At 9 a. m., I was standing in the entrance hall, teareyed from the daylight, with mr Trent on one side and mr Davies on the other, the latter carrying a plastic bag containing my books, toothbrush and collection of papers. It was foggy and drizzling outside and the ground was strewn with dead and dying leaves. In a month it would be Christmas Day. My hair was still damp from the shower, wetting through the shirt and tee on my back, making me shudder with cold now and then. My hands were cuffed behind me but I was rid of rubbers and woolies for ever, helleluiah, and the only thing I wished for in life right now was getting out of there.
I heard the footsteps and some talking before the Step Two-screws came in view, and there was a tingling in my guts from anticipation. I almost smiled at them. When they opened the glass door I lowered my head, heart bouncing lightly with relief in its rib cage. I´d made out one screw as mr Richards, the other I heard mr Trent addressing as mr Donovan and remembered having seen him around some time before, probably at a whipping since that was the only social activity I´d participated in these past two months.
"Well , good luck then, Jennings", mr Trent said. "Stay out of trouble."
"I will, sir. Thank you, sir", I said. Mr Davies just patted me lightly on the shoulder, and mr Donovan got a grip on my left arm and ushered me out of the building, never to return, I sincerely hoped.
The Step Two building had a glass entrance similar to the other, but the door was blue instead of red and there were carpets running the lengths of the corridors to the left and right. We went right, past a big light blue painted day room, nicely furnished with a couple of sofas, three dinner tables and a telly. I liked the smell in here, an ordinary, warm odour of inhabitation. Where the corridor turned left were three doors with signs that read Office, and a fourth had WC on it. Mr Richards knocked on the door with mr Jackson´s name below the sign, and then we entered. It was an ordinary office, three visitor´s chairs and a small table to the left, crammed bookcases, a couple of file cabinets, a big desk with papers and files and stuff all over it. There were a lot of green potted plants on the widow sills and also some dark wooden sculptures in different sizes, looking like ethnic artwork. On the wall were a couple of framed posters, one with a cool guy riding a star spangled banner painted chopper, another with a yellow hot rod, from American Graffitti, I think, I saw it on video a couple of years ago and it was pretty cool for an old movie.
Mr Jackson was at the window with his back to us, apparently studying something happening outside. I was brought to the desk and kneeled automatically.
"Finally here, Jennings", mr Jackson said, still looking out the window. "This will be your home address for at least the next twelve months. From now on, you´re a Deuce, and you´re expected to act like one. That means being obedient, polite, honest and hard working." He turned and walked around the desk, seating himself on the edge of it, towering over me. I kept my head slightly bowed and swallowed hard, my throat a bit tight. I felt uneasy with him that close. "Mr Richards will show you around later and get you installed. After lunch you have an appointment with mrs Lee, she´ll check your education level and make a study plan for you. There´s a schedule for the week in your room, all activities are compulsory and not negotiable. You´ll also find a list of rules there. These first two months you´ll be submitted to rules similar to those on Step One. If you behave well, they´re gradually eased. Bad behaviour will be punished by whipping, like you´re used to. You´ll spend your time here on studies, exercise and social training, and you´re expected to perform at your best at all times. All clear this far, Jennings?"
All clear, sir", I said, and inside my head the inner me automatically added you _f_u_c_k_ing rapist in big black letters.
"We use the points system here. Your behaviour and performances are evaluated on a 0 to 5 scale every day, good and bad. By the end of the week your good points should exceed your bad points. The difference between them are your points of the week and will be deposited into your account, or withdrawn from it. Eventually you´ll be allowed to trade in your achieved points for different activities, like games or TV or PC time or music. On Step One, your papers say you used your points to read books. You don´t have to here. We have a small library and you´re allowed to read as much as you have the time to. You can also order books from the city library."
Compared to Step One, this place seemed allright from the sound of it. Still, I could feel defiance stirring inside. Someone else decided what I should and should not do, and nobody would ask for my opinion. Like dog training. Do as you´re told, or we´ll whip your ass. From fear of the whip I´d submit to be treated like a dirtbag and despise myself for doing it. Rebelling would be stupid and pointless. I repeated to myself that the only way to handle this was to play along and wait for opportunity to knock on my door.
Like if my thoughts appeared in a big balloon above my head, mr Jackson continued:
"After your 8 weeks of isolation, being transferred here may trigger thoughts of absconding. Don´t even think about it. If you try, you´ll regret it. I say try, because in the 6 year history of Crowmill, every single runaway has been brought back here and has had to face the consequences. That will happen to you, too."
"Yes, sir", I said, thinking we´ll see about that, there´s always a first time.
"Any questions this far, Jennings?"
"No, sir."
"On your feet then." He nodded to mr Richards.
I was freed from the cuffs and escorted out of the room. Mr Richards took me on a roundtrip and I behaved like a trained monkey, kneeling when I had something to say, sir-ing him to the ceiling, being attentive and very cooperatve. I noticed that the windows would open if they were unlocked, that there was no motion detection alarm or cameras and that the same key was used on all locks, and other useful stuff. The front door was locked all the time and at night also the doors between the entrance hall and the resident area, which was the left corridor. The rooms were locked at night, too. Getting out would be a daytime business unless I came by a key. Anyway, I was a bit impressed. The rooms – and I was supposed to say room, not cell - were nice, an ordinary window, real spring mattress beds, everything looking fresh and well cared for. I could put posters and stuff on the wall, provided they were in a frame and were approved of. I didn´t ask where I´d get hold of any. The library was quite extensive (and no locks on the windows, either), there was a well equipped gym and a shower room without a _f_u_c_k_ing whipping frame. I was told I´d be supervised in the shower room, but I´d wash and dry myself and also wipe my ass, god bless´em. Still had to sit down on the loo, though, for some stupid and obscure reason, I didn´t ask because I didn´t want to know. No body shaves anymore. I was allowed to shave my face three times a week and to take a shower every day, twice if I wanted to, because there was a lot of exercise on the schedule and I was supposed to keep a good personal care. Mr Richards took me across the yard to the supply depot and I got jogging shoes, indoor training shoes, a track suit and shorts (yeah, grey stripes on them, too). He told me we´d run 5 miles every morning before breakfast. OK with me, I was a good runner. Then he took me back and locked me into my room, saying I could use the time before lunch to try out the clothes and read the info papers.
First, I went through the wardrobe. Grey stripes still were on, but there were two grey woolen sweaters, a warm jacket (hey, guess the colour!) and heavy boots, too. I´d probably spend some time outdoors, then. Everything fitted allright. Then I read the papers. No surprises. I still had to kneel and wasn´t allowed to look the screws in the eye or speak unless spoken to. At meals and one hour in the evening I could talk with the other apprentices, provided there was a screw present, otherwise it wasn´t OK. Lockup at 8 pm and getup at 6 am, weekends 9 pm and 7 am. School from 8 to 3 with a lunch break at 11.30, then PT between 3.30 and 5.30 and dinner at 6. Weekends were a blank except for the meals, but the papers said that they´d be planned weekly. On Friday afternoon, school was out at 1 o´clock. At 2, the schedule said Conference and reflection, and at 3, Correction. I supposed that meant having your ass thrashed on account of the past week´s deeds. Nice rounding off the working week with some good oldfashioned S&M.
I met the other guys at lunch. There were 11 of us at the time and I knew 2 of them, Bear, a guy from my hometown, and Chas, who´d been at the same reform school as me once upon a time. Chas didn´t recognize me, but Bear did. We weren´t actually buddies but we´d met a couple of times and he always had good stuff and was a decent bloke. Then there were Dazzle, a tall, dark, lean guy with something mischievous about him, I liked him right off; Stitch, squarish and blond, showing a lot of front teeth, Cappy, a Polish bloke, in for drugs, he told me without me asking or anything; JD, black guy, friendly eyes; Jordan, no nickname, quiet and sad like; Sprite, a thirteen month veteran, getting transferred to Step Three any time; Robbie, face like a rat, you wouldn´t even trust him to take out the garbage; Unix, goodlooking s. o.b. with an attitude, and finally Hammond, who´d arrived last week. He seemed a bit stupid, talking too much, smiling all the time. All of them introduced themselves with both Christian names and nicks, but I didn´t, because I wasn´t TJ in here, he belonged to the outside world. Bear asked, but I said I dropped it long ago. Anyway, Jordan and Hammond went by their surnames, too. The Crowmill idea, as mr Richards explained to me, was that if you were going to change your life, you had to start working off your criminal identity, and your nick was your criminal self. By going through change both as Bear and Ronald Halliwell, all the different sides of your personality would be included. I thought it sounded a bit muddled, but so _f_u_c_k_ing what, everybody´s happy in his own way and I intended to keep TJ out of this, anyway. I´d used it in my first papers but nobody would remember by now.
