****** State of Emergency ****** Provided By: BDSM_Library www.bdsmlibrary.com Synopsis: A naive American student is caught up in political unrest in a foreign country, is arrested, interrogated, beaten, hung by her wrists and given electric shocks, raped, tried and flogged. But that's only the beginning of the state's crackdown. An Australian photographer is arrested and severely beaten. An American medical student is picked up at the airport and tortured. And an English teaching assistant is severely flogged after inadvertently being implicated. STATE OF EMERGENCY Part One The Student By King Diocletian 1) Arrested Rebecca stared at the stains on the wall above the door. How long had she been here? Two hours, three? She had no idea. There was no window and the only light came from a flickering bulb set behind thick mesh in the ceiling. Her head ached and her stomach was knotted with apprehension. It was chilly and she rubbed her bare arms trying to encourage some warmth. Part of her wished they would come so they could get it over with, at least get her out of this stinking cell with its peeling paint and stench of sewage. They’d picked her up at the demonstration, one of a few dozen arrested, packed onto buses and brought to the prison. There, everybody had been forced to lie on the ground and in batches of seven or eight, police had taken them out. She’d been there about an hour, waiting anxiously, when her name had been called. A guard had prodded her with his toe, and she’d been pulled to her feet. They’d taken her boots, her sweatshirt and her jacket, leaving her in just a white tank-top and a pair of canvas trousers, blindfolded her and marched her through the jail to this cell. They’d pulled off the blindfold and shoved her in, so she slipped on the greasy floor and fell awkwardly, grazing her wrist as she went down. She heard them laughing as they’d slammed the door, the bolts echoing in the silence as they were rammed shut. What would they do with her? Going to the demonstration, she knew, had been stupid, but she was an American: surely they’d just let her go. She’d asked to speak to her embassy when she’d been bundled into the bus, and again as they’d brought her to the cell, but they’d ignored her. Was it illegal to go to a demo? She didn’t know that either. All she knew was that was thirsty, tired, cold and nervous. While she assumed her citizenship would protect her, she’d also heard the rumours about what the police got up to in this frontier province. That was one of the things she’d been protesting about. She heard the bolts being slid back, and a wave of fear swept over her. Instinctively she stood, backing away from the door. She saw two guards come in, another two blocking the doorway. “Up,” one shouted. “Turn round. Against the wall.” She obeyed, pushing herself against the peeling paint. Her arms were yanked back and her hands fastened in cuffs behind her. A dark sack was pulled over her head. They spun her round and gave her a shove, sending her stumbling into the other guards. A guard took each arm, and she was hustled out. She tried to focus and remember the route, but it was impossible as they marched her along corridors, through numerous doors and then down a short flight of stairs, a nightmare as she felt with her toes for each step, the guards hurrying her on. 2) The first interrogation She was terrified: why blindfold her and chain her if they were going to release her? Would they beat her? Torture her? She knew the stories, of brutal thrashings and electric shocks, of dissidents who just vanished. But surely they couldn’t do that to an American, could they? A hand ran across her ass and she yelped, jerking away. The guards laughed. “Ooohh,” one mocked. “Don’t touch.” Eventually they stopped. She heard a door opening and she was pulled through and forced down onto a stool. The door closed, and she heard a key turning in the lock. The sack was yanked off, but for a moment she saw nothing. Two arc lights shone in her face, and she blinked uncertainly aware only that there were two figures seated behind a desk facing her. There was silence, the only noise her frightened breathing. The chains were removed and she drew her hands in front of her, rubbing her wrists where the cuffs had chafed. “Miss Harris,” came a cold voice from behind the desk. “Do you know why you’re here?” His accent was educated. “No, sir,” she said, her voice scarcely more than a croak. “I can’t hear you. What did you say?” “No, sir.” He sighed. “Really? Miss Harris, please don’t take me for a fool.” “I was... I was near the demonstration.” Her heart was thumping in her chest. “Near it? So not leading it, not filling bottles with petrol to throw at the police?” “No, sir.” She could feel her lip quivering; she felt on the verge of tears. She hadn’t even realised petrol bombs had been thrown. She looked down. Set into the floor she could see two small iron ringlets, scratched as though something metal had been passed through them. Were they to tie prisoners down? “So what were you doing near the demonstration?” “I... I went to see what was happening, sir.” “You were curious?” “Yes, sir.” “I see. You know what curiosity did to the cat?” “It killed it, sir.” A tear rolled down her cheek. * What he was curious about was what was under that vest, but there was plenty of time for that. Inspector Patel was used to interrogating prisoners and a lot of the time it bored him. He knew there were sadists in the force who enjoyed hurting people, who got a kick from administering beatings or electric shocks, but to him it was just a job. If you got a woman in, though, that was different, especially a young pretty one like this. And the fact she was American only made it sweeter. He hated their arrogance, the way they swaggered around telling them how to police the frontier. Like they had any idea what these subversives were like. When they were bombing buses you had to break some rules, get the electrodes out and crack some heads. But they kept coming to the university and making their protests about human rights and the like. What about the human right not to be blown up? “What are you doing here?” he asked, puffing away on his cigarette. “I’m studying at the university, sir.” Her voice was unsteady; she was clearly terrified. It wouldn’t take long to get her to start naming names, telling him who was organising the protests. She was a postgraduate, doing a bit of teaching and studying postcolonial Indian writers. She relaxed a little as she talked about it, perhaps thinking the worst was over. Patel stubbed out his cigarette and stood up. He glanced at his fellow officer, Rao, and he nodded. He knew he was as eager as he was to move this along. Slowly he walked from behind the desk, watching her all the while, seeing her scared brown eyes following him as he walked round, staying always in the shadows. He moved behind her and placed his hands on her shoulders. She flinched as he ran his fingers under the straps of her vest, gently kneading the soft skin. She was delicate and beautiful and, as he’d thought, she wasn’t wearing a bra, relying on the elasticated nature of the vest to keep her shapely breasts in place. Standing behind her, he took a strip of coarse black material from his pocket and folded it in three. She twisted in her seat, desperate to know what he was doing, but not daring to turn fully. As he placed it over her eyes, she gasped and gave a slight whimper. He caught a waft of coconut – her shampoo, he guessed. He crossed the ends behind her head and pulled tight, the cloth pressing her wavy hair tight against her head. He pulled again, eliciting a slight gasp as the pressure increased, then knotted the blindfold. He could sense her growing more tense, ran his hands over her shoulder again, savouring the anxious tightness of the muscle. He wafted a hand in front of her. She didn’t move; the cloth was doing its job. “Put her in position,” he said, knowing the ambiguity of the phrase would unnerve her. Two soldiers pulled her up by her bare arms, and hustled her to the back of the room, pushing her against the peeling paint of the wall. They placed her hands flat against the wall next to her shoulders and stepped away. Patel walked up to her left side. She’d placed her right cheek against the wall so, although it was hardly relevant given the blindfold, he felt he was talking to her. “Keep your hands on the wall,” he said. There was something almost doll-like about her beauty, the gentle curve of the forehead, the beauty spot on her left cheek. “Walk backwards.” She shuffled her feet back across the dusty concrete. He’d never really noticed feet before, but hers, so small and delicate, so, well, pretty, captivated him. Soon she was leaning, all her weight on her palms. She paused. “Keep going,” he said. She kept shuffling back until she was stretched, her toes bent and her weight on her fingers. “Feet shoulder width apart,” he said, and she obeyed. He walked behind her, admiring her slightness. She was girlishly small: no more, he thought, than 5’3” or so, and delicate with it. “This is what we call the stress position,” he said. “You stay like that until you answer my questions. If you disobey, well... well, then things get interesting.” Patel could see the tension in her already. Her head was bowed and her breathing unsteady. It was the fingers that would hurt first, he knew, then the toes, before the muscles of her arms and to a lesser extent her calves would ache. He’d probably overstretched her, misjudging it a little with her lack of height, but he wasn’t bothered: no harm in speeding this along. There was always the danger that his bosses would make him go easy on an American girl. “Now,” he said, “what were you doing at that demonstration?” She lifted her head. “I’ve told you,” she said uncertainly. “I just went to look.” “So you regard my county’s problems as a spectator sport?” “No.” “So why did you go?” “I was curious.” He saw a tremor pass along her arms. “Were you reporting to anyone?” “Reporting? No.” “You’re not a journalist?” “No.” “Do you work for the CIA?” “No. Of course not.” She was trembling continuously now, flexing her fingers. Patel decided on a different tack. “Do you have a boyfriend?” “No.” She sounded puzzled. Her head was dipped again. He stepped close behind her, and sensed how she stiffened as he realised how close he was. “A pretty girl like you? Why not? Are you looking for a good Indian husband?” She gave a sob, and her left hand gave way. She pushed herself back into position but her palm had clearly slapped against the wall, her feet slithered two or three inches forward. He stepped even closer, and reached round her waist. She flinched. Slowly, calmly, he unbuckled her belt. Her whole body stiffened. “Please...” she whimpered, as he pulled the pin from the eye hole and let the belt slide loose. His fingers reached for the button. She seemed to be drawing her belly away from him, but stayed in position, her breath coming in short shallow jerks. He popped the button, and then stepped away, drawing the waistband slowly down over her hips. Slowly, her trousers slithered down to bunch around her ankles, revealing slim, lightly-muscled legs and round buttocks that, although covered by the pale pink cotton of her panties, Patel knew would be the smoothest, tautest he’d ever seen. * Rebecca wished she’d worn a bra, but she never did with this top. It was a perfect fit, the elastication giving her breasts perfect support. She wasn’t flat-chested, not by any means, but neither were her breasts so big that they needed much in the way of lift; a benefit of youth. But if he took off an item of clothing each time she fell, well... Well, she knew it didn’t really matter. What was an extra five or ten minutes if he was going to strip her anyway? But it mattered because she worried it made her look sluttish, and that was the last thing she was. “Have you ever attended any other demonstrations?” he asked. She tried to think what the best answer was, but the strain on her fingers and toes, her arms, her fear, made it difficult. She had, but she didn’t think she should admit it. “Yes, sir,” she said. What else could she do? “Really?” He was closer to her now, on her right side. She hated not being able to see, felt incredibly vulnerable. She felt his breath on her cheek as he leaned in. “When?” he asked. At least he wasn’t standing behind her, staring at her ass. Was he really going to strip her naked? Was that the plan? Would he do that to an American citizen? Maybe he’d just strip her to bra and panties, just too shock her. But then she wasn’t wearing a bra. Did he realise that? Or might he expose her by accident? “I don’t know.” “You don’t know?” “I can’t think like this.” The position he’d let her take up after she’d slipped the first time wasn’t as bad. An extra three or four inches made a big difference, but she knew she couldn’t hold out much longer. “We could always think of a way to aid your memory.” She gave an involuntary sob. She fingers were in real pain now, beginning to wobble. Her head hung loose below her arms. “Two weeks ago,” she said. “On the campus.” “And what were you demonstrating about?” “Human rights abuses.” “How ironic.” He said nothing for a moment. “You can tell us more about that later. Other demonstrations?” She gave a whimper of pain. Her hands were shaking violently now. “Yes. I don’t know, seven or eight...” She had to hang on, delay this as long as possible. She lifted her head, gritting her teeth, but it was no good. She fell to her knees. She bit her lower lip, but couldn’t stop it quivering. She felt hands on her arms, and she was pulled to her feet, the trousers yanked from round her ankles, and hustled back towards the stool. * Patel sat back. This was it. He could hear Rao’s breathing, heavy with anticipation. Two soldiers, dwarfing her absurdly, held her arms. As he flicked on the arc lights again, another removed her blindfold. She blinked rapidly, and turned her head. “Look at me,” he said, struggling to keep his voice steady. The guard behind her gave her a shove and she raised her head to face the light. She looked utterly terrified. “I told you to stay in position,” he said. “You failed.” She pressed her lips together, shrinking away from him. The guards held her arms, but her feet shuffled back so she bent forward slightly, making her seem even smaller than she already was. “Strip her,” he said. She gave a squeak, a half-bark of “No!” as they fell on her. Two guards on her arms and four others around her. When they stepped away, she was naked. She cowered in the light, hunched in humiliation, her right arm hooked across her breasts, her left cupped between her legs. She was visibly shaking, her head lowered, chin pressed to chest. “Sit,” he said. She looked at him, glanced around as though seeking a way out, saw the stool a little behind her and to her left, and then moved towards it. It was only a couple of paces, but such was her embarrassment that it became an awkward stumble. He admired her smooth skin, pale in the light, saw her flat, firm right buttock as she half turned. She sat, facing the officers, bent forwards as she tried to cover herself. Others would have chained her wrists so that everything was on show, but he suspected leaving her unchained caused more humiliation. Now she had a chance to protect herself; if he saw her breasts or her pudendum, it was her fault. “Why did you go to the demonstration>?” he asked. She burst into tears. “God, I’ve told you,” she said through her sobs. “I was curious.” Patel turned to one of the guards. “Take her clothes away and search them,” he said. * The tears wouldn’t stop. With them and the light shining straight at her she may as well have been blindfolded. Her cheeks were burning, her throat dry, and he kept hammering questions at her. She had her legs crossed, her left hand clamped over her genitals, her right arm slung across her chest. Tears dripped off her face onto her chest, a horrible reminder of her nakedness. “Who organised the demonstration?” “I don’t know.” “Who told you about it?” “I don’t know.” Her voice was barely more than a whisper. “You don’t know?” “Everybody was talking about it.” “And yet you didn’t report it to the police?” “No.” On it went, question after question, always insinuating, demanding names, making veiled threats, lighting up cigarette after cigarette. She squirmed on the stool, the way the light was directed at her seemingly to highlight how she was the focus of every stare. She’d never been so ashamed. She tried to stay calm, to answer sensibly, but constantly she could hear a voice inside her head yelling out that she was naked. She huddled forward, trying to make herself small, struggling to keep her right arm high enough to cover both breasts. Her arms ached, but she knew to switch over and relieve the tension would leave her exposed even if only for a second. “Is there a dissident movement at the university?” “I don’t know, sir.” “Nothing? Nobody says anything?” “About what, sir?” “About resistance to the law? About opposing the government?” “People say things but I don’t know how serious they are.” “Who? Who says what?” Why had she said that? She blinked back more tears and shook her head. “I don’t know,” she said softly. * Rao was stiff, his cock aching as it pressed against his over-tight trousers. This was by some way the most fun interrogation he’d conducted – not that he’d conducted many. He’d only been in frontier force for four months and most of his fellow officers had treated him as he’d been treated at school and university: with barely disguised contempt. He was a fat, burdened with coarse, patchy stubble, and prone to sweating at moments of tension. Women barely paid him any attention, let alone women as pretty as this. To say she was the best- looking girl he’d seen naked wasn’t saying much, but he couldn’t think even of a better-looking girl he’d seen naked even on the internet. He still couldn’t believe Patel had had her stripped. He’d only interrogated two women before – one in her fifties he wouldn’t have wanted to see naked anyway, the other a teacher in her thirties who had had a certain tough charm. They’d shouted at her for a day or so, put her in the stress position and slapped her around a bit, but nothing more. Why Patel was so intent on humiliating this one he had no idea, but he was loving it. Patel stood, slowly. Rao saw the girl’s face harden, fear intensifying. That she was so terrified, so helpless only made it better. He prayed Patel would have her beaten, might even let him use a strap or a cane on that slender body. Staying in the dark so he couldn’t be seen, Patel walked behind her. She twisted to follow his movement, one arm still locked across her chest. Gently but firmly, Patel placed his hands on the sides of her head and turned her so she faced forward. Rao stared at her, drinking in the terror in her brown eyes, desperately peering to see beyond the arm and catch another glimpse of her sweet round breasts. Patel painstakingly folded the blindfold again then, without warning, slipped it over her eyes, pulling it tight and knotting it. She gasped instinctively and for a second her arms twitched. She kept them still, though, and Rao was thwarted. He knew what was coming, though, and knew he would see her fully nude before long. Patel waved a hand in front of her face. She didn’t move, at which he nodded to two of the soldiers. Rao found himself holding his breath. They seized her arms from behind her and yanked her to her feet. She yelped, as they pulled her arms away from her and she was naked for all to see. She backed away instinctively, so she bent forward slightly, her breasts hanging slightly from her chest, her clear humiliation only increasing Rao’s desire. It wasn’t just her breasts, creamily smooth and high as they were, but her whole pale slenderness, the taut perfection of her tiny body. They turned her and dragged her to the back wall. Even her thin back turned him on, never mind her pert round buttocks. What would he give to slash a cane across them? To mark their round purity with a purple wheal? * It was as if there were a band tightened around her chest. She had to concentrate to breathe properly and she wanted to be sick. Her fingers ached, her arms ached, her legs ached, she was cold and her head was throbbing but the worst thing was she was naked. Utterly naked. Exposed to them. Everything was black, but she could sense them there staring at her buttocks and, with her legs slightly spread, at far more. She knew they had walked to the side to leer at her breasts and she knew that, however bad it had been when they’d stripped her, what was waiting if she slipped from the stress position this time would be far worse. She answered his questions mechanically, struggling to understand where they were leading. The reality was she couldn’t think so she answered truthfully. She didn’t know anything. She wasn’t a spy or a journalist. But of course she did know who had told her about the demonstration, she did know what certain other students had said about it and about the authorities: she just wasn’t going to tell him, to condemn them to who knows what for a couple of offhand comments. Her head dropped between her shaking arms. She willed herself to hold out a little longer. What would it be? Now she was naked what else could they do to her? “Tell me about your friends at university,” he said.
She’d approached the officer in charge and shown her credentials, but had brusquely been told to sit down. So she’d obeyed, zipping up her camera in her bag. She drank water, sipping from her bottle, rationing what she had. Who knew how long they’d keep them there?
But she was bored. The officers didn’t seem to be paying much attention so, discreetly, she took a few pictures of the scene, of the protestors, most students, and of the riot police surrounding them. Not discreetly enough, it turned out. The heel of a palm clattered into the back of her head. She pitched forward, the camera falling from her grasp. She had it on a strap around her neck, but as she fell forward that couldn’t protect it and the lens scraped along the ground.
Hands seized her and pulled her up. The camera was yanked from over her head. She was disoriented, but she thought there were two of them behind her, their hands holding upper arms tightly, forcing her upright. She blinked, trying to focus. A grinning face appeared in front of her. It moved back, and she saw he wore a sergeant’s stripes and that he was holding her camera. He raised it high in the air. “No-“ she murmured but she knew it was too late. Laughing, he dashed it on the ground. Pieces of plastic flew off. That was thousands of dollars-worth of equipment. She wondered if anything might be salvageable, but even as the thought crossed her mind, she saw him raise his truncheon and smash it down again and again, pulverising the camera. He shouted to another officer who carried her bag over to him. Slowly, methodically, he lay each lens, her other base unit, her tripod and her light meter on the ground. Then he smashed them all.
“You bastard,” she hissed, and regretted it immediately. He stepped over to her and jabbed the end of his truncheon into her belly.
*
Megan sat in the back of a van. She was uncomfortable and hot, crowded in with a couple of dozen protestors. She was also in chains, unlike any of the others. After the sergeant had hit her, she’d fallen to her knees, coughing as she tried to regain her breath, and they’d forced her to the ground, cuffing her wrists behind her. She didn’t know how long they’d kept her there like that, lying face down, but it had seemed like a couple of hours before one of them had yanked at her pony-tail. The hands of two or three soldiers had seized her arms and pulled her to her feet, hustling her to the van. Nobody spoke. They’d all been warned about that, and the presence of three policemen made sure they obeyed.
She looked at the others in there. A couple of white faces, but mainly locals. And only two women. Why had they chained her? Just because she’d taken a photo? It was ridiculous. And smashing her cameras? She felt sick to think of it. How could she replace that? She knew she’d need a police report to get the insurance, but how could she get that. Fuck them.
The van came to a halt. The doors opened and suddenly there were shouts. Megan heard dogs barking. Officers were pulling people out of the van, throwing them down. She stood, stooping, trying to obey. Hands pulled her forwards. Another officer shoved her. “Out! Out! Out!” She jumped but it was hard to see what she jumping onto, especially with the guards all around pushing and shouting, prisoners stumbling and falling. She landed heavily, her balance not helped by having her wrists chained, but she stayed on her feet, almost running forwards with the momentum.
They were in some kind of yard, drab whitewashed concrete all around. A prisoner fell in front of her and she saw two police officers kick him, bawling at him to get up, and they hustled them towards a door. Then somebody saw her cuffs and she was pulled aside. They made her stand facing a wall. She could see nothing, just hear the shouts of the guards and the occasional yelp of pain. Slowly the noise subsided as all the prisoners were forced inside. There was silence and she wondered if there was anybody else in the yard. She didn’t dare turn to look though and stood for what seemed an age, staring at the shabby whitewash. Then, quite suddenly, there were guards around her. She was shoved, hard, from her right, and stumbled. Somebody grabbed her arm and she was manhandled forwards and though a doorway.
They unfastened her cuffs, then her hoodie was pulled off, leaving her in a tight-fitting grey vest, beneath which she was glad she was wearing a sports bra. She was pushed to the ground, and a blindfold fastened over her eyes as her trainers and socks were removed. They hauled her to her feet, shouting and pushing. Her wrists were cuffed together again, this time in front of her, and she was hustled along a corridor, feeling dusty concrete beneath her feet. She heard a door being unlocked and, as it was, guards went through the pockets of her jeans. She squirmed as fingers prodded and poked, hands spending far longer than necessary on her ass.
She heard the door open and she was bundled in. There were four pairs of hands, she decided, on her bare arms, positioning her, shouting. She heard a chain unravelling above her and her arms were lifted in front of her. The cuffs were clipped to the chain and her arms raised above her head. Finally, just able to keep her feet on the ground, they stopped. A hand slapped at her denim-clad ass and there was laughter and then she heard them trooping out, leaving her stretched out, the position already uncomfortable.
*
2) The First Interrogation
Sergeant Sharma took note of the breasts first. It was hard not to. He walked over to her and stared. Even with her arms extended above her head, flattening them inevitably, it was clear they were magnificent, round and firm, pushing against her grey vest. She’d been there about two hours when he walked in. She’d be tiring by now, for sure. Her arms would be aching, her shoulders sore. He looked at her passport. Megan Donohue. Australian. Twenty-eight. He looked at the photograph. Pretty, blue eyes. He looked at the prisoner in front of him, saw her blonde hair pulled in by the blindfold, the slim body, the exceptional breasts. He looked at her skin where her vest had ridden up, exposing a strip above the waistline of her jeans: smooth, flat, lightly tanned. He punched her.
She coughed, gasping for air. Sharma nodded at the two officers by the pulley. They turned the handle slowly and she was raised, not high, just six inches or so off the ground. Her legs kicked, her toes stretched for the ground and she grunted as her shoulders took the strain.
Sharma took a pace or two back to take in the sight. He wished they’d told him how pretty she was. He took his place behind a desk in the corner of the room and began the long slow process of interrogation.
*
Megan tried to remain calm. They had training, of course. No agency or magazine would send a photographer somewhere like this without training. They even practised being questioned, although those sessions were conducted sitting on a chair, not hanging by your wrists. She was strong, worked out a lot, surfed back at home but her shoulders had been in agony even before he’d hoisted her. Her wrists were numb, her chest and back now hurting as well and that was before the punch, a hard blow to the pit of her stomach.
His questions went over and over the same ground. Who did she work for? Why was she here? Who did she sell her pictures to? How much money did she make? Where did she live? She had no idea how long it went on for. She just felt the pain in her arms growing worse.
“You see,” he said. “My problem is that your photographs seem very negative. It’s as though you’re trying to paint a picture of this country as an unpleasant place. Is that what you’re doing?”
“No,” she said, and suddenly a fist smashed into her ribs from her left. She hadn’t even realised there was anybody here. She gasped at the impact, swaying, moaning softly as she slowly returned to equilibrium. She breathed deeply. Calmness, she told herself, was vital.
“Why not take pictures of nice things? Is our country not beautiful? Do we not have happy people?”
“Of course,” she said, “but that’s not news.”
She was punched again, from the right this time. She’d half-expected the blow, but that didn’t make it hurt any the less. “Who pays you?”
She explained she’d used to work for an agency but now was freelance. On and on it went. Questions about which demonstrations she’s attended, whom she knew connected with organising them, who she’d seen at them. Had she actually demonstrated herself, or just taken pictures? She lost count of how often she was hit, a dozen times, perhaps more, always in the ribs or the stomach.
*
Sharma was frustrated. He’d questioned her for over two hours and he’d got nowhere. There was nothing at all that could get her convicted, not even by one of the emergency tribunals. Her head hung limply and she was clearly in pain but he had nothing. He gestured at the soldiers to lower her and walked out. He had to report to his superior. It wasn’t supposed to take this long.
He took a deep breath, knocked on the wooden door and entered. Inspector Srinivasan was a thin old man with an almost entirely bald head to which a few tufts of white clung around the lower slopes. He looked up from behind his desk. “Have you got anything yet?” he asked.
“Nothing, sir,” Sharma said.
“Nothing?”
“She’s a photographer but she doesn’t actually seem to have done much wrong.” “Well, find something! If we arrest a white woman and rough her up, we have to convict.”
Sharma looked uncertain. “You want me to have a go at her?” asked Srinivasan.
“I think that may be a good idea, sir.”
Srinivasan lay down his pen and stood up. ‘She’s very beautiful, sir,” Sharma said.
“Good. Then we should enjoy it.”
*
There’d only been a few minutes respite, in which Megan had lain awkwardly on the concrete, wrists still cuffed to the chain which had been lowered to a couple of feet above the ground. Her ribs and belly ached, her shoulders, arms and chest throbbed. Every breath hurt. She didn’t know what they wanted. She tried to think, to work out a way of getting out of this. She heard the door open and instinctively stiffened.
“Get up!” a voice ordered. A different voice, she thought, older, more used to giving orders. He didn’t shout, just spoke with authority. Slowly she rolled onto her knees and forced herself to her feet, although the pain in her torso was intense. She heard the chain begin to rattle and braced herself as her arms were raised, lifting her until she could just reach the ground with the balls of her feet. They stopped there, which was at least some relief. Were they going to beat her again? She didn’t know if she could take any more.
The older voice began questioning her. He seemed calmer than the previous one, more in control. He wasn’t aggressive, he didn’t shout at her. He asked who she worked for, seemed interested in how freelancing worked, probed around what she’d photographed, who for, and who had told her about demonstrations. He asked about who she knew who was involved in demonstrations, other photographers, journalists, people she knew in the expat community. He suggested names, some of which she knew and some she didn’t. She grew tired, her calves aching with the strain so she let her wrists take the weight until they and her arms became too tired and she stood again on her toes. Her stomach ached. Her mouth was dry, her head thumped; it was still very hot.
*
“Get a bottle of water,” Srinivasan ordered. She looked exhausted, her head hanging forward, strands of blonde hair spilling over her face. He walked over to her and gently placed his fingers under her chin, lifting her face. He took in the dusting of freckles across her cheeks, the perfect white teeth. “Miss Donohue,” he said. “Let me explain how serious your situation is.”
With his other hand, he smoothed her hair back from her brow, clammy with sweat. “You were arrested at an illegal demonstration,” he said. “You illegally took photographs of police action with an intent to distribute. You resisted arrest. These are offences under the emergency legislation. You’re looking at a year or two in jail. Maybe more. Five years maybe.”
A guard handed him a bottle of water. He screwed the cap and held it to her lips. “Here,” he said. “Drink.” She hesitated. “It’s bottled,” he said. “You’re OK.”
Megan drank thirstily until he pulled the bottle away. “Slowly, slowly,” he said.
“Now, here’s the deal. You give us some names. You tell us your contacts. You tell us who you saw at the demonstration, and we get you a ticket back to Australia. If you don’t, the unpleasantness continues and you go to prison for a very long time. Hard labour, maybe.”
He held the bottle to her lips again and she drank. Suddenly, he jerked it away and poured the water than remained over her chest. “Whoops,” he said and, dropping the bottle, let his hands fall on her breasts. “Let me pat that dry,” he said. Her tits were extraordinary, round and full and deliciously firm. For almost a minute, he played with her, feeling her fury and fear. “Have a little think overnight,” he said. “Years in the camps or a plane ticket home?”
He stepped away and gestured to the guards. “Put her in a cell,” he ordered.
He walked back over to join Sharma and they watched as her arms were lowered. Srinivasan wondered if she’d collapse, but she had the strength to stay standing as they unfastened her wrists and the recuffed them behind her before hustling her out of the room.
“Gorgeous, isn’t she?” Sharma said.
“She’s a criminal,” Srinivasan said sharply. “She just happens to have magnificent breasts.”
“What happens now?”
“I think the best thing might be if we have her flogged. Prepare the punishment room, but let’s give her three or four hours.”
*
3) The Flogging
Megan lay awkwardly on her side on the hard concrete floor, wrists cuffed behind her. She was still blindfold, but from what she could make out she was in a small cell, perhaps three feet across and seven or eight feet long. The walls, an exploration with her feet had determined, were also concrete and the door was just a set of bars on a hinge. She ached: her shoulders, her stomach, her ribs were all bruised and she felt both hungry and thirsty. Every now and again she heard the tramp of boots in the corridor and she’d wonder if they were bringing her water, but the only attention they paid her was to prod her through the bars, as though they had orders to prevent her sleeping. Not that she’d probably have slept anyway. She’d heard rumours of what happened in police stations since the state of emergency had been introduced but she hadn’t really believed it could happen to a foreigner, not even after that student – what was her name? – had gone missing. Harris, was it? Rebecca Harris. After all, she’d done nothing wrong. Every now and again she heard somebody being marched or dragged one way or the other: bare feet sounded different on the floor, there were shouts or sobs, occasionally the sound of a fist or baton striking flesh. She pulled her knees up to her chest, wishing she didn’t feel as terrified.
She must have fallen asleep because she started when the door opened. Hands gripped her legs and pulled her out into the corridor and she was hauled to her feet. A slap on her buttocks and rough hands on her arms encouraged her to walk. What was this? More torture?
*
Srinivasan was irritated by how many people were there. He could understand why but the reason he was flogging her in the middle of the night was to try to keep it quiet. The punishment room was a bleak place and often he found the beatings carried out there tawdry. He accepted the necessity of breaking the traitors but there was rarely anything uplifting about watching terrified men being beaten to a pulp, particularly not when the enjoyment of those inflicting the beatings was so apparent. This time, he was looking forward to it, and not only because he wanted to see her breasts. Her manner had irritated him, and he wanted to hear her scream.
The room was large, the walls and a square section of the floor covered in grimy tiles. In the centre of the square was a concrete cube about three feet high – a ventilation unit or something originally, he assumed. In its centre had been set two chains, slightly rusted now, each a foot long and ending in a steel manacle. It was over that that she would be fastened. To either side of the block stood a soldier, each holding a length of rubber hosepipe around four feet long. They left painful red welts but rarely broke the skin and shouldn’t bruise too badly.
