JOSEPHINE

A Novel

by: Miss Anthropy
© 2000    All rights reserved.

 

This is an erotic work of fiction the setting of which is an alternative history of the United Kingdom. Any resemblance of the characters therein to actual persons living or dead is entirely coincidental. The text contains strong language and depictions of persons engaged in violent, sexual and/or degrading acts that some people may find offensive.

 

"In woman, a slave and a tyrant have all too long been concealed"

FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE

 

 

CONTENTS

Chapter One:	The Sentence
Chapter Two:	Ladies Only
Chapter Three:	The New Order
Chapter Four:	The Lower Basement
Chapter Five:	Team Sports
Chapter Six:	The Release
Chapter Seven:	In the Household
Chapter Eight:	Captured Pawns
Chapter Nine:	Party Games
Chapter Ten:	The Chain of Command
Chapter Eleven:	Miss Smythe
Chapter Twelve:	Veronica
Chapter Thirteen:	The Flight
Chapter Fourteen:	Internal Discipline
Chapter Fifteen:	The Director

 

 

CHAPTER ONE – THE SENTENCE

 

The Judge resumed her seat and, except for the accused, all present followed suit. She peered down on him as he calmly awaited sentence and, for some unknown reason, a thin smile crossed her lips.

"Joseph Smythe!" she intoned. "You have been found guilty of seditious libel and the possession of subversive literature, and I will now pass sentence upon you for these offences."

The onlookers leant forwards. This was the moment they had been waiting for in delightful anticipation. The Judge continued.

"Although there are some who deny it, these are amongst the most serious of charges. They strike at the heart of society, the community and therefore all of us. In dealing with you now, I will treat them as such." She drew breath.

Death; thought Joseph, resting his hands on the dock in front of him. He prayed that he would be ready for it, ready to accept his fate with dignity, on his feet, eyes fixed forwards at the Judge.

"In spite of this," she said, "I will also show mercy. Mercy you will not understand now, but we pray you will come to appreciate later." A surge of whispers began before the Judge silenced it by glancing round the room. This was unexpected. Many had hoped for a hanging, but it seemed that the Judge had something different in mind.

"There are some who believe that defiance to the will of society has two distinct causes," she lectured. "Firstly there are the weak and stupid. People who cannot understand what is expected of them. These can be cured through care, education and discipline and thereby turned into useful members of society. In your pamphlet, every copy of which we will destroy, you criticised our excellent programme for curing male delinquency by the use of female hormones. You wilfully ignored the evidence that this programme has dramatically reduced the incidence of all categories of crime because you cannot accept that society cares for all its members, however vile their behaviour might be."

"You know that you are also an enemy of society and therefore in our eyes a criminal, but believe yourself to be in a different category. These are people who are neither weak nor stupid, but in full understanding of the rules of the community choose to set themselves apart from it. You think that you have a right to believe in outmoded political ideas and to ignore the law where it conflicts with these ideals. If we punish you, you will regard yourself as a martyr to your chosen cause. I will not indulge this fantasy."

She paused and looked down on her victim like a hawk surveying a frightened rabbit caught in an open field. The monologue was delivered with growing delight as though she had found the perfect sentence.

"I have studied your case very carefully, and it is clear to me that your political views arise as a result of mental defects. Your belief in democracy and obsession with individual freedom proves that you are oblivious to the basic laws of human interaction; obedience, authority and community. Because of this, you cannot be a complete human being. This fills me with pity and disgust in equal measure. Despite this, I, and the rest of society, will prove that this moral blindness, stemming as it does from the exclusively male weaknesses of personal pride and alienation can and will be eradicated."

Joseph realised what the sentence would be and became pale. His worst nightmare was about to become reality. The hawk swooped.

"You will become a responsible member of the community. We will take you into our hands, destroy you completely and rebuild you as a humble, obedient and respectful woman. I hereby sentence you to involuntary gender reversal and detention until such a time as you are fit for release into society. Take her down."

As the gavel came down with a crash the courtroom burst into commotion. Applause and catcalls merged into a blur as Joseph’s world began to fade around him. Too late, he realised he had lost his grip on the dock and was swooning back into the arms of the policemen. His grim prediction that gender reversal might one day be used against political offenders had just come horribly true.

 

When he came to he was lying on his back on a cold hard surface with a large figure leaning over him. His jacket and tie had been removed and the figure, a female prison officer with short black hair, was gently rousing him.

"Come on, dear, wake up," she said. He realised he was lying on a wooden bench in the whitewashed corridor at the foot of the stairs which lead up to the fateful dock. There was still a gentle hubbub drifting down from the courtroom. Still heavy and delirious he tried to sit up. This must be a nightmare.

"What happened? I fell…" he started.

"Stay quiet. Drink." she pushed a paper cup full of cold water into his trembling hands. Behind her was another wardress, not as tall but much fatter than her colleague, standing with her hands on her hips.

"You were out for quite a while," continued the first wardress. "The police brought you down here ten minutes ago."

"Bit of a scene up there," the other wardress sniggered. "And in the papers tomorrow no doubt. They called us up just in case, but no-one though they’d go for it. You’re legally a woman now. How do you feel about that?"

"Do you think you can walk?" asked the first woman. Joseph began to feel the bruises from his fall but at least the sensation had returned to his limbs.

"I think so."

"I think so, Miss," hissed the fat wardress.

There was a painful pause.

"Sorry….. Miss." Joseph said slowly. Something in him rebelled against that, but he was tired.

"Thank you," said the first woman. "I can see you have a lot to learn, though we will try to be patient. I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask you for your clothes in a moment. Can you find me something for her, Miss Jones?"

"What size?"

"Hmmm. Try a 16." Miss Jones waddled away through a side door, while the first wardress, presumably her superior, helped Joseph to his feet. She was well built, with a tight athletic figure, quite attractive in fact, and her crisp uniform seemed to suit her perfectly.

"By the way, I’m Miss Stapleton and I’m a Senior Officer," she said. "I look after the unit that takes care of people like you until the surgical procedure is complete, so you’ll be seeing quite a lot of me. Most of the time you’ll be with the medical team, mind you, but I take care of security. And the discipline side of things, of course. Through the little door on the left please."

The door led into a small white tiled room with a table in the middle and some thick but transparent plastic bags in the corner.

"Right then," said Miss Stapleton, closing the door behind her. "Everything goes into one of those bags. You’ll get it all back once your sentence is complete, though you won’t have much use for the clothing. If anyone so much as sees you out of a skirt you’ll get a good flogging and six months back inside. We don’t want that, do we?"

Slowly and painfully, Joseph began to undress, dropping the remainder his creased brown suit onto the floor. The room was unheated and he shivered as he exposed more flesh to the cold.

A knock came on the door, and Miss Jones came in holding a small orange bundle. She watched the scene with approval.

"Don’t be shy love, that’s it. And the underwear, if you please," Miss Stapleton ordered. Joseph began to glow red with embarrassment as, divested of his other clothes, he slid his underpants down his legs.

"Nothing there to hide," chortled Miss Jones, staring at his testicles. "Shall we take ‘em off with tweezers?"

"That’s enough of that, Miss Jones," cautioned Miss Stapleton. "Men get upset by that sort of joke. It’s the only thing they’re sensitive about, mind you. Hands on your head, Smythe." He obeyed. She began to walk around him in a slow circle, inspecting his naked body.

"Anything to declare?" she asked, casually lifting one of his buttock cheeks. Joseph tensed his muscles. The wardress laughed and let go of him.

"We’ll do a proper search when we get to the prison," she said, giving the buttock a playful slap. "Now bag up your clothes and get dressed."

Five minutes later, he was standing before them in a thin orange polyester smock marked ‘Government Property’ that hung loosely about his body, gently brushing against the hairs that stood on end from the cold.

"Good girl," beamed Miss Stapleton. "A lot of my customers struggle like mad the first time we put them in a dress."

"It’s more fun when there’s a fight involved if you ask me." put in Miss Jones, pulling out a pair of handcuffs from her belt. "Home office rules, love. Arms out in front if you please."

"One more thing," said the senior wardress as Miss Jones slapped on the handcuffs. "We’re allowed to call female prisoners by their first names if we want to. I think it makes for a better atmosphere. Your old name feminises fairly easily to ‘Josephine’. I like to get on with my girls if I can. Is the van ready, Miss Jones?"

"I think so, Miss. It’s out the back, but we’d better hurry."

 

The Press had discovered the location of the van and, despite heavy police presence, managed several shots of "Josephine", trying to hide his face behind his manacled hands. The image would be used, no doubt, to underline the triumph of the Community Party extremists in the tabloids next morning. Anxious to escape the photographers, the wardresses pulled him into the darkness of the van and slammed the door with all three of them inside. The baying of the journalists outside continued as they pushed him down into a seat. As the van ground forwards the horror of the situation finally overcame him and before he knew it tears were running down his cheeks.

"Don’t worry," whispered Miss Stapleton, who sat beside her prisoner, sliding a burly arm behind him. She guided his head down into her lap and began wiping his face with her free hand. "You’re one of us now, or soon will be. Do as we say and we’ll look after you. Lie still."

In the comfort of her arms Joseph allowed himself to drift into half consciousness, rocked gently by the motion of the van. Hours before, he had sworn to resist his oppressors, to fight them to the death, a death that would make him a martyr for freedom. But the Judge’s words echoed in his ears. They were going to force him to repent and, worse still, to ‘cure’ him. The humiliation of the sentence, and the way in which parts of it were immediately carried out, had smashed his pride into a thousand pieces.

Joseph Smythe, the left wing academic renowned for his hatred of the new Government and defence of the old ways of democracy and freedom, has been silenced at last and now stared blankly into the abyss of destruction. He had no future. But another soul was stirring inside the body of the prisoner. A lonely, frightened spirit that had been governed by Joseph Smythe’s obsessions since childhood and had never had chance to flower into a person. This soul shared none of its former master’s humiliation and accepted physical discomfort as the natural and healthy state of being. All this soul felt now was the warmth of the firm but handsome wardress. It wanted her to draw it closer to her bosom like a new born infant.

The journey lasted many hours, and Joseph spent much of it asleep, exhausted by the trial. Despite Miss Jones’s objections, Miss Stapleton took off the handcuffs and allowed him to lie down on the bench opposite them. She even found an old blanket to keep him warm.

"You’ll be reading a bedtime story next," snorted Miss Jones.

"She’s my responsibility and I’ll treat her any way I choose." came the curt reply.

 

North Castle Women’s Penitentiary had been founded in 1874 by a group of philanthropists appalled by the treatment of women in the stinking, overcrowded gaols of the time. They held a belief that, aside from a few extremes they regarded as medical cases, all women were inherently morally good and therefore had the potential to become useful members of society. Female criminality, they believed, resulted solely from women being led astray under the domination of wicked men and could be cured if the patient was removed from these influences.

Their model prison would seek to cure such fallen women by the application of an exacting formula of care and discipline in a healthy, all female environment, with a strong emphasis on developing feminine attitudes of humility and obedience. This, they felt, would allow the true goodness to emerge from the prisoner.

Though it did not share their lofty ideals, the government of the day was happy to relieve itself of some of its female convicts and even more delighted to find that the regime was, on the whole, much more effective than that of existing prisons at deterring inmates from re-offending. Funds for extending the regime to other institutions were, however, sadly unavailable.

North Castle was therefore allowed to operate strictly according to its own regulations, and, while the world changed around it, the fortress stayed the same for almost a century. Although many considered its regime enlightened by Victorian standards, it began to acquire a reputation as the harshest women’s prison in the country. In particular, some of the more inventive forms of discipline employed in the prison began to attract lurid interest from some quarters. Faced with the possibility of legal action from the foundation governing the prison if they tried to alter the regime, the Government finally closed the establishment altogether and, though the foundation survived as a pressure group, the old stone buildings were used as an isolation hospital for several years.

To the horror of some feminists, but to the delight of others of a more authoritarian cast, the new government had allowed North Castle to reopen as a women’s prison, managed as a public-private sector partnership with the old foundation who gleefully re-imposed the original regime in almost every detail. The success of the institution and its popularity within the Community Party was astonishing.

The prison itself was located in a moor in the north of England, partly built on the foundations of a thirteenth century castle. It was constructed as an oblong quadrangle laid around a cobblestone courtyard with an imposing tower gateway and smaller turrets in each corner. Unlike many gaols built at the time it had surprisingly few single cells, in accordance with its founders’ wishes that, wherever possible, female prisoners should be made to live together and share responsibility for one another’s welfare.

It was, in other words, a near perfect physical manifestation of Community Party philosophy, and, five years after reopening, an ideal site for their bravest experiment yet in penology. Although criminals subjected to the milder forms of feminisation were generally held in segregated units within ordinary jails, it was felt that the few sentenced to full gender reversal should be kept with other women. Medical facilities were also essential. Despite resistance from some, but not all, of the Trustees, North Castle was selected to house them.

Joseph knew a little about the place and its strange association with the government but, hardly expecting the sentence he had been given, had failed to connect it in his mind. An electric shock ran through him when, having shaken him awake, Miss Stapleton announced their destination.

"North Castle Penitentiary," she said with a flourish as the van door opened onto the grim courtyard. "I hope you will work with us to make your stay here constructive. Welcome to the family."

 

Lady Justice Henrietta Raven relaxed in the back of the black limousine that drifted effortlessly through the heaving streets of London. She had removed her judicial regalia and now wore only her favourite peach coloured suit, beautifully tailored and very expensive, with a white silk blouse underneath. Her physical stature matched her formidable intellect and, in her youth she was well known for her athletic prowess. Even now she took a leading role in the local country sports association. Her legal mind had taken her quickly to the top of her profession and her tireless struggle for female supremacy had made her the darling of the Community Party.

It was her moral arguments, she considered, which had helped to legitimise the party’s raft of legal reforms, and she prided herself in being on the panel of experts who had helped to frame the new sedition laws. Today, these laws had faced and passed the ultimate test. They had been used to full effect for the first time. Furthermore, she had dared to use the gender reversal sentence, serenely merciful and supremely crushing, to magnify the crime while utterly belittling the criminal.

Her victory seemed complete, but something was troubling her, an uncertainty that often afflicted her after a major triumph. Had she gone too far? Might the Home Secretary intervene if he felt that public opinion was against the sentence? Never! By the time the Party’s policies had become too extreme for him he was too weak to stop them. As the only man remaining in the Cabinet, the others would almost certainly overrule him. But why did she feel uncomfortable?

She realised that it was the nervous energy that had built up inside her during the trial and worked into a frenzy when she realised that the case was won. It was only released at an intellectual level when she passed sentence. The experience had stirred the juices in her body, which cried out for relief and expression. In a good foxhunt the emotional delight of the triumph of collective power and ritualised authority over elusive vermin was accompanied by a breath of fresh air and a burst of physical achievement. In court, her mind pranced victoriously over a defeated foe while her body remained immobile. She would need to tend to the needs of the body to restore her natural balance.

As the powerful car gathered speed she considered how this balance might be met. Prostitutes were dangerous these days, even though the new Public Morality laws permitted all forms of lesbianism as ‘natural acts of fellowship between women’ while damning nearly everything else outside of marriage. She felt for a moment that she might contact one of her old friends, perhaps someone from her boarding school she might seduce in front of her great fireplace. That might be difficult, she thought, and, in any case, it was more than simply sex that she needed. She felt the urge express her physical power over an inferior being who would submit to anything she chose to do to her. Then she had an idea. Alison.

Alison was studying for a law degree in the Oxford college of which Henrietta had been made an honoury Fellow shortly after the Party came to power. She was an exceptionally beautiful girl, with delicate features and fair hair whose father, a compulsive gambler, had recently blown his brains out after the stock market crash had obliterated the family fortune. The girl had impressed the older woman with her intellect at a college dinner, and, on hearing that her father’s death had let her penniless and unable to continue her studies, Henrietta took the opportunity to dip into her considerable fortune to rescue her. Certain conditions applied to such assistance of course.

Henrietta reached into her handbag for her mobile phone and casually tapped in a number.

"Alison! Where are you? Excellent. Manor house. Eight o clock sharp. Yes, overnight. The women on the gate will pay the cab as usual. Good."

She snapped the mobile shut and stretched her legs, delighting in anticipation of the evening to follow. Alison was not a natural lesbian, but Henrietta was determined to develop her potential.

 

Two hundred miles away, the Governess of North Castle Penitentiary was preparing to deliver her introductory lecture to the newest addition to her collection of prisoners. Although she had been asked to send two of her staff down to London by the Home Office, she had expected them to come back empty handed. She did not imagine the courts would actually use the gender reversal sentence in a political case.

She selected the new file with Smythe’s name and a number stencilled on it from amongst the other papers arranged neatly on her desk. Although privately shocked by what had happened, she would remember her duty as a public servant and obey her orders to the letter. Smythe would be treated like any other prisoner. Nevertheless, it was with some apprehension that she called "enter" when she heard Miss Stapleton’s unmistakable knock on her office door.

The wardresses filed into the room with their prisoner between them looking wide eyed and bewildered. In accordance with the regulations they had put him in a white surgical gown that went down almost to his bare feet and strapped his arms behind him. He would have undergone an intimate body search on arrival and his hair was still dripping wet from the obligatory freezing cold shower. The Governess was glad of the way prisoners were treated just before their introduction to her; it made them harmless and unable to hurt her in any way.

The office itself was large, perhaps too large for its purpose and was sparsely furnished, with pale blue walls and a very high ceiling. There were two enormous arched windows, heavily barred and shrouded in net curtains, looking out onto the courtyard some thirty feet below. It was now dark outside, but the floodlights outside cast an atmospheric glow into the room. Though it was late in October, the windows were open a little to allow the outside air to whistle through the room. The Governess liked it that way; it kept her awake and helped her to concentrate as she scribbled away at her walnut desk, which sat on a raised platform opposite the windows. On the hardwood floor in front of her desk were painted three white circles about a foot in diameter and two feet apart. The central one was set forwards from the other two, with a large letter "X" inside it.

The governess put on her heavy round glasses as her minions guided Smythe into the central circle, and took up position in the circles behind him. They had both drawn out their batons which they now held in front of them, gripping them tightly with both hands. Smythe looked at the Governess. She was older than the two wardresses, perhaps about forty five or fifty years old with shiny brown hair cut into a bob. Despite the chilly air in the room, she wore an open necked blouse and her coat was neatly arranged on a hanger behind her. Also on the wall behind her desk was a portrait of the Prime Minister, the new Seal of State and a large crucifix.

"Prisoner 828 B Alpha Smythe," barked Miss Stapleton. "Female designate, twenty nine, seditious libel, subversive material, possession. Reversal and indefinite detention. No previous time served, ma’am."

