Page 8 of Fear and Desire

As quietly as he could, he let himself in and walked over to her bed. He tugged the blanket out from under the mattress and drew it up over her huddled form. With a start, she awoke and looked up in fear at the man looming over her.

“Shh. Here’s the blanket,” he whispered, tucking it around her. As he let himself back out, her wide and frightened eyes stared at him from the other side of the bars.

6

Laura:

AloudbuzzerjoltedLaura awake, and the memories of yesterday came flooding back, along with the fear. The cell door banged open. A new man came in and moved to each bed, unlocking the chains. She had to pee, so she risked looking up at him and asked if she could use the bathroom.

“No talking!” he barked.

She looked over to Claire, who shook her head. She wasn’t allowed to use the bathroom? She stood up stiffly and joined the line of silent women near the door. As soon as the last one was unlocked, a second master led the line down the hall to a large door. Next to the door was a pile of shoes. Each woman grabbed a pair and put them on. The last pair, to Laura’s astonishment, were her worn-down white running shoes—the shoes she’d worn to work just last evening.

That already seemed a lifetime ago.

She slipped them on, still needing to pee badly. The door opened and the women filed out into the early morning sun.

She looked with surprise at the surreal scene. In front of her lay a large dirt-packed area between their building and a large barn with open doors. Dense woods surrounded everything. The sunrise hadn’t made it over the trees yet, and the air was cool.

“Get going!” a voice behind her yelled, and as one, the women started a slow jog. Laura was still gawking when a hand landed on her butt with a stinging slap. She scurried to catch up to Claire, who was last in the group and looking back at her.

“Claire,” she whispered, “I have to pee. Really bad.”

Once more, Claire shook her head. “We all do. But they don’t let us until we’re done exercising. If anyone slacks, no one is allowed to go back inside until they’re satisfied.”

“What happens if I pee on myself?”

“You have wet and smelly shoes that won’t be washed. We’ve all done it.”

Jogging was a nightmare between her bouncing breasts and her bursting bladder. The women set out along the line of trees, then turned left and ran behind the barn, turned left and ran along the side of the barn and then the main building, up to the corner where a tall fence gave way to a gate. She looked longingly at the gate, but one of the men was right behind her and snapped the back of her legs with the crop.

Around and around they went, with Laura growing increasingly unable to keep up. At one point, the women at the front of the group were so far ahead that they met up with Laura from behind. She was winded and barely able to walk when the women turned and went into the corral again. Laura breathed a sigh of relief and followed.

“Get back out there! You have another round to make, and for trying that, you get to do two. Everyone else will stand here and wait for you.”

She was propelled back out of the corral by Master 4, who encouraged her to run as fast as she could by applying the crop to her backside every ten feet. She stumbled and fell to her knees. The crop descended sharply, again and again, as she tried to get back to her feet. At the end, she could do little more than walk fast. She limped back into the corral where the other women stood with their hands behind their heads, silent and unmoving.

The next activity was a weird version of yoga. She followed the movements the best that she could. By now, every muscle was screaming in protest. At least the exercise had warmed her up.

“Final squats!” Master 4 called out. She squatted all the way down while lacing her fingers together on top of her head. She saw him put something under Staci that looked like a mat with pins sticking up.

He turned to Laura. “Since you’re new here, let me explain. You hold this position until one of you falls backwards. Yesterday that was Staci, so today she has a little incentive to be better. If she falls backwards, she’ll get an ass full of tacks.”

That was barbaric!He must have seen something on her face.

“Yes? You wish to file an objection?”

She shook her head. “No, sir.”

“Good. Cause from the look of your shaking legs, you’re gonna be the one over the mat tomorrow morning.”

She grit her teeth and held on, but sure enough, she was the first to lose her balance and fall backwards. She lay in the dirt, unable to get up, as the rest of the women stood slowly. Staci came over and she and Claire helped her stand. They all filed back into the building, pausing only to kick off their shoes by the door. Then they supported her on her shaking legs down the hall, back into the cell, and over to the toilets where she finally could let go. She didn’t care that there wasn’t any privacy.

Then they all took a shower. To her surprise, they had decent soap, shampoo, and even conditioner, and they gave her a wide comb and an elastic so she could braid her hair. She got to brush her teeth and apply some lotion to her face and hands. When she was finished she waited, unsure what to do. Claire came over.

“They expect you to fall tomorrow; the new woman always does for a couple of days until her legs get strong. Don’t wait until you fall for real. Fall on purpose a few minutes before that, and you can control it a little better. It hurts, but not as bad that way. After tomorrow, we have a system where the one over the tacks moves her foot just a little when she can’t go on any more, and someone else falls over. Except for the new people, we’ve only had one or two times where someone has really fallen onto the mat, and they’ve never caught on.”

Laura nodded, wide-eyed. “What happens now?” she asked.

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