Alice’s Crime and Punishment

Synopsis

After losing her temper, Alice is sentenced to a whipping for assault. Her father, the local vicar, disgusted with her behaviour, ensures she has the harshest treatment and a lengthy work rehab programme in a subject she won’t like.

Alice’s Crime and Punishment

by obohobo

Warnings

Please take note!

The text in this story contains erotic material and is expressly written for adults only.

MF NC. Spanking Punishment

If you are underage or offended by such material, or if viewing this file is illegal in your locality, then leave, close or delete this file-story now.

This is a work of fiction, any resemblance to persons living, dead or otherwise is purely coincidental. The ideas and thoughts that follow are pure fantasies.  In real life, at the very least they would be unpleasant and probably illegal. Fantasies are like that; daydreams where we can contemplate and imagine the sensations without suffering or inflicting the pain, despair or humiliation.

© obohobo 2007

Chapter 1. The crime and the punishment

Democratic Republic of Great Britain

Prison Service (P&T Unit)

Hawkers Lane

Bistonbury

ZP5 4AQ

11th September 2024

Alice Rachel Carter

The Manse

Church Lane

Little Bistonbury

ZP4 3BA

Ms Carter

You are required to attend the Punishment and Training section of the above prison at 08:30 hours on 13th September 2024 in order to receive the Moderate chastisement of fifty lashes awarded by the Bistonbury Court on September 1st 2024. Two days after the completion of the chastisement, you will be entered into the rehabilitation and induction programme lasting one to two weeks. From the resulting assessment, you will be placed in a suitable training programme to instil the skills needed for you to be of service to the community. Participation in the training is mandatory and a satisfactory completion of this programme is necessary before your release. This could be as little as one month or as long as one year, or even more, dependant upon the course and your progress.

Dress in loose fitting clothing. Wear no make-up, no jewellery, and no watches. Do not bring a handbag or any other items of clothing.

Note: Lateness and failure to observe these regulations will incur further penalties.

Yours sincerely,

(Signed) Margaret Benham

Secretary to Governor Richard McNeil

Sobbing and with tears running down my face, I read the letter several times. I knew it was coming but hoped father would have a last minute change of heart and do something to get me off or at least get the sentence reduced. He, the Reverend Michael Carter, had other ideas and, unflinching on principle, decided I, his only daughter, should be punished like any other criminal to the full extent of the new laws. Yes, he could have had a few quiet words with the magistrate, but his only comment was, “You’re an attractive and intelligent girl but for the last ten years since your mother left us, you’ve gone wild, you’ve made no effort to do your college work and, on many occasions, have tried to ridicule me and my beliefs. Now you have to pay the price, harsh as it might be. Maybe it is God’s way teach you a lesson that will set you on the right road again.”

My anger at him rose. He was supposed to be my father and yet he acted more like a schoolteacher and only cared about the image I create around him. I remembered the many rows we’d had especially when I reached the age of sixteen and could legally have sex with boys. He wanted to tie me to his home where I was constantly under his supervision; I wanted to be free and do as I pleased without regard to his moral stance. The rift between us became a canyon when he’d virtually forced me to go to church on a Sunday soon after my sixteenth birthday and I embarrassingly showed him that he could no longer boss me around. My temper, already at near boiling point at being forced to sit between some ‘nice’ old ladies, flared up when he preached about love and affection and treating our neighbours as we wished to be treated. The look of horror on his face gave me much satisfaction when, in the middle of his sermon I stood noisily in the pew and shouted, “Why don’t you practice what you preach you fucking old hypocrite. You preach love and understanding and yet you only love yourself and certainly have no affection or understanding of me. This is the last time you are forcing me to come here and listen to your crap!” There were gasps of disgust from the congregation and the two ladies either side of me tried to pull me back into the pew, but, making the ‘fuck-you’ sign with my fingers, I wrenched myself free and stormed out of the church slamming the heavy oak door behind me.

With hindsight that was not a good move and only led to further rows. I did everything I could to defy him. I dressed like a punk and had a stud in my tongue and sported a coloured spiky hairstyle. At one point he tried to curtail my allowance but in return I threatened to become a prostitute to get the money I needed and, indeed, did have sex for money a few of times and gloatingly showed him my proceeds. I even got one of my clients to phone the manse and ask if I was available for the night. Things eased a little when he married Sarah Blanchard and she became the mother I had lost. We got on well together and was instrumental in allowing me to live in the Manse when father threatened to throw me out on my eighteenth birthday. She too, tried to get him to intervene with the magistrates on my behalf but to no avail. His usual inflexible attitude would not even accede to her wishes.

My temper never improved although oddly, I never had a row with Sarah, but it got me into a number of scrapes with boyfriends and at college. Nothing though, bad enough to get me into trouble with the law, not until one Friday evening when I saw Janice coming to a club clinging to the arm of my boyfriend. He’d turned me down a couple of times in recent weeks and now I knew why. Janice hardly knew what hit her. Furiously, fists and boots flying, I punched and kicked at her until I was pulled off and held until the police and ambulance arrived. Janice’s face was a mess of blood and in court I learned that I’d broken her nose and blackened both her eyes.

Sarah had to stand bail for me because father refused, it was either that or I would spend my waiting time in prison because at nineteen years old, I was considered an adult. They put this electronic tag in my neck; tiny little thing injected with a needle, but it let Control know my whereabouts, even to which room in the house I was in, so there was no point in trying to run and hide to avoid the punishment. In any case, I’d been warned several times that if they had to come for me, they would award even more lashes or lay them on more cruelly.

At the court hearing it was a foregone conclusion that I would be found guilty. On Sarah’s advice, I dressed conservatively, removed the stud from my tongue, brushed my hair into a traditional style and tried to appear repentant. She came with me but father stayed at home so as ‘not to influence the judicial process’. He could have pleaded on my behalf but didn’t.

“They’ve given you a date?” Sarah asked. I handed her the letter. “Friday the 13th. Not a good omen.” We hugged and cried for a while but we both knew there was nothing either of us could do to prevent my ‘chastisement’, another term for a whipping. I was one of those in favour of the new Republic with its stronger laws and deterrent punishments, but now, when it was me that faced punishment, I wondered if it hadn’t all gone too far. The exiling of that wimpy Charles III was no bad thing and something had to be done when crime got so bad that we hardly dared go out alone in daylight. The new government sorted that out but when it came to thrashing teenage girls and me in particular, I drew the line at it being just. “You’ll get through it Alice, others have, even those less strong than you. I’ll do what I can for you but not being your parent, doesn’t give me much authority and you are considered an adult anyway.”

“She’s only getting what she deserves Sarah. She’s a criminal too and tried to beat another girl senseless. Remember that!” Father’s sharp voice cut into Sarah’s comments.

