Chapter 6 -- Exposed Holes
"Prisoner, get up!" -- yelled out a guard banging on the door of Melissa's cell. Abruptly shaken out of her uneasy, post-traumatic slumber, she stumbled out of bed, getting her handcuffs entangled with the blanket in the process. After some short fidgeting and fumbling around, Melissa managed to get off her cot and stood in the middle of the cell eyeing the guard whose unfamiliar face was peering through the door slit.
"Your meal is here. You have 10 minutes to eat and return the tray along with all remnants of food and utensil."
The guard opened another slit in the door; this one located at the very bottom, and slid a tray of food just inside the cell under a matching opening in the bars. Melissa waited a few seconds before the guard departed and carried the food to the little table. At this point, Melissa half-expected to see the plate filled with bugs and rotten eggs, but surprisingly the food looked quite appetizing and it soon turned out that it tasted good as well. The meal consisted of a lean chicken breast with seasoning, rice, broccoli and a small roll. There was also a cup of grape juice and a small bowl of vanilla ice cream.
"Whatever they have in store for me, it looks like starvation is not part of the plan." -- thought Melissa as she devoured her meal. Only now she had realized that it's been some 20 hours since she last ate and the sight and smell of food awakened a raging appetite. However, always ladylike, Melissa ate slowly and deliberately, picking off small portions at a time, as if she was at a fine restaurant rather than a dungeon-like setting of a grueling prison. The handcuffs on her wrists fortunately did not prove to be a particular hindrance. She had to eventually hasten her pace mindful of the time restriction, which she had no doubt would be enforced very dutifully. Indeed, after exactly 10 minutes, there was a sound of steps outside her cell and the guard peeked inside at the naked prisoner.
"Go ahead and return the tray, then stand on the yