of light steel chain were attached. At the end of this chain or leash or whatever, there was a ring for holding or, probably, locking to something that could not be moved. She handed me this ring and several loops of chain.
“Hold this.” I did.
From the front of the collar another chain of the same kind ran to another holding ring at my navel level. She rummaged in the bag and produced another long chain with a manacle ring at each end. She slipped this through the main ring that was hanging down in front of me. Then she snapped the little manacles round my wrists. I was cuffed, but could separate my hands as much as I wanted.. The chain was at least six foot long.
She rummaged again and came up with another six foot or so chain with fetter rings at each end. She slipped this chain through the ring in front of me and then snapped the fetter rings round my ankles. I was leg-ironed but – a stupid notion that came to me suddenly - I could have done the splits with no hindrance from the chain. I was told to sit down. I was somewhat relieved that all the chains I was holding were now gathered together in my lap and covered my modesty a little.
None too soon.
The door opened abruptly and the wardress entered, followed by a chief-wardress with a most military type uniform. I was filled with panic, but tried to show no emotion. Before she could speak, the man at the desk stood up, came round and shook her hand. He was wearing a pair of faded jeans, trainers and a T shirt. His hair was cut very short.
“Superintendent! How nice to see you again! As you can see, I am preparing this young baggage for the next stage of her life.”
The chief-wardress looked at me. I had stood up and was looking down at the floor, holding the yards of cold chains against me. She sniffed and dismissed the first wardress with a mumbled “Fool!”.
“My Lord, I apologise. My subordinates are often over-zealous.” She bowed slightly. “May I remind your Lordship that we are expected in the Principal's office in ten minutes.” Then she took her leave politely, throwing me a look of loathing as she left.
My brain was working overtime. First I was almost amused as being named something so archaic a “baggage”. Then I almost laughed at the Superintendent’s being snubbed like that. And obviously the man who she had addressed as My Lord was someone important enough to inspire servile behaviour in people like her.
I remained standing behind what must have seemed a waterfall of chain, staring at the floor.
Milord sat down again and stretched out his legs as if nothing had happened.
“Just in time!” he laughed.
“That will be all my questions for the moment, Jane. I expect you are wondering what all this is about, and well you might be. Sit down. Stop examining the floorboards and let go of all that ironware.”
I did as I was told and met his eyes. They were blue and humorous, not cruel at all.
“Young lady, I will explain and let you know what is to become of you... what your fate worse than death is to be...”
“I will be brief: we have to be in the boss's office in a couple of minutes. To sum up: the privatised prison system has been sub-privatised. This means that any citizen can, if the authorities permit, imprison convicts in their own homes, on condition that they continue to punish them. I am distressed that beautiful young ladies like yourself should have to rot in places like this. I have thus applied and obtained you for my own household. I have at the moment several other girls employed there, some of them convicts... but you are the only murderess I possess. So now dear Jane, you belong to me. Legally. The only requisite is that you wear chains at all times and are systematically humiliated and beaten. You will work hard for me and obey my every whim, whatever it may be. “
I had started to weep again. This was too much for me.
“Dear child it won´t be so bad. Look at Sally. She is a convicted criminal. Theft. She has been in my service for six years now and survived. Haven't you, Sally?”
“Yes, Sir”.
“And how has it been? Tell her the truth.”
The person in the mackintosh, Sally, smiled at me. “It could have been a lot worse...”
“Now then Sally, you wouldn't want me to spank you here and now in front of Jane for your insolence” he seemed to be joking. I became more and more perplexed.
“I'd love it, Sir, but there isn't time. You should get on with explaining to Jane what her fate is to be and then get us out of here.”
“Oh Sally, having you for as a slave is worse than being married to you. You're much too bossy to bear!” He sighed.
“Jane, Sally is going to be a like mother for you when we get home. She's a lovely girl and she'll make things easy for you. All those whippings and so on we have to give you. In a nutshell: you are now my convict-slave. I went through all the files in this godforsaken Hell looking for a girl worthy of becoming one of my convicted slaves. You fitted in. I am sure I can get lots of work out of you, and lots of fun too. You will now agree to this by signing a document requesting release from the PPU and admission to my private prison.” He pushed a piece of very important looking paper towards me.
“How can I sign it if I don't know what it says”, I blurted out.
“Silly thing! You will know what it says when you have read it out aloud in the Principal's office in a moment. For now just sign the bloody thing. Haven't they taught you obedience here? Sign the bloody thing and let's go.”
I signed from within a cascade of metal.
“Good. Sally, lead her by the leash chain. Pretend to be a bit nasty. You, Jane, I want to see you weep and tremble. As indeed you should: your goose, as they say, is cooked!”
Holding the yards of chains in front of me, I followed Sally. By habit I stared at the back of her belt. It was, as I have said, tightly buckled. Rather more tightly than necessary. Remembering that I was no longer subject to the discipline of the PPU, I raised my eyes and took in the sight of her mackintosh as a whole, how the material swayed in its own unmistakable way.
Suddenly I had a flashback. I was about twelve and was following my mother along a path. I had forgotten that she used to wear a coat of this kind. I had forgotten how it looked, smelt and sounded. And then another flashback: I was a toddler again and was being led in reins, to keep me out of trouble and under control.
Holding the lengths of chain in front of me, brought about another epiphany. The chains were not to restrain me, They in no ways restricted my movements like punishment chains did, or the hateful legal shackles. No I was in a curious way the mistress of my own servitude. I held the chains in front of me and, strangely, felt not exactly free but not oppressed in them. I must have sounded like a medieval siege because Sally looked round and said: “Don´t worry my darling, they won't be on for long now.” Then she turned round again and laughing, said, ”Unless you feel you need them!”.
I had the slightly alarming sensation that she was looking into my soul. It made me feel an inexplicable dependence on this unknown woman in this unprecedented situation.
We walked down a hall, Lord Whom in front, then Sally holding my chain leash, then me, desperately trying to control all the fifteen or so yards of chain. On our way we passed several wardresses and two squads of marching prisoners, all of whom stared unashamedly at us, especially at me, and I smiled and tried to wave to them. What a lot of sore bottoms and backs there were going to be at Repentance tonight! We came to an imposing door marked PRINCIPAL'S OFFICE. KNOCK BEFORE ENTERING.
The incongruity of the person responsible for running this Hell on Earth adopting the title of the head of an educational establishment!
Lord Whom did no such thing. He opened the door and we followed him in. Four very senior PPU women were seated at a table. They rose and exchanged greetings. Lord Whom seated himself in the one remaining chair and Sally told me to drop the chains I was clutching and stand to attention. Every few seconds she gave what appeared to be an exasperated tug on my leash chain, as if I had broken position.
I for my part snivelled and sobbed as if I was being led to the scaffold.
You can also leave feedback & comments for this story on the Plaza Forum
20.01.13
story continues in The Murderess 2
o0o