“Sometimes I wonder why I married a man as heartless as you,” Sarah quietly replied. I knew why. When father wished, he could be one of the most charming and engaging men and to most women he was, but not to me.

She came with me as far as the prison gate, kissed me and said, “I’ll be waiting for your return, whenever that is. Don’t worry about your father not letting you back home, I’ve still kept my own place and a caretaker couple are living in it. Be strong and you’ll get through it. Keep your cool and don’t lose your temper. I’m sure they’ll give you extra punishments if you do, even though no one has said so.” Within an hour, I wished I’d heeded her words. She at least showed some concern for my welfare whereas father’s words were akin to one of his sermons. “I will pray that through your suffering, you will receive redemption.” I think he wanted me publicly crucified on the hill outside town.

The middle-aged, austere looking woman at the reception desk eyed me with distain and the two security men behind her mentally undressed me. “You’ve just made it on time, Ms Carter. Sign here to witness that your time of arrival is 8:29.” I didn’t like her abrupt manner but kept calm. “I have the doctor’s report saying you are fit and healthy enough to receive a full chastisement to Severe level so there will be no problem with you taking the Moderate the court awarded.” My sobbing choked any reply but she ignored it, no doubt going through similar scenes each day inured her to the suffering of others, or perhaps, she delighted in it. “I will call Mister Tom and Mister Joe who will prepare you and supervise your punishment. You will of course, treat them as your superiors and do what they say promptly.” I wondered if I was supposed to use the ‘Mister’ title or maybe it should be ‘Master’ but I never found out.

Both were big burly men and they led and half dragged me to a large room with the automatic whipping machine at one end. “Remove all your clothes,” Tom ordered. I looked around for a private room to undress. “Here! Now!” he barked.

Immediately I objected to being told to strip naked while watched by two strange men. I’m no prude and am not ashamed of my body. Like mother, I’m about 5 feet 6 inches tall, have shoulder length curly hair now dyed a light orange colour, and my 34 inch breasts are more than adequate for my frame. Not glamour girl material but most men would not refuse taking me to bed.

“Not in front of…” I never finished the sentence. Between them, they manhandled me in the roughest manner and, despite my kicking, swearing and spitting, I was soon naked and their hands mauled my tits and poked between my legs. They didn’t appear overly worried by my screams and threats and for a time treated them as a joke; a joke that is, until I managed to spit in Joe’s face and back-kick Tom in the groin area.

“You’ll pay for that girlie,” Joe grunted as he wiped the mess with the back of his hand. “We’ve played with you enough, now you’ll get thrashed and we’ll make sure you get it as hard as we’re allowed to set the machine.”

“And we’ll delight in your suffering bitch! Maybe we’ll get to fuck you when you’re really tender,” added Tom.

In next to no time my ankles were fastened slightly apart to shackles on the floor and my wrists to an overhead hoist that stretched my body taut. To further restrict my movements they fastened a wide belt around my waist with large springs connecting it to posts in front and behind me. “It’s supposed to protect your kidneys girlie, but it also means that you’ll hardly be able to move a millimetre to get away from the whips,” Joe commented with a grin.

Either side, nearly a metre away from my body, stood two polished metal poles that held the whipping arms and the mechanism that controlled them. In front of my face were a series of dials. “Okay girlie, let’s go through just what your behaviour here has let you in for.” Tom had a huge smile on his face as he spoke. “You may not realise it, but we have considerable control over the level of your punishment and we exercise that control according to the way the person acts when they come into our charge. The court ordered a Moderate level punishment, that is, fifty strokes of the whip. See this dial?”

I looked and through wet eyes saw it was labelled ‘Intensity” and an orange coloured segment was marked ‘Moderate’.

“By default, it is set to the lowest intensity, in other words the softest stroke of the whips. I’m going to crank it up to the hardest so you’ll really feel the full force of each lash.” My pleas for forgiveness and to lower the intensity again, only met with mirth and jokes on their part.

“See these hands?” He pointed to the arms sprouting from the poles. “Each one has three fingers and each contains a special plastic strap. The straps are two centimetres wide and we can set the computer to extend one, two or three straps. In your case it will be all three. They’ll fan out and cover a wide area of your body so the strokes will overlap and make the pain more intense.”

“No! No!” I yelled, and begged them further not to make my punishment any worse than it should be, but they delighted in knowing they could really hurt me.

“Now look at this switch marked ‘Back’, ‘Front’ and ‘Both’. We can set it so all the lashes go on your back, or on your front and we can do double sided. Default is back only, then the criminal can lie on his or her front afterwards. Front is rarely used on its own but we’re going to flog both sides of you. Perhaps afterwards you will learn to control your vicious temper. That’s what got you here in the first place.” I cried, I begged, I promised anything but all to no avail. “The last setting we have control over is the time between each stroke. Again it defaults to what is considered the easier option, eight seconds, so the punishment is over fairly quickly, in seven or eight minutes. We’ll set it to thirty seconds and that will give us time to have a cup of tea while we watch you suffer.” I passed out for a few seconds only to hear Tom speaking to Joe.

“Let’s get the monitors connected Joe, then she won’t pass out during the whipping. The little shock charge to her neck will see to that.” Turning to me he grinned and remarked, “I wouldn’t want to be in your body for the next few weeks Tempergirl.” They placed tiny pads on various parts of my body that communicated wirelessly to the computer and before many more minutes elapsed, the doors around the machine closed and I stood alone and terrified, inside it.

A slight hum and the lighting on a panel in front of me indicted the machine had started. ‘Scanning body’ appeared on the screen. ‘Mapping back’ and then ‘Mapping front’. ‘Preparing thongs’. Glancing down I saw the three semi-stiff plastic straps extend from the arm in front of me and I knew the men weren’t joking when they said I was in for the severest punishment they were allowed to give. Nobody had said the handlers were given any control over the settings and I’d just been told that it was all automatically computer controlled. It was, but sadistic men controlled the computer.

‘Preparing to start chastisement’ ‘One’. The first stroke crashed across the back of my thighs and I just knew I couldn’t withstand fifty pain-giving strokes like that. Half an hour later I was proved wrong. The thirty seconds wait seemed like an hour and yet again it came far too quickly. ‘Two’. With horror I watched the arm in front of me swing slowly back and then flick forward in a blur of motion. The thongs caught the upper part of my chest and the top of my breasts.  Again and again I screamed and begged for them to stop the machine but I wondered if they even heard me or if they sat back and laughed at my misfortune. The pain was incredible. I felt a little tingle in my neck and guessed the anti-unconscious device had given me a wake up kick and wished it hadn’t but there was absolutely nothing I could do about it.