"Thank you, Veronica," replied the Governess. "Does she have a Christian name yet?"

"Answer the Governess," Miss Stapleton prompted. Suddenly, something snapped in Smythe’s mind. Joseph Smythe, rational thinker and people’s crusader against the abuse of power had been stunned into silence from the moment of the sentence, and had remained in a stupor while some other energy had kept his body moving. But the sight of the symbols he had learnt to despise brought him sharply to his senses, and a rage at the indignity of his treatment rose within him. The women were waiting for an answer. He would give them one.

"My name is Joseph Smythe, and I have not committed any…" Miss Jones stepped forward behind him. The Governess nodded.

The sickening blow that crashed into Joseph’s ribcage sent him sprawling onto the floor. Miss Jones had knocked the wind clean out of him and for a moment of terror he could not breathe before his lungs filled slowly with air. The women above him looked down, fingering the handles of their truncheons. Slightly embarrassed, the Governess muttered a short prayer under her breath.

The pain, agonising to begin with, subsided very quickly. Miss Jones prided herself in her knowledge of how to shock, stun and, above all, terrify a victim with a simple truncheon blow without causing permanent damage. She had perfected this art on hysterical female convicts, instantly cowing them into submission, and was delighted to discover that the technique worked equally well on male victims.

"Help her," said the Governess. Miss Jones obliged by seizing hold of Joseph’s hair, and, with the help of Miss Stapleton who supported him by his trussed arms, dragged him up into a kneeling position right in front of the raised desk so her could just about see over it’s shiny surface. The Governess looked down, a motherly expression of concern on her face.

"That was very silly, Josephine. Very silly indeed. You must always answer truthfully any question put to you, and not speak unless I, or another responsible person asks you to do so. Please help us not to hurt you again. Do you understand?"

"Yes. Yes, ma’am." He could barely speak, but his strength was slowly returning. He began to feel the bruises from the blow and his fall. She smiled.

"Then perhaps you could tell me your Christian name."

"Josephine." The name came instantly out of his mouth as his voice regained it’s tone. "Josephine, ma’am."

"Thank you, Josephine. Now let’s see if you can stand up again."

The rebellion was over, and something inside the prisoner felt genuine regret that Joseph’s outburst had made these kind women use violence to restrain him. The bruises on Josephine’s outer temporary body were inflicted by the arrogance of the vile creature Joseph that had been master for so long. The wardresses helped their captive to stand while the Governess began her standard discourse.

"Now there are a few things about this institution that you need to understand," she began, in an officious manner. "You will understand these things before you have been here for very long; my staff and I will make certain that you do, but it will be more comfortable for you if you try to learn them now. Firstly, the political nature of your offences, and the penalty the Court has imposed, do not mean you will be treated any differently from any of the other girls sent here. The only differences are that, while the medical procedure is at an early stage, you will be kept separately from the others.

"I also refuse to have one of my uniforms contaminated by a hideous female designate until I am personally satisfied that her femininity has reached an acceptable level." She smiled. "Don’t worry, recent advances in medical science mean that this will be much sooner than you think. The sooner we can have you in the general population, the better."

"This, you understand, is only the beginning. Cutting out the bad bits of your body and replacing them with nice ones is only a prerequisite to the real work of this establishment, which has been going on for over one hundred years. Why do you think you have been brought here, Josephine?"

The wardresses, who were still supporting Joseph on his feet, gripped him tighter, with their batons ready in their free hands. The nylon straps binding his hands were digging into his wrists, and his arms were aching from cramp and his bruises. He took a deep breath.

"Because you want to change me. To make me into a woman, ma’am," he replied, glad that his mind was working again. A neutral, bald statement of fact. The Governess smiled.

"Well done! I can see that we will teach you very quickly. And why are we doing this?"

A number of answers crossed Joseph’s mind here. Most he dismissed as dangerous, either as defiance or obvious sarcasm, either of which would bring more pain. It was, it crossed his mind, an interesting question, and one he had never completely answered in his invectives against the Community Party’s penal policies. He needed something neutral, something safe.

"To protect society?" This was more hesitant.

"That’s right, but there’s much more to it than that. Those male hormones have poisoned your brain so much that you don’t realise that we actually want to help you. We want to help you to become a better person so that you can play a part in our community!" Though clearly reciting the official party line, she seemed genuinely enthusiastic. "In the old days, heretics like you would be executed or kept in prison for the rest of their lives. If we were only interested in protecting society, we would still do that today."

They still did, when it suited them, thought Joseph. But again there was a voice in the back of his mind that wanted to believe that this woman would help and to protect him if only he let her. She continued.

"You are very lucky to be here, though you won’t realise it to begin with. This is because some of the ways in which we train our girls seem unpleasant. Some of them, like the one Miss Jones had to use a few minutes ago, are intended to show you the consequences of being disobedient. Others are things that unhealthy people do not enjoy at first, but good ones find most pleasurable. You will probably find the outdoor games we do here fall into this category."

"When you have convinced me that we have turned you into a better person, you will be ready for the next stage. We will slowly introduce you back into the community by finding you a suitable employer you will learn to obey in the way we will have taught you to obey us here. With our help if necessary, they will complete your education and if you satisfy them over a two year period you will be free to do as you choose within the law."

"Most of our graduates stay with their employers for longer and you will find that a great many domestic staff started learning their manners right where you are standing at the moment. I am proud to say that we are also represented in religious orders and the nursing profession. Some of the girls end up working as wardresses here, though we ask them to wear a special badge so that the others know what happened to them. Miss Jones has one, and we’re very proud of her."

Fingernails dug into Joseph’s left arm. Miss Jones did not appear to share her mistress’s enthusiasm for discussing this particular topic.

"Now, before we finish I would be delighted to answer any questions that you have. Please don’t waste time by saying anything foolish. Miss Jones doesn’t want to hurt you again."

Joseph was curious.

"When will the operation happen, ma’am?"

"Much sooner than you think. We should be ready to do you tomorrow or the day after. It’s important to get the surgical stage over with as soon as possible."

For political reasons, thought Joseph. He felt sickened at the prospect of what was about to happen to him, but in another way quite calm. The treatment they would give him would turn him into en entirely different person, that was clear. A person that he did not know and could not identify with. Someone inhabiting his body, albeit in a mutilated form but with another personality. Joseph Smythe would be destroyed forever. He remembered the tranquillity of his mind when he faced the prospect of his death and became aware that, the person he used to be had been sentenced to death.

"Will I remember who I was before you cured me?" he thought out loud.

"Oh yes!" beamed the Governess. "You will remember and understand everything much more than you do now. I’m afraid you will hate yourself at first for the things you did wrong but, when you are one of us, you will learn to forgive your previous self, just as we forgive you now. I think that you in particular will find our programme of religious instruction comforting."

"I’m an atheist." The words came out of his mouth before he had time to think. The Governess was astonished for a moment, and Miss Jones raised her weapon prematurely. With a sudden resolve, the Governess shouted.

"Jones! Off! Don’t you dare hit Josephine for that reason!" She was almost overcome with rage for a moment. Utterly cowed and humbled by her mistress’s anger, the young wardress dropped her baton to the floor with a clatter. "Nobody can be forced to accept religion, child!"

The Governess began to calm down. "Miss Stapleton! Please could you note one further Disciplinary Mark for Miss Jones. Miss Jones, do I need to remind you that there are six months left of your two year probation to run? Or should I ask Miss Stapleton to find a more tangible means of restoring your memory?" Silence. "Well?"

"I’m sorry, ma’am. I forgot Rule Thirty Seven, ma’am. It won’t happen again."

"I sincerely hope it does not! Pick up your truncheon and resume your rightful position as a trusted servant of this establishment."

"Yes, ma’am." Miss Jones fell into a sullen silence.

"Now, Josephine," continued the Governess. "You have seen that you will be treated fairly and in accordance with the rules. I am glad that you have told me you do not know about God, because it means we have to make a special effort to help you. Attendance at chapel is compulsory for all girls, but we will never use force to make you accept the truth of Christianity. Belief in the State is a matter of duty, and we will obtain that by force from you if we have to, but only God has the power to bring you to your knees before Him."

The Governess was staring past her minions and their captive, looking out into the ethereal light beyond the windows. A pause for reflection and she dismissed all three of them.

"I think I’m going to enjoy Miss Smythe’s moral education," she whispered to herself.

 

Judge Henrietta Raven’s Oxfordshire mansion was suitable for her in many ways, not least in its imposing structure. Set in acres of woodland kept much as it had been for hundreds of years, the house itself had been built in the seventeenth century, though partly rebuilt two hundred years later after being severely damaged in a fire. The elegant Victorian frontage with its understated Gothic lured the unsuspecting visitor into the dark Jacobean chambers within. In the great hall a cavernous ceiling, sporting the original blackened beams, frowned over a truly enormous fireplace with an old iron spit large enough to roast a pig whole.

It was truly a spectacular residence, and it had a history to match. Seized from a Royalist nobleman in 1646, the house was awarded to a Major General in Oliver Cromwell’s New Model Army. Although a good soldier, he was an unimaginative man who lived entirely under the sway of his domineering wife. She forced him to accept an appointment as a regional governor under the military dictatorship Cromwell established after the Civil War and lost no time at all in abusing her husband’s authority. The house soon became the unofficial headquarters of her network of spies, informers, corrupt Army officers and other, less savoury characters.

The primary purpose of this network was to amass a considerable personal fortune, mostly made up of items torn from the homes of Royalist sympathisers or plundered from churches by Puritan zealots. There were, however, rumours that she was not averse to having her minions abduct a young man or, more frequently, a woman, from the village nearby to satisfy her voracious appetite for sexual pleasure.

Henrietta liked to believe these rumours about her distant ancestor and often mulled them over in her mind while relaxing in her leather armchair beneath the scorched rafters of the giant room. One of her servants had actually found something that appeared to be an old manacle with a chain attached to it, sadly too rusted to be serviceable, half buried in one of the cellars. This now adorned the fireplace opposite the roasting spit as a useful talking point when she wanted to excite a guest with tales of the house’s history.

Fortunately, one of the maids had anticipated the arrival of her mistress and, by the time Henrietta returned, the great fire was already roaring. Henrietta did not believe in central heating, preferring to keep old fashioned fires glowing in the rooms she inhabited while letting the rest of the house stay cold. In fact, the great fire in the hall was so powerful that, when the logs were heaped upon it in the depths of winter, its warmth radiated throughout the house. Henrietta joked that any visitor could never lose themselves in the mansion; the hear from the great fireplace would always guide them to the hall.

Henrietta sat in her usual position close to the fire awaiting the arrival of the evening’s guest. She thought for a minute about Smythe, trying to imagine how miserable he, or rather she, must be feeling at the moment. Henrietta had a considerable amount of influence in the Home Office which she might bring to bear to ensure that Smythe’s treatment was suitably unrelenting but, she considered, it probably wasn’t worth the effort.

Besides, she had other things on her mind. The sound of two pairs of heels clicking on the hardwood floor roused Henrietta from her contemplation. Her oldest housemaid, a fat woman in her forties who could barely squeeze into her tightly buttoned uniform had just shown Alison into the far end of the room. Henrietta motioned for her guest to come forwards, leaving the maid standing smartly by the doorway.

Alison appeared even more fragile than usual, clearly underweight, and very pale. Lady Raven quickly checked her compliance with the dress code laid down for these visits; white blouse, knee length navy skirt, no make up, no jewellery. Everything was in order. Henrietta pointed down at the bearskin stretched out in front of the fire where Alison sat, cross legged, looking up at her mistress with eyes wide open like an eager puppy.

"Maid!" Henrietta called. "Can you fetch me the cherry brandy fudge from the kitchen and a pitcher full of ice from the freezer downstairs. Oh, and a cognac for me. Make it a double."

"Yes, ma’am." The maid departed. Henrietta sighed, wallowing in the heavy silk robe draped around her powerful body.

"My dear little Alison. I’m sorry to distract you from your studies like this, but you must appreciate I need you on occasion. I trust everything is well with your studies?"

"Yes, ma’am"

"Good. And did you hear about the trial?"

"Yes, ma’am"

Henrietta was irritated. "Alison," she said, sternly. "I expect my servants to say ‘yes, ma’am’ when I give them an order. I am talking to an Oxford undergraduate and expect rather more that one syllable in response to a question. Unless you particularly want to spend your next few weekends in my kitchen, which I very much doubt, you had better make my investment in you a little more profitable. Now tell me what you think about the trial."

Alison was silent for a moment. "I think it was a landmark", she said. "A – a watershed. It shows that political offences can be treated just like other crimes and that…"

"What makes political offences different from other crimes?"

"The people who commit them think that they are in the right?"

"You can do better than that. Lots of murderers think they are the moral saviours of the universe. Would you put Smythe into the same category as this sort of criminal?"

Alison paused to think.

"Political offences are different," she said, "because unlike ordinary crimes they are aimed against the community as a whole rather than certain individuals."

"Which makes them very serious, I presume?"

"Yes, ma’am. And those who commit them feel that their actions are justified by their own twisted standards."

"’Twisted’ standards?"

"Standards which are different to our own, like the communists in Russia or the democrats in the United States and continental Europe…."

"So would we be political offenders in the United States or Russia?"

"They would treat us as such."

"But they would be incorrect in doing so of course."

"Not within their own set of standards."

"So in fact a political criminal is merely someone whose moral and political views differ from those of the community in which they live. Correct?"

"No," blurted out Alison, suddenly aware she had fallen into a trap.

Henrietta beamed. "Of course, had you said ‘yes’ at that point in front of a witness, you could in theory be charged under Section Three of the Public Sedition Act. You would have implied that the moral standards imposed by the Community Party of Great Britain are no more valid than those of Russia or America. I’d give you three months for that, maybe two because you’ve got a pretty face. Ah, here’s the maid. On the table."

The maid rested a brass tray holding the cognac, the sweets and a heavy earthenware jug on a dark oak table by Henrietta’s seat.

"Go and light the fire in my bedroom," said Henrietta. "We will be retiring in approximately an hour. Make sure all the equipment is ready. I may require the maid’s assistance later on."

"Yes, ma’am". The maid left the room.

"Now, where were we. Ah yes. I was giving you a lesson in how people like our friend Mister Smythe; Miss Smythe, sorry, think. Unlike you and I, they do not believe that the standards set by the community have any absolute claim to correctness. This is why they defend such monstrous doctrines as the ‘freedom of speech’."

Henrietta took a sip from her brandy. "Oh yes, before we go on, I suppose a minor penalty is in order for falling into my little trap. Come a little closer and up on your knees please. Close your eyes."

With a certain apprehension, Alison obeyed. Henrietta let her kneel in silence for a few seconds to let her anticipate what might be coming before drawing a long smooth icicle from the pitcher and inserting it down Alison’s cleavage.

"You can open your eyes now," she said. "That was only a minor penalty. You can guess where it goes for a major penalty."

Alison felt the icicle inside her blouse beginning to melt and trickle down between her breasts. She shivered at the icy water against her warm body.

"You can sit back down again now, and let the cold water run down onto your private parts. As I was saying, Smythe and others like him, her, insist on the community tolerating a diversity of views because they do not believe that the views held by the community can be justified in rational terms over and above anyone else’s. We, on the other hand, believe that the community that we, and our mothers and sisters have built is superior in every way to other forms of government. Which brings me to your other point. Political crimes are the most serious that can be committed because they aim to destroy society itself, or to remake it in some other, horrible form."

"And these are the defining features of political crime?" said Alison, shivering a little.

"Now, what makes my judgement today so special?"

"Because the crime was punished just like…."

"That’s not it. Political offenders have been given prison sentences on a regular basis for the past six months. What about the terrorists I hanged in July?"

"You saw it as an illness to be treated and cured, just like other crimes have been. That’s why you sent him to North Castle."

"Why do you think I did that?"

"It endorses the fact that our doctrine is the only rational one. Anyone who disagrees with it is mentally deficient."

"Correct," smiled Henrietta. "Open your mouth, dear. I’m going to reward you for that. You look like you need fattening up." She popped a lump of fudge into Alison’s mouth.

The conversation continued for some time and to Alison’s relief her mistress found no further need for ‘penalties’ during the evening. At length, Henrietta rang the bell for the maid who came quickly into the room."

"Is the fire going?" she asked.

"Yes, ma’am"

"Good. The maid will take Alison up to my room now. Get her undressed and put her on my bed face up. Use the leather straps, not the chains this time, and a blindfold. If she behaves herself the maid may put one blanket on top of her to keep her warm while I’m finishing my brandy. I’ll leave that to the maid’s discretion."

"Shall I use the gag on her, ma’am?" asked the maid.

"Oh, heavens no! I want her to enjoy herself. Furthermore, unlike your average whore she can be reasonable conversation when she wants to be," Henrietta smiled at Alison. "Let the maid look after you, dear. I won’t be a minute."

 

 

CHAPTER TWO – LADIES ONLY

 

Smythe did not know if he was awake or if he was still in some horrible nightmare as the wardresses bundled him along the passage barely letting his feet touch the floor. The light of early morning filtered through the arches that made up one of the walls of the corridor, like a medieval cloister but with iron bars that broke the cold light falling into the stone floor around him. He was aware of pale figures moving in the courtyard beyond; arms thrusting in the air, boots pounding on the hard cobblestones, women shouting and the smell of cold sweat.

These perceptions merged into the nightmares that had plagued him when, hours ago they had unbound him and released him into a room they called the Observation Cell. This tiny cell was always flooded with light from above and contained only a mattress, a bucket and a clear plastic blanket. One of its walls was a thick glass screen. For some reason the very fact that the room was under such close scrutiny made him feel strangely safe and protected, and despite the blinding light he fell asleep immediately.

As they dragged him down the corridor brief snatches of his troubled dreams passed across his mind and were forgotten forever. He was a child once more, standing alone by the wrought iron railings of the schoolyard lost in childhood fantasies but fearful of the real world around him. The girls around, who seemed much older than him clustered together in their groups playing games with skipping ropes and chattering endlessly. Already they had leaders, followers and outsiders amongst their own kind the others treated with a cruelty the simple rough boys could never understand.

He remembered hating them bitterly at the time but in later years his adult mind appreciated why. Even as children they were acquiring the tools of power they would later use to manipulate, control and dominate society. They were learning about relationships, co-operation, hierarchy, and above all psychological torture. The boys their age were charging round the playground playing football or pretending to be soldiers. They didn’t stand a chance.

The present situation brought itself forcibly to his attention as the wardresses brought him to a halt by a white door. Nothing was left in his mind except the horror of what was about to happen to him.

