"This court finds you guilty of aiding terrorists.

Since the Supreme Court has ruled that no American citizen can be executed for a crime without a public trial, this special tribunal sentences you to life imprisonment at Special Facility Number Six."

When they pulled the sensory deprivation hood from her head, Iman found herself in a strange sort of place, reminiscent of a Nazi concentration camp.

It was Camp Six of the fabled "American gulag," of which Guantanamo Bay was the most famous. A pine forest surrounded the camp, which was enclosed by an electrified fence. Her handcuffs and leg irons were removed, and she was stripped of the orange jumpsuit she traveled in. That was just as well, as she had soiled it during the long flight. The sky was overcast, and the air was perhaps 40 degrees F, with a light wind, so Iman, naked now, stood, barefoot in the dirt, shivering, her nipples erect. The guards, men and women, wore black uniforms, with leather jackets and gloves. They appeared unarmed, except for truncheons and spray cans, pepper spray, she supposed.

A young, blonde guard came out with a clip board and a battery operated tattoo kit. "Stand still, at attention," she ordered. Then she tattooed Iman's prison number, 35921, across the small of her back and below her navel, in inch-high numerals. The guard stepped back and scratched something off on her clipboard. "35921, you will be in hut 2." She pointed to a plywood shack with a tar paper roof.

"That," she said, gesturing, "is the fence. If you contact it, you are dead, though death will be quicker if you place your foot on the lower wire, first, as that's grounded. You are sentenced here for life, but there is not intention that you should stay here long. We will try to make your life miserable. When it gets so miserable that you want to end it, an 'escape attempt' at the fence will end it for you. The rules here are simple. Do what you are told by a guard or trustee, instantly. If you do not, you will be punished, and if you do, you will probably be punished, anyway, because you are here for punishment. Ashcroft says that rehabilitation is impossible with scum like you, and you must pay for your crimes. You may find salvation in Jesus, but don't expect mercy from us.

The fence is your only salvation, here. From time to time we will let you eat, because it would be embarrassing if you grew too weak to kill yourself or looked starved when one of the rare inspection committees comes through. As your hut mates will tell you, there is a trench beside your barracks you can use as a latrine, unless, of course, you are restrained. Now, it's time for in-processing."

As she trudged ahead of two guards, Iman wondered again how she could have been so unlucky. One minute she was looking forward to marrying Yusef, and the next, Homeland Security agents were breaking down the door at 3 am. She was sure she would never see Yusef or her friends or family again. Perhaps, right now, she should hurl herself against the fence. No, she would never do that. She resolved that she must never do that.

There was a concrete pad with two vertical poles with cables and shackles. Guards put shackles on her wrists and ankles and tightened the cables attached to the shackles until she was suspended, her body an X, between the uprights. The strain on her arms was almost unbearable, and she was humiliated to see some of the male guards taking pictures of her. Someone with a hose directed a stream of water over her. At first, she was thankful to have the filth, her own excrement, washed off her, but then she began to be really chilled, cold water combined with cold wind. One guard, a short guy with acne, probably nor older than she, took a hand-pump sprayer and soaked her hair, on her head and below, with some smelly chemical. Iman had to squeeze her eyes shut, as it dribbled down her forehead. In seconds, she felt the burning sensation of the chemical on her skin, and she screamed and screamed. The pain was worse than anything she could remember. She had to tell herself, one more second, one more second, I can stand it for one more second, and then another. Had she known how long the pain would last, she might have resolved to kill herself, but she held on, until the guy with the water hose washed the chemical away.

Her hair and eyebrows washed away with it. Even as the water battered her vulva, chemical which had been sprayed between her parted labia continued to burn. At last she was able to open her eyes, and she saw Acne Face putting on rubber gloves. He ran his gloved fingers over her hairless labia and then figure fucked her, pushing traces of chemical deep inside her, making her scream again. He laughed and thrust the hose against her anus, readily accessible, since her legs were spread. The water washed away the traces of chemical back there, but it spurted inside her, to be followed by the hose itself. The flow was such that Iman filled immediately, and the stretching of her bowels, the cold and cramping as the water forced its way deeper into her, was enough to distract her from the pain in her vagina. As the pressure built up, water sprayed from her anus, soaking the hand of the guard who kept shoving the hose deeper. She imagined she must look pregnant, as her belly filled with cold water. At last, that torment stopped, and the guard filled her vagina with cold water, as her bowels drained. The burning stopped. The cramping stopped. Her teeth chattered in the cold, and her arms felt as if they might come off, but the worst, she supposed, was over.

Not quite. A female guard, older, perhaps with more authority, said, "She looks too comfortable.

What shall we play with next, tits or ass? Tits first, I think. The principle is constant discomfort.

Don't let them sleep. Don't let them relax. Stress kills, and we don't have any need to keep these terrorists alive." She took a thing that looked, at first, like a kitchen whisk, but Iman saw, as the guard approached her, that it was a spider-like device of metal arms. The guard turned a crank, and the arms spread apart, stretching a heavy rubber band which enclosed the tips. She placed it over Iman's left breast. With a flick of her head, she signaled Acne Face, who pinched the nipple and pulled the breast out into a cone shape. The woman turned the crank, and the arms converged around the base of the breast, squeezing it like fingers until, with a pop, the rubber band slipped off and compressed the flesh. The male let go of Iman's nipple, and her breast assumed the shape of a base ball, slowly turning pink, then purple. There was discomfort, the pressure on her skin, the anxiety that her breast would never recover from this abuse, but the pain was bearable, even as they did the same to her right breast. "What do you think, for her ass?" Said the woman to Acne Face.