‘Three’. My body twisted the limited amount the shackles and belt allowed when the third stroke lashed my lower arse. ‘Four’. That was the worst stroke. In terror I watched the arm move back and instinctively knew the three thongs would land directly across both breasts. Again I let out a horrendous scream as the force flattened them to my chest. Red weals appeared across them and where the straps had fanned out and overlapped on the top of my tits, the welts were especially deep and raw and certainly I would have passed out had not the device prevented it. Inexorably the punishment went on until my back had thirteen strokes, the last being across my shoulders, and the front had twelve and finished at the front of my thighs. My brain continually tried to shut down, my voice could only produce a hoarse groan and even with the screen in front of me, I almost lost track of what was going on.

A slight whirring and the arm that flogged my back moved to the front, and it’s counterpart changed sides too. The awful, slow whipping started again with the thongs that curled around the right side of my back, now curling into the left so as to completely cover the whole of my body from neck to knees with one huge raw, bruised, blister. By the time the screen said ‘Fifty, punishment over’ I was an incoherent wreck and when the pads were removed, I collapsed into a lifeless heap on the floor. Hours later, I came to in a bed in the clinic. They’d sedated me so I’d slept until four the next morning, then the pain started to return but they didn’t do anything further to relieve it. In fact I believed the nurses, male and female, had been hand picked for their callousness.

Chapter two. The aftermath

My moaning and cries brought a swift reaction from the duty nurse, a buxom middle-aged, unsmiling woman. “Quieten down Carter, there’s no need for all that noise and you’ll be in real trouble if you disturb the other patients and Matron. You only had a Moderate.”

“Can’t you give me something to ease the pain?” I croaked.

“No.”

“I need to piss.”

“Toilets are at the end of the room. Get up and go there. Don’t even think about wetting the bed.

“I can’t move, it hurts too much.”

With practiced ease, the cruel woman swung my legs over the edge of the bed and jerked me upright. Holding me up for a few seconds, and regardless of my screams, she gave me a little push and again admonished me to be quiet. After only three steps, I collapsed and sobbed. Nobody came to help. Five or ten minutes later, I really don’t know how long, I decided that I was in just as much pain on the floor as I was walking and eventually managed to half crawl and half walk to the loos. Of course, there were no doors so I couldn’t shut myself away and howl in private, but there were handles each side of the pan where I could hold myself in a partial squat position and piss. Finally I made it back to my bed but with raw welts on both sides of my body I could only writhe and moan with the pain. My cries must have again disturbed the nurse because this time she came to the bed wielding a leather strap. “This your last warning Carter, any more of this nonsense and I’ll use this on your arse. Understand? The pain is part of your punishment. That’s why you’re here. Understand?” I nodded and tried to control my moans but couldn’t get to sleep especially when others in the room awoke and became aware of their pain and cried out too. I was the first but not the only one punished that day. Several times the nurse reprimanded others and in the dim blue light, I saw a man stagger to the loos but couldn’t see the state of his body.

My pain fuelled my anger at what I’d had to endure. My blood boiled with hate for the judges, my father, for Janice, and especially for the men who operated the whipping machine. Perhaps it was towards my father that most of my hate was directed; he could have used his influence to get me off with just a reprimand, but deliberately did nothing and seemed to gloat when he heard my sentence. “Given half a chance, I’ll cut his balls off,” I told myself, but knowing it would only land me in more trouble. There was no denying any accusation when they used the truth drug, as they invariably did.

A loud clanging bell woke any that were still sleeping, the lights flared up and two nurses and two guards herded six of us, three men and two other women besides me, to the toilets and then to the showers. All of us cried out as we moved but a tall, skinny, sharp-faced woman, who was the matron, silenced us with threats of further punishment. Sex was certainly not on anyone’s mind as we hobbled along the ward. I looked at the others but no one looked as badly punished as me, and none had their fronts whipped. All three men had Moderate but only on their backs and with only one tail extended. The two women, one quite old probably around forty and the other nearer my age, both had Light; twenty-five with the single tail. That led me to wonder if father had seen to it that I be given the fullest possible punishment and if Tom and Joe had deliberately provoked me.

At one point the pain almost caused me to collapse but a man held me up and assisted me in the shower. I did pass out in the drying room when I saw the terrible state of my body in the full-length mirror. The man and the older woman helped me up, I never found out his name as we weren’t allowed to talk, and then assisted me to walk into the dining area where they gave us a thick liquid drink that tasted horrible but was supposed to give us the necessary vitamins and help our recovery but didn’t ease our pain. Fortunately we also had a plastic mug of tea to wash it down. Other prisoners, more men than women, came in clothed in standard orange suits that covered them loosely, and got a meagre meal. Some sat gingerly at the tables while others seemed relatively free of pain.

With more orders to keep quiet we trooped back to the ward and made to lie on our beds. The others could lie face down but with the effects of the sedative now gone, I couldn’t get any relief whichever way I laid down and the pain level now high, I could easily have screamed my head off, but the male nurse patrolling the ward, gave the young girl a whack with his strap when she cried out too loudly so I tried to contain myself and only groaned softly.

“This one’s only had Moderate?” I must have drifted away in exhaustion because when I looked at the source of the voice, a man in a white coat and wearing a stethoscope, stood by my bed, clipboard in hand.

“Apparently she lost her temper and attacked the machine supervisors.”

Gentle hands touched various tender places and I felt the stethoscope on my back. “Hearts alright Matron, but her flesh is more badly bruised than many Hard or even Severe chastisements. Treat her as having had Hard and tape a pain suppressing unit to her spine. Sedate her at night and she’ll need extra time in the clinic.” At least the doctor seemed to care about his patients.

Sarah commed me on Tuesday and was shocked and cried when she saw the state of my body. “I’ll download the comm picture stream for your father to see but I’m not sure whether he will be pleased or sorry for you.” It was the first communication they’d allowed me and, because I was still in the clinic, I was still naked. When I suggested to her that father might have influenced my getting a more severe thrashing than everyone else, she looked thoughtful and said, “He hasn’t said anything of course, but he did make a phone call to the prison while I was driving you there and of course as one of the chaplains, he is often at the prison and could have arranged it on one of his visits. I know he still very much resents the humiliation you caused that day in the church all those years ago. He’s never forgiven you for that.” The others from my group left the previous day but the doctor gave me another recovery day. I could walk a little easier if I took each step slowly and the unit was still taped to my back, but any quick movements and the pain returned. Sitting on the chairs in the dining area still caused too much suffering but I could sit on the bed for short periods.

Later I received the ubiquitous orange sweat suit, a pair of soft shoes to wear and a small bag containing toiletries. No bra or knickers but I couldn’t have worn them anyway, my tits and arse were still far too swollen to be restricted in tight garments. The doctor wanted me to remain in the clinic a further day but Matron snapped and said the bed was needed for the new inmates and I was to go to the rehab unit.

