The Kim Chandler Prison for Women

The Kim Chandler Prison for Women

By the Bitchfinder General

Synopsis: Linda Marshall, now Mayor of the new town of Eastminster, has set out to transform every aspect of life within the town and its environs into a living hell for women, especially beautiful blondes. This is the story of her prison for women, named after one of her oldest enemies.

The Kim Chandler Prison for Women

By the Bitchfinder General

1

Linda Marshall, Mayor of Eastminster, smiled happily as she thought of the way in which, after years of struggle and suffering, her luck had finally changed and now SHE was in a position to imprison and abuse any woman she felt like. She began by dreaming up all kinds of new 'offences,' making sure that it was virtually impossible for a woman to avoid breaking the law. Of course she had special 'dispensation' for those who were close to her, but on the whole she managed to spread her net so wide that the new prison for women which she had built was already almost full to the limits of its capacity. With an amusing sense of irony, Linda named her new state-of-the-art jail 'The Kim Chandler Prison for Women,' after her oldest and most hated enemy.

The prison mainly held females aged between the ages of 18 and 35, although there were a few older convicts, the oldest being in their sixties. Younger offenders were usually sent to the Mel Hammond Reformatory for Girls and older women tended to find themselves either sent to the Taylor Penitentiary for Women or to the even more feared Attitude Adjustment Centre for Females, her specially-designed 'mental hospital,' although this housed females of any age. There was also the Eastminster Experimental Medical Centre, where Linda had recruited specialist staff to put her kinkiest and nastiest fantasies into practice. Whichever institution a woman found herself in, her life became one of uninterrupted misery and degradation.

All in all, Linda had managed to turn the entire area into a living hell for females. She smiled happily as she prepared to make a visit to her main prison. Both the Taylor Penitentiary and the Chandler Prison had a Death Row, containing a number of inmates for whom Linda had taken a particular dislike. Only she could instruct the governor of the prison when, where and how to 'terminate' the convict's life, and as her own younger sister Gail was the prison governor, Linda knew that she could rely upon her to carry out her wishes.

The most feared part of the Chandler prison, other than Death Row, was the so-called 'sex offenders unit.' Linda, using her power as Mayor and her influence with the local council, had managed to get a whole string of actions, attitudes and behaviour reclassified as being 'sexual offences.' Apart from obvious ones like genuine female paedophiles and rapists, lesbianism, whorishness, 'indecent exposure,' 'sexually provocative behaviour,' 'cuntish attitudes, ‘feminist sexual perversions,'  ‘unnatural sexual behaviour’ and ‘disrespectful sexual attitudes’ were all now 'offences' under the harsh anti-female laws of Eastminster.

The wide definition of 'sex offender' meant that, for instance, a woman who told a joke that was considered to be unacceptable would find herself arrested as a sex offender. A woman who applied for promotion might also find herself being arrested for 'sexual offences.' A female who reported a rape to the police would find herself under arrest charged with 'whorishness' and also with 'false and malicious sexual accusations.' A woman who complained about sexual harassment would be arrested for 'sexually provocative behaviour.'  A wife who objected to any sexual act that her husband wanted her to do would be arrested for ‘disrespectful sexual attitudes.’ And so on. Men were positively encouraged to fabricate 'charges' against their wives, girlfriends, work colleagues or other females that inevitably led to the unfortunate woman being imprisoned at Chandler.

The arrest, custody and legal system in Eastminster was also totally stacked against a female accused of a crime. Unofficially, the attitude was that in the event of a dispute between a man and a woman the man's word would always be taken regardless of the evidence, but officially any female accused of a crime had to be able to produce twenty male or forty female witnesses in order to 'establish basic credibility.' Even if they could, and very few women WERE able to produce that number of witnesses to establish their 'basic credibility,' the fact remained that no female defendant had EVER managed to secure an acquittal in the Eastminster courts.

A male defendant (and nowadays there were hardly any men in Eastminster who even got arrested and even fewer who got convicted) would always be able to get bail, no matter how serious the offence he was charged with. A female, no matter how trivial her offence, would never be allowed bail and would have to remain in custody until she came to trial. The custody procedure for a male suspect was quick and straightforward, generally lasting for ten minutes or less.

A female under arrest could be held in custody for up to a year before being brought to trial, and during that time she would be forbidden to see anyone no matter what the circumstances. Unlike a man, who was entitled to the services of a lawyer to defend him at no cost to himself, a female always had to defend herself in court and was never allowed a lawyer. During her time in custody, she would be held naked, handcuffed, shackled and gagged more or less around the clock, except when she was being 'interrogated.'

Females complained on a regular basis that they were habitually raped, beaten, humiliated and even tortured but nothing was done about the abuses. In fact, such complaints tended to make the women's lives worse, as the police officers would then tack on additional 'charges' on their rap sheets. The Mayor herself, on being pressed hard by a young female investigative journalist, stoutly denied the charges. Soon after the reporter was arrested and sentenced to 50 years hard labour in prison without the possibility of parole. The girl in question was a 19-year old blonde just starting out on her career who had not yet realised how dangerous it was to cross the Mayor in any way.

