The Jailhouse Blues Ch. 03

And Ross had told me that the prisoners' main, suppertime meal, served in our cells from six o'clock (which I'd missed, yesterday), was usually every bit as grim and grievous a prandial affair as was breakfast.

In Greystone Prison, the prisoners' taste buds were as underworked, as their foot-cleaning tongues were overworked.

"Yes, Avril," said prison officer Julie in response to prison officer Avril's question. "Mel and Nat are having prisoner Lightwood for lunch. They bagsed firsts on him yesterday, and they've prebooked Table Six."

"Jules and me are having prisoner Chapman for lunch," said prison officer Nicolette. "We thought we might as well. I mean, why leave him in his cell doing nothing, when he could be providing Table Service for Jules and me?"

"Oh, absolutely! I couldn't agree more," said prison officer Siobhan, who was casting her eye over the Staff Canteen, checking table availability.

"Especially today, since for some reason we seem to be a bit undermanned on the Table Service front," said prison officer Avril as she held open one of the entrance doors for the five or six exiting prison officers, who, as they passed by us, cast glances of great disdain and even open hostility at Ross and me.

"That's right," agreed prison officer Siobhan. "I can't think of a bigger, more unforgivable sin than the underutilisation of prisoners. And after all, providing their Table Service function is one of the key components of their rehabilitation programme, isn't it? The more often prisoners provide Table Service, the sooner they will take on board the salient principles of our female-friendly ideals, and the more readily and fully will they comprehend the concept of propriety, where females are concerned."

The relaxed and convivial sounds of the blues' light gossipy conversation coming from inside the Staff Canteen made for a pleasant and congenial atmosphere. It was hard to believe, listening to the lunchtime normalcy of their mellow hubbub of laid back, idle chit-chat, that they were actually a lot of browbeating, caning, face-slapping, ball-kicking females.

"Hmmm ..." said prison officer Siobhan. "The canteen is about three-quarters full, and there are no empty tables ... But Mel and Nat are just about to sit down at Table Six, and they've got it to themselves -- if you'd like to join them?"

"That'd be great, Siobhan," said prison officer Nicolette. "Me and Jules will join Mel and Nat, at Table Six."

"Okay then. And that's good," said prison officer Siobhan. "It makes it easier for Avril and me. Avril can stay on-station, while I escort these two dummies to the same location. Go on, then. Take your seats at Table Six, and I'll bring along your ... lunchtime companion."

Prison officer Avril held open one of the entrance doors for prison officers Nicolette and Julie to enter, and I had my first look inside the forty-eight cover Staff Canteen.

The Staff Canteen's twelve-table capacity dining area was attractively appointed and well lit.

The twelve rectangular-shaped, Formica-topped tables were each centrally supported by a rounded chrome stand. On either side of the four-place tables, the comfortable-looking bench seats were finished in dark red leather.

The unusually well-spaced tables were organised in four rows of three -- the nearest three tables to the entrance doors, were Tables 1, 2 and 3.

At the far end of the canteen was a long serving counter. A number of glass hot-cabinets and other food-display containers were atop a midsection of it.

Behind the serving counter, wearing white chef's hats and white aprons, four or five servers were busy taking and filling the queuing prison officers' food orders, and putting everything on trays themselves, for the blues' convenience.

The prison officers, I noticed, weren't handing over any money for their meals: a perk of their jobs.

Scanning the dining area of the Staff Canteen, as soon as my eyes lit upon them I recognised prison officers Melanie and Natalie -- theirs weren't faces I was likely to forget anytime soon. And not just because they were so beautiful.

They were so butter-wouldn't-melt-in-their-mouths demure-looking, you'd never think they could be such horrible persons. It simply wouldn't occur to you ... until you found out the hard way.

Because looks are deceptive. And these two maleficent young women were the reason I was here now, at the Staff Canteen: prison officers Natalie and Melanie had 'bagsed' me, as 'firsts'. Meaning that my first ever experience at providing Prisoners' Canteen Service, would be providing 'Table Service' -- for them!

I'd made their acquaintance yesterday. I wish I could say that the pleasure was all mine. But I can't.

Prison officers Natalie and Melanie were the two receiving prison officers who had admitted me into Greystone Prison. During the course of my being processed in the Security Checkpoint building, they'd told me in no uncertain terms that they didn't like my "attitude". And consequently, they were going to "straighten me out" today.