The cell contained two, two tier bunk beds with thin, black mattresses and, having been marched at a quicker pace than I wanted along a maze of corridors, by the time I was pushed in, tears flowed down my face. I was knackered and ready to collapse but I could see only a top bunk was free. The two women from ‘my group’ sat on one bottom bunk and a portly older woman on the other. Fearfully I looked at the ladder I’d have to climb to get up to the top one and knew I’d never make it. “Don’t worry Luv, you’ll be sleeping in this bed with me. I’m Pamela, Pam,” the woman introduced herself. At least talking was allowed here and I learned the young girl was Julie and her companion liked to be called Marg.

In my younger days, I’d slept with a girlfriend a number of times and we’d explored each other’s bodies but we didn’t know much about sex at the time. Later, I had a few experiences with women, one with a ‘real’ lesbian who’d taken me to her bed when I was too drunk to walk home. Although I quite enjoyed her ministrations, I much preferred a man’s prick and it didn’t help my punk image to be seen with a woman.

The cell door being noisily opened interrupted my thoughts and a guard ordered us to go to lunch. Pam stood alongside me at the bar type counter although she could have sat at a table and after gulping down the awful tasting thick juice that was supposed to help us recover, I asked, “What happens now?”

“For you, I expect it will be form filling this afternoon and then for the next few days you’ll have sessions with a counsellor to try and change whatever attitude brought you here and to find out what job you’ll be suited to do. For me, more job counselling but I’m nearly at the end of my time and it looks like I shall be put with some wealthy man or a woman as a housekeeper. They’re trying to find someone suitable. I hope it is a woman. After being married for ten years, I don’t want another man.”

The forms were computer files and the assistant sat me on a hard chair at the console causing me further pain. She ignored my plea for a cushion and told me to get on with it. I wanted to finish as soon as possible but quickly found if I left the answer to a question blank, I couldn’t go on to the next page. Feeling shitty, fed up and angry, I typed ‘Don’t know’ into a box and found the computer would accept it so I copied and pasted it as the answer to almost every question and pressed the send button at the end. It got me taken back to the cell but the assistant remarked that I’d finished unduly quickly and she hoped that I’d answered the questions properly. I assured her that I’d done the best I could.

Next day, I found out I’d made another mistake!

Pam and I did share her bed that night but she was gentle and was careful not to hurt my tender tits and was a comfort to me when I had a bout of depression and started crying in the night. Julie didn’t return to the cell after the evening meal and Pam said that she was probably taken to the bed of one of the senior officers for the night. “You aren’t forced to sleep with them but they can make life very difficult if you don’t. They like the younger ones so you might get asked one night. It’s Julie’s second night out and she said it was better than being in the cell.”

My counsellor probably disliked me as much as I did her. From what Pam told me, I expected to sit in a nice soft chair with her facing me in a relaxed situation but not with Ms. Blackwood. She sat behind her desk and gave me a hard chair in front of it. There were armchairs in the room but we didn’t use them. She started by reading and reviewing a print-out of the form I’d filled in. After ten minutes or so she paused and looked at me over her old fashioned glasses, “It would seem you don’t know very much at all. You don’t know why you attacked the girl, you don’t know what you want out of life, you didn’t know the answers to any of the maths or general knowledge questions and you don’t know what sort of work you would like to be trained to do. That’s all a load of rubbish. You know it and I know it. You just wanted to say, ‘Fuck you,’ to us but it may well be you that gets fucked over.” This session was going badly and was quite unlike the sessions Pam had. Worse was to come. “I spoke with your father when he was here yesterday after I’d downloaded your questionnaire and he suggested training you in some form of manual work that didn’t involve a lot of brain power. He proposed putting you on a building site as a labourer but physically, I doubt you are capable of doing that.”

“You’ve got to be joking. That old bastard of a preacher, who is technically my father, is out for more revenge. I couldn’t lift an empty shovel at the moment…”

“I’ll do the talking,” she snapped, “As I was saying, I doubt you are capable of doing building work but I agreed with him that some form of manual labour should be involved. We both know that what you put on the form was a pack of lies and you do have a brain even if you don’t use it to its best advantage. You so obviously do not wish to take part in the rehab programme and therefore I have arranged for you to start on your work programme with immediate effect.”

“I told you, I can hardly move let alone start work. My file should tell you how they thrashed me back and front and sitting in this fucking hard chair gives me hell, but that’s what you want isn’t it? That’s what my father ordered you to do.” With a little cry I stood up and faced her but she must have pressed an alarm button or something as two guards appeared and roughly pushed me back down again and this time I yelled when my arse forcibly hit the seat. They held me while Ms. Blackwood shuffled through her papers and finally found the one she was looking for.

“Alice Rachel Carter, you are to be indentured as a joinery apprentice to Richard Mansard for the term of one year or until you can satisfactorily complete a testimonial item, whichever is the longer. Richard Mansard will be in full charge of you for that period and you will live with him, train with him and be subservient to him. He has full authority to chastise you for any and all misdemeanours.”

“I can’t do woodwork… I don’t know how…”

“You didn’t know how to do anything else either – according to your form. By the end of the year perhaps you’ll have learned something… or you’ll have a very sore bottom. Take her to her cell, I’ll contact Richard and he can pick her up.”

Chapter three. Rocky

“I didn’t want an apprentice at all Ali, especially not a girl who has no inclination for the work but the powers that be, have forced you on me whether I like it or not. And whether you like it or not, you’ve got to work for me and prove yourself competent by the end of the year, otherwise I’m stuck with you for longer or you’ll get sent back to the centre for another session in the machine and start your training again.” Richard ‘Rocky’ Mansard stood and glared at me and being in a defiant mood, I glared back. At least he’d offered me the soft seat in his office.

“I can’t do any work at the moment, I’m still in too much pain. You can’t make me work!”

“I thought they’d explained all that to you at the prison. While you are an apprentice, I can and will punish you if you do not work or for any other misdemeanour and if that fails, I can send you back for another round on the whipping machine. For the next year or for however long it takes to complete your apprenticeship, you do exactly as you are told, at work, at home and in my bed. That at least is one of the perks I get for having to put up with you.”

Ms. Blackwood had indeed gleefully explained it in great detail but I had visions of being able to twist the man around my little finger. Now I wasn’t so sure that my feminine wiles would have any effect. Broad shouldered and tall, Rocky towered above me and I knew physically I would not stand a chance in any confrontation, in fact, I was more than a little afraid of him. A hand spanking from him would hurt and I shuddered to think what the pain would be like if he used a belt or cane. I would need to use a careful, gentle approach. Not one of my strong points.

