by Mark Andrews
If you happened to be convicted on a Monday, you had five days of this for the watch-house was only emptied once a week, on Saturday mornings.
It had been Wednesday for Debra and so she had to cope with three nights and days of this horror. Three nights of trying to fend off Hazel who never ceased to try to seduce the lovely but highly athletic girl who had so recently been made a slave. She wasn’t successful but it was no thanks to the various watch-house keepers who ‘supervised’ them. In there, anything went - in either of the two groups of cells and a teenaged boy was no safer from the hands of predatory older males than Debra was at Hazel’s. Indeed, even if there were no visitors to come and stare as an older man or women made free with the younger more attractive girls’ and boys’ bodies, the guards quickly cottoned on to any attack by the older women and men and got up from their chair to come and watch as the younger slave tried to repel boarders, as it were ....
Debra fought off every such advance, though - and so did the other young inmates, but it all added to the entertainment value (and therefore the numbers) for the paying guests.
Her half a week incarceration in those cages had been dreadful but now it was Saturday and she was facing transportation to the Assessment Centre. She had listened to the lurid stories Hazel and others had spread about this event but she hadn’t really believed them. Even this government that had become so brutal towards criminals, surely couldn’t transport even slaves in the manner they had described, she thought.
Alas, they had been very factual - as she was now to find out. What she hadn’t yet realised was that the government had quickly cottoned on to the fact that slavery was big business and far from the old jails costing a huge and ever increasing share of the budget, criminal slaves could now reap in much needed revenue and so anything that increased their value was a bonus.
This meant that the transportation of the new slaves ought to be as public - and as degrading as possible for what human being doesn’t (at least in his most private thoughts) delight in the humiliation of others?
Humiliation was the key word.
They were herded out to the yard behind the Old Bailey and there stared at the tray-truck settled there waiting for them. Many of the girls screamed in horror and some of the younger males went deathly pale as they stood there, stark naked still, contemplating what was going to be the most shameful thing in their lives - so far.
The tray-truck was one of those new magnetic things without wheels powered by the Earth’s own magnetic field and, when ready to move, rose up six feet from the ground and sped off, rather like the old hover cars of a former age but it wasn’t this that had caused such horror in the slaves for such vehicles were the norm now and there were very few wheeled vehicles left, or at least motorised ones and soon, when they had gone entirely, grass-ways would replace highways all over the planet.
No it was what was on top of the tray that had them so worried. There were two horizontal steel tracks, like those used in old-fashioned butchers’ shops to hang the carcasses on and these ran side by side, fore and aft from the back of the cab at the front of the long vehicle to the rear of the tray-top and were supported by sturdy, ten-foot high steel frames at either end. Running along these rails were moveable hooks, again like those used in the butchers’ shops and there were dozens of these, all sliding on roller-bearing wheels.
Each new slave had his and her thumbs locked together with a special cuff with a hole in the centre which fitted into the dangling hooks, all of which had been drawn to the rear of each of the two rails and now, side by side, girls on the left and males the right, they were marched on to the rear of the truck to stand on one of the two boxes that sat below the rear of each rail, had to raise their hands up to have the cuff inserted into the front-most free hook, whereupon they were pushed forward, their feet now dangling free of the tray until their bodies slapped up against the girl or boy dangling in front of them.
In this manner, each of the dozens of slaves was secured hard up against the girl or boy in front of and behind them. Debra had stared up at the truck’s tray in as much horror as her companions and now she realised the more experienced amongst them had not been exaggerating in their lurid stories of this truck. They were all true! They were going to be transported through the streets of London dangling like sides of beef, stark naked so that every citizen could see their shame and humiliation.
Not a bad deterrent, the authorities believed - not that they now wanted to limit the number of criminals passing through the courts. This was looking to be a very substantial new form of income and one that could save future tax increases. It was good all round - except for the criminals, of course, and it was their own fault if they continued to commit crimes, for the new penalties were widely advertised.
When it came her turn to be marched up the steps, alongside a very handsome and athletic-looking boy with blue eyes and dark wavy hair, she found looking at his naked body helped to take her mind off the coming horror and so she continued to look him over, even imagining making love to him.
But it was only a temporary relief for now she had to step up onto her box and submit to the tiny cuffs being locked around her thumbs and then raise her arms so the guard could slip the hole in the centre of her cuffs over the next hook.
He gave her a push then and her body slid up the rail to bump against the next girl in front of her, fortunately not Hazel whom she had avoided over the last few days as much as she could.
She looked across at the boy and smiled tentatively at him as he hung there in as much pain as she was now feeling. Being hung up by your thumbs with your feet dangling free of the floor is not conducive to comfort and already her thumbs, wrists, elbows and shoulders were screaming at her. She knew it was going to get worse as the truck began to move but that wasn’t the worst of her troubles.