If the woman somehow managed to hold out for the duration of her time in custody, which was a very rare event, since the combination of constant rape, torture and humiliation broke most females into signing the 'confession' that was placed before them, a choice of evils awaited her. She could be brought before the Mayor (who was also the Chief Magistrate for Eastminster with the power to decide on guilt or innocence and of course the appropriate punishment for the female offender) and tried by her or she could opt for a full trial at the High Court of Justice, where she would be tried by a judge and a jury of twelve men. Only males were allowed to serve on juries, be judges or practise as lawyers and the word of a male 'witness' automatically counted double that of a female.

At Eastminster Magistrate's Court, Linda presided in all her glory and all her twisted desire for revenge. She specifically reserved all minor crimes and all sexual offences for her own jurisdiction and took great pleasure in browbeating, interrupting, shouting at, ridiculing, insulting and generally abusing the female defendants in the dock. They were brought to court naked, handcuffed, shackled and gagged, and would remain like that throughout the trial, except when their gag would be briefly removed to allow them to put their case forward. Not that speaking in their own defence did them any good. Linda would simply ignore any valid points they made, try to trip them up, do her best to help the prosecution lawyer and, if all else failed, order the prisoner to be gagged for being guilty of contempt of court. In the two years since she had been a magistrate, 817 females had been brought before her. Not one had ever been acquitted and Linda's rudeness and bullying towards them had become legendary.

Over the same period, another 138 women had been brought before the High Court of Justice on more serious charges. Almost all were women who, for one reason or other, Linda harboured a grudge against. 28 had been sentenced to death, 23 to life with hard labour and without the possibility of parole, and of the remaining 87 females on trial, 84 had received sentences of 25 years or more without the possibility of parole. Only three had received shorter sentences, the lightest being 10 years, and none of them had ever been acquitted. All 955 were currently enjoying the 'hospitality' of Linda's hell-hole prison. Five of the death row inmates had been executed and the date of death for the others was set by the court at the discretion of the prisoner governor. As she was Linda's younger sister Gail, the two women would obviously agree on a date and method of execution after they had finished having their brutal fun with the inmates!

The transport procedures always followed the same humiliating and painful process. The women were taken, naked, handcuffed, shackled and gagged, to a large van to deliver them to the prison. Once inside the van they would also be blindfolded, hooded, placed in neck, waist and belly restraints, and then chains would be passed through their neck restraints and through a ring on top of their hoods, both chains being connected to a hook set high up on the van. This caused the women severe discomfort, but even worse was in store for them during their journey. Further chains were led off from their waist and belly restraints to hooks set in the side of the van, and below them, on which they were forced to sit throughout the journey, was a large spiked dildo. Not only were the spikes on it painful in themselves, but they also contained tiny electrodes which could be activated at any time by the guards who sat in the back, supposedly guarding the helpless prisoners. Everything that could be done to make their journey an utter misery was done. The journey itself, which ought to have been a mere fifteen minutes from the Magistrates' Court and about twenty from the High Court, was deliberately dragged out to take almost an hour. The poor women suffered enormously even before they arrived at the hell-hole jail.

2

On their arrival at Chandler Prison, the inmates would have their restraints removed. As they stood there gasping in the light and sudden freedom, a large number of guards stood around, armed with all kinds of weapons from tasers to cattle prods. Escape or resistance was impossible, even if the woman had not had all the fight knocked out of her already by now. The guards would order the woman to spread her legs as wide apart as possible and put her hands behind her neck while they carried out a strip search.

Cruelly, the guards, who for the most part were male, delighted in playing a little game with the new arrivals. They would deliberately grope and fondle and squeeze and try to stimulate her cunt and clit to make her come. If she DID respond to their caresses by climaxing, she would immediately be told by the guards that she would spend the next month in total nudity, as well as receiving a caning of twenty-five strokes. If she managed to control herself and did not gratify them by coming, she would be told that she would spend the next month in total nudity and receive a whipping of twenty-five strokes. Either way, the luckless inmate got a good hiding and a month of enforced public nudity.

She was then fitted with her prison 'punishment uniform,' which consisted of metal shoes with 7-inch high heels, cruelly studded on the inside with metal spikes; shackles around her legs, also studded with spikes; her wrists were handcuffed behind her back; a metal collar, again studded with spikes, was fixed around her neck; nipple clamps were placed on each of her tits, heavy bells dangling from them which rang whenever the prisoner moved; a large butt plug was forced up her arse; and, cruellest of all, a steel chastity, with a steel band that went all the way round the waist and had a heavy metal plate that fitted over the genital region before being locked into place. In a supremely nasty touch, Linda had made the design even more unpleasant by fitting it with a steel spike on the inside, which penetrated deeply inside the woman's cunt. It also contained a mass of tiny electrodes which could be activated by a remote control device that all prison guards kept on their person at all times. The woman was able to piss but that was about all that she COULD do. Then the belt was drawn as tightly as possible around her waist, a metal shield with studded spikes - also electrified - placed between that and the skin before the belt was padlocked tightly shut.

With the recent decriminalisation of rape except in very rare circumstances, and the equally controversial amendments to the domestic violence laws, which now allowed men to beat their female partners but not the other way round, hundreds of spousal abusers and rapists had been released from prison. Linda had set out to recruit them as guards at her establishments, knowing that she could rely upon them to abuse, mistreat and be violent towards the women.

Each inmate was then told the prison 'rules' and ordered to memorise them within an hour. The rules were, like every other aspect of the prison, designed to humiliate and dehumanise the luckless women.

The rules were:

1    Prisoners have no rights.

2   Prisoners are not permitted any appeal against their sentence.

3   Prisoners will never be eligible for parole.

4   Prisoners are here to be punished.

5   Prisoners must never speak to a guard without being spoken to first.

6   Prisoners must always lower their eyes to the ground when they see a guard.

7   Any breach of the rules or prison discipline will be decided on the spot by the guard.

8   No appeal against a punishment sentence by a guard is permitted.

9   Punishments will include severe restraints, caning, whipping, sensory deprivation and humiliation.

10   Punishments will be determined at the sole discretion of the guard, both in terms of the type of punishment and the length of time for which the prisoner may be subjected to it.

11 Prisoners will be permitted - dependent on good behaviour - one visit a year for 10 minutes, one phone call every six months, and one letter every three months. These privileges may be withdrawn at any time should they fail to observe the rules.

12 Observing the rules will not lead to any reduction in their sentence or to any significant changes in their conditions. It will however prevent them from being subjected to additional, harsher punishment and to losing privileges.

As Linda had hoped, many of the guards were astonishingly ingenious in finding new ways of dishing out harsh 'punishment.' Most of the time the 'charges' against the inmate were entirely invented, but of course, only the word of the guards would be taken in any dispute. Some of the women found themselves being chained to the wall or floor for days, or given electric shocks to their tits and cunt, or placed in such extreme bondage that they could barely move. Such punishments as canings and whippings were daily occurrences, and of course there was no appeal against such treatment.

Other punishment costumes included being enclosed for up to a week in a heavy rubber suit, being forced to wear corsets that were so tightly laced that the woman could hardly breathe, being forced to wear hoods or even punishment helmets locked into place on their face which made it difficult to breathe and impossible to see, hear or speak, being gagged with a variety of painful and degrading devices, being so loaded down with chains that it was difficult for the women to move, and just about any cruel device that the ingenuity of Linda and the prison staff could come up with was applauded and used frequently. The old-fashioned Scold’s Bridle was brought back into use and inmates endured it on a regular basis.

The punishment corsets were particularly painful, and very popular with the guards. They were made out of a mixture of rubber and steel, and they extended all the way down to the knees and upwards to the neck. Part of the corset was reinforced to secure and tighten the grip of the chastity belt that was already firmly fastened in place on the prisoner. They were first laced to the tightest possible degree, and then secured in place with a nasty hydraulic device. Then they were further fastened at the back with heavy metal bolts. A woman wearing one of these devices could just about lie down or stand but found it almost impossible to sit down while wearing it. Over the course of the two years that Linda had been operating her prison, over 90% of the women inside had been subjected to them at one time or another. The usual duration of this ordeal was a week but some prisoners had been held in these devices for up to a year. As with every other aspect of the prison, punishments of inmates were almost completely arbitrary.

An inmate who was foolish enough to complain about their treatment would be sentenced to an immediate ball-gagging, the gag not being removed for a week except where a guard wished to use the prisoner's mouth. They would also be put into a punishment corset with their hands manacled to the side. They were fed through a hollow tube which passed through the ball gag. Naturally the food and drink they received in this way were as disgusting as possible!

And, of course, the rape and sexual abuse of inmates was a daily occurrence. The gags and belts could be removed instantly by the grinning guards who kept the keys dangling cruelly from their belts, and then they had their way with the helpless women. Considering that the majority of the male guards were men with convictions for rape or domestic violence, it was hardly surprising that they seized the opportunity to carry out the acts they enjoyed with no fear of reprisals, and, indeed, with the full approval and encouragement of the prison authorities and the Mayor!

The Chandler prison was divided into five levels. The most severe were, in descending order: Death Row, where those inmates who had been sentenced to death were held; Pervert’s Row, where the ‘sex offenders’ were held; the Fun House, where inmates sentenced for ‘disrespectful behaviour’ or ‘thought crimes’ were held; the Lazy Sluts Wing, where inmates sentenced to hard labour were kept; and the Rehabilitation Wing, where inmates convicted of only minor offences were incarcerated.

Death Row housed only 28 inmates, but they were subject to the worst conditions of all prisoners. They were put into the strictest possible bondage 24 hours a day, except when some or all of their restraints were removed to inflict additional punishments upon them. Except for prison staff and the Mayor, they were never allowed any visitors.  They were raped on a daily basis, whipped without mercy every day, and given electric shocks on an hourly basis. Their gags were only removed if their mouth was to be used by a guard, or if they were to be given food and drink. Linda saw to it that not only was the food they received as disgusting as possible but that the portions were very small. She lost no chance of inflicting pain, suffering and degradation upon the inmates of the prison. Every aspect of the regime was designed to dehumanise the women and make them long for death.

Periodically Linda would order Gail, the prison governor, to stage a mock execution. This was one of her cruellest jokes and particularly dreaded by the inmates because although over the last two years only five prisoners had been actually executed not only had their ‘punishment’ been carried out in a totally horrific way but no one ever knew when a ‘rehearsal’ would turn into the real thing.

[Pervert’s Row has already been described so perhaps we should move on to the Fun House.] The Fun House was where feminists, nagging wives, and anyone who made the slightest complaint about either Linda or the way she ran Eastminster ended up. Again, men were encouraged to fabricate accusations against females and the luckless women would end up ‘enjoying’ her ‘hospitality.’

Daily rapes, beatings, and tortures are the norm in the Fun House. Every opportunity is also taken to degrade and humiliate the women as often and as severely as possible. They were also made to hire themselves out as prostitutes, or perform as strippers, exotic dancers or in some other way work in the sex industry. The only consolation is that by comparison with the two higher levels, the life of the females in the Fun House was marginally less unendurable.

The Lazy Sluts Wing was generally inhabited by the physically strongest women in the prison, though not always. It was fairly common to see a willowy 18-year old struggling desperately, in spite of her utter physical exhaustion, to fulfil the absurdly unrealistic ‘work quotas’ imposed upon her, knowing that her ‘failure’ would be put down to ‘laziness’ and that she would be harshly punished because of  her inability to meet the productivity targets.

The women in the Lazy Sluts Wing were put to work in construction, coal mining, forestry, sewage and similarly tiring and dangerous jobs. Their ‘services’ were hired out to local employers who paid the prison a ‘fee’ for using the girls. The prison got rich and the inmates toiled to exhaustion!

By the standards of the rest of Chandler prison, the Rehabilitation Wing was not too bad. Although inmates could expect to be raped, beaten, tortured and humiliated on a daily basis, they were given ‘counselling’ for an hour a day on how best to ‘readjust’ on their eventual return to society outside the prison walls and also had ‘lessons’ on ‘attitude adjustment’ to ‘help’ them transform from the ‘dangerous bitches’ they supposedly were into ‘good citizens.’

Most prisoners serving a sentence of 5 years or less were sent to Rehab, unless Linda had taken a particular dislike to an individual inmate, in which case she would be transferred to a higher level of punishment. The Rehab women soon learned what was expected of them and before long were able to parrot the ‘correct attitudes’ and display the ‘appropriate behaviour’ that their ‘instructors’ asked of them. The shortest sentence that any inmate in Rehab was serving was six months; the longest 10 years. Even the ‘short timers’ left prison as broken women, utterly subdued and totally subservient towards the men of Eastminster on their release.

3

After two years of this regime, the local women had pretty well begun to work out how to behave in order to avoid getting arrested and sent to prison. Even overt compliance with the laws of the place was not always enough to save them, since Linda made it her business to seek out and have arrested women who she disliked on purely physical grounds. Blondes were particularly at risk of incurring her wrath, and after a while brunettes and redheads came to dominate the hair colouring of the local female population.

Linda realised that she had to start casting her net wider afield than simply the local women. She began advertising Eastminster as a tourist attraction, pointing out the many attractive examples of modern architecture (all built by female slave labour!), its excellent shopping facilities (the Linda Marshall Retail Centre was one of the largest shopping precincts in the country and it was possible to buy almost anything there at fairly cheap prices), and its unique approach towards environmental problems.

Her ‘environmental policies’ largely consisted of replacing buses with pony girls; boats with galleys crewed by female prisoners; taxis and minicabs with ‘rickshaw taxis’ pulled by female inmates; the complete closure of what the local council, at the Mayor’s suggestion, referred to insultingly as ‘cunt toilets’ and the insistence that females who wanted to piss or shit must only do so in the approved ‘gentlemen’s facilities,’ where they were exposed to constant sexual abuse, rape, insulting remarks and were generally made to ‘service’ the ‘gentlemen’s hygiene needs’ by being made to drink their piss, have their bodies or faces pissed on by them, or even to eat their shit. They were also made to use their tongues and mouths as toilet paper to clean the ‘gentlemen’ up after they had finished pissing or shitting.

Before long, men anxious to sample the ‘attractions’ of Eastminster began taking their wives and girlfriends, all unsuspecting of the fate that might await them, to the town in order to see them at least ‘taken down a peg or two,’ as the local ‘wisdom’ had it.

Because by now the local females were either so indoctrinated by the constant propaganda or at least sufficiently intimidated by the fear of a spell in Chandler prison, they not only gave no sort of warning to female tourists but positively encouraged them to ‘break’ local laws. After all, wasn’t it better to see some other woman suffering rather than get ‘punished’ themselves?

