I saw my face and it didn’t look right. I had tried to hold my gums apart to lessen the pinched look my face would take on if I closed my gums completely together, but my jaw was still more closed that it had been and I looked like a toothless granny. I slowly opened my mouth and immediately saw the devastation they’d wrought on me. I had no teeth, of course. My gums were somewhat swollen, less than I’d expected, and they were their usual pink, not red and inflamed as I’d thought they would be.
I closed my mouth all the way and looked at myself. Yep, I looked like an old grandma, with my lower face all pinched up and my cheeks pushed out because my jaw moved up too far without my teeth to position it properly. It completely destroyed any attractiveness my face might have had.
I kept my lips closed but tried to move my jaw down to where it used to be when my teeth held my mouth properly in position. I was able to do that, but it made my face look puffed out a little, as though I were trying to say “oh,” with my mouth closed. The natural position of my mouth – where it went when I didn’t think about it – was to be closed too much, pinching my face. Unless I concentrated on keeping my jaws more open, that’s the way I’d look now, at least until I got dentures.
I started to cry again and I couldn’t stop, even after I turned off the light and wheeled out of there.
Altaf and Erij sat with me for a while, trying to make me feel better. That was both harder because we couldn’t talk, and easier because they didn’t have to search for something to say, and I didn’t have to figure out how to respond. We probably sat there, holding hands, for more than an hour. Eventually, a matron, the one who’d been at least a little kind to me and who had been one of the triumvirate of judges, came into the infirmary and walked up to me.
“How are you doing, Karimah?” She asked me in Arabic, putting her hand on my shoulder. I wanted to shrug it off because I felt she hadn’t done enough to help me out, then thought better of it. When I really considered it, there wasn’t anything else she could have done. I think the warden had it out for me because I was an American. What happened, or something equivalent to what happened had probably been inevitable.
I looked up at her, tears forming in my eyes again, and I did shrug my shoulders in resignation.
“I know this must seem very cruel, especially because I suspect most all of the fault lies with Habiba. In the eyes of the warden and doctor, though, you injured her more than you were injured. They felt they had to invoke the eye-for-an-eye punishment. Frankly, here at the Control Institution, that’s almost always done following a permanent injury, regardless of the circumstances.”
I stared at her, sure there was anger in my eyes. “Fuck you,” I mouthed in English. I could see that she didn’t understand what I was trying to say. Once I’d done it, I regretted it anyway, so I dropped the whole idea.
“In a few weeks, they will fit you for dentures. Your smile and your pretty face will be as good as new,” she offered.
I didn’t believe it for an instant, but I knew she was only trying to help, so I just sat there doing nothing. She tried to talk to me a few more times, but I didn’t have any interest in a conversation – especially a one-sided conversation like this one.
Finally, she rose, patted me on the shoulder again, and asked if I felt well enough to return to our triple’s quarters. I nodded yes. She asked Erij to push me back there, but I pushed her off and moved the wheelchair on my own. It took a while, but we eventually returned to my group’s rooms. Every other one of our triple of triples, all six of them, came up to me, giving me a thumbs up and patting me on the back, in obvious admiration of what I’d done to defend my triple.
That was something, I suppose, but it sure wasn’t enough. Look what the monsters who ran this place had done to me! I’d never be the same again.
**********
A week later we were out in the yard when Habiba’s triple appeared, separated from us by about 100 feet. Like me, Habiba was in a wheelchair. One of her flunkies pushed her toward us. Erij jumped up and glowered at the three of them. Altaf stood next to me with her fists clenched.
They got to within about 20 feet of us. Habiba opened her mouth, pointed to her empty gums, then pointed to me and bent over, faking a belly laugh. Erij immediately ran toward them. Before she got within ten feet, a matron came running up from the left, a Billy club in her hand.