The guards brought Donohue in. He could sense her unease, her fear. They took her to stand in front of the block, facing away from it, towards him, beneath the only light in the room, and pushed her to her knees. She kept her head upright, clearly aware there were other people in the room. “Kneel up straight, Miss Donohue,” Srinivasan said. She obeyed, moving her shoulders back so her breasts were even more pronounced. “Remove the blindfold.”
Off it came. He wanted her to see what was happening, to know how many were witnessing her flogging. That, he thought, would enhance her humiliation without her really being able to recognise those inflicting the beating. She blinked, even in the gloomy light that he knew meant she would barely be able to see him. He could see her, though, the blue eyes he had admired on her ID card peering and the clutch of figures in the shadows.
“Megan Donohue,” he said, sounding as stern as he could. “Under the emergency legislation I am empowered to pass judgement upon you for certain offences. You resisted arrest and for that offence I sentence you to 20 lashes.”
“What?” she said sharply, but even as she did so soldiers were pushing her to the floor. Her chains were removed and her arms yanked in front of her, a soldier holding each. Others held her legs and another two grabbed her vest. Realising what was going on, she gasped and wriggled, but there were too many of them and it came off, revealing smooth, tanned skin and a white sports bra. The hands grabbed eagerly at that. “No!” she yelped, but it was hopeless. It too was yanked over her head, and Srinivasan saw the side of her left beast hanging free before she was shoved back to the floor, two guards kneeling on her smooth golden back as others began to work on her jeans. She struggled, but there were enough to them to unfasten the button and pull the waistband down. He saw white lycra stretched tight over firm buttocks, then her bare thighs. The jeans bunched around her knees but she couldn’t resist and they were soon lying alongside her vest and her bra. The pants followed, her screams and kicks useless against their strength.
The soldiers pulled her to her knees, two on each arm, and her nakedness was revealed to them. She glared in fury in Srinivasan’s direction, teeth gritted, but he was concerned only by the sight of her body. Her skin was gloriously smooth, a rich honeyed hue, but it was her breasts that captured the attention, round and full, a little paler than her best ad belly and deliciously firm. They had promised much under the vest and they delivered fully. “Fasten her to the block,” he said, keeping his voice as neutral as he could. The soldiers spun her round and shoved her down, cuffing her wrists so she knelt, bent over the concrete cube.
“Take her clothes away and search them thoroughly,” he ordered, and waited while a soldier complied. She glanced over her shoulder, her face a mixture of fear and anger. One of the floggers stepped forward and smoothed her hair off her back, so the majority of it hung over her left cheek.
Srinivasan nodded. Her back was incredible – a golden tablet. The first flogger stepped back, raised up his hosepipe and with tremendous force smashed it down across her smooth skin. She gasped as it struck with a dull whump and a couple of seconds later gave a sharp cough as she tried to breathe again. “One,” he called.
Around 10 seconds passed. She waited, hunched forwards, as though she were trying to hide her breasts behind the post. The second blow landed and she yelped. “Two,” he said. These beatings could be such gruesome affairs, a snivelling old man or a fat teenager having the resistance smashed out of them, but this was something remarkable, a beautiful white girl naked in the lights as two uniformed men flogged her. What a figure she had, what pure skin. She flinched as the third blow landed, her ass lifting so he got a splendid view of her creamy buttocks.
*
The air was driven out of Megan’s lungs again. “Six!” came the call. She stared at her hands, restrained by the rusting cuffs, and at the coarse concrete her arms rested on. She knelt awkwardly, grit on the floor digging in to her knees, pressing her breasts down into her thighs, keeping her head low between her arms. She was willing her brain to work. What was the best way of minimising the damage? Her back smarted but she knew there was bruising as well; this was a pain that would last. Did it make sense to change the angle, even if it meant showing her breasts? A seventh blow landed, low, around the base of her ribs. She pushed herself up, so her back was at perhaps a 45 degree angle to the ground. Her breasts felt suddenly vulnerable, exposed on her chest. The lash struck across her shoulder blades. Her head snapped back, her breasts bounced and she shouted in pain. That had been a mistake. She had to curl up again. But she was still blinking in shock, recovering her breath when the next blow struck. It hit hard under her right armpit and knocked her sideways so her weight went onto her right hip. That left her left side exposed and the tenth thudded into her ribs. She coughed, winded, unable to move.
There was a slight pause and she heard an order being given, although the precise words were indistinct to her. Hands grabbed her waist and her thighs and she was pulled out, unable to resist as they stretched her out so she lay straight on the rough concrete, head hanging down between her arms. The next blow smashed across her thighs. Her legs felt numb. It was agony. She screamed, and another lash thudded into her buttocks. This was awful, somehow more demeaning than being beaten on her back. She wanted to draw her legs up, but another blow, across the top of her calves, stilled her.
*
Sharma watched in awe as they flogged the lower half of her body. A lash into those magnificent buttocks, the flogger driving down hard, grunting with effort, the flesh yielding then springing back, marked by broad purple welt. “Fourteen,” said Srinivasan. He’d never seen a woman with a body like that, so perfect, rounded exactly where it was supposed to be, yet firm. But it was the skin that really got him: it seemed to glow with health, so smooth, so golden. They lashed her thighs, shudders passing down her legs. She was tough, though, resisting. She wasn’t howling for mercy, although she was obviously in pain, most blows drawing anguished grunts. The seventeenth was back across her ass and he watched in fascination as two welts crossed. On the slightly paler skin of the buttocks, the bruising seemed particularly savage, deep purple stripes. They returned to her back for the final three, leaving her panting, head hanging below her arms, blonde hair trailing on the concrete.
On Srinivasan’s order, soldiers blindfolded her again, then her wrists were chained behind her. Still naked, they pulled her to her feet. She seemed stunned, stumbling as they hustled her towards the door. Sharma couldn’t take his eyes off her, the firm round breasts trembling as she was propelled across the room. Even beaten, being manhandled like that, there was a grace to her. As the light from the corridor fell on her, her saw the livid streaks across her shoulders, back, buttocks and thighs.
*
4) The Second Interrogation
Megan stretched put again, trying to find a position of comfort. After they’d flogged her, they’d brought her back to the cell and shoved her down so she fell hard onto the concrete floor, hands chained so she couldn’t protect herself. She’d landed heavily on her right knee, scraping the skin, adding additional discomfort. There was no position in which she didn’t hurt. Her belly and ribs ached from the beating, her back, buttocks and thighs still throbbed from the flogging. She tried to sit, knees to chin to shield her body from the guards she was sure were staring at her through the door, but the pain in her ass was too much. She lay curled on her side but her arm soon went numb. In the end she lay face down, feeling the girt of the cold floor against her breasts and the side of her face, but that made her neck ache. And all the time her brain was racing: what was she going to do? How long would they keep beating her before they gave up? Did they have worse in store? They all knew the stories about electric shocks. They’d been told on their training course there was no surviving them, that eventually they’d break you so you may as well give in straight away.
Every time she heard footsteps in the corridor she shuddered. She was desperate to get away from here, desperate to put some clothes on, but she knew that while she was in that cell they weren’t torturing her. She tried to think. Whose names could she give them that they must already know? Who did she know that they would know and that they would know she knew?
The truth was her contacts were only ordinary. A French photographer would tell her when something was about to go off. She got the emails from the official groups. She thought most of those at the university were poseurs but she knew and liked a couple of them. Lars was a good man, devoted to exposing human rights abuses. She’d met Nina a few times mainly because she was another Aussie. Then of course there was Steve McCoy, who she found overbearing, far too sure of himself. And that medical student who worked with him. What was she called? Always seemed very sensible and bright, far sharper than McCoy. Beth something, was it?
The footsteps stopped. She heard voices. She felt a wave of fear. The door opened. She instinctively shuffled back, but there was nowhere to go. Hands grabbed her. There were four of them, she thought. They pulled her to her feet and unfastened the cuff from her left wrist. She was shoved forwards into the grille of the door. Her hands were pulled through the bars and the cuffs refastened so she was locked, standing, naked. They opened the door again, forcing her to walk back, still blindfold, still unsure what was going on, then filed out and slammed the door shut, jerking her forward. There was laughter as she stumbled and hands pawed through the bars at her breasts but they soon went away and she was left to contemplate the full horror of her situation, chained naked and blindfold in an upright position. Sleep would be impossible and she was utterly at their mercy.
*
Srinivasan was irritated. This Australian photographer shouldn’t even be his responsibility but Sharma was a fool so he’d taken charge – and now it was him getting the grief for it. Sharma would probably have just kept beating her till her ribs were jelly and got nowhere. He knew he would break her in time – and, given how she looked and how magnificent her breasts, held have enjoyed it – but now he was getting calls from on high. The cells were needed, they said. Why had some photographer been put in one of the isolation cells that were meant to be reserved for senior political prisoners? The message was clear: get her to confess, get her out of there and get her to a camp where the Secpol could work on her if they needed to. That was always the way these days – no chance for ordinary officers to work on a prisoner, no chance to build a proper base of knowledge.
He pushed the door open hard so it slammed into the wall, and saw her flinch. Good. He’d had them bring her two hours earlier to the interrogation cell, fastening her wrists, still chained behind her, to the wall about five feet off the ground so she could neither stand comfortably nor sit. She’d been squatting awkwardly but aware of a presence in the room, she stood, apparently aware how her previous posture had exposed her cunt. Standing bent forward, though, simply emphasised her breasts, full round and as magnificent as he remembered them.
“Fasten her up,” he said.
Soldiers seized her and hauled her to the centre of the room, unfastening one wrist and with a brutal expertise refastening her wrists in front of her. The ceiling chain was attached and she was raised until she was stretched out, her heels raised just a little off the ground. What a body she had, the skin so soft and smooth, the breasts so round and firm. Srinivasan walked around her, admiring her. She must be exhausted, he thought, chained to the door of her cell for eight hours before being brought here. He performed a full circuit, inspecting the deep red marks on her back, buttocks and thighs. He stood behind her and ran a finger over a bruise across the middle of her back. She gave a slight grunt of pain. “They flogged you?” he asked. Never let them know anything.
“Yes, sir,” she whispered.
“What for? What did you do wrong?”
“I don’t know, sir.”
He placed his hands on her buttocks, admiring their firm curve. “I see,” he said, and squeezed so she yelped.
He moved his hands up to cup her breasts. They were wonderfully full and firm. He pulled her to him, smelling her hair, relishing the sense of her femininity against his uniform. He would have loved to work her over for days but he knew there was no time. Gently massaging her breasts he spoke calmly into her ear. “Let’s do a deal,” he said. “I would love to interrogate you for hours. As you must be aware, you have a very special body. I would like nothing more than to admire it at my leisure. But my bosses need results, so if you don’t co- operate, there’ll be a need for encouragement. They’ll beat you. Not just with their hands or the rubber hosepipes they used last night, but with their truncheons. They’ll smash you to pulp. They’ll break your ribs. It would be a terrible waste of your beauty.”
He let his hands run to her hips and pulled her against him. “Let’s not do that. Just confess. You will tell me what I want to know. The only question is how much pain and what sort of pain I have to inflict to get you to cooperate. Confess you acted against the government and we’ll give you your clothes back and put you before a tribunal. No more beatings, no more questions. Just a simple confession and the names of a couple of your contacts – people we already know about – and you’ll be getting a fine and a ticket on a plane home.”
He patted her bottom. “What do you say?”
She said nothing. He let his fingers play between her legs. She squirmed. “Really? Nothing?” He jabbed two fingers between her lips and she gasped. “Think how unpleasant this could become,” he said. “Have a think.” He stepped away and signalled for them to lift her.
*
She hung. She ached. Her arms and her shoulders and her chest felt numb, each slight movement sending spasms of pain through her. Her wrists hurt where the chains dug in. Her back, buttocks and thighs hurt where they’d flogged her. She even ached in her quads from the awkward position they’d held her in before hanging her. She’d been tired even before that. Breathing was difficult. And she was terrified. What could she do? She tipped her head back to try to relieve some of the tension in her shoulders, but it just increased the discomfort in her chest.
She had to give in. She had to confess. Say she’d deliberately undermined them. Give them names. Nobody could blame her. They must know about Steve McCoy. She’d give them his name. How long had she hung here? She had no idea. It might have been 15 minutes, it might have been three hours. She just wanted to be let down.
The door opened with a crash. She heard shouts. Men. Four, five of them at least. She heard their feet approach her. Something hard and cold touched her belly.
A truncheon.
The tip ran down her stomach and paused at her belly button. She tensed as the truncheon ran down further, pressing on her labia. “Please…” she whispered. The truncheon fell away and then sharply tapped her. She yelped. Another truncheon was laid across the small of her back. It pulled away and she heard a great whoosh. She flinched, but there was no contact. There was laughter, then the taunting began again, the truncheon running down the inside of left leg before tapping painfully on her ankle.
“We’ll thrash you with two of these,” one said. “Then we’ll stick one up your arse and one up your cunt so far you’ll taste them.”
She felt terrified. The truncheon was laid against her ribs and she felt terribly vulnerable. Again they tapped her, the percussions reverberating through her. “Beat you here? Fracture your ribs so you can’t even breathe without pain?” She felt nauseous. “Or maybe start with your fleshier parts?” The truncheon dropped to her thighs. “Here,” the voice taunted. “Or here,” it moved to her buttocks. “Or…” she knew where it was going. “Here.” He flicked the undersides of her breasts. Then, with a gentle swat at her buttocks, he was gone. She heard their boots departing, heard the door open and close again and she was left sobbing into her blindfold.
*
Sharma followed Srinivasan into the cell. Donohue hung, naked and gorgeous, blindfolded and clearly terrified, the back of her body striped by the flogging of the night before. Four soldiers followed. He felt a lurch in his heart. He wanted to eat her. Instead, as Srinivasan had told him, he directed the soldiers to beat her. With a cold efficiency, they did so: a punch to the left ribs, a punch to the right, punch to the kidneys, a punch to the middle of her back. She shouted in fear and pain, and they struck her twice more in the pit of her stomach.
She retched, each heave of her stomach causing her arms to shudder. She reached desperately for breath, mouth opening and closing, neck muscles standing out. One of the soldiers hit her again in the kidneys. Srinivasan had been standing there all along, but he opened and shut the door. “Stop!” he said and walked over towards her. Sharma saw how she reacted: she thought Srinivasan offered hope. He stopped in front of her. “Miss Donohue,” he said. “I apologise for the over-eagerness of some of the boys.” He caressed the underside of her left breast, his gnarled fingers a marked contrast to the pale smooth skin.
“Have you thought about what I said?” he asked. “Will you co-operate?”
“Yes,” she blurted. “Yes, please…”
“Good,” Srinivasan said. “But let me warn you: if you’re wasting our time, if you don’t co-operate, if you have to be brought back here, the consequences will be very severe. They will thrash you and I wouldn’t be able to stop them. They will pulverise you so you’re a bleeding bag of broken bones. Am I clear?”
“Yes.” She sounded exhausted.
“You will confess your crimes and you will tell me the names of others,” Srinivasan went on. “Is that clear?”
“Yes,” she whispered.
“Let her down.”
*
5) Confession
Megan shuffled on the hard wooden chair. Her buttocks were sore, her head throbbed and her arms, shoulders and torso ached, but at least she wasn’t naked any more. She watched a trail of smoke drift from the cigarette in the ash-tray up into the light of a simple desk-lamp, behind which sat a youngish officer with gelled hair just long enough to curl on his collar. She was pretty sure he wasn’t the one who’d done the deal with her, but he may have been the one who carried out the first interrogation.
After they’d let her down she’d been blindfolded and taken, still naked, still subject to the eager hands of the soldiers, to a small cell. They’d removed the blindfold and made her wait there, huddled awkwardly on the concrete floor, for perhaps half an hour before a woman had come, accompanied by two soldiers, and tossed a coarse smock at her. It was a dark grey and far too big, fastened by two buttons at the back, but at least it covered her. And then, after another hour or so, they’d blindfolded her again and brought her to this interrogation room. They’d shoved her down onto a chair, taken off the blindfold and then the questions had begun.
Her eyes stung, her head pounded. She’d been here at least two hours, she estimated, maybe more. She’d told him about her work, told him about the photographs she took, who she sold them to, who told her where the demonstrations were happening. She told them about people at the university, about Steve and Beth and a couple of others, names they must already know. Her mouth was dry. The questions kept coming and he kept noting down her answers.
Eventually, he stood up, the scrape of his chair on the floor causing her to flinch. He took his papers and, without a word to her, left the room. For a couple of minutes she sat were she’d been, then she decided to stand up, to stretch. She looked around the room. It was bare, the walls a dull cream, the paint cracked and peeling, but other than that there was nothing in the room but the desk, on which were placed a lamp and an ashtray, and three chairs: her hard wooden one and two padded seats in the other side of the desk.
What should she do? She paced about. She rubbed her sore buttocks. She waited. Should she sit on one of the comfortable chairs? Finally the door slammed open, crashing into the wall.
“Sit!” snapped a voice; the one who’d done the deal with her that morning. She obeyed and saw a balding old man with straggling white hair. The younger officer was behind him. She obeyed as the two sat in the chairs on the other side of the desk.
The old one slammed a folder onto the desk. “What the hell’s this?” he demanded.
Megan flinched. “Well?” he shouted.
Her eyes wide, she opened her mouth but found there were no words there.
“We had a deal,” he said. “You promised me full cooperation. And you give me this?”
“I have cooperated,” she blurted.
“This?” he was on his feet. “You call this cooperation?” He was approaching her. “I should have you whipped for insolence.” He cuffed her round the back of the head. She raised her hands to protect herself and he grabbed her neck, lifting her then throwing her back so she and the chair clattered to the ground. As she scrambled away from him, her grabbed her by her hair and lifted her, shaking her violently. She shrieked, grabbing at his arms. “Do you want me to send you back there?” he hissed. “Do you want to be raped with a truncheon that’s then used to beat you to a pulp? Do you?”
He threw her down. She landed heavily on her knees and elbows. “Do you?” he shouted.
“No sir,” she sobbed.
“Good.” He returned behind the desk. “Now, pick your chair up, sit down and start talking.”
Slowly she obeyed. She was terrified. What did he want?
She sat and looked at the two of them, both glaring at her, through the cigarette smoke that swirled blue in the light of the desk lamp. There was, for three or four seconds, an awkward silence.
“Well?’ he said.
“I don’t… I don’t know what you want.”
He started at the first page of the folder. “You arrived here 18 months ago?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Who sent you?”
She took a deep breath and closed her eyes. “Nobody sent me,” she said. “I’m a photographer. I came to take pictures to sell them.”
There was a silence. He stared at her. “It’s the truth,” she said.
“What was the first picture you sold?”
She thought hard. “It was at a concert, sir. For a monthly magazine.”
“And when did you start getting politically involved?”
“There was a demonstration, maybe two weeks after I got here. I saw it on TV and went out into the streets. Like I said before.”
*
Slowly Srinivasan worked down the page. Sharma really should have checked some of this himself, but it never hurt to go through the same questions again, to make sure the story stayed the same. She sounded tired and scared, those big blue eyes red-rimmed.
He took a sheaf of photographs from the file. He stood and approached her. She almost cowered away from him. He ran a finger down her nose, examining how the freckles were scattered over it, emphasising his power over her. What an extraordinary looking woman she was. He handed her a photograph of a demonstration. She took it, hand trembling slightly. She was in the lower left corner, camera in her hand. “Who do you know here?”
She looked at it. There were a mass of people there, perhaps 20 of them in sufficient focus to be identifiable. She shook her head. “Nobody,” she said.
He handed her another photograph. Another demonstration, a different day. Her blonde hair, under a baseball cap, was visible towards the back of a group of protestors running. “Nobody,” she said.
He handed her a third shot. “No,” she said and handed it back. He hadn’t expected her to be so defiant.
“OK,” he said. “Play it that way.”
He hit her, hard, on the side of the head, so hard she fell from the chair. She lay, huddled, looking up at him in fear. “Get up,” he said. Slowly, she obeyed.
“Strip,” he said, making sure his voice remained steady, calm. He saw a smirk on Sharma’s face. But this wasn’t about having another look at her beautiful body, it was about finding the truth. She hesitated, fear on her face.
“I thought you didn’t want to go back to that room,” he said. “I thought you didn’t want broken ribs and a truncheon up your cunt.”
She pulled the dress up over her head and he was struck again by the smooth creaminess of her skin. He took the dress from her and tossed in casually into a corner. “On your knees,” he said. “Face the desk. Hands behind your neck.”
She obeyed and he walked back to the desk to take in the sight: the firm, round breasts, the look of humiliation. He approached her again and held the first photograph in front of her. “Tell me names,” he said.
*
Megan stared at the picture. The focus wasn’t good. She didn’t think she knew anyone. “I’m sorry, sir,” she said. “I don’t know anybody.”
“Look closely.” She did. It was just a mass of people, some with faces covered, some in hoods. She didn’t know any of them.
“No, sir.”
He nodded and held up the second picture. Because the protestors were running, there was a blur on a lot of the faces. She examined each one individually. “I don’t know, sir.”
He sighed and held up the third picture. There was a group of perhaps a dozen protestors passing under a pedestrian bridge on which she could be seen, leaning over. “I remember the day,” she said. “I think that was two months ago. A lot of the university students were there. But I don’t know anybody on this picture.”
“Don’t make me send you back,” he said.
“I’m doing my best!” she shouted. “Please!”
He held up another picture. A group of students. It wasn’t even clear they were at a demonstration. “That’s Steve McCoy in the middle,” she said. “I think he was the most senior… the most important at the university. And the blonde woman next to him is Nina Connelly, his girlfriend. And with the dark hair on the left is Beth McCormack. I don’t know the others.”
On and on it went, more and more photographs. Some where she knew people, some where she didn’t. There was a woman – English she guessed from appearance and dress – cropped up in a couple of pictures who intrigued her: never at the centre but somehow significant, but she didn’t know her. Every now and again he would shout at her to kneel straight or to lock her fingers again but although her knees ached, he seemed to accept her answers. Finally he got to the end of the stack of photos.
“Stand up,” he said and walked behind her. She happily obeyed, glad to relieve her knees. She could feel his breath on her then he moved even closer, reaching his hands around and cupping her breasts. She stiffened, feeling the rough fabric of his uniform against her skin, and then his stubble on her shoulder as placed his cheek next to hers. Was this it then, was this when they raped her? “Think very carefully,” he said. “We’ll do this one more time and if I’m still not satisfied, you’ll be back with those monsters.”
She pursed her lips and made herself stare straight ahead, over the head of the younger officer as he sat at the desk.
*
Sharma wondered if the old goat was finally showing some human emotion. Srinivasan was known as a great professional, a man who got results. He didn’t mind inflicting pain, but he wasn’t a sadist, and he’d never been known to rape prisoners. This woman, though, with her golden skin, her fabulous breasts and her strangely pretty little nose, seemed to have got to him. He watched as Srinivasan pressed himself against her, his hands fondling her breasts: how he wished he could be in that position.
Srinivasan ran his hands over her flat belly to her hips, then pushed her away. “Get down as though you’re doing press-ups,” he said. She closed her eyes briefly and half-turned away then dropped, obediently, to the floor, holding herself up with her arms. Her breasts fell away from her chest, nipples reaching for the floor. Sharma marvelled at the smooth muscles of her shoulders. Srinivasan beckoned him over. “Show her the pictures,” he said, and Sharma realised he was too old to get down. So he squatted beside her and held the first photograph out in front of her face, a tendril of blonde hair brushing against his arm.
“Who are these people?” Srinivasan asked.
Dry-mouthed, she gave the same answers as before.
“Again,” he said and she repeated her answer.
And so it went on. Picture by picture. Making her give her answer twice. Slow, meticulous. Her arms began to tremble. “Fall and I’ll beat you,” he said.
Sharma could feel the heat from her skin, sense her breath. He’d never been this close to such a beautiful woman. Occasionally he let his hand brush her breast, enjoying her obvious shame. She was struggling. He could see her toes making minute adjustments, hear the change in her breathing. Her arms trembled. Srinivasan slowed down even further. Eventually, inevitably, she collapsed. She lay, flat on the concrete floor, panting. Srinivasan kicked her, between her hip and her ribs. Not too hard, but hard enough. She moaned, and rolled into a ball.
“Stand up!” he said. Slowly, she obeyed. He nodded to the two soldiers by the door. They hastened forward and seized her arms. Srinivasan looked at Sharma. “Beat her for 30 seconds,” he said. She moaned in horror. Sharma, eagerly, stepped forwards, rolling up his sleeves. Srinivasan looked at his watch. “Go!” he said.
Sharma punched her in the pit of her stomach. She was backing away, twisting desperately and he didn’t connect as firmly as he would have liked, but she gave a satisfying grunt. He felt the softness of her skin on his knuckles, the firm muscle resisting. He moved in closer, punched right hand, left hand, right hand into her belly. She retched. He didn’t stop, just kept pounding away. It felt satisfying to work her over like this, yet at the same time he felt he could have been doing more, felt he wasn’t hitting her hard enough. By the time Srinivasan stopped him, he was gasping for breath, sweating. How often had he hit her? Twenty times, maybe? She was opening and closing her mouth, gulping at air, heaving as though she were about to vomit.
The soldiers threw her down and she sprawled on the floor, moaning and coughing. “Stand up,” Srinivasan said calmly. In clear pain, she obeyed.
He waited a minute or so. Sharma saw how she trembled, too scared even to cover herself. “Get down in position again,” Srinivasan said.
*
6) Endgame
Megan’s core was in agony. She felt her arms shaking. She tried to focus on the photograph he held in front of her but she couldn’t. Her arms gave way and she slumped again to the ground. She began to beg, but already the soldiers were pulling her up to take her beating. This was the fourth time the young one with the ridiculous gelled hair had laid into her. He didn’t hit as hard as the soldiers in the other room, but a 30-second pummelling was bad enough. He was out of shape and panting, but he stuck to his task, driving his fists again and again into her belly as she coughed and retched. When they let go of her arms, she collapsed.
And each time he beat her, of course, it reduced the time she could stay in the press-up position. Her core couldn’t support her so the pressure immediately went on her arms, which were already exhausted. She didn’t think she could last even a minute if he made her take the position again. The old one walked up to her where she sprawled and lifted her by her hair. “One more time?” he asked, mockingly.
“Please,” she rasped. “I know nothing more.”
“Or maybe we use the truncheons on you?”
“I know nothing…”
He shook her by the hair and she screamed at the pain in her scalp, her hands reaching up to try to loosen his grip. Even as she did it she regretted the act. He threw her down.
“You do not touch me,” he said. “Take her to the punishment room.”
“No! Please, sir… Please…!”
Her wrists were cuffed, the blindfold placed over her eyes. Firm hands gripped her arms. She wondered if she should mention the girl in the pictures. How could they flog her? Everything was agony already.
When they took the blindfold off, she was shackled, kneeling, over the concrete post. She could hear the guards swishing the hosepipes through the air, knew they were taunting her. Then suddenly his face was next to hers. She could smell the cigarettes on his breath, see the white hairs of his stubble. “How many should I give you?” he asked mockingly. He ran a hand over her back, pressing painfully on a welt. She glared at him. She steeled herself. She had taken 20. She could take more.
He ran his fingers gently through her hair, smoothing it away from her forehead and off her shoulders. “Assaulting me is very serious,” he said. “How about 30?”
She set her shoulders. She would take his punishment. “Or…” he said. “You could tell me all you know about Roberta Stafford.”
Who? Roberta Stafford? Megan thought and thought. Who was that? The name meant nothing. But was this an opportunity? “I’m not sure…” she said. “I think…”
“Yes?”
“Look, I don’t think I ever met her, but the name…” She was careful not to overplay her hand.
“The name…?”
“Others spoke of her. She… Look, I don’t know. But she was some sort of leader. She arranged things.”
“What sort of things?”
“Demonstrations. Leaflets. Money, maybe. I don’t know. She was a shadowy figure.” Was he buying this? A thought dawned on her: was Roberta Stafford the English woman in the pictures?
“Was she at the university?”
Megan thought. She knew most of the westerners at the university, or at least had heard of them. “I don’t think so. She was…” She took a gamble. “British, I think. Maybe American.”
“Ok,” he said. “We’ll talk about this back in the other room.”
*
Srinivasan was surprised. The memo had come through to probe any prisoners about Roberta Stafford, but he hadn’t expected anything. Her answers seemed convincing though. She sat now in front of him, wearing that baggy dress, drinking a mug of sweet tea, calmly admitting how little she knew, just offering the odd detail. Donohue knew Stafford was British – that seemed very telling. He’d quite have enjoyed watching her flogged again, but she’d given him what he wanted and she’d already taken quite enough. This might be quite the feather in his cap. He didn’t really understand why Stafford was important, but the powers that be clearly thought she was; they didn’t put out these bulletins for anybody. He knew how it worked: the pieces of information slowly accumulated, building a bigger picture. He couldn’t see it, but somebody else would.
Besides, much as he’d have liked to have kept interrogating her, kept playing with those remarkable breasts, he had to hand her over for trial. He’d recommend further interrogation in the camp, of course, but essentially, he’d broken her. Perhaps his greatest achievement, though, during her brief incarceration, was to prevent the men raping her.
She was an outstandingly beautiful creature. When she was naked, it was her breasts and her creamy skin that stood out, the sense that she was a living statue, but dressed, huddled on the chair as she was, he was taken by just how sweet her face was: the blue eyes like a cat’s, the scattering of freckles over her nose and cheeks. Other officers, he knew, would have taken advantage. The state of emergency permitted all manner of breaches of discipline, but he was of the old school. His job was to get information. He had no problems with hurting or humiliating prisoners to get it, but his job wasn’t about satisfying his own lusts.
He could still have had her beaten. There was talk even that they’d caned an American girl a couple of days ago. There was a part of him, he acknowledged, that would have liked to see her naked, bent over the block or fastened on the frame, howling in terror. But he respected her too much for that. She had retained her dignity. She was strong. And they had done a deal. What they did to her in the camps was another matter.
Still, he had one more chance to see her naked. When she’d finished her tea, he blindfolded her and led her to a small holding cell on the corridor where the makeshift courtroom was located. There was a narrow bed and a bucket and not much else, other than a bag containing her clothes. He removed the blindfold and ordered her to strip She obeyed slowly, reluctantly, but without resistance and he drank in again the sight of her honeyed body, battered and bruised but undeniably lovely. He made her stand for a couple of minutes while he looked at her, then left, allowing her to dress in her own clothes once again.
*
Megan lost all track of time. Dressed again, fairly confident her torture was over, and given a bed, she slept. She wondered sometimes about Roberta Stafford, whether there was a woman with that name she’d condemned, but mainly she felt she’d done her best. There were some at the university she could have denounced but had avoided doing so. She had, essentially, got away with it, although getting away with it had entailed severe beatings.