A particular favourite of tourists, and one that horrified the women more than most things, was the Museum of Living Art. In that place, females were literally turned into objects – tables, chairs, desks, lamps, lampshades, and even worse things. Admission to the Museum was free for men but women were required to pay a £5 entry fee. If a woman was foolish enough either to refuse to pay or to say to her male ‘guardian’ that she didn’t want to go in, he had the immediate right to call the police and have her arrested on a trumped-up charge, the usual ones being of ‘vagrancy,’ ‘moral turpitude,’ or ‘disrespectful behaviour.’ Naturally the ONLY toilet facilities in the place were the  so-called ‘living toilets,’ and the men eagerly took advantage of the opportunity to piss or shit in the helpless naked girls’ open mouths and then see them use their mouths and tongues to ‘clean them up.’

If she DID go in, she would soon discover that SHE would be required to ‘pose’ as a ‘temporary exhibit’ in the ‘gallery of living art.’ Her ordeal would last for anything up to a whole day though in general a couple of hours were the norm! Photographs and videos would be taken of her and then offered for sale in the Museum shop. Naturally, the luckless woman would receive NONE of the money made out of her suffering! In fact, the security guards, acting on Linda’s instructions, would often arrest a female who fitted her ‘offender profile’ on some trumped-up charge like shoplifting, ‘loitering with intent’ or anything else they could dream up. Before she knew what had hit her, the unfortunate woman would find herself in custody and, eventually, serving a spell in Chandler prison.

Women drivers were persistently pulled up by police for bogus traffic violations, such as alleged speeding offences, alleged vehicle unworthiness, and so on. Even if the car was being driven by a man, the female passenger would STILL be the one who was arrested and ended up in prison! Pedestrians would be arrested for dropping litter, loitering with intent, jaywalking and similarly trumped-up charges.

When times got really quiet, Linda instructed the police to go through her vast database of the local women and visit them in their homes. They would soon find themselves being arrested for theft if they could not produce receipts for any jewellery or similar items in their possession, arrested for burglary if they could not immediately produce the title deeds to their home, or they might have drugs planted on them and be arrested for possession with intent to deal. The unfortunate women of Eastminster found that there was almost no chance of avoiding the clutches of the scheming and bitter Mayor of their town.

4

A desperate local woman, Brenda Smith, following the arrest of her 18-year old daughter on drug dealing charges and her consequent sentencing to 25 years hard labour at Chandler prison, became desperate enough to contact the outside world. She made an arrangement with a journalist working in London to come to Eastminster and see the state of things for himself. Brenda felt nervous about contacting a man but she was sure that a female journalist would simply have been arrested while a man would be more likely to uncover the truth of the scandals surrounding the town.

The man was aged about 35 and he introduced himself as Joe Evans. Brenda met him in a public park and kept glancing around her nervously as she spoke in a low voice.

‘Mr. Evans, I’m very worried and unhappy about the way things are in Eastminster,’ she began. ‘My poor daughter Jenny has just been sentenced to 25 years in prison for drug possession and I know for a fact that the drugs were planted on her.’

‘Are you saying that the local police are corrupt, Mrs. Smith?’

‘Totally corrupt,’ she told him. ‘They’re all in the pocket of the Mayor and her cronies. She thinks she can do whatever she likes and it’s just not fair.’

‘Isn’t it – rather unusual – to have a woman Mayor?’

‘Yes, but this one’s only a woman in the biological sense! She’s cruel, heartless and totally driven by some mad desire for revenge upon every attractive woman in Eastminster.’

‘I see. And what makes you think that?’

‘She’s been in charge of this place for two years now and in that time nearly a thousand women have been arrested and imprisoned on bogus charges. She makes a lot of money out of them too, hiring them out to local employers and even to the sex industry.’

‘Hmm, that’s very interesting, Mrs. Smith. I’ll try and check out your story. Of course I won’t reveal my sources if I ask around.’

‘Thank you.’

So Joe Evans came to Eastminster and found himself intrigued by the story that Brenda had told him. There was only one thing for it – he’d have to meet the Mayor and look at her policies in detail. A telephone call to the Mayor’s office resulted in an appointment for an interview later that day. Joe was extremely curious about what he would find when he met her.

The first surprise was how exceptionally beautiful she was. Joe was immediately attracted to her and wished that he was meeting her in different circumstances. Still, it couldn’t be helped.

‘Thank you for agreeing to see me, Madam Mayor,’ he began. ‘I’m a feature writer for a national magazine, based in London, and I’ve heard a lot about your work here in Eastminster. I’d very much like to give you a write-up and perhaps attract new people to come here.’

He could hardly take his eyes of the tall, dark-haired, dusky gypsy beauty who sat behind the desk and faced him. She gave him a dazzling smile and then motioned to him to sit down.

‘Please call me Linda,’ she said, and her voice was as sexy as her appearance. ‘May I call you Joe?’

‘Please do,’ the reporter almost stammered in reply.

‘Well, where shall we begin? What is it you’d like to know about our town?’

‘A couple of years ago this place was not much more than a village,’ he said. ‘I understand that you have poured millions of pounds into its redevelopment.’

‘That’s right,’ she smiled. ‘I love this place. Of course, my late husband started working upon the regeneration project three years ago and I felt duty bound to carry on the fine work he had begun.’