“You don’t really expect me to start work until I’m free of pain from my whipping. If you read the file, you’ll know that only a week ago, they whipped me front and back and did it as hard as they could. You cannot possibly know the suffering I’m going through.” To my amazement he pulled off his shirt and lowered the back of his trousers; his back and arse were covered with the criss-crossing scars from whipping welts.

“You’ll not be scarred like this. Until last year, they used artificial canes in the whipping machine, canes that cut deep into the flesh when applied hard, and that was the only setting then. I expect mine to show until they me put in the incinerator but yours will fade before your year is up, unless you have to have them renewed. I had a week in rehab and then had to go to a master and learn this trade and he started me straightaway like I will you. Now let’s get going.”

We didn’t actually do any work that day. The prison authorities gave him a credit note for £4,000 to buy work clothing and a basic kit of tools for me. I would have to repay the money when my yearly income rose above the £25,000 mark. The clothing had to be orange to signify to everyone that I was a prisoner on parole and that meant visiting one of the two specialist suppliers in town. I already had two changes of the light-weight orange sweat suits the prison supplied, for the times when I wasn’t working, but he said I needed something stronger and an apron for work wear. Then it was a visit to a tool store to buy stuff that I had little or no idea of what they were used for but cost the earth in credits as he never bought the cheapest. “False economy,” he informed me, “Good tools will last you for the rest of your life.” I didn’t tell him that I would only need them for the time I was forced to be with him.

The working day was over by the time we’d finished shopping. “Let’s see what your cooking skills are like Alice. Make us a meal with whatever you can find in the freezer.” This caused me a little worry as cooking was not one of my strong points but I’d had to do it often enough for father before he remarried. Nevertheless it was better than the stuff we had in prison and Rocky ate it without comment except that I didn’t make enough.

As I sat opposite him, I wondered that he hadn’t even asked to see my body or tried to fuck me. Not that we’d had any free time during the afternoon and not that I wanted to fucked, I was very sore from all the walking and carrying of stuff, but I knew he had the right to use my body whenever he chose. “Is he gay?” I asked myself but that notion was soon dispelled when I’d finished washing-up and he took me to the bedroom to put my clothing away. “Time for us to get to know each other. It’s now my turn to be master and have an apprentice to use. I had to submit to my master for long enough,” he announced, “First we shower.”

The bathroom was spacious and tidy in a manly way. A large shower cubicle stood in one corner with the body dryer alongside, a toilet in the other corner and a washbasin in between. He pissed in front of me and I glimpsed his prick for the first time although I tried not to watch. “Get undressed, you’re not going to shower with your clothes on and I’m not going to fuck you with them on either. I’m looking forward to seeing and handling those tits after seeing the way they pushed out your tunic all afternoon.” By then he’d started undressing and I knew I couldn’t postpone the inevitable. Tears started flowing down my face at the thought of anyone handling my swollen breasts but I unzipped my top and forced myself to do it in front of him and watched him removed his clothing. Once again I saw the scars on his back and bum and wondered what he’d done to warrant his chastisement. From the number of stripes I guessed he’d had a Hard. Was it for violence against women? Rape? He was certainly powerful enough that no woman would stand a chance against him. I certainly wouldn’t.

“Fuck me! They really did lay it into you.” My body still showed a kaleidoscope of bruise colours. “Your father must hate you very badly to pay the men to set the machine to hit that hard.” I looked at him with some surprise as he slid his trousers down. “You didn’t know?” he queried, “ I suppose not as I only heard it by chance when I was in the canteen after getting the info on you.”

“No, I only suspected he had a hand in it. I didn’t know he fucking paid them. No wonder they did it with so much bloody enthusiasm.” Hatred of my father and his underhand scheming ways once more came to the surface but with Rocky near naked in front of me, I had to suppress it. By now my attention was focussed on the large size prick that was rising in response to my nudity and I wondered if I would be able to withstand the weight of him lying on me or if we’d fuck standing up in the shower. We didn’t but he washed me carefully and it was nice to have warm water and scented soap, even if was a man’s scent.

By his standards, he was gentle but I couldn’t help crying out when he spent some time massaging and sucking my tits. They were still very swollen and extremely tender. “Stop whining girl, unless you want me to bend you over and give your arse something to make you whine for. I thought you punk girls were supposed to be tough. I had a cruel master who forced my arse cheeks apart a rammed his prick in my bum as soon as we were alone and opened up some of the welts, I’m not that cruel but I am going to play with you, whether you like it or not, and I am going to fuck you for my pleasure. I shan’t deliberately hurt you unless you keep moaning and objecting to what I do. You had a hard thrashing but that was a week ago and you should be over the worst my now.”  I was certain he would spank me or worse if I didn’t do what he wanted so I did try and control my outbursts and when I thought back to the first two days after my chastisement, I knew I was in far less pain than then. My whole body was still very sore but I was not in the tremendous pain of a few days ago. Perhaps the vile drink did do some good.

Of course, I had to kneel and wash his prick and then give it a bit of a suck but he stopped me from going too far because he wanted to put it in my cunt and ‘give me a proper fucking’. He did too. Without waiting for me to dry myself fully or to do my hair, he carried me to the bed and gently laid me down with my legs widely spread. His prick soon found my hole and stretched it more that ever before, or so it felt but, fortunately, the play in the shower had my juices flowing and the entry didn’t cause any pain and the fact that he kept his body raised from mine, meant that I didn’t suffer unduly. I actually climaxed well before he shot his load into me. That was a pleasant surprise. Most of my previous fucks left me insatiate. We had to have another quick shower to wash the sweat off afterwards.

Half an hour later, I asked if he would allow me to comm Sarah; I wasn’t allowed a communications phone while on parole. “As long as I sit in on it so I know what my apprentice gets up to and says about me.” He plugged the comm into a socket so Sarah’s image came up the wall screen. Rocky introduced himself as a master joiner and me as his lowly apprentice. She looked surprised and said she expected me to go for a beautician or hairdresser.

“Father’s doing again. Did you know he bribed those men to flog me extra hard?”

Sarah shook her head and then looked into her personal organiser. “The P O says he withdrew £300 a few days after you were sentenced and before you went for the chastisement so you could be right. I can hardly believe that he bribed men to beat you like that? It’s diabolical. And he’s been so cheerful the last few days. Dear God, why did I marry him? I didn’t realise that he could be so underhand and conniving. I’m so sorry for you Alice and I’ll do what I can to help you.”

“You might be the next victim if you thwart him,” Rocky interrupted with the warning.

“I know, but I think there may be subtle ways of getting our own back even if it doesn’t mean he gets a visit to the chastisement centre.” She wouldn’t reveal her plan and we talked on other things and I had to show her how my body was healing. Rocky slipped my tunic off and held me on display as though he owned me, which he did for the next year. Sarah seemed pleased with the way the stripes were slowly fading and said, “Please be kind to her Rocky. I know what some masters and mistresses are like from talking with the apprentices after they’ve finished their terms. Some are quite brutal.”

