Chapter 7

(In which Clementine settles in and finds out loads more about pain.)

"Well, they certainly taught you one hell of a painful lesson" said Olga, the ugly tough who had just whipped her. This seasoned prisoner was sweating from every pore after her exertions, despite the night chill. She was standing over her recent victim and examining her handiwork. The new girl was certainly in a bad way. Clemmy had been warmed up herself, but she was still shivering feverishly from the after effects of the beating, which had brought her out into a cold sweat.

"You must have easily got ten times the stick a new girl usually gets for a first offence. Take me for instance. I was like a wild animal when I first came here. I fought with the guards and bit one bitch's finger clean off. That's right! There was blood everywhere and you should have heard the cow squeal! But they didn't give me what they just gave you - nor anything like! In a way, I almost felt sorry for you. Almost, but not quite. But I'm glad they stopped it when they did. I was getting so tired! I'd have stopped a long while earlier if it had been up to me and I enjoy taking the skin of a bitch's back as much as any of us. You must be someone special to get a working over like that on your first day! You must have done something pretty bad - either that or upset the wrong people. Whatever - they've really got it in for you! If you want to stay alive, you'd better learn to be tough and learn fast, although after what you did to me, maybe you already have! Have some of this!"

Olga ended her remarks by handing a rusty can full of water which the grievously punished girl gulped greedily and gratefully down. She had only just realised how cruelly thirsty she was. Clemmy eased herself on to the ground, face down on the rough surface, and tried not too successfully to get into a comfortable position, wishing she were in a nice warm room and comfortable bed, being treated for her wounds as she had treated Rashumba and Viola not so many weeks ago. But she knew she would get no such treatment here and that this was just the first of many such beatings looming ahead of her over the next twelve years. There would be no healing ointment and no bed-rest for her in this hell. She looked up at her tormentor.

"When I'm better, we'll finish that fight. OK?"

"They'll have you whipped again - most likely harder next time. You're a very special prisoner and in for a very special time! A hundred lashes will be your minimum, I shouldn't wonder. But be grateful and try to look on the bright side. You are privileged! None of us has ever got more than fifty for starting a fight and that was after a fifth offence! A normal incomer would have got off with a rifle butt in the gut and warning, but you got the works! Yours is going to be one permanently sore hide! Pity - you had such lovely smooth skin before I took it all off! But the sun, wind and rain and frost over the next few years will do to the rest of you what the whip does to your back."

The others laughed and Clemmy knew that she would get no pity, either from the prison staff or her fellow inmates, who had one thing in common and that was total callousness and indifference to the sight and sound of pain. Inured to their own suffering, they had no pity for Clementine and she knew she must never sink to pitying herself. Only strength of mind and body would get her out of here, unless someone at home learned what had happened to her.

"I know I'll get flayed again. But I'll still finish that fight. We can start now, if you want!" Clementine could scarcely move as she said these words, but she meant what she had just said. If this woman wanted, she could have Round Two here and now!

The other women laughed. They already respected the newcomer, who obviously had a lot of spirit, and guessed that Olga would have her hands full if she wanted to stay at the top of the heap.

"I'll let you wait till you're ready." said Olga. "Then I'll be happy to oblige and knock you out good and proper. Better get some sleep if you can. Two of the others will try to keep you warm without hurting that back. Sleep well. You've a long hard day ahead in the morning."

Alexia, the very young woman who had first greeted her, and another called Sveta came over as it got dusk. They lay down one on each side of her. Clemmy was astonished when Sveta started to lick her sore back. She made as if to protest but Alexia explained.

"You've seen an animal lick its wounds?" she laughed, the first pretty sound Clementine had heard since arriving. " Well, that's what we do here. It works after a fashion. In the morning we'll all piss all over that back It'll hurt as bad as the whipping, but it'll do your stripes a power of good. Nasty but effective. It's an old remedy in these parts. Don't worry, you'll soon smell bad enough anyway after working all day, just like the rest of this stinking shower! Why are you here? You're a foreigner, aren't you. You don't talk Russian that badly but you aren't one. I should know, I was born in St Petersburg."

Sveta carried on licking and then Alexia took over. Clementine debated as to whether she should confide in these two. There hardly seemed any reason not to.

"I upset a couple of people. I fell in love with this lovely darling girl in Paris and she was under the thumb of a big African woman a few years older than she was. I fought the black girl and won, so the other girl is mine now, not that it's much good to me stuck in this place." She suppressed a sob at the thought of Viola, so short a time hers. "I also took up with a man, who I quite fancied and it turned out he and the black girl were ex-lovers. I'm here because this guy arranged to get me arrested. He's got a lot of influence here. At least I think that's why I'm here. I can't think of any other explanation. The ostensible reason is that I climbed a national monument whilst totally nude. That was true enough - I did, but I didn't know I was going to be reported for it or that anyone apart from my boy-friend and betrayer was around."