‘I understand,’ he said. ‘I believe you have the largest shopping precinct in the south of England. Is it a popular place with shoppers?’

‘Oh yes, very much so. Even in the first year of operation it made a profit of ten million pounds, and last year profit figures reached seventy-five million. I’m very happy that it’s such a success.’

‘And you own the freehold of the precinct?’

‘Yes, I do. Of course the retail units pay me annual rent for occupying the site but it’s such a prime location that they all make big profits themselves so everyone’s happy!’

‘What other amenities does Eastminster have?’

‘Well, we’ve got our own radio station, several museums, two art galleries, a concert hall, two theatres, a multiplex cinema, five car parks, two public parks, cycle lanes, pedestrian precincts, two local newspapers, rambler’s paths, and in fact almost everything you could want except a beach!’

‘What about schools and hospitals?’

‘Oh, we have five schools, two state schools for boys only, one co-educational state school, one state school for girls only and one private school which is co-educational. We also have a general hospital, a specialist clinic for women and a psychiatric hospital. All your troubles are soon taken care of in Eastminster!’

‘It sounds as if you must have spent a great deal of money on regenerating Eastminster, Linda,’ he said. ‘Would it be rude of me to ask exactly how much you’ve spent here?’

‘No, not at all, Joe,’ she smiled. ‘Over the last two years I’ve spent one hundred and fifty million pounds of my own money on the place. ‘

‘That’s very generous of you, Linda. Have you managed to recoup your investment?’

‘Oh yes, easily,’ she told him. ‘Over the last two years I’ve managed to produce a net profit of five hundred and twenty million pounds. So, you see, philanthropy can even pay dividends!’

‘A very impressive return,’ Joe agreed. ‘I understand that you also have your own prison.’

‘In fact we’ve got two of them. Three, if you include our juvenile facilities.’

‘Has the prosperity you’ve brought to Eastminster led to a crime wave?’

‘Unfortunately it seems that way,’ said Linda sadly. ‘Some people just can’t seem to stay out of trouble and would rather break the law than try to earn an honest living.’

‘I understand. What are the main sources of employment within Eastminster?’

‘Well, the retail sector employs a lot of people; so do cultural activities; the local council has people working for it; there’s office work; and we also have a large manufacturing and transport section.’

Joe was totally smitten with Linda by now. She knew perfectly well the effect that she had on men and, unlike in the bad old days, she was now able to turn it to her advantage.

‘You’ve obviously done a wonderful job on this town, Linda,’ he said, with open admiration.

‘Thank you, Joe,’ she smiled. ‘I’ve done my best to make it a New Town where people can feel proud of being citizens.’

He hesitated a moment before asking his next question.

‘Isn’t it a little – unusual – in the current climate for a woman to be Mayor of this town?’

‘I’m not a feminist!’ Linda laughed. ‘I owe everything I have and everything I am today to my dear departed husband. Perhaps it is rather unusual, but I can assure you I have many male advisers and I certainly do NOT treat the ladies of Eastminster with kid gloves. All of them are handled strictly according to the law. Just because I’m a woman doesn’t mean I’m one of those disgusting feminists or dykes!’

‘No, of course not. And the council don’t have any problems with you being Mayor?’

‘Last week,’ Linda smiled, ‘they presented me with a resolution asking me to become Mayor of the town for life. Of course I hesitated before answering but they were so insistent that in the end I had no choice but to accept the honour.’

‘Do you have any plans for further development here?’

‘Oh yes, we’re always looking at ways to improve the quality of life in Eastminster. Our latest project is to set up our own TV station. That should improve the coverage of the area no end, but of course it won’t be just news – we’ll have documentaries, films, music, plays, comedies and all the usual stuff you’d expect to find on a television channel.’

‘It sounds very exciting,’ said Joe. ‘I was wondering – if you don’t mind me asking – whether or not it would be possible for me to pay a visit to one of your prisons?’

‘Why, certainly,’ said Linda. ‘You have a choice of three – the Mel Hammond Reformatory for Girls, which houses juvenile offenders; the Kim Chandler Prison for Women, which mainly has inmates aged between 18 and 35 years old, and the Taylor Penitentiary for Women, which houses prisoners of 35 years or older.’

‘You only have prisons for females in Eastminster? You don’t have a men’s jail?’

‘No, we don’t, Joe. Any man who commits a crime here tends to be sent to Parkhurst on the Isle of Wight and in any case, 98% of the crime in Eastminster is committed by females. It’s very sad to see how badly behaved so many of the women of this fine town are!’

‘How many inmates do the prisons have?’

‘Nearly a thousand, about two hundred of them in the Reformatory, the rest in adult institutions.’’

‘And I could visit them?’

‘Of course you can, Joe,’ said Linda, giving him another of her dazzling smiles. ‘I tell you what, why don’t I take you on a guided tour of one of the prisons myself?’

‘That’s very kind of you, Linda. Thank you.’

‘Of course we don’t have any of this mollycoddling of prisoners that used to go on in the bad old days. Once a girl or woman ends up in my prison system, they get punished good and proper!’

She stood up from her desk and smiled at the reporter.

