Chapter 4: The Fourth Day

Amy awoke with a start. She had slept all night in a state of dreamless exhaustion. The light was on, but both her cellmates remained asleep. She slipped out of her jumpsuit and relieved herself the corner. The urine, puddled around her feet, almost went unnoticed. She hadn’t moved her bowels since she arrived. She felt bloated, but couldn’t bear to take a shit on the cell floor. She prayed that she wold be released before the inevitable.

Amy pulled on her jumpsuit after studying her prisoner number. She lay back on her bunk repeating it over and over. She marveled at how quickly she had reduced herself to a number. She tried to think about how she was going to extricate herself from this hellhole. She couldn’t speak to the guards. She had nothing to offer, but herself. She wasn’t ready to try that. Not today —- Not ever, Amy resolved. She would survive!

The clang and Wall command broke her reverie. The three cellmates scurried to the wall. Odette was kneeling in Amy’s piss. Amy sent a silent plea for forgiveness and pressed harder against the wall.

The food was unchanged. All three ate locked in private thoughts. Odette had given Amy and accusatory look, but had not said a word. Marja removed her jumpsuit and stepped into Amy’s puddle and added to the forming lake. They all stank.

Amy was about to say something when the Wall command was given. This day was Odette’s turn to be lifted by her hair, stripped, chained and dragged from the cell. When Amy and Maria moved away form the wall, Amy spotted her bra lying beside Odette’s jumpsuit.

Amy stared at it for a long time, before deciding that she didn’t want it anymore. It really didn’t matter. The guards were going to strip her whenever they wanted. She was defenseless. She felt that she was giving up. She had to pull herself together. Toughen up, she thought to herself.

The wall command was given unexpectedly. Amy and Maria rushed to the wall, noses, knees and breasts tightly pressed to it. They pulled Marja from the wall. One guard placed a bucket of soapy water on the cell floor. She was handed a brush and soapy rag. Marja began to scrub up the piss covered floor.

Amy remained against the wall trembling, when a large hand grabbed her by the hair. A hood was dropped over her head as she was stripped and shackled like the day before. “Noooooooo! Its not fair. Its Odette’s turn. You took me yesterday,” she wailed. She listened to the sound of Marja scrubbing as she was hauled away, tears falling down her face.

She felt the freezing floor on entering the interrogation room. She was shaking visibly. The guards found the center of the room where the two painted circles were two feet apart. Her cuffs were removed, but as the day before, the leg irons remained. A guard scanned her wristband. Her arms were extended out at shoulder height parallel to her feet. She was totally exposed.

They left the hood on. The cell door slammed closed. Amy knew better than to lower her arms. All she could do was wait in the darkness.

The Third Session

The door opened and shut. The blinding spotlights were turned on. Footsteps approached. Someone, she assumed it was her interrogator, walked slowly around Amy. His breath on her neck raised her hackles, but she didn’t move. He was in front. She could tell he was inches from her hooded face. She felt the breath on her breasts and pussy, before he walked away. A chair scrapped. The hood was removed. The lights blinded her. She could barely see the table. The interrogator was a mere haloed outline.

Amy desperately tried to make out his features. Her attention was drawn to the table. The numbered plastic basket was there. To her astonishment, she recognized her purse on the table. She must have involuntarily gasped because the cane struck the small of her back with a swishing sound that Amy had learned to dread.

“Do you recognize this?,” the interrogator’s voice echoed off the concrete.

:”That’s my purse.” She paused. “Where did you get it?” The swishing sound was barely heard before pain erupted from Amy’s thighs.

“It seems that we have gotten off to a bad start.” the interrogator said. “You are here to answer our questions. You are not to speak otherwise without specific permission. If you speak out of turn, or fail to maintain any required positions, you will be corrected. Each time you are corrected, you must thank the guard for pointing out your failings. I think now would be a good time to thank Sgt. Rothko for your corrections this morning.”

The room fell silent. Amy wanted to crawl into a hole and die. Her arms trembled but maintained position. In a small, almost inaudible voice, Amy whispered: “Thank you Sgt. Rothko for correcting me.”

The interrogator seemed to relax. He opened a dossier and began to shuffle the pages. He looked up and studied Amy. She thought that he was looking right up her pussy. It tingled in fear.

“My name is Alexander. You will address me by that name throughout our discussions. Do you understand?” Amy nodded, then quickly added, “Yes, Alexander.”

“Very good,” he replied. “We left off with a clean up matter from yesterday that we will address at the end of our conversation today. We will begin now.”

“What is your name?””

Prisoner 497654N, Alexander.” Amy replied.

Alexander reached across the table and emptied the contents of Amy’s purse on the table. A wallet, lipstick, eyeliner, tissues, birth control pills, passport, keys and a cell phone tumbled out. Amy could tell that Alexander was staring intently at her behind the light. He picked up the lipstick, Russian Red. He removed the cap and rolled out the lipstick. He took one of the tissues. Using it, he snapped the lipstick off at its base. He threw the lipstick into the basket smearing one of its sides. He withdrew a ball point pen from his pocket and probed the case. Satisfied that nothing was concealed, he tossed the broken container into the basket.

The eyeliner received the same treatment. He next examined Amy’s passport. He turned each page carefully studying each visa stamp. He held it up and compared Amy’s passport photo with the nude standing spread eagle before him. The passport joined the other items in the basket. He gave the keys a cursory look before they too joined the basket.

He lifted the plastic container with Amy’s birth control pills. He held it to the light and punched out one of the pills. He ground the pill between his fingers, sniffed the residue and dumped the pills in the basket.

Next, came the wallet. He opened it and withdrew the money inside. He carefully counted and made a notation in the dossier. The money was replaced. He removed Amy’s Pennsylvania driver’s license and student id from the Sorbonne. He spent several minutes trying to determine the authenticity of the ids. They were replaced in the wallet. There were some pictures of an elderly couple with a dog. There was another picture of Amy and a girl about her age. They were sticking their tongues out at the camera.