 

The morning’s session in the Medical Suite was perhaps the most unpleasant time in Smythe’s entire life to date. Most of it was spent naked, strapped onto a plastic couch while three nurses busied themselves prodding, probing and measuring every inch of his body. None of them spoke except to order him to change position, stare into lights they shone in his eyes or to keep still while something uncomfortable was happening.

At length a female doctor in a white coat swept into the room and, following a brief conference announced herself as the surgeon who would carry out the operation.

"You seem to be a fairly healthy specimen for a male," she said, checking some details the nurses had recorded on a clipboard. She looked about forty years old, with a round face and friendly features. "I expect your academic lifestyle kept you away from most of the vices characteristic of your sex. Naturally, as a woman your state of health will improve further, especially during your stay with us."

She looked disdainfully as his stubby penis and pink, shrivelled testicles.

"The sooner we get these off the better," she said, lifting them up with a glass rod and allowing them to flop down between his legs. "We’re clear to go ahead with that tomorrow. Most of the real work will be done by the hormones of course, plus a few extra chemicals that will speed the process up wonderfully. You realise of course that some of these will soften up your bones temporarily so your skeleton ends up the right shape. It’s all fairly painful, by the way, but so are lots of things about being a woman you’ll never get to experience."

"We’ll make her experience some pretty nasty things," put in one of the wardresses that had dragged him into the room. "Don’t you worry about that. We make the little bitches learn the hard way."

"I’m sure you do," said the doctor. "But that’s none of my business." She picked up an alarmingly large hypodermic needle. "By the way," she said "I will be making a complaint if you send any more Level Two’s to my infirmary. I’m here to turn bad boys into nice girls, not to clear up the mess you women make of one another. Hold still, Smythe, I’m going to take a blood sample." The hypodermic needle went deep into Smythe’s arm and he could feel it drawing blood out of his veins.

"Not much we can do about Level Two’s," replied the wardress. "They discipline each other. You don’t get many Level One’s in here, do you? That’s because we’re professionals."

"Hmmm," said the doctor, pulling the needle out of Smythe’s arm. "There we go. I just need to run a few tests on this to see what dosage would be suitable. Then you girls can take my patient away and beat him up as much as you like."

"If only," replied the wardress. "The Governess can be a real dragon when it comes to the rules. Jonesy told me the crazy cow gave her a Mark yesterday because she nearly gave this one a belting when she shouldn’t have." She leant over Joseph so that he could taste her breath. "She’s really mad about that, you know Miss Smythe. Said she’d screw a bit of respect into you for that when they’ve made you into a proper woman. Think about it, Josephine."

"I suggest you hold this discussion away from me and my staff," muttered the doctor, squirting the blood out into sample jars. "I know jolly well what you lot get up to with your prisoners but I don’t want to hear the details."

"What’s the matter, doc?, heterosexual?" sneered the wardress.

"I wouldn’t say that," grinned the doctor, winking at one of the younger nurses, who blushed as she did so. "But I don’t officially know what goes on outside the Medical Suite, and I have no intention of finding out."

 

Hours later and two hundred miles away, Henrietta was once more luxuriating in her mansion, enjoying a brief respite before her duties called her once more into battle against the enemies of society. She had asked her maid to fetch her a wide range of newspapers so she could properly enjoy Smythe’s humiliation while ensuring that all the opinions expressed were in line with those she had expected.

The previous night had been delightful and, as expected, had helped her to release some of her internal tension. It was not really the sex that had done the most for her, more the warm sense of power she felt as she strode into the master bedroom and whipped away the blanket to reveal the beautiful girl, bound and helpless on the bed underneath. The girl would have been waiting on tenterhooks anticipating either pain or pleasure entirely at the discretion of her mistress.

On a whim Henrietta had chosen the latter for her, and with soothing words went to work on Alison, gently massaging her soft pink skin which, though taut and shivering at first slowly relaxed as the girl felt progressively safer in the power of the older woman. The Judge slipped off her own clothes and pressed her warm body close to that of the helpless prisoner, fondling her small white breasts until the nipples became little buds, hardened with anticipation.

She began to play with Alison’s sex, her long experience in arousing other women slowly overcoming the resistance until, when she stopped for a moment as an experiment, Alison pleaded with her to continue. She went on until finally the girl reached a climax, spilling out her juices over the bedclothes. Henrietta breathed with delight as she saw Alison’s face transformed in an instant from a picture of ecstatic delight to a mask of horror and self loathing as the climax dispelled her sexual pleasure, leaving her only with a profound disgust that she had been brought to an orgasm beneath another woman.

Henrietta had reflected for a moment on the power she had wielded to force another human being to do something she clearly regarded with the greatest revulsion and to actually enjoy the experience of her own humiliation. The thought of this brought her to her own climax and, rubbing her clitoris against Alison’s bony hip for a final stimulation she spilt herself all over her with a whinny of delight.

Now, enjoying a peaceful afternoon, Henrietta smiled gently at the memory. She was also looking wistfully at old black and white photographs, in particular one of the prefects at her old school. Her first experience of sex was too distant in her memory to remember precisely, though she was certain it was at her severe old boarding school that it happened. Even now she breathed in sharply at the thought of these athletic young women and the dimly remembered time when she was helpless in their power.

She was disturbed by Penelope, her youngest maid, who had just walked into the room with a look of terrified astonishment on her face.

"What is it?" she snapped, irritated at the interruption.

"Telephone call, ma’am."

"Did I not inform the maid that I would not be taking calls today?"

"But ma’am, it’s the Prime Minister’s office!" The maid was trembling.

"What? Are you sure?"

"Yes, ma’am. She wants to speak to you in person!"

In a moment Henrietta was on her feet, charging out towards the hall. She had met the Prime Minister on many occasions before at official functions, but this was the first time anyone from her office had wanted to speak to her directly. She paused for a moment to collect her thoughts and picked up the old fashioned receiver.

"Raven speaking," she said.

"Ah." The cracked but unmistakable voice came back over the phone. She realised who she was speaking to. "Raven. There you are. You’re a good girl, you know that?"

"Prime Minister?"

"Yesterday, Raven. Yesterday. That was… everything I had hoped for from that trial. Do you know how many of the opposition are leaving the country as we speak?"

"I read that James and Williamson had both gone over to the Continent, ma’am"

"That’s just the start. You realise a great deal more of our opponents will shortly be under arrest?"

"I’m not aware of police activity." replied Henrietta, cautiously.

"Of course not. Neither is our friend the Home Secretary, fortunately for us. You know he told me privately he wanted Smythe released?"

"Released?"

"Yes, dear girl. Silly man. Of course I overruled him. In fact I’m making sure Miss Smythe gets the snip first thing tomorrow so there’s no going back. No, Raven. I have a more serious problem. The Home Secretary. You see, I think it’s time we improved the proportion of women in government."

"How could I help, ma’am?"

A thin laugh came back over the phone.

"I’ll take that as a ‘yes’ then, shall I?" came the reply "Of course, it isn’t official yet, but if something embarrassing should happen to him, I will be looking to replace him with my people. As you know, there’s no longer any requirement for members of the government to be in Parliament. Who better than a fine legal mind such as yours?"

"I’m honoured you should think so, ma’am."

"Good."

Click. The phone went dead. With a growing sense of excitement, Henrietta returned to her great hall to make plans for the future.

 

In the bowels of North Castle Penitentiary Smythe was sitting alone in the Observation Cell. He could see one of the younger wardresses prowling around in the corridor outside, occasionally peering through the glass window to see what he was doing. He was exhausted from his stay in the Medical Suite and his bruises from his encounter with the Governess were still throbbing.

The journeys around the prison had been too disorienting for him to build any kind of mental map of where he was. The Medical Suite must be on the ground floor, he thought, because it adjoined the corridor looking out into the courtyard. On the trip back to his cell they had taken him up at least three flight of stairs, higher than the main wall. He must be in one of the corner turrets or possibly the main tower over the gateway. Beyond that he could only guess.

After the Medical Suite they had taken him to a small room which he presumed was Miss Stapleton’s own office. She was there, behind her cluttered desk, tending to a duty roster on the wall behind her. Along the other wall stood a rack of antique truncheons, painted with gold lettering and kept in beautiful condition, along with some old looking handcuffs and a fearsome cat-o-nine-tails which, thankfully, appeared to be permanently fixed in place.

Miss Stapleton herself was wearing a different outfit to the normal wardresses’ uniform. This was much more formal and old fashioned, consisting of a heavy black ankle length dress, long sleeved, belted tightly at the waist with a starched white collar and cuffs. The uniform emphasised Miss Stapleton’s attractive features, her sturdy but feminine frame, red cheeks close cropped hair and the brass insignia she wore served to underline her natural authority. She turned and smiled.

"Hello, Josephine. Did everything go well for you this morning? I expect you’re hungry. It occurred to me that we forgot to give you anything to eat last night. I’m sorry about that. We’ll give you a nice bowl of soup in a moment and something else later. You must let us know us if you need anything."

"Thank you," replied Joseph. The wardresses had released their grip on him but he felt almost too weak to stand. There was something warm and reassuring about Miss Stapleton.

"The worst thing you can do is suffer in silence. We are here to look after you, but we can’t do that if we don’t know how you’re feeling. Now, listen. I’m afraid we have to keep you in the ‘Goldfish Bowl’ for the time being. I know it’s quite boring in there, but I’ve told the duty officer you’re allowed to masturbate if you want to. I know it helps. Ah, here comes Miss Jones."

Miss Jones strutted into the room, also in the formal uniform but obviously junior to Miss Stapleton from the insignia it carried. Joseph also noticed, pinned near her heart, a silver badge fashioned like a butterfly with a topaz in the centre. She seemed more attractive as well, and, though clearly overweight for her height seemed more muscular than obese. She glared at Smythe’s attempts to stay on his feet.

"Stand up straight!" she growled. Smythe did his best to obey.

"We won’t worry about that sort of thing for the time being," said Miss Stapleton. "She’s had a very busy morning with the medical team and I think she’s rather tired. By the way, I’m putting you in charge of her for the time being. Given you two don’t seem to have got off to a very good start, I think it will do both of you a lot of good."

 

In his cell, Smythe was reflecting on the events of the day. The promised meal had materialised, and it was only when he slurped up the rich tomato soup that he realised how hungry he had been. For most of the day he had not had time to think about what was happening to him; his concerns had been entirely physical and about surviving from one moment to the next. Now, left on his own he felt detached from reality, any reality at all, and the jumble of thoughts in his head had nothing concrete to latch onto.

Despite all that had happened so far, he remembered he was Joseph Smythe and, whatever labels they chose to place upon him he was still a man, a wild beast in their captivity and their enemy. Their enemy! His mind drifted back once more, not as far as the schoolyard, but to the lecture hall where he stood five years ago at the height of his power.

The lonely little boy had found a world in which he could prosper and find an identity. This world bound by rules and regulations, simple and clearly understood which, if he was prepared to live a humble academic’s life placed few if any restrictions on his speech and thought. He became, for a time, so arrogant as to assume these freedoms were permanent and could never be taken away by anyone.

It was then he saw the first uniforms amongst the youth who listened to his artful critiques. Red and black, he noticed them, always sitting together in little clumps, mostly women, firing shrill and biting questions at the end of the lectures. He felt indulgent and welcoming towards the youngsters at first. They were few and, after all, merely enjoying the freedoms he expounded to provide an intellectual challenge for the forces of freedom and democracy to engage with. The just would, of course, win out in the end.

As time went on, and the Community Party grew in strength and audacity, the chanting and the catcalls began, inside and outside the University, Smythe began to feel like a hunted animal. Mindless hostility, he thought at first, before realising it was a highly intelligent and organised hostility slowly undermining his position.

The anger inside him knew no bounds. He felt like a man playing a drunk at chess whose opponent had just made an illegal move, childishly refusing to play on unless it was accepted. But this was no game and he was forced to accept the moves his opponent had made. When the Party came to power, albeit still encumbered by the trappings of the old system, he suddenly found his position at the University untenable and was cast down from the world in which he lived.

Living largely on the charity of his last few friends, he found his opportunity when asked by a contact with the underground press to write a pamphlet on the new Government’s legal reforms. He remembered hammering away at a borrowed typewriter in the early hours of the morning, using his intellect as before but to a different end. This time his intention was not to enlighten or inform his reader, setting out the good and bad in both sides of the argument. It was to set out a bitter, one sided polemic, fuelled by an animal hatred of the Community Party and everything it stood for while criticising, ostensibly, one aspect of their policy. It would spread his hatred like a virus. It would be his revenge.

The underground press loved it and, though a part of him felt that he had betrayed his own principles of intellectual impartiality, he basked in the knowledge that he had struck a blow against the oppressor. He knew he would continue until they destroyed him.

He came to his senses and winced from the glare of the unforgiving light above. Cold sweat has soaked the thin surgical gown. They would not destroy him or allow him to destroy himself. The thought of suicide brought out a deep lust for oblivion in Joseph but at the same time a feeling of great fear in the other soul inside the same body. Josephine had woken up inside him, terrified of the end for her that his death would bring. They would have to part company, here and now, before they were submitted to something that Joseph could not endure.

"Please leave me, Joseph." murmured Josephine. Silence. Joseph was thinking. She continued. "I will have to suffer so they can make me better."

"Make you better?" Joseph snorted out loud in disgust, but then felt sorry. The feeble minded little girl probably believed what they had told her. For all he knew, they might be right. Perhaps they would make something useful out of Josephine Smythe. He had grown to like, perhaps even love the little parasitic personality that had kept him company and wanted her to find her own strange form of happiness. But he would not submit to them as she wanted to, or allow them to humiliate him as they did her. The girl was right. He would have to leave her.

Joseph’s outburst had attracted the attention of the wardress who hammered on the outside of the glass and shouted something threatening.

"Look what you’ve done," hissed Josephine in a panic once the wardress had departed. "You’ve made them angry. They’ll hit me again!"

"I’m sorry," breathed Joseph, careful to be quieter. "I’m really sorry. I don’t want them to hurt you. I won’t make them hurt you again, I promise."

"Please don’t!"

"I’ve promised, haven’t I? Now listen. Tomorrow morning they’re going to cut me out of your body altogether. I need the hormones those testicles make to live. You’re going to get stronger every day until you’re a proper woman just like them, and the wardresses here are going to help you."

"But you hate them."

"I don’t hate them as people, but I do hate the things they are doing. I think they mean to help you because helping you is a way of showing their friends how clever they are in destroying me. I could try to stay alive as long as possible to make it more difficult, but I’m getting very tired and I know they’re going to win in the end whatever I do. There’s no point in making you suffer more than you have to."

"You’re going, then?"

"I’m dying, Josephine. I’m rotting away inside you, and soon there will be nothing left. Then you will be free. You’ll have my intellect and talents and a chance to start a new life. I’m going to sleep now and I don’t intend to wake up again. Just try to be a better person than me."

Though she was still afraid of Joseph and despised him for his rage against society she would have embraced him if she could.

"I love you, Joseph," she breathed.

"I love you," he replied as, together for the last time, they fell asleep.

 

The operation itself was merely a postscript. They had deliberately planned the exercise like a modern execution with everything set up and ready to minimise the waiting time for the patient. Early in the morning the cell door had swung open to reveal the doctor, two nurses and at least five of the wardresses. Before Smythe was fully awake they were moving down the corridor with Smythe strapped down onto a trolley.

"Abnormal behaviour last night?" asked the doctor in a routine manner.

"Talking to herself. Nothing else."

"Good. That’s normal."

Moments later, it seemed, they were beneath the blinding lights of the medical suite and the doctor was pressing a breathing mask over Smythe’s face.

 

The next thing she knew, Josephine was lying in a very soft and comfortable bed, feeling quite nauseous but deeply relaxed. Something crackled as she moved; she realised was wearing an enormous bandage round her pelvis and everything within it was numb. A little plastic tube led out of it into a bottle by the side of the bed. She knew she was in some sort of pain, from her shoulders and legs, but for some reason the pain did not concern her.

"Are you awake?" The voice came from somewhere close. Slowly, she opened her eyes to see she was still in the Medical Suite, but in a different room painted a soft pink instead of the harsh white of the examination room and the operating theatre. A pretty nurse was standing over her, holding an enamel tray. She tried to move her arms but they hung uselessly by her sides. The attempt led to a twinge of pain.

"Don’t try to move," said the nurse. "You’ve had a double dose of just about everything. The doctor’s determined to make you the fastest conversion North Castle’s ever had."

Josephine made a noise half way between a sigh and a groan as the nurse lifted up the bedclothes. She noticed that daylight was streaming through the bars across the veiled window.

"You’ve been out for thirty hours on and off," said the nurse. "You won’t remember the times in between though. The Doctor said it all went well. There we go. Just a few injections now. One of them will help to make you comfortable."

The nurse emptied half a dozen needles of varying sizes into Josephine’s arm before wishing her well and departing. A warm, contented feeling overtook her and, before long, she was fast asleep once more.

 

The next few days and weeks passed by like a peculiar dream for Josephine. Mostly she was looked after by nurses for the first few days, and it was a week before she could move her arms and legs unaided. The periodic changing of the bandage was the most unpleasant part of the experience and the first few times they did this it was full of blood and excrement. Slowly life began to improve and the dosage of the painkillers was gradually reduced. Finally, she was able to cope without them at all.

Miss Stapleton paid the occasional visit, often with Miss Jones or another wardress. After a few pleasant words they would get a nurse to remove the bedclothes to have a good look at Josephine’s body. They began to like what they saw. The skeletal reforming, the most difficult part of the process, was proceeding beautifully and there was no sign of facial hair at all. They paid particular attention to the chest, now also hairless, gently probing her ribs to detect any developments.

When she could use her hands again, Josephine was also very interested in exploring her new body and was surprised at how much it had changed. She realised that her voice had softened and raised in pitch, that her legs seemed longer in relation to the rest of her body but more slender. Her shoulders were more narrow and she had become much shorter overall. A small but very sensitive pair of breasts had appeared, and were swelling a little each day as her nipples blossomed like little roses. The nurses would not allow her to look at a mirror, but at length they allowed her out of bed, within the confines of her room, and gave her a pale blue night-dress which was much nicer than the gowns she had worn before the operation.

The doctor was delighted with the progress Josephine was making and at last decided she no longer had to wear the bandage. The tender flesh below was healing up quite well but the doctor her gave strict instructions to avoid touching the area if at all possible until the healing process was complete.

"That goes for you as well," she said to one of the wardresses who happened to be in the room at the time.

"How long?" she replied.

"At least another month. And then, if you must, be very gentle with her. Remember what happened last time. I think, however, I’m going to be able to release her to your custody within the next few days. Do look after this one, remember that her case is quite politically sensitive."