What would be so much worse was that she would be exposed, quite nude, to all the millions of people in the capital. All right, so millions wouldn’t all see her, but many of them would and some might even know her! As she hung there from the rail and the truck traversed the city’s streets on its way to the Assessment Centre, which of course, was on the other side of the city, there would be thousands who would be able to stare up (in lecherous delight) at the dozens of males dangling from the right hand rail and a similar number of girls and women on the left, all totally exposed in all their naked glory, on their way to have their bodies and minds assessed as to their future use as slaves.
In her pain and her humiliation, staring at the row of males hanging from on the other side provided some slight alleviation, especially the boy who was her ‘partner’ on the other rail. He was very handsome and she wondered what so good-looking a boy had done to merit his transmutation into a slave. But then she thought, probably very little. She herself had only stolen food to keep off starvation and a few items of clothing and look at her: five years as a penal slave and now facing - God knows what!
It was every bit as bad as she had thought. As the truck hummed and slowly rose up six feet above the floor of the yard and then slowly moved off as the gates opened to let it out, she could see there were hundreds of ghouls lined up on both sides of the gateway, ready to stare up at them and to shout out obscenities as to what they would like to do with their bodies - and they did. It seemed the authorities were not in the least inclined to shoo them away or even to try to limit the language used.
Such delightful epithets as “I’d like to stick my cock into you, black girl,” or, “I’d like to see your back flogged until the skin hangs in tatters, Blondie,” or, “let’s see your lovely cunts, slavegirls ... throw up your legs, sluts, open them wide ...”
And as the truck moved along the busy streets, thousands more stopped and stared, or pointed up at them to their children, no doubt admonishing them to ‘be good or that is what you face’. But there wasn’t a disapproving face amongst them. It seemed ev
eryone thought the new penal slavery was a wonderful idea, especially as it allowed them to see handsome and beautiful boys and girls (amongst the less attractive older criminals) totally naked and in chains - and it was saving them taxes as well!
Debra was in tears. Her joints were in severe pain but she hardly felt it. No, it was the shame and humiliation of being displayed so obscenely to the whole of London that hurt. Some of her companions were inured to it, especially the older ones, but those of her own age or near it, were universally teary and some sobbing convulsively as the truck bore them to their next humiliation.
She had no doubt it was going to be bad but exactly what happened at the Centre was a mystery; even to the old hands for this penal slavery was still relatively new and none of those in her cage had actually been a slave before. Still, rumour used to be the mainspring of the former jails and it had abounded in the cages just as much. There were the stories of intrusive medical examinations and fitness and sexual tests ... But what it all meant in detail, no-one really knew.
Still, notwithstanding the rumours, she still felt an incredible relief when the truck at last turned in at the gate in the high concrete wall of the Assessment Centre. It was a new building, made of the same unfinished concrete as the wall that surrounded it and its windows were small and barred. It looked like a huge, freestanding bank vault made of concrete. It stood quite unadorned with plain bare concrete between the building itself and the wall that went right around it.
Debra glanced up at the top of this and as she noted the shards of glass poking out near the top of the wall and the electrified razor wire at the very top, she shuddered at the implications.
Then they were stopped and the pair of boxes were replaced under the rear pair of slaves. New guards came forward to release the pairs of boy and girl slaves from the two rails. They stepped down onto the concrete and were marched into a narrow door near the truck’s location.
Debra and the handsome boy were again paired and walked side by side behind the pair in front of them and brushed together as they passed through it. She thrilled as she felt his tawny smooth and so muscular flesh against hers and again smiled a little at him.
Once inside, their assessment began.
They were first cleaned. This was achieved brutally but very effectively by means of a race rather like the car-washes used formerly for the cars of a former age. They were lined up at its entrance and stared worriedly at the two vertically aligned rotating drums with their rubber strips for as each girl and then boy entered, they were sprayed with steaming hot water mixed with detergent and then the strips lashed at their bodies from both sides, virtually flogging the dirt from their flesh. Further in and there were more of them. One was a wheel set up in a vertical plane in a narrow pit in the floor and whose axle was at floor level so that the strips attached to its outer rim lashed the insides of their thighs and of course their anus and genital organs as they moved as fast as they could over it.
But they couldn’t move too fast. Each slave was compartmentalised between bars attached to a moving chain at waist level and it was impossible to move faster than the slow-moving bar in front of you. Thus each slave was washed by very hot soapy water and strips of rubber that not only cleaned them but also rubbed away any dead skin that may have accumulated since their last cleaning.
Debra couldn’t believe how awful it was. The method of cleaning was bad enough - the ultra-hot - far too hot water and the lashing effect of the rubber strips that attacked every hidden corner of her body; but worse still was the rows of leering faces standing watching her and all the other male and female slaves as the machine worked on their flesh.