‘Come on, Joe, let’s go! I always enjoy visiting my prisons. I’ve worked so hard to make them state of the art places of punishment.’

Then she beckoned to him to follow her as she went out to the car park and got into the Mayoral vehicle. Joe was about to sample life as a female prisoner in Eastminster – though of course only from the outside looking in!

5

Linda called up her chauffeur and he drove her and Joe to the Kim Chandler Prison for Women. As they approached it, Linda gave a cruel smile and Joe looked faintly puzzled by the high security level of the place.

‘I didn’t expect the place to be so much like Fort Knox,’ he said.

‘Ah, we get all types inside Chandler,’ said Linda. ‘Murderers, sex offenders, violent criminals – the works. We don’t want any of THEM roaming around free, do we?’

‘No, of course not.’

Linda smiled happily as her car reached the gate and the guard opened up and let them in. She got out as the chauffeur parked it and motioned to the journalist to follow.

‘I’ll introduce you to my sister,’ she told him. ‘She’s the governor of this prison. I appointed her myself, you know. I’ve got total confidence in her ability to control the inmates.’

Then the two of them came into the reception centre, where things were pretty quiet at the moment. A few bored-looking guards were hanging around doing nothing, and the secretary on reception jumped smartly to attention when she saw Linda.

‘Oh, Madam Mayor, what an honour to have you here. How can I try to help you?’

‘Get the governor, Vicky.’

‘Yes, ma’am,’ said the young girl, buzzing her office. ‘It’s the Mayor here, Miss Marshall. With a friend.’

‘Tell her I’ll be right down to see her.’

Linda pointed to the visitor’s book.

‘Just sign your name, Joe. We’ll wait here till Gail arrives.’

A shorter but equally stunning version of Linda came down in a couple of minutes. She was dressed in the height of fashion, but the stern glint in Gail’s eyes as she saw the guards lounging around soon showed that she was every bit as hard as her sister.

‘Stand up straight when we’ve got visitors!’ she shouted. ‘I’m expecting a couple of new inmates in the next hour – don’t want them thinking Chandler is a soft touch, do we?’

‘Sorry, ma’am,’ the guards said hastily.

‘Hi, Lin, great to see you,’ said Gail. ‘Who’s the friend?’

‘This is Joe Evans from a national magazine. He’s here to write a feature about Eastminster. Apparently he’s particularly interested in the prison system!’ Linda told her.

‘Well, let’s see what we can do to make you feel at home,’ said Gail. ‘What would you like to drink – tea, coffee, beer, wine, spirits? We’ve got everything on hand here. Except for the prisoners, of course!’

‘Yes, in the two years since this prison’s been operational I’m happy to say that we’ve been able to cut the food bill for the inmates by 50%. We reached the point fifteen months ago where the whole place was completely self-supporting instead of being a drain on our finances,’ Linda added.

‘So what do the inmates eat?’ asked Joe, nervous but intrigued.

‘Well, breakfast is pretty straightforward. We give them a bowl of porridge, a slice of dry bread and a glass of water. That lasts them until lunchtime, when they got two slices of dry bread, another glass of water, a lettuce leaf, a tomato and a lump of cheese. Then it’s the evening meal when they get a stew with another slice of dry bread and a glass of water. Of course there are some variations but that’s the normal menu,’ Gail told him.

‘Could you describe a typical inmate’s day for me?’

‘Well, we start off by waking them up at 5.00 in the morning. Then they have to take a shower and empty out the bucket in their cell. After that it’s time to come down for breakfast, and then it’s all down to what level of – activity – they’re on that day.’

‘How do you mean?’

‘Well, some have to go out on work details; some have to work around the prison; some just go right back to their cells; and some have to be taken to the punishment quarters. It all depends on what their schedule is and how badly they’ve behaved the day before.’

‘What exactly happens to them in the punishment quarters?’

Gail looked at her sister enquiringly, but Linda just nodded her head.

‘I’ll show you a prisoner being punished,’ she said. ‘I’m afraid with the type of women we get coming here, punishment sessions are a daily occurrence.  This particular one is just down for a level one punishment, but of course we have sliding scales, all the way up to level thirty.’

‘This one’s a real bitch,’ said Linda. ‘I tried her at court myself. As well as being the Mayor I’m  also the local magistrate, you know. I tried her, convicted her and sentenced her myself. Only 18 years old but she’s already a hardened criminal. She only came here yesterday. Jenny Smith, her name is.’

Joe could hardly believe his ears. He was about to see the very girl that Brenda had pleaded with him to do something about. And, by the sound of it, she was about to be in for a very nasty experience.

‘What’s she in for?’

‘Drug possession with intent to supply,’ said Linda. ‘She’s a real bitch, that one. I’ve got the feeling she’s going to get herself into a lot of trouble with the other prisoners because we’ve got a couple of inmates who’ve lost family members over drugs. Still, she’s got 25 years to try and turn herself back into a useful citizen.’

‘Isn’t there any chance of parole?’

‘Oh no, none of the inmates at Chandler are EVER eligible for parole,’ said Linda, a cruel smirk on her face. ‘Once they get here, they don’t leave until they’ve served every second of their sentences!’