"We’ll take care of her, don’t worry about that."

 

Two days later, Miss Stapleton came to take her back to the Observation Cell. She seemed even taller than before and Josephine wondered if her body had actually contracted during the procedure. Due to Josephine’s infirmity and good behaviour Miss Stapleton was less concerned about security than usual and let Josephine walk freely alongside her.

As icy blast struck her as they stepped out from the Medical Suite into the cloister. A thin layer of frost lay on the courtyard through the bars. Thankfully, a nurse had taken quite a fancy to Josephine and had lent her a dressing gown and slippers but the cold air whipped her bare legs as they walked over to an entrance near the base of one of the corner towers. Miss Stapleton did not seem to notice the cold at all and cheerfully wore her usual short sleeved uniform blouse.

"How long have I been in there, Miss," asked Josephine.

"Five weeks, give or take," came the reply. "It probably doesn’t seem as long though. You’ve done ever so well, you know. I could almost mistake you for a Level One already."

"Could you tell me what a ‘Level One’ is, Miss?"

"Ah," replied Miss Stapleton, unlocking an iron gate. "That’s the first stage of the treatment all girls receive here. It teaches you the basic things you need to know before you’re ready for Level Two."

"Stapleton!" a harsh, sarcastic sounding voice came from behind them. Another wardress, a short grey-haired woman about sixty years old with a scar across her cheek had emerged from one of the other doors. Her small black eyes surveyed them with some interest.

"Miss Harper?" Miss Stapleton let go of the gate.

"Senior Officer Stapleton." Miss Harper chewed the words in her mouth before delivering them with a sneer.

"Yes, ma’am?"

"I heard about the promotion thing."

"Yes. Never mind. I can try again next year."

"And the year after, I suppose," replied Miss Harper with an oily grin. "Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t notice you had company. Is this the former Joseph Smythe then?"

"Yes, ma’am. May I introduce you? Josephine, this is my immediate superior, Chief Officer Harper. She is responsible for the entire prison and…." Miss Harper silenced her with a wave of her hand.

"No handcuffs. Very sloppy," she muttered. "How long before she’s ready for the Governess?"

"It could be very soon, ma’am. She’s coming on really well. I looked at her breasts last week and…"

Miss Harper came forwards and a claw-like hand reached for Josephine’s chest. Instinctively, the prisoner stepped back.

"Stand up straight with your arms by your side," ordered Miss Stapleton. "The Chief Officer isn’t going to hurt you."

"Not if she behaves herself I won’t," muttered the older wardress as she parted the dressing gown and squeezed Josephine’s new bosoms through the night-dress, feeling their size and weight. She was less careful than the others had been and the experience was quite painful.

"Four out of ten," she said, withdrawing her knotty fingers. "Minus one because she’s a political. I think she’ll be ready in a couple more weeks. The Governess isn’t too fussy as long as the result looks female. We’ll keep her on the hormones for a while after that though."

"I think she’s quite pretty already."

"She’s not my type. Shag her in your own time if you want to. Just make sure it doesn’t take your mind off work, eh?"

"No, ma’am. It won’t"

"Glad to hear it. Keep it up" The older wardress disappeared.

 

The soothing classical music washed over the Home Secretary’s brow as he allowed himself a sweet release from the trials and stresses of the previous week. The venerable statesman, author of much of the Community Party’s success had found that his job had become much more difficult over the past few months. He did not fully understand why.

After all, had he not achieved many of the dreams set out in his personal manifesto "Britannia: A Collective Identity" the Community Party’s unofficial Bible which had sold over ten million copies. He was in many ways the architect of the current legal system, he had helped to dismantle the old impediments to effective government and, with some justice, credited himself with the restoration of the death penalty and with bringing back corporal punishment in prisons and schools.

In fact, he considered that much of his work was done. Surely, now was the time to retire and let lesser men maintain the things he had built. Yet now he was on the defensive. His colleagues kept describing the present situation, which he had regarded as a finished product as a "transitional phase" which would shortly be replaced by something better. He did not know what they were talking about.

The alarming number of women around him increased his sense of isolation. He had always been suspicious of women. He imagined they were plotting together, making plans against him when they went into darkened rooms together. Nobody seemed to let him into their confidence any more. He felt excluded, and a very lonely man.

"Do you want another bottle?" asked the prostitute.

"Eh?" he replied. The sweet music had sent him off into something of a reverie. He tried to sit up straight, but this was difficult as the prostitute, a young lady with a Welsh accent, had tied his arms securely to the bedstead purple silk scarves. He was almost completely naked except for a large white towel wrapped into a nappy and held together by a vastly oversized safety pin. A frilly white bonnet was perched on his head.

"Does Baby want another ‘drinkie winkie’?" asked the prostitute again, remembering the correct manner of address. Aroused by her lilting tones, the politician nodded with enthusiasm, knocking a large dummy down onto the floor as he did so. Carefully, she lifted the bottle full of warm milk and pushed the rubber teat into his mouth. As she did so, her other hand groped towards a small metal object on her dressing table.

The deafening wail of a personal attack alarm instantly filled the room with policemen and photographers as the prostitute held the warm milk bottle in his mouth. For a beautiful moment, the Home Secretary did not care about what would happen next. His career was over, but, for a moment ecstasy he did not care in the slightest.

 

 

 

CHAPTER THREE – THE NEW ORDER

 

Josephine’s appointment with the Governess came two weeks later. In the meantime, they continued to hold her in the Observation Cell, though most of the time the wardresses treated her fairly well. She was finding it increasingly difficult to resist the temptation to investigate the hole where Joseph’s testicles had been, and still found that part of her body very painful, particularly when using the toilet.

Though she had not met any of the other prisoners in the establishment face to face, they had allowed her to view them from a distance, mostly while they were doing sports in the courtyard. The convicts were divided into two main groups, with minor differences to their uniforms and the way in which they were treated. The smaller group, the Level Ones, were kept in close confinement in the east wing of the building which housed the main tower and the entrance. They were very rarely seen outside and when they were, they were always guarded. Level Twos were allowed a lot more freedom within their own areas and were normally seen in groups.

Naturally, the stratification continued through the ranks of the wardresses each of whom seemed acutely conscious of her position in relation to the others. Life in the prison was fairly austere even for them and, given its remote location, many of them lived within its walls. This could only intensify the jealousy with which the small privileges available were guarded by those entitled to them.

Miss Jones seemed to have turned over a new leaf during the weeks after the operation. She was determined, she had told Josephine, to make a success of her and would treat her strictly in accordance with the rules. In order to help the long hours of incarceration pass, she had, with Miss Stapleton’s permission, lent her a few books, mostly romance novels and the new kind of adventure story where all the heroic characters had to be women. Josephine found it difficult to concentrate on reading at first, but slowly found it engaging and uplifting. She realised that she was beginning to experience the world in an entirely different manner and was sensitive to ways of feeling that Joseph, for all his intellect, would not have understood.

 

On the appointed day, four wardresses took Josephine from the Observation Cell and led her to a large room with a tiled floor and a shower.

"I want you to look perfect for the Governess today," said Miss Stapleton, who was leading the party.

And they did. They made her strip off her night-dress and wash thoroughly. The shower had no curtain and the other women looked on with approval as Miss Jones helped Josephine to soap her naked body under the warm flowing water. Two days earlier a hairdresser had come to convert Josephine’s hair, which was now rather long, into an acceptable female style. Again, they had not let her look into a mirror so Josephine had no idea what she looked like.

"You two, dry her off," ordered Miss Stapleton to two of her girls. Miss Jones who was also present, went over to a long cabinet at the other end of the room and lifted out an old fashioned set of underwear. Josephine had never worn women’s underwear before and found it quite a strange, but not entirely unpleasant sensation as they fastened it together around her. Miss Stapleton looked on with a benevolent smile as Miss Jones pulled the heavy bra straps as tight as possible to lift Josephine’s bosoms while her colleagues teased the stockings into place before clipping them to the suspender belt.

"You’ll get used to it," said Miss Stapleton. "You’ll have to learn to do all this yourself eventually. It all looks very good on you."

"Shall we let her take a look at herself, Miss?" asked one of the other wardresses.

"Only when the Governess has finished with her. Let’s get her fully dressed first."

When she had finished with the bra, Miss Jones went back over to the cabinet and returned holding a long white dress which hung stiffly over her arm.

"This is the traditional garment worn by young women on their first day at the penitentiary," explained Miss Stapleton. "Its colour symbolises the fact that you are making a completely new start with us. Put it on her, please."

Josephine allowed Miss Jones to slide the white dress onto her body. It was made of heavy starched cotton and seemed a little too small for her around the waist and shoulders, though it came down almost to her ankles. The dress fastened at the back and the wardress began to lace it up tightly, forcing Josephine’s waist in and her breasts out she did so. It was quite difficult to breathe properly in the dress, let alone move easily.

"It’s supposed to be uncomfortable," explained Miss Stapleton, "You do look fantastic, though. Have you finished back there Miss Jones?"

"Nearly done," replied Miss Jones, fastening the high collar of the dress from behind. She then bound Josephine’s hands firmly behind her with a long strip of fabric she had brought over with the dress for that purpose.

"Superb," said Miss Stapleton. "I think we’re ready."

"Yes, Miss." replied Miss Jones. Josephine realised that she had left about three feet of the binding attached to her wrists and was converting the other end into a loop which she wrapped around her own hand. It was a very effective means of control as Josephine discovered when the wardress tested her handiwork with an experimental jerk. She yelped with pain and the wardresses laughed.

"You’ll have to get used to a lot worse than that here," said Miss Stapleton. "Now listen. I expect the very best from you today in front of the Governess. Remember what happened last time. If you need to be disciplined again I’ll do it in person. If you think it hurts from Miss Jones you should try crossing me."

 

Twenty minutes later, Josephine was standing once again in the Governess’ spacious office with its tall windows that now flooded the room with light. The two wardresses stood behind her as before and the Governess herself faced her across her impeccably tidy desk. The Governess continued to work on her papers after inviting them into her office, and continued to write for a few minutes more while the three women stood to attention before her. Her office was now even colder than ever with the windows still open despite the onset of winter.

At length, she put down her fountain pen, and reached over for her papers on Josephine Smythe. She looked up and smiled.

"Prisoner 828 B Alpha Smythe Josephine," announced Miss Stapleton as before. "Female, twenty nine, seditious libel, subversive material, possession. Indefinite detention."

"Conduct to date?" asked the Governess.

"Fair to good, ma’am. Accepting the regime here quite well, if I may say so, ma’am."

"Is that your appraisal of the situation, Josephine?" the Governess asked suddenly. Josephine did not know what to say. She had nothing in her mind to compare her treatment with.

"I have been treated well, ma’am" she said, mechanically.

The Governess adjusted her spectacles. "Is that what you really think?" she asked. "Or is it what you think I want to hear?"

"I don’t know ma’am. I think they have been kind to me."

The Governess laughed with little mirth. Her face grew hard. "It’s still in there, isn’t it?"

"I don’t understand what you mean."

"You still hate me, my staff, this prison and the whole of society, don’t you?"

Josephine was startled by this question. Did she hate them? Joseph Smythe certainly did. But he had died away inside her even before they hacked him out of her body. Josephine remembered the discomfort of the things the wardresses had done to her but blamed herself as much as the wardresses for what had happened. She also felt a tremendous warmth from the wardresses, especially Miss Stapleton, and a special delight in submitting to their authority. Honesty seemed the only policy beneath the Governess’ searching gaze.

"I’m sorry, ma’am, I don’t know how I feel."

"Is she lying, Stapleton?" asked the Governess. There was a pregnant pause. Josephine felt a tug as Miss Jones tightened her grip on her bindings from behind.

"No, ma’am," said Miss Stapleton, decisively. "She is very confused at the moment. The treatment has that effect." A wave of relief swept over Josephine and everything in her being wanted to show gratitude to the wardress. The Governess scrutinised both of them a moment before a broad smile lit up her face.

"Good," she beamed. "It seems we are making some progress already. You must accept, however, that there is a lot more work to do before you can be released. We have turned you into an empty vessel, Josephine, and we are going to fill you with love for our society. Don’t expect us to relax for a moment, though, until we are certain that Joseph Smythe has gone forever!"

The Governess then paused to take a good look at Josephine’s appearance. It seemed to meet with her approval. With a smile, she went over to a cabinet in the room and opened the door to reveal a full length mirror.

"I only allow people like you access to a mirror once the reversal process is complete," she said. "Bring her over and let her take a good look at herself."

They allowed Josephine a good five minutes to stare at her image in the mirror. She had expected to see something truly repulsive looking back at her, a grossly proportioned half male, half female creature that would never be accepted as either. Instead she saw a young woman, not stunningly attractive. but plain and pretty like many of the young female lecturers Joseph never had the courage to ask out at the University. She was quite slender and appeared as a creature incapable of causing harm even if she wanted to. A tremendous sense of innocence swept over her like a healing current of warm water.

"There. You see we can do it. This will be excellent news for the Home Office," she concluded. "Or rather the Ministry of Law and Order, as we’re supposed to call it now. It’s a pity I can’t tell you what has been going on outside, Miss Smythe. You’ll never believe what’s been happening in the space of a few weeks! I’m passing you fit for advancement to Level One, effective from today."

"Thank you, ma’am," said Josephine with her eyes cast to the floor. She was relieved that the dreaded meeting with the Governess had gone so well, and despite her predicament felt delighted at what had happened. With the help of the doctor and the wardresses she began to feel free of Joseph Smythe. But she knew there was a difficult road ahead before these women would accept that she had won this battle forever and was fit to join them as a responsible member of the community. She would win through because these women would make her succeed. She would be successful because they were in command of her destiny. A warm feeling swelled inside her.

 

Henrietta Raven was also making battle plans. Naturally, she was well prepared for the unexpected vacancy in the Home Office, and had a carefully worded article about the current failings of this institution to carry out the Government’s noble objectives ready for her favourite broadsheet to publish the day after the previous Home Secretary’s disgrace.

The Prime Minister had responded with an open letter, published in the same newspaper, congratulating her on her suggestion that the organisation be re-named and given a far wider mandate to impose the will of the community on its enemies. Three days later, Raven was one of three women, herself, a senior police officer and an obscure bureaucrat, selected to lead a task force to put her ideas into practice.

The other two members of this triumvirate would need to be disposed of eventually, thought Henrietta, but for the time being they might make useful tools or allies. She threw herself enthusiastically into her new role, ruthlessly weeding out inefficiencies and planning for expansion. It was difficult work, but she was enjoying every moment of it.

This evening, she was planning something which, while outside the range of her official activities was nevertheless an essential part of her strategy for obtaining power. Throughout her life, ever since leaving University, she had been an extremely fortunate lady. She had always been introduced to the right people at the right moment and was uncannily aware of the correct side to take in any dispute.

Luck and skill both played a major part in this success, but there was a third factor. Factor Three was in fact a code word used by the members of a select group of women who worked together to share ideas and promote one another’s interests. Henrietta Raven happened to be a long standing member of this organisation. Tonight, the Executive Committee, of which she was also a member, was meeting in a large mansion owned by a good friend of hers.

She had prepared well for the meeting. It was clear to her that the incumbent Mother Superior, a rather conservative ex-Admiral, would be incandescent with rage at Henrietta seizing an opportunity to enter the government without her permission. She would probably be supported by the older members of the committee, but the younger ones would admire her for her actions and might support her if only they had the courage to speak out against the old Admiral.

Having counted the number of committee votes carefully, Raven had decided that a little tactical cheating was in order. She now had contacts other than those in Factor Three and was determined to make them count. She knew that Sister Brown, the stockbroker, would have a drink or three at her club before driving over to the meeting and arranged, therefore, for ‘random’ drink-drive testing to take place along the route she would be taking. One less vote for the Admiral at the meeting, with any luck.

Two more of the Admiral’s allies would probably be distracted by a hunt in Somerset that happened to be taking place at the same time as the meeting while a fourth would be having some difficulty with a tax inspector that would keep her busy all afternoon. What a pity for them, thought Henrietta, as her tyres ground the gravel on the mansion drive. She had arrived half an hour early and had arranged for some potential allies to be misinformed of the time of the meeting so that they would be there early as well and available for private discussions before the others arrived. The arithmetic would be tight nevertheless, but she had given herself a chance.

 

Josephine’s joy at passing the Governess’ inspection was short lived. Until then she had enjoyed the relatively comfortable confinement of the Observation Cell and the medical regime of the special unit. Now she would face the full rigour of North Castle Penitentiary’s Victorian cure for the delinquent female.

After the interview, Miss Jones her down into the east wing of the prison. It was one of the older parts of the building with long dingy corridors, low arches and dark, oily green iron doors. They began to encounter some prisoners, waif like creatures who shrank away in terror whenever the wardresses came close to them. Some of the convicts were working in silence, while others were being led from one place to another, many in handcuffs. It was a grim sight.

Josephine’s escort clearly revelled in the effect her presence had on the prisoners. At the bottom of some stairs they encountered a girl scrubbing the floor and Miss Jones took delight in sending her cowering into a corner simply by suddenly stepping out towards her.

The party arrived at a storeroom where Josephine’s hands were untied and she was helped out of the white dress. To replace it they handed her the standard uniform for Level One inmates; long brown stockings, ill made wooden clogs, a blue and white candy striped dress and a greyish white apron and cap. It was not particularly warm or comfortable, but at least it was looser than the ghastly white dress.

"Shall we stick her in with the others?" asked the duty wardress in charge of the storeroom.

"Maybe tomorrow, if she behaves herself," replied Miss Jones. "We’ll put her in the punishment block for the time being, though. It’ll do the little bitch some good. You can go now, I’ll lock her up myself."

Miss Jones grinned broadly as the other wardress departed.

"You’re in my world now, my love," she smiled. "You’re not one of Stapleton’s little princesses down here. Anything that happens in this block is private between you and me. Isn’t that cosy?"

"Yes, Miss," replied Josephine.

"Time for madam to retire to her chamber, I think," continued the wardress. "But a well bred lady like you needs her jewellery, don’t you think?"

Miss Jones reached into a crate full of assorted ironmongery and selected a heavy pair of manacles, blackened with age, with a shiny brass key.

"These will go nicely with your outfit," she said, biting through the string that kept the key together with the handcuffs. "Turn around, please."

"There we go," she said, securing Josephine’s hands behind her once more. It took her a few minutes to fasten them together but when she had finished they felt very solid and secure. "These are the original type," she explained. "A little slut like you would have worn this very pair a hundred years ago. Time to show you to your room."