In fact, prison officer Melanie had taken such exception to my "attitude problem", that she had suddenly got up— no, like some oversprung Jack-in-the Box, she'd actually sprang from her office chair, propelled herself around her desk, stormed right up to me and slapped my face very hard. And I mean very hard.

It might sound crazy, but I knew prison officer Melanie was going to land me one, from the angry and purposeful sounds her thin-rubber soled flip flops made as they rapidly slap slap slap slapped against the bottoms of her bare heels as she came for me.

But still, I had been very surprised— no, in truth I'd been shocked. My unpreparedness had been total. I just simply hadn't seen it coming -- I mean I hadn't seen a reason, to see it coming.

At her uber aggressive approach, I'd been too stunned to move; the furious look on prison officer Melanie's face had turned me into a pillar of salt.

In stupefied amazement I'd just stood there, rooted to the spot, and simply watched her come for me. Motionless and defenceless, I had just simply stood there as I watched the maltentful palm and fingers of her raised right hand viciously home in on my sitting-target face, to strike with a devastating, almost head-spinning SLAP!

It later struck me, when I thought about it afterwards, just how graceful and fluid prison officer Melanie's movements had been as she'd come for me. And just how elegant, just how artful, just how majestic -- just how poetry-in-motion -- had been her balletic-like quarter-pirouette, as she'd performed her culminating face-slap.

Prison officer Melanie is very good at slapping people's faces. Expert, in fact. She can really hurt ... as I know to my cost.

Face-slapping is an integral part of her prisoner-management training. And she is better (or worse!) at the ... disciplining discipline, than most. Prison officer Melanie administers her (literally) hand-delivered chastisement with an almost matchless level of proficiency and efficacy. Just a few of her jailhouse blue prison officer colleagues, are her face-slapping equal.

Along with caning (the Standard Six), and browbeating (extremely hurtful, distressing and humiliating verbal abuse), face-slapping is another of the prison officers' first course of action, on-the-spot corrective corporal punishment responses.

Prison officer Melanie likes to face-slap. She enjoys slapping prisoners' faces, even more than she delights in caning their bare bottoms. She is one of those blues who greatly enjoy the satisfaction of what prison officer Billie Jo calls the 'personal touch'.

Especially, prison officer Melanie loves to unman, reduce to tears, and bring to heel the more challenging prisoners: the more defiant, resistant, prideful, macho, alpha-male types.

She likes to look prisoners in the face, as, certain in her belief that she will never be held to account for her cruel perpetrations -- smugly assured, that she will never be made to answer for her malicious wrongdoings; arrogantly confident, that she will never, ever be brought to book for her sadistic malefactions -- she slaps their faces.

Thus serenely comforted by her AFP-affiliation immunity from legal redress, so it is with untrammelled easement of mind that prison officer Melanie dismantles their manful resolve. Crushing their he-man, macho, alpha male resistance, face-slap, by face-slap.

She likes to look defenceless prisoners in the face as, face-slap, by vicious, sadistic face-slap, bullying them into total, on-their-knees-at-her-feet submission, she revels and rejoices in making them cry ... as many prisoners do, in the end.

Prison officer Melanie had made me cry.

Her no-holding-back face-slap had hurt a lot. Stunning, shocking, devastating, it had stung like hell, set my face on fire, and made my eyes water profusely ... and that was just one face-slap.

Prison officer Melanie had been angry with me. But she didn't lose it. She didn't just impulsively lash out at me, willy nilly. And why? Because the instilled discipline of her emotion-controlling prison officer training prevented her from doing so. It enabled her to hold back, her no-holding-back face-slap.

Her consummate professionalism equipping her to harness and channel effectively her sudden onset of anger-generated brute force, thus it was ensured that it was not with a tantrumed, inefficient and ineffective flap of the hand, but with controlled and accurately directed energy, that prison officer Melanie had put everything she had into administering her face-slap to such Training Manual precision and perfection.

Storming right up to me with such graceful fluidity and elegance of movement, prison officer Melanie had approached me so as to position herself in front of and slightly to one side of me, and then to achieve the optimal alignment of stance and angle for delivery of face-slap chastisement at maximum power, majestically she had risen up onto her toes to perform her balletic-like quarter-pirouette.