The blonde, the guard who had tattooed Iman, held up a thing that looked like a lollipop. "Of course, a ginger pop," said the woman. "Would you like to do the deed?" The blonde guard stepped behind the spread-eagled prisoner and pushed the object into Iman's anus, until the "candy" popped in, leaving the stick sticking out. "She won't want to sit down for a while," said the woman, as if instructing the other guards. "Every time the stick is touched..."

She wiggled the stick, and Iman cried out as a burning fluid oozed from the ball within her.

"Ginger burns, but it doesn't destroy tissue, so she will become more sensitive, not less. Perhaps tomorrow, a ginger pop for her twat, eh?" The woman laughed. At a signal, the guards released the cables that suspended their victim, and she sank to the concrete pad, unable to stand. Her arms were to weak to resist, as they bound her thumbs together behind her back, and then bound her elbows, too, so that her shoulders were once again strained. "How is she going to sleep tonight?" asked the woman.

"On her back, she will have her weight on her sore arms and the slightest pressure on the lollipop stick will release more ginger to burn her rectum. On her front, any weight on her breasts will be painful.

She'll discover soon enough how hard those bunks can be on her shoulders and hips. Take her to hut two."

The hut was hardly bigger than a travel trailer, windowless but for a plastic panel in the door. The longer walls were lined with wide wooden shelves, one a few inched off the floor, a second at waist height. Apart from a single light, out of reach by the ridge of the roof, there was nothing else but the naked prisoners, crammed on the shelves like slaves in the hold of a slave ship. All were naked. The air smelled of piss, shit, and body odor, but at least it was warmer than outside. When the door closed behind her, Iman said, "My name is Iman,"

"We don't want to know. It doesn't do to make friends. It hurts too much to see a friend suffer and die."

"Could someone help me out of these restraints?"

"No. If the guards find you free, we'll all be punished."

"Please, they hurt. I'd do it for one of you."

"You call that hurt?" said a woman, maybe thirty, older than Iman, anyway. She half sat up on an upper shelf, and Iman saw that her nipples had been cut off and the two wounds stitched to each other, so that scar tissue gave the woman "Siamese" breasts, joined together where the nipples should have been. "I helped a prisoner, like you. All the girls in the hut were strung up by their tits, and I got my nipples burned off. It's every girl for herself, here. No human compassion allowed. My name is Sarah."

As Iman stood there, hoping to get warm, her arms behind her, her swollen breasts thrust out in front, there was a blood-chilling scream, followed by several more. "That's a male prisoner. The boss bitch likes to crush their balls. Sometimes she'll slit the scrotum and pull one out, make him eat his own testicle. She gets to do that twice per prisoner."

Night fell. Iman still stood, shifting her weight from foot to foot on the cold concrete floor. "When do we get to eat?"

"Who knows? Maybe tomorrow, maybe not."

Iman stood there. She bent enough to look at her naked labia, bright red from the chemical treatment, and her bulging breasts, purple from the pooled venous blood.

Sarah said, "Here, let me help you up. You can sleep next to me and keep me warm." Iman put her foot on the lower shelf, which was crowded with naked bodies all pressed togther for warmth, and Sarah grabbed Iman's shoulders and half pulled her onto the upper shelf. Iman pitched forward, as Sarah pulled her over the edge, and her breasts were squashed against the boards.

"Ahh!" she said, trying to roll on her side and squirm between Sarah and another woman.

"Watch it," said the other woman, and she pushed Iman up against Sarah. The lollipop stick got bumped, and heat flooded into Iman's bottom.

Iman lay on her side, curled up as much as she could, her face by Sarah's feet. She couldn't sleep, but perhaps she was half-asleep for a while, judging from the nightmares.

A whistle blew. "Hut two! Everybody out." There was a scramble as the benches emptied. Sarah helped Iman get down. "Line up by the fence, at attention." It was pitch black, as only a cloudy night can be, but there were floodlights by the electric fence. The boss bitch, the older woman who had directed Iman's torture, watched the women line up. For the first time, Iman saw how many there were, thirty three, including herself. All had had their hair removed, though some had some fuzz growing back. They ranged in age from teens to middle age. One looked no older than twelve, with an almost flat chest. They formed into a line, stood at attention, shivering in the chill air. The boss bitch strolled along the line, perhaps counting the prisoners, perhaps just enjoying their misery.

When she came to Iman, she pulled out a small razor knife and cut the cords which bound her elbows and thumbs. She also cut the rubber bands which bound Iman's breasts. The bands sprang away, into the night, and the breasts, painfully readjusted their shape toward normal. The bitch grabbed the stick, pushed and pulled it a couple of times, then pulled it out of Iman's anus, leaving a pool of fire behind it. Iman gritted her teeth and tried not to show her pain. The bitch smiled and resumed her stroll. "All right," she called, "three laps around the perimeter, to my left. No cutting corners. The last one back here gets to ride the horse." She blew her whistle, and the women turned to their right and began to run.

Iman's arms ached from being bound so tightly, and her bottom burned from the ginger, and her breasts hurt as they bounced with every step she took, but she was determined not to be last. Breathless, she was in the middle of the pack as the women rounded the fourth turn for the third time and sprinted toward the boss bitch. "Three more laps," she yelled as they passed, and Acne Face grabbed the last to pass, 35920, an overweight teenager who had not been in camp much longer than Iman. Iman pushed herself to stay up, though her side ached and her legs were getting rubbery. One prisoner was snatched by a guard for trying to cut the third corner. By the end of the sixth lap, the pack was strung out, some nearly collapsing, and the last two, each determined not to be last, started pushing and clawing at each other, ending up writhing on the ground, until the guards grabbed them. "Halt! Line up at attention," called the boss bitch. She was enjoying this. "My, my. We have four to punish. I think they will fit. Stand at attention to witness punishment."