Miss Jones made Josephine walk in front of her, using her baton to hold open doors and to guide her through the maze of corridors by poking her in the back, sometimes steering her to one side. She took her down another flight of stairs into a corridor dimly illuminated by low wattage bulbs screwed into the ceiling. There was no natural light and Josephine guessed they were now well below ground level. The air smelt unhealthy but an acrid taste suggested that it had recently been disinfected. On either side of the corridor were narrow, very solid looking metal doors which Miss Jones casually knocked with her truncheon from time to time, creating an echoing noise.

"In you go," she said, stopping at an open door with pitch blackness beyond it. "Sleep well."

Josephine was horrified as the wardress shoved her into the black hole. Unable to use her hands she tripped forwards and landed on something soft and slightly damp before squirming around to see the silhouette of the wardress in the dimly lit corridor.

"Don’t worry, dear, I won’t ask for a tip," said the shadow in the doorway. "Just remember this is the upper basement." The iron door shut with a very final sounding thud leaving the prisoner alone in utter darkness.

Painfully slowly, Josephine took stock of her surroundings. A cold rationality of an unfamiliar kind suddenly took hold of her and stifled her growing panic. There was no light and, aside from the Miss Jones walking away there was no noise. Was she alone? Almost certainly. At lease there seemed to be no immediate danger. The soft, slightly damp object she was half sitting, half lying on turned out to be a mattress that gave off a peculiar odour she could not quite place.

Determined to establish the dimensions of her cell, she struggled to her feel to explore its extremities. It was about five feet wide by about eight feet long. There was no way of telling how high the ceiling was. She also found a bucket in one corner, though how she was expected to use it she did not know. Other than that, the cell was empty.

Josephine realised that she was tired but with her hands behind her back found it very difficult to get into a comfortable resting position. Eventually, she lay flat on her belly with her toes hanging over the edge of the mattress. The unhealthy damp of the mattress soaked straight through her apron and dress and began to feel slimy and raw against her skin. She cursed Miss Jones for leaving her like this but remembered she had once been a prisoner as well, probably once kept in the very same cell.

Though her arms were already starting to ache she decided to sleep if she could, trying to shut her fear and discomfort out of her mind. She tried imagine her body surrounded by a thick shield of blubber like that of a whale, keeping out the cold and the damp. That comforting idea detached her far enough from reality to allow her to rest.

Some hours later the door swung open again and the light of the corridor flooded into the cell like a searchlight. Blinking in the glare, Josephine saw that Miss Jones had returned, alone as before, carrying what looked like a deep plate or shallow dish. Josephine noticed that she had changed into her formal black uniform. Bending over as little as possible, Miss Jones placed the bowl onto the floor. She seemed a little unsteady as she did so and spilt some of the liquid it contained.

"Though you might want dinner," she remarked, in a slightly slurred voice. "C’mon. I’m not leaving the bowl.

Josephine realised that she was famished and wriggled forwards to the bowl like a maggot. It was full of thin stew with small bits of meat floating in it.

"Lap it up, then, bitch," the wardress ordered.

She plunged her head into the bowl to drink her fill.

"One of the girls got promoted," muttered Miss Jones as though she was trying to justify something, as Josephine knelt up from the empty bowl to see that she had crouched beside her.

"Let’s have a look at you," said Miss Jones, holding Josephine’s face in the light to examine it for a moment. She pulled a handkerchief out of her pocket and began to wipe away some of the stew which had run down Josephine’s chin and onto the front of her dress. She was staring directly into Josephine’s eyes, beyond them in fact, and her breath reeked of cheap whisky.

"D’you want the cuffs off tonight?" she asked. "I can do that for you." Almost involuntarily, Josephine nodded as the wardress stepped forwards and pushed her further back into the cell.

Miss Jones chucked. "You’ll do what I want then," she said with a smile.

Jones, who was now completely inside the cell, hooked the door with her foot and quickly pulled it shut, cutting out the light one more. Josephine began to feel giddy and light headed as the wardress pulled her up to a kneeling position and clasped her sturdy arms around her body. At least this kept her warm, she thought. As the bosoms pressed together Josephine could feel the brass insignia on the chest of the wardresses’ uniform pressing cold and hard through her thin clothing.

After a while, Miss Jones released her grip and began to unbutton the front of Josephine’s dress before peeling it back over her shoulders and down her arms until it got caught by the handcuffs. She had rather more trouble with the bra but eventually loosened it so that she could pull it down around her captive’s arms, pinning them even more tightly to her waist. Josephine did not know why, but her exposed nipples had begun as the wardress ran her hands across the front of her body. Miss Jones’ hands were warn but she wore a ring on her left index finger which left an electrified path as it traced across Josephine’s soft skin.

The wardress became more excited as she began to fondle the prisoner’s breasts and her deep hasty breathing began to evolve into contented moans. Josephine herself slowly fell prey to emotion as the Miss Jones continued exploring her naked torso. There was a part of her that found this invasion a hideous experience but at the same time she felt a deep satisfaction that, for the first time in her life her body was desired by another human being as a thing of beauty and source of sexual pleasure. She gave way to pleasure and gasped in delight as Miss Jones forced her over onto her back and began to lick her body, stroking her legs with a free hand that had somehow found its way inside her dress.

With a shock she realised that the hand was working its way towards her private parts which were still sore and very delicate. There was no way she could resist.

"I’m still tender down there." she breathed. The wardress ignored her. "Don’t touch me there," she pleaded again.

"Fuck you, bitch," slurred the wardress, suddenly angry. "You shouldn’t have broken the law if you didn’t want to get hurt."

She had almost reached her raw vagina but in anticipation of extreme pain, something iron suddenly took hold inside Josephine.

"I’ll split open if you do!" she hissed, suddenly pulling back. "What happens to you them? Do you want to go back inside?"

Josephine was startled at the words that had just come out of her mouth. Had Joseph returned? Miss Jones pulled her hand out of Josephine’s skirt as though her fingers had been caught in a mousetrap.

"Fuck!" hissed Jones in panic and frustration. A terrifying pause followed as her other hand, which rested on Josephine’s shoulder, tightened and went cold with fear. With a sudden resolve, Miss Jones seized hold of Josephine and rolled her onto her belly.

"I’m going to take the cuffs off now," she said, fumbling around in her uniform for the key. "Like I promised. If you breathe a word about this to Stapleton I’ll take your fucking skin off with battery acid, that’s another promise. You do as I say and keep you gob shut, and I’ll look after you." She had begun to unlock the handcuffs, pulling at Josephine’s arms as she struggled with the intricate locks in the darkness.

"Do you understand me, bitch?"

"Yes, Miss." replied Josephine, wincing as one of the handcuff loops tightened temporarily before springing open. "I won’t tell Miss Stapleton. I swear."

"Right. That’s sorted then," the wardress sounded relieved as she opened the cell door to let in some light. She separated Josephine’s arms’ which were stiff and immobile from their confinement and began to work on the remaining manacle. "You’re a slut, but a smart one. We can get on. I’ll get you off Punishment tomorrow. I promise."

When she had removed the handcuffs altogether she helped Josephine restore her bra and fastened up her dress before rubbing her arms vigorously to help them to recover. The two women could see one another’s faces clearly in the light.

"You’re a pretty girl, you know that? I like you." murmured Miss Jones in a dreamy manner. "I’ll get you a blanket and something else to eat. We’ll be friends, yes?"

 

Henrietta and her allies were already seated when the Admiral and the remainder of the Executive Committee shuffled into the large Regency dining room which several candles and some velvet drapes had converted into an official Great Chamber. The room had to be quite large as there were some thirty women present, of whom only twelve were full members of the Committee. For some reason, three of the Committee’s members were late and two others had sent their apologies.

Each member of the Committee wore scarlet and black robes and sat on a high backed chair around the highly polished dining table which had been cleared for the purpose. As Mother Superior, the Admiral sat slightly above her minions and wore a slender gold chain of office. Henrietta had deliberately chosen the seat directly opposite the Mother Superior and was flanked by two of her closest supporters.

By the side of most of the more important Committee members, though not Henrietta, the heads of another group of women could be seen bobbing just above the table. These were the Servitors, ambitious young hopefuls awaiting their chance to take a seat on the Committee who attended meetings as observers and general purpose servants for the older women. About eight of these were present, all kneeling on cushions by the table. They wore long green dresses, made of a thin, flowing material under which their naked forms were clearly visible. Each of them also had a green silk ribbon tied around their necks with the knot just below the left ear.

Standing by the far wall of the room were three women dressed in sackcloth who did not wear the green neckties of the Servitors. Instead they were symbolically bound and gagged with blue ribbons. These were ordinary members of the Order who had committed minor breaches of Factor Three’s numerous regulations and would be sentenced to appropriate penalties by the Committee during the course of its business.

The other women in the room wore short leather skirts and bikinis and carried thin wooden rods about three feet long. These were the Custodians or Guards, junior members of the Order selected for their physical appearance and athletic ability to serve as ushers for Committee meetings and other important events in the Order’s calendar. They also would be responsible for administering any physical chastisement the Committee voted to impose.

Henrietta enjoyed the time she spent with the Order, even more than ever now that many of its members had become powerful members of the community. She looked around at the robed figures; senior policewomen, military officers, captains of industry and, of course, Party members. Until about four years ago Factor Three had been nothing but an elaborate game and an amusing diversion from serious politics. All of that had changed under the Admiral’s leadership and the Order now rightly considered itself one of the powers in the land.

Like all things, power of this nature had a price, and Henrietta was well aware of the possible consequences of offending the wizened old crone whose eyes now bored into her own across the highly polished table. As the Order’s influence had grown, so too had the Admiral’s willingness to use its’ power to give expression to her own exquisite cruelty. Three months ago one member of the committee, a doctor specialising in artificial fertilisation, had slept with a Servitor ‘belonging’ to another.

The doctor now led an extremely uncomfortable life as the Admiral had sentenced her to wear a stainless steel set of chain-mail underwear, riveted together so that it could not be removed except by a blacksmith, until such a time as she could keep her sexual appetite under control without such artificial assistance. The Servitor escaped with a mild flogging and a month’s unpaid service on the offended Committee member’s private aeroplane.

Henrietta noted the doctor’s continuing discomfort despite the satin lining she had, allegedly, managed to fit between the chain-mail and her skin. One potential ally at least, she thought, unless of course she was trying to get back into the Admiral’s good graces.

The Admiral, clearly irritated at the latecomers was having a whispered debate with a small grey-haired woman who was sitting next to her. The Admiral wanted to delay the start of the meeting but the grey-haired woman on her right, the Committee Secretary, would have none of it. At length, the Secretary’s encyclopaedic knowledge of the Order’s regulations won the argument and the Admiral growled a few words in Latin that meant the Executive Committee was officially in session.

"Order of Business, Secretary?" asked the Admiral.

The Order of Business consisted of a lengthy list of uninteresting topics on which the Committee’s decision was required, sentencing of the transgressors at the back of the room which was always enjoyable and, most importantly, the Extraordinary Motions.

"Do we have any Extraordinary Motions?" asked the Secretary when she had finished listing the more mundane items. Henrietta could see that she was gently stroking her kneeling Servitor’s breasts with her left hand under the table. She did this whenever she was nervous and the habit accidentally ensured she always had plenty of able candidates eager to take the position.

"I beg to move, sister," came the standard affirmative response. Heads snapped round to the youngest member of the Committee, the editor of a magazine for the Community Party’s youth movement. This was a surprise.

"And the motion you plead?" replied the puzzled Secretary.

"If it pleases the Mother, the Order and the Committee, sister, I move that sister Henrietta Raven be censured for her recent action without the authority of the Committee, be debarred from the Committee and be subject to further penalty without limit at the Mother Superior’s pleasure."

Stunned silence. Henrietta had expected a censure motion to come from one of the Admiral’s traditional allies, and the motion was far stronger than she had expected. Even the motion that had resulted in the fertilisation doctor’s inconvenience not been so damning.

"It pleases me to debate this motion when the other business is concluded," responded the Admiral at length with a smile. Henrietta’s heart began to accelerate as she saw the gap toothed grin on the old crone. She had counted the magazine editor as a neutral if not an ally. And the other younger members might be more inclined to support the motion with her behind it. There was a real chance it would be carried, especially if any of the Admiral’s absent friends suddenly arrived at the meeting.

"Mother," croaked the Secretary with a trembling voice. "We should debate the motion now."

"Extraordinary motions are debated at the close of the meeting," responded the Admiral firmly.

"Not if they involve the confidence of the Committee in one of its members. Standing Order One Three Eight, if you recall. You can’t have a Committee member voting on other business items while there’s a question like…" The Admiral motioned the Secretary to be silent.

"Very well," she sighed. "We’ll do it now, then. Perhaps the sister proposing the motion could open in favour….."

The debate was predictably heated. The young woman proposing the motion opened by stating that Henrietta had breached protocol by accepting the position in the Ministry of Law and Order without seeking the permission of the Mother Superior. Henrietta’s response was that she was given no time to seek the Order’s position and, in any case should be congratulated on her ingenuity in securing power that could be wielded for the Order’s benefit. An Army General weighed in by stating that individual acts ‘undermined the fabric of the Order/ and the young editor agreed that the rules were there to prevent such daring and innovative’ actions from happening.

As the discussion developed, Henrietta realised that the young woman was deliberately goading the Admiral and her old allies into making ever more extreme statements about how the members of the Order should never act on their own initiative, however ingenious it might be without strict instructions from above. The woman was on her side! By pointing out that the strict letter of the Order’s rules meant that such innovation should be severely punished, the magazine editor was undermining the rules themselves.

This became clear even to the meaner intellects amongst the Committee when the young woman withdrew the motion, pointing out in her shrill yapping tone that Henrietta’s acts were highly commendable and that the rules of the Order needed to be changed. The General who had previously taken the young woman at face value swallowed the bait whole by resubmitting the motion herself, much to the alarm of the Secretary who had already sent her Servitor to fetch a copy of the Regulations. The wording of the motion had ensured it was debated first, when the members Henrietta had delayed were absent. The motion was defeated by six votes to four with two abstentions, including the Secretary who normally voted with the Admiral.

The Admiral was furious, but there was nothing she could do. To add insult to injury the Secretary pointed out that, due to the failure of the motion, the wrongly accused party was entitled to redress against whoever proposed it. Henrietta was in a generous mood and restricted her revenge to six strokes of corporal punishment to be administered to the general just before close of business in full view of the Committee. The Admiral was forced to accept that this was fair.

Henrietta was therefore in a jubilant mood as she drove back to her mansion at high speed. She had survived, and the Admiral’s authority had been compromised in a highly embarrassing manner. Things were much better than she could have hoped for in all sorts of interesting ways. She also vowed to find out more about the young woman who had appeared from nowhere to assist her in such a surprising manner and wondered what she might want in return. She put such thoughts out of her mind by remembering that it had been a few weeks since she had last summoned Alison into her presence. She decided to rectify this omission that very evening.

 

 

 

CHAPTER FOUR – THE LOWER BASEMENT

 

Josephine wobbled precariously on her three legged stool as she ducked away from a fresh cloud of steam. The laundry detail was well known amongst inmates as the least demanding of the prison fatigues, reserved for physical weaklings and the wardresses’ girlfriends. For Josephine, still weak from the operation and her experience in the punishment cell, the intensity of the work was almost unbearable.

Perched on a stool she bent over the giant cauldron like some apprentice witch stirring the soapy blue and white mass within with a large wooden fork. Just like more or less every other job in the prison the task was designed to be as mindless and wasteful of physical effort as possible. The lip of the washing tub was too high for her to use her strength properly and the strain of the work fell almost entirely on her aching arms.

Some twenty women worked in a steam drenched room that would not have employed more than four if it contained modern machinery. Every minute or so a woman above her would reach into the cauldron with a spatula and lift out some clothing which she would swing round and dunk into a vast rinsing bowl. The steam clouds were raised by another prisoner with the unenviable task of filling a metal handled bucket with boiling water on the other side of the room, dragging it over, raising it above her head and tipping it into the washing tub. Naturally, they always picked the shortest person they could find for that task. Josephine noticed that most of the fresh hot water tipped into the cauldron went straight into the overflow, leaving the dirty clothes in a tepid stew below.

It had been at least two weeks since the night in the upper basement cell, maybe more, and Josephine had just begun to get used to the routine imposed on the Level One prisoners. The first day and night had been a shock for her even after the punishment cells.

The prisoners slept together in large dormitories each holding about thirty girls in narrow beds pushed hard against one another. The space between the feet of each bedstead formed a gangway, some three feet wide which ran the whole length of the room and formed the only floor-space available. One of the short walls at the end of the room consisted of an iron mesh that opened out into the brightly lit corridor that linked the dormitories together, allowing a single wardress to keep scores of inmates under close supervision at night simply by pacing the corridor. Josephine found the constant tapping of the sentinel marching up and down the hall all night quite maddening.

The surveillance this afforded was not perfect and the strict rule of silence in the prison was broken whenever the clicking of the night guard’s heels grew fainter. Nobody was allocated their own bed and when the prisoners were herded towards these cages at the end of the day one could never tell which room one would end up in. Every night the companions in the beds on either side of an inmate and the inevitable whispered conversations would be different.

It was a great release for Josephine to be able to speak, however furtively, with women of a similar status to her own. There was a wide variety of prisoners indiscriminately flung together, mostly prostitutes and petty thieves but a fair number of political types, some still indignant at their treatment, others cowed and humble. Many of the politicals had been arrested quite recently and Josephine learnt from them that the Community Party and its minions were now stronger than ever. For some reason, Josephine did not reveal to them that she was once Joseph Smythe, and was terrified that they might find out, see her as a leader and make her more of a target for the wardresses.

Despite feeling sorry for these women, Josephine felt detached from them. She could see that, in the face of the Community Party’s power, the political offenders had achieved nothing but their own humiliation and the particular delight the wardresses took in making them suffer. They seemed foolish and self destructive to Josephine, but in her heart she feared that Joseph was still lying dormant inside her, somehow preserved in a state of decomposition, listening and plotting revenge. Was it Joseph’s voice that had saved her from Miss Jones in the punishment cell? And, if so, for what end?

From what she could glean from her temporary neighbours, Josephine could see a clear progression in the way they behaved according to the time they had spent in the prison. There was still a rebellious spirit in the girls that had been incarcerated relatively recently. They would hiss and spit at the system, each in her own manner, remarking about what they would do to their least favourite wardress if they got half a chance. The ones that had been in the prison for longer were tired and terrified, spoke only when they had to, and would barely dare to think about taking revenge against their captors. It was quite a depressing observation.

