Chapter 1

Peter Althorp

 

I awoke this morning with a real sense of purpose.

Today I would take up my appointment as manager of the Central Women's Prison in Sydney. And I could write my own rules! the new government of William Blake had been elected on a law and order platform which included a total revamp of the penal system.

This was something I had been advocating for many years and indeed had researched my PhD thesis on that very subject. The results of my researches had led me to the conclusion that criminals are not reformed by education and rehabilitation, despite the recent so-called reforms in that direction. Punishment; painful and humiliating punishment for the crime - and fear of more of the same if the criminal re-offends are far more likely to persuade a malefactor to go straight than all the education in the world. Indeed, my inquiries persuaded me that such education is used more to further a criminal career than to find a legitimate job.

I grinned to myself as I thought ahead to my first encounter with the nearly a thousand female prisoners in the place. They were going to be in for a rude shock, I thought.

 

The formal handover completed, I addressed a meeting of all the officers in the prison, the women being locked in their cells for the time being. I told them exactly how things were going to be from now on and suggested that if any of them didn't have the stomach for the new regime, they had best come and see me after the meeting so that a transfer to less rigorous employment could be made.

None did. Indeed, I noted a gleam of satisfaction in more than one eye, female as well as male officers in the room.

"All right, we will begin with a general muster of all prisoners where I will address them in much the same terms as I have you. As you can imagine, this is going to be a testing time. They will object, probably strenuously. You are authorised to use such force as is necessary to ensure my orders are obeyed - including the use of these ..."

I produced the new weapon which was going to be issued to each warder. They were electronic prodders which had been redesigned for use on human subjects. They were battery powered and had a small handle which contained the batteries. A ten centimetre rod extended from the end of this and it then bifurcated into two ultra-sharp prongs like those on a carving fork. These functioned as the electrodes and believe me, they packed a real punch. I showed the meeting how they worked and then had my aide issue them to each warder. They came with a belt attachment that allowed instant access to them but I also showed them the trick that would prevent a prisoner from using the weapons against them should they inadvertently gain control of one. The switch had a secret movement to it and I admonished them all never to let a prisoner know it.

The prisoners were assembled in the yard and, as I had let it be known that I wanted a smart turn-out, the guards made sure each woman was in her allotted place and standing to attention. Of course they were all wearing prison garb, a blue shirt and jeans over dark blue cotton undergarments.

I stood on the dais in front of them and right in front of me was a large brazier filled with heat beads which were already burning brightly.

"You are scum!" I began. That got their attention. Without a single dissenter, all stared up at me, her eyes bright, many showing concern and even fear. "In the past, you have been given far too much latitude in this institution. Things are now going to change. You are prisoners. You are here to be punished for your crimes and punished you shall be.

"For a start, you are all singularly over-dressed. You will now all strip naked!"

I said it just like that, without any warning or explanation. As I expected, a murmur went up at once but the guards were ready. They now moved in, their new prodders armed and ready and when a woman made more noise than her sisters, she got a prod to her rump or belly.

At first, the prisoners around her had no idea what was happening, but as more and more were dosed with the fiendish devices, it began to sink in that the guards were armed with a very painful weapon.

In order to demonstrate it properly, however, I picked on a woman in the front row. She was young, in her late teens I suspected and very comely in body and face. She would make an excellent first subject, I thought.

"You," I said, pointing at her, "step forward!" She didn't and in fact cringed back away from me but a nearby guard quickly moved in and prodded her forward. I positioned her on the dais facing her fellow prisoners then loudly and clearly ordered her to strip off her clothing.

She didn't. She cowered away from me, her hands now covering her small but shapely breasts and her knees crossed as if to protect her sex from me and my men and women. I grinned. "So you refuse my order, slut?"

I said humiliation was a part of my arsenal and that was why I deliberately used that expression for her. She cringed even more. I armed my own weapon and jabbed it into her left breast.

"Aaagheeeaaaghooowwwghaaagh!" she screamed and as she bent over in agony, I thrust it into her right cheek, then her thigh and her belly. She reacted wonderfully to each thrust, her screams becoming more strident with each attack and the contortions of her obviously athletic body utterly delightful.

The tines of the implement were made sharp so they could easily penetrate clothing, even the denim of their jeans and of course go deep into the subcutaneous skin and give a really nasty shock to their flesh.

This girl was dancing around now like an automaton, screaming continuously, her face haggard and her limbs flying every which way to try and avoid my prods to her flesh. Of course she couldn't and, as I continued to prod her, I reminded her that all she had to do to cause it to stop was to strip naked.

The other prisoners stood there and watched in dumbfounded awe as their young colleague was tortured into submission. I had warned the guards to be vigilant for a rebellion was possible at this crucial stage. It wasn't necessary, however. The girl soon realised that she couldn't take much more of the barbaric shocks to her body and stopped her contortions, unbuttoning her shirt but looking at me in fear and hate. I didn't mind that. Indeed, I wanted them to hate me. Fear and hate would be potent weapons in my arsenal.

Her sneakers followed her shirt and then it was her jeans. I feasted my eyes on her limbs and even through the brief undergarments I could see her body was utterly fabulous. I let her stand there in mortification for a few moments but then gestured to them and I could now see the indecision in her face as she weighed up the choices open to her.