Sometimes two women guards came in and left food for her, always dal and rice, and once they took her to shower, but she had no idea how long she’d been there. She thought perhaps two or three days had passed when male guards came for her again. Her body still ached from the beatings but she was in a much better state than she had been when they cuffed her wrists behind her and led her into a large room. There was a long table at one end, behind which sat a tired looking man in a colonel’s uniform. A series of benches, on which a handful of men sprawled faced him.
She was led to the front. The colonel looked at her, his eyes watery and red. It seemed an effort for him even to speak. He glanced down at a file and then back at her. “You are Megan Donohue?” he said.
“Yes, sir,” she replied. She wondered if she should ask for a lawyer, but glanced at the soldiers who flanked her and knew it would be pointless.
She shuffled on her bare feet. This felt ridiculous, standing in a courtroom in jeans and hoodie, barefoot and chained.
“I have read through the notes from your interview. You admit you took photographs of anti-government activity and disseminated them and that you knowingly concealed details of seditious activity from the authorities. Do you deny these offences?”
She thought for a moment. There was no point resisting. “No, sir,” she said.
“You wish to plead guilty?”
She could hear his tiredness. Denial could only antagonise him. “Yes, sir.”
“Very well. You are sentenced to one year of forced labour.” She felt her heart lurch. He stifled a yawn as he closed the file. “Next,” he said as the soldiers led her away.
STATE OF EMERGENCY Part Three The Medic By King Diocletian 1) The Airport
The official looked at her passport and back at her. Beth gave him a half-smile but he remained stern. He glanced at her visa and back at her. “What have you been doing in our country, Miss McCormack?” has asked.
“I’m a student,” she said. “Post-grad.”
He looked down and swiped her passport. He tapped at his keyboard. “What are you studying?” he asked.
“Medicine,” she said. “Tropical disease.”
“And you are heading to?”
“New York,” she said. “Via London.” Did they usually ask this many questions? She felt suddenly anxious.
“A very fine city,” he said. Two policemen suddenly appeared by the booth. “If you could just accompany these officers,” he said. “Just a couple of little details.”
She felt uneasy, but she followed them. Realistically, what choice did she have? They took her through a door on which was pinned an official-looking notice in the local language. Beth had tried to learn it, but she found even the basics of the script difficult to decipher. They led her along a grubby narrow corridor, saying nothing, not touching her, but making it clear whether she should go. Another policeman unlocked a door and they went through it, then down some steps, and along another corridor. They paused by an open door, through which Beth could see a small and chaotic office, piles of paper and files everywhere. A tired-looking officer in glasses sat behind a desk and exchanged a few words with one of the policemen. The other lay his hand on her arm, just above the elbow, and gently encouraged her further along the corridor.
They opened a door. She saw a few people inside, sitting on plastic chairs. A couple of them looked up at her entrance. “Stay here,” one of the officers said and they both left, shutting the door. Beth looked about her. There were twelve seats arranged in two rows of six in the middle of the room, three of them empty. The people sitting there looked weary, as though they’d been waiting a long time. Only one of the nine was a woman, and they all looked local. She took a seat, pushing her shoulder bag under the chair, feeling awkward as everybody started at her. She saw by the door two policemen, their expressions of utter boredom. It was chilly, the air-conditioning turned up high, and she was glad she’d worn her cardigan.
*
Inspector Gopal was exhausted. He’d been working twelve hours but it felt like more, endlessly processing suspects. The state of emergency had increased his workload enormously. Every time somebody whose name had been flagged came through the airport, his department had to interrogate them. It was his job to decide what should be done: most turned out to be cases of mistaken identity or they’d been flagged for trivial reasons: those he let go, and normally took an earful of abuse for making them miss their planes. Some he passed on to the state police for further investigation. And a tiny handful he deemed serious risks he handed over to the Secpol. He had little doubt what they did to prisoners but sometimes he had no option.
He took a swig of Red Bull and asked his secretary to send in the next one. He called up his file on his desktop computer. Raj Gupta, a 42-year-old computer programmer. He yawned.
*
Beth took her phone from her pocket. It was 1837; her flight left at 2000.
“Put the phone away,” one of the policeman said.
She obeyed. “I’m just worried about missing my flight,” she said. He looked at the other policeman and they laughed.
She guessed she’d been there about half an hour, during which time they’d taken out only one of the other people in the room. At that rate she had no hope. She wondered what she could do about rearranging the flight. Presumably there was some facility through her insurance; after all, this was hardly her fault.
*
Inspector Gopal looked up wearily as Amala, his secretary, lay a cup of tea on the desk. “How many more?” he asked.
“Three that have been allotted to you,” she said. She sounded disapproving, but then she always did, glaring out from beneath her thick glasses. Why couldn’t he have got pretty Mira, with her glossy hair and mischievous smile? Instead, just this fortysomething harridan who seemed to have no home life at all.
He glanced at his watch. Just after half past 10. He wouldn’t get home till after midnight again. He scratched at his stubble. “Send the next one in,” he said, turning to his computer screen.
*
Beth had tried once more, just after seven, but there’d been no respite. Wait. Wait your turn. They didn’t care that she’d miss her flight. She sensed the others waiting were amused by her impatience. She was left till last. She was weary, bored and irritated. She had a slight headache. She hadn’t eaten or drunk for hours. It was a little before quarter to midnight when they finally came for her, two officers walking with her along a corridor till they got to a polished wood door. They knocked and she noted how scratched it was, badly in need of a polish.
She heard a voice snappishly telling them to enter. They went in and she saw a balding man with thick glasses seated behind a desk. He looked up at her and blinked. He took a sip from a cup of tea and gestured to a wooden chair. Glancing at the officers she walked forward and sat down.
“Would you like a drink?” he asked. He sounded exhausted. “Tea?”
“Yes,” she said. “Yes, thank you.” He picked up the telephone on the desk and ordered a cup.
*
Gopal could feel his heart racing. The girl’s beauty had taken him by surprise. He looked at his computer screen but really he was staring at her, dark hair pulled back in a pony-tail to leave an unhindered view of a face of remarkable purity. She was tall as well, taller than him, he thought, perhaps 5’9” or 5’10”, her legs impossibly long in a pair of jeans.
The notes on his computer were sparse. Beth McCormack, American, student, 25, studying tropical diseases. Suspected of spreading anti-government propaganda and organising dissent at her university. Serious offences if true and something he needed to get to the bottom of, but no details. He suspected she’d either been seen at a demo or two or somebody had given her name under interrogation. But he had to find out, and that meant she wouldn’t be getting the next plane home.
Amala came in and handed a cup of tea to McCormack. There was something brusque about her manner but the girl thanked her. As she took the cup, the sleeve of her cardigan slid up and Gopal saw a smooth expanse of lower arm. He felt a pang in his chest and as unnerved: he’d never found a wrist sexy before. He swallowed. He had to begin but he wasn’t quite sure where to start. He picked up her passport and turned to the information page.
“You are Beth McCormack?” he asked.
“Yes,” she said. She seemed respectful, a little nervous.
He went through her details then nodded.
“Your name has been flagged,” he said. “Have you any idea why that could be?”
“Flagged?” she said. She sounded genuinely puzzled. “What does that mean?”
“It means somebody somewhere has decided you might be a threat to this country.”
She didn’t say anything, but her eyebrows shot up.
“Have you any idea why?” She shook her head but there was something a little mannered about the gesture. Gopal was intrigued. There was something.
“Have you ever attended a demonstration?” he asked.
She blinked. “Y-y-yes,” she stuttered. His heart leapt. That alone would justify holding her overnight.
“How many?’
She shook her head. “I don’t know,” she said. “A few.”
He nodded. This had suddenly become very interesting.
“You weren’t part of any organised group against the regime, or protesting for human rights, were you?” He kept his voice calm, gentle.
“A human rights group,” she said, her voice hoarse. He knew she knew she was in trouble.
“OK,” he said. “It’s late. I’m tired and I’m sure you are. I need to call up your file, so let’s reconvene in the morning.”
*
2) The First Interrogation
Beth sat on the thin mattress, back against the wall, knees up to her chin. She was tired and frustrated and found herself passing through phases of terror and phases when she couldn’t believe anything was actually going to happen to her. The officer last night had been perfectly reasonable, she thought. At least until he’d ordered her to be locked up overnight. They’d made her hand in her phone, wallet and jewellery, they’d taken her boots, her socks and her belt, and she’d been given a cursory pat down by some female guards, and then she’d been escorted along a corridor to a cell. It was grimy, empty apart from the stained mattress and a plastic bucket, and it was unpleasantly warm – no air- conditioning here. She’d taken off her cardigan, figuring she could use it as a pillow if she ever reached a point at which sleep seemed possible.
She couldn’t work out if she was really in trouble or whether this was a coincidence. Of course she’d criticised the regime: it brutally repressed dissent. They’d all heard the news reports, they’d all heard from Amnesty about what happened to the dissidents, they’d seen the pictures of demonstrations being broken up with water-cannon and batons. Surely they couldn’t blame her for that?
But she knew that wasn’t the issue. She knew the issue was Steve.
Steve was always the issue. Had she ever loved him? She thought maybe at first she had but he’d been with Nina and she’d never acted on it. But that had been an attraction when she’d started going to demonstrations. Then as time had gone by she’d realised how cold and manipulative he could be, how he used people, how, she suspected, he was using the human rights movement to promote himself. And, of course, as she’d started to realise that, so he’d made his move on her.
Again and again, he’d almost begged her for sex and then, as he got more desperate, just to touch her breasts. Normally she’d have got away from him, cut him off, but she felt she had a responsibility to the organisation, to arranging the leaflet hand-outs for the human-rights movement, for publicising the demos and arranging for students to get there. There’d been nights when they’d ended up working together late, just the two of them, when it had been desperately awkward.
But now she wondered if it had been worse than that. She knew he was deeply connected with local resistance groups. If they thought she was connected with him, then…
What did she know, really? She did, she supposed, have information that would be useful to them. But what could she tell them?
*
Gopal sipped at his tea. He still felt tired, but he was rather less resentful today. Before he’d gone home, he’d rung his superior, Chief Inspector Tagore, who’d given him the go-ahead to investigate McCormack further. Then he’d requested her files. By 8am, he’d been back in his office reading them. So far as he could tell, she’d been involved in a fairly minor way at university with organising groups to go to protests, distributing leaflets and the like – worth investigating, certainly, and perhaps to send her to a camp for a few months if the courts were feeling vindictive and brave enough to jail an American – but there was also the final page. It had been added recently: four days earlier, in fact, and it recounted some testimony from another American student, a Rebecca Harris, that seemed to implicate McCormack in something far bigger.
He had to think carefully. This could be his big break. But he had to act quickly before anybody else got wind of this. Especially Secpol. What Secpol would do to her was unthinkable. He needed more information, but he needed to get it without putting in a request that would send ripples through the bureaucracy. Then his eye caught the initials at the bottom of that last report. RSP. Surely it couldn’t be Ravi Patel, could it? He’d played cricket with Ravi at cadet school. He picked up the phone.
“Amala?” he said. “Can you get me a line for Inspector Patel at Central?”
*
Beth was a little scared, but mainly she was bored. She paced as much as she could in the small cell. She was thirsty. They’d given her a bottle of water and some sort of dumplings that morning, but hours had passed since then. She’d had to relieve herself in the bucket, which now stank. What was going on? She could hear footsteps passing by her cell occasionally, but they never stopped by her door. She wished she could speak to somebody, anybody. Just let her explain. But nothing, just this endless silence, this waiting. Was this part of some process she wondered? Grinding her down?
*
“Sit down, Miss McCormack,” Gopal said. She looked weary. She pulled her cardigan tighter around herself and gave a defiant look to the two guards who’d escorted her to his office. Her feet were bare and she walked uncertainly over the concrete to the chair. She took a breath and sat down.
“Can I see a lawyer, please?” she asked. “I wish to contact my embassy.”
That was annoying. “Of course,” he said and gestured at the phone.
She half stood but then sat again. “I don’t know the number,” she said.
“Oh,” he smiled. He picked up the receiver and pressed a couple of buttons. “Hello?” he said to the ring tone. “Yes. Would you mind getting in touch with Miss McCormack’s embassy?” He looked up at her. “The US embassy?” he asked. She nodded. “The US embassy, please.” He paused, and looked up at her. “Any contact name?” She shrugged. “No, whoever seems relevant.”
He put the phone done. He’d played that well, he thought. “Now, then,” he said. “We can probably get this sorted before they arrive. Shouldn’t be long.”
He opened the file and tapped away at his computer keyboard. “I’m sorry,” he said, looking up at her. “Have we treated you well? You’ve had enough to eat and drink?”
She seemed surprised. “I’ve had no lunch,” she said. “And could I have some water, please?”
“Of course, of course.” Gopal smiled again. He found himself wanting to please her. That was the problem with beautiful women. He picked up the phone again and this time hit the correct two digits. ”Amala?” he said. “Yes, could you bring some water and some lunch for Miss McCormack?” A pause. “Samosas and chickpeas?... I’m sure that’s fine.” He looked up at her. She nodded. “Yes, that’s perfect. Thank you.”
“There’s just a couple of issues, Miss McCormack,” he said, consulting the file. His heart was thumping. It was ridiculous, but he didn’t dare look at her in case his desire overcame him. “What can you tell me about this human rights group you were part of?”
*
Beth was frustrated. She sat back against the wall of her cell. She was tired. She just wanted to leave. She didn’t understand what was going on. The inspector had been polite – nervous almost – asking her mundane questions about university. He ‘d barely pressed, just listened and made notes. He seemed nice enough. He’d given her food and drink. He’d got them to call the embassy. There was little sense of threat, and yet she was still in this cell. How long had he questioned her for? An hour? An hour and a half, maybe? What was that? Was that it?
*
Patel shook Gopal’s hand. “Good to see you,” he said. “Are you still playing? Still bowling those leggies that don’t turn?”
He’d come straight over when he’d got Gopal’s message. This was an extraordinary turn of events. Harris was awaiting flogging, but already there was another one. Beautiful, Gopal said. And Harris herself had spoken of McCormack’s figure, how McCoy had lusted after her. And now they had her here. Of course he wanted to assist in the interrogation. Not just because, well, because it would be fun, but because it was just possible there was a serious threat, that he could help bring down some ring of foreign subversives.
He’d explained to Gopal what had happened with Harris. Explained how he’d stripped her, put her in stress positions, beaten her, hung her from the ceiling, given her electric shocks, how he’d got the truth out of her. How she’d been sentenced to two years in a camp and 12 strokes of the cane. How she was a minor cog, an irritant. He explained about Indigo and Violet, how he suspected McCormack was a bigger fish.
Gopal seemed nervous. He asked what would happen to Harris next. “She’ll be flogged on Saturday,” he’d replied.
“Flogged?”
“Yes. Internal discipline, it’s known as. No official record.”
“This happens a lot?”
“It’s part of the emergency procedures. To keep discipline in the camps, really.”
“To girls?”
“Sometimes.”
“Westerners?”
“Yes.”
Patel was intrigued by the look on Gopal’s face. He was clearly fascinated but some scruple prevented him admitting as much. “So what do we do with McCormack?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” said Gopal. “Maybe we should just hand it over to Secpol.”
“I don’t think it would hurt for us to have a preliminary probe around,” he said. “Why should those bastards get all the fun?”
Gopal looked anxious. Patel smiled. ”I’m joking,” he said. “We’ll question her and if she is Violet, this would be a big feather in our caps. Just talking… if she co-operates.”
“Where?”
“What?”
“Where should we do this? My office is quite, err, public.”
*
Gopal stubbed out his cigarette and immediately lit another one. He was nervous. He sat behind the desk in the interrogation room, a cell he’d never even been in before, with Patel sitting on a chair to his left. A guard stood either side of the door and between him and the door was another seat, a sturdy hard-backed wooden chair that was bolted to the floor. There was a clip on the back to attach handcuffs to and straps on the front legs to fasten around a prisoner’s ankles. He couldn’t quite believe what Patel had told him. Of course, he’d read the memos but it had never really occurred to him what the emergency powers meant in practice. From what Patel had said, they could pretty much do what they liked to prisoners if there was reasonable suspicion they’d collaborated with separatist groups. And in this case there was clear suspicion.
The door opened and two guards brought McCormack in. She’d been blindfolded, her wrists cuffed behind her, and she struggled a little as they hustled her through the door. Gopal nodded at the chair and the guards manoeuvred her over, forcing her to sit. They clipped the chain to the back of the chair, forcing her shoulders back and her breasts out. He stared at the firm curve as they pressed at her shirt. His wife’s had never looked like that, never had that definition. She seemed furious. Should he had her ankles fastened? He didn’t know. He stared at her feet, bare below the jeans: it gave her a hint of vulnerability, but she still had a power. She intimidated him, but the beautiful women always had. He glanced at Patel, who nodded. He was glad he was there. He took another drag of his cigarette and began.
*
What were they doing? She’d been back in her cell perhaps two hours when they’d come for her again, this time forcing her to lie face down as they shackled her wrists. For what? Did they think she was dangerous? Had she not complied with everything they’d asked of her. And then they’d blindfolded her, a piece of black cloth doubled over and bound tightly round her eyes. For the first time then she’d felt a real pang of fear.
She sat on a hard chair, wrists fastened uncomfortably behind her, still blindfold. The same officer as before, she thought, questioned her, but she had the sense someone else was there. The same questions, over and over, about university, the people she knew, the demonstrations she’d been to. She shifted uncomfortably, wishing she knew what they wanted. Then abruptly, the blindfold was removed and she found herself blinking into two terrifyingly bright lights.
Another voice began. She peered into the light but it was hopeless. The lights burned into her retina. At first, it was the same again, variations on the theme of the demonstrations she’d attended.
And then, from nowhere, his voice unnervingly calm, “Tell me the colours of the rainbow.”
“What?”
“The colours of the rainbow, Miss McCormack.”
She felt the ground fall from beneath her feet. They knew. “Red, orange, yellow,” she said, her mouth feeling suddenly dry. “Green, blue… indigo… violet.”
She hoped she’d remained calm, bit she suspected she hadn’t. She suspected her voice had betrayed her.
“Do those colours mean anything to you?”
‘Like what?”
“Don’t try to be clever, Miss McCormack,” said the voice. “We know.”
Shit. Steve McCoy and his silly games. What should she do? Steve had gone. He was back home and safe. She could give them his name. They clearly knew something so there was no point hiding it.
*
Patel watched her sweat. If he’d been conducting the interrogation, she’d have been naked by now, but this was Gopal’s call and Gopal seemed worryingly timid. He hoped he could persuade him to be tough with her. She knew. Her hesitation told him everything. Whether she was Violet or not he had no idea, but she knew something about the network, that was clear.
“Look,” she said. “There’s no point lying. I had a friend, Steve McCoy, who was involved with some people. I don’t know much about them, but they had colour- coded names – like you say, the colours of the rainbow. Steve was Indigo. He wanted me to be more involved, and he gave me the name Violet. I think they just needed a seventh person. But I really wasn’t involved. I never asked for the name. I never wanted to be involved more than handing out leaflets and attending demonstrations. That was all. But Steve wanted more. I don’t know anything.”
Patel smiled to himself. “You were codename Violet?” he asked.
“Yes,” she said. “But it was nothing.”
“Just answer the question. You were codename Violet?”
“Yes.”
Patel nodded at one of the guards, who stepped forward and blindfolded her again. He heard her give a little whimper. Good, she was clearly afraid. He gestured to Gopal and the two of them left the room.
“We’ve got her,” he said when they were alone in the corridor. “Now we have to act quickly. You have to be prepared to use advanced techniques.”
“Torture her?” Gopal sounded in awe of the word.
“Frighten her, hurt her if she obstructs us. This is important stuff.”
“But what if she reports us? She’s American.”
“She’s going to the camps. What she’s told us already she’ll get at least a year.”
“What if… what if we don’t mark her? Then we can deny anything happened.” Really? Was that it? Patel suddenly saw what was happening. Gopal was genuinely scared, but actually wanted this to happen. He wanted to torture her but was terrified of being caught. Or did he just want to see her naked? Maybe that was it. Was he in some perverse way in love with her? She was an extremely striking girl.
“I’ll call the electrician,” Patel said. Kapoor would be only too happy to oblige.
They came back in. Beth was properly scared now. Of course her explanation wouldn’t satisfy them. She heard their chairs scrape back on the concrete floor. She smelled their cigarettes. The blindfold was removed and she was staring again into the brightness. The questions went on – mainly the new officer but occasionally the first one. Her beliefs, what she thought of the government, her understanding of the situation in the north, where she’d been and when. She’d been honest. She’d told them what she knew, which wasn’t a huge amount. She’d told them she thought the repression of demonstrations was wrong. Told them she disapproved of torture. That that was why she’d been involved with the human rights group. She told them she’d met a woman – she refused to give her name – who’d been raped and beaten by the police in the north, that she knew torture was commonplace. All the way through they’d been calm and patient. There’s been no attempt to frighten or intimidate her.
“Give me names,” said the new one. “Who was involved with the group at the university?”
She hesitated. Was she just giving up her friends to be interrogated? Did she have much choice? “Steve McCoy was the leader,” she said. “He was by far the most active. I’ve told you that.”
“You have. You can tell me later whether you fucked him. But for now I want other names.”
How did he know? Was that a lucky guess or did he know more? She hadn’t fucked him, but… but she wasn’t going to enjoy explaining that.
“He had a girlfriend,” she said. “Nina Connelly. She’s Australian. She went to meetings and demonstrations but I’m not sure she was that committed.”
He nodded. ”More?”
“Lars Nielsen. He did a lot for the human rights groups.” She gave him half a dozen names. The people she suspected he knew anyway. Most of them she thought had gone home. Maybe not Nina, but he’d find out about her with even the most cursory investigation.
“OK,” he said. “Let me give you some names.”
She swallowed. How much had they been watching them?
“Keith Gladwin?”
“He was in my philosophy class. I’m not sure he ever went to a meeting or a demo.”
“Peter Djurovski?”
“The same.”
“Michelle Carter?”
“I don’t think… I don’t think I know the name.” “Michael Robinson?”
“He went to some meetings but I didn’t know him. I’m not sure I ever spoke to him.”
“Rebecca Harris?”
Rebecca? She felt a new wave of panic. “I didn’t know her well, but she came to some meetings. She was quite shy. But she went missing a couple of weeks ago.”
“Yes, she did. I’ve been seeing quite a lot of her recently. She’s told me some very interesting things. Very interesting indeed.”
*
Gopal was fascinated to watch Patel at work. He saw how he led McCormack, hinting at how much he knew without ever revealing the full extent. And he enjoyed staring at her, squinting into the light, the outline of her bra just visible through her thin shirt. The collar was cut low, not low enough to reveal any cleavage, but enough to show a smooth triangle of chest. He wondered when they’d get to the point – if they’d get to the point – at which he’d get to see her breasts. What a thing, to have an American girl as fresh and beautiful as that and to humiliate her, to see breasts as firm and round and youthful as her seemed to be.
Patel’s mobile beeped. He looked at the message, nodded at Gopal and they left the room. They didn’t bother to blindfold her: she’d see them soon enough, he explained in the corridor. It was important when they got round to what he called “the real business” that she could see her tormentors and important that they could see her eyes, so they could judge how she was reacting. A plump, greying man wearing a white coat joined them, carrying a small box. Patel introduced him to Gopal: this was Kapoor, the electrician. They had a quick chat, made their plan.
*
A third man had joined then, Beth saw as the door opened again, this one wearing a white coat and carrying a box. This time they didn’t hide behind the lights. The new one leant against the wall, the other two perched on the front of the desk.
“Tell me about Steve McCoy,” said the one she hadn’t seen before. He was tall, his greying hair side-parted. She told him the story: how she’d had a crush on him and how he’d then become obsessed with her. He asked for more and more detail, seeming to relish her discomfort. “And you never fucked?”
“No,” she said.
“Did he touch you?”
“No.”
“Did you masturbate about him?”
“No,” she said. He smiled and lit up a cigarette.
“Do you have a boyfriend?”
“No.”
“Who was close to Steve McCoy?”
“I’ve told you,” she said, and listed the names again. He nodded.
“You see, Miss McCormack,” he said. “I think you’re playing a clever game, here. I know most of the people you’ve named have left the country. You’re trying to pretend you’re co-operating with half-truths and truths that aren’t useful.” He tapped some ash of the cigarette into an ash-tray and took another drag. “So,” he said. “Let’s try again. Who else was involved?” She looked him open-mouthed. She shook her head. “I’ve told you,” she said.
“Very well.”
*
Gopal stood up slowly. This was his moment, the moment he’d dreamed of since he’d first laid eyes on Beth McCormack. He stepped forward, determined to savour every moment. He stood in front of her, drinking in her scared, beautiful face, the dark hair pulled back in a pony-tail, the big brown eyes staring at him. He placed his right hand on her left cheek and felt her flinch as his fingers caressed the soft, firm warmth, falling to trace the line of her jaw. “Fasten her ankles, please,” he said to the guards behind her, stepping away. She squirmed, but there was no escape. The guards grabbed a leg each, pushing up her jeans to reveal the smooth skin of her lower shins, then buckled the straps. His heart was thumping. He could hear her breathing, see her breasts rising and falling. He stared at the point where the two sides of her shirt met, just above the line of her breasts. Open that button and he’d see the valley he dreamed of.
When her ankles were secured, he moved in again. He started at the bottom, his fingers just brushing the waistband of her jeans as he unbuttoned the lowest button of her shirt. She whimpered. “Please…” she whispered, twisting hopelessly to try to escape him. He let his fingers touch the silken flesh of her belly. He unfastened the second bottom button, carefully parting the shirt to reveal her tawny skin and her belly button. His hands trembled a little. He’d never seen a girl this beautiful naked before; his wife was the only woman he’d ever fucked and her breasts were like udders, saggy and huge even in her late teens.
He unfastened the third button, and the fourth so only one remained. He could see the underside of her bra – white, with a lace design. He paused and took another look at her face, now horrified, staring at him, her heart thumping so hard he could feel it. He took a breath and unfastened the top button, pushing the shirt back off her body, his hands lingering on her smooth chest and the warmth of her shoulders. He looked down at her breasts, their curves under the bra, the most alluring sight he’d ever seen. She turned away and he walked behind her. He ran his hands over her upper back, athletically firm, and he thought of using a whip on her. He pulled the shirt back so it rucked on her elbows and then, reaching forward tentatively, he unhooked her bra. She gave a slight sob and he walked back in front of her.
He looked at the inner curves of her breasts, the cups of her bra still covering the nipples. He admired the smooth shoulders and unblemished skin. He looked at her face, the jaw set, teeth clenched in fury. He pushed the shirt back as far as it would go, the guards behind helping pull it down so it hung about her wrists. He put his hand to her face, lifted her chin, gazed into to her deep brown eyes and then, his heart thumping, he took the straps of her bra. He pulled it down, over her nipples, the breasts springing up, full and ripe, so it was gathered across her belly, leaving her topless. He walked back to the desk, and sat on it, lighting up a cigarette, staring at the glory he’d revealed.
*
Beth was shaking. How could they do this to her? What had she done?
“Now,” said the side-parting,, “Steve McCoy?”
Her heart thumped. She felt sick. Her mouth was dry. “I didn’t know what he was involved in,” she said, her voice hoarse. “I didn’t.”
“Don’t lie to me,” he said, calmly. “You’re Agent Violet.”
She shook her head in horror. “I don’t know anything about that.”
“That’s not what Miss Harris said.”
“What did you do to her?” She was angry suddenly. Rebecca was nothing, a quiet pretty girl who … had she rented Steve’s room? “Did you expose her breasts when you questioned her?”
“Oh yes,” he said. “She was very talkative eventually.”
“You tortured her?” She almost spat out the question.
“I questioned her. She’s been convicted.”
“You tortured her! You monsters!”
“Now, Miss McCormack, that’s a very silly attitude to take. You will start to show some respect. You will address each of us as sir if you speak to us. If you are insolent, you will be punished.”
He looked at the man in the white coat and nodded.
Beth felt the tension rise inside her. He opened his box and took out a stethoscope. He placed two fingers to the side of her neck. She flinched. He pressed the stethoscope to her heart. It was cold to her skin and she gave a sharp intake of breath. The doctor, if that’s what he was, nodded. “Strong girl, aren’t you?” he said. “Play plenty of sport?”
“Yes, sir,” she croaked. He turned away and she heard him fiddling with his box. When he turned back, he held a crocodile clip in each hand, from the ends of which stretched black wires. Her eyes widened and she reared back in the chair. “Oh my God, no,” she shouted. “No, no, no, no, no…”
*
Patel was intrigued and a little puzzled. With Harris, he’d been pretty certain early on that she wasn’t a major player, that she’d been a little silly and knew almost nothing. He’d lost his temper when they’d found the leaflets – in retrospect the caning they’d given her hadn’t been justified – but she was a nobody. Not that that was a reason not to punish her. He wondered if they really would flog her: the new legislation permitted it, but to do it to an American girl would be astonishing and he wondered if they’d really go through with it. But McCormack: maybe she was telling the truth, but maybe she was a major player. He had to find out.
“Anything?” he said. She just stared at him. She swallowed, but already Kapoor was moving in. He touched the clips together a few inches from her face. She looked away as they fizzled, leaving a slight sell of burning. Her jaw wobbled but she said nothing and Kapoor reached down, touching them to the undersides of her breasts. Her jaw clenched and her body stiffened. She lifted a little from the chair, legs straining at the bonds. Kapoor held them there for a second, no more, and then removed them. She fell limp with a shout.
*
Gopal couldn’t take his eyes away from her. He smoked quickly, staring at the smoothness of her skin, the delicious curves of her breasts. He felt a sense of regret for all he’d missed out on in life and he felt a thrill at her fear. She seemed unable even to understand Patel’s questions, tried to back away in the chair as Kapoor approached again, tapping the clips together, taunting her with the sparks.
“Really, Miss McCormack? We have to do this again?” Patel seemed utterly calm, slowly, patiently asking her the questions. It had been five minutes since her last shock. She shrunk in the chair. “I don’t know…” she said. “Please… pleeeaase. No.”
Kapoor looked at Patel who nodded. He touched the leads to her nipples holding them steady as she bent back, muscles tight, straining at her bonds, thrusting her chest up, which only made it more alluring. Finally he lifted them and she fell forwards, shaking, her breath coming in pained gasps. Gopal felt Patel’s eyes on him. “Go on,” he mouthed and Gopal remembered it has his turn. He stood and walked over to her, determined not to seem to be hurrying. He seized a hank of her hair, a little surprised by how glossy to still felt, and pulled so she looked up at him.
“Think very carefully,” he said, trying to speak with menace. “You will go back to your cell now and think. And in the morning you will come back here and be co-operative or we will strip you naked, fasten you on this chair and pump electricity through you all day. You will talk. The only question is when.” He threw her head forward and motioned to the guards.