Josephine’s third night in the dormitory gave her some idea of the reasons for this transformation. There was a rumour that one of the girls who worked in the kitchens had lost her temper and called one of the guards a "fat cow". The wardress in question, a fragile person who relied entirely on her uniform to protect her from having to listen to such devastating insights had burst into tears and it had taken Miss Stapleton twenty minutes to clam her down.

The prisoner had been dragged away and not been seen since, and it was rumoured she had received a long sentence in the punishment block. It was clear however, that the wardresses had not taken her to the solitary confinement cells because they brought her up to the dormitory, motionless, like a rag doll with her arms over their shoulders. One of the wardresses was carrying a lantern and in the dim yellow light she could see that it was Miss Harper.

Josephine lay silent and terrified as the wardresses dumped her on an empty bed just a few feet away from her own. The entire room was tense and silent as they departed, leaving the poor naked form of the girl whimpering on top of the long blanket covering all the girls on her side of the room.

Once the guards were safely gone, the entire row of beds moved in unison, carrying Josephine and one or two other girls who were new along with their motion. Everyone seemed to know what to do. A pocket formed in the blanket, which wrapped itself around her, to dry her or cleanse her; Josephine did not know. After a few minutes, the long blanket moved to roll her along to a space between the two largest girls on the section who quickly made room for her between them. The blanket then moved to swallow her like an amoeba, installing her in the warm place between the two women who then pressed in close to her. The organism was repairing itself, restoring weakened tissue to health.

"What happened to her?" Josephine asked the girl next to her.

"Lower Basement," came the reply.

The routine of the day was bound irrevocably to the hour, the minute and the second hand of the pendulum clock in the tower. At six in the morning, the dormitory gates would be unlocked, one at a time, and a crocodile of women in yellow night-dresses would file along the main corridor and strip before marching through a gauntlet of icy cold showers. The worst part followed when the naked girls were led past a nurse who would pick out anyone she felt needed a haircut or their legs shaved. She would hand these unfortunates over to two enormous medical orderlies who would carry out the tasks required in an enthusiastic but rather inept manner. Apparently, the nurse could be bribed to do the job herself but, given that none of the prisoners had any possessions, Josephine could guess what the ‘bribe’ might involve.

After the lottery of the storeroom where everyone hoped to receive a day uniform that happened to be the right size for her, the prisoners would troop out into the courtyard for a spell of vigorous exercise. This took place whatever the weather, under the watchful eye of Miss Harper who seemed to particularly enjoy watching girls exerting themselves. Senior wardresses would generally use this opportunity to pick out girls for punishment or various special tasks.

Most of the rest of the day, except for mealtimes, was spent either at work or locked in waiting rooms with narrow benches lining the walls. At eight o clock sharp, they would all return to wash again, change back into their night clothes and be herded into the dormitories like cattle. After only a few days, Josephine found the cycle thoroughly demoralising and utterly depressing.

 

The work in the laundry itself was hardly better, although there was something mesmerising about the monotony which allowed Josephine to disconnect parts of her mind from the dull reality. Naturally, there was a hierarchy within the laundry itself with Josephine and one or two others at the bottom and the girls with the difficult but much envied task of ironing the wardresses’ uniforms at the top. The jobs were distributed at the whim of the duty wardress who would prowl around the room or perch on a rickety chair in the corner.

This wardress, Miss Johnston, was universally despised by her colleagues for the cardinal sin of turning down a promotion four years ago. Rumour had it that she was having an affair with her immediate superior which she felt unable to continue if they had to work together at the same rank. The senior officer was singularly unimpressed by this sacrifice and spurned her affections, casually revealing the news that she had just received her own promotion in the process.

Exiled to the laundry for the foreseeable future, Miss Johnston was determined to squeeze every ounce of satisfaction from the morsel of authority her junior rank allowed her. Her limited imagination meant that this consisted of distributing rewards and punishments to the subjects of her little empire on an entirely arbitrary basis, randomly swapping duties, allowing girls to idle for hours on end on one day and working them halfway to exhaustion on another. There was no particular incentive to show any respect to her whatsoever and the inmates despised her as much as the other wardresses did. The result of this was that the laundry performed even worse than its deliberate inefficiency intended it to.

As Josephine stirred the contents of the washing tub in a dreamlike state, waiting for the next burst of steam that would break the routine, Miss Johnston entertained the inmates with a dreary monologue about the number of things that had gone wrong during a recent holiday on the coast. Her difficulties in getting the owners of the hotel she had been staying in to open a window that had jammed shut had been the principal topic for the past quarter of an hour. Josephine found the swirling contents of the tub much more fascinating.

"Fourteen!" shouted Miss Johnston suddenly. "Fourteen! Did you hear me?" With a start, Josephine realised that she was wearing the number 14. Miss Johnston had not bothered to learn the names of any of the girls in the laundry and got round the problem by randomly distributing bibs to them each morning with numbers stencilled on the back. Of course each girl would receive a different number every day and it was important to remember which one they had received. Miss Johnston liked the sound of certain numbers more than others, so whoever got Seven or Twelve would invariably get picked on more often than Eleven or Nine. Fourteen was normally quite safe but not, it seemed, on this occasion.

"Yes, Miss," said Josephine, turning around on the stool to face the wardress while trying to keep the wooden fork in her hand. Miss Johnston was not quite as large as most of the other wardresses and always walked with her shoulders slumped forwards even while trying to look up at her prisoner.

"What did I say, then?" she growled, staring up at the precarious girl in an offended manner.

"You wanted me, Miss?"

"You weren’t listening to me, were you?" There was no escape from this.

"I couldn’t hear you very well, Miss. I’m sorry".

The whole laundry had stopped working. There was nothing like watching somebody else get into trouble to brighten up a dreary afternoon for the other inmates. If Miss Johnston made a fool of herself as well, all the better.

"You’re sorry, are you? You will be bloody sorry. Do you like it in solitary? Or are you too stupid to listen to an officer’s instructions?"

Josephine was in a silent panic. Miss Johnston was obviously waiting to bawl at her for answering back the moment she opened her mouth.

"I asked you a question!" shouted the wardress, falling back on her alternative strategy in this situation. "Are you a stupid little bitch?"

"I’m sorry, Miss. I wasn’t listening." Just surrender, thought Josephine. Let her think she’s better than you and she’ll leave you alone.

"That makes you a stupid little bitch that deserves a month downstairs chained up with the rats, " raved Miss Johnston. She was fond of that particular threat despite her superiors hardly ever approving her numerous requests to have it carried out. "Are you a stupid little bitch?"

"Yes, Miss." The shouting and the hot steam in the air was confusing Josephine. What did this woman want her to say?

"Tell the others what you are then."

"A stupid little bitch." she mumbled

"I can’t hear! What are you?" shouted the wardress. Josephine began to panic.

"You’re a stupid little bitch," she blurted out at the top of her voice. Realising exactly what she had just said she went as red as a beetroot as twenty women burst into laughter.

In fury Miss Johnston lurched forwards and pushed Josephine back against the washing tub. The three legged stool spun dangerously on one of its legs and, realising she would otherwise fall, Josephine threw both her arms round the nearest available solid object.

That object happened, of course, to be a bemused Miss Johnston who, immediately shook her assailant down to the floor and, with Josephine cowering in front of her, blew hard on her ear splitting panic whistle. Six wardresses, expecting to find a riot in progress, burst into the room with truncheons ready to find Miss Johnston standing over a trembling prisoner squeezed tight in a foetal position begging the wardress not to hurt her.

"Physical danger, Johnston?" asked one of the wardresses as they all joined in the prisoners’ laughter.

"She might bite your toes," put in another.

"I knew Johnston couldn’t handle the laundry."

"Real tough cases in here."

"Can’t take her on your own?"

"She assaulted me!" shouted Miss Johnston, spitting out her whistle. "I’m having the bitch charged for that."

 

Miss Stapleton carefully rested the barbell on the chrome frame above her chest and allowed herself to bathe for a moment in the calm satisfaction that followed a bout of heavy exercise. She had just lifted the carefully measured weights a precise number of times at exactly spaced intervals. She listened to her heartbeat; perhaps a shade too fast, but within acceptable limits. She allowed herself to draw in a deep breath to cleanse her lungs before sitting up slowly.

She always timed herself mentally when lifting which was why she preferred to use the weights room when her juniors, who pumped iron enthusiastically to rock music, and Miss Harper who used military marches instead, were all busy with their duties. Miss Stapleton did not like music as it clouded her thoughts and prevented her using her internal metronome. Her philosophy of exercise was that relaxation and discipline of the mind was as important, if not more so, than maintaining her excellent physical condition. Control over herself was imperative if she was to serve the community in role that required her to exercise control over other women.

She had learnt the importance of self control as a young girl when she had won a scholarship to an exclusive private boarding school. Mercilessly bullied by the young ladies there who singled her out because her father was a shopkeeper instead of a landowner or stockbroker she was nearly expelled in her second year for giving three of them black eyes. Every time she remembered the beating her father gave her over that incident she vowed never to lose her temper again. Ever.

Instead she channelled her aggression into sporting achievement, which was highly valued by the institution. By virtue of being one of the finest sportswomen the school had ever seen, she received the signal honour of becoming the first ever scholarship girl in its history to be made a Junior Prefect. This role suited her immensely as it allowed her to develop the other, more caring side of her personality, expressing a motherly concern for the welfare and correction of the younger girls, the only activity she really allowed herself to enjoy.

On leaving school she first considered joining the Armed Forces but though the structure and discipline of life in uniform appealed to her she felt she needed a career that combined a physical challenge with a dimension of social care. The prison service provided the perfect opportunity for her to exercise authority while using that power to help them overcome their weaknesses and, like her, find a way to become useful members of society. She prided herself in the fact that, despite her relative youth, she had been a member of the Community Party for longer than any other wardress at North Castle Penitentiary.

The racket in the corridor outside quickly brought the senior wardress out of her trance like state. Even in her leisure periods, she was never off duty for more than a split second after realising that something might be wrong. Moments later she had forcibly invited Josephine and the two wardresses who were dragging her to the Governess into her own office to discuss the events that had taken place in the laundry.

She listened carefully to Miss Johnston’s hysterical account of what had happened, soaking up the sweat from her thick black hair with a white hand towel. Her loose khaki vest was also drenched with the sweat of her exertion and clung tightly to her body so Josephine could see the contours of the sports bra underneath. The other wardress provided a calmer and more accurate account of what had happened. Josephine said nothing at all.

"Thank you, ladies," said Miss Stapleton who somehow managed to appear sympathetic towards all three of them. "Miss Stephens, you can go now. I think we can deal with this within the section."

"Aren’t you charging her, Miss?" asked a disappointed Miss Johnston.

"I don’t think that would be helpful for anybody," replied Miss Stapleton. "I’m a little disappointed you needed to call for assistance and I think it might cause problems on your own record if we made it official. I’m very glad to hear that you aren’t hurt at all, but the Governess might find this difficult to understand if Josephine has seriously assaulted you as you are claiming. I really like having you on my team, which is why I’m trying to help you. You can take this matter to the Governess if you like, though. Shall we go now?"

"No, Miss," replied Miss Johnston rather sheepishly. "Sorry, Miss."

"There’s no need to apologise so long as you’re doing your best, Emily. Just remember for the future. Now, we’re going to have to teach Josephine a little lesson over this incident as well. I’ll take care of it myself this evening and I have something suitable in mind already. Put her in the dormitory for now and don’t give her anything to eat until I’m done with her."

 

Henrietta Raven gently swirled the triple measure of fine cognac in the oversized glass she kept for evenings when she was plotting something unpleasant, watching the deep golden liquid sparkle in the firelight. Once more, she reflected, her political success has surpassed her sense of personal fulfilment and the imbalance was unhealthy for her soul.

On the one hand, her victory over the Admiral had consolidated her grip on Factor Three, which would no longer get in her way and might be helpful for her. Furthermore a major stroke of luck had taken place in the form of a terrorist bomb which had led the Prime Minister to declare a state of civil emergency. Business was booming for the Ministry of Law and Order.

She had also enjoyed a useful working lunch that very day with the excellent young magazine editor who had helped save her bacon at the Factor Three meeting. This woman, whose name turned out to be Sophia, had suggested that a suitable bold gesture would be to make the more responsible members of the Community Party’s youth wing into Special Constables for the duration of the emergency. Henrietta liked this idea immensely and planned to bully her colleagues at the Ministry into accepting it. An army of enthusiastic young volunteers with full police powers devoted to Party ideals might be a useful asset, especially given the grip Factor Three held over many of the officers of this little army.

Henrietta’s personal life had, however, lately been something of a disappointment. Alison had refused her request to visit her on the evening after her victory over the Admiral. She had broken free, she was beyond her control. The girl had betrayed her! Henrietta’s grip on her brandy glass grew tighter. How dare this little girl defy her in this manner, now of all times when she, Henrietta Raven, was more powerful than ever.

Henrietta remembered the cold, empty feeling in her heart the night Alison refused to come to her. She had called Penelope, into her study in the hope that thrashing the maid a bit might ease her frustration. She decided against it at the last moment despite, or rather because of, the maid’s willingness to be beaten. Penelope’s obvious delight in submission made her a thoroughly unsatisfying victim. Henrietta needed to encounter and overcome resistance in order to work off her energy, and Penelope could not even pretend to offer this.

The stresses of the past few weeks had distracted Henrietta from the important business of restoring her mental equilibrium but at last she found the leisure to plan her revenge on Alison. The obvious thing to do would be to invoke the various clauses of the little contract she had made her sign. Somehow, though, that seemed to easy and not quite fitting for the crime.

Henrietta took a long sip of her warm brandy as she carefully considered her options. Perhaps it was time to exercise a little of the power she had recently accumulated. Alison had committed a sin of pride, and it was her dignity that should bear the punishment for that sin. The Judge remembered that it was her turn to provide some entertainment for the local country sports society which also happened to be a fertile recruiting ground for Factor Three. Henrietta had an idea. Perhaps it was time for another Community Party fund raising event. She licked her lips with anticipation at what would follow.

 

The dim yellow glow from Miss Stapleton’s lantern illuminated the crumbling brickwork that lined the stairway leading down below the level of the punishment cells. She had come for Josephine on her own and merely called her name from the dormitory corridor. There was no point in resisting, and Josephine followed her towards the staircase like a zombie, trying to shut the terror of what might await her in the Lower Basement.

The wardress watched the barefoot figure in her thin canary yellow night-dress descending into the darkness. Josephine now seemed to be a model prisoner in many ways, but was not yet perfect. The details of the incident in the laundry did not concern her in the slightest as, despite Josephine’s best efforts to submit to the wardresses and repent for Joseph’s crimes, she suspected she would eventually need to bring Josephine down here for some special help. There was still something inside the girl, a nasty rebellious spirit left over from Joseph Smythe sitting inside her like a worm in an apple which needed to be excised.

Though the two women did not exchange a single word until they reached the bottom of the stairway, and could not see one another’s faces, their minds dwelt on the very same subject. Josephine too was asking herself whether the ghost of Joseph Smythe was still inside her mind exercising a malign influence. Perhaps Joseph had guided her lips to insult the wardress when her own mind was hopelessly confused by the panic. Then she remembered Miss Jones in the punishment cell and the harsh words that had come from her mouth then. If that had been Joseph, then Joseph had saved her for some reason. But Joseph was the enemy, the enemy of the wardresses and the prison, the enemy of the State and therefore the enemy of Josephine.

She noticed that, as they went deeper underground, the Victorian brickwork was slowly being replaced by slime covered stone walls before remembering that the prison was built on much older foundations. When they finally reached a rusted iron grating at the foot of the stairs she realised there were unlit torches set into the walls on either side. Josephine realised she had stepped into a patch of something dark and sticky on the floor. Miss Stapleton noticed her lifting her foot gingerly as she unlocked the gate.

"It’s only blood," she said, casually. Josephine shuddered.

"Are you alright?" asked the wardress.

"I’m frightened, Miss."

"That’s normal," she smiled. "You have every reason to be frightened, Josephine. Through the door, please, and let me light a few of these torches."

Beyond the grating was a single chamber with a low vaulted ceiling, very long, with slimy stone walls. There were several dark objects in the room of varying sizes, most on the floor or walls, but some hanging down from the ceiling. In the flickering torchlight it was difficult to fathom what they were but on the whole they were angular structures with vicious points and sharp edges, often attached to one another or the ceiling with heavy chains. A sickening feeling of dread welled up inside the prisoner.

"Isn’t it a magnificent collection?" asked the wardress. "As you can see, we have quite a museum in here. Some of them date back to the days when this was the castle dungeon but there have been plenty of additions since. Nobody knows about this room except for the staff here and of course the sponsoring foundation. The prisoners brought down here prefer not to talk about it afterwards and even if you did, no-one would believe you. Everything that happens down here is very private."

She continued. "Most of the devices are just for show of course but that’s often quite effective in itself. Now, if you’ll just look to the left, you’ll see a big oblong box like a stone coffin with some metal bits above it."

Josephine looked at what appeared to be a large concrete block, about eight feet long, four feet wide and three feet high. There appeared to be some copper pipes suspended over it. Then she realised that the block was in fact hollow, like an oversized bathtub.

"Right then," said Miss Stapleton. "Clothes off and in you get, please. Don’t worry. This won’t cause you any permanent damage."

Josephine tried to stifle the panic inside her as, under the wardress’ steely gaze she peeled off her night clothes and approached the concrete tomb. The hollow inside the block was deep and its bottom was level with the floor of the chamber. There were several holes at the bottom of the hollow which were closed with metal valves and Josephine could not guess at their purpose. More disconcerting was the copper grating across the hollow, about eight inches from the top, hinged on one side and fastened with bolts on the other.

Miss Stapleton lifted the grating for Josephine to enter before lowering it over her and bolting it into place to leave her trapped underneath. There was just enough room inside the tub for Josephine to move her arms but the surface of the concrete scraped against her shoulders as she did so. The copper mesh was greening with age and its stale smell forced its way into her nostrils. Way above the mesh frowned the vaulted torch-lit ceiling.

Miss Stapleton had disappeared and for a horrified moment Josephine thought she was to be left alone in the dungeon. Suddenly her voice, distorted by the echo in the room, came from some distance away.

"It’s an peculiar little device this," she said. "Quite sophisticated in many ways. About a hundred and twenty years old, though probably based on an earlier design. Nobody knows what it was for, possibly a means of execution."

With that there came a painful squeak of metal on metal and the sound of flowing water. A second later a shower of icy cold water began to pour down from dozens of holes in the copper pipes into the hollow. Josephine squealed at the shock of the cold water splashing down on her naked body and moments later shrieked again in horror as the tub began to fill around her.

"Turn it off!" she screamed. "Please turn it off, Miss Stapleton!"