“If she behaves, I’ll behave but I won’t put up with any nonsense or disobedience. She needs to learn to control herself and if she doesn’t, while she’s with me, she’ll have a sore arse. From what I hear, the fault wasn’t all on her father’s side, she has to take some of the blame if not for the excessive punishment.” That pretty well ended the conversation and I could see the tears in my eyes were mirrored in Sarah’s.

Chapter four. Bribery revealed

VICAR BRIBES MEN TO FLOG DAUGHTER HARSHLY

I stared at the splash headline on the front page of the Bistonbury Chronicle and then at the photo of father in his pulpit and the two photos showing me naked front and back.

The photos were taken the previous evening and I now guessed that Rocky had a hand in it. As I stood under the dryer after my shower, a man burst into the room and took several pictures before I turned my back on him. The flash went off a number of times until Rocky ushered him out of the room. “Must have left the back door unlocked,” he remarked. That was not too unusual as the crime rate was pretty low but now I wondered if it had been deliberate, especially as he stood with a smile on his face as he watched me scan the paper. After a shower my stripes showed clearly and I guessed they might have enhanced the photo too because they looked particularly deep and colourful.

‘Thomas Jeffreys and Joseph Cook, employees at the prison service and the technicians who operate the automatic chastisement machine, today, under the influence of dichloromethanol, usually referred to as the truth drug, admitted taking a bribe from the Reverend Michael Carter to set the machine to the highest permitted levels when chastising his daughter, Alice. Alice was sentenced to a Moderate punishment for assaulting another girl and, while the number of strokes is specified, the setting of the machine is left to the discretion of the operators…

…Our undercover reporter was able to photograph Alice at her home yesterday. We could not get a statement from her because regulations do not permit anyone on parole to communicate with the media without permission, but the photographs show the state of her body two weeks after her punishment…

…Judge Hamilton commented to us, “A moderate punishment seemed appropriate for the crime she committed but we expected an appeal from her family, or at least from her father, for clemency and to plead mitigating circumstances. No appeal was lodged. Normally a moderate punishment would not be as severe as hers, in fact, although she only had the required fifty strokes, she suffered more than many who are sentenced to Hard.”

“In view of this will there be a revue or remission of her sentence?”

“No. She was punished within the guidelines laid down by prison regulations.”

“Will anything be done about the payment of a bribe to influence the punishment?”

“The two technicians have been suspended and the case is being looked into with a view to prosecuting all the parties concerned.”

…Rumour has it that the vicar used the punishment to revenge his humiliation by his daughter of an event in church several years ago. The Diocesan Bishop is looking into the matter.’

I read and re-read the article that gave all the gruesome details of my punishment, the crime I’d committed and in interviews with the churchgoers, the real reason for my father’s anger was given in some detail. Apparently father’s only comment to the press was, “God told me she needed to be punished fully to atone for all her crimes, not just the one she was sentenced for, in order to mend her ways and to lead her along the path to a better life.”

Rocky genuinely didn’t seem to know how the authorities found out so I could only guess it was Sarah’s doing and I knew father would probably be at home so I couldn’t comm her.  However, later that evening she commed me and I learned a little of the devious way she leaked the information.

“I guess you’ve seen the paper Alice.” I confirmed that I had. “I didn’t expect it to get that far so quickly. Mary Furlough was due around after we last spoke and during our talk I secretly pressed the button on the P O to dial the home phone. I went into the other room to answer it but left the door ajar and had a one sided conversation with myself concerning the bribe and your severe thrashing. Knowing Mary, she would be listening in and would whisper the details to all the ladies in the church group. Even if she told them in strict confidence and asked them to keep it secret, the whole village would know before the end of the evening. It spread further than that and the Chronicle got hold of it and contacted the prison governor for a statement and suggested they might take the matter to his bosses if no action was taken. Your father was taken in for questioning but released without charge while they look into the case. He’s had a location device fitted so he cannot run away and that’s not pleased him and nor has the questions he’s had to answer from his parishioners. We’ve to wait until Monday before the court committee meet to revue the evidence.” We talked for a while longer but no new information came to light.

Life hadn’t been too bad for the first week at work. Rocky of course, fucked me whenever he felt like it and twice had me bending over a bench in his workshop while he ploughed me from the rear. So far he’d only threatened to fuck my arse but I knew it wouldn’t be too long before he did. “My master raped my arse within an hour of picking me up,” he kept telling me, but he didn’t have a cunt and his master was homosexual.

I was given menial tasks and only a few times did I do some simple woodwork, mainly planing and sandpapering, which were a bit boring but I suppose I had to start with simple stuff.

A little over a week later, on a Monday, I was depressed and on my period and spending my second day sanding panels that had awkward corners that caught my fingernails. The hoped for thrashing of my father didn’t materialise although he didn’t get away scot-free; the court ordered him to serve thirty days of community service. For that period he would work eight hours a day and have to wear the orange uniform that denoted he was a criminal. The work, a conservation project, involved building a walkway suitable for wheelchair users through the new wildlife park. The work would be hard for one not used to physical labour but I had wanted him to visit the chastisement centre and to feel the whip strike him across his naked back and arse. Worse perhaps for him, was the fact that his congregation had largely turned against him and the bishop suspended him from duty, which put him out of a job at the end of his community service unless the bishop changed his mind.

Rocky must have noticed my bad mood because I swore when I caught my finger on the damned panel and he quietly reminded me to control myself. For a while I did but later in the afternoon it happened again and I’d had enough. I swore, told him to do his own shitty work and said he’d never make a joiner out of me, not in a million years. Before I’d finished he grabbed me around the waist, dragged me to a stool and I found myself lying across his lap in the classic spanking position. Knowing I was in trouble, I pleaded with him, said I was sorry so many times that I lost count but that didn’t make any difference. He pulled my trousers down and spanked me hard until I was crying like a baby. I’d only recently been able to sit without feeling the effects of the whipping and now my arse was sore again. It only added to my depression and when he picked me up and bent me over the bench to fuck me I almost felt that life wasn’t worth living. Worse, he decided that he’d try out my bottom hole for the first time and although I struggled and received a few more slaps for doing so, eventually he forced his way in and ravished me without any thought for my discomfort. Or so I thought. Later, after sending me to the toilet to clean up, he came and hugged me, “You must learn to control that temper of yours Ali, I don’t like spanking you but I will do so every time you defy me.” Afterwards we sanded the panels together so they were finished before we went home.