*
3) The Second Interrogation
Beth stood and stretched. She couldn’t sleep. She was sick with fear. What had she got involved in? She couldn’t bear more electricity, she knew that. The pain had been horrendous, the sense of her muscles tightening, acting beyond her control terrifying. What could she tell them? What did she know? What the fuck had Rebecca told them? What did she know? She had to think, but panic assailed her. Even the thought of them looking at her breasts was awful, but she could see no way out. A memory came of his hands pushing her shirt back and she shuddered.
What had they done to Rebecca? Had they tortured her? Torture! They were going to torture her. She had to think. Think of anything to tell them.
*
Gopal smoked hard. He was uneasy but excited. He didn’t know if what they were doing was right, whether they might get into trouble for it, but the thought of her tensing, arching her back as the electricity hit her was dominant. They needed to get something out of her that day: Patel would be away the following day. He sat behind the desk, Kapoor to his right, Patel to his left. The door opened and they brought the girl in, blindfolded, wrists shackled behind her.
At his order the soldiers unchained her and removed the blindfold. She looked tired and stood with her head bowed, holding her hands in front of her, slowly rubbing her wrists.
“Good morning, Agent Violet,” he said.
“I want to speak to my embassy,” she said.
“Tell me about Steve McCoy.”
“I have a right to speak to my embassy.”
“Tell me about Rebecca Harris.”
“I have a right to speak to my embassy.”
“Tell me about how you organised demonstrations.”
“I have a right to speak to my embassy.”
“Miss McCormack,” he said. “You were warned yesterday what would happen if you did not co-operate. Now, who was your contact with the rebels?”
“I have a right-“
Patel was on his feet and across to her in a fraction of a second. He put his face close to hers and shouted, “You have no rights. This is a state of emergency.” He slapped her round the back of the head, hard. She yelled and fell to her knees. ‘Get up!” he ordered, and slowly, uncertainly, she stood, blinking in confusion.
Patel backed away. Gopal lit another cigarette. “Tell me about Steve McCoy,” he said.
She bit her lower lip. “I don’t know,” she said. “I was attracted by him for a while. I wanted to impress him. I started going to meetings, just at the university. We handed out leaflets. We put up posters to tell people when the demonstrations were on. That’s all. I never spoke to anybody apart from him. That’s all.”
Gopal was intrigued. There were a lot of loose ends here. He wanted to see her naked but he had to be professional. “Who was at the meetings?” he asked.
“I don’t know… Steve. Rebecca. Michael Robinson.” She thought and gave a few more names, some of them familiar, some not. He’d need to check them with Patel.
“You said you were attracted to him? Past tense?”
She looked down. “Yes,” she said. “I realised he was too intense, that he used people for his cause. At first… at first I thought he was just passionate, but then… then I realised there was something cold about him. He used people. But by then he wanted to sleep with me.”
“And did you? Sleep together?”
“No.”
“Not even once?”
“No.”
“Did he force himself on you?”
“No.” She looked away.
“But he made advances?”
“Yes.” Her voice was unsteady. “He was persistent.”
“A sex pest? He harassed you?”
“No, nothing like that. He just… just kept giving me gifts, asking me out.”
She seemed embarrassed. “And your contact with the rebels?”
“I don’t know. Steve knew somebody. Not me.”
Gopal lit up another cigarette. “What was your role?”
“I arranged for leaflets to be printed. I sorted out distribution. I put up posers for demonstrations.”
“I see.” He looked at Patel, who gave the faintest of shakes of the head. “You wrote the leaflets?”
“Some of them, yes. I checked them for spelling and grammar.”
“And you arranged distribution?”
“Yes. I gave the boxes to people to hand out, made sure they were doing it properly, not throwing them away.”
“Names.”
“I’ve told you. Steve. Michael...” She listed some others.
“Rebecca Harris?”
“I… no… I don’t think she ever did. She wasn’t a regular, anyway.”
“Too scared?”
“Perhaps.”
“Not like you, bravely taking on the regime?”
She said nothing. For several seconds there was silence, then finally she broke it. “Can I speak to my embassy, please?”
Gopal ignored her. “And you arranged printing?”
“Yes.”
“Who?”
“Who?” she repeated, a flicker of irritation passing over her face.
“Who printed them?”
She hesitated. “I don’t… I don’t… some contact of Steve’s.”
Patel nodded. This was it.
Gopal cleared his throat. “Strip!” he said.
She looked at the ceiling, looked at him and sighed. Her tongue played over her lips and then, slowly, reluctantly she started to obey. Gopal leaned back and lit a cigarette, relishing the spectacle. She unbuttoned her jeans and slowly, awkwardly, slid them off. Her legs were impossibly long. He couldn’t believe how toned and smooth they were. He took a long drag on his cigarette.
*
Beth felt sick. She held her jeans uncertainly in front of her, feeling the air on her legs.
“Fold them,” said one of the officers.
She forced herself to breathe deeply and obeyed, then dropped them on the ground in front of her. Her hands went slowly to her shirt. There was to be no respite. She could feel the three of them staring at her, leching over her, enjoying her embarrassment. She unfastened the top button. Her fingers seemed numb. There was a silence over the room, the smoke from their cigarettes drifting in the lights. Slowly, inevitably, her shirt came undone. She shucked it off and roughly folded it too before dropping it at her feet so she stood in just her bra and panties. She felt hideously exposed.
She waited for a moment, but she knew there would be no reprieve. She reached round behind her. They’d seen her breasts yesterday: why was this so bad? She unclipped the bra and with a jerky, unnatural movement shuffled it off, adding it to the pile of clothes. Quickly, before she had time to think, she stepped out of the panties, and so she was naked. She raised her hands to cover herself but the other officer, the one who’d only arrived the day before, ordered her to drop them. She stood, hunched, arms limp by her sides, head bowed. She was burning with shame. What happened next?
One of the soldiers took her clothes away “to be searched” and she felt even more vulnerable.
“OK,” said the original officer. “We’ll go on.” He lit yet another cigarette. “Who printed the leaflets?”
“I don’t know.” It sounded like a squawk.
He went on, asking what boxes they’d arrived in, what time of day, where they’d stored them. Part of her knew she shouldn’t be telling him, but what else could she do? He asked her other questions, mundane questions about life at university. All the time she felt their eyes on her. She could barely lift her head, the sense of shame was so intense.
“And your meetings with the other members of the Rainbow Group?”
Fuck. She really knew nothing about that. She looked up and saw the three of them leering at her. “I don’t know anything about that,” she said, wearily.
The other officer stood up and walked towards her. He moved behind her and she knew something was about to happen. He hit her, suddenly, hard with his open hand, striking the top of her ear and the side of her head. She fell with a shriek, sprawling on the concrete floor. She gasped, struggling for breath. “Get up!” he yelled, and prodded her lower back with his foot. She felt dazed, but slowly struggled to her feet. She heard him walk away, but didn’t dare raise her head. “Turn around,” he said. She obeyed, suddenly aware of the four soldiers lined up against the back wall who were now staring at her breasts. ‘Bend over!’
What? What was this? Were they going to beat her?
She leaned forward, her right arm automatically reaching to protect her breasts. “Legs straight,” he said. “Touch your toes.”
She pushed back to straighten her legs, feeling a slight tension in her hamstrings. She was glad she was fit, supple, but the position was degrading. She realised now they could see her most private parts.
“When were you given the name Violet?” the other one asked.
*
Gopal couldn’t quite believe how long her legs were, how taut that ass. He stared at her cunt as he continued the interrogation, trying to imagine the shame of being stripped and forced to display yourself like that. Patel was obviously experienced in this sort of thing and a part of him envied him. Her answers had become quiet, barely more than whispers. She continued to maintain she knew nothing. He wondered how long he should go on. He peered at the side of her breast, hanging from her chest and pressed against her thigh. What a remarkable body she had.
She began to tremble. “Legs straight,” Patel snapped. She pushed her knees back, but her shaking was clear. “OK,” said Patel. “Stand up.”
She obeyed and turned, uncertainly, to face them.
“Hands by your sides, head up, back straight.”
Gopal could see the effort of will it took but she stood to attention, which only thrust her tits out. He saw the flatness of her stomach, the faint trace of her stomach muscles, the neat little strip of pubic hair. He cleared his throat. “I think the time has come for us to jog your memory,” he said. She bit her lower lip.
Kapoor stood up, the scrape of his chair making her flinch. He walked to the back of the room and returned with a bucket of water, which he set down by the interrogation chair. Calmly, meticulously, he opened his box and withdrew a towel, dropping it into the bucket, pushing it down so it was soaked. When he was satisfied, he withdrew it, folded it and placed it on the seat. Gopal saw the girl watching in grim fascination. Kapoor beckoned to her. “Sit down,” he said.
She looked uncertain, her lower lip clearly wobbling, but slowly she took the few paces required and sat on the wet towel. Her tongue flicked over her lips and she shuffled uncomfortably. Guards took her arms and pulled them behind her, cuffing her wrists and then clipping the chain to a hook on the back of the chair. She was forced to sit more upright, pulling her shoulders back, pushing her breasts out. She whimpered as the soldiers fell to work on her ankles, fastening them to the legs of the chair. Gopal stood and moved round to perch on the edge of the desk. He looked down at her, drinking in her nakedness. He lit up another cigarette as Kapoor took up the bucket and emptied it over her. She shrieked and sat shivering, mouth open as though in shock. Patel joined him on the desk.
Kapoor seemed in his own world, methodically preparing for the torture, but Gopal could feel his heart beating faster and faster. He gazed between her thighs, at the strip of hair and the lips below, rising out of the wet towel. Kapoor approached her and held a stethoscope to her chest. She shuddered at its cold touch. “Lovely and strong,” he said, running his fingers along her collar- bone. He took a glass jar from the pocket of his white coat and unscrewed the lid. “I think this might be a long one,” he said, “so I’ll put some of this on, just in case.” He scooped some ointment out with two fingers of his right hand then bent close to her, taking her left breast in his left hand. How Gopal envied him at that moment. She pulled back, staring in horror as he smeared a little ointment on her nipple. “It aids conductively a little,” he said with a smile. He moved to her other breast and repeated the process. “Should stop your skin burning.” He patted her cheek as he stepped away, wiping his fingers on a cloth.
*
Beth blinked, trying to see through her tears. She was terrified. She could barely breathe. She looked at the two of them, one tall and austerely handsome, the other balding with his thick glasses, both staring at her nakedness. She’d never felt so exposed, so vulnerable. They could see everything. She shuddered. The balding doctor approached, holding the crocodile clips. She felt a wave of nausea. Not again. “Please…” she said softly, her voice no more than a croak.
. He touched them together and the crackle of electricity made her flinch. “Remember this?” he asked and despite herself she watched as the sparks flicked between the electrodes. She caught a whiff of fire through the cigarette smoke. She swallowed. She couldn’t take this again. What could she say to them to make them stop? She looked at the two sat smoking on the desk and she had a dreadful sense that nothing she could say would make them stop, that they just wanted to torture her. “What do you want to know?” she asked, realising how desperate she sounded. “I want to help.” “The truth,” said the good-looking one. “The whole truth.”
The doctor pushed the electrodes together once more, making that awful crackle, the returned to his box. “Miss McCormack,” he said softly, “let me talk you through this.” Reluctantly she turned to him as he crouched on the ground. “There is a dial, here, that let’s me adjust the amperage of the current. High amps means high pain, but it won’t kill you. Volts are what kill you and we’ll keep the voltage the same. We’ll start low. Yesterday you were on the minimum setting. It can get much worse.”
Worse? How could that be possible?
“Now,” he went on, holding up a black plastic tube, that at first she thought might be a small torch until she saw the wires leading from it, “I’ve added this switch so instead of pressing the electrodes against you, we can clip them on and whenever I press this button, you get a shock. Much neater.”
He took up the clips again and stepped forwards. She shouted, “Don’t!” but she knew he was going to fasten them onto her nipples.
*
Kapoor didn’t often get to torture women. He enjoyed it: it was more fun to be fiddling about with tits or a cunt than a cock or a ballsack. And he very rarely got to torture white women and turn the usual order on its head. How he hated the tourists and the businessmen who filled the best restaurants in town with their snootiness, always looking down on his country, his people. The one he’d tortured a couple of weeks ago had been good, a slim little thing, but it had been over too soon, the girl already broken by the time he got to work on her. This one was different, though, bigger tits, firmer muscles, less obviously terrified. And she hadn’t been beaten or hung from the ceiling. This one might last a while.
He placed his left hand under her right breast and lifted, admiring the firm curve of its underside. He teased the nipple with finger and thumb and then raised his right hand, holding the clip a few inches in front of her eyes. He opened it and let it shut with a snap. He saw how she stared at the serrated edges, the teeth that would bite into her flesh.
“Who is Agent Red?” Patel asked.
She shook her head, teeth gnawing at her lower lip. “I don’t know,” she whispered.
Patel nodded and Kapoor carefully squeezed the nipple with forefinger and thumb before attaching the clip, making sure as many of the teeth bit as possible – it had to remain attached. She gasped with the pain, pulling away, but the electrode held firm and he moved across to her other nipple. When he backed away, she was breathing through clenched teeth, as though determined not to cry out.
Kapoor took a roll of tape from his box and returned to her. He took up the wires that ran from the clips to meet perhaps eight inches below and gently jerked. She gasped in pain, her breasts distending slightly, but the teeth held. Good. He tore off a piece of tape with his teeth and fastened the wire to her belly. It was important she couldn’t jerk so violently she ripped her nipples off. He added another piece of tape so they formed a cross just above her belly button, allowing his fingers to linger on her soft skin, noting the firmness of the muscle beneath. He backed away and took up the switch.
*
Patel stood up and walked behind her. He placed his hands on her wet shoulders, staring down at her nakedness, at the clips biting into the nipples. “Don’t do this to yourself,” he said. He could feel her fear, the tension, the shallow breathing. “Tell us the truth and you can go.”
“I have told you the truth,” she whispered. “I don’t know any more.”
He slammed his hands against her ears: the telephone. She coughed and as he returned to the desk her saw her eyes open wide in shock and disorientation. As she blinked and gasped for breath, He nodded at Gopal, who looked strangely nervous. What was wrong with him?
Gopal lit up another cigarette and took a drag. “Give us names,” he said. “Any of them. Red, yellow, green, whatever.”
She shook her head pitiably. “I told you,” she said. “ I don’t know.”
Gopal looked at Kapoor, who pressed the button. The girl gave a stifled grunt and stiffened as the electricity hit her, her shoulders arching back, teeth clenched firmly together. Kapoor held her for only a second and then released the pressure on the button. She slumped and gave an agonised pant.
They’d talked about this, the best way to time the shocks, Patel telling him to start slow, build up the horror, then wait. Gopal slowly smoked. There was silence. She straightened herself and he enjoyed the quiver of her tits. “Please,” she said. “Please, I…”
“Shut up,” said Gopal, sternly. He was learning. “Names?” Gopal went on.
“I don’t kn-“
The nod came and it was followed immediately by the shock. Two seconds this time. When it was over she seemed on the verge of tears, gasping for breath. She sat with her head bowed, whimpering.
Patel got to his feet and grabbed her ponytail, yanking her head up. “Look at an officer when he’s speaking to you,” he hissed. She stared at him, imploringly. “Please, sir, please… I don’t know anything. Please…”
Gopal stood up as well so they both loomed over her, staring down at her trembling nakedness. “How many demonstrations did you attend?”
She looked blank for a second and shook her head. “A dozen? Fifteen?”
“Did you chant?”
“Yes.”
“Did you ever refuse to move when police instructed you to do so?”
She sighed. “Yes.”
“So you obstructed police?”
She said nothing, just stared at the ground. He clipped her round the back of the head. “Did you obstruct police?” Gopal said.
“Yes,” she croaked.
“Good,” Gopal said. “Now we’re getting somewhere.” He exhaled a lungful of smoke. “Did you ever shout abuse or offensive slogans?”
She closed her eyes and turned her head away. “Did you?” Gopal asked.
Silence.
“Look at me,” he said sternly and slowly she obeyed. “Did you?”
“Yes,” she said.
Patel shook his head sadly. “You are a very foolish woman,” he said. “You’re looking at a long time in jail.”
There was a pause. “Unless you co-operate,” Gopal said. He lifted her chin. “Tell me the names.”
*
She didn’t know any names. Why wouldn’t they believe her? She looked up at the one with glasses. He’d seemed so gentle before, but now he shook his head in irritation and stepped back. “Please…!” she shouted, but she knew it was no good. She saw the one in the white coat press down with his thumb and the pain hit her, raging through very part of her body. She tensed, teeth clenched, eyes wide, back arching as the electricity took over. How long was it going on for? The pain was terrible, the sense that she no longer had control just as bad. On and on it went and then finally he lifted his thumb. She slumped. She panted. She felt cold, the pain lingering. She was aware she was sweating. Her breath came in shallow gasps. She felt weak, her head lowered.
“That was two seconds on the second-lowest setting,” the one with glasses said. “We can make this much worse for you.”
She could barely take in the words. Her mouth was dry. “Are you going to co- operate?” he asked.
“I don’t know anyth-“
The electricity surged through her again. She felt her body lifting, felt the fire in every synapse, felt the tightening of every muscle as though her body would snap. When they stopped it, she dropped back heavily onto the chair. He head fell forwards. She was soaked in sweat, gasping for breath. A hand grabbed her ponytail and jerked her up, shook her painfully. “You are running out of chances,” said the handsome one. “We can do you a deal. We can get you out of here. Mess us around and you’re going to the camps.”
Beth needed to think. What could she tell them? What did she know? But the one in the coat was turning the dial up. His words didn’t fully register, but he said something about the next level.
“Let’s go through people you know,” said the original one. “Rebecca Harris?” *
They were getting somewhere. Patel didn’t trust the girl. He felt there was more there even if she wasn’t an active agent, but she was starting to crack, confirming a lot of what they already knew about activity at the university. He’d seen the dilemma in her: she didn’t want to betray her friends or people she regarded as doing the right thing, but she was terrified. Harris had been scared and pathetic from the start; this one was tougher. She still hadn’t even given them the name of the printers. She talked about Harris, though, accused her of having a leading role, of being a provocateur. Maybe she was more important than he’d thought, but he suspected McCormack was lying, giving them material on Harris because she knew she was already going to a camp. Well, if the Secpol decided to work her over some more, so be it. It wasn’t his problem.
He looked at Kapoor and Kapoor nodded before unclipping the electrodes from her nipples. “Unfasten her,” Patel ordered and soldiers hastened forward to unbuckle the straps that held her ankles and unfasten the cuffs from the chair.
“Stand up,” he said, and she obeyed, a look of hope evident on her face. That would soon disappear. The soldiers shoved her down to her knees, took up two buckets of water and tipped them over her. She shouted in shock and dismay as the water drenched her, realising what this meant. They carefully soaked the towel and replaced it on the chair. As the guards dragged her back to the chair, she struggled desperately. “Please!” she shrieked. “Please don’t do this.” But they were far too strong and soon, as she wailed in fear, Kapoor was smearing the gel on her nipples again and attaching the electrodes. “No! No! No!”
“Turn up the power,” Patel ordered.
*
Beth knelt on the hard concrete. She was blindfold and had her hands clasped behind her head. Her knees hurt but she was upright. She hadn’t dared move since they’d ordered her into position. She felt weak, disoriented. She didn’t know how many shocks they’d given her but they’d twice unfastened her to soak her again and reapply the electrodes. She couldn’t take any more. She knew medically that they could probably keep shocking her for days before there was serious damage done, but the pain… the pain was awful, a blinding agony that burned along every nerve, that racked her body with cramps. She had to come up with a story they’d believe.
“Kneel straight, whore,” sapped a voice close behind her. As she’d thought, there were still guards in the room. She obeyed, feeling the discomfort in her knees and hamstrings. She tried to think, but a hand lifted her chin.
“So the table are turned,” said the voice. “You’re not so powerful now.”
What did he mean? What tables?
“Maybe your great American government will come to save you.”
“World police,” said another voice.
They laughed. Two of them.
“Payback for your exploitation.” This was so unfair. She’d come here to study tropical medicine. She was here to help.
“How have you found our country, between the airport and your nice hotel? Have the taxis been OK for you?”
She bit the inside of her lower lip. “Too important to speak to us, eh?” He cuffed her behind her left ear. They laughed again.
“I can’t wait till they’re finished with you,” the other said. “Because when they finish, we get you. A night in the mess room.”
“Do you like sex?”
*
Gopal opened the door. What a sight it was. She knelt, pale in the gloom, her skin pure and smooth, the half-light emphasising the curve of her buttocks, the pert roundness of her right breast where it protruded beneath her armpit. He walked over to her, Kapoor and Patel close behind him. He could sense her fear. He stood close. “Tell me the truth, Agent Violet,” he said, his mouth a couple of inches from her ear.
Her head rocked back. “I’m telling the truth,” she said, her voice despairing.
He brushed his fingers through her hair, still damp from the soaking, until his fingers caught on the blindfold. He pulled and she grunted as the cloth tightened over her eyes. “Don’t be silly,” he said.
They took their positions behind the desk and turned the lights on. They had the blindfold removed and ordered her to stand. She did so awkwardly, legs clearly stiff. She stood with shoulders hunched, a picture of humiliation and fear. A guard put down two buckets of water on the ground next to her.
“Please,” she said, “I don’t know what you want. I don’t know anything.”
He began again. The same questions, the same probing. She gave the same answers, voice dry. More about Steve McCoy. More about the workings of the university. More about the minimal contact with rebel groups. For about an hour he pounded her, looking for discrepancies. Finally he looked at Patel, who shrugged.
“Miss McCormack,” Patel said. “Do you know a Roberta Stafford? Bobby Stafford?”
She looked surprised and shook her head. ‘I don’t think so,” she said.
Gopal was a little taken aback himself, but gave the order to soak the towel. He probably shouldn’t have had the Red Bull. He felt jittery. She immediately began to beg. Why was Patel concerned about Roberta Stafford? They’d got a memo through at lunch to seek any evidence against Stafford, an English girl who’d been teaching in the north, but he didn’t see what that had to do with McCormack. She sobbed, pulling back as the soldiers dragged her to the chair. “I can’t…,” she wailed. ‘I can’t…”
*
Patel stood over her, looking at how the droplets of water beaded on her breasts. She was wailing in terror, the electrodes attached to her nipples.
“Shut up,” he said, blowing cigarette smoke into her face. “Roberta Stafford. Bobby Stafford. Tell me about her. Was she your leader?”
McCormack shook her head. “I’ve never heard of her,” she said.
Gopal puffed away, looking confused. Patel understood the code but he realised Gopal didn’t. The bulletin meant they had somebody called Roberta Stafford they knew was guilty but needed something to incriminate her. Get the evidence, put her away then let the Secpol sort out the truth in the camps.
“Why do you continue to obstruct us?” he asked. “Why?” He turned to Kapoor and nodded. She shouted but it was too late. Her words were cut off as she jerked stiff with electricity flowing through her.
Patel signalled for Gopal to carry on and he did, in that painstaking way he’d always had. He’d drive her mad with the persistence of his questions. He made her list every demonstration she’d been at, list every person she’d seen there. Then every person she mentioned, he asked her about: who were they, who were their friends, what did they believe, what had they done? Information was flowing out of her. He was fairly sure she was hiding nothing. She looked exhausted, sitting with her head lowered, her voice a croak. Gopal, he realised, was good at this: patience had always been his skill. He wrote a note on a slip of paper and pushed it over. Gopal glanced at it and nodded.
“Who printed the leaflets?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” she said. “Somebody Steve knew. It was in the east part of the city. I never went there. I never dealt with that.”
Patel believed her. Gopal went on: how were they delivered? Who distributed them? Patel stood and walked behind her. He ran his fingers through her hair, pulling it back from her face. He placed his hands on her shoulders and began softly to knead the muscles. Gopal went on with his mundane questions. She was tense, but her skin felt glorious, so smooth, so soft, so firm. Patel clapped his hands suddenly either side of her head. She shouted with pain and rocked forwards as far as her bonds would allow. He cupped his hands under her breasts and pulled her upright, careful not to disturb the electrodes.
“Roberta Stafford,” he said. “Was she one of the colours? Was she red or yellow or orange?”
“I don’t know…”
“Think very carefully,” he said and glanced meaningfully at Kapoor.
“Please…”
“Turn up the power,” Patel said and Kapoor turned the dial up to around 40%.
“Five seconds, Miss McCormack? Can you take that?
“Pleeeeassse…” she was begging him.
He ran his hand down her jaw, lifted her head by her chin. He could see the terror in her eyes. “You are being very silly,” he said. “Why not just co- operate? Tell us about your guilt. Tell us everything you’ve done wrong. Tell us about the other criminals. That’s all we want.”
“I don’t know anything,” she blurted and he shrugged, stepping back. He heard the hum of the generator, a guttural groan and then the rattle of chains as she bucked on the chair. He watched her body tense, her head tipping back, her breasts lifted up towards the ceiling, her groin raised from the towel. Finally Kapoor cut the current and she dropped, shivering, gasping for breath, eyes wide. Small tremors continued to flow through her muscles. She coughed and retched, gulping in air.
“Ten seconds?”
“No,” she could hardly speak, her heart visibly thumping, her skin wet with sweat.
“Then co-operate. Did you commit acts of subversion?”
She looked at him, her lower lip wobbling. “Yes,” she whispered.
“What?” he slapped her, suddenly, across her face and her head fell to her right. It was a tap more than anything else. He didn’t want to mark her. “I can’t hear you. Speak up.”
“I committed acts of subversion,” she said.
“Again.”
“I committed acts of subversion.”
“Good,” Patel said. “We’re getting there.”
“Did Roberta Stafford also commit acts of subversion?”
A look of panic crossed her face.
“I don’t know,” she said despairingly.
He slapped her left handed this time, a hard crack that caught her right ear. She yelped.
“Think very carefully,” he said. “Did Roberta Stafford also commit acts of subversion?”
“Maybe,” she said. “It’s possible.”
Patel sighed and looked meaningfully at Kapoor. “I never heard the name but maybe she was Agent Yellow.”
“Maybe?”
“Maybe. I don’t know. I thought all the colours were very silly. I didn’t really pay attention.”
“What if I told you Agent Yellow is a 40-year-old man sitting in a cell on the other side of the city?”
She burst into tears. “You disgust me,” said Patel. He looked at Kapoor. “Turn it down to 30 and give her ten seconds.”
“No!” she shouted. “Please… please…”
“You lied to me,” said Patel. She was desperate now, ready to say anything.
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I don’t know. Maybe she was one of the colours. I had no idea how serious it was. I’m sorry. I paid no attention.” “Let’s talk about your crimes, then,” he said.
*
Beth looked up at the three men staring at down at her and suddenly felt another wave of shame at her nakedness. How long had she been talking? She had no idea. Several minutes. Quarter of an hour maybe. Her mouth was dry. They were all smoking, all looking at her with evident relish. She swallowed and looked down at the floor. What else did she have? She’d told them about every demonstration, every meeting she’d been to, every leaflet she’d proof-read and distributed. Everything.
“Is that it?” asked the tall one, his tone one of impatience.
She looked at him in horror. What else did he want?
“Unfasten her,” he said, and in an instant the doctor was unclipping the electrodes and the soldiers were unfastening her wrists and her ankles. Was that it? She felt a glimmer of hope, but they simply threw her down and tipped another two buckets of water over her. She sobbed and watched as they dipped the towel in another bucket before folding it and placing it back on the chair.
“Nooooo….!” She wailed as they pulled her to her feet and shoved her down on the cold wet towel. The clip went on the handcuffs and they fastened her ankles again. The doctor stepped forwards with the electrodes, but the tall one stopped him.
He swept her wet hair back from her face. “Anything else?” he said.
“What do you want?” she shouted. “What?”
He shook his head sadly and the doctor stepped forwards. Slowly, he unscrewed his jar and began applying the ointment to her nipples. Beth began to talk. The doctor stepped back. She’d told them everything about the group at the university, everything. Names, roles, opinions, where they met, everything. Terror made her eloquent.
“Nina Connelly?”
God, poor Nina. But she told him. What else could she do? They knew about Steve so Nina was in trouble whatever. She talked about how Nina went along wherever Steve did, how she didn’t think she was really that motivated. “Tell me about Roberta Stafford,” he said when her well had at last run dry.
“I never heard the name,” she said and immediately the doctor was upon her and the electrodes were fastened to her nipples.
“Please,” she begged. “Pleasssse…”
The tall one bent over her, put his face close to hers. “Ten seconds on 30 per cent,” he said. “Or shall we get your confession signed?”
“Yes!” she shouted. “I’ll sign.”
*
Gopal felt, well, what? A sense of relief that she’d agreed to sign, but also a sense of disappointment. He wanted to see her take the shock, wanted to see her twitching and screaming. She’d been unfastened from the chair and left blindfolded and kneeling, while the three of them waited for a clerk to type up their notes into a confession. They drank tea and smoked.
“Do you want to come and watch them flog Harris tomorrow?”
“Is that allowed?”Gopal was surprised. The emergency regulations were a mystery to him.
“Why not? She’s a pretty little thing: twelve strokes.”
“She’ll be naked?”
Patel laughed. “Of course. Lovely tight little body.”
Gopal’s mind drifted. Should he see if they could get McCormack flogged? Did he want to see that? “Yes, I’ll come,” he said.
*
4) Confession and Beyond
Patel sat back and looked at the girl. She was standing on the chair, still naked, the angle making those long lean legs seem even longer and leaner than before, her confession in her shaking hand.
“Read it out,” Gopal ordered. Patel hadn’t realised he had such a cruel streak in him, but this was a masterstroke. Uncertainly, she began to read.
“Speak up!” Gopal ordered.
“I, Elizabeth Victoria McCormack, freely confess that I have conspired against the legitimate government of this state,” she began, her voice unsteady. “I have assaulted police officers. I have destroyed property. I have produced and distributed seditious literature. I feel sorrow and shame for my actions and accept I deserve serious punishment.” Her voice wavered again. Patel decided he would do this next time he got a pretty girl to confess. He stared beyond the papers she held uncertainly at the toned stomach and the swelling breasts. What a figure she had. He wondered if Gopal would get round to fucking her. He shouldn’t have fucked Harris, he knew, and part of him regretted that he had, but there was something about her compact prettiness he’d found irresistible. This one was much taller, had a better figure in some ways, bigger breasts certainly, and was certainly beautiful with her flowing hair and perfect teeth, but he knew he wouldn’t fuck her. Still, those breasts… he gazed at them, wavering slightly as she read, the nipples red and sore now.