Oh how could people do such things to other people, she wailed to herself as she moved so agonisingly slowly up the race for they were all horrified to discover that, just as back at the Old Bailey they had been on show to men and women who paid for the privilege of looking at them as caged animals - naked human animals, now they were even more on show. Each of the rooms they now traversed was set up with a visitors’ gallery alongside the action. In this case, the customers could walk along a roped off area on either side of the cleaning race and watch as the rubber strips on the revolving drums or wheels lashed at their flesh. It was almost as good as watching a public flogging must have been in centuries past ...
They emerged from the last set of drums battered and with their skins now a violent crimson from the heat, very much debilitated by the experience.
Their next treatment was even worse, however. As the guests who had paid to see this aspect of their initiation stood behind the ropes, they were issued with rubber caps to go over the tops of their heads and were inspected to make sure there was a tight seal at the edges. The caps left their faces free but covered their eyebrows. Each girl or boy was ordered to close their eyes and their lashes were painted with a substance and then they were led to the entrance of another race.
A loudspeaker blared at them: “As you move through the race you are required to dance from one foot to the other, raising each leg high in turn and also to raise your arms up high above your head, swinging them around violently so that every part of your bodies are treated. Failure to comply with this order will merit a return through the race - and twenty strokes of the cane.”
Each new slave shuddered. Twenty strokes? No! They couldn’t possibly stand that and each man and woman resolved to obey their new Masters to the very best of their ability.
As they entered, again controlled by more of the iron bars, he or she (in turn) was battered with a blast of even hotter water that had the effect of opening the pores of their skin and with them, their hair follicles. This water had a defoliant mixed in it and as the column of slaves moved slowly, very slowly, through the steaming downpour and each boy or girl danced from foot to foot, twisting and turning their body and ensuring that every part was penetrated by the ultra-hot liquid, the hairs on their bodies began to fall out. Their progress through this very painful treatment was ultra-slow - even slower than through the cleaning race for the depilation process took time.
Not that the visitors minded. The hour-long process gave them a perfect opportunity to see mostly young and handsome boys or beautiful girls being degraded by the removal of their bodily hair, it being thought that the presentation of slaves utterly naked of such a natural endowment would identify them as slaves or former slaves and would of course, add to their humiliation - for shame and humiliation are very potent weapons of punishment and the governor and his council were keen to show their superiors that Britain could lead the way in the problem of dealing with the world-wide burgeoning of crime.
The high temperature race removed their hairs but it didn’t kill the roots. Left alone, in a few weeks, they would have required a re-treatment; but the next part of this treatment certainly killed the hairs, once and for all. The first treatment was necessary - the follicle had to be empty for the second stage to be effective but as long as that was achieved by the primary depilation race, the secondary part worked perfectly.
The slaves were told to remove the rubber caps and were then ordered to walk forward into the next race. Here, a new development that was a cross between the twentieth century ruby laser hair removal technique and electrolysis worked to kill those hair follicles from which the first stage had already removed the hairs. The hair on their heads, eyebrows and lashes were not affected because the hairs there were still intact but all other areas: beards, armpits, chest and belly, pubic area and legs were treated with permanent effect.
As the line of slaves moved into this race and each had his or her right ankle locked to a manacle attached to the moving rubber platform, the audience on the outside licked its collective lips as it watched the antics of the slaves inside the glass-walled race. For this treatment was very painful. Very painful indeed and the slaves now didn’t need to be ordered to jump about - they did it automatically.
It
worked by sending lightning-like bolts of a special frequency of electrical energy into their bodies. These charges attacked the follicles, killing the hair roots once and for all as they zapped towards and then danced over the victim’s flesh before their energy died.
It was a startling - and sparkling sight. Each slave, as he or she was moved slowly through the race, had licks of blue-white energy reaching out towards his or her body and then seeming to wrap itself around it, almost as if they were seeking out the hiding follicles. And there wasn’t just one at a time. The zaps emerged from posts arranged in two lines on either side of the slowly moving rubber floor of the race and these posts were set five feet apart. You could be zapped from four posts at once and each post was capable of sending out multiple bolts towards your body.
Thus it might even seem as if your naked body was totally wrapped in bolts of blue-white electricity. It resembled a giant version of the instrument known as the violet wand where little lightning bolts danced from the central core to the glass bubble around it and when this was brought near flesh, it danced across and gave the victim a shock - except that this was a hundred times bigger and more potent. The violet wand was never designed as a depilation tool.
It is no wonder then that they all jumped about and twisted and turned their bodies in reaction to the zaps that attacked them ceaselessly until the moving walkway emerged from the last two posts and a guard unlocked their ankles from the manacles.
It took all of half an hour from the time the slave entered the race to the time they emerged from the other end but when they emerged, they were all now totally naked of hair, only excepting their eyebrows and lashes and that on the crowns of their heads.