A second squeak was heard and the spray of the shower stopped. Instead, a single open valve allowed a flow of water of about the thickness of a finger to fall from the pipework onto Josephine below, just above her navel. The water level continued to rise at an alarming rate.

"I’m sorry, I didn’t hear you, Josephine," said Miss Stapleton. "What did you say?"

"Turn the water off, for pity’s sake, please!"

The wardress walked over to the bathtub and looked down at Josephine beneath the copper grille which was now only about six inches above the level of the water.

"All in good time," she replied. "Do you think I am going to let you drown in there?"

"No, Miss, you wouldn’t."

"Why not?" she smiled before stepping away. In a panic, Josephine launched a furious assault on the copper grating, cutting her fingers on the sharp edges of the metal, as the water level slowly climbed towards it. Instinctively she took as many deep breaths as she could while air was still available. The water continued to flow and soon reached the fatal level of the grating. Josephine pressed her lips through the mesh for one final gulp of air, fearing that this was the end.

Suddenly, a rubber hose appeared from nowhere and the end was thrust towards Josephine’s mouth. Josephine seized hold of the tube with one hand, holding her nose with the other and, sucking hard on the rubber tubing began to inhale long and heavy breaths through the lifeline that the wardress had provided. She had closed her eyes in panic but now opened them to see the shimmering surface of the water rise clear above the copper mesh.

The flow from above finally stopped just a couple inches above the grating so she could almost feel the surface of the water with her fingertips. She could see the black form of Miss Stapleton’s uniform, her pale face and a black smudge where her hair was standing over her. She was alive, and while she could breathe through the tubing the wardress held over her she would continue to live.

Alive, but utterly helpless. Josephine’s mind began to drift into paranoia. Maybe the prison had received secret orders from London to eliminate Joseph Smythe once and for all and they would do it now and make it look like an accident. But she remembered that Miss Stapleton had always been kinder to her than the others. Josephine’s admiration and embryonic love of the senior wardress was amplified by her terror. Surely she would not let her drown like a rat.

The resistance of the tubing changed with every breath she took. Miss Stapleton was playing with her lifeline, twisting it around her finger, squeezing and then releasing it. Josephine tried to signal to the wardress, waving her arm in the water to mean something, anything at all that might stop Miss Stapleton constricting her airflow. She wished she could speak to the wardress to plea, to confess, to prostitute herself and bargain for her life in any way she could.

Suddenly, she realised that she could not draw breath at all. Miss Stapleton was holding the pipeline close to Josephine’s face to display the knot she had tied halfway along its length. The captive kicked and thrashed pathetically in the water. Her lungs were bursting as the world slowed down around her. She looked up at the surface of the water tantalisingly close to her lips and saw the infernal patterns of the torchlight skipping over it burst into life before fading into darkness.

Josephine could not recall for certain whether she had heard the grating metal and felt the rush of water as the wardress pulled the lever to open the valves at the base of the coffin. She was aware she was still in the tub, coughing and spluttering, her hands bleeding and an almighty thudding at the back of her head as fresh blood pounded through her brain. A trail of pale vomit lay across her right shoulder and trickled down her forearm.

The copper grating had been lifted and the tub was empty but Josephine was too weak to sit upright. She shivered as the water on her skin began to evaporate into the air of the chamber now heavy with the smoke from the torches on the wall.

"That was an interesting little experience for you," came Miss Stapleton’s voice as she walked over with an hand towel. "I keep most girls under for a bit longer than that but I didn’t think you would be strong enough. I’ve never lost anyone in the Bath in my entire career and I wouldn’t want you to be the first."

Josephine answered with a pathetic moan as the wardress began to rub her with the towel. It was quite inadequate for the job so she soon discarded it.

"There’s a bigger towel in my bedroom," commented Miss Stapleton. "And I expect you’ll want a nice hot shower. I’m off duty now so perhaps you’d care to join me."

 

Fifty minutes later, Josephine was ensconced in a comfortable armchair wearing one of Miss Stapleton’s bathrobes and glowing from a warm shower. The wardress, an accomplished first-aider, had cleaned up and bandaged her fingers and applied some ointment to her shoulders where she had grazed them on the concrete sides of the Bath and given her a steaming cup of hot chocolate.

Miss Stapleton’s personal quarters were predictably austere while attending to the simple comforts she needed to rest from her duties. There was very little on the walls of he sitting room except for two charcoal drawings and a grainy black and white photograph of two men with whiskers standing by an Edwardian shop with a brand new sign that read ‘Stapleton’s Supplies’. The furniture was straightforward and functional.

The wardress herself was in the process of removing her uniform, a rather involved process that began with unclipping the items on her belt and carefully stowing them in a small cabinet.

"The Bath is my personal favourite," she commented, sliding her truncheon into a slot designed to hold it. "It fits my theory of corrections perfectly. A lot of women think that the punishments should be painful and therefore a deterrent, but I disagree. You can thrash a girl until she’s black and blue but she’ll still hate you. If you want to teach somebody properly, you have to make them feel they owe everything to you, to the mercy you have shown them. I think you’ll agree the Bath is most effective in this respect."

Miss Stapleton removed her smartly polished boots before unbuckling her belt and slipping it off.

"Take Miss Jones, for example," she continued, unfastening her dress. "She came here the most viscous little thug you can possibly imagine. Can you believe that now? After she thumped a wardress they wanted to make an example of her. I said I would take her in hand and a short session in the Bath transformed her overnight. I did have an unfair advantage, though, because her mother had tried to drown her once when she was six. I think it left quite an impression on the poor girl. Don’t mention this when she’s around, by the way. It makes her quite upset. She won’t go into the Lower Basement just because the Bath’s down there, you see."

"It worked, though, and that’s what counts," Miss Stapleton stepped out of her dress and hung it up inside her wardrobe. Surprisingly, she wore delicate lace underwear beneath it which underlined the fact that the firmness in tone of her body was entirely natural. "Please excuse me getting changed while you’re here," she said. "We’re supposed to wear the Number One uniform when we take someone downstairs, but it’s awfully hot. Nobody keeps it on any longer than they have to. Even us, believe it or not."

"It looks very nice," said Josephine.

"You think so?" Miss Stapleton slipped into a blue tracksuit, which brought out the curves of her body beautifully. She sat down opposite Josephine, a picture of warm vitality. "I suppose it does. Uniform is very important to us here. Have you considered joining us one day?"

"I don’t imagine I could do the job. Physically, I mean."

"No, you’re quite right," Miss Stapleton laughed. "I couldn’t see you as a prison officer. But we might have something in the office, you never know. The Governess was saying only last week how much she could do with a girl to run around after her. Can you type?"

"A little, Miss."

"Of course," laughed the wardress. "Typing things is what brought you here in the first place, after all. I’m afraid there’s a long way to go before we get to that stage, but I think you’re doing very well. I could see you working for us one day."

"You’ve been very good to me."

"Me personally?" Miss Stapleton raised an eyebrow. There was an embarrassing silence. The wardress grinned knowingly. "You’ve got a crush on me, haven’t you?" she asked.

"Yes, Miss" blushed Josephine. "I’m sorry."

"That’s quite alright," she laughed. "I’m used to that sort of thing. It’s been pretty obvious every time you look at me. You’re an attractive young lady yourself, you know that?"

"I don’t think I am."

"Of course you don’t. Women tend not to. That’s one of the reasons we need relationships. You need somebody to tell you how pretty you are and to make you feel wanted and protected. You probably won’t believe it, but it’s the same for us as well; the dominant partner needs her little girlfriend to remind her how strong and powerful she is. We’re all afraid inside, Josephine. Different people deal with it in different ways."

Josephine was captivated by Miss Stapleton’s simple honesty as well as her overpowering physical beauty. She could not stop herself.

"Do you want me, Miss?"

"Want you?" replied the wardress.

"Do you want to take me?" Almost unconsciously, Josephine had parted the folds of the dressing gown, revealing the tops of her tender white breasts.

Miss Stapleton looked thoughtfully into Josephine’s adoring eyes for a moment before casting her gaze down onto the floor between them.

"I’m afraid it wouldn’t be….. professional," she said, regretfully. "I’ve never slept with a girl in my care. I’m here to teach and discipline you, sometimes hurt you if I have to. I can’t let a relationship get in the way of my duty. It’s a rule I have for myself."

"But the others…" protested Josephine, close to tears.

"I know that most of the other wardresses have relationships with inmates, and I don’t blame them for doing so. But I expect more from myself than I do from any of my girls. It’s just the way I am. I’m sorry, Josephine, but that’s the way it is."

Josephine slumped forward from her seat and onto her knees, crying into the wardress’ lap. Miss Stapleton allowed her to do so and held her for a long time. She had done well with this one, she thought, remembering the newspaper articles about Joseph Smythe and the trial. Soon she would be ready for the next stage of her education.

 

 

CHAPTER FIVE – TEAM SPORTS

 

"I have the right to know why I am being arrested," Alison said calmly to the woman police sergeant. They had come for her in broad daylight on her way home from a lecture. "You will inform me of your reasons or this arrest is unlawful."

"Alright, love," replied the sergeant. "You’re being detained under the Emergency Powers. Suspicion of subversive activity."

"On what grounds?"

"You’re a bloody student, aren’t you? Sort her out and put her in the back, girls."

Two members of the Community Party’s youth movement forced Alison down over the bonnet of the police car. The armbands over their uniforms gave them full police powers and they enjoyed nothing better than using them on the opponents of the new regime. Passers by stopped to look on in amusement as they frisked her thoroughly, prodding and poking their fingers into her cleavage and up between her legs. The show came to an end when they handcuffed her and bundled her onto the back seat of the car.

"I hope you realise this is illegal," she said, as the police car drove off at high speed. "You realise I’m an expert in…."

"In what?" sneered the sergeant. "Textbooks or the real world? We found drugs on you today and we’ll find more if we decide to search your room. Quite easily done my girl. You’d better shut the fuck up and cooperate, hadn’t you."

To Alison’s horror, she realised they were heading in the opposite direction from the police station. She had heard nasty rumours about Emergency Powers arrests, particularly those involving the new Special Constables. More often than not opponents of the government would find their way into the basement of the local Community Party headquarters for a beating, or worse, and some would simply disappear. The sergeant was right; the law did not matter now. All that mattered was that she was completely in the power of these women. It seemed desperately unfair.

Soon they were out in the countryside hurtling along a minor road.

"Where’s the spot?" the sergeant asked one of the Party women.

"Half a mile on from here. There should be a car waiting. Better put the blindfold on her first, though."

"Okay. Just remember this isn’t official. And I want my bonus up front."

Half an hour later, Alison was lying in a most uncomfortable position in the boot of another vehicle. Fortunately, she was able to breathe fairly well though the air was hot and stuffy. She suffered from travel sickness at the best of times and the motion of the car made her feel very ill indeed. She steeled herself against the nausea and the anticipation of what might happen to her at the end of the journey.

 

"Prisoner 828 B Alpha Smythe Josephine," announced Miss Stapleton in the peculiar robotic voice she reserved for this announcement. "Female, twenty nine, seditious libel, subversive material, possession. Indefinite detention."

Josephine stood, as before, in the small circle in front of the Governess’ desk, with Miss Jones and Miss Stapleton behind her. This time her hands were free but smartly by her side as she stood to attention before the mistress of North Castle Penitentiary. It was late January but the Governess still insisted on keeping the windows of her office open, allowing an icy blast of air to sweep in around the room.

The weeks that had passed since the visit to the Lower Basement had been long and difficult, more so than ever because Josephine had seen very little of Miss Stapleton. Most of the time the convicts were supervised by the junior wardresses, who showed little interest in Josephine, except to eye her up along with the others when she stripped naked in the mornings and evenings. Josephine was thankful for the lack of their attention as most of the girls they were interested in came off worse.

She did not care much about the world outside the prison which had, in a short space of time become like a meaningless dream. From the little she had found out the whole country had become like a giant version of North Castle Penitentiary dominated by the minions of the Community Party strutting around in uniform. In any case, it no longer mattered. They would never release her, she thought, not because she was too dangerous, but because she was too weak to survive on her own.

The only thing that gave her hope was Miss Stapleton. Josephine carried her feelings for the wardress hidden inside her. Since the evening in her quarters they had not spoken but the rare occasions when she caught a glimpse of her tall silhouette or heard her strident voice echoing through the corridors reminded her that she was a real person and not a hopeless dream. And Miss Stapleton believed that she could be saved.

 

The Governess sighed as she leafed through the papers in front of her. She had been much busier lately than normal over the past couple of months and, despite her best efforts to stay alert and attentive to her duties had recently been showing her weariness. North Castle had been a particularly popular destination for the enemies of the new regime, both of the female and, increasingly, the male but soon to be female variety.

The latest Ministry directive that had landed on her desk had indicated that evidence was urgently required of the success of using gender reversal in suppressing "antisocial political behaviour". She was therefore under orders to secure some early releases under the scheme to provide the Press with some public examples of enemies of the State transformed into docile and simpering penitents by the rigors of the penal system. From the reports she had received, the former Joseph Smythe was, with a little gentle assistance, making good progress in that direction.

"Smythe." she said, removing her spectacles thoughtfully. "I hear you have been getting on quite well with us, with one or two silly exceptions. I believe we have the makings of a useful little member of society, wouldn’t you say?"

"Thank you, ma’am." replied Josephine, not really knowing what to say.

"Do you think you might become a useful part of the community?" asked the Governess.

"I hope so, ma’am. I think I could, one day."

The Governess laughed. "Don’t be overconfident," she cautioned. "There’s a long way to go for you yet and you still might not succeed. Level One has taught you only part of what you need to know. It has taught you how to respect and those such as Miss Jones and Miss Stapleton who we have placed over you, and taught you to behave with the humility that reflects the status you will have in our society when and if we choose to release you. I believe from your present attitude and demeanour that you have learnt these lessons well."

"This would have been enough in many of the old fashioned dictatorships that existed before the Community Party. However, we expect and demand a more difficult form of co-operation altogether, and one that the inferior sex find particularly difficult coming to terms with." She sat up straight and replaced her glasses. "You must learn to live and work together with women of your own status. This means more than just doing what they tell you but learning to copy their behaviour and share their interests, simply because you want to fit in and be just like them. You will learn this way of living because you will need to show it in order to survive."

"Girls in Level Two are never rewarded or punished as individuals," she explained. "Except, of course, by one another. Instead we put you in groups and you will be treated by us according to how well your team is doing. You will find this system rather cruel and arbitrary at first, but it’s an excellent system for instilling the type of discipline we need to see in young women today and no doubt it contributes to the excellent results this institution enjoys. Miss Stapleton, I understand we now have a suitable vacancy. Am I correct?"

"Yes, ma’am" replied the wardress.

"Excellent! Then we will waste no more time. See to it straightaway!"

 

Henrietta looked around at the assembled guests from the country sports society who filled the hall she had hired for the purpose. She scanned them all carefully, noting absences and looking on with interest at who was talking to whom. Factor Three was well represented with four other members of the Executive Committee as well as several hangers on present. The doctor was there, although she had excused herself from the hunt that had taken place earlier in the day as she now found riding a horse uncomfortable. Henrietta was also delighted to note that Sophia had taken up her invitation to attend not only the party but the hunt as well. Sophia had never been on a foxhunt before and Henrietta always enjoyed having new faces along, particularly when those faces strained hard to conceal their unease and disgust at what was happening. Unlike most women Henrietta introduced to hunting for the first time, Sophia showed neither distaste nor delight when the Judge’s hounds tore the fox to pieces. The young woman seemed totally nonplussed by the whole experience. Bored, even. Still, thought Henrietta, she would learn to like it.

Sophia was now chatting to some other women of her own age while Henrietta, still in her red hunting tunic, was enjoying a glass of heavy red wine. This was a healthy blend of business and pleasure, she felt, looking over the women milling around her like planets orbiting a brilliant star, strengthening her network as they gained in personal power.

The local Community Party youth group had been kind enough to volunteer a detachment of young ladies to serve as stewards for the event, and two of them guarded the entrance to the hall. A third came over to Henrietta and whispered to her that the fun was ready to begin. Henrietta indicated that they should wait for five more minutes as she wanted a brief word with Sophia.

"It appears we have a great deal to discuss," she said once she had managed to get hold of Sophia.

"You mean the letter I sent?" replied the younger woman.

"Yes," replied Henrietta. "I found it most interesting."

"You understand this is strictly private business."

"The donation will, of course be in cash. Half now and the other half when it’s in the newspaper."

"So you accept, then?"

"I’m not accepting anything, my dear. Merely noting that your confederates are indeed a worthy cause and should be supported. And of course that I can get hold of you any time I need to."

Sophia smiled. "I’m always available for you," she said.

"I’m glad to hear it. If you’ll excuse me, I have some festivities to attend to. One can’t be at work all the time. You have my number."

Henrietta climbed up onto the stage at the end of the hall, checked to see if her microphone was working and began to address her audience.

"Ladies," she beamed. "Firstly let me say how welcome you all are to this event, a celebration in every sense not only of ourselves as independent, powerful women, but also of the new order that has enabled us to express ourselves as women free from male domination."

Predictable applause.

"As usual, therefore, I propose that we express our thanks to the Community Party, and in particular it’s vibrant youth, by means of a collection."

The audience groaned, though in a good natured manner. Henrietta always provided something to make the opening of purses worthwhile. Two years ago she had hired a group of female mud wrestlers and had run a very profitable betting system on the results of their tussles. She looked down with a benevolent smile at the women milling around the wooden floor. Some of them were the worse for drink already and a few unattached ladies had begun to flirt experimentally, the feminine types flaunting their sexuality while the butch ones prowled around them like sharks.

"As you know," she continued. "An important part of our philosophy is that everyone should be made to contribute to society in a constructive manner, whatever their opinions might be. Well, we have a young lady here with us tonight who thought she was too good to play her part in the community, so a team of the Party’s excellent youth organisation persuaded her to come along and help us with the fundraising this evening."

The women present became more interested at this prospect and were listening attentively. Henrietta snapped her fingers, and two strapping young women dressed as Roman legionaries tramped onto the stage. They were dragging Alison between them on a leather throng looped around her wrists which were bound in front of her. They had dressed her in a scanty white tunic and placed a small paper crown on her head.

Her protests were drowned by the laughter of the women present as the ‘Roman soldiers’ threw the throng around a hook suspended from the ceiling and secured her with her arms above her head. Henrietta, meanwhile, had furnished herself with a braided riding whip and approached her captive with a suitably mocking yet menacing grin on her face.

"Ladies!" she announced. "Or, rather, Senators, as you are this evening. Our brave soldiers have returned from the wars with a rich prize indeed. A captive princess from Britannia, to be sold into slavery to whoever amongst you shows their loyalty to Rome with the highest donation!".