“I saw that, Habiba!” The matron shouted in Arabic. Without hesitation she brought the Billy club down on Habiba’s right hand, which had been gripping the arm of the wheelchair. Habiba’s expression changed from fear to shock to severe pain in the space of a second or two. She silently cried out, gripping her right hand with her left. I thought there was a real possibility that the matron had broken Habiba’s hand.
Another matron appeared and, between them, they stared down Habiba’s two triple mates, who seemed about to leap at the matrons. I saw a controller come out but they didn’t use it. The first matron told them to take Habiba to the infirmary to get her hand checked. She also said their yard privileges were suspended for a month.
I came to find that the matron who had presided over my punishment had passed the word to the other matrons that Habiba was to be watched and immediately handled if she did anything to another inmate, especially to me. It appeared that the presiding matron intended for something closer to true justice to be served. I appreciated the gesture, but it didn’t make things better for me, did it? I was still toothless.
Another two weeks passed. I suppose it was a good thing that we were auto-fed prison porridge which required no chewing. Obviously, without teeth, I couldn’t bite anything. I had to skip the meager, once-a-week, real food and suck down more gruel instead.
I was finally called to the infirmary where the dentist who had maimed me examined my gums, declared them healed, took impressions, and told me my dentures would be ready in about two more weeks. Two more weeks of my grotesque ugliness for everyone to see.
I wheeled back to my room, looking for either Altaf or Erij to change my diaper. I couldn’t feel it, but I could smell the pungent aroma of ammonia and salt that told me I needed to be changed. My triple mates had been graciously doing that for me since I’d been paralyzed. I certainly couldn’t do it for myself. They seemed glad to help and never appeared put out about it. They knew I’d been punished because I tried to help them.
Personally, I was ashamed and I couldn’t shake the emotion. I was a 25-year-old and I had to wear a diaper and I had no teeth – exactly like a baby. I knew it wasn’t my fault, but it’s how I was anyway.
To gain a little relief – no, because I was hooked, but for some relief - I lit a cigarette and looked around for one of my triple. If you were in a smoking group like I was, you could smoke as much as you wanted within your rooms or out in the yard. The tiny kernel of “libido memory” they instilled in us required it. That was the best we could do to provide a few seconds of relief from our need for sexual satisfaction, while we were at the mercy of the controllers which were effectively neutering us, save for the barest hint of arousal they allowed to slip through, or created within our minds.
The prison gave the smokes to us. A matron had told me that cigarettes kept those of us who smoked calmer, though sexually just slightly agitated, and we kept the non-smokers calmer by our presence. Usually. My battle with Habiba was apparently the exception. Habiba’s group didn’t smoke. I strongly felt that they should have.
I didn’t know if that calming influence of smoking were true or not, but I certainly knew I needed the cigarettes. To be honest, I enjoyed them. I hated the habit, but it was about the only thing in the prison that gave you even an iota of pleasure during the day, after the morning’s modest boost from shaving and caning.
You couldn’t have much in the way of friendly conversations with your acquaintances. If you can’t talk and can barely sign, I think it’s almost impossible to tell jokes without exhausting pantomime – though you could, at some risk, pull jokes. You can’t h
ave sex – well, I suppose you could if you snuck off somewhere, but what would be the point? You couldn’t feel anything. Our erotic zones were dead to us. Given that twelve meals out of thirteen were slop, you couldn’t enjoy food either. And even though I was compelled to beat my triple mates and be beaten every day, there was only a hint of sexual pleasure in that. For the most part, it only satisfied a need they instilled in us. So what did that leave you? Shaving and plucking yourself - and smoking.
You did get a similar, but better sexual thrill when you shaved your head each morning. It was even better if you found a stray eyebrow to pluck, though it’s discovery always made you feel disgusted and dirty. That’s how they’d programmed me, and everyone else in there. It was bondage on a totally different level. A far deeper level than chains or ropes or rubber. I was bound inside and out. Now that I’d been plucking for several months, there weren’t many stray eyebrows appearing anymore. That’s one other thing that I’ll never have again, thanks to these bastards. If you pluck enough, your brows give up and go away forever. Probably 95 percent of my brow hairs had already cashed in their follicles.