She went on, listing her crimes, the demonstrations she’d attended, the leaflets she’d printed and handed out. On and one it went. She’d get 18 months minimum, he thought, maybe more. And then she began accusing others. She broke down in tears until a sharp word from Gopal got her going again. She condemned Harris and others from the university, and then finally this Roberta Stafford, whoever she was. By the end, she was sobbing almost uncontrollably. When she’d finished, Gopal made her wait, standing naked, uncertain, on the chair, flashed with humiliation. Finally, he allowed her down.
*
Sleep wouldn’t come. Beth lay on the thin mattress, dressed again in her own clothes. Her nipples felt raw, but her whole body ached and she had a headache and her mouth was dry. She feared they hadn’t finished, that one session wouldn’t be enough for them, but she had nothing else to say. Nothing. They’d already made her betray everybody. Could she have held out longer? Should she? Part of her felt she could have done, but then she remembered the horror of the electricity, the pain, the sense of being fried from the inside out. She couldn’t. Nobody could blame her.
She turned over, unable to find a comfortable position. She thought of standing there naked on the chair, reading out the confession, then being made to bend over the desk demeaningly to sign it – they relished her humiliation, that was what made it so hard to bear. Surely they’d know that was a farce. Surely people would realise she hadn’t really meant that?
What would they do to her? She’d confessed to conspiracy, to the production and distribution of seditious literature, to attending and organising illegal demonstrations and, surely only to degrade her, to gross indecency and immorality. Might she get away with a fine and deportation? She doubted it.
And what of those she’d betrayed. Betrayed? Was that too strong a word? Steve was OK so long as he didn’t return. Roberta Stafford, whoever she was, was in big trouble. Who else? Rebecca Harris they already had. Michael Robinson they already knew about. Raj Patel – but they must know about him. Sartish. Mayur. Kundan. She couldn’t remember implicating anybody else. And they had to know about them already. What would Rebecca have told them? Rebecca. Poor girl. What had they done to her?
*
Ostensibly, Gopal had gone to visit Patel to pick up a file so he could check through photographs of demonstrations to see if he could find McCormack in them and then challenge her about those around her – a final stage in wrapping up her case before sending her to trial. But in reality, he’d gone to watch the flogging. It had been remarkable: Harris, so slight and pretty, led naked before a crowd and brutally thrashed. She had been so helpless in her chains, there’d been such a contrast between her delicacy and the frame and the huge men beating her. He wondered if he could get McCormack caned. Humiliate her properly in front of a crowd and stripe that magnificent arse.
He found McCormack in only three of the photos. He had her brought in. It was three in the afternoon: she’d had plenty of time to rest, but she looked tired, dishevelled when the blindfold was removed. He had them uncuff her and she sat, resentfully, on the wooden chair where they’d given her the electric shocks. He sat for a moment and looked at her. Should he strip her immediately? No, better to wait, to give her something to fear.
“How did you sleep?” he asked.
She stared resentfully at him. “Fine, thank you,” she said.
“Good.” He smiled. “There’s just a couple of points we need to check with you.”
He handed her the first photograph. It showed a demonstration with seven protestors walking holding a banner beside a blonde-haired photographer. On the far left of the seven was McCormack, and he guessed the others were all students as well.
“You agree that’s you? On the left?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Good. And who else do you recognise?”
She went along the line. “That’s Steve,” she said. Next to him was Nina. Should she give her up? They must know. “That’s Nina. That’s Raj. Michael. Sartish. That’s a young guy – I think he does chemistry, or physics, I don’t know. And that’s a photographer, an Australian. Megan somebody. Donnelly? Donohue? Something like that.”
“No Roberta Stafford?”
“No.” She was worried that lie would be found out, and worried too about Nina.
He handed her another photograph. It showed a mass of people passing under a bridge. There was Steve again. And Sartish. Lars Svensson. Keith Gladwin. Was that Rebecca? It was hard to tell. She went slowly through the names for him, but she’d seen something else. On the bridge, half-turned from the camera, a hooded sweatshirt up so she wasn’t quite sure it was her, was Emma Swann. What was she doing there? But she didn’t name her.
A third photograph, badly blurred. Another shot of a demonstration. She was clearly discernible despite the lack of focus, arm raised, clearly chanting something. She pointed out Steve and Keith, but there was nobody else there she knew. The interrogator smoked, waiting, making the silence asked the question. Where was his friend?
He ground the butt into an ashtray then returned behind his desk. He drew out a copy of her confession. “OK,” he said. “Let’s go through this one last time.”
But she was thinking about Emma Swann.
*
Gopal made sure he was painstaking. He wanted to annoy her. He checked every detail. With every name mentioned brought half a dozen follow up questions. Nina Connelly, he realised, was an area they’d only begun to explore.
“She was McCoy’s girlfriend?”
“Yes.”
“They were serious?”
“I suppose so.”
“You were jealous?”
“Not jealous, no, but it was awkward at times because he was pursuing me even though he was with her.”
“You didn’t fancy a threesome?”
“No.”
Gopal thought of her long limbs writhing in sexual ecstasy. He wanted them around him. He wanted her.
“She manipulated him?”
“No. She was just… she hung around. She did it for him.”
“Whereas you were committed?”
“I think this is wrong. I think torture is wrong. I believe in human rights.”
Gopal laughed. “Strip naked,” he said.
She looked at him wearily, then stood up and began to undress. He sat back and watched with great satisfaction. This was his right; he was allowed to do this to her. She peeled off her jeans, exposing those long slender legs. She unfastened her shirt and took it off and he saw the toned belly, her underclothes pale against her olive skin. She paused for a moment then removed her bra, then slid down her panties. She stood naked before him, one hand over her pudenda, the other crossed over her breasts.
He stared at her, relishing her shame. He should put her in a stress position, he realised. He tried to think back to his training. “Bend your knees,” he said, seeing the look of concentration on her face as she reluctantly obeyed until her legs were bent at about 60 degrees. “Hold your arms straight out in front of you.” Her breasts became visible again. “Back straight.”
He walked slowly around her. There was part of him still uncertain; he wished Patel were still here, but he knew he had to make clear he was in charge. He gazed at her lovely body, at the flat smoothness of her back, the pale swell of her breasts, the slender muscularity of her legs. He needed something to strike her with. He needed a cane. His belt, perhaps? But even as he began to look down, he knew how amateurish that would look, and knew also his belt was old and worn, that it would be too soft to use as a whip. What was there in the building? Could he order a belt from one of the shops in the airport terminal? That felt absurd. A cane or a stick; there must be something somewhere. Or a piece of rope? Maybe a length of hosepipe? He kept walking. He hoped he was making her nervous.
“Don’t move,” he said to her. He looked at the two guards. “If she so much as flinches,” he said, “let me know and we’ll give her the mother of all beatings.”
He walked quickly down the corridor. He must have something. Something flexible but with enough weight to hurt. What the hell could he use? There was a store- room opposite his office. There must be something in there. He was going to flog her. The thought excited him. Who cared about leaving marks? He thought of Harris, bound and screaming, and he thought of Beth and what he would do to her.
He reached the store-room and fumbled with his keys. He unlocked it and flicked on the light although it was so dim it barely made a difference. He couldn’t believe how much rubbish there was. All he needed was a length of something, anything he could smack down on that smooth back and those high taut buttocks. Harris’s little legs kicking against the straps, the brutality of using such canes in a girl so small. He sifted frantically through the shelves. Helmets, shields, cartridges, staples, paper, boxes of rubber bands. Then he checked himself. This was absurd. He took a breath and then he saw a length of electrical wire. That would work, he thought. He reached for it, pulled it and realised it was attached to something behind a box of those tags you used to fasten papers that had been hole-punched. As he freed it, he realised what it was: a cattle prod.
Immediately, his plan changed. Beating her would leave marks and that still unnerved him. But with this, he could control her, hurt her. He weighed it in his hand. It was black, perhaps 18 inches long, coated in rubber. There was a button on the handle and, at the tip, two copper prongs. There was no dial, no way of upping the dose, but he wasn’t sure how important that was. In fact, given how little he knew about electricity, it was probably a bonus.
By the time he returned, she was shaking with the strain. He walked round her, enjoying her discomfort. “If you move, this gets much worse,” he said. He relished how menacing he sounded. As he walked around her for a third time, he kicked the back of her knee. She fell and lay, for a moment, dully on her back, legs still slightly bent. “Oh dear,” he said, then directed the guards to fasten her to the chair. *
What was this? What did she have left to tell him? She watched as he plugged in the cattle-prod. She pursed her lips and stared straight ahead as he approached her. He stood behind her. She could hear his heavy breathing. He touched the two metal tips against her left hand. She tensed instinctively. He moved the prod slowly over her arm, to her elbow and then up over her bicep to her shoulder. He traced it along the top of her back and then, as he reached her neck, he pushed the button.
Was the pain as bad as the clips on her nipples? Probably not, but it was bad enough. Her muscles bunched as she tried unsuccessfully to drag herself away from the pain. After a couple of seconds he released the button and began again tracing it over her skin. She was panting, breath uneven. The second shock came at her right elbow. It was a terrible pain, cutting inside her. He moved in front of her still saying nothing. He began low on her right shin, working the prod up, caressing, taunting, and then discharging on the outside of her thigh. She looked down beyond the swell of her breast at his concentration as he held the twin points there.
“What do you want?” she shouted. “What do you want?”
He ran the rod up and over to her belly, then pressed again. Her head shot back as she strained against the bonds. She was covered in a film of sweat now and felt intensely cold.
“Please!” she rasped. “What do you want? Do you want to fuck me?”
She didn’t even see his hand, he moved so fast. She just felt the slap on her right cheek, and tasted blood. The prod touched the underside of her right breast, lifted it slightly, and then she felt the shock. He held it and held it and held it and she roared with pain, unable properly to scream because of the tension of her muscles. When he finally turned off the current she slumped, panting in the chair, sweat coursing over her body.
*
Gopal felt exhausted. He walked away from her. He wanted her desperately but she knew that. And he was also concerned about the consequences. If he raped her, everybody would know. An interrogation was one thing but fucking her something else.
“Unfasten her,” he ordered, walking back to his desk, taking deep breaths, trying to calm himself. Slapping her had felt good. But he didn’t want to mark her. What had he been thinking of, looking for something to beat her with? The electricity was far better. But what of her heart? What if she died while he was shocking her?
What was he doing? He had no idea. But she looked good like that, breasts thrust out. He walked over to her. He stroked her cheek. He smoother her hair back from her head. He stood behind her. He kneaded her shoulders. Her skin was cold but smooth and firm. Her breathing was slowly returning to normal.
“What were your duties, Agent Violet?” he asked.
She didn’t answer. He lowered his hands to her breasts. From the moment he’d first seen her he’d wanted to do this but had never quite dared. He cupped them, feeling how soft they were, how light and yet how firm. He felt her disgust but that only encouraged him. He squeezed gently, ran his hands down her ribs and then returned to the breasts. “Tell me the truth,” he said. He wanted to kiss her breasts, to bury his head between them. He wanted to fuck her more than anything in the world. He cuffed her round the side of her head. He couldn’t let the guards see his desire. He went back to his desk and lit up another cigarette.
He questioned her for another half-hour then had her taken back to her cell. He would have his time later.
*
Beth lay on the mattress is a state between sleep and wakefulness, tense and in pain. The door of her cell opened. “Lie face down,” came a voice and she obeyed. Her wrists were cuffed and she was blindfolded, then she was led out. When the blindfold was removed, she was in the interrogation room. There was nobody there but him. He uncuffed her hands.
“Get undressed,” he said.
She glanced around. Were there really no soldiers around? Was this an opportunity? She unbuttoned her jeans. The door would be locked. What could she do, realistically? She slid her jeans off and looked at him.
“Throw them over there,” he said gesturing to the side of the room. She obeyed, then took off her top. There was no point resisting. Was he going to rape her? She slipped off her underclothes and felt a familiar sense of shame. He chained her hands behind her. He seemed to be breathing heavily. This was something different. He stepped in front of her and looked her up and down, eyes blinking nervously behind his glasses.
Gopal could barely contain himself. This was wild and reckless, completely out of character, but he had to act now if he was going to. The order had come through to deliver her for trial the following day. He checked the cattle-prod, plugged in and laid on the desk in case she got out of hand; he had no doubt that even after torture she was probably strong enough to fight him. He could feel his heart beating, his cock stiffening. She was so beautiful. He’d never seen legs that long. The distance from her knees to her hips seemed impossible. His gaze rose from her trim stomach to the breasts, so smooth, so firm, so full of goodness. He stepped forward and kissed her belly. He could feel her distaste. He licked her, tasting the salt of her sweat. He moved up, so his face came between her breasts. His glasses pressed against the softness. He should have taken them off. He backed off and cupped her breasts in his hands, weighing them, squeezing them, kneading them. He slapped the right side of the right one and watched it knock into the left breast, then knocked it back again.
Had he never seen tits before? What was he doing? Beth stared straight ahead, trying to remain impassive. She could sense his anxiety and didn’t want to provoke him. He knocked her breasts back and forth, again and again, seemingly mesmerised. Was he going to rape her? She wondered if she could seduce him, if she could use his obvious desire to her advantage. He pressed his face between her breasts – no glasses this time to dig in painfully. But his stubble scraped on her tender skin. His hands grasped at her ass and she instinctively squealed. She looked at the far wall, and the grimy paintwork. He took her left breast in his mouth, began to suck and lick. She could have shaken him off. Even in chains, she suspected she could have kept him away, but for what? To have him work her over with the cattle-prod? To have him summon help? Should she offer to give him a blow job? Would that calm him? He was sucking at her nipple, desperately. She realised he had no experience, that he was deeply clumsy.
Gopal moved behind her. Her shoulders fascinated him. Strong but round and feminine. His hands fell again to her breasts and he began to kiss her neck, parting her soft dark hair. He couldn’t remember when his cock had last been this hard for this long. Through his trousers it pushed against the cleft of her buttocks. He nuzzled along the smooth skin of her upper back. He could feel her muscle but also her delicacy. His fingers dropped from the softness of her breasts to trace the firm flatness of her stomach. He felt the slender curve of her waist and then his fingers fell to trace up the inside of her long thighs.
It was coming, she knew. As he kissed her right shoulder the fingers of his right hand lingered on her labia, before two made their way inside her. His left hand, suddenly, was pawing at her breasts again. She stiffened and gave a slight whimper. She could feel his cock pushing against her buttocks through the coarse material of his trousers. He pushed his fingers deeper, painfully. She yelped in pain, her body taut.
He was close, he knew. He couldn’t hold it much longer. He pulled his fingers out and fumbled awkwardly at his trousers, his left hand still cupping the round firmness of her breast. He got the button undone, but he was too late. With a great rush he came, soaking his underwear and marking his trousers. The bitch! He slapped her buttocks hard and then, his trousers flapping open, dragged her to the chair. He clipped her cuffs to the back and slapped her round the head.
He hurried out of the room, trousers still loose. He’d got about five yards down the corridor when he decided he ought to lock the door and turned back. He prayed nobody would see him. He hurried off to the toilet, where he washed himself down. The cum had gone everywhere, all over his Y-fronts, marking his trousers. He tried to clean himself up as best he could but when he finally pulled up his trousers again, he could feel the chill stickiness against his lower belly. The bitch!
She’d been laughing at him, he was sure. She knew how awkward he was, how he’d never slept with anyone but his wife and how he hated her. Well, she’d suffer.
*
Beth flinched as the door slammed. She could sense his fury without turning round. He walked over to her and fastened her ankles to the legs of the chair. She dreaded what was coming. “What do you want?” she asked. She couldn’t believe she was about to say this but she was terrified. “I’ll give you a blow job. Whatever you want. Fuck me. I’ll kiss you. I’ll dance for you. I’ll lick your balls.” He silenced her with a hard slap to the face. She could taste blood.
He disappeared behind her and she heard the tap being turned on. She knew he was going to use the cattle prod. What could she do? Think! Think! He tipped two buckets over her. They were icily cold and she was left gasping, her skin pimpling. He smoothed her wet hair away from her face, then took her face on his hands. “You are the most beautiful girl,” he said, “but you don’t fool me. You won’t seduce me. Maybe that’s how you live your life, persuading men with your charms, but it won’t work on me. He ran his thumbs over her cheekbones, then he kissed her, hard. She gagged as his tongue pushed inside her, and she tasted his breath, foul and meaty, laced with Red Bull . His glasses pushed into her cheeks but she overcame her instinct to recoil and kissed him back, pushing her tongue against his teeth. For a moment he responded, but then he pulled away. “No, you don’t,” he said and stepped back. “I’m immune. Go on, shake your tits. It won’t stop what’s coming to you.”
He lit up a cigarette. “Go on,” he said. “Shake your tits.”
What option did she have? She looked away and then, as much as she could with her hands chained to the chair, jerked her shoulders up and down. “More!” he shouted and she tried, but the position was too difficult. He stepped forward and, his cigarette clenched between his teeth, began slapping them from side to side. “Much better,” he said, blowing smoke into her face. Then he returned to his desk and came back with the cattle-prod.
*
In a frenzy, Gopal worked her over. Breasts, nose, belly-button, ears, breasts again, mouth, the top of her nose between her deep brown eyes. Then finally, as she begged him hoarsely to stop, he slid the prod between her thighs. “Noooo..” she moaned, but he pressed on, parting her lips and inserting the prod. She squirmed as it entered her lifting from the seat as he pushed further, until perhaps four inches were inside her. He smiled at her and kissed her, firmly, on her mouth, moved back, and pressed the switch.
Her reaction was one of great violence, whole body jerking, her eyes filled with terror. He counted to five and then turned it off, by which time she was almost unconscious. His penis began to stir again. Her head lolled. He could see her heart fluttering. He had to stop. Almost without thinking he unfastened her ankles. Her body was clammy with sweat. He unclipped her wrists. She slumped on the chair. He filled the bucket and threw cold water over her. She stirred and moaned a little. He seized her hair, pulled her to her feet and threw her down on the floor. Wrists still shackled, she landed heavily on her shoulder and sprawled on the concrete with a moan and he admired again her long, smoothly sculpted form. He unbuckled his belt and lowered his trousers and Y-fronts. His penis was semi-erect. He shuffled over to her and prodded her with his foot. “OK,” he said. “Blow me and we’re done.”
Awkwardly and with clear effort she rose to her knees. He saw her swallow, saw her distaste, saw the delicious mounds of her breasts. He grabbed her wet hair and pulled her close, then he felt her tongue caress the tip of his cock. She teased him into erectness, licking his shaft, then took his penis into her mouth. The minute or two that followed were among the best of his life. He stroked his fingers through her hair, gazed down that honeyed back between the V of her shackled arms and she took him to places he’d never so much approached with his wife. With a shudder of pleasure, he came, pushing deep into her throat, feeling her teeth gently press on his shaft. “Swallow it!” he demanded, holding her close even as he detumesced. He felt the cold of her nose touch his lower belly through his public hair and he knew it was over, but he remained inside her as she desperately sucked. He withdrew and pushed her away, seeing the look of disgust on her face, eyes closed as she tried not to vomit.
STATE OF EMERGENCY Part Four The Teaching Assistant By King Diocletian 1) Caught Bobby stiffened and glanced anxiously down the dark corridor. Nothing. She waited and felt herself slowly relax and realised she’d been holding her breath. She turned and walked away from the noticeboard. She passed through the double-doors and hastened away, not daring to glanced back. When she got to the wooden door on the left, she went through it and broke into a jog. It was early, just after five, only a slight lightening to the east suggesting dawn was coming. She’d done it. She went through the main gates into the street and increased her pace. Even if they caught her now, nobody would think she was doing anything other than going for her early morning run. But why would they catch her? Why would they think it was her? * Tony saw a crowd of pupils gathered around the noticeboard. He thought at first it was just one of the usual cheap jokes that the younger pupils sometimes amused themselves with and was about to blunder in and sort it out – there were times when being a prefect was a dreadful bore – when he realised nobody was laughing. And there were older pupils there as well, male and female. He approached, hating the fact that his position meant he had to deal with this. Usually the pupils would dash off when they saw a prefect approach, but not this time. He peered over their heads, blinking behind his glasses, and was stunned by what he saw. * Dr Cadwallader closed his eyes and took off his glasses. He pinched his nose. He had a headache and the piece of paper on his desk wasn’t helping. He looked at it again, wondering if there was any way he might have misread the notice, or if it could be construed in any other way. There wasn’t. It was, quite simply, a denunciation of the school priest. Father Johal was even older than Cadwallader, nearer 70 than 60, a white haired man with a pinched, ascetic face and a piercing stare. Could it be true, Cadwallader wondered, that he’d abused two of the girls in the school. The denunciation seemed very precise. It gave dates and enough detail to have an air of veracity. He’d known Johal for almost 20 years and never had cause to doubt him, but he had a horrible sense this might be true. This was awful. He didn’t know if the school could cope with the scandal. The governors thought he was vague and out of touch, but he was sharp enough to realise there were plenty who would happily see it closed down, who attacked it as a bastion of privilege in what was, after all, an underprivileged country. And it was awful too for the girls involved, of course; it was important not to forget that. But he couldn’t believe it. Not of Johal. Still, he would have to do something, and he hated having to do anything out of the ordinary. He was tired, and looking forward to retirement. He would speak to Johal and then, he supposed, to the governors. * Bobby was a little disappointed. She’d expected some major reaction, but apart from some gossiping, nothing had really happened. There’d been talk in the staff-room, obviously, but more along the lines that it was a silly game rather than something to be taken seriously. Not that she spent much time in the staff-room. She still didn’t feel at home there and tended to spend the time between lessons in her room. She was in an awkward position, not a full member of staff, but certainly not a pupil any more either. She was 22 and had graduated from Oxford the previous summer. Returning to the International School where she’d studied for seven years while her father worked in the diplomatic service to work as a teaching assistant – basically working with students on their French and Spanish orals, but also helping those who didn’t have English as a first language - had seemed an ideal way to pass some time and gain some experience before she decided what she wanted to do with her life. She’d always liked the school, and she’d done well there, being head girl in her final year and captaining the football team. But four months after returning, she’d discovered proof that some of the rumours that had always circulated around Father Johal were true, that he had molested younger pupils. Bobby had wondered for some time what the best thing to do was. She suspected the local police would ignore her, and she didn’t trust Cadwallader not to hush it up. She’d contemplated confronting Johal directly, but ultimately had decided that the best thing was to bring the matter into the public domain, so she’d written it the accusations. Her notice had been calm and clear, precise and to the point, careful to make clear it was true without making it possible to identify the girls involved. Yet it seemed to have achieved nothing. She wondered if there were anything else she could do. * Cadwallader looked around the table, his head thumping. Father Johal was fuming, angrily protesting his innocence, demanding that whoever had put up the notice should be punished. “I’m sure it’s just a prank,” said Dr Coulthard, one of the governors, a dapper man in late middle age. “No great harm done and we have no idea who put the poster up. Let it ride.” Johal, though, was having none of it, and Mrs Bannerjee was in agreement. “This is a sin against the church,” she insisted. “There has to be firm action taken to show that you can’t make this kind of allegation and expect to get away with it. The damage it does to our religion is enormous, not to mention Father Johal’s good name. The perpetrator should be caned.” “Whipped,” said Johal. “This is blasphemy and our school rules demand blasphemers be whipped.” Cadwallader took off his glasses and began polishing them. The argument against caning he was sick of having, let alone this new nonsense about whipping. Of course sometimes canings were necessary. He probably caned about two dozen boys a year, normally on the hand in his office and in exceptional circumstances, maybe once or twice a year, on the backside in the hall during assembly. He found it an unpleasant and degrading process, the humiliation the pupil underwent dropping his trousers in front of the school far greater than was warranted even for theft or damaging property. “We are not,” he said slowly, “a school that canes pupils willy-nilly.” Johal began to protest but Cadwallader cut him off. “Besides, it’s all academic: we have no idea who put that poster up.” “It’s easy enough to find out, though,” said Mr Bryant, the deputy head, a wiry man in his early forties. “Just check the computer accounts and find out who’s printed an A3 sheet in the last couple of days.” * Bryant had initially been stunned to learn who the perpetrator was, although it made sense when he thought about it. Bobby had always been strong-willed. He’d watched her grow from promising 11 year old to sparky 15 year old to pretty and intelligent 18 year old, and her return to the school at 22 had given him something to think about in the long nights now his wife had left him. She was a beautiful woman now, slender and graceful, with deep brown eyes, short blonde hair and a mischievous smile. And she had a clear sense of right and wrong. She’d always had a strong sense of right and wrong, had always been involved in various causes. Of course it had been her who’d tried to expose Johal. That, he had to admit, hadn’t come as a great surprise: he’d seen the way the old goat looked at some of the pupils. The meeting had gone on for almost 40 minutes. What were they going to do with her? Johal, not surprisingly, wanted her handed over to the police, and he was supported in that by Bannerjee. Cadwallader, seeming increasingly out of his depth, just wanted to avoid a scandal. Bryant himself didn’t see how they could countenance handing a British citizen over to a police force known to be brutal and corrupt: the poor girl could end up in some stinking, unhygienic cell for weeks waiting for some unreliable form of justice to take its course. The argument circled endlessly: they all agreed she had to be punished, but the British staff were reluctant to get the police involved. Then Coulthard, having remained largely silent until then, came up with a solution. “It seems to me,” he said, “that Miss Stafford occupies an unusual position. She’s not a member of staff, but neither is she a pupil. She’s a sort of student teacher. So perhaps we could punish her as a student without needing to get the police involved.” “You mean cane her?” Cadwallader asked. Bryant saw the eyes of M Dupont, the French master, light up. Did Cadwallader mean cane her buttocks? The thought of Bobby Stafford being caned was ludicrous, but if it happened, he wanted to see it. “Well, why not?” said Coulthard. “If she was still a pupil that’s what we’d do.” There was a logic to that, even if they hardly ever caned girls. Bryant could think of only a handful in the past five years. “She should be whipped,” said Johal. “Blasphemy is punishable by whipping. It’s in the rules.” “We’re not whipping anybody,” Cadwallder said wearily. “I’ve been headmaster 20 years and I’ve never whipped anybody in my time. We don’t even have a whip.” “We do,” said Johal. “I’ve kept it.” That was interesting. Bryant wondered if Johal had ever used it privately. “We’d have to get her to agree to it,” he said slowly. “Get her signed consent. Explain the consequences if she doesn’t.” There was a murmur of assent. Only Mrs Sharma, the youngest of the governors, seemed against the plan. “You’re going to take a girl and cane her?” she asked disbelievingly. Cadwallader looked at her sternly. “We’d cane a boy,” he said. “It’s better than the alternative. And besides, we haven’t actually decided on the penalty. We can discuss that if she agrees.” * Bobby sat on the bench outside Cadwallader’s office. She couldn’t believe how stupid she’d been. Her heart thumped. That morning she’d been asked to report to his office and, when she’d got there, he and Bryant had been waiting for her. They’d explained that they knew it was her who’d posted the notice about Johal and that by rights they should hand her over to the police for making a false accusation. But it’s not false, she’d wanted to scream, but she knew she had no proof – not if she was to keep the two girls who’d told her what had happened out of it. Then they’d offered her a deal. Accept a school punishment and Johal would let things rest. She’d known then that meant she’d be caned, but she also knew that was a far better option than trusting herself to the slow and corrupt ways of the local authorities. She’d signed the waiver willingly, and had been told to report back at 6pm to learn exactly what her punishment would be. Surely they’d just cane her hand, wouldn’t they? As a symbolic thing. She couldn’t bear the thought it might be on her arse. Her mind went back to a day when she’d been head girl. A fourth-form boy had been caught stealing. What was his name? Watson? Tony Watson? Something like that. They’d made him drop his trousers and his boxer shorts on the stage and given him six strokes. She remembered his terror and his pain, the tears of anguish and shame, but most of all she remembered, from her position on the stage, seeing his little shrivelled penis, shrunken with fear. And worst of all – and she shuddered even to think of it - she remembered half-smiling at it before a sense of sympathy took over. They couldn’t do that to her, could they? Not to a grown woman. What was keeping them? She glanced at her watch: 18:40. Was that a good sign or a bad one? * It hadn’t taken long for the arguments to break out. Johal was still arguing that she should be whipped, something that everybody else, thankfully, seemed to regard as lunacy. They’d quickly agreed too that this had to be a proper caning: a number of strokes on the buttocks. But that was as far as they’d got. Nobody even seemed to know how to frame the discussion. Eventually, Bryant took out a copy of the school-rules and took control. Cadwallader was grateful: Bryant was good at this. “Look, the first thing we should decide is where she’ll be caned,” he said. “We could do it here,” Cadwallader said hopefully. He still wanted this kept as quiet as possible. But Johal was adamant. “She traduced me in front of the school,” he said. “So she must be punished in front of the school.” Cadwallader couldn’t find a good argument against that but equally he couldn’t imagine Bobby Stafford bending over on the stage. “If she’s to be punished as though she were a student, you have to punish her in assembly,” Mrs Bannerjee said. “On the bare?” asked M Dupont, his hope clear. “Of course,” Mrs Bannerjee said decisively. “Like any student.” Cadwallader didn’t think she should be making decisions like that, but the logic seemed impeccable, even if it was a decade since a girl had last been caned in assembly. That had seemed shocking, an arrogant German girl given four strokes for painting insulting graffiti on a wall. She’d howled the place down, writhing so much he doubted the third or fourth strokes really landed. “So the next thing,” Bryant said, “is to decide which cane to use.” “Senior girls?” Cadwallader asked. But Mrs Bannerjee had her answer to that as well. “She’s not a girl any more, though, is she? Senior boys, I’d suggest. As an adult she should take the heaviest cane we have.” Again, Cadwallader had a sense it was wrong, but again he couldn’t think of a reason.” “Then the final thing,” Bryant said, “is how many strokes.” There was a lengthy silence that was finally broken by Coulthard. “It seems to me,” he said, “that this is a serious offence.” There was a general nodding of heads and murmuring of agreement. “So what is the maximum penalty?” Cadwallader felt things sliding further out of his hands. He liked Bobby. He’d made her head girl. He knew the answer: 18. And he couldn’t imagine Bobby taking a dozen and a half lashes. Bryant consulted the rules. “It’s 18,” he said. “There seems to be no differentiation for girls or boys.” “You want to give her a dozen and a half strokes on the bare bottom in front of the entire school?” Mrs Sharma asked in disgust. “You appal me.” “It’s her choice,” said