The front door shut and Richard said, ‘Right, all normal service is suspended – as from now you are visiting Facility Fifty One. Don’t look so spooked, Lucy. You’ve seen a caned bottom before.’
‘Yeah, just. Ouch.’
The men laughed, but they soon remembered what they were here for.
‘Miss Ward, this is prisoner thirty nine. Dr Sherburn has brought you here in the hope that she will be an example to you. Is that right, Doctor?’
‘Quite right,’ said Rob, with whom Emma was not familiar.
‘You see her now recovering from her introductory punishment. It’s the first of many – an acclimatisation. By the time she leaves this place, she will be extremely penitent and vowing never to return.’
‘I’m sure,’ said Lucy.
‘Ah, great timing.’ Allyson was back in the room, and Emma could smell what she was bringing with her. Spaghetti bolognese, she thought. Her stomach rumbled. God, she was hungry.
‘Richard, could you get that spanking bench out of the way, we’re going to need to extend the table.’
Richard obeyed Allyson’s command quickly. Emma heard the straps jingle and the stepstool contraption creaking back into its smallest configuration.
Plates, cups, knives, forks, serving bowls being laid down on placemats.
She wanted to ask permission to come to the table, but nobody mentioned her or spoke to her. Was she supposed to stay here while they ate? Could they really be that cruel?
‘Good, take a seat, everyone,’ said Allyson. ‘How was your journey?’
Emma felt a sickening wave of dismay
wash over her, as knives and forks were taken up, and Rob and Lucy talked boringly about traffic and the weather.
She really was excluded from the meal. But they couldn’t let her starve, surely?
‘What do you think of the view in here?’ asked Allyson, slyly, after Lucy had raved about the mountains, and valleys, and winding roads.
‘Very pleasing,’ said Rob. ‘Great work with the cane. I bet that was Richard’s hand.’ Lucy just coughed and giggled.
‘Got it in one,’ said Blake. ‘I’m going to ask him to give me lessons.’
‘Perhaps you could practise on our Lucy,’ said Richard.
‘Perhaps not!’ This, of course, from Lucy.
‘Don’t forget what you’re here for,’ Rob warned her. ‘Lessons for you, too. If you can’t behave, you might find yourself side by side with the prisoner.’
‘Doesn’t she get food?’ asked Lucy.
Emma could have kissed her. Here was the question she wanted answered.
‘Of course,’ said Allyson. ‘But eating good food at the table is a privilege she has lost for the time being. When we’ve finished, she’ll get a bowl of porridge to eat kneeling on the floor. I doubt she’d want to sit down, anyway.’
‘I suppose not.’
Porridge! Emma tried to block out the vision she had of a plate piled high with spaghetti and sauce, topped with Parmesan, surrounded with salad, a plate of garlic bread at the side. Not tonight.
‘What did she do?’ asked Lucy.
‘Disgraceful behaviour,’ said Richard with relish. ‘Public lewdness with a group of strangers. Both men and women.’
‘Oh, I say.’ Lucy sounded shocked.