Chapter 6: Beth's Arrival

Beth was both relieved and scared. Relief had washed over her in the rickety railway carriage. To say that she was uncomfortable was an understatement. She felt better for every shaky mile they had covered. Each minute was one degree further away from the hellhole that was the State Penitentiary for Women. Having been brought up on Pionova, she was well aware that conditions would have been harsh there, but her reality had been ten times worse.

If she were asked she would convince you that she had been stuck on his uncomfortable wooden seat for the whole of the day, though, if pushed, all she would remember in detail would be the last couple of hours or so of the late afternoon when they had emerge from the tunnel the other side of the station of Lush.

In the railway carriage she had had a vague memory of being handcuffed to one of the slats on the seat by the wardress many hours ago. Though she was not near the window, as the late afternoon drew to a close and the misty rain covered the glass, she began to review the events over the previous seven months. She hoped that was behind her now, after the social worker had visited her at the youth custody unit. It was just before, at the age of twenty, she was about to be transferred to the terrifying prospect of 'the Forest'.

She supposed that it all started when she was enticed into the SUV, but the horror started the day she remembered recovering consciousness in the public ward of the National Clinic. Even in a semi-comatose state she had been repulsed by the bloody and smelly sheets, dirty backgrounds and grime that had surrounded her.

She had no recollection of being taken to the local hospital in her own town. THEY had erased those memories from her brain. Instead, many of the facts that she remembered were those that occurred to Bethany Granger in another world.

The true Bethany Granger's problems erupted at the age of ten, from the moment of the divorce of her parents, when she was left to her own devices as they settled into new families. Beth remembered many of those facts as she remembered being looked after by her old' sister in early twenties who begrudged both the presence of Bethany, and here on Pionova, resented looking after Beth. The memories of them both, Beth and Bethany were synchronised except, to this Beth, all the events occurred on this planet.

The events that destroyed her life occurred soon after her fifteenth birthday. Left to her own devices ever since the divorce, the troubled girl remembered being persuaded to get into the 'borrowed' SUV. She acknowledged that she had been the driver of the vehicle that killed the three, including David Herchman son of the local DA. Her memory was true and she recalled being cajoled to get behind the wheel by the cocaine-snorting sixteen-year-old. Oh yes, she had certainly crashed the vehicle seconds after the drug crazed youngster had lunged over towards her throwing his hands under her clothes.

Yes, she was guilty of the three deaths, it was she who had been accused of hot wiring the car, it was she who had been accused of drug dealing. Her parents had seen her, once announcing that it was a waste of money to hire a decent defender, after all, she was guilty, wasn't she?

She didn't know what had happened behind-the-scenes. She didn't know that David Herchman had three times been arrested in somebody else's car, nor that in every case the charges were dropped as it was proved that he had 'borrowed' the vehicle legally. Nor did she know that he had been arrested twice for drug-related incidents, but neither instance had resulted in a prosecution. Her defence lawyer discovered this, but bringing it up in the court was ruled 'inadmissible'. The D.A. had some good friends

The fact that David Herchman had a screwdriver in his jacket pocket on which were only his fingerprints and DNA, was irrelevant. It could have been proven that this was the item used to hotwire the vehicle. The screwdriver disappeared from the secure evidence room.

The DA himself, Herman Herchman, prosecuted the case and managed to gain every guilty verdict on almost all the charges, grand larceny theft, possession of drugs, dangerous driving, three counts of death by dangerous driving, driving without insurance, driving without a licence, driving under the age of sixteen. Even 'resisting arrest' was thrown in, though how anybody with a simple fracture of the ulna and complex fractures of both bones in the lower left arm could manage to resist arrest, would never be understood.

She was 'fortunate' because a juvenile the judge was not allowed to levy the full adult sentence. Even so, the sentencing made without any publicity, was contra to all state recommendations for a first offence of a juvenile, eighty-nine years without the right of parole. It just had no breath of reality to the girl.