Cadwallader firmly. “It was that or the police.” “She’s not actually a pupil, though, is she?” said Coulthard. “What do you mean?” asked Cadwallader, with a dizzying sense of where this was going. “Well, those regulations are for minors. She’s an adult now, so maybe we should extend that range.” “Double it,” said Johal. “Yes,” said Mrs Bannerjee. “This must be exemplary. She’s not a little girl. Extra strokes. Two dozen.” This was madness. Cadwallader looked around the table. Apart from Mrs Sharma, they were all nodding their agreement. He’d seen strong boys howling after six. To give her 24? He cleared his throat. “Twenty-four?” he said. “Don’t you think that seems… well, a little harsh?” “She’s lucky she’s not being whipped for blasphemy,” said Johal. “We have to show we’re serious,” said Coulthard. “We can’t be seen to go easy on her just because she’s a nice girl from a good family. It’s a serious offence.” “She’ll never stay down,” said Cadwallader. “You can’t get somebody to just bend over and take that many.” He was thinking of some awkward arrangement whereby she was held over a table, but it seemed terribly undignified. The punishment had to be dispassionate, a show of justice being done. “I have the old flogging block,” Coulthard said, casually. Cadwallader immediately wondered why. What did he get up to? “How does it work?” asked Mrs Bannerjee. “There are still clips on the stage from when it was used regularly,” Coulthard explained. “We lock it down. It’s a little under hip height so she has to bend over it, we strap her legs to one side, her wrists to the other and there another strap over her waist and she’s held firm. Perfect.” “It’s in good condition?” Mrs Bannerjee asked. “Oh, yes,” Coulthard went on. “I restored it, sanded it down, varnished it. Nice solid piece of wood. It’ll hold her.” There was a moment’s silence while the implications of what he’d said sunk in. “The only thing…” he began, then stopped. “Yes?” said Cadwallader in resignation. This was more bad news for Bobby, he knew. “Well, I wonder whether it might get in the way if she’s wearing a top. The sleeves might interfere with the straps on her wrists. Or a blouse might ruck around her waist.” “You want her stripped naked?” Cadwallader asked. “We can’t-” “If she was being whipped she’d be naked to the waist,” said Johal. “So that seems fitting.” Mrs Sharma spluttered. “This is outrageous,” she began, but she was cut off. “Technically, the rules permit for ‘a uniform shirt’ to be worn,” said Bryant. “I’m guessing she wouldn’t be wearing uniform, so complete nudity probably is appropriate.” Cadwallader’s heart was pumping. Bobby Stafford naked. He wanted to see it, but he was appalled. But they’d ganged up on him. He had no choice. Mrs Sharma was raging, but the other five held sway: Johal from desire for revenge, Coulthard because he wanted to see a pretty girl caned, Dupont because he wanted to see her naked, Bryant because he was a stickler for the rules and Mrs Bannerjee seemingly because she wanted to stick up for Father Johal. “Very well,” he said. “There is just one other thing,” Coulthard said. “Yes?” “She used the computer room under false pretences. In fact she must have broken in there given the time she accessed the printer. And effectively she stole the paper and toner. That seems to me a serious offence.” Cadwallader was disbelieving. “What do you suggest?” “An additional dozen?” There was general assent from everybody other than Mrs Sharma, who just shook her head. “What is wrong with you?” she said. “So we’re agreed,” said Cadwallader, hoping nobody could come up with a reason to add further strokes. “Thirty-six strokes with the senior boys’ cane, with her naked over the block?” * Bobby was getting worried. What were they discussing? She wondered if they’d cane her that night. She looked at her left hand, at the slender fingers, and imagined holding it out for the cane. But what if it was on her arse? She should have thought of that. What panties was she wearing? Nothing too fancy, she didn’t think: white cotton with a navy polka dot, but she could have worn something more substantial. But they wouldn’t cane her arse, surely. The door opened and her stomach lurched. Mrs Sharma hurried out. Bobby began to stand, but Mrs Sharma didn’t even look at her, just walked rapidly away down the corridor. What did that mean? The door opened again. This time it was Cadwallader’s secretary, Miss Ashoka. “Can you come in please, Miss Stafford?” she said, her voice emotionless. Bobby stood and, her heart thumping, forced her legs to propel her through the door. Cadwallader sat behind his vast desk, a look of great weariness on his face. To his right sat Mr Bryant, M Dupont and Mr Coulthard, to his left Father Johal and Mrs Bannerjee. There was an audience, then, to watch her be beaten. Bobby stood, uncertainly, in front of the desk, hands clasped awkwardly before her. She felt nauseous. She stared at the polished floor beneath the desk, where Cadwallader’s shiny black shoes seemed to tremble. There was an awful long silence, and then finally he began. “Miss Stafford,” he said. “We have thought about your punishment long and hard.” She swallowed and raised her head. He looked very serious. He took off his glasses and peered at her. “You will be caned in assembly tomorrow.” She gasped. In assembly? Bryant sensed Coulthard’s excitement - and there was something arousing about her horror. “For making false accusations – very serious false accusations – you will receive 24 strokes-” Her mouth fell open and she gave a slight whimper. “-plus an additional 12 for trespassing and misuse of school property. 36 strokes of the senior boys cane on the bare bottom.” Bobby’s knees felt weak. 36? Bare bottom? In assembly? She couldn’t breathe. She blinked repeatedly. Was he serious? How could this be happening? She wanted to say something, but she couldn’t. She just felt a tremendous pressure on her chest. Bryant was looking forward to this. He looked her up and down, at her slender figure, the sweet face, the big dark eyes. She’d grown into a beautiful woman and tomorrow she’d be naked. Coulthard, he suspected, had a thing for corporal punishment – why else would he have preserved the flogging block? – and while that wasn’t his thing, he couldn’t deny that the thought of a self-confident, pretty girl being humiliated like that excited him. She bit her lip, those eyes brimming with horror, her face pale. “Report behind the stage tomorrow at 8.25,” Cadwallader went on. “You’ll be caned at the end of assembly. I suggest you wear something loose-fitting that’s easy to remove. And you won’t want anything tight on your bottom afterwards.” Cadwallader dismissed her but she seemed numb, turning only slowly and lurching slightly as she made for the door. Bryant thought of the many canings he’d witnessed in his years at the school, the vast majority three or four on the hands of a boy in this room. The public ones were always an event: there was something so degrading about a pupil having to take his trousers down and bend over in front of the whole school. That, he thought, was a greater punishment than the six or eight strokes that were administered, although of course hopping about in pain and howling added to the humiliation. He thought of the German girl – Heidi, was it? – all those years ago as she’d howled for mercy and hundreds of boys had stared at the folds they barely understood that could be seen between her legs. They’d had to hold her down in the end. And she’d only taken six. He could still picture that smooth arse now. But she was nothing to Bobby Stanford. And Bobby would be naked. Not that she knew that yet. Bryant coughed, meaningfully. “Yes?” said Cadwallader. “Who’s going to cane her?” he asked. Cadwallader hadn’t thought about that. “Should we get a prefect…?” he began, but Bryant cut him off. “I’m not sure that would be appropriate,” he said. “Not on a girl of that age.” “With that many strokes,” Coulthard said, “it’s probably good to have two people caning her: a left-hander and a right, or one buttock will take the brunt of a lot of blows.” He paused for a second. “I’m left-handed,” he added. And experienced in wielding a cane, Cadwallader suspected. But he knew he had no choice. He nodded. “Any right-handed volunteer?” Bryant and Dupont looked at each other. “I’ll do it,” Dupont said. * Bobby lay on her bed. It was almost two hours since they’d told her she was to be caned. She’d come straight to her room afterwards, her face flushed, tears burning her eyes and had flung herself on her bed. She’d barely moved since. How could they do this? Caning her at all was bad enough, but she’d never dreamt they’d do it in front of the school. She thought of Watson. How could she go through that? To drop her panties in front everybody, to show her naked backside and who knew what else to them all. And 36? 36 was barbaric. How many canings had she witnessed at the school? No more than half a dozen she thought. She remembered one boy when she’d been very young who’d run amok in the chemistry lab and broken a window and some equipment: how many had he got? 12 maybe? She remembered his screams by the end, the way he could barely stand still for the final strokes. The impulse came suddenly. She had to go. She would leave that night. She could take a taxi to the airport and buy a flight with her credit card. She could be home by evening the following day. Yes, it might be awkward to explain what had happened but it would be better than showing off her most private parts to hundreds of teenage boys and being caned. She jumped from the bed. She grabbed a rucksack and hurriedly packed – some toiletries, a change of clothes, her few valuables. She reached under her mattress for the money belt she’d hidden there and unzipped it, checking the notes and credit card were still there. She threw it in the rucksack, grabbed a fleece from the cupboard, glanced around once more and left. * “Are you leaving, Miss Stafford?” Shit. She’d gone five yards along the path outside the guestrooms, no more, and had walked straight into a young man. In the dim light of the corridor she struggled to focus. He was wearing a prefect’s tie. His face was vaguely familiar, She didn’t think she taught him, but- and then it dawned on her. Tony Watson. Fuck. “Ah,” he said, in the same tone of mocking politeness. “I see you remember me.” He gently took her arm and led her back towards her room. She seemed too shocked to resist. What a stroke of luck this was. The prefects had been told earlier than evening that Miss Stafford was to be caned. The news that had prompted great excitement generally, and in him in particular: he would relish seeing that haughty bitch humiliated as he had been, bent over and sobbing as he stared at her genitals and smiled at her. And the cane hurt. He’d taken six: the first four had been awful but manageable; the last two were terrible. But he’d knuckled down. He hadn’t made mistakes. They’d made him a prefect. And, delightfully, he had his chance for revenge. He closed the door behind him. “Let’s not mess about with this,” he said. “You were trying to escape. They won’t take kindly to that. They’ll probably give you extra lashes.” She looked at him, wild-eyed. He was right. Did he know how many she was getting? “Now,” he went on, “it seems to me that if you don’t want me to tell them, you should probably do something for me.” She felt the tightening around her chest again. “What do you want?” she asked, her mouth dry. “My penis seemed to cause you a great deal of amusement once,” he said. “Perhaps you’d like to play with it now?” She swallowed. “You want a blow-job?” she said. “Take your clothes off,” he said. He didn’t know what he’d done to be this lucky, but he intended to make the most of it. Bobby stared at him, panic rising in her stomach. She blinked. She looked around the room, but there was no help to be found. The door was shut and the one small window was covered by a thick curtain. “Strip,” he said. Bobby took a pace back and hugged herself protectively. She shook her head, lower lip trembling. “Really?” he said. “You’d rather take extra strokes?” He paused. “How many are they giving you, anyway?” “36,” she whispered. “36?” He laughed. “You are in soooo much trouble.” He shook his head. “36,” he said again. “Do you have any idea how much it hurts? They gave me six and it’s the worst thing I’ve ever known.” Bobby looked at him. Her eyes were filling with tears. “Please don’t tell them,” she said, her voice hoarse. “Please…” Tony walked up to her and gently laid a hand on her upper arm. “It’s OK,” he said softly. “36 is terrible. I’ll keep quiet.” She looked up at him, feeling a surge of gratitude cutting through her fear. He had dark, oily hair and a smattering of spots. “Thank you,” she said. “If you behave,” he laughed. Her heart sank. “You enjoyed looking at my cock. Now let me see what you have.” “Fuck you!” she hissed. “OK,” he smiled. “But you’ll regret that tomorrow.” As he left, he mimicked the sound of a cane swishing through the air. He reached the door and turned. “And I look forward to see you bare-arsed and bent over. Imagine, the whole school staring at you, laughing at you as you scream and sob and show off your privates.” He shut the door and Bobby sank onto her bed, her heart thumping. * 2) The First Caning He was starting to get a little fat, Bryant thought as he looked at himself in the mirror. His belly was just beginning to become a paunch and there was a jowliness developing around his jawline. He squeezed shaving gel onto his hand and began to work it in to his cheeks. Just another day. Except it wasn’t. Today was the day they stripped Bobby Stafford naked and caned her in front of the whole school. He’d been thinking about her when he’d gone to sleep and he’d still been thinking of her when he woke up: those bright eyes, the blonde hair tied into the two little bunches below her ears. Being a schoolmaster meant you encountered a lot of teenage girls, many of them pretty, many of them just beginning to blossom. You learned to ignore them for the most part, but occasionally one got under your skin. Bobby was one of them. That smile that seemed to light up a whole room. One of the reasons he’d supported her being made head girl was that meant she stood by the side of the stage in assembly and he could stare at her rather than listen to Cadwallader waffling on. And today he would see her stripped naked, bound to the flogging block and savagely beaten. He’d just picked up his razor when the phone rang. In irritation he put it down again, dried his hands on a towel and walked through into the bedroom. He picked up the phone, holding the receiver a little way from his face so he didn’t get foam on it. “Bryant,” he said. “It’s about Bobby,” said Cadwallader’s voice. He sounded irritated and concerned. Bryant felt a wave of unease: he wasn’t going to change his mind, was he? “Get here as quickly as you can,” Cadwallader said. “She’s tried to escape.” Slowly, Bryant put the phone down. Tried to escape? That meant she hadn’t. But he knew the school rules. He’d read them yesterday. Anybody who failed to present themselves for punishment, anybody who tried to duck out, was liable to additional sanction. In fact the rules were clear, but he couldn’t quite believe they’d impose them. * What did you wear to be flogged? Bobby hadn’t slept that night. She’d just lain on her bed thinking of the ordeal that awaited. How could she bare her backside and bend over for the whole school to see? How could she survive that humiliation. Never mind the caning, how could she show them her arse and, she knew, her private areas? She thought of Tony Watson, sobbing and shaking when they’d caned him, and she knew this was going to be infinitely worse. Why had she agreed to this? Why hadn’t she taken her chance with the police? But it was happening, so she had to prepare. It was ten past seven. She forced herself to get out of bed. Her head ached. She was still wearing the jeans and the T-shirt she’d planned to escape in. She checked the door was locked and stripped. She headed into her bathroom and showered. As she lathered the soap over her smooth buttocks she couldn’t help but think that in an hour and a half she’d be baring them for the whole school. She began to cry. She stood under the hot water for several minutes until the tears had passed. She towelled herself dry, noting grimly how neatly trimmed her pubic hair was. She’d be showing that as well: a wave of nausea overwhelmed her. She retched noisily into the toilet. Eventually she was able to stand. What should she wear? She decided on sportswear: anything with any lace or frills or pattern would only enhance the sexuality of the situation. And it was probably best to wear her sports bra: she didn’t want her breasts bouncing about all over the place when they beat her. She stood in navy lycra before her wardrobe, looking hopelessly at her clothes. She had to dress relatively smartly, show she respected them, but it couldn’t be fancy. She decided, in the end, on a long black skirt, something demure and loose and easily removed, and a white cotton shirt, smart and thick enough not to show her bra through. They could roll it up easily enough around her waist. She hated the fact she was thinking like that: what was the best way of baring her bottom so they could thrash it? She smoothed her hair back from her face, fastening in ties so it bunched beneath her ears. She’d worn it short for years: out here, in the heat and humidity long hair was a disaster. Even this length, falling just below her collar, she would never have countenanced before she went to university. Mechanically, she moisturised, and then she went back into the bedroom. She sat on the bed: in an hour she’d be bent over on the stage to be flogged. * “Tell them what you told me,” Cadwallader said to Tony Watson. Bryant had never seen him as angry. His face was flushed, the tip of his nose white. Watson looked nervous, licking his lips and fidgeting. He stared at the ground as he addressed those gathered in the headmaster’s office: Bryant, Father Johal, Dr Coulthard and Mrs Bannerjee. He stammered as he explained how the prefects had decided they should watch Miss Stafford’s room, just in case she did anything silly. “We thought, you know, that maybe she might… do a runner.” Sure enough, at a little after 11, he’d caught her sneaking out. There was no doubt about her intentions: she had a rucksack over her shoulder. But that wasn’t the worst of it. “Tell us what she said, Tony,” said Cadwallader. “She said she’d… she said if… if I didn’t tell, that she’d… she’d…” He’d gone bright red. “It’s OK, Tony. Tell them.” “She’d give me a blowjob,” he blurted. Mrs Bannerjee gasped. “She’s poison,” muttered Johal. Cadwallader sent Watson out. “So, what do we do?” Bryant spoke quickly. “The school rules are very clear,” he said. “Any pupil who fails to report for or otherwise seeks to escape punishment should have that punishment doubled.” “You’re telling me we have to give her 72 strokes?” said Cadwallader. Bryant felt a cold thrill. It was monstrously cruel and yet, to see that done to Bobby Stafford… “Yes,” he replied. “Is there a danger of doing serious damage?” Cadwallader asked. “We don’t want her collapsing.” “What about trying to seduce Watson?” asked Mrs Bannerjee. “She’s trying to corrupt our boys. She deserves severe punishment for that.” There was silence while they contemplated the problem. It was Coulthard who came up with a solution. “Why don’t we flog her in two batches?” he asked. “Then she’ll have some time to recover. We can give her 36 in the morning and 36 after lunch, and she can stand on the stage in between as a punishment for trying to seduce Watson. If she’s going to use her sexuality, make her stand there naked and use it against her.” It was a brilliant plan, Bryant thought, and the best part was it involved seeing Bobby Stafford naked for several hours. “Are we agreed?” asked Cadwallader. They all were. * Tim was generally considered a swot. He had spent most of the previous day working up the courage to ask out Sara who was in his drama class. He’d decided he would do it at lunch that day. Sara wasn’t the only girl he fancied, though. He liked Lisa and Kate and Solange: he was at an age when he’d have said yes to almost anybody half-presentable who’d been willing. Assembly bored him as a rule. He only went because not to meant a load of hassle. But there’d been bizarre rumours that morning, rumours he couldn’t quite believe. They said there was going to be a caning. He’d seen a couple of them and they’d been pretty horrible, a boy snivelling in humiliation and then being hurt in a way he found distressing. But today they said it would be a girl. And that excited him. He hoped it was one of the older ones. Lucy Curtis, maybe, who had that way of swishing her hips. * Bobby had stood up and sat down a dozen times. How did you prepare for this? To be humiliated and beaten. She felt sick. Her heart pounded. The digital alarm clock counted down the seconds till her punishment. She would go at 8.15. She didn’t want to be late and piss them off even more. 8.13. She stood up again and smoothed down her skirt. She put on her sandals. Were they smart enough? She had no idea. But surely they wouldn’t do anything else to her for that. She dashed to the toilet again: about the twentieth time she’d been since getting up. Her hands were shaking. She took a deep breath and left her room, locking the door behind her. For a moment she held the key uselessly: where could she put it? She slipped it under a plant-pot on the window-sill. That would do. She took another deep breath and set off along the path. It was warm, not too humid and on another day she’d have relished going for a run in the conditions. But today her legs felt like she’d never used them before. They were stiff and unresponsive. She went through the gate into main part of the school, hastening across the rough yard. That separated the class- rooms, labs and hall from the accommodating blocks. Dozens of pupils were slowly making their way into the hall for assembly. She could feel their eyes on her and she knew than many of them knew. She avoided eye contact as best she could but at the door, where a bottleneck had built up, it was unavoidable. She thought she heard somebody make the noise of a cane but she ignored it. Then it came again, and there were giggles. She could feel herself flushing, bile rising in her stomach. She pushed past a couple of girls in front of her and through the door, into the corridor where she’d fatefully pinned up the poster. * Lucy Curtis was pretty and a bitch. She knew it as well, but she didn’t care. She hated this place and didn’t care what anybody thought of her. She just wanted to finish her exams, get away from this shit-hole and go to university. Usually she wouldn’t have bothered with assembly but she wasn’t going to miss this. She liked canings. She knew it wasn’t an attractive quality but she enjoyed watching other people suffer. And this wasn’t some little kid; they said they were going to flog Miss Stafford. Lucy had no particular beef with Miss Stafford. She vaguely remembered her from when she’d been a pupil as one of those pretty, popular sixth-formers who seemed to run the school. She remembered her playing Desdemona in a desperate school production of Othello. But she wanted to watch her be caned. Imagine that: a girl – a woman – of, what, 21? 22? being made to drop her skirts and bend over. And perhaps her panties as well: would they do that to her? She couldn’t imagine the humiliation. All those boys staring at her. And then being caned. She used her own sexuality to intimidate and entice. She swung her hips and knew boys – and staff - stared. But she was in control. Imagine them staring as you were thrashed. As you were helpless… * Tony took his usual position to the left side of the hall, about 20 yards from the stage. As the pupils gathered, there was a hum of anticipation. Even those who hadn’t heard the rumours: first that there’d be a caning, then that it would be of a girl and them, preposterously, that it would be Miss Stafford, knew something was up. In the centre of the stage, bolted to clips that nobody had understood for years, was a polished wooden block. It was perhaps eighteen inches wide, a foot from back to front and a little over three feet in height. The top was gentle concave, a broad leather strap hanging from one side, a buckle on the other side making clear its purpose. Two smaller straps dangled from the edges of the front, about 18 inches up, with similar loops at around the same height at the back of the block. His cock was already stiffening, imagining her bent over that. 36 strokes! And who knew what else they’d do to her after his performance that morning. He’d played it perfectly, he though, showing reluctance while damning her. He couldn’t believe they’d add further lashes, but he hoped beyond hope they would. She’d be standing behind the stage now, in the passageway off which were the doors to the staff-room and the headmaster’s study. He remembered his own time there and knew the exquisite torture of waiting through assembly before being ordered up onto the stage for the caning. Did she have any idea how much it hurt? * At 8.30 precisely, Cadwallader strode out of his study, followed by the other senior staff, Coulthard and Johal. He glanced to his left. She was there: good. She looked calm, standing in a pale shirt looking straight ahead at the wooden panels of the back of the stage. He didn’t acknowledge her. He wanted this to feel as normal as possible. Yet immediately behind him was Bryant, carrying a sheaf of half a dozen canes. Cadwallader climbed the steps onto the stage swiftly and took his seat in the centre, the others flanking him. Bobby was probably no more than three feet from him but o the other side of the dark boards. * Bobby focused on a knot in the wood. Keep breathing, she told herself. She heard a girl reading a poem. Cadwallader, his voice wearily stentorian as ever, spoke about practice for a forthcoming concert and auditions for a play. It seemed to be taking forever and yet it was nowhere near long enough. He read out some sports results: five sets of rugby scores, five sets of netball scores, three hockey scores. A cross-country race. This was agony. * Cadwallader sat down. Tony’s heart was beating faster. He looked across the hall: he’d never seen assembly so packed. Every teacher, every prefect, everybody, even the sixth-formers who didn’t need be there, was there, packed onto the benches, squeezed along the sides of the hall. Father Johal stood up, creaked forwards and recited a brief prayer. “Amen,” chorused the hall. Cadwallader stood up again. * Bryant was fascinated by the calm of the headmaster as he walked to the microphone to the right of the block. He knew both how angry he was and how reluctant he’d been to impose the punishment, but now he looked a man in complete control. “There is one further item before you’re dismissed,” he said. “I’m afraid every now and again there is need to impose discipline on a member of the school. Roberta Stafford, would you please come forward.” There was a shuffling as hundreds of pupils strained for a better view. Bryant found he was holding his breath. There was a delay and he wondered if she was stupid enough to try to avoid what was coming. But then she emerged from behind the stage, her face ashen. She walked slowly, uncertainly up the steps, hands held awkwardly her sides. Her movements were stiff, unnatural. She looked terrified. “Stand in front of the block, Stafford,” said Cadwallader. “Face the school.” Her face a mask, she obeyed. * Bobby stood with her feet together and her hands by her sides. She was aware of hundreds of faces staring at her. Cadwallader continued. “For spreading malicious falsehoods about a member of staff and misuse of school resources, Stafford is to be caned.” She heard a murmur as what had been rumoured was confirmed. Cadwallader turned to her. “Stafford,” he said. “Take your clothes off.” Her heart lurched. Tony felt a thrill of hope. He was sure Cadwallader had told him to bare his backside. This sounded like, but surely not… Cadwallader glared at her. Her eyes bulged, her mouth slightly open. “Everything?” she mouthed. He couldn’t mean it. He couldn’t. “Take all your clothes off,” he said coldly. Tim’s heart leapt. They were making her strip naked. This was amazing. He’d never seen a naked girl before. He could sense the whole hall gripped by the same excitement. Bobby felt cold inside. What could she do? His voice offered no prospect of mercy. Almost before her brain had begun to engage, she stepped out of her sandals. The varnished wood of the stage felt cool and rough to her bare feet. Her hands went to the waistband of her skirt. She unhooked it and let it fall about her feet. As she bent to pick it up Bryant stared at her slender, toned legs, and just the flash of navy lycra as her shirt slid up. He couldn’t believe this was happening. Neither could Tony, his cock hard against his trousers. She would be naked, fully naked. They’d see her tits. Bobby felt ridiculous standing on the stage with her legs bare. She folded the skirt and put it down again. She could feel their eyes on her. Boys staring at her. Her fingers went to her top button. They were stiff and unresponsive. She could feel herself blushing. The top button came undone. Her eyes settled on a boy at the end of the third row, his mouth hanging open as he watched her strip. She realised she would be the first naked woman most of them had seen. Awkwardly, the second button came undone. Lucy was stunned. Why were they stripping her naked? They’d never stripped anyone naked, just bared their arses, which wouldn’t just have hidden the breasts of any girl, but meant the tails of the shirt offered some protection. Tony could see a flash of navy bra and he realised she was wearing lycra. He felt a slight sense of disappointment: he’d imagined some sort of lace, something erotic rather than functional. But it hardly mattered. She’d soon not be wearing any underwear anyway. Her cheeks were burning red: there was no doubting her humiliation. Good: now she knew how he’d felt. A third button came undone. The atmosphere in the hall was astonishing, everybody utterly focused on Bobby’s shame. Cadwallader wondered if they’d gone too far. The girl looked mortified. But then he remembered that she’d tried to run away: no contrition there, and no respect. She deserved every second of this punishment. The fourth button came undone and, as the shirt draped open, he saw a sliver of flat belly below the navy sports bra. Bobby bit her lower lip and screwed up her eyes. She didn’t want to cry. Her fingers fumbled with the last button. Finally it came undone and her shirt hung loose. She paused for a moment then took a breath. She shucked the blouse off, taking it in her right hand, bringing it in front of her and holding it up protectively as she folded it. Then she lay it down on her skirt and she was left in just her underwear. She glanced at Cadwallader, but there was no reprieve. Bryant wished her could see her from the front, but the back view was good enough. Tight, round buttocks beneath the lycra, a supple and slender waist, the slim back and shoulders, narrow, toned thighs and beautiful smooth skin. He’d rarely heard the hall so silent. Uncertainly, she pulled the strap down over her left shoulder. Tim gawped. He supposed he’d seen women wearing less at the beach, but this was something mega. He stared at the mounds of her chest, the beautiful navy curves. This was desperately awkward. Bobby wished she’d worn a normal bra that would have come off far more easily. She pushed down the strap over her right shoulder and then slowly slid both arms out of the strap so that only the cling of the lycra held the bra over her breasts. Hands visibly shaking, she took up the lower edge. One yank up over her head and she’d be topless. Tony held his breath. This was it. This was it, the moment of his revenge. He saw her take a breath. He saw her swallow. And then he saw her peel the lycra, with some difficulty, over her breasts ad over her head. For a moment her breasts were pulled up and then they popped clear of the bra, quivering, pale and delicate, capped by coral-pink nipples, the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen. He regretted not having forced himself upon her the night before. Her cheeks burning, she dropped her bra on the pile of clothes. This was too much, Lucy thought. There could be no justification for this. And she was a member of staff. How could she ever teach again after they’d done this to her? Bobby clamped one hand across her chest and tried to peel at her pants with the other but, realising the lycra was too tight, she gave up the attempt at modesty and, with two hands, yanked down the bottoms, kicking them off to lie by her sandals. Her right hand shot to her crotch, covering the thin strip of hair; her left arm hooked over the nipples. She bent forwards, knees together, arse back, the classic picture of shame. “Stand up straight, Stafford,” Cadwallader said. “Arms by your sides.” Why was he being so cruel? Slowly, Bobby lowered her arms and straightened her back. The tears were welling in her eyes now. She was naked and everybody could see her. She felt cold in the stomach but her cheeks burned. They were all staring at her, teachers, boys, girls, everybody. Somebody starting laughing, a high-pitched, nervous laugh. Tony stared in unconcealed delight. There was something in the hunch of her shoulders that made this even sweeter: her nakedness was enhanced by her embarrassment at being naked. “Stafford,” Cadwallader said. “It had been decided your punishment would be 36 str-” He broke off as a gasp passed around the hall. Those who had seen canings before knew 36 was an astonishing penalty. Tony wondered why he’d said “had”. He felt a sense of dread that they were going to go easy on her. “Thirty-six strokes of the senior boys cane,” Cadwallader went on. “However…” Bobby knew this was going to be bad. She closed her eyes. “You then tried to escape and, having been caught, attempted to seduce the prefect who apprehended you.” She turned to him and stared, her mouth dropping open. No! This couldn’t be happening. How could it all be so unfair. “And so, in accordance with school regulations, the penalty is doubled.” She thought she would faint. She tried to say something but her mouth wouldn’t work. Lucy felt a warm thrill inside her: this was fantastically cruel. She felt sorry for Miss Stafford in some ways, and yet she was amused by the prospect of her being savaged. “You will take 36 strokes now and 36 after lunch, and between the two canings you will stand naked on the stage to see if we can teach you some shame.” Her heart pounded. This was appalling. She stared at worn boards of the stage. She could hear the murmur of excitement and shock that had gone round the hall. Naked for hours. Tim could barely stop himself from giggling. He would get to stare at a naked girl all lunchtime. * Tony congratulated himself on having not forced the issue the night before: this was far, far better. Bobby was blushing furiously, her shoulders hunched, head bowed. He knew what it was like and he could imagine her embarrassment, and yet he knew this was far worse. He, at least, had had a shirt to cover some of his shame, and he had been allowed to dress as soon as his beating was over. He could see her hands wanted to cover herself, could see how she had to force them to stay by her sides. Mrs Bannerjee took her clothes away. Bobby watched her and Tony saw a tremor pass through her: somehow that made it more final – there was no escape. She wasn’t just naked but she couldn’t even see her clothes. “Come to the block,” Cadwallader ordered. She seemed numb, as though it took a couple of seconds for the command to register. Slowly, awkwardly, she turned and took the few paces to the block. Her breasts, high and firm, wobbled just a little, not bouncing – just trembling. Her face was blank, as though the horror could no longer register . Tim felt a little overwhelmed. He was staring at a naked girl, with breasts and pubic hair and everything and now he was going to see her being beaten. There was a mood of great excitement all around. * Cadwallader was doing everything in his power to remain calm. This was punishment and it had to be carried out coldly and unemotionally, but the girl was stunning. He’d known she was pretty, of course, but her delicacy, the unblemished beauty of her skin, had come as a surprise. She was relatively tall and yet, beside the block, exposed like that, she seemed pathetically small. He nodded at Dupont and Coulthard, who hastened forwards. Bobby stood by the block, uncertain, facing him. He drank in the sight of her nakedness, the nipples poking up to give her breasts a pert appearance, the upper sides slightly convex, the flat stomach. “Stand against the block,” he said, realising he had to break the spell. As though dazed she turned so her back was to the hall. What taut buttocks she had, he