We had lunch – shepherd´s pie and salad - and all screws on duty ate with us, and even though you couldn´t speak freely with them around we talked about all sorts of things, even laughing a bit, and to me, it was like an unexpected trip to the funfair. I listened mostly, trying to get the hang of the other guys, sizing them up a bit. Chas, Unix and Sprite were at my table, and mr Richards. Chas was the only one showing some interest in me, asking me all kind of stuff like how long I was on Step One (he did 6 weeks and told me Dazzle did 13 and Hammond 4) and what I was in for (I said burglary, and he said he was, too). Unix´s ears were like satellite dishes, but he pretended not to pay any attention to me, small talking with Sprite, who appeared to be a Crowmill top product, even looking like one, hair neat and short cut, immaculate table manners, boring as hell. Maybe he was a bore when he got here, too. Maybe he was in for boring people black and blue. I didn´t like Unix. He seemed to be the kind of asshole that won´t hesitate to sell you out if there´s something in it for himself. I always trust my first impressions and I´ve seldom been proven wrong. Chas seemed allright, though, and except for Unix, Robbie and maybe Hammond the Moron the rest did, too.
I was eager to find out if Chas or the others knew anything about getting out of here, and if anyone had made it for real. I didn´t believe mr Jackson´s b. s. They always tell you stuff like that, to appear like real wise guys. When I arrived at reform school, they told me the same _s_h_i_t_ and also that there were no drugs around and that most of the guys did well afterwards, well none out of three wasn´t that bad for those clowns. Crowmill was about a thousand times tougher than that place, but only as long as you stayed here. If you got out, that was the end of their power. Of course they could track you down and bring you back in, but what if they couldn´t find you and time just went on and on? I mean, what if they did find you and you were like 25 yo, they couldn´t drag you in here then, could they?
Right in the middle of it all there was a dead silence at the table beside us, and mr Donovan said: "That´s the corner for you, Cappy, ten minutes", and Cappy got up with a flushed face and went over to stand with his face to the wall and hands on his back in the corner beside the sofa. I looked at Chas and he shrugged, and mr Richards asked me if I had any question about something, but I just stared down at my plate and said no, sir. Then he told me I´d better shut up from now on and finish my meal so the others didn´t have to wait for me.
After lunch, Unix was on house duty and stayed behind to clear the tables and stuff, and the others went to school and mr Richards brought me to see mrs Lee. She was a tall flabby lady in a tailored tweed suit, opening every sentence with a right or even right, Jennings, and she made me fill out about 599 different tests and forms, ranging from information about my former training to advanced maths. I had a short break around 3, maybe ten minutes, and I had to use them to take a leak – she went along which was very embarrassing – otherwise I worked my ass off until a quarter to 6, and my head was spinning for the rest of the evening. The other guys played basketball after school. I wished I had, too, but at the same time I was kind of impatient to get about studying. I figured it would be useful, even if I´d only stay for another couple of weeks.
I was on full schedule as from Tuesday morning. I did fairly well running considering I´d been locked up for about the past three months and still was a bit stiff and bruised, 41.08, and I knew I´d easily top that. At school I was annoyed to be presented with mostly basic stuff, but I shut up and did what I was told to. There were two classrooms – one for the guys that had done six months plus - and four teachers, and one screw in each room, and at dinner Dazzle told me you could get caned on the spot in there, the screws carrying it out, and then you got bad points for it, too, getting punished twice for the same thing. After dinner I kept close to Dazzle and when no attention was on us I asked him under my breath about getting out, and he just looked at me and whispered don´t, you´ll regret it, and I thought that maybe he wasn´t that cool anyway, maybe he´d been brainwashed like Sprite, only he tried to let on he hadn´t.
That first week, I mostly hung around with Bear and Dazzle when I had the opportunity, sometimes with JD and Chas, too, but they were a bit too serious for my taste, both of them past half time and aiming to move to Step Three in the spring. As for Dazzle, there were some puzzling things about him, like he said he had his transfer in April, but he was still in my classroom, so he had to be lying. Or maybe he´d had extended time for some reason. I didn´t get around asking him about it that week, but I learned that he´d also got special attention from mr Jackson while on Step One and that made him kind of a brother even if he´d turn out to be a mythomaniac. I wondered if he´d been raped, too, but you can´t go around asking a guy these kinds of things, he might turn on you and beat your brains out, no matter if he´d actually been raped or not.