Roars of laughter from the audience.

"You bitch!" screamed Alison. "Let me go, you fucking cows. This isn’t funny!"

"The slave needs training!" shouted a woman from the audience.

"I shall leave that matter to the buyer," responded Henrietta with a laugh.

"Before the main auction," continued Henrietta. "I would like to offer you some early bargains." She walked over to her captive and inserted her arm into one of the short sleeves of her dress and out through the neckline, gathering the cotton round the shoulders in her hand. She pulled at the fabric, much to the delight of the audience before stopping.

"One hundred pounds." she said. "One hundred from any one of you and I tear it open. I can see her tits from here and, believe me, it’ll be worth it for the rest of you."

Someone at the back of the room waved her hand and the others cheered as Henrietta tore the shoulder of the tattered dress open, revealing Alison’s right breast, pert and firm, to the onlookers. Half an hour later, Henrietta had raised six hundred pounds for the Party and Alison was standing naked before an increasingly frantic crowd, screaming in anger at her humiliation.

"And now for the main event," leered Henrietta, drowning her out with the microphone. "One night with the Princess here, and then you must return her to my friends here in the Community Party youth. They will ask you for a report on her conduct, naturally, as that will certainly affect what happens to her afterwards."

"A fiver!" shouted one of two women who were busy snogging at the back of the hall.

"I’m afraid there’s a reserve price on this one," responded Henrietta with a grin. "I’ve taken quite a fancy to her myself. Five hundred. And remember, ladies, it is for a good cause!"

"Six!" shouted an obese heiress from the centre of the room, much to the approval of the hangers on around her. Alison noticed that most of her teeth were missing and that her hair was quite obviously dyed.

"Six fifty!" yelled a youngish businesswoman.

"Seven hundred!" shouted somebody else.

Alison had let her exhausted legs collapse beneath her and now hung from the hook above her head, the taunting and the laughter of the women echoing in her head. The bids continued.

"Nine hundred pounds!" A young Army Lieutenant, poor but hopelessly drunk, had just shouted out the highest bid and was now just sober enough to be terrified at the fact that there was no way she could afford the sum.

"You can do better that that ladies!" bellowed Henrietta. "Look at her legs and her arse. And I don’t expect you’ve ever seen a sweeter little twat just waiting for your….."

"A thousand pounds!" The heiress had bid once more.

"Eleven hundred!" A new bidder had called.

"Twelve fifty on the telephone, ma’am!" shouted one of the ‘Romans’, holding a receiver.

"Thirteen!" shouted the heiress.

"Alright then," said Henrietta, relishing the benefit of the microphone. "Lets sort out the women from the girls. Fifteen hundred."

Silence. Alison’s face contorted with horror as she realised that Henrietta herself might well be the successful bidder.

"Sixteen." The heiress, unable to control herself, had blurted out a final bid. The women around her warmly congratulated their patron. The heiress was known for her generosity to others like her and it was likely she would let them all have a turn. Again, there was a pause.

"Can the telephone go higher?" asked Henrietta. The girl on the phone shook her head.

"All done at sixteen hundred pounds." Henrietta tapped the butt of her riding whip on a small lectern she had waiting for this moment. "Cash or bankers draft only, if you please."

The fat heiress snorted and grunted in delight and anticipation as she reached for the purse in the folds of her purple dress. Alison swooned in disgust.

 

"Why did those bitches give me you?"

Josephine lay flat on her back in the mud at the centre of the pitch where Mary, the Team Captain, had pushed her over in frustration at losing the game. Mary was shouting at her now, standing over her with a hockey stick held tightly in her hands. Around them stood the other members of the team staring down accusingly.

All of them were large, strong women sent to North Castle for a variety of reasons from tough housing estates. They were nearing the end of their sentences and most of them were hoping to be recruited into the Army on release. Their futures depended very much on how well their team performed against the other teams in Level Two in various sporting events and other assessments and, as a result they were particularly unforgiving of failure in their own ranks.

Miss Harper had recently spiced up the competition by letting it be known that she would be recruiting three Probationers from the inmates this year. The opportunity to become a trainee wardress was a glittering prize for the Team Captains and the ferocity of the resulting competition took even the grizzled old Chief Prison Officer by surprise.

"First place we were in!" shouted Mary. "First place until you fucked it up for all of us. Three weeks it took you. Just three fucking weeks and now we’re in Sixth. I hope you’re fucking proud of that."

She began to read out the charges.

"Last in running, last in circuit training. Failed dorm inspection. Twice. Now we’re out of the hockey cup, first fucking round. I’d say we had a fucking problem here, wouldn’t you?"

The other girls grunted and nodded in agreement.

Josephine was hardly listening. The three weeks she had spent in Level Two had made the Victorian conditions of Level One seem like a picnic in comparison. In some ways, the girls in Level Two had much more freedom; it was more like a boarding school or army camp than a prison. Other than marshalling and organising the various events in which the teams competed, the wardresses largely left the girls to their own devices. Discipline was, however, harshly enforced within each team by its own members, determined as they were to do better than the others.

The prison authorities deliberately ensured that each team had at least one hopeless case on board to hamper the progress of the others, normally chosen from the political offenders. Unless they were pretty, in which case the others used her as a sexual plaything, the weakling, generally known as the Baby, was naturally despised by the rest of the team who treated her accordingly. Mary’s frequently and colourfully expressed dislike of Josephine put her firmly in the second category.

Josephine had to admit that her performance so far had been pretty disastrous. Joseph Smythe had, of course, no interest in sport whatsoever and, when at school used every excuse he could think of to avoid afternoon games. The military atmosphere of Level Two made such excuses impossible. Josephine was, of course, much fitter for her size than Joseph had ever been, but did not have a clue about the rules of the sports she was expected to participate in and had therefore been an embarrassing failure at almost every step.

Dormitory inspections were no better. Each team of eight slept together in a large bedroom with four sets of bunks. The first thing Josephine would know of an inspection would be a team-mate shaking her awake while a wardress in the centre of the room growled for all present to stand to attention. The wardress would, invariably, find something wrong with Josephine or her bunk, shout that the whole team had failed the inspection, turn sharply on her heel and leave. The other girls then returned to their impeccable bunks, casting a resentful glare over Josephine as they did so.

 

Josephine reflected on her failures as the team stood over her. It was a bitterly cold afternoon and, as the freezing mud oozed up her short skirt and went straight through her thin vest, her skin became numb. She still felt the bruises on her legs from the game, mostly sustained from frustrated players on her own side, and had closed her eyes, hoping to shut out Mary’s voice and the rest of the world around her.

Mary had stopped shouting, and now seemed to be conversing with the other girls on the team, no doubt discussing a suitable penalty. Josephine did not listen to their deliberations; she knew it would be unpleasant and beyond that did not care. She was thinking about Miss Stapleton.

A short while later, a sharp kick from Mary brought her to her senses and, with some difficulty she opened her eyes. Mary was quite an attractive young woman with a fresh face and a shock of red hair. She had been the leader of one of the notorious ‘girl gangs’ in London who had caused a brief moral panic by their violent behaviour, but had now learnt her lesson and was well on the way to becoming a loyal servant of the State. It was rumoured that Miss Harper herself had her eye on her, and had even slept with her a couple of times.

"Are you awake, Baby?" she asked. "We’ve voted on a punishment for you. You won’t appreciate this properly if you’re half asleep. Good. Right then, girls. I’ll go first."

Before she knew it, Josephine had Mary sitting on top of her with her bare buttocks planted firmly on her upper chest. She deliberately placed her weight on her backside so that Josephine was half suffocated by her bulk. Josephine slid about a little in the mud but was well and truly pinned by the massive girl above her.

All of a sudden, she felt a warm trickle flowing down across her neck and onto her mud around her hair. A splash fell onto her lips tasting sour and salty. Screaming in disgust, she spat it out and tried to twist her head away.

Mary and the other girls laughed as Josephine writhed beneath them while each of them took it in turn to cast her liquid ballot. It was different every time; sweet smelling and sticky from the fat girls who ate as much as they were allowed to, and dry and acidic from the leaner, fitter types. Some of them aimed for her face while others turned her cleavage into a gorge from which a golden river flowed. When they had finished, Mary dismissed them and stood over Josephine with her hands on her hips.

"Come on, Baby," she said, giving her a kick. " We don’t have all day."

"What do you want now?" croaked Josephine.

"You’re coming with me"

"I can’t move. My legs hurt."

"Oh yes you can. Move it, bitch!"

Mary kicked Josephine again, and with a supreme effort of will, Josephine lifted herself up from the mud in the centre of the pitch and limped away behind her, urine dripping from her blouse.

 

Alison did not know where she was, but she suspected that she was in one of the Community Party’s buildings. The Party girls had blindfolded her and, exhausted from the previous night’s experiences, she had been lapsing in and out of consciousness since they took her into custody. She presumed their plan was to ensure that she had co-operated with the heiress who had ‘bought’ her as Raven had indicated, but somehow she thought that their purpose might be a little more sinister.

Enveloped in the darkness of the blindfold, she was completely naked and bound securely to a hard wooden chair. The chair itself was fixed to the enamel tiled floor leaving the prisoner completely helpless. She did not know how long she had been there, and the only sounds she could here were a quiet but maddening humming noise and the clatter of feet on a staircase. Occasionally, a door would slam nearby, and a fraction of a second later, a gentle breeze would drift by her.

Why were they holding her for so long? Perhaps Raven had ordered them to dispose of her to save some embarrassment, but that made no sense. Raven was now one of the most powerful women in the country and nobody would believe Alison if she told them her story. More accurately, she thought grimly, people would believe her but pretend not to for their own safety. Britain under the Community Party was like that; you were only safe if you kept your head right down.

Arousing from a painful slumber, Alison realised that there were now voices near to her. Were they real, or voices in her head? She heard women’s voices, mumbling and giggling and the occasional scraping of a chair. Some sort of audience was present, and the little dignity remaining to her caused her to blush deeply at her nakedness before them. Then she heard another sound, the slow and deliberate tapping of high heels making their way towards her.

"Good afternoon, cadets!" a shrill woman’s voice echoed around the room, which sounded as though it was quite large. The audience fell silent in response.

"I’m glad so many of you could make it to this afternoon’s session," continued the voice. "And I hope you learn a great deal from it. I know that many of you are hoping to make it in Enforcement Branch or the MLO, and I believe that, even as Party Cadets you might be called upon to assist in interrogations of girls your own age."

Alison could hear the woman walking closer.

"As you know, girls, this is a practical class and I’m hoping that at least a dozen of you will have a turn on the subject here. I’m sure you’re all intrigued to know what happened between her and Lady C last night, and I want you to extract every lurid detail for me this afternoon, just as you would in a ‘real’ interrogation."

From the sound of her voice, Alison guessed that the instructress was now standing directly behind her, with the invisible audience some way in front.

"Please note this is low intensity procedure, so we don’t want any serious injuries. And we aren’t using any of the equipment today. Watch and learn."

Suddenly, a hand grasped each of Alison’s bare shoulders from behind. The hands were gloved in something that felt like velvet.

"I always use gloves," said the instructress. "It’s a personal thing. Note that I start on the shoulders from behind. This lets me go wherever I like in one simple movement. I can go to the back…"

The fingers moved down between Alison and the chair, gently massaging her shoulder blades.

"…the arms…."

Alison found the sensation of the instructress caressing her upper arms quite pleasant, though disconcerting.

"…closer in to the neck and of course the breasts."

She could feel the instructress leaning over her shoulder as her hands reached forwards to gently stroke Alison’s nipples which were by now quite erect.

"Notice I haven’t hurt her at all. Many subjects will be quite aroused at this stage. That’s quite normal. I might throw in a few simple questions at this point, but I’m really just showing her who’s boss at the moment. She’s had a few knocks lately as you can see, and most girls will have some bruises from their arrest. These can be exploited!"

Alison squealed in pain as one of the hands suddenly pinched a sore part of her arm. The audience giggled in delight as the instructress chuckled to herself.

"Please don’t hurt me!" Alison whimpered.

"You’re doing fine," replied the instructress, gently patting her on the shoulder. "Now girls, you see I got a good reaction there and there’s no new marks on her body. Don’t overdo it, though. Normally only use pain if the subject refuses to answer a question. And if you do, just a quick shock like that will normally suffice."

"I’m now going back to the nipples, very gently as before." The instructress continued her lesson, stroking the softest parts of Alison’s breasts. "Work towards the sexual parts slowly," she said. "Your control over the subject builds slowly as you approach them. If she’s turned on, all the better. Just stop rubbing her when you’re waiting for an answer to a question."

"Of course," she concluded, sliding her right hand down past Alison’s belly. "If all else fails, take charge down here."

Alison gasped in a mixture of fear and delight as the instructress laid her hand on her clitoris. She thought of the class of Party cadets waiting to practice on her over the next few hours and nearly swooned in anticipation.

 

Mary’s team returned to the shower block, an ugly concrete building bolted on to the opposite side of the penitentiary from the main entrance. The playing field was a large enclosure at the back of the prison, added in the 1950s as a minor concession to ‘modernisation’. Two high fences, one inside the other, separated it from the open moorland beyond and a tantalising view of freedom.

By the time Josephine reached the showers, most of the other girls had finished and were getting dressed. Mary, however, had delayed her shower until Josephine had time to arrive, painfully peel off her sports clothes and gingerly step into the steaming jets of water.

"How did you like that?" she asked, as Josephine cowered under the shower which, after the cold of the outside was scalding and brutal. Josephine knew that if she wanted to hurt her some more she would in any case, so she did not care what she said in response.

"How do you think?" she replied, washing her hair as best as she could.

"There’s more where that came from if you don’t pull your socks up, Baby. Understand?"

"I’m doing my best. Why don’t you leave me alone?"

"You could do better. You have to. You’re not pulling your weight." Mary let the hot water stream down her red hair and down across her breasts.

"I can’t do any better. I honestly can’t, Mary."

Mary looked at Josephine, sternly art first, but then sighed.

"Come here," she said, a more sympathetic tone in her voice. Josephine did so. Mary gently took hold of Josephine by the waist and looked down into her eyes.

"Why do you think you can’t do any better?" she asked.

"Because I’m doing everything I can."

"I don’t believe that. You’re giving up too easily. You have to fight back against things, Josephine."

"How do you mean?" she asked. Mary laughed.

"Let me show you what I mean." The fierce jets of water had, by now washed both girls clean, so Mary shut them off at the wall. "See those wet towels on the floor?"

"Yes, Miss." Josephine had a habit of calling other inmates ‘Miss’ by mistake.

"Get me one. And one for you."

One of the other girls in the team was close at hand and overheard what Mary had said.

"Bit of an easy fight, eh?" she commented

"It will be," replied Mary. "But that’s not the point. The less Josephine tries to hurt me, the more I’m going to hurt her. Do you understand that, Josephine?"

Josephine nodded as she handed Mary one of the towels. Mary lost no time in pulling it taut above her head like a whip while Josephine held hers loosely like a net. The other women on the team hung around to watch.

"First arse on the floor loses," said Mary. "And if you go down deliberately I’ll make you start again. You’ll lose to me properly, understand?"

"Yes, Miss."

"After you, Baby."

Josephine tried to flip Mary with the towel but it unravelled in mid air and barely brushed against her leg. Mary brought her towel swiftly down in arc catching Josephine’s thigh and then followed up with a stinging double handed blow to the waist. Josephine slipped a little but remained on her feet. Her thigh was already bruised from the hockey match and now hurt like mad. How could she make this woman stop hurting her?

"It gets a lot worse than that," commented Mary, tightening up the towel with both hands. "Time for second helpings?"

Josephine had also stretched out and twisted her weapon and, maddened by the pain in her thigh, felt something she had not experienced for a long time. She was determined to express her frustration, to take out her feelings on something else. And Mary had told her this was the way to stop her hurting her. She lashed out at Mary’s waist with the towel.

Slightly surprised, Mary managed to jump out of the way and parried the blow. The towels were tangled together so Mary freed hers with a jerk that almost pulled Josephine’s towel out of her hand. The rest of the team looked on with some interest. Mary’s captaincy of the team was rarely challenged and they rarely had the chance these days to see her in action in a towel fight in the showers.

"You’ll have to do better than that, Baby," taunted Mary with a counterstroke which missed Josephine altogether.

She did. Josephine’s tightly wound towel flashed through the air and caught Mary full in the face, much to the amusement of the onlookers.

"The Baby’s going for Captain," shouted one of them. The others laughed.

Mary checked her nose to make sure it was not bleeding.

"Very good. Now lets do it for real," she said. Before Josephine knew what had happened, Mary had scythed her towel around Josephine’s left knee and pulled it way from beneath her, sending her sprawling onto the floor. The rest of the team politely applauded. Mary extended a hand to help Josephine struggle to her feet.

"Thank you, Mary" said Josephine, aware that that was the correct thing to say in this situation.

"Thank you, Josephine," replied Mary, still rubbing her nose. "Give me that attitude more of the time and we might just make something out of you."

 

Alison took a deep breath of the clear night air. It tasted pure and crisp, freshening her intellect for the decision she was about to take. A clock nearby struck three in the morning as she looked down at the shadowy courtyard fifty feet below. She dressed completely in white as a gesture of contrition but knew this would not purify the sewer of filth that ran through her mind.

The evening with the fat heiress had been every bit as horrible as she had feared it might be. She shuddered at the thought of the huge pair of bosoms like slightly deflated balloons inside that purple dress and the prying, sticky fingers that found their way into every orifice of her body. The interrogation in the Party building was, if anything, worse. Of course she had told them everything, several times and in lurid detail. They had made her tell them that she enjoyed it and wanted to do it again, prodding and pinching her until she gave them the answers they wanted to hear. She remembered the instructress, the voice of authority, encouraging her tormentors, delighting in their corruption and in her humiliation.

When they had finished with her bundled her into a car drove her out into the country and dumped her in the middle of nowhere. They knew that there was absolutely nothing Alison could do. She had no redress against what had happened or means to protect herself against whatever sadistic fantasy Raven chose to inflict on her in future.

The worst thing of all was that a small part of her enjoyed what Raven had inflicted on her. Part of her had expected it from the subtle signs the judge gave her on the first evening they met. She remembered the way Henrietta had looked at her that night, her choice of conversation and the way she took her hand when she heard of her father’s suicide. She knew what would happen and she wanted it deep inside her. Everything else could be tolerated because it was external. This was a part of her and was unbearable.

Alison closed her eyes in a final prayer for oblivion and cast herself over the ledge.

 

 

(continued)

 

 

 

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