informed. She was left alone.
Her cage was less than ten feet square. It held a low bunk and thin mattress, but no blanket. There were two pails, one with a cover, the other nearly full of water. The little prison had no walls. She was completely exposed from every side. She had no more privacy than a canary. She wondered, woefully, whether the corporal had forgotten to take away her handcuffs or if bad girls in prison wore them full time. She sat on the bunk and reviewed the phantasmagoria of her day. In misery she lay upon her naked breasts and wept herself to sleep.
The prison tunic emphasized rather than hid her sex. But Audrey Cotswold was grateful. She supposed that her breasts, her nipples and her pubic hair seen through thin cotton was more respectable in Ben Sirah than being bare. She stood forlornly in the dock and faced her judge. Magistrate Mussuba, a large dark gentleman with spectacles, eyed her with the approval of pure lust. As for the corporal, the prisoner could believe in the happiest day of his life as he rolled her iniquities off his tongue with relish. To the previous list had now been added: murder, theft and kidnapping. All the crimes of Abdul Nour were coming to roost on her innocent shoulders.
The captive girl had lost her handcuffs only briefly. They were now once more safe on her wrists behind her back. After all, with such a list of crimes…!
'Mr. Mussuba is not speak English.' The corporal informed. 'I do the talk.' Audrey's heart sank. Desperately she fought her losing battle between the interested features on the bench and the polite corporal. There were a number of male spectators on the seats provided. She was getting the most democratic justice Ben Sirah could provide. She suspected it was very, very local and would avail her nothing. At the finish of it the corporal gave her the Magistrate's summation.
'All evidence not here. Mr. Mussuba think sentence may be you get good whipping in public Square and then twenty years in nice prison. Lady's prison very nice.'
She looked at the smug features askance, tugging at the cuffs on her wrists in utter frustration. 'But I haven't had a trial! I don't think he's a proper judge at all. It's all… all…!'
'Is remand for few days. We get you lawyer. We are doing things very right.' The corporal paused for good effect. 'If murder proved, you get flogged instead of whipped. Then sentenced to death. You may choose whether hang or behead. Is very modern here.'
Taken back to her cell, Audrey pleased: 'Corporal, I don't have to be handcuffed in here, do I?'
'Is much best. Must wear two pairs.'
To her fearful consternation, the absurd policeman produced a second set of shining chrome and fitted them on her arms above her elbows. Their clasp was demoralising, defeating her efforst to keep from panic. Wide eyed, she looked up at him. 'Oh, please, this is awful. I'm only a girl… There's just no need…!'
'If make fuss can put third pair on little ankles?'
Audrey Cotswold said no more.
Mr. Syroid, barrister and solicitor, was not of Ben Sirah. He was an import. Sleek and sharp, a predator. His English was precise, he communicated. Enjoying her nipples, protuberant through the cotton, his first question set the tone: 'Have you any money, Miss Cotswold?'
The doubly handcuffed girl told him her plight. 'Get hold of Assef Aslam and there will be all the money you want.' She assured him earnestly. 'In the meantime, can you persuade them to take these handcuffs off me?'
He appeared not to have heard. His eyes removed her cotton tunic and approved what they saw. 'You are a lovely girl, Miss Cotswold, but you have no money. Would you care to spend an hour with me in private, and without that silly dress?' He smirked. 'It can be arranged.'
'You mean this whole police thing is a farce?'
'Not as far as you are concerned. Without my help you will most assuredly be whipped and imprisoned. A common whore gets that if she had been tardy in her dues.'
'And if I let you… use me… well, what then?'
'That's my retainer. I then try and get you acquitted. I try and contact your Mr. Aslam. I have heard of him.'
Audrey was curious. 'You're bargaining for my body.' She said slowly. 'But I'm absolutely helpless…' She turned for him to see the twin handcuffs on her arms. 'Why don't you just take me now? I can't possibly stop you.' Mr. Syroid was shocked. 'We are civilised here, Miss Cotswold. We nogotiate. We do not use force.' He sighed gently. 'It's true the corporal is authorised to cane the buttocks of any prisoner who proves… difficult.' The iron hand in the velvet glove! They were shaking it in her face. Audrey did not like Mr. Syroid. Impetuously, she challenged. 'Very well then, you may as well advise him to do that to me. I'm not going to spread my legs for you.'
It was a bluff. But even when she was losing it Audrey stubbornly tested Ben Sirah's corruption. Mr. Syroid accompanied the constable who held her arm and led her to where it would be done. 'You do not mind my watching the caning of your bottom, Miss Cotswold?'
'You'd watch anyway, even if I did.'
It was hard to believe it would happen. Probably they were testing her resolution. Audrey marched with her head high in disdain. But the room was daunting, bare, stark, designed for punishment. It held a bench. Beside the bench stood the corporal. His presence told her she had gone too far, but she kept a hostile silence while they unlocked her handcuffs. She hoped they could not see her trambling.
'Your tunic, Miss Cotswold?'
She discarded the cotton and stood proudly naked, staring at the wall. She dared not look at them.
'The bench if you please.'
For a moment Audrey was puzzled by the unfamiliar shape of the thing on which she must be draped. But the waiting straps and buckles were more eloquent than words. She arranged her nudity for their convenience, bitterly shamed, bitterly hurt by betrayal, wanting to cry, she thrust wrists and ankles and her neck into their prepared slots and loops. 'A charming young lady.'Said the corporal proudly. 'Strap her down tightly, constable.' It was hateful and beastly, three men looking at every part of her body as she was made helpless, helpless on a contraption specially designed for female immobility. There were even orfices into which her breasts were thrust as she lay along the surface of the wood. Her arms were taken down on each side, the bench was narrow to allow this and to make it possible for her feet to be dragged beneath and to each side also. But not before her bottom had been reared across a round hard bolster. Straps tugged until Miss Audrey Cotswold was a naked 'U' turned on its side, her feet and hands remarkably close, her bottom proclaiming itself obscenely parted to cause a rearward thrust of her vulva and pubic hair. She gasped in disbelief when a strap crossed the small of her back and was cinched down and down. The last constriction doubled and trebeled the exposure of her buttocks and her crotch. Hating it, Audrey recognized punitive intent. Her gluteal skin was as tightly stretched as a drum. She knew much of punishment. This one was going to hurt!
'Have you anything to say, Miss Cotswold?'
'Only that I've done nothing to deserve what you are about to do to me.'
'You have been inclined to withhold favours.'
'You mean, if I ask everybody to fuck me I don't get caned?'
'Miss Cotswold… please!' Mr. Syroid had a gift for sounding profoundly shocked. 'No one said that.'
'They inferred it. Very well, sorry to be a nuisance but if you'll forgive me this punishment or whatever you choose to call it I'll lay on the floor and invite you to fuck me.'
'I am afraid it is now too late…'
It was indeed! The strapped girl was sure the cane had cut her in two. The corporal had wielded it as though she was a horse. The pain burrowed deeper every moment. Gaspingly she pleaded. 'No! Oh no! Oh, please… I can't stand it… Oh, not so hard! Please, I beg of you, I'll do what you want, fuck me, please fuck me…!'
'The lady appears to have had a change of heart.' Said Mr. Syroid softly. 'I am sure she will negotiate.'
'We must rob her of nothing.' said the corporal with equal solicitude. 'Constable, give four more, all hard.'
It was a kind of Hell Audrey went through, stroke by stroke. She did not believe she could survive the next, but she did. It splatted across her stretched flesh with an impact sufficient to bed it well within the resilience she was helpless to protect. She heard herself screaming. She did not care.
'A mere five.' Said the corporal. 'We are most humane. But if you would enjoy five more…?'
'I'll do anything you want!'
'A most co-operative girl.' Mr. Syroid's approval was heartfelt. 'We do want you to be quite sure?'
'No, thank you. I've had enough. I'll do whatever you wish. I'm sorry to have been a bother. Please fuck me.'