thought: the effect of her running and soccer. He heard her gasp, and he realised Coulthard and Dupont were fastening the straps just above her knees. Her jaw wobbled, and he thought she was about to cry. “Bend over,” he ordered. He’d said it to several pupils over the years, but never a 22-year-old woman, and never a girl as pretty as this. Bobby felt semi-conscious. She was naked in front of everybody. In front of her, the senior staff sat impassively, watching as she slowly bent forwards. Behind her, hundreds of pupils, the prefects, the rest of the staff, people she’d taught, people she’d worked with, even some friends. She hesitated and half stood. “Get down or there’ll be punishment lashes,” Cadwallader said instantly. She whimpered and lowered herself over the varnished slats of the block. They felt cool and hard against her hips and stomach. The straps above her knees felt tight, the leather pushing against her flesh. Dupont took her left hand. She looked at him, desperate to see some sign of mercy. She’d worked with him. He’d taught her in sixth form. But he wasn’t even looking at her face. He just fed the strap around her slim wrist, pulling it hard, the pressure easing slightly as he fastened the buckle. Coulthard took her right hand and pulled sharply. She gasped in pain and shock, and then he buckled the strap to leave her fastened, bent over, wrists slightly higher than her knees, her buttocks feeling disgracefully exposed. She wanted desperately to bring her legs together; she could feel the air around her most intimate parts and knew her labia must be visible to those in the front few rows. They moved to her waist. She tested the bonds round her wrists: as tight as could be. She glanced up and saw Bryant staring at her breasts, which she realised were exposed to him, hanging down from her chest. She gave a bark of humiliation and she felt her face flushing again. The strap around her waist was pulled tight and fastened, holding her down against the slatted top of the block, forcing her buttocks up. Coulthard patted her bottom as though testing its position. She yelped at his touch. Coulthard and Dupont stepped away and she was left, naked and bound, buttocks upraised for the cane, breasts hanging from her chest. * Dupont and Coulthard selected their canes from a basket by the side of the block, flexing them and swishing them through the air. The noise was terrifying. A girl began to cry. Tim, though, was entranced: he had a sense this was wrong but he was thrilled by this. Tony knew what she was feeling, knew the sense of shame and fear and he relished seeing it in her. Cadwallader waited, partly to build up the sense of anticipation and to emphasis how helpless she was, and partly so he could drink in the sight, the creamy skin, the smooth body, the anxiety written on that lovely face. She glanced back at him. “36 strokes,” he said. “Proceed.” Bobby turned back to face straight ahead of her. She closed her eyes. Bryant saw her swallow as she lowered her head. He saw her neck, framed by the little bunches of blonde hair, graceful and delicate. He saw her clench her fists. He saw Dupont nod at Coulthard and step forward. Lucy, watching intently, saw how she shifted her feet, movement limited by the straps around her ankles. Dupont touched the cane to her buttocks. Tim stared. How he wished it could be him standing that close to her nakedness. For a moment he wondered if they were going to let her off, if they would make this some kind of symbolic thing and just touch her with the cane, but then Dupont stepped back, drew up the cane and whipped it hard across her buttocks. Bobby heard the whistle and the whump as it cracked into her. She gave an involuntary grunt, but for a second there was nothing. Then slowly, the pain began to well. She opened her mouth wide, her eyes bulging. This was terrible. “One,” said Cadwallader coldly. She balled her fists tightly and realised she was holding her breath. The pause went on. Was that it? Had they decided to end it? A brief and she knew impossible hope flared inside her. Then she heard the whistle of the cane through the air and a second streak was added, an inch or so below the first. This time the pain came immediately. She clenched her teeth and managed to avoid shouting out but it was hideous. She tried to shift her position, but it was hopeless. * Tony watched her squirm. He knew what this was like. He knew the pain and sense of helplessness. And he knew that however bad his experience had been, this was far, far worse. Dupont delivered the third lash and he heard a sharp exhalation from her. Her buttocks were lined with three thin red welts. Dr Coulthard waited, then applied the fourth lash. He had very powerful wrists, Tony realised, the cane flicking rapidly into the base of her buttocks. She was lifted slightly, her wriggling exposing the dark crinkles of her sex, breasts jiggling beyond the block. Tony didn’t know if he could stop himself coming. Bryant tried to keep his face impassive, but this was magnificent. He had the perfect view to see the struggle in her as she tried not to cry out, to see her breasts bobbing as she jerked up with each stroke. Cadwallader seemed to be going especially slowly, making her feel each blow and anticipate the next. There was no mercy and no respite, each lash creating the same movement: the flinch as she heard the cane, the little jump, the intake of breath, and the crunching of her pretty face as it hit and then slowly the relaxation as the shock of the blow wore off. Lucy was transfixed. She saw the cane land, Coulthard’s wrist flicking with a degree of expertise. She saw Miss Stafford’s body twitch. And she heard a yelp of pain for the first time. “Eight,” said Mr Cadwallader. From her position a long way back in the hall, it was difficult to see exactly what was happening to Miss Stafford’s buttocks, but they had already taken on a pink colour. This was monstrous and yet she was enthralled. That was only a ninth of what she was going to take. Dupont lashed her and the shout was louder. “Nine!” said a number of voices as Cadwallader did. He didn’t know what to do. Should he reprimand them? He decided it was best just to let them continue. If the hall wanted to count the lashes with him, let them. Bobby was trembling now, clearly in terrible pain, short groans of anguish leaving her lips as each blow struck. The centre of each cheek was bright red, darker welts showing at the edges where the tips of the canes had whipped into her. Coulthard, with his clearly practised action, struck hard along the base of her buttocks. She yelled, jerking up, and almost before he could, the hall echoed with the call of “Ten.” Tim had been self-conscious at first about how excited this made him, but he soon realised that he was far from alone. He glanced at his friend Ben sitting next to him and they both grinned, then turned their attention back to the stage as the flogging continued. “Eleven!” they shouted gleefully as M Dupont hit her again. She was moaning now, between the blows, her arse pink above the smooth pallor of her thighs. Ben leaned over to him. “Have you ever seen a cunt?” he whispered. “No,” Tim hissed back. If he was being honest, he hadn’t realised it looked like that. But then he hadn’t realised a girl’s bottom could be that beautiful. And at lunch, he’d get to stare at her close-up. At everything. At her tits, at her arse, at the fine strip of deep golden hair. But it wasn’t just her nakedness: it was her helplessness, her pain and her shame. * Bobby had had no idea it could hurt this much. M Dupont lashed her again. Her body jerked, her teeth gritted and she found herself staring at Bryant. His face was a mask; no sympathy there. She heard the hall shout. “Fifteen!” She hated the way they were clearly enjoying it. Her body settled again over the block. Her eyes were watering with the pain and she blinked. Her breath came in little gulping gasps. She wasn’t even halfway through the first set. This was hell. She heard the whistle and flinched and the cane whipped into the bottom of her buttocks, where the cheeks met her thighs. She yelped, her snapping up and she realised her thighs were shaking, only the straps around her knees holding her steady. Her hands were damp with sweat, her heart thumped. She shuffled, but there as no respite. * Father Johal looked on from his chair in the back corner of the stage. Stafford was clearly suffering, each blow now causing her to jump and writhe. The scene pleased him, her pale body bent over the varnished wood, her nakedness and shame displayed to the whole school. By the time she was taking her 72nd that afternoon, she’d really understand about suffering. He focused on her smooth breasts, hanging gently away from her chest. They really were delicious. He wondered why that prefect hadn’t accepted her offer. Surely he could have fucked her if she was offering a blowjob. If she was, that is. Maybe the boy had made it up. Could he have done that? The idea amused Johal. Maybe the boy had realised he could get her into worse trouble by lying. Maybe he wanted to watch her being caned. And it was an alluring sight, the purity of her skin astonishing, apart from the vivid red streaks across her buttocks. She was howling now at every blow, jerking up, those lovely tits wobbling away. But she should have been whipped. That was the penalty laid out for blasphemy in the school rules, that was why Johal had carefully preserved the school whip, with its five cords and tight little knots. She should be standing, wrists bound above her head, getting the whip to her back. He wondered if it hurt more than the cane. Maybe not, not this many strokes, but that wasn’t the point. That was the punishment laid down for blasphemy. And he suspected lashes hurt more on the back than the buttocks, where the flesh padded the blow, even with a bottom as pert as hers. “Seventeen!” She was bawling. She was suffering, certainly. * Coulthard had dreamed of something like this. That was why he’d preserved the block, over which he occasionally bent a local prostitute for a dozen or two, but he’d always dreamed of punishing somebody who wasn’t being paid to take it. He whipped down again, snapping his wrist at the last to deliver the cane at maximum velocity into the welted buttocks. She yelled. She really was squirming delightfully, each blow causing her to buck, shoulders lifting, head flicking back. “Eighteen.” She was sobbing now, thighs trembling. And only halfway there. He watched as Dupont lashed her, saw how the cane pushed into the flesh of the buttock and how as the cheek sprang back, a new wave of shaking began. There’d be blood soon, he suspected. He didn’t see how there couldn’t be. In his dreams he’d imagined an 18 year old, maybe caught in some scandal, stealing or vandalising property, taking six or a dozen to avoid the police, but he’d imagined that happening in Cadwallader’s office, the girl bent over a chair with her bottom and no more exposed. That was why he’d attended disciplinary meetings so assiduously. He lashed hard again, striking the crease at the base of her buttocks. She yelled and threw a look back over her right shoulder, affording him a sight of her quivering right breast. Good, he’d hurt her. But he’d always been disappointed. It had always been a boy or, very occasionally, some scrawny young girl who’d had to be caned and he had no interest in that. But this, this was special. He’d seen Bobby Stafford as a sixth-former and never even dared dream she might end up under his cane. The local prostitutes hadn’t really satisfy him. He wanted somebody for whom there was no escape, somebody who he could hit as hard as he wanted. He wanted a pretty, self-confident rich girl. He struck again, low, just where the buttock meets the thigh. Her head snapped back and she gave an awful yelp: they were getting through to her. She was understanding just how serious her sentence was now. He hadn’t been able to believe quite how easy it had been to persuade Cadwallader to flog her, to increase the sentence to this incredible level. Did he hate her? No, but he disliked her type, these self-righteous girls who’d never known hardship and would never do a day of real work in their lives, always aware than a quick smile and a flash of their concerned eyes would get them out of any scrape. Well, not this one. He lashed again into the heart of her left buttock and, at last, with the twenty-fourtth stroke, she gave a proper scream. He saw her neck muscles tense. She began to beg, barely making sense. “Please, please, please stop stop…” Dupont ignored her. * Tony was quietly impressed at how she’d retained some dignity to that point. He knew how much it stung, how much a blow catching bruised flesh hurt and she’d been taking constant strokes on bruised flesh. But she’d gone now. She was screaming, twisting, shouting, begging, her arse shaking delightfully as she pulled against her bonds. She had enough movement to wriggle, but not enough that there was ever any danger of the blows missing. On they went, remorseless, even though raw fleshwas now evident in patches. 25, 26, 27, each number gleefully shouted by the school, momentarily drowning out her howls. Lucy knew this was monstrous and yet she found herself yelling out the numbers with everybody else. There were a few younger pupils crying, but most in the hall seemed to be delighting in Miss Stafford’s agony. And there was no doubting she was in agony. Lucy was looking forward to getting a closer look later on, but even from where she sat she could see the buttocks were badly bruised.. Bryant was struck by a sense that something extraordinary had happened that day. Part of him was watching her anguish, as she writhed under the beating, drinking in the sight of those perfect smooth breasts bouncing as she thrashed in her bonds, enjoying even the tears and the screams that signified her complete abjection, but at the back of his mind he knew nothing could be the same after this day. This was a day everybody there would always remember, when a young woman had been stripped naked and forced to endure humiliation and a terrible punishment to satisfy the anger of two men and the desires of a couple more. This wasn’t justice: it was bullying that had a sexual nature. And yet he couldn’t take his eyes off it. He wondered if there’d be any come-back, but this was a remote school. Nobody back in Europe would have any legal comeback under the local law and the local authorities let them get on with it, so long as the administrative fees were paid promptly and generously. They were a law unto themselves. And it wasn’t as though beatings were uncommon in the local schools and even some of the less developed villages, from what he heard. Her heart was pounding. How could she take any more? She was crying and panting, saliva draped over her chin. Coulthard lashed her again. The pain was terrible. She jerked up and shouted, screwing her eyes tight. She could hear herself wailing, her head slowly dropping until she fell silent. “Thirty.” This was hell, worse than hell. She wriggled, but she knew there was no respite. The cane struck her again, the hideous whistle, then the smack and the pain, her shriek, the spasm of her body that she knew must be giving the governors and teachers sat against the back wall a fine exhibition of her breasts. Tim’s erection was almost unbearable. The writhing slim figure, even the thought of a naked girl 50 feet away, probably would have been enough, but her pain and humiliation made it so much better. He hadn’t known before how exciting it was for a girl to be tied up and helpless. Previously his fantasies had always involved women who made themselves available - dancers, models and strippers – women who would allure him with their eroticism. Suddenly he realised there was something extremely sexy abut a girl stripped against her will, that her shame added to the effect. “Thirty-one!” She howled again. Tim had had no idea canings could this cruel. Miss Stafford was screaming wildly after every stroke, her legs kicking. There were some in the younger years for whom it was too much; they were crying, shocked by the brutality on stage.” Thirty-two!” he shouted with most of the rest of the hall and watched as Miss Stafford jerked about before a calm finally settled on her. Even then, he could see how hard she was breathing, how much pain she was in. Cadwallader watched Dupont deliver the 33rd blow. Bobby’s shoulder leapt up and a squawk came from her throat, followed by a protracted moan. Her right foot had kicked up and she trembled, her sobbing constant. Areas of her buttocks, the left one where Coulthard was striking more then the right, were such a deep purple as to be almost black. He wondered again if they’d gone too far, if he’d allowed Johal’s anger and Coulthard’s obvious desire to beat a pretty young woman to influence him. But then he thought of what she’d done, the lies and the manipulation and he knew the punishment was just. And if she’d tried to run away, well, the regulations were clear. It was out of his hands. * Still three more. Bobby settled over the block again, tears dripping to the stage. She heard the whoop of the cane and the sting bit again, sending pain radiating from her left buttock through the rest of her body. Her head jumped, her shoulders jerked up and her breasts quivered as her wrists pulled fruitlessly at her bonds. She screamed, gathered her breath and screamed again, the slowly sank down again. “Thirty-four!” came the yell from the hall, from the crowd that was relishing her flogging. She panted and waited. The waiting was awful. Two more. Slash! It landed and she performed the familiar dance. She caught Bryant’s eye as her torso lifted and saw the smirk on his face. She hated him and this school and everything in it. A spasm passed through her and she fell shuddering back onto the block.. How could they do this? The final blow was delivered low, the pain exploding in her thigh. She felt sick. It was over. There was silence in the hall. All Bobby could hear was the sound of her own uneasy breathing, her sobs. The pain was terrible. She was desperate to rub her bottom. Slowly her breathing began to return to normal. She was aware of the stillness, of them all staring at her, of her crying. She couldn’t stop. She wished she could close her legs, but the indignity went on. Then the order came to unfasten her. M Dupont and Coulthard were there, unbuckling the straps around her wrists. Dupont’s face was inscrutable but Coulthard could barely hide his grin. How could they do this to her? “Don’t touch your bottom,” he said softly, and somehow she obeyed. They unfastened her legs and she moved immediately to close them. As though it mattered. The whole school had stared at her genitals for the last however long. How long had it taken? Coulthard placed his hand on her lower back as he began to work on the thick strap over her waist and she shuddered. She felt the pressure ease and she was free. “Stand up, Miss Stafford,” Cadwallader said, his vice as cold and clipped as ever. It felt like she’d been strapped down there forever. Trying to blink away the tears, she pushed back on her feet. Her legs felt strange, almost numb beneath the agony of her buttocks. She placed her hands on the edge of the block and pushed up. She was aware of the sway of her breasts but what could she do? She stood slowly, the movement seeming to send a new rush of pain from her bottom. She was shaking and she stood, hunched before the block. What should she do? Cover herself? Rub her buttocks? A tear fell from her face and landed on her chest. “Keep your hands by your sides,” he said. “Stop snivelling.” She didn’t know what to do. She couldn’t stop crying. She couldn’t face the hall, so she stayed where she was, looking at the governors and senior teachers at the back of the stage. There was Father Johal, face grim, starting at her, mouth pursed. “The first part of the punishment is complete,” Cadwallader said. “The second will now begin.” Mrs Bannerjee emerged from the side of the stage holding a broadsheet newspaper. She laid it out in the centre of the front of the stage. “Stand on the paper,” Cadwallader ordered. “Face the back of the stage so they can see the effects of your punishment.” Bobby walked. It was the hardest thing she’d ever done. Her legs were unsteady. She wanted to crawl. She could feel their eyes on her, monitoring every wobble of her breasts. Everything felt unnatural. She was bending forwards, her legs wouldn’t fully straighten. It was only eight or ten feet to the paper but it was the longest walk in the world. When she got there she felt absurd, standing naked, buttocks burning. She was suddenly struck by a need to go to the toilet. “Stand up straight,” Cadwallader ordered. She did her best to obey, hands limp by her hips, struggling to resist the temptation to rub her bottom. She heard him turn and address the school. “I’m sorry we had to delay you,” he said. “Please reconvene at 1.30 for the remaining 36 strokes.” She began to cry again as the school was dismissed. * 3) The Wait Tony stood in front of her on the stage, staring at her tits. It was a little after 9.30. It had taken a little over half an hour to cane her by the time she’d stripped and been fastened down. That meant he had almost four hours to enjoy her shame. There were two other prefects with him, but he’d been placed in charge. Her head was bowed and she was still snivelling, her shoulders shaking. A handful of students with free periods hung around the hall, gawping at the rear view, at the flogged arse and the long smooth back, but he got to drink in the front view, the delicate breasts, the flat stomach, the carefully trimmed strip of pubic hair. He wanted to wrap his arms around her slender waist, but he knew touching would be going too far. Still, there were ways of making her even more miserable. He smirked and walked slowly around her, letting her knew he was examining her. Her buttocks were criss-crossed with stripes, coalescing into vivid purple patches in the centre of each cheek, the left worse marked than the right. A couple of stray lashes had left angry wheals across the tops of her thighs, the marks all the worse for the purity of the rest of her body. She had a freckle in the very centre of her chest, but other wise her skin seemed utterly without blemish, a soft pale gold. She was slim, the ribs and vertebrae clearly defined, but she was also fit, the light musculature of her shoulders and thighs indicating she ran and played sport. He completed his circuit and stood in front of her. “Head up, Miss Stafford,” he said. “This is a punishment. Look alert.” There was a hesitation in which he could almost see her deliberating whether it was worth defying him, but she lifted her head. She bit her lower lip to try to stem her sobs and sniffed. Her deep brown eyes were red-rimmed, tears still welling. He smiled. “How do you feel?” he asked. She swallowed and said nothing. “I asked how you felt.” “I’m fine,” she said, thrusting her jaw at him. “Good.” He looked her up and down. “Shoulders back,” he said. She looked away, but obeyed. “Do you remember laughing at me?” he asked. “I didn’t laugh.” “You enjoyed it, though, didn’t you? Seeing me humiliated?” “I- I- I’m sorry, OK?” She looked at him. “I was young and stupid and I shouldn’t have.” “Say it again.” “I’m sorry.” “Again.” ‘Sorry.” “I don’t care. And now I have four hours to make your life hell.” He walked away. His erection was too much. * Watson had gone but there were still four prefects on the stage: two male and two female, gawping at her, joking among themselves. Behind her she could hear a handful of pupils with free periods. She was acutely aware of her urge to pee. “Do you think she’ll bleed much?” one asked. “I hope so,” the other said and there were giggles. Bobby wanted to turn round and berate them, but she feared extra lashes. “Do you think it would hurt less if she had a fatter arse?” It was a girl asking the question. “Serves her right for being so skinny.” “Miss Stafford?” a boy’s voice asked. “Miss Stafford? What’s the French for naked?” There were guffaws. “How do you say, ‘Spank me harder!’ in Spanish?” There were hoots of laughter. Bobby could feel herself flushing. God, four hours of this! Of being at their mercy. And she needed to pee. Could she ask? Would they let her go? “Look, she’s going red! She can hear us! ‘Je suis nue!’ Is that right, miss?” “Let’s go round and look at her tits.” As they moved round to the side of the stage, Bobby saw a group of half a dozen of them, three boys and three girls, all pupils she taught. “They’re not very big, are they?” a boy, Waters, asked. “Les seins petits.” Bobby knew her cheeks were burning. She was a slender girl and she wore an A-cup. Her breasts weren’t huge, but she’d never been particularly ashamed of them before. Yet their words stung. They began to discuss how neatly trimmed her pubic hair was. * Bryant sat in the staff-room with a cup of coffee. It was dreadful, instant stuff, but it was almost impossible to get decent stuff here. He couldn’t stop thinking about her, the way she’d bucked up and down, breasts wobbling. The young had such beautiful breasts, he reflected. Hers were small, but neat, smooth, pert. The young didn’t realise how lucky they were, how everything decayed. He finished his coffee, put his newspaper aside and decided to go out for another look. There was a crowd of perhaps a dozen students milling in front of the stage and seven or eight by the side, staring at her, talking about her, teasing her. And there she stood, naked on the stage, cheeks flushed with shame. He had to make it clear he wasn’t just staring at her so Bryant strode briskly up the steps and across towards her. She was deliciously pale and slender, apart, of course, from her buttocks, which were a violent purplish red. “Is she behaving?” he said to one of the prefects. “Yes, sir,” he said. Bryant stood in front of her. “Stand up straight,” he said. He saw her bite the inside of her lower lip and pushed back her shoulders. Inevitably it raised her breasts: what a wonder they were, so smooth and delicate. How he desired to touch them but he knew that was impossible. He walked slowly around her, sensing how it humiliated her to know she was the subject of such examination. She was exquisite. He stood behind her, admiring the slim planes of her shoulders and back, her sportiness evident in her gentle musculature. Then her stared at her buttocks. From her waist to the crease where they joined her thigh they were a vivid red, streaked with deep purple, almost black ridges which joined up ion the centre of each cheek. On her thighs, her lovely slim thighs, there were a couple of streaks where stray lashes lad struck. Almost unthinking, He lay his hands on her buttocks. She yelled in pain and jerked away from him. “Stand still!” he snapped and she tried to resume her position. Two things occurred to him: firstly, that her bottom was both deliciously firm and glowing hot, and secondly that if a slight touch caused her so much distress, another 36 lashes would destroy her. He patted her on both cheeks at once. She squirmed at his touch, whimpering. “Do they hurt badly?” he asked. “Yes, sir,” she said. He walked in front of her and looked her up and down. “You’re very fortunate,” he said. “They could easily have gone to the police with you.” * Bobby had little sense of time. Every second felt like an hour as she stood, naked. She wondered how long she could hold back the urge to go to the toilet. Every fraction of a second, she was aware of being naked. She could feel their eyes on her, constantly, looking at her being naked, judging her, mocking her, revelling in her shame. She want to run, but she knew that would just delight them and earn her extra lashes. Their taunts were constant. She felt simultaneously hot and cold. She wanted more than anything to wrap her arms around herself and protect her modesty, but she knew it was impossible. She also knew it would get worse at lunchtime, that there’d be more of them. She heard footsteps on the stage and saw Mrs Bannerjee striding over towards her, her sensible shoes clattering on the boards. Behind her steel-rimmed glasses, her eyes were stern. They were always stern. Bobby hadn’t liked her when she’d been a pupil and she hadn’t liked her after she’d returned to the school. She was a bitter, lonely woman, Bobby had decided, a bully who took out her frustrations on anybody she had authority over. Bobby had little doubt that Mrs Bannerjee had played a key part in determining her sentence. Mrs Bannerjee grabbed her upper arm, fingers like talons on her left bicep. “You need the toilet, Stafford?” she asked. “Yes, miss,” Bobby replied gratefully, aware she was addressing her as though she were a pupil once again. Mrs Bannerjee half-pushed, half-dragged her, her grip unyielding. Bobby stumbled and there were roars of laughter as her breasts trembled. Walking was difficult, her buttocks numb. Mrs Bannerjee marched her off the stage and, as she did so, the bell went for the end of second period. Bobby understood suddenly the cruelty of Mrs Bannerjee’s timing, making sure she’d have to walk through a crowd up pupils moving between class-rooms. They poured out into the corridor and Bobby was surrounded, buffeted by a swirl of students, male and female, some just hurrying to their next lesson, but many more taking time to stare and jeer. A couple even reached out, grasping at her surreptitiously on Mrs Bannerjee’s blind side. Instinctively, Bobby’s hands went to cover herself, but Mrs Bannerjee shook her violently. “Don’t you dare,” she hissed. “Your shame is part of your punishment.” By the time they reached the toilet, perhaps 60 yards from the stage, Bobby was sobbing again. Mrs Bannerjee took her in. Bobby caught sight of herself in the mirrors, her bare chest, the nipples pink and raised in cold and fear. “You’ve got two minutes,” Mrs Bannerjee said, pushing her towards a stall and glancing at her watch. Bobby almost ran the final few feet to the toilet, shutting the door gratefully behind her. Some privacy at last. But as she began to squat, she was struck by sobs again. She couldn’t sit on the seat – her bottom hurt too much. * Lucy appraised Miss Stafford coldly. About 5’7” she guessed, slender, lovely smooth pale skin marked by just the occasional freckle. Breasts neat and round, small but well-shaped. Probably an A-cup, maybe just a B. Pretty face: good cheek-bones, deep brown eyes. Blonde hair pulled back into two small pony- tails. Legs that showed she was sporty. And firm buttocks that were a deep purplish red, horribly welted. She was trembling slightly as she stood on the newspaper, not quite holding herself fully upright. She could have looked even slimmer if she had. This was the advantage of being in sixth form. She had a free period so she could do what she wanted. She wasn’t the only one. There were three other girls there and perhaps a dozen boys, all of them to a greater or lesser extent demonstrating signs of being in a state of some sexual excitement. She saw big fat Martin with his ginger hair and crooked teeth leering openly, leaning on the front of the stage. Stefano, the good-looking Italian, stood with James, who she’d kissed once in fourth form, smirking, discussing Miss Stafford. Stefano pointed, their heads moved together, and both laughed. How dreadful this must be for Miss Stafford. She wondered how much the flogging had hurt. It had sounded like it had hurt a lot. She looked at the welts. They were angry ridges: they’d shown no mercy. “What’s it like to have a third-former’s tits?” James asked. There was a burst of laughter. The two of them had come closer and now stood next to Lucy. “Did you get bitten by two mosquitoes?” Stefano asked. More laughter. Lucy saw Miss Stafford shudder. What did they expect tits to look like? Their problem was they’d grown up with porn on the internet, with huge double DDs. Miss Stafford’s breasts weren’t huge – they were a little smaller than her own – but they were smooth and round, in proportion to her slight frame. Still, if the abuse embarrassed her then why not. “Which side is the front?” she asked and there were guffaws. Miss Stafford, she saw, had begun to cry. Everybody else had seen it too. “Bwu-bwu-bwub…” taunted James. “Are the sixth- formers being nasty? Why don’t you call teacher?” Her head dropped. A tear fell onto her chest. Tony Watson was straight at her. “Head up,” he snapped. Lucy saw the struggle within her but Miss Stafford obeyed, her cheeks flushed. She remembered when Tony had been caned and she could see how he was relishing another’s humiliation. It dawned on her that Stafford must have been the head girl when Tony was caned; this really was revenge. “Why is she naked?” asked a deep voice. “What is happening?” Lucy turned and saw two local workmen, both in overalls, standing in amused shock, gawping at Miss Stafford. One of the boys explained to them and they laughed. “So she has to stand there without any clothes on until 1.30, then they cane her again?” one asked in disbelief. * Cadwallader sipped at his tea. It was coming up to noon. She’d been out there, naked on the stage, for two and a half hours. Had he done the right thing? Maybe they’d been too harsh. A severe flogging and this humiliation. But what choice had she given him? If she’d come to him and explained her suspicions about Johal, he’d have explained to her how silly she was being. To post them up like that, well, he’d had to make an example of her. Scandal like that could ruin a school. Caning her was right. Was 36 strokes too harsh? Perhaps 24 or 30 would have been fairer. She’d been screaming horribly by the end. But the fact she was taking 72 was her fault. And making her stand there naked between the beatings, well, well, how dare she try to seduce a prefect? How dare she? His hand shook a little with anger. She deserved this, deserved to suffer. Boys had been caned severely in his day and it had done them now harm: why not her? He finished his tea and glanced at his watch. If he went now he could catch the caretaker to ask him about the loose gate on the car park before he went to lunch. He left his office, walked out into the corridor, turned left towards the hallway. And there she was, trembling, naked, beautiful, her buttocks livid. There was a small crowd around her, he saw, including a couple of local workers, teasing her. Perhaps they had gone too far. As he got closer, and the hubbub around her died down, he could hear her sniffling. What a fine looking young woman she was, even with her head bowed, eyes closed. He climbed the steps onto the stage slowly and approached her. He stood in front of her, looking at the neat blonde hair that spilled from the two bands on her neck, and at those pert little breasts. She realised somebody was there and opened her eyes, looking up at him. Her misery and her look of shame caught him and if she’d begged him then, he might have forgiven her. But she remained silent and he sensed a look of reproach. “Stand up straight,” he said, and walked on. * There were crowds around the stage – 100, 200 pupils, who knew how many? – all jostling to get a better view. Tim cursed the fact that his last period before lunch had been at the far end of the school. He pushed closer, hearing the shouts and jeers, the mockery of Miss Stafford. He got to within about 30 feet when the mass of bodies became too much and he stood on tip-toes, gazing at her naked body, the smooth back, the ripple of her ribs, the pink nipple, just visible beyond her right arm, and the savagely beaten buttocks. She was sobbing, her head bowed, shoulders hunched and bobbing up and down. He’d never seen anything so beautiful. Her skin was astonishing to him, so clear and pale, not the mottled or pimpled skin you saw in the boys changing rooms – and that, of course, just made the bruising on her bottom all the more starting. And she was so thin. Were all girls like that? Such delicate shoulders, such a narrow waist. He peered between her legs. He’d watched films or course and looked at pictures on the internet, but he didn’t really know what a vagina looked like. He couldn’t really see here either – just darkness and then the neatly trimmed patch of pubic hair. The crowd was pressed tight to the stage, two or three hundred of them, boys, girls, first-formers, sixth-formers. There was a steady hum of conversation, punctuated by the odd shouted insult – mainly about the size of her tits. Were they really that small? Tim had no real idea beyond what he’d seen in films but they looked good enough to him. He would have loved to have touched them, to squeeze them and see if they really were as smooth and firm as they appeared. He looked at the block, the straps hanging from it, so hard and unyielding, and he thought of her suffering another 36 strokes. He looked at her arse and for the first time felt pity for her. Yet at the same time he was excited by the thought of her suffering even more than the humiliation she was enduring then. To suffer as she had and to know she had to go through it again, to have that on her mind as everybody