Sarah commed us that evening and while she was sympathetic to me, also urged me to try and control my temper. I assured her that I would try, but at times it was difficult. I’d been so wrapped up in my own problems that I’d forgotten about hers until I remembered to ask. “Michael’s got to go for a tribunal hearing with the Diocesan committee and he’ll be gone for two days so while he’s away, I’m moving into my old place. The caretaker couple will stay until they can find another place and I will have the spare room. I think Michael suspects I had a hand in bringing this to light and has been aggressive for the last few days and it could get worse. You’d better move your stuff out too as there is no telling what he’ll do if they decided he’s unfit to continue to preach and will he out of a job and he’ll have to leave this house too as it is tied to the church. He, of course, blames you for the entire fiasco.”

“Would you like the use of my van?” Rocky offered and after a bit of hesitation she agreed although she had her own car. At least that got me a day off work and a chance to talk to Sarah without Rocky listening in all the time. I was half afraid father would take his wrath out on her but she assured me that while he was on parole, he wouldn’t dare do anything and she thought he might move away from the area to somewhere he wasn’t known when his month of community work was finished. The two days he was away were added to his sentence. We moved Sarah’s stuff first and then all my stuff, or at least the stuff Rocky didn’t consider junk. Much of it was my teenage Goth and punk stuff that I too felt I wouldn’t need any more.

I could still feel the after effects of my spanking but it was no where near as bad as the whipping and being with Sarah again, cheered me up although she was in a rather sombre mood knowing this was the end of her marriage and the start of what could be nasty divorce proceedings.

Over the next three weeks, I was allowed to do a little more of the woodwork construction and had to help with assembling a number of the items. One morning I watched him use a scrollsaw to fretsaw some fancy ventilation grills that surrounded the top and bottom of a large closet. Instead of modern louvers or the cheap plastic imitations, these reproduction pieces had grills cut as silhouettes of hunting scenes. Surprising myself, I asked, “Can I do that?” I’d already done the tedious job of preparing the wood for the panels and I could see he would be doing the interesting bit. He looked at me as if to say, “I doubt it,” but he actually said, “Print another copy of the design and glue it to a scrap piece and have a practice at it.” I found out later that it wasn’t a favourite job of his.

When I broke a blade on the first cut, I thought that was the end of my sawing but no, he said, “It happens to everyone,” and showed me again what to do. By the time I’d cut half a dozen pieces, I’d got the hang of it and could follow the line as well as he could albeit more slowly, and I started on the proper panels. That job took me four days to complete but I felt I was doing something worthwhile and I did most of the scrollsaw work from then on.

Nearly a month later Rocky took me to a little workshop in the backyard of a suburban house and introduced me to Percy Henderson, an inlay specialist. Percy’s eyes were failing with age and he wanted to give up the work and settle down for a well-earned retirement. He was already eighty years old so well past normal retirement age. “Have her for a week Percy and if she shows promise, train for a month and I’ll buy your equipment and stock.”

Very little of the equipment was familiar to me. I recognised the piles of veneer as we’d used a little of it for some of our projects but the ancient looking device Percy sometimes called a donkey and at other times a ‘chevrolet’ was totally alien to me but I soon learned it was like our scrollsaw turned so the work was held vertically. “Only one or two of these left still working in the country,” Percy informed me, “Most work is done with them computer ultra sound cutters these days but when people want genuine reproduction inlays they come to me and if you’re any good, they’ll come to you.” He was completely unfazed by my orange tunic or the fact that I was a girl and soon had me sitting on the chevrolet sawing a piece he’d already started. For an old man who said he couldn’t see too well, he followed the line remarkably well and I strove to imitate him. He sat alongside me the whole time and chatted and reminisced about the work he’d done and his life in general. By the end of the afternoon, I’d put together a simple inlay of only a dozen pieces but I was proud of my achievement. Next day we pressed it on a board as a permanent reminder of my first effort.

By the end of my first week, with Percy’s patient teaching, I was making inlays that were good enough to be sold. Rocky didn’t need an assessment from my tutor at the end of the week, the work I’d done spoke for itself. I still had a lot to learn about the materials, methods of treating them and a host of other techniques that were used regularly or on special occasions, but I began to enjoy what I was doing and it gave me a daytime break from Rocky. He dropped me off at eight in the morning and picked me up at five. In the end I managed to wangle six weeks with Percy before we transferred all his stock and equipment to Rocky’s workplace. It was a sad day for Percy and for me too but I promised to call in whenever I needed advice and invited him over to our workshop once we had it set up. He often popped in to see me, partly I think to have someone to talk to and partly because after all the years he spent doing the work, despite what he’d said when we first met, he was reluctant to give it up.

Chapter five. A boyfriend

Six months went by and I became more and more involved in the inlay work and actually started to enjoy what I was doing. Percy came by frequently and without his help I would never have achieved the standard of work that brought recognition from a number of antique dealers and a couple of museum curators. He would sit beside me for hours and patiently explain various techniques and offer advice and stories, so much so that Rocky often referred to him as my father. I would certainly have preferred him to my real father but there was certainly nothing sexual is our relationship. I’m sure he was just a lonely old man and liked having a young girl to teach and pass on his knowledge to.

Life with Rocky had its ups and downs and I’d had three spankings during that time, two were for ‘serious’ offences where I lost my temper and one for being cheeky and then he gave me a mock spanking that still hurt for most of the day.

Sarah now worked part time for us doing the bookkeeping. She saved me trying to keep up with the paperwork and even Rocky had to admit I wasn’t any good at that. He did acknowledge my expertise at cutting the inlays and several times used them on his work and I generated a goodly part of the income for the firm. I received a regular wage now but I had a growing resentment of him being my master and having such control over my affairs. He could, and did, demand sex whenever he wished and I had no option but to comply otherwise it was a spanking and then the sex. It also seemed that he was getting all the kudos for the work I did. The bills went out on the Mansard Joinery headed noted paper or electronically from the web site and no mention was made of me as the maker. To be fair, it was largely his capital that financed the firm although the premises were a grant from a TV company who’d sponsored a programme for ex prisoners. The TV crew visited occasionally to film an update and permission was granted for me to appear in it. This brought a shower of enquiries from people who didn’t realise such work was still done.

Another resentment over Rocky’s control of me was when I wanted to go out with a boy. He imposed a curfew on the time I had to be home and what nights I could go out, much the same as a strict father might with a young teenager, but with Rocky, I knew failure to conform would get me a spanking, something I tried to avoid. With my father, I would have got away with it but not with Rocky. I think also he was a little jealous of my wanting to go with someone else and when I found out, I did everything I could to fuel his jealousy without endangering my arse. Being on parole didn’t prohibit me from forming a relationship with a boy but I had to ask permission before getting time off from my master and I had to wear my orange suit. Jewellery was allowed though, and I wore earrings and a necklace. Up until the time Dan, one of the drivers that brought in supplies, asked me out, Rocky had not shown much interest in me as a person. Yes, he cared for me and looked after me but, as far as I could tell, I was just a body for him to fuck, not someone to love. After I went out with Dan the first time, Rocky started to show more interest in me but I dismissed his overtures with, ‘You had your chance for the last six months, now it’s someone else’s turn.’ I didn’t tell him that to his face though.