One social worker, attached to the Children's Court, tried to examine the particulars of the conviction. One day after voicing her concerns, Mrs Wilkinson was transferred to the other end of the state.

For Beth, if the sentence wasn't bad enough, the reality occurred in the Juvenile Institute in which she was locked up until the age of sixteen. Her experiences there exactly mirrored what actually happened before regeneration.

It did not help that one of the occupants of the car who was killed was Julian Sargossi. His father ran a pizza and Italian café but it was his uncle who was far more business-like. It was he who had owned most of the food business, as well as a number of other legal and illegal enterprises. It was he, who's fingers extended into every dive, bar, club and whorehouse in the county and many beyond. His influence stretched right into every correctional facility in the state and there was a queue of inmates ready to do his bidding. It was this man who avowed to make the murderer of his favourite nephew suffer, and he had the means to do so. There is nothing more vicious than young teenage girls brought up in vice-ridden families without any of the social norms. Throw in a few hundred dollars put up by Sargossi and they regarded it as a licence to conduct their sociopathic excesses without fear or favour. In such circumstances they knew that if they were caught any official would be bribed, blackmailed or threatened to 'forget' what had happened.

Bethany's experiences in the juvenile Institute ended at the time of her death it in 2004. Beth remembered all those incidents as occurring to her on Pionova. She also had vague memories of attending the Youth Corrections Centre from the age of 16 to 20, something that Bethany never did.

Even in The Meadowland Juvenile Centre for Girls, murders have to be investigated. In 2004, one of the investigating officers was shocked at the evidence discovered by the pathologist, even a superficial examination of the body ascertained from the exterior; three broken fingers, one smashed toe with gangrene affecting the wound, a fractured nose, a puncture wound above the kidneys, superficial bruising throughout the upper body, and evidence of a violent and obscene anal rape. All proved that there was something seriously wrong in the system.

Once the autopsy got underway and the body cavity was opened up, it was discovered that death had been caused by a broken neck between vertebrae two and three. The kidneys had been pierced by a tiny implement that would have proved fatal within a short period of time. There was another broken implement that was lying some two millimetres away from the heart but the puncture wound had not been immediately visible from the exterior. This could have proved fatal at any time. Her anal cavity had been completely filled with an alkali cleaning solution. This was of the type used to nullify any DNA samples. It is unlikely that it would have occurred before death because there was no evidence of the agony throes that would have accompanied its injection.

Beth had no knowledge of this. All she could remember was collapsing in pain as she was held down by three skaggs after one of the male warders had anally raped her. The young vicious girls restraining her, then went on to introduce some tool from one of the workshops into her bottom shoving it in hard and twisting it around. They had not carried this out for the money that they would be paid, but for the sheer perverted pleasure that it gave them. The pathologist added to his report that the effects of this anal rape alone would probably have resulted in an infection that, even with the most powerful antibiotics, could have proved impossible to counter. Even if the treatment were successful, the girl, if she had lived, would be wearing a colostomy bag for the rest of her life.

Beth, ignorant of these facts, was only aware of what THEY had fed her. As far as she was concerned she last remembered the agony of being attacked by a rectangular piece of metal shoved right up inside her.

Up to this time THEY had simply transferred her memories from her real childhood to Pionova. She had no recollection of the pre-death conversation with an alien. Only after that discussion and agreement did THEY introduce a series of events that were only vaguely remembered. Why did they do this?

It was simply to comply with the rule that all labourers and prostitutes should arrive in Pionova having achieved the age of twenty. In Beth's case, logic had to fill in the gaps of the four missing years. That was why she was a hundred per cent convinced that after the anal rape she had come to her senses in a sickbay managed by the Corrections Department.

Subsequently she had a vague idea that she had been transferred to the youth corrections facility where the abuses continued for the next four years. Coming up to the age of twenty she had dreaded being moved to the main Pionovian adult maximum security Corrections Centre, known as 'The Forest' from which she expected never to emerge except feet first.