"You mean he preferred a black woman to you! But you're so utterly gorgeous, even with the scar and the broken nose! How strange!"

"Don't be racist!" said the well brought up and politically correct Clemmy. "And she's very striking, our Rashumba. Tall and well built - massive body, but very delicate features. I fancied her myself until I fell so hopelessly in love with Viola, her sex slave. I would have done anything to win that darling for my own, and I don't regret it, even if I am going to spend twelve years in this ghastly place."

"I know there are Westerners with a lot of influence here. Mostly connected to organised crime. This whole place is run by the Mob. The rest of the world has no idea what goes on here." said Alexia.

"Aren't there foreign embassies here?" asked Clementine, relieved that the gentle warm moist application of tongue was soothing her back a little.

"No. Only consular representation and precious little of that. This is still officially part of Russia, but the local boss pays Moscow an annual subsidy and they leave us alone. It's been that way for ten years and likely to go on for ever."

"And you can forget about going home after the twelve years!" said Sveta, pausing a second or two in her ministrations. "If you fell foul of this guy and he's got things to hide, you'll never get out - at least, not alive. He won't want you letting people in the West know what's going on here. The best you can hope for is to become a guard when you've served your sentence, in the unlikely event you haven't perished in one of our winters long before then, but you'll never leave here, so forget good old England or wherever it is you come from. You've seen the last of that!"

"Are all the guards ex-prisoners?" Clementine had not considered this before.

"No. Just a few and we never see them. We are the damned in this cage and we only get the the attentions of the regular guards, and only the worst and most brutal of them. But we get fed well enough. They like to keep up our strength. We really get to work here, as you'll soon find out. Some strong men couldn't keep up with us!"

"What sort of work and when do we get fed. I'm ravenous?"

"There's a quarry where they get marble. Lovely stuff when it's all polished, but I have got to hate the sight of it after five years. You'll be hauling it into a truck to be transported to the factory or helping to cut it up. Back breaking work and you'll not like it with that sore back, but they'll have no pity. And if you fail to do your stint, there'll be more whipping for you, even on top of today's - they won't care. At least once a week some poor bitch gets it. And food is at six in the morning and eight in the evening. We sometimes get some at midday with our lunch time drink of warm foul tasting water that tastes like nectar you'll be so unbelievably thirsty. You just missed out tonight, I'm afraid and had to take your whipping on an empty stomach. You did pretty well to come through it like you did. I've never seen the like of it! You'll survive here, alright, but you won't like it. I've prayed to die a thousand times."

"What will happen when the quarry is worked out, I wonder?" Clementine was wondering if she might be able to get away from the work party. It must be possible. She remembered that marble box she had bought for Viola. No wonder James had smiled that funny smile when he saw it. Soon she would see marble unfinished and in the raw!

"This isn't the only prison in the country. The other place is nearer the mountains, and it's much bigger than this and all the men are there - plus a few women. There's a mine there and if you go there you'll spend time underground, But that's men's work and only a few women get sent there, although any of us in the cage could qualify - we're all easily tough enough."

Clementine pondered this. Maybe some of the miners would be ordinary workers and not criminals. If she could get to make contact, perhaps she might get a message out and get someone at home to help her. If the governments in the West knew what was happening they'd surely bring pressure to bear. Much as she dreaded the thought of being underground, she knew this might be the answer - in time. For the present she had to cope with getting accustomed to being a prisoner and slave and surviving among this bunch of ghastly savage women, of whom only Alexia and to a lesser extent Sveta seemed to be likeable. She thought Alexia very likeable already. She felt the throbbing in her back ease further as the two women licked away at her cuts. She noticed that Alexia was getting dangerously low down to an area that had escaped the lash altogether. Well! Get your pleasure where you can!

She moved her legs apart and soon felt a warm wet and delightfully agile tongue in her vagina. It felt good and she moaned slightly, not out of pain this time. Alexia continued licking, moaning herself, until Olga noticed what was happening and told her to stop. She wondered how many of the caged women got to lick Olga out. Well - she would never be one of them and it didn't matter how dreadfully she was punished. In ten days, as soon as she had healed and got her strength back, that woman's reign would be over. With this ambition in mind she slipped into an uneasy sleep in which she dreamed of Viola and woke up feeling as desolate as she could ever recall. Alexia was lying next to her and she must have sensed Clementine's anguish, because she kissed her on the lips and wished her good morning.

The morning meal was brought into cage by one of the ordinary, clothed prisoners whose clad state made Clemmy very envious. She was cold, despite her two companions and she knew much colder weather was not too far ahead. None of the cage inmates tried to approach the orderly and Clemmy saw why. The attendant guards had their guns at the ready. She and the others were incommunicado. She looked at the prisoner, but there was no response and the girl looked terrified to be in the same enclosure as these hardened and desperate women. Clemmy guessed she would be looking pretty rugged herself before too long. She certainly hoped so - how else was she to survive?