Dan was fun to be with but I knew it was not going to be a lasting relationship but I fostered it as a way of getting back at my master. It didn’t work. On our fourth date we ended up on a blanket in a field and I allowed him to fuck me, well if you could call it a fuck. He prick was small and was only in me for a few seconds before he shot his load and withdrew. A very poor substitute for the fucks I had at home. I became angry when he wouldn’t even finish me off with his fingers and we had a blazing row. Once more I lost my temper and when I raised my fists, he hit me first and knocked me to the ground and drove off. My situation was quite serious. I was, alone in the field miles from anywhere, well seven miles from home and my shoes were still in his car. Without a comm phone I couldn’t get any help and the quiet farm lane had no traffic and no houses, only fields on either side. “Perhaps Rocky will check with Control if I’m late home.” Unfortunately he didn’t until just before I commed him at the petrol station. I started walking barefoot and an hour later came to a main road but it was another half hour before I hobbled on my bloodied feet into to a country petrol station and could ask them to phone Rocky. At first my orange suit caused them to think I was a prisoner who’d tried to escape but fortunately a customer came in who recognised me and phoned Rocky. By then it was hours after my curfew time and I fully expected to receive the full force of his wrath, but no, he didn’t even ask about it until we were home. Probably the state of my dress, my face and my swollen blistered feet, told him something was seriously wrong.

Crying, I told him what happened but instead of my anticipated spanking, he cuddled me. “I ought to give you a hiding for losing your temper and for being late but for once I think you’ve been punished enough.” He bathed my feet and put ointment on and we snuggled close in bed. That night I didn’t sleep well, the pain in my feet and face kept me awake and my thoughts kept going over my life and my time as an apprentice. Gradually I came to realise that I wasn’t treated all that badly, not as badly as Rocky had been treated as an apprentice or as some women in the stories that Sarah told. In fact I was enjoying life in a way I hadn’t for many of the previous years. The punishments I had, I deserved and they were never more than hand spankings, although they hurt badly, he never used a cane or a strap. Perhaps if I showed a little more affection to him instead of just doing things because I had to, would he show more affection for me?

Next day, Rocky had to take me to the clinic because my feet were too swollen to walk properly and we feared they had become infected. They had and when the doctor enquired as to the cause, I told him. Pictures were immediately sent to the local police station to see if they could be considered a ‘non accidental injury’. They picked Dan up and questioned him after giving him the truth drug and decided, although I had aggravated him, he had caused my injury because he knew I would have no option but to walk home without shoes. On the following Tuesday, the magistrate awarded him thirty strokes with the tawse and sixty hours community service. At least he was spared the chastisement machine but it would be several days before he would sit comfortably to drive his vehicle.

Over the next two months or so, my relationship with Rocky improved. I knew by then that Rocky would never be a romantic but we now kissed and cuddled affectionately before and after we made love. He didn’t say much in the way of endearments but sometimes bought me little presents and began to treat me more as his equal.

With only a little over three months before the official end to my apprenticeship, I had to start thinking about doing a testimonial piece. I’d half made up my mind to do an inlaid box when a surprise project came to me. A new curator was appointed to run our local museum and at the time had been in the post for a couple of months. Gradually he went through the archives of artefacts they had stored and came across drawings of a longcase clock the museum was supposed to have but which no one had seen. Eventually he tracked it down to a cellar that at one time had been flooded. Instead of being a beautiful piece covered with marquetry, now it lay in pieces on its back, the inlays and veneers peeling from the rotting base and the works corroded. It was in a very sorry state. The museum services conservator decided there was little of the woodwork left that could be conserved; rot and the furniture beetle had taken its toll. However, the horologist thought the works could be saved and restored but it would take time and cost a considerable amount of money. I was asked for an opinion as to the practicability of restoring the inlay but I could only agree with the conservator. There was one panel that enough was left that could be put on a fresh base but even that would hardly be worthwhile. “Why don’t we do a replica using the original works?” I asked, “We have the drawings and your archives have photos so we know what it was like and you could have it to show the public what the clocks actually looked like when they were new, not in the faded state we usually see them today. I could do it as my testimonial piece.”

“Nice idea but it would cost far too much,” the curator and the conservator replied almost in unison.

“Perhaps the TV company would be interested in making a programme and footing some of the expense. They seemed very interested in what I did when they came a while back.” They seemed doubtful but I wasn’t going to let it go and they agreed that if I could get sponsorship for the woodwork side of the project, they’d pay for the horologist to restore the works.

A month later, when I’d almost given up hope, Samuel Hogarth, a producer for Shire TV, came to discus the project and set a timetable. To suit their programming I would barely have started on the project before the end of my year long apprenticeship but Rocky and I agreed that didn’t matter, I had to do a testimonial piece before I finished my time and it would only mean that I was officially an apprentice for a few months more. “Dammit woman, that means I will have to feed and look after you for even longer,” Rocky grinned.

“It also means I shall be in your clutches and you’ll be able to have your wicked way with me.” I laughed too.

Samuel and his director, decided to angle the programme from a ‘bad girl makes good’ point of view as well as restoring the clock. It meant rehashing some of my past, which I didn’t want but had to agree to. The inlays were the most complex work I’d ever attempted but fortunately Percy took a great interest too and advised me on materials and how to set about the work. Even working on some weekends, the project took longer than we anticipated but there was no way we could speed it up. The horologist too wanted more time than we’d allowed but two months after the end of my year’s apprenticeship, it all came together. Rocky did much of the base woodwork as we decided that, although I was apprenticed with a joiner, I could become an inlay expert or ‘ebeniste’ as Percy liked to call me thinking the French word sounded more swanky, and still fulfill the conditions imposed by Ms. Blackwood and prison regulations.

The museum and the TV wanted a grand unveiling ceremony with dignitaries and bigwigs all in formal dress. I still wore my orange suit but I did have my hair done nicely. Colonel Braceworth did the opening ceremony and afterwards praised me for the ‘exquisite craftsmanship’. It was all rather over the top but I basked in the limelight and so did Rocky. It saddened me that Percy was left out but he was poorly on that day. I made sure he got a mention when I was asked to say a few words.

The ceremony was aired nationally on news TV and next morning I had a message from father, the first communication I’d had since I left the vicarage to go to the prison over a year before. “Through me the Lord has worked a miracle.” I didn’t reply.

Finis