My attention this first week was mainly on trying to figure the other guys out. Bear and Dazzle were like me, well adapted but still wanting to kick ass deep within. JD and Chas were Crowmill sheep and Cappy a wannabe, not being too successful, screwing up all the time. As for Jordan, that guy was a head case, he even was on medication and went to see a shrink twice a week, being excused from all CP while he did, not that he made any fuss about anything but on and off he had anxiety attacks and his door was never locked at night because he was claustrophobic. A real menace to society. Chas said he might be kicked out if he didn´t improve, the lucky bastard. Then there were Unix and Robbie. I made out Robbie as a butt kisser and slimeglob right away. Nobody liked him. Bear said he´d _f_u_c_k_ed a corpse and Chas said he was in for rape, but I didn´t take much notice until I´d had it confirmed, seemed a bit too good to be true and these s. o.b.´s always have all kinds of rumours about them. Unix was allright in some ways, at PT he always tried to pep the less athletic ones like Cappy and he could be funny as hell, telling jokes and stuff, but he also could be downright sadistic when he wanted to. I instinctively avoided getting in his way, but we talked at meals by the end of the week, taking each other´s measure, both of us being cagey as hell.
I wondered a bit about not getting any offers, I mean like for drugs or pills or fags or booze and stuff. At reform school, you barely got inside the front door before they started pulling you around the corner, selling or buying or just being curious. You also had to prove you were tough enough to be let alone and to make your own choices. I was a small skinny guy back then, my looks didn´t exactly scare anybody, and I had to fight like mad to get some respect, but I finally did and made useful friends, too. I knew my present appearance wasn´t too bad, not that people backed off with awe and the pianist stopped playing when I entered a room, but nobody attacked me right away, either. Jenni said I made people feel insecure, keeping my guard up all the time, letting on I was a mean s. o.b. She was no _f_u_c_k_ing psychologist and I didn´t recognize the mean s. o.b. stuff, but I wasn´t unhappy about the way I affected others. 8 weeks on Step One apparently hadn´t changed that.
My first Friday afternoon we were gathered in the day room, mr Donovan holding a thick black file, mr Jackson, mr Ackroyd and mr Benstead standing by. Mr Donovan went through the week with each one of us, good and bad behaviour, special events, PT results, school achievements and stuff. Then we had our figures of the week and an improvement list for the week to come. My figures were beautiful, not one single bad point, but then I was told that the first week didn´t count, which made me furious and disappointed, all that energy wasted on _f_u_c_k_all. My improvement list had one item on it, bearing mr Jackson´s signature: Relax and stop faking it. The other guys seemed to think that was the joke of the day, even Bear, and them laughing made me even madder. Then Bear caught my black eye and smiled and said Good work, Jenny! – the Jenny stuff was an old joke due to my long hair - in a funny school master voice, and I couldn´t help smiling a bit, too, thinking what the _f_u_c_k_, we´re all in it together. All the guys had a positive balance and all except me could chose two weekend activities, like playing cards or watching a video, and all of them did. Jennings had a long _f_u_c_k_ing empty weekend ahead of him, apparently, but then I remembered the library and again things weren´t that bad.