laughed at her, well, he couldn’t imagine that. “Miss,” somebody shouted. “Will your tits grow any bigger?” There was laughter. Tim joined in. “Miss,” somebody else shouted, “do you shave your pubes?” “Miss, did you know Fat Gareth in 3B has bigger tits than you?” “Miss, do you normally wear a bra or was that just for show this morning?” * Mrs Sharma passed quickly through the hall. The poor girl was surrounded by a mocking crowd. This was barbaric. And to flog her again on that bruised bottom was monstrous. She had to stop it. She strode into Cadwallader’s office, ignoring the protests of that foolish moppet of a secretary. He looked up from his desk as she burst in. “You have to stop this,” she said. Cadwallader signed. “Miss Stafford’s punishment?” he said. “She’s out there, naked, crying, a mob of them laughing at her. It’s inhuman. You’ve flogged her like you’ve flogged no other and you’re going to do the same again. She’ll be bleeding when you’ve finished. But that’s not even the worst but. This, now, that’s the worst bit. How can you, a civilised man, strip a woman naked and leave her there to be ridiculed? How? How can you?” “She is being punished according to school rules,” he said. “No, she’s not. You’re giving her three times the maximum. And where in the school rules does it say you can humiliate a member of staff like that?” She was furious, her voice sounding unnaturally loud. “She chose to be treated like a student,” Cadwallader said, his voice icily calm. “Do you think she’d be better off in the hands of the police? Facing jail?” “Of course not, but what you’re doing to her is obscene.” “She committed a serious offence–” “You–“ Cadwallader held up his hand and Mrs Sharma ground to a halt. “She committed a serious offence,” he went on, “and her punishment would be over by now if she hadn’t compounded it by trying to run away.” “Why is she naked?” Mrs Sharma glared at him. “If the caning was all you cared about you needed only to bare her bottom. Why have you stripped her completely? Just so some middle-aged men can see a pair of young breasts?” “That’s outrageous,” said Cadwallader, becoming a little flustered. “She was stripped because she had to be fastened on the block and because she would have been naked to the waist for a whipping, which is what her offence merited. We have been merciful.” “Do you believe this nonsense? There are people who decided her penalty who are enjoying seeing her like that.” “Mrs Sharma,” he said. “You are on very dangerous ground here. She committed a serious offence and the governors decided to show her mercy and to punish her here rather than handing her over to the police. Imagine they found out she’d tried to seduce a pupil. Imagine what they’d do to her then. Making false accusations could get her years in jail. She knows that. She agreed to this.” Mrs Sharma could feel her anger overwhelm her. She had no answer. “You’ve stripped a young woman naked and flogged her in front of the school,” she sad. “ I hope you’re proud.” Then she stormed out. * 4) The Second Caning Tony had been a little shocked by the volume of hatred directed against her. For the whole hour of lunchtime she’d been abused by everybody, from first- formers to sixth-formers, all jeering at her nakedness. There’d been jibes that her breasts were too small (males mainly) and that her arse was too big (females mainly) but neither was true. She was a beautiful slender girl and those were just the easy insults that came to hand. Her breasts enchanted him, with the pale pink nipples. Part of him wondered whether he should have taken the opportunity for a feel the previous night. They looked so soft, so delicate, so inviting. But he’d traded that to see her thrashed and humiliated and he’d already had to rush twice to the toilets that morning to relieve himself. He was pretty sure he wasn’t the only one. This was a day nobody who had witnessed it would ever forget. He’d wanted to shame her, to make her suffer, but there was nothing he could do beyond what was happening already. He just made sure he made the noise of a cane near her every now and again. The bell went to signal the end of lunch. He saw her flinch, knowing what that meant. Slowly the crowd around the stage subsided and they began to take their seats on the long benches of the hall, soon joined the other pupils. Staff filed in. Mr Cadwallader and the other senior staff took their place on the stage. Tony, taking one last close-up look at her breasts, took up his place by the side of the ball. Cadwallader stood in front of her and looked her up and down. “When I tell you to,” he said, “you will apologise to the school for wasting their time and you will admit you deserved this punishment and thank us for giving it to you.” With one last glance down her torso, he returned to the microphone. * Bobby looked at her feet, pale against the wood. Looking down her body reminded her of her nakedness, but it was still better than looking at the bastards who were doing this to her. “Stafford,” Cadwallader said. “Turn around and face the school.” Steeling herself, she obeyed. She wanted to cry. “Stafford is to receive 36 further strokes of the cane for spreading malicious falsehoods about a member of staff, misuse of school resources, and then attempting to escape her punishment. Have you anything to say?” She lifted her head. She saw them all staring at her nakedness. Her heart thumped. She had to do this. “I’m sorry,” she muttered “Speak louder, Stafford.” “I’m sorry,” she said, but it was barely a whisper. She cleared her throat. “I’m sorry for wasting your time,” she said. The words were coming out too quickly, making her sound ridiculous. She flushed. “I’m sorry for what I did. I deserve this punishment and I thank you for it.” “Good,” said Cadwallader, and for a tiny second she thought that might be it, that he would forgive her. “Now take up the position.” Her legs felt weak. She turned, her body feeling awkward. She knew her breasts wobbled as she did so, knew they would be loving that, these ghouls who’d abused her all morning. Her buttocks had slipped into a warm numbness, sore but bearable, the sort of pain that if halved might almost have been pleasantly stimulating, but she knew now the agony was going to be reawakened. Calling up every ounce of will that remained she walked uncertainly to the block. She swallowed and lowered herself slowly, bending forwards, aware both of how that made her breasts hang down and of how even that act awakened the pain in her arse. * Coulthard pulled the strap tight over the back of her knee, and slipped the needle through the hole. Her bottom was streaked in reds and purples. For her, this was going to be agony, and he was going to enjoy every second. He left his hand brush against her slim thigh. He felt her tense. She knew he was relishing this. He took her slender wrists and fastened the buckle tight. She was crying already, her face a mask of horror. As he stood up, Coulthard put a hand on her shoulder as though to comfort her. It’s Ok,” he said soothingly, “This will soon be over.” Her jaw tightened and she stared at him, blinking away the tears in loathing. He lay a hand on her buttocks as thought to position her, but really just to feel the skin, hot to the touch now, and rutted, a contrast to the smoothness when he’d patted her earlier. She whimpered. He moved his hand to her lower back – what a remarkably narrow torso she had, he thought – and pushed down as Dupont pulled the strap across. He checked the broad strap was tight enough then selected a cane from the back of the stage. It was perhaps three feet long, the width of his little finger, a whippy length of Malacca, designed to sting rather than cause serious damage, although it would still bruise far more than the three lighter canes the school still stocked. He tested it, flicking it through the air, relishing the whistling, whooping noise it made and then, as he saw Bobby glancing up, relishing even more the fear in those dark eyes. Coulthard and Dupont took their positions behind Stafford. He suspected she’d bleed with this second batch. He just hoped Cadwallader didn’t take pity on her. “36 strokes,” Cadwallader said. “Proceed.” The hall fell silent, the only noise Coulthard could hear the terrified breathing of Stafford. Dupont touched his cane to her buttocks, drew it back and lashed her. She jerked immediately in pain, a loud gaps leaving her mouth. “One,” came the count. Coulthard took his time, picked his spot and, with a firm flick of his wrist, lashed her, aiming at the centre of the worst of the damage from the first set. Her shriek of pain was deeply gratifying, her left leg flicking up. Even after the scream had subsided, her could hear her breathing quavering in her throat. The third was low, only just on her buttocks and sent her tipping forwards, body lifting so her feet left the ground. Coulthard let her settle, let her wait, let her anticipate, then, with as much force as he could muster, struck his second in the same spit as the first. Her head snapped back and she roared. “Four.” * Bryant looked on, his focus as ever on the tits, bouncing and quivering as she fought in her bonds. Stafford was moaning and sobbing constantly now, hyperventilating worryingly, dignity gone in the face of the relentless strokes. Her lovely face was red, snot was oozing from her nose, a couple of tendrils of hair lank with sweat, hung across her forehead. Dupont struck her again and she shrieked, shoulders jerking up, arms taut, breasts deliciously wobbling. Seven. Tim could barely contain himself. Having been up close to her, having seen her nakedness, to watch this was something else, a beautiful girl screaming, helpless and in agony. Whatever control she’d managed to retain during the first set was gone now. She was twisting and howling, never quite able to settle from one lash before the next landed. Her legs kept flicking up, sometimes one, sometimes the other, sometimes both together. The atmosphere in the hall had changed. For some this was still as it had been in the morning something to be enjoyed, a break from the routine, a story to tell, a teacher brought low. But there were others, he recognised, like him, who were seeing how brutal this was and revelling in it. And there were others who were appalled. A lot of the younger ones were crying at Miss Stafford’s cries. But he was happily shouting out the strokes. “Nine.” “Ten.” Lucy couldn’t quite believe this was still going on. This was an act of grotesque savagery, Miss Stafford reduced to non-stop bawling, her buttocks slowly turning from purple to black. She’d seen canings before and she’d relished them, some foolish boy humiliated for five minutes. But this was a sustained assault, flaying the skin from her arse, breaking her over a period of several hours. And it stirred something warm inside her. Tony remembered the pain he had gone through, remembered the shame of knowing everybody was staring at his penis as he tried to deal with the pain and he knew what she was suffering was a million times worse. She seemed barely human as she bawled in agony, twisting hopelessly as Mr Coulthard and M Dupont thrashed her. And then there was blood. First, on the fifteenth blow, a red bubble on the left cheek. It grew slowly larger and then began gently to roll down her thigh. Would they stop the flogging? But they just kept going. * The pain was extraordinary. She hadn’t thought pain like this was possible. Dupont lashed her again. Seventeen. Her whole backside was in agony, but somehow each new blow caused another stab of pain. She was shaking, struggling to breath, aware of a terrible howling that she knew she must be making. She tried to compose herself, but her heart was pounding and her face was a mess of tears and snot. Coulthard whipped her, the cane making a sharp swack as it struck low on her left buttock. The burn was instant. She shouted even louder, twisting and writhing, gasping for air. “Eighteen.” It was only halfway through this set. The thought left her in despair. Huge racking sobs gripped her and she slumped over the block, trembling, her head hanging limp. But when Dupont struck her again, she jerked up, pain making her alert. At that moment she would have done anything to stop it. She bit her back teeth together, trying to regain some control, but Coulthard’s next lash bit cruelly into the centre of the cheek where there was a concentration of blows. It was a new level of agony. Her head snapped back and she shrieked, muscles standing out in her neck. * Father Johal looked on dispassionately. She was suffering, a lot. She was screaming and humiliated and earning a lesson she wouldn’t forget. But he still felt she should have been whipped. He’d become priest at the school 15 years ago, and had found the whip in a case left by his predecessor. He’d run the cords through his fingers, imagining what it would be to use it on the smooth back of a girl – if she deserved it, of course. He’d checked through the school records. It seemed the whip hadn’t been used for 20 years before him – and that on a boy who’d smashed the chapel window with a catapult. Six lashes and 12 with the cane. Had it ever been used on a woman? He’d found no evidence. But he thought of her, hands bound above her head, those sweet breasts stretched out, jerking as the knotted cords bit into the firm flesh of her back and shoulders. But she was suffering, that much was clear. She’d reached a point where she clearly didn’t care about dignity any long, screaming and twisting as they thrashed her. Twenty-four, twenty-five, twenty-six. Her eyes were wild now. She shouted in terror. “Please stop this. Please!” But the lashes were remorseless. What a sight she was, that trim torso writhing and bucking, the neat breasts quivering. * Coulthard’s arm felt weary, but he wasn’t going to let up. He waited until she fell still, drew back his arm and, snapping his wrist at just the right moment delivered a crisp blow along the crease at the base of her buttocks, the tip of the case biting into the left cheek. She twitched violently, as though trying to squeeze her thighs together and shot him a sharp glance. That had hurt especially. “Twenty-seven.” She was panting, her shallow breaths pulsing through her. He watched as Dupont lashed into the bruised heart of her right buttock. She roared in pain and a new bubble of blood sprang up. This was magnificent. This was the most fun he’d ever had. He took a breath. He had only four more to deliver. Make them count. How he wished he could take her to his rooms after this, take that weasel-waist in his hands and sit her on top of him. He was aware of a silence. She’d fallen still. She was looking at him, waiting for the next blow, lower lip trembling. He lashed her, the twenty-ninth stroke of her second set, the tip digging deep into the meat of her buttock. There was a spray of blood and she began to retch, legs shaking. Cadwallader closed his eyes. Perhaps they had gone too far. He tried to steel himself. He thought of her crimes. Of the way she’d tried to escape punishment. But maybe that didn’t equate to this, to bawling naked on a stage in front of the whole school, buttocks bleeding, screaming and howling. Maybe Mrs Sharma had been right. He believed in corporal punishment. He believed the cane was necessary but he knew that here he’d gone too far. Dupont struck again, low into the top of the thigh. There was a dull schlack, then a howl. “Thirty,” he said. He had to remain strong. He couldn’t let any doubt show. People had to believe this was right, that was justice and not something ore brutal and savage than that. “Thirty-one!” Tim shouted. At the front some of the younger ones were screaming, but round him the mood was of fun and excitement. He hadn’t realised how stimulating the terror and pain of another could be. He wanted louder screams, more kicking, more blood. He also wanted to see more of her tits. Lucy felt sick. What the fuck as this? How could they do this? A couple of dozen strokes might have been fun: watch that haughty bitch screaming, bring her down a peg or two. But this was something inhumane. Blood was running freely now down her thighs. She was so exhausted she’d almost stopped kicking. You could see she was shaking. This was assault. Tony felt no sympathy. He couldn’t believe they were doing this but he was loving every second. Thirty-three came the shout as the cane landed and her body spasmed, shudders running through it. The muscles of her thighs stood out as though with cramp and she wailed piteously. He wondered whether those bloodied buttocks would ever return to the same smooth firmness they’d had when they’d started. It had taken about a month for his own bruises to heal but this was much, much worse. Bobby was in a hell worse than anything she could ever have imagined. Her face was wet with tears, mucus and saliva. Her shoulders, arms and legs hurt from jerking in the bonds. And her backside… Nothing had ever hurt like that. Coulthard lashed her again. Somehow in the sea of pain she felt the new blow as the school yelled out “34!” The agony surged through her. She retched, legs twitching, torso bucking. She was sweating profusely. She gasped for breath. She could feel blood running down her thighs. She flopped over the block, exhausted. How could they take such pleasure in this? How could they cheer her degradation. Bryant knew he’d never forget this, knew that in years to come he’d remember this pretty girl writhing naked before him, taken to a pitch of anguish no school should ever inflict. Dupont lashed her again and she went through the familiar routine as her body tried to process the pain. “Thirty-five,” shouted the hall. Dupont relaised she could never teach there again and he wondered idly what they’d do. Then came Coulthard’s final stroke. He sized her up, measured the lash and then, with a greater force than any other he’d inflicted that day, he struck her. Her reaction showed it was harder as her body snapped taut and she yelled and then began dry heaving. * 5) Aftermath Bobby lay face down on the bed in her room. She didn’t really know how long had passed but she suspected it was days. The last lash had been the worst: if he’d hit her that hard with all of them she thought she would have died. They’d kept her bound to the block while the whole school was dismissed, cramps shooting through her muscles, buttocks throbbing as dozens of them took the opportunity to walk past and have a final stare at her nakedness as she sobbed pitifully. Then at last she’d been unfastened. Even standing had been difficult, the pain extraordinary. And then she’d been hit by a wave of humiliation, naked on the stage, teachers and governors staring at her as looked around trying to work out where her clothes were. She’d covered herself, and then realised what a pathetic gesture it was when she’d been naked for five hours. “Please…” she’d stuttered, but been greeted only by Coulthard’s leer. Finally, Mrs Sharma had wrapped a huge bath towel around her and had helped her back to her room. It had seemed like it had taken forever, each tiny step a new agony. Mrs Sharma had supported her, half-carrying her, whispering calming platitudes until she’d got her down on her bed. She’d dabbed at her wounds with antiseptic and had given her water to drink. That evening, she’d come back and given her soup and had applied some balm to the buttocks. Bobby hadn’t moved. She’d clutched her pillow, a sheet loosely draped over her, shaking, sobbing, thinking of the shame and feeling the constant throbbing of her backside. Mrs Sharma had helped her into a baggy T-shirt, had given her painkillers, had sat with her, holding her hand, for hours. And Bobby had just lain, cold, humiliated, hurting. She slept a lot, but it wasn’t restful, haunted by images of nudity and pain. There were times when she dreaded being raped or sent back for more punishment. What was to stop Tony or one of the other prefects coming in and doing whatever they wanted? She thought about leaving but knew she was too weak. Every day Mrs Sharma came and gave her food and painkillers, applied salve to her buttocks, helped her. She’d taken her to shower once as well and Bobby had feared Mrs Sharma was somehow enjoying the sight of her nakedness before realising she was being absurd. Had it been a week? Maybe longer. She had to get up. She had to do something. She would have a shower. She forced herself out of bed. Even the sensation of taking her weight on her feet felt strange, her buttocks numb. Slowly she staggered into her bathroom and turned on the water. She stood watching the jets for a time, then clambered over the side of the bath. It stung as the water flowed across the wounds, but washing helped, as though her shame were somehow being sluiced away. And then the memory came back to her, certain images far too clear. There she was struggling with her bra. There she was lowering her naked and bruised body over the block to receive the second set. There she was, twisting and screaming as Coulthard leered. She slipped to her knees and vomited. Mrs Sharma kept coming. Bobby slept, she remembered. Tony’s laughing face. The sight of her wrist, strapped to the wood. The taunts about her breasts. The pain. The feeling she couldn’t go on. Slowly she got stronger. Slowly the swelling in her buttocks eased. Finally, a month after her caning, she slipped out in the night with her belongings in a rucksack, made her way to the station and bought a first-class ticket to the regional capital. * 6) Another Nightmare Father Johal watched from a second-floor office as the car pulled into compound. An officer in a khaki shirt hastened to the back door. An officer stepped out and then, uncertainly, clearly scared, Bobby Stafford shuffled across the seat and got out. He felt his heart contract as he saw her again, almost six weeks after he’d watched her being caned. She was wearing a grey T- shirt and baggy trousers, but the slenderness that made her so appealing was obvious. She wore her hair loose, gathering just on the back of her collar. It didn’t seem she’d been arrested – she wore no chains – but she glanced about nervously as an officer, with a light hand on her upper arm, guided her into the building. “It’ll be an hour or so, Father,” said a sergeant with a smile. “Get yourself a drink and then you can watch the show.” “Thank you, sergeant,” he replied. “She’s a pretty one, all right.” “Yes.” “Dangerous too from what we’ve found out.” “Mmmm.” Dangerous? That was a surprise. * Bobby didn’t really understand what was happening. After getting to the city she’d booked a flight home, wondering what on earth she was going to tell her parents. It hadn’t been possible to get one immediately and so she’d had a week to kill, which she’d spent mainly hanging around her hotel, reading and chatting. It was so nice to talk to people who hadn’t seen her naked, who didn’t look at her and think of her bleeding buttocks. But then, a day before she’d been due to leave, two police officers had turned up at breakfast. They’d been calm and polite and asked them to go with her to the police station, insisting there was nothing to worry about. She’d asked what it was about and they’d said they didn’t know, that their chief inspector had asked to see her. She’d asked if she was being arrested and they’d assured her it was some admin matter. She’d assumed it was to do with her breaking her contract at the school so, with a slight sense of foreboding, she’d joined them in the car, although she hadn’t appreciated the way they’d sat either side of her on the back seat. It felt, well, intimidating. The police station was an unremarkable building in the colonial style, the outside painted in a grubby whitewash. They escorted her upstairs and asked her to take a seat on a line of four in the corridor. After a few minutes, she was asked into an office where a bespectacled man in his late forties sat behind a desk, brow creased and sweat patches clear on his fraying shirt. His tie wasn’t just loose but had been pulled down to mid chest. “Miss Stafford?” he asked, peering over his glasses and indicating an old padded chair facing him. “Yes, sir,” she said, hoping that was what you called a chief inspector. He picked up a sheaf of papers from his desk and skimmed a couple of pages. She sat awkwardly. “If this is about the school…” she said. He held up his hand to silence her. “Noooo…” he said, unsurely, turning to a third page. “It’s not about a school.” He kept reading, and a knot of unease tightened in her belly. A few minutes passed, then at last he addressed her, taking off his glasses. “I’m afraid, Miss Stafford, some quite serious allegations have been made against you.” Her heart plunged. She thought for a moment she might be sick. “Have you been working against the government or aiding the rebels at all?” “No!” She felt something close to panic. “I see.” He put his glasses on again and signed a form. “I’m afraid you’re going to have to be processed for the emergency tribunal.” “What!?” she shouted, but the two soldiers were already on her, pulling her up by her arms. She could feel her heart thumping, her breath reduced to shallow little gasps. * Father Johal stood with four other men at the back of the room as Bobby was led in. There were perhaps a dozen constables in there as well as the two who held her arms, plus a youngish man in a stained suit who sat behind a desk. She was clearly terrified as they positioned her in front of the desk. The man in the suit rattled through a series of basic questions: name, date of birth, address. “Miss Stafford,” he said. “You will go before the tribunal tomorrow charged with sedition. You must first be processed.” “I want a lawyer,” she said. “I want to contact my embassy.” “Under the state of emergency you do not have that right. Your embassy will be informed you have faced a tribunal.” “But this–” “Strip!” She seemed to flinch at the order, shuffling backwards a couple of paces, bending slightly forwards as though to make herself smaller. Then, as though recognising she had no option, she bent down and clumsily unfastened her trainers. She took off her socks and placed them neatly into her shoes. The girlishness of the gesture sent Johal’s heart racing again. There was something about her that drove him wild. The clerk tossed her a plastic bag. “Everything in there,” he said. Obediently she placed her shoes in the bag. She looked away, down and to the left as she unbuttoned her jeans then peeled them down. She was crying, he realised. Good: he’d worried the humiliation on the stage might have somehow inured her to shame. She folded them and add them to the bag. Her legs were slender and toned, a pale gold in colour. She pulled up her T-shirt. She was so slim, that waist without a scrap of fat. Off it came, over her head, leaving her deliciously vulnerable. Her fingers were visibly shaking as she unhooked her bra and then, quickly – too quickly perhaps, suggesting her emotional turmoil – she pulled off her panties and she was naked. He gazed, first of all, at her buttocks. Some faint marks were still visible but essentially the bruising and swelling had died down. Father Johal had spent a long time contemplating her nakedness, but his heart was thumping still as she cowered between the two constables, attempting to cover herself with her arms. “Put your arms out to the sides, Miss Stafford,” the clerk asked, and slowly she obeyed. Father Johal wished he had more of a front-on view, but even from where he was standing he could see the upturn of her right breast, the rosy nipple just visible beneath her arm. He sensed the ripple of interest among the officers, this delicately beautiful girl offered to them. The clerk approached her. Meticulously, he searched between her fingers, first on her right hand and then her left. Johal could feel her shame at the scrutiny. The clerk moved behind her and ordered her to raise her left foot. He took it in his hand and pried between the toes then repeated the process with the right. He inspected her ears, her nose and her mouth. He poked at her armpits then flicked at her right breast dismissively. “No room to hide anything under there,” he said mockingly. Johal saw her jaw stiffen at the insult. The clerk returned to his desk. “Bend forward,” he ordered, and took a pair of gloves from the drawer. Her face crumpled but she obeyed. “Run your fingers through your hair.” She did so, giving a slight whimper at the sound of the gloves snapping on his wrist. “Spread your buttocks.” She gave a stifled sob as she complied. Johal stared as the clerk moved behind her and, with a great sense of ceremony, inserted a finger. She grunted as it went in. The clerk seemed to spend an inordinate time probing. She was crying by the time he inspected her cunt. * Bobby was mortified. What had she done to deserve this? Naked again, exposed in front of men, and this time having them jabbing at her most intimate areas. “Take her to a cell,” the clerk said. Naked? They weren’t going to give her clothes? A guard touched her arm and she shook him off. “Please!” she shouted. “You have to give me something to wear.” She backed away holding her arms out defensively in front of her. “You can’t-” she said, and then she saw Father Johal. “You-” she began, eyes staring. Distracted, she was only vaguely aware of the officer approaching her from her left. When she did give him her attention it was too late. He raised a short rubber truncheon and smashed it down, hitting her on the left collar-bone. She shrieked and collapsed. The pain was extraordinary. Lights danced before her eyes. She felt nauseous. As she could see was feet and the concrete floor. Was it broken? Hands pulled her to her feet. The sole of a boot prodded her in the backside and she staggered forward. The two of them were on her, dragging her along a corridor. She heard a door open and felt herself being hurled through. She landed heavily, scraping her right knee and elbow and the door slammed behind her. She heard bolts being slammed in and a key turn in the lock. Slowly, she pulled her self up. Her collar-bone was in agony, a livid bruise marking the pale skin. The cell was perhaps 10 feet by 8, dimly lit and empty, a concrete cube with a small and filthy drain in the floor and a grubby bulb set in the ceiling. She sat in a corner, knees to her chin, hugging her shins. What was this? Why was she here? What was Johal doing there? Was this more of his revenge? She wept. They’d all heard tales of what the police did to dissidents. Was she going to be tortured? She tried to think, tried to make a plan, but naked in a cell in a police station, her options were limited. She told herself to calm down, but it wasn’t as easy as that. She felt nauseous, the pain in in collar-bone throbbing. She was cold, as well, however had she hugged herself, breasts pressing into thighs, head resting on her knees. What was Johal doing? Had he arranged for her to be arrested? Why had she put that poster up? Why? As she thought of her caning, of the impossible pain, of the humiliation, a shudder passed through her. For what felt likes hours she sat there, waiting. She would hear footsteps echo down the corridor, tensing as they reached her door, but they always passed. She felt stiff and tired. She stretched out briefly, but was terrified they were watching her. Her buttocks began to ached and so she curled up on her side, but when the door opened that evening, she was back in the corner, knees raised, arms wrapped around her shins. Four officers walked in. She was ordered to her feet and told to stand facing the wall with her hands flat on the dusty paintwork. She obeyed. She heard a chink of chains and her wrists suddenly were cuffed behind her. A bag was pulled over her head and then, as hands played over her buttocks and breasts, she was marched out into the corridor. * Johal took one of the whips from the two officers who had been deputed to flog her. They’d been practising all afternoon, learning how to handle them. He felt its familiar handle, weighing it in his hands. He ran his fingers between the five cords, each about three feet long and knotted five times in their final foot. How often he’d practised striking at a cushion in his rooms, imagining a pretty girl writhing under the lashes. And now he’d get to see one of the prettiest of girls taking 24 from a pair of tough, muscular young men. They entered the punishment room. She was already there, naked but for the hood, wrists fastened above her head by leather cuffs to a chain that hung from the ceiling. She was clearly terrified, knees angled in towards each other, her long slender body looking incredibly fragile in the slightly ghostly electric light. He approached her and pulled the bag off. She gave a gasp, as though she hadn’t quite been able to breathe, and shook her head, flicking her hair from her eyes. As she focused on him, her eyes hardened. He lay a hand on her cheek, caressing the high cheek-bone. “Miss Stafford,” he said softly, gazing into her deep brown eyes. “You did me a great ill, and you must be punished for it.” She’d seen the whip in his other hand and he saw the fear leap in her. “You gave me 72 strokes of the cane,” she hissed. “Is that not enough?” “No,” he said, his hand falling to rest on her delicate right breast, flattened by her position. “They didn’t punish you for blasphemy, and the punishment for that is 24 lashes.” She gave a low moan. He held the whip up, brushed it across her face, let her feel the hard little knots. He trailed it over her breasts and then handed it back to one of the officers who would lash her. He walked behind her. He wanted, first of all, to see what a whip like this would do to her back. All those years of preserving it, of wondering how it would damage skin and finally he would see it, on a back as smooth and delicate as he had only dared dream about. He looked at her buttocks, just a few streaks of pink and the odd blotch of pale bruising showing her ordeal. He patted her, admiring the firmness of the young flesh and was amused to hear her whimper. Then he backed off to take a seat alongside a dozen senior officials. The two floggers took their places either side of her. She stood, head bowed, knock-kneed, humiliated and terrified. A sergeant announced the sentence and they were ready to begin. * Bobby stared at the floor. How could this be happening again? She heard the sergeant give the order to begin and readied herself. She heard the whine of the cords through the air, then a sharp sting on the upper right part of her back. For a moment she stopped breathing. She heard the call of, “One!” and for a second she thought this might not be too bad. But as the initial smart faded a deeper pain began to intensify. The second lash struck. The burn was terrible. She’d managed to remain silent but there were two patches of fire on her back. The whip was light, she understood, in some ways a less fearsome instrument than the cane, but the knots stung viciously. Johal watched intently, a cigarette in one hand, a glass of whisky in the other. The third lash landed and the muscles of her back twitched delightfully. He glanced at the inspector who smiled back at him. They were all enjoying this. Yes, it was a favour one old friend had done another – apparently other prisoners had been persuaded to implicate Stafford under questioning – but there was something special about an English bitch getting this treatment. And the fact she was so pretty only added to the experience. The fourth lash landed and she gave a slight gasp of pain. The floggers were striking hard, real pace in their arms. Two pink stripes were clear stretching on a shallow diagonal from her shoulders down across her back to meet in the middle. Around the shoulder blades, the pink was more vivid where the knots had dug in. At the fifth she gave a yelp. What Bobby hadn’t expected was the multiplicatory nature of the pain. The sting got worse and worse. They were concentrating the lashes on her shoulders and a little below, hitting bruised skin again and again. The pattern was horrific. The whistle of whips, the immediate smart, her gasp of pain, the slowly building fire, the announcement of the number, a pause as the pain raged, then the slow easing of the sting and a sense of a numb agony, allied to the knowledge that another lash was coming. Her face was wet with tears, her heart thumping. She could smell the smoke from their cigarettes, hear their laughter, the discussion of her and her pain. Another blow landed, the ends of the lash biting round into the some flesh beneath her left armpit. She shouted in pain and felt a wave of nausea pass over her. “Ten,” came the call. Johal stood up. Her upper back was scarlet. He walked around her slender trembling form, taking care not to inadvertently take a blow as the flogger wound up for another lash. The eleventh whipped into her as he drew alongside her. He saw the muscles contract, the head flick up, the knots bite into the tender skin. She gasped with pain, eyes closed, teeth set. He stood beside the sergeant calling the count. She looked utterly pathetic, lips quivering, cheeks wet with tears, thin body shaking with pain and fear.