Courtesy of prison officer Melanie's blockbuster face-slap, for a couple of days afterwards that side of my face was very tender and sore and, for more than a week, had sported a large and unsightly multicoloured bruise.

But in Greystone Prison, in the great scheme of things that was just a trivial, far from uncommon, by the by irrelevance. My multicoloured bruise was a mostly unnoteworthy, largely unremarkable sight, that did go mostly unnoted, and largely unremarked upon.

Naturally, I'd been upset -- and quite annoyed, too. There'd been no need for prison officer Melanie to slap me. At least, not like that! The shocking, devastating force of her face-slap had almost sent me to the Security Checkpoint building floor; a second, follow-up face-slap surely would have done.

But prison officer Natalie -- still seated with her feet up on her desk, ankles crossed, and with one of her thin-rubber soled flip flops incessantly and annoyingly slap slap slap slapping against the bottom of her bare heel -- had from her sedentary position told me in no uncertain terms to shut up; that I hadn't come to a holiday camp.

Afterwards, they had both been members of yesterday's twelve-officer caning-party, down in the gymnasium. Upon hearing of my upcoming Ball-Bust, so keen were they to play a part in my punishment, on the Wheel of Chastisement, prison officers Melanie and Natalie had applied to the Governor for special temporary relief from their prisoner-receiving duties. And Governor Meredith Monroe, who herself had presided over the ensuing atrocities of my unspeakable ordeal, had readily granted them said special permission.

And so, as prison officer Bella Donna had Ball-Busted me on the slowly rotating Wheel of Chastisement: had, at the start of each of the 'prescribed' five, one-minute revolutions, administered a chastising barefoot kick to my defenceless testicles, for saying 'No' to her -- prison officers Melanie and Natalie had each duly administered one of their five allotted follow-up cane strokes.

As and when my bared bottom had slowly come around to them, at a little over one-minute intervals, prison officers Melanie and Natalie had really let me have it. As had all ten other prison officer caning-party members (including prison officer Bella Donna herself), at the regulated five-second intervals.

In my head, I could still hear the high-fiving caning-party prison officers' cries of malicious delight and howls of sadistic glee. I could still hear in their cock-a-hoop voices the fiendish joy of their congratulatory whoops and celebratory cheers, which was the diabolical vocal accompaniment to the terrible Whoo! and Crack! of their devastating flexible bamboo canes.

Whoo! ... as their AFP-issue flexible bamboo canes sizzled through the air, wickedly precision-targeting my bare buttocks ... Crack! -- as their canes cruelly connected, devastating said totally exposed and vulnerable part of my anatomy, red-striping me again with yet another vivid red weal, and causing me to rend the air asunder with yet another agonised scream ...

And now those two -- prison officers Melanie and Natalie -- were here in the Staff Canteen. They were seated at Table 6: middle row, table on the right.

Though they were seated on the far side of Table 6, and so facing towards the entrance doors, they hadn't noticed me yet. It was a wonder they couldn't feel the force of my umbrageous gaze upon them, I thought, such were my grievous feelings towards them.

Seated at their table, they were in the middle of unloading their food trays when, as though finally intuiting they were being watched, they looked my way ... and grinned gleefully.

Obviously, they were still very much looking forward to "straightening me out", for my "insolent attitude". Needless to say, I didn't wave to them in greeting.

A moment later they looked away, dismissing me from their attention altogether when to their obvious pleasure they saw that they were being joined for lunch by prison officers Nicolette and Julie; friends, too, apparently, as well as work colleagues.

I turned around, to see prison officer Siobhan openly and uninhibitedly appraising me ... undressing me with her eyes, so to speak.

Confident in the power and untouchability of her AFP-employee position, prison officer Siobhan was blatantly giving me the once-over ... yep. The undertones of her overtures were unmistakable.

There was no doubt about it: prison officer Siobhan was giving me the 'look'. The look, that (not meaning to boast) I had seen on many a young woman's face before. It was the unmistakable sign -- the 'look' -- that meant she liked what she was looking at ... and meant to have it.

Addressing Ross and me, but looking only at me, and taking my elbow possessively, proprietorially, prison officer Siobhan said, "Right then, you two. Your four-course lunches await you. Come with me."

"Yes, Miss Siobhan," said Ross and me respectfully.

Prison officer Siobhan led Ross and me a bit further along the Ground Floor, to a turning on our right. Leading down into a dimly lit corridor was a flight of smooth concrete steps. There was a landing midway, and a safety rail along each wall to facilitate the escorting prison officers' comings and goings.