Then mr Donovan got down to corrections, and the room went silent, the air thick with apprehension and awe. All (except Jordan, who maybe would have been better off with some real life horror than hanging around with the ghouls inside his head), even Sprite, had it coming for various reasons. Cappy had 34 lashes for underachieving at PT, bad language, disorderliness and a couple of other capital crimes, and fervently chewed his upper lip trying to keep a brave face. He was the worst of the lot, Sprite closing the list with 5 lashes for being late to school. As the punishments were imposed on us mr Donovan also named two witnesses for each guy, and I was mentioned, too, me and Stich being the ones for Unix. Mr Donovan explained to me that we were to be present when the punishment was carried out. I didn´t like the idea at all and couldn´t figure out what benefit we´d get from watching each other being whipped. I noticed Unix looking at me in a weird way, but as I was as innocent as a wooly white lamb I just glanced back and then focused on the screws. They took turns in going off two at a time with one victim and two witnesses, and in the dead stillness they left behind we heard the distant sounds of the whip at work and sometimes the muffled voices of pain, too. No shower room preps here, apparently. No nurse, either. Well, we´d all survived Step One and were kind of immortal. Unix was the fifth to go. Mr Benstead led us past the offices and left down the corridor, and further down was an open door. I had an uneasy feeling in my guts at the sight of it, because in spite of my intentions, next Friday I´d probably be the one walking in front of my witnesses to get my ass thrashed and I dreaded it already. We got into a fairly small room, a whipping frame in the centre of it, looking like the other ones, maybe they had a quantity discount at Ye Olde Payne Shoppe. Mr Jackson left the door open behind us, telling me and Stitch to stand by the right wall. He ordered Unix to undress and kneel in front of the ! frame, which he did, and then he read the reasons of the 24 out to him one more time, asking if he had any objections. Of course he hadn´t. While they were chatting, mr Benstead was busy trying out the whip, different from the one used on Step One because this had like a handle and the rest was just a bunch of thin cords. Mr Benstead let it whistle through the air a couple of times, and then painstakingly checked the cords one by one. I noticed sweat beads on Unix´s upper lip. My heart was pounding heavily, like I was the one getting it. Then Unix was told to mount the frame and mr Jackson strapped him down. Unix´s bottom was no worse than the rest, we were all scarred and striped in rainbow colours, Jordan at the moment being the only one without recent marks and Dazzle the worst of the lot, striped from shoulders down. I´d seen most of them in the shower room. I noticed Unix tensing and relaxing his ass slightly, like I used to do during the long, dreadful minutes of waiting. He had an athlete´s butt, well rounded and muscular, and powerful legs to go with it, spending all his spare time grunting and farting in the gym. Beside me, Stitch was constantly weighing on his feet from side to side and I gave him a quick nudge to make him stop beacuse it was _f_u_c_k_ing annoying.
Mr Jackson positioned himself at the head of the frame and mr Benstead sought out the right angle, aiming carefully. Then Unix was asked if he was ready, and there was only one approved answer to that, and time froze for a brief eternity before the punishment began. I felt very weird watching. I was terrified but there was something else to it, too, something I didn´t dare to acknowledge. Unix started flinching and squirming quite fast and his voice got thicker all the time. By the tenth lash he was groaning. I watched his perfect ass getting covered with flaming red stripes, the colour deepening with each lash, his skin breaking first on the back of his thighs, causing him to gasp and sob and then to cry out at impact, and heat was spreading through my body, flushing my face, much to my shame and surprise causing a throbbing, familiar sensation down under. I wanted to get the hell out of there and I wanted to stay forever. I had to be crazy, feeling like this. In desperation I threw a glance at Stitch. His face was flushed, too, eyes glossy, mouth open, and he´d started fidgeting again, bouncing his back against the wall. I quickly lowered my head, rubbing my forehead and eyes frantically with my right hand, trying to break the evil spell, but I still could hear Unix sob out his thank you, sir and very hesitatingly call the next number, his voice breaking with pain, and the whole scene sent something like electric currents running through my body. My dick grew harder all the time and my heart was hammering like I´d run the _f_u_c_k_ing 5 miles in ten minutes. I could never look Unix in the eye again after this. I was nothing but a _f_u_c_k_ing freak.
At last, Unix had number 24 across his poor ass, howling with pain, and I was trembling badly, leaning forward to conceal my state, begging god or the devil or both to make it go away before we had to walk back to the day room. While Unix sobbing and snivelling tried to pull himself together to get off the frame and down on the floor I thought of fat naked ugly broads scratching their crotches, farting and belching and picking their teeth with their nails, and it cooled off some of the heat, and I forced myself to think even harder of them picking their noses aswell, eating the snot. That finally made Willie slowly shrink back in dread, but my balls were aching for some time after we got back, reminding me of the thing that shouldn´t be, and I couldn´t stop trembling, either. Unix stiffly went to stand beside Dazzle, Robbie and Cappy, who was still weeping quietly, the four of them leaning with their backs against the wall, Sprite being the only one yet able to sit down afterwards. At the end of the correction session just me, Jordan and Sprite were seated. Then we were locked up until dinner, getting time to straighten ourselves out. I hope the Superior Force – if there is one, that is - will forgive me for jacking off. I blamed it on the tension, and I still do.