So I suppose I was glad that I’d been made a smoker. There was that dribble of sexual need, and a tiny amount of satisfaction, every time you smoked. But it would never go beyond an appetizer, a taunting of sexuality, even if you smoked ten cartons! Exactly half of the groups smoked. Smoking gave me something, at least, to look forward to. An infinitesimal promise. But it was all I had. I don’t know how the non-smoking prisoners could stand this place. Maybe they shaved or plucked several times a day to get the programmed thrill. I wondered if that would work.
I looked up at a mirror as I took a puff. I looked awful. Because I had no teeth, when I drew on the cigarette, my face would pinch up because my jaw closed too far. Then I really looked like an old, bald, smoking grandmother. I wheeled away from the mirror, actually sick to my stomach from seeing myself like this.
About the time I realized I was alone in our rooms, Erij walked in with a matron. The matron seemed to be talking informally, so for once, my guard didn’t instinctively go up.
“Where’s Altaf?” I signed. I knew she wasn’t supposed to be working right then.
The cigarette pack was in my hand and I offered one to the matron and Erij; they each took one and lit up.
The matron answered, “She’s at the auction. It’s the first time she’s been eligible.”
I was somewhat taken aback. I hadn’t thought about it, but I remembered that Altaf had reached the 20 percent point in her sentence about the time of the Habiba trouble. This was the first auction that had been held since she’d completed a fifth of her sentence. They were only conducted about once every two months.
In my opinion, they were slave auctions, though no one called them that. Nevertheless, the prisoner would become the buyer’s indentured servant, meaning property, for the remaining length of the contract. The Kingdom would make money selling the contract, and the owner would be responsible for the prisoner until her time was served, saving the state the cost of housing, feeding and guarding her.
Apparently, the prison somehow advertised that an auction would be held, and then interested citizens of the Kingdom of Salat would gather in a specific set of rooms on the prison grounds and bid on the contracts of eligible prisoners. There was a minimum bid for each woman. I have no idea how the minimum bid was determined, but it seemed to be a combination of the warden’s perception of value times the remaining sentence length. If no one met the minimum bid, the prisoner returned, untaken, to her triple.
If the minimum or a higher bid were received, the winning bidder would own the prisoner’s contract for the remainder of the sentence. I had no idea how the treatment of the prisoner might be regulated, once in the hands of the buyer, or even if it were monitored and regulated at all. What I did know was that most every woman in the place wanted someone to buy out her contract, because everyone wanted out of the Control Institution for Delinquent Women.
Looking up at the matron, I made the sign for Altaf, pointed to my face, and held my hands out in a questioning gesture.
“No, Altaf’s face is still the same. I don’t think the two matrons who froze her are here today and, besides, they have no intention of restoring her until her sentence is over. The action was filed as a disciplinary one to punish, control, and prevent what they called Altaf’s ‘disruptive behavior.’ So the prison will continue to enforce it, unless her contract is bought out and her new owner requests that she be restored. Frankly, I don’t think anyone will buy her. She’s pretty enough, I suppose, but she looks so damn morose. It’d be like paying good money for a piece of bleached, desert driftwood.”
I thought that was a cruel thing to say, but I could see her point.
I was stinking more and signed to Erij, asking her to change me. She got me down onto a pad, removed my diaper, cleaned me up, put me in a fresh one and got me back into my wheelchair. The matron stood there and watched. I was doubly embarrassed, but I couldn’t do anything about it. That was my life, right then.
Altaf returned a while later. Her body language said everything her blank expression couldn’t. No one had bid on her. She’d be put up at auction again in two months.
Usually, if a prisoner didn’t sell within a year of their eligibility, she wasn’t allowed to participate anymore. She might still be sold to someone at a private transaction, which was sometimes done for important clients, but usually not. After a year on the block without being sold, the inmate was pretty much destined to serve out her sentence in the Control Institution.