But then her eyes went down to the prodder whose telltale light was bright and winking steadily. Her shoulders slumped and then she quickly stripped the singlet up off her torso to reveal a slender but beautifully formed female body, naked from the waist up. She now wore only the blue cotton briefs. I waited for a second or two and then feinted with the prodder at her vagina. She screamed once, jumped back and then, terrified of the pair of tines now so close to her feminine parts, quickly pushed them down off her hips, thighs and legs, to join the little pile of her clothing at her feet, revealing her lithe and athletic body in all its naked glory.

Her face and neck were a bright crimson red in her shame and of course she folded her arms over her lovely breasts and crossed her knees over her sex. Again I let her wallow in her shame for a few moments while I and the other guards enjoyed her humiliation - and her fellow prisoners stared in horror at what was unfolding before their eyes.

"You will now pick up the clothes and place them into the brazier," I said, slowly, clearly and deliberately.

"In the brazier?" she stuttered, clearly confused by my order. Wasn't this just an inspection, I could see her wondering. I didn't give her time to wonder long, but moved close and thrust the tines into her now naked left cheek. She jumped a mile and screamed again, now hurrying forward to place her only possessions into the open top of the brazier. There was a brief crackle and the flames sprang up. A few seconds later and her clothes were just a memory.

"And now back to your place, slut!" I said. She did, and I followed her closely, thrusting my face into hers and then screamed at her to put her hands up on the back of her head and to spread her legs a half metre apart. Now frightened, and very much ashamed of her nakedness in front of everyone else there, she obeyed without demur while her sisters all stared at her in more horror.

I returned to the dais and pointed to the woman on the end of the first line. "Your turn, prisoner!" I barked and the guard near her thrust his prodder into her ample rear. If the first girl was a beauty, this one was fat and quite unprepossessing. She ambled forward and I now ordered her to strip. It only took one dose of the prodder through her straining jeans to her vagina and she obeyed, revealing her lard-like body in all its gross hideousness.

"Disgusting," I said as I stood in front of the naked slag. I turned to my aide. "This slut is to be put on a rigorous diet and worked hard fifteen hours a day until her body approaches some degree of normality."

Just then, the gates over yonder opened and two large removal vans as well as some other work trucks entered. Workmen poured out of these and entered the prison building. I paused in my ritual stripping of the prisoners to inform them that these men were going to be making some changes to their accommodations and facilities. "You have had far too much comfort up until now," I ended, then barked at the next woman in the front line to strip naked and deposit her clothing into the brazier.

And so it went on. After that first show of resistance, there was almost no opposition to my orders. That first demonstration of the effectiveness of the prodders had been quite enough to cow these females and gradually, over the next few hours, one by one, they stripped naked, burned their clothing and were made to stand in perfect rows and columns, each with her feet a half metre apart and her hands up behind her head.

They were a mixed bunch, of course, old and young and well-formed to downright ugly. Well, we were going to do something about that. The fat and the slack would be embarking on a regime of hard work and exercise, combined with a spartan diet that would soon slough off the extra kilos and firm up slack muscles. So would the others, although their workload would be somewhat different than that imposed on the fats.

I had expounded in my thesis that prisons ought to be made to pay their way instead of being the huge drain on the treasury that they had now come to be. Well, we would be engaging in commercial activities that would soon begin to bring in revenue, while I would pare our expenses down to the bone - the expenses that involved the prisoners, that is. The warders would continue to be paid at the usual rate with bonuses for good work. To save money, we would grow our own food and now that the prisoners were naked, clothing was no longer an item for them.

Yes, I fully intended to keep them naked for the duration.

It is generally, and erroneously, believed that humans need clothes in order to keep warm. It is a fallacy. Human beings can be conditioned to just about anything and while they would certainly be cold in winter, it wouldn't kill them. It would however be highly uncomfortable and would make them think twice about offending again!

It took a while to strip them all, one by one. There was no resistance now. All had seen (and/or felt) the effects of the prodders and the way their sisters in crime had screamed and leapt about and none now wanted to experience the obvious agony themselves. Besides, with more than half of them already naked, it was less of a shameful thing to have to strip. Not that the shame ever left them entirely, and in the future, as my plans developed, that shame would return, again and again, to reinforce the punishment aspect of their nakedness.

While we were stripping the women of their clothing, the men inside were stripping their cells and other parts of the buildings. All their personal possessions were removed and destroyed. Their beds and other furniture also went, although these would be sold to recoup the cost of their removal. All TV sets, mess room furniture and activities equipment also went. The kitchens were retained but that was about all and even there, much of the cooking equipment was now surplus to requirements as I had definite ideas about what they would eat - and how they would eat it!

By the time the last women was naked, the men had just about cleared out the cell blocks. The other parts would be dealt with as the day passed. Now however, it was time for my inspections of their bodies.

As I had with the first two, I now looked over each woman, passing extremely derogatory remarks about her face and her body and marking her down for one regime or another. This took another few hours and then I started all over again, this time armed with the criminal records of each of them. This was in a précis form of course and was slipped to me by my aide.

As I moved along the front row, John, John Jones that is, handed me the first paper. It contained a summary of the first ten prisoners. I read quickly down the first paragraph then turned and looked sternly at the fat slag who was first in the line. "Jane Pepper," I read out loud. "Two years for fraud. I think that fat arse of yours will do well with a dozen strokes of the cane each Saturday until further notice ..." She stared at me in horror. A dozen strokes of the cane? Every week? I could see her mind going over the idea but then she screamed out her protests: "No! You can't! It's not right! You can't strip us and do all these terrible things to us!"

"I can and I am. And for your outburst, let's make it fifteen strokes every week." I paused a moment with my eyebrows raised, as if asking if she had anything more to say. She didn't and John made the appropriate entry in his book.