‘Although, of course,’ a grinning Gail added, ‘that’s only their MINIMUM sentence. Every time they get into trouble inside we add an extra week on to their original punishment. Some of the women here have already earned themselves an extra two years and I expect there’ll be some who manage to end up serving double their original sentence!’

The two sisters laughed and giggled happily at the prospect. Joe felt uncomfortable but he was still smitten with their beauty and even their cruelty had a certain childlike quality about it that seemed, strangely, almost appealing.

‘Shall we go?’ asked Gail.

‘Yes, let’s go,’ said Linda. ‘Joe, I’m sure you’ll find it interesting to see a punishment session. It’ll give you an idea of how tough the regime here is compared with the bad old days when prison was just a holiday camp for most inmates!’

They walked along a corridor, when Gail punched in a sequence of numbers on an electronic keypad and the door opened before them. Joe found himself following the women through a much shorter corridor and then Gail punched in another sequence on a keypad to open the next door.

The three of them found themselves in a large room rather like a gym. He saw what looked like wall bars, climbing ropes and a vaulting horse, together with a large chest that contained a number of items whose use he was soon to discover. Then Gail pressed a buzzer on the wall, and a guard came into the room.

‘Yes, Governor?’ he asked.

‘Fetch inmate Jenny Smith in.’

‘Right away, ma’am.’

The three of them waited a couple of minutes before an obviously frightened but still defiant girl of 18 came in. She was wearing a T-shirt, shorts and trainers and had her wrists handcuffed behind her back.

‘This is the one you asked for, Governor.’

‘Thank  you,’ said Gail. ‘Well, you’ve not got off to a very good start, have you? You were only sentenced yesterday and already we’ve had to put you on punishment. What’s your problem?’

The girl glared at her in a cold fury.

‘In the first place, I’m innocent. I never done no drugs in my life. Second, I got sentenced to 25 fucking years for it which is a diabolical liberty. Thirdly, yesterday one of your guards tried to feel me up so I kicked him in the balls. And then HE had the nerve to put ME on a fucking charge!’

‘You had a fair trial, Smith,’ said Linda, ‘and the evidence against you was overwhelming. Please don’t try to insult our intelligence by pretending to be innocent. As for your sentence, I gave it to you as a warning to other drug dealers that they can expect no mercy from the courts.’

‘You’ve just made a very serious accusation against one of our guards,’ added Gail. ‘More to the point, you’ve actually admitted that you assaulted him. Now I’m the Governor of this prison and I can decide on your punishment entirely on my own jurisdiction, but, as we’re privileged to have the Mayor and local magistrate here, she can help with your discipline.’

‘Fuck you!’ said Jenny. ‘Fuck you both, you fucking perverts!’

Gail turned to the guard.

‘I think we’ve heard quite enough bad language from this prisoner. Gag her!’

The guard produced a ball gag and forced it into the girl’s mouth, pinching her nose so that she had to open up to breathe and then had no choice but to admit its entrance. He then buckled it tight securely behind her neck.

‘That’s much better,’ said Gail, openly grinning. ‘OK, take Smith over to the vaulting horse and secure her there.’

Joe watched in fascination as the young girl was pulled over to the equipment and then fastened to it by leather straps that bound her ankles to the side. Her handcuffed wrists were left restrained, instead a length of rope being passed through the cuffs and attached to a pulley hanging from the ceiling.

‘OK, Smith, I think we need to make an example of you,’ said Gail. ‘On the other hand, since it is your first full day inside, perhaps we’ll go easy on you. This is just a demonstration to show you that any disobedience or disrespect on your part will NOT be tolerated in Chandler prison. Very well, let’s start, shall we? Mr. Stevens, give her a dozen strokes of the cane.’

‘Over her shorts, ma’am?’

‘Yes, I think this time we’ll do it that way.’

‘Do you mean that you’d normally do it – well, with her – exposed, I mean?’

‘Oh yes,’ Gail  laughed. ‘Most of our canings here are given bare-arsed.  In fact, the majority of them are done with the women completely naked. Stark cunt naked, as we call it! It gets the point over more – effectively, you might say!’

The two sisters looked at each other and giggled happily again.

‘OK, Mr. Stevens, give the prisoner her licks!’ Gail ordered.

Joe watched in a mixture of fascination and horror as the guard swished his cane cruelly across the girl’s bum. Linda and Gail stared with open relish and only the ball gag inside her mouth stopped the unfortunate inmate from screaming out in pain.

‘OK, Mr. Stevens, you can release her now,’ said Gail. ‘Stand up, Smith, and go back to your cell. You will remain gagged until tomorrow morning. And let that be a lesson to you!’

‘I gather you’ve got two new inmates arriving soon,’ said Linda. ‘What are they in for?’

‘Oh, one’s down for a parking ticket and the other one’s in here for dropping litter.’

‘Well, it shows the benefits of our zero tolerance policy,’ said Linda, turning to Joe. ‘By cracking down on minor offences it helps to reduce the number of major crimes. That’s how it seems to work out in Eastminster, anyway!’