**********
One afternoon slightly more than two weeks later, I returned to the infirmary to get fitted with my dentures. I had totally mixed feelings. I hated the idea of them. On the other hand, I hated how I looked now, with no teeth at all. I’m pretty, or I was. Some would say I was beautiful. I’m not bragging about myself. I didn’t do anything to earn it, but I did take good care of this body I was lucky enough to get. Now, however, I was just plain ugly in what they’d made my natural state. I needed the dentures to look normal. So I would get them and hope for the best, which probably wouldn’t be much in this hell hole.
Please don’t hate me for how I look. Don’t feel sorry for me either. I don’t want to go through life with everyone pitying me. They damaged me out of a perverted sense of justice, obvious to them, but alien to western viewpoints.
I got caught up in that because I defended myself and my triple sisters. I didn’t want that to happen, but it did. I tried to help my friends. The system in which I live saw that as a criminal act. Be happy you live where you do. And be happy for me, because I have teeth again, and, for the most part, they’re fine.
Apparently, I arrived a few minutes before the dentist. They put me in the chair, strapped me down, of course, and I lay there waiting.
The room contained the usual dental stuff. There were two, small, unopened shipping boxes on the counter.
The dentist arrived and spent the next five minutes trying to open the two small boxes with an X-Acto knife. Finally, a set of dentures were revealed in each.
“One of these is yours, and the other is Habiba’s,” he told me.
I looked over to my right, and immediately recognized my teeth – as they’d been before they were jerked from my mouth. I pointed to them.
“Thank you, he said. At that point, he took the lower set of dentures out of the box, looked it over, and positioned it over my bottom gums. He gently pushed it into place.
I was startled by the sharp discomfort – no, the very real pain - of an improper fit! He carefully moved the dentures around, trying to find the right position, I assume. After a couple of minutes, it was obvious that these weren’t going to fit.
He tried the upper dentures with pretty much the same results.
What the fuck was going on here? I thought. How incompetent were these people? Was I going to live with a mouth in agony for the next almost seven years?
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He fiddled with the dentures, looked them over, looked at my mouth and checked my toothless gums. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw him pick up the lower set from the other box. Those were decent-looking teeth, but they sure weren’t a stand-in for my beautiful ones.
He had a bewildered look on his face while he examined the other, lower set. After a few more minutes, he tried to set it in my mouth, over my lower gums.
It easily, comfortably, dropped into place! Those were my dentures!
But they didn’t look like my teeth. The ones that looked exactly like my teeth never came close to fitting me.
He set the uppers into place, and they cupped my upper gums smoothly.
Obviously, they had mixed up the teeth. The generic teeth had been merged with my impression, and the models of my perfect, gorgeous teeth, had been fitted to Habiba’s impression!
“They mixed them up,” he said. “But I’ve got them straightened away now.”
“No you don’t!” I wanted to shout, but couldn’t. I was mute. I was always mute now. I wanted my own teeth, even if they were bastardized fakes of the perfect teeth I’d had! I tried to tell him that though gestures and a quick grab at his collar with the evident intent to threaten him.
He managed to shake his head in evident apology and concern.
Straightening this out wasn’t going to happen. The teeth that had been merged with my impressions were generic teeth, taken from some store of teeth images they had.
Over the next hour, the dentist did the expected fitting, carving, sanding and adjusting. He apparently did a good job because my dentures didn’t hurt, rub, or feel uncomfortable, other than for the fact that they were there, AND THEY WEREN’T MY TEETH! So I cried and he worked.
In the end, they were comfortable, and I thought I could probably get used to them. I don’t like being a victim; I was trying to avoid that happening here in a meager attempt to look on the bright side. Fortunately, it was working a little.
Destiny Taken (Destiny Lost Book 1) Page 24