"Now: your handcuffs aren't coming off until you are returned to your cell, so you'll have to mind how you go ... Well? Down you go, then," prison officer Siobhan prompted us.

Looking down, it was with no small measure of concern that I viewed the seemingly long and precipitous flight of hard and unyielding smooth concrete steps. One misstep, and ...

Anywhere else, this hazardous practice would be deemed a serious breach of the Health and Safety regulations.

But, with our hands handcuffed behind our backs, and our prisoner issue dark-grey soft fabric bootees providing uncertain footing on the smooth concrete steps, neither me or Ross dared mention this to prison officer Siobhan as we took each step with exaggerated care.

Upon descending the flight of steps safely, prison officer Siobhan told us, "Keep going."

Continuing along the dimly lit corridor, on our right-hand side we soon came to a much narrower and shorter flight of steps than those we'd just descended. These steps, that were of rough concrete, and led upwards, had no safety rails and were only wide enough to allow one person at a time to ascend.

Printed in black, on a white background, a sign bolted to the bare brick wall read: Row 1. Tables 1 - 3.

Prison officer Siobhan said, "Go on, keep going. Your service stations are accessed further along the corridor."

"Yes, Miss Siobhan," said Ross and me respectfully.

For a few moments we all walked along the dimly lit corridor in silence. But then prison officer Siobhan, in an unusual thawing of prison officer / prisoner relations, said unexpectedly, to Ross, "Prisoner Chapman ... you are BJ's— I mean, you are officer Billie Jo's bitch, aren't you?"

"Yes, Miss Siobhan," said Ross respectfully. "And truly, I feel greatly privileged. Of all the prisoners she could have chosen ... she chose me."

Looking uncertain, for a moment prison officer Siobhan looked keenly at Ross, and seemed about to respond with a sharp retort.

But, apparently giving the straight-faced Ross the benefit of the doubt, the moment finally passed, and she said, "Officer Billie Jo had the prison doctor pull out all of your teeth, didn't she? Because you said 'No' to her twice?"

"Yes, Miss Siobhan," said Ross respectfully. "She did. Every single one. Except she had that done to me the first time I said 'No' to her. The second time I said 'No' to Miss Billie Jo, she Ball-Busted me on the Wheel of Chastisement. But I deserved it, Miss Siobhan. It was all my own fault. I wasn't thinking straight -- thinking coherently and logically. I gave Miss Billie Jo no choice. I understand that now. She explained it all to me; talked it through, in simple terms that a slow learner like me could understand. That's what she said: that I was a slow learner. She said she wanted to put a thinking-cap on my head. And then I would be able to see reason. So the dose of stronger medicine she'd administered would help me to learn quicker, she told me."

Again, prison officer Siobhan gave Ross a searching look. Again though, the moment passed, and she said, "Yes, prisoner Chapman. Officer Billie Jo is absolutely right. Slow learners do need stronger, more potent medicine. Less responsive to lower dosage treatment, to successfully expunge all irrational thoughts from their minds, slow learners do require a substantially strengthened course of correctional therapy. And the Wheel of Chastisement, as barbaric as it might seem, to prisoners, is an almost totally effective attitudinal rebalancing instrument: prisoners recognise the errors of their ways, in ninety-nine per cent of cases."

"Yes, Miss Siobhan. That's what Miss Billie Jo told me," said Ross respectfully.

"And it's as needs must. It's a case of being cruel to be kind. Mamby pamby, tenderhearted pussyfooting about with prisoners is simply not in their best interests. Not in the long run. Ultimately, such mollycoddling does them more harm than good. Such light-handed latitude and lenience -- such wrong-thinking pampering -- can only have a negative, regressive effect upon released prisoners' life chances."

"Yes, Miss Siobhan," said Ross respectfully. "Miss Billie Jo went through all of that with me. She explained why she had to Ball-Bust me: it was all in my best interests."

"And quite apparently, prisoner Chapman, your secondary, stronger dosage follow-up course of remedial treatment was an efficacious, unqualified success. I can see that. Because obviously you have learned the errors of your ways. It is plainly apparent, in your cowed and passive, meek and miserable manner. Clearly discernible, in your despondent and downtrodden demeanour. As plain as day, in your demoralised and defeated attitude."