She never knew that in the juvenile facility in fact, and on Pionova, the only reason that she had not been vagina assaulted was that her cherry was being saved for Gorilla Sargossi inmate of the forest. Every one of her assailants and guards had known that to defy The Gorilla would cause them to be a victim.

Beth had a bittersweet feeling as she reviewed all she could remember of the abuses she had suffered wanting, to get them out of her system, pleading that it was true that she was drawing further and further away from Sargossi and the influence of David's father.

Beth remembered the visit of the kind social worker offering a way out. It was somewhere in her induced memory that she had a recollection that some of the worst jobs on the frontier were offered to selected criminals. She was not so unintelligent that she couldn't understand the consequences of being sent there, where, she understood, she would have to entertain men.

Now, on the train, she looked at the other four convicts whose services had been purchased by various working houses. She shivered at the idea of what she would have to do. Would it involve full sex? In neither her original life, of which she had no memory, nor the memories induced into her brain, had she any recollection of any voluntary sex act, certainly not vaginal sex.

She wanted to forget, but couldn't get rid of the hateful feeling of the groping and mauling of her breasts by male guards and by female inmates alike. At first she had hated it so much she was violently sick. Later, she tried to steel herself to ignore the grasping, pinching and squeezing, about which, she had been unable to do anything. She tried to switch off her mind to what was happening to her body. Could she do the same as a prostitute?

Again, she shivered at the idea that she might be expected to accept such unpleasant probing and twisting and mauling with hands over all parts of her body and legs. Each time the train was brought to a jerking halt she tensed up. At the first station a middle-aged woman clambered into the carriage to unlock the nearest handcuff.

"Strip off," she ordered the female twenty-year-old nearest the door. That prisoner scrabbled to get out of the muddy and besmirched short prison dress, scared that she would be beaten if she wasn't fast enough.

"Put that on." The older woman ordered her brusquely. Surreptitiously Beth looked behind her to see she was now attired in what was regarded as accepted to clothing of the Frontier women, black wear, covered with a threadbare and grey pinafore.

As the train progressed through the closing of the day, Beth wanted to regain her memory so that she could bid goodbye to all the abuses she had suffered. Strangely, few recent events could be recalled, and that only in a murky and blurred series of images. Logic dictated that she must have suffered a mental breakdown to help of the last four years in a mental institution, or locked away in a padded cell?

She felt that her whole body was strange, she was certainly a couple of inches taller. She was slimmer, her adolescent puppy fat, she knew, had been stripped away as she had been denied much food in her first six months incarceration. That which had arrived on her plate, had been regarded as a gift for the 'skaggs'. It had been more than her life was worth to remonstrate at the persistent thefts. She placed one of her hands under the short and torn cotton prison dress. Her thighs were slim and revealed none of blemishes and spots and pimples caused by a bad diet and lack of medical care. Her breasts were heavier than she had remembered. She searched with her fingers for the large proboscis, at which other children had laughed. Surprisingly, that had reduced in size. Of course that could not be so. Her face had undoubtedly matured and grown. Everything that was new, made sense to her. THEY had seen to that.

In some ways her body felt comfortably hers. In other ways, she didn't feel quite right. An induced memory made her look at her hand where the broken fingers must have had some medical attention during her mental illness, when she had withdrawn from reality.

Dusk fell quickly with thin sheets and droplets of rain chasing each other as they were swept diagonally across the window. The journey for the last hour had been less speedy but more uncomfortable, passing through less flat countryside. Moving at a slower speed their carriage, the last one, banged against the rest of the train and jerked backwards and forwards threatening to jerk her from the seat. She held on dearly so the chafing chain around her wrist was not the only thing holding her from sliding away.

With more jerking and final bumps, the carriage, at last, rolled to a halt with one concluding clanking collision into the back of the preceding wagon.

Noise and bustle obviously outside was heard. Flashes of a lantern could be seen, but the activity itself was out of her line of vision. A uniformed railwayman appeared at the door after clambering up, "Stay in your seats, Hartglade in twenty minutes." It meant nothing to Beth. She wished she could converse with either of the other two, chained into different seats. The rules all convicts understood was to keep their mouths shut. Experience told her that the moment one of them spoke a vindictive warder would appear and t would identify the culprit, beat her and she should be taken away.

That was one desperate fear she wanted to avoid, that she should be taken away and be returned to certain pain and probable death.

The trouble was, the silence allowed her to do nothing else but think. She reconsidered the horrors of being a whore for the next twenty years. She almost wanted to renege on her decision. Common sense forced her to face her fears head-on. What was twenty years against the life in the adult penitentiary with abuse, beatings, rapes and probably a painful and early demise? The choice was clear-cut.

By now, THEIR suggestions had been accepted and Beth acknowledged that she still had a debt to pay to society for the killings. She had to approach the labours set for her, no matter how unpleasant, in the manner of the penance and show no resentment. She has slaughtered three others. But she was alive and it made sense that they could never allow her to get away scot-free. She believed that it was the do-gooder who had persuaded her to take on board her contrition and reparation. For a few seconds, she shivered violently in concluding that she was to do her best as a whore. Her whole body quivered again at the very idea.

She was disturbed from her deliberations by a further clanking of chains. The carriage started with a little jerk. She, and the other passengers, held on tightly. There was no need. She felt the "Clang, clang, clang" of the iron wheels turning slowly but unaccompanied by sounds of a locomotive. They proceeded at little more than a walking pace. Without changing speed the sound of the wheels on the rails was different, an echoey sound more like a rumbling over something empty, took over.

In the distance, ahead of them, she heard the inimitable sound of the locomotive restarting as more important carriages were attached and it proceeded slowly into the station of Hartglade.

Nothing made sense. Had they been deserted by the locomotive, had they been forgotten? Yet the carriage still progressed as if pulled by thin air. The very slow and steady speed was eerie in its silence. She could see nothing of the shire horse towing them along.

For another twenty minutes, with only the rumble of an oil-less axle complaining with piercing squeaks and the sound of iron wheels turning on metal tracks, they rumbled eerily along until she saw the glow of oil lamps as a station drew level with their window.

She heard the station man shouting, "Hartglade, Hartglade, the train departs again in seven minutes. Local stew is available at the vendor's kiosk. Take your own utensils. Six minutes only!" Such things like that meant nothing to Beth. The very idea of food made her plans salivate but she knew such luxuries were not for the likes of the occupants of this carriage.

The door was unlocked and she was scared to turn round and observe but understood that more than one was standing in the aisle behind her. A middle-aged woman, attired in a similar fashion to the one who had boarded the train earlier passed Beth. She paused to stare in her face, nodded welcomingly but passed on down the carriage. She passed out what was in one hand. The smell of steaming vegetables and meat made Beth salivate as the woman called out to a uniformed rail man, "Hurry up, give out the other food."

It was too much to hope for. That thought of Beth's was confirmed as she heard, "No don't waste any on that girl, just the far two."

Things didn't look as though they were going to change. as she muttered under her breath, "Lucky buggers! They've dropped lucky." She was glad for them rather than harbouring resentment.

The woman approached her, no stew! "It's Bethany, isn't it?" Her face was examined with care to compare it with some image held in memory,

"Yes, Miss, convict number 503 ... stroke ... F ... stroke... 6 ... stroke... 01," she responded quickly and accurately and clearly. She knew the penalties otherwise.

The woman smiled. Beth was scared of the smile. She leaned down and Beth recoiled a little. "Move your wrist around, let me unlock this."

"Yes, Miss. Sorry, Miss."

"And stop calling me Miss, you'll be addressing me as either 'Ma'am' or 'Madame', 'Madame Grenouille' if you really want."

Some half-forgotten French language lesson flipped into her mind, grenouille? What did that mean? She could not linger in the daydreams to which she often escaped. To do so at this time might cause her to lack concentration in the here and now. That would result in terrible consequences. She knew that by her own experience. She ensured she would be attentive to this new prison guard.

Her wrist was unlocked and the woman leaned lower nearer her ear. "Now, My Dear, by the door I've dropped a pile of clothing. Outside in the town, you'll be seen in nothing but black with a pinafore apron around you. Take those rags off and put on the acceptable garb. We are all required to wear them in the City of Hartglade."

"Yes, Miss." Beth couldn't get out of the habit. She was about to move when she felt some fingers on her forearm restraining her. "Before you do that, I'm just going to ask you, you know why you're here? You'll be working in a brothel. You can do that? You do know what brothel workers do?" The woman bit on one nail and then she said, "You are brought here to look after men. And, just so we're clear about it, you must be good to them. I want you to be in no doubt, they'll be putting their todgers up your pussy. Can you take that? If you can't I'll have to put you on the next train back south."

The lips quivered, "I'll try, Miss."

"You stop calling me, ' Miss', for a start. I've told you, it's Ma'am. Now go, get yourself changed and we'll get you off home."

"Before you go, my new little girl, you're here to serve your sentence. The only thing is that no one knows that some of the whores in our little stable have a history. I've just glanced at yours. That history will not be brought up once you're in our House. Never talk about killing those three to any of the other girls or a punter, unless you want to be on the next train back. My House has a fine reputation, and I wanted to keep it so. This is in your best interests, you've come to work in with me because you like the idea of the easy money, you've always wanted to visit the Frontier. You can make up whatever rubbish you like. In no circumstances do you let on you're a druggie, thief, and responsible for the deaths of three others."

"No, Ma'am," she said immediately complying with an authoritarian demand. Tears were in her eyes.

"You're crying, why?"

She had to be crying for a reason. That reason was because her whole emotions were topsy turvy. The real cause was that Beth was being treated in a considerate manner, but this didn't occur to her. If she was crying she was obviously upset. She said the first thing that came to her head, it made sense, "I'm a whore!" she burst into a full flooded weep, with a flow running down her cheeks.

"Hush child," Madame encompassed her shoulders in her arm, "She was going to say that most people held the whores in respect, "You're a Woman Helper Of Regenerated Earthmen," she was about to elucidate. In reality all she got out was, "You're a Woman Helper Of Regular somethings..." letting the last bit peter out in a muttered mumble. She'd never done that before, almost disclosed anything about regeneration to her girls and she'd better not start now.

She had to take up the previous point that had been made.

The woman addressed her again, "This is in your interests too. You can start here with a clean sheet. After you have served your sentence, I shall discharge you as a Freedwoman. With the earnings you make over and above what you owe me, you will be well set up and be able to leave with no one knowing your past."

She was about to walk away and then turned back. "I've not said this before, but, but there is none other who will be entitled to know your history here, except one man, a part owner in the House. He'll be your nominal Guardian, so he will treat that secret confidentially. While I'm on the topic of Mr Charles, be sure to treat him with respect."

"He'll tell everyone I..."

"No he won't say a word," she hesitated, "because he is an honourable man."

That was joke, an honourable man, running a whorehouse!

Madame saw she was not convincing enough, so she offered the straight forward reason the girl could understand, it was the common sense argument, "It is not in his interests to advertise that fact that there are criminals in our House. No, you can be sure he'll say nothing."

Madame Grenouille stood back to survey the new arrival, "Now fasten your bonnet."

This country wear is old-fashioned, she thought, as she learned how to tie the ribbons with a little bow under her chin. She felt such a fool wearing the whole uniform as if she were a young child in kindergarten dressed up to perform in a nativity scene.

"You won't forget what I said will you?"

"No, Ma'am," she responded. Beth was surprised because she sensed no hatred or vitriol from this woman, not like the warders or even nurses who had ordered her around. Yet she did sense an aura of power and authority.

She was instructed, "Follow me. Act with decorum. Remember, this is a reputable town and my ladies, particularly, always conduct ourselves with dignity here."

She listened carefully and followed Madame, taking short steps in the long unaccustomed skirts. She remembered to keep her head bowed and not to look around. Once, Madame stopped to survey a group of men, they must be Frontiersmen, on the opposite sidewalk. Beth was aware of little more than the lower part of buildings, illuminated with splotches of light over their lower walls. These emanated from the flickering oil lamps set on seven foot posts. With Beth's eyes lowered she found herself standing by a piece of litter.

It scared her. Yes, she was panicked by of a scrap of paper. Any guard or wardress would accuse her of having dropped it because she was the nearest. It crossed her mind, Madame was entitled to believe that she had thrown it away, rather than be found with a compromising note in her possession. Discreetly, she leaned forward as if to adjust her boot and within half a second it was crumpled in her hand. She let a sigh of relief escape her throat and that attracted Madam's attention, or rather served to distract it from the group over the road.

They went on their way.

Turning down beside a rather grand building, Madame led them through a gated fence behind the edifice, then she crossed a paved area and mounted some steps to enter the rear of the building.

Beth awaited the lighting of some candles before she was summoned through the door, but was surprised that an illumination by gas lit up the whole room clearly. That phenomenon, she had only heard of before, never seen. Passing through what were the private quarters of Madame, they entered another official looking room where the girl was settled down.

Madame disappeared, giving Beth the opportunity to drop the litter in the bin. She would have dropped it in, but rather than a scrunched up ball that dived into the receptacle, the paper opened out and was wafting its way gently to the floor on the return of Madame Grenouille

"What's that?" Madame didn't immediately beat her, but appeared uninterested in the occurrence, absent-mindedly picked up the scrap of litter to drop it in the cane basket herself. Madame took another look at the paper, "And where did you say you got this?" only she was not as absorbed by the response as expected but was intrigued by the contents of the note.

Later, Beth was to note that the basket was still empty. The incident was momentarily captivating but was soon forgotten, as a young woman brought in a delicious meal of poached trout in a peculiar but delicious sauce, sautéed potatoes and green beans with a side bowl of salad. As Beth worked her way through this in shock, she had to be told, "You may be hungry but we expect all the girls here to eat delicately, be it on your own or in company."

She forgot the incident of the litter completely.

"This is my outer office. There" Madame looked over at a wide polished wooden door as she slipped out of the office, "That is the one room you NEVER go in."

Beth shivered with fear. What was behind that door? Madame returned with a little extra sauce and carried on talking, "That is the Partners' Private Office."

The partners, she must mean, THAT man. Unbeknown to Madame, Beth was trembling. "The partners?"

"One thing I am going to be strict about is that my girls know I have a partner but that information is just for you. As far as the punters are concerned, I'm the madam of the House, and you know no more about the ownership than that." The womaen giggled quietly to herself, "And I have no objection, if they are led to believe I am only a manager."

Beth tried to eat slowly, trying to take everything in. It was ALL so new to her. Taking time between each mouthful, she would glance around nervously lest somebody else come and take what was on her plate. Madam was clearly used to the phenomena and pointed out that nobody would take food from her and that she would be fed well, and regularly, within the House.

After replacing the knife and fork, she pushed the plates to one side, she was more than attentive as Madame took a more carefree attitude, "Welcome to the Social Club of Hartglade. This is going to be your home for some considerable time. It's up to you to make the most of your time here. Yes..." she held up her hand, "All the new girls ask me when they have to start work. All I will tell you is, there is no hurry. You will to be trained in your duties as a whore."

Beth jumped at the words, 'a whore'.

"Oh, I want you to be under no misapprehension here, that is what we do. That is what I did for many years. And this is what you are, 'a whore'. Get used to it. Accept the fact that that is your job. The sooner you know that inside here," Madame tapped her chest, "the easier it will be." She lowered her voice, "You do have a debt to repay to society. Best make the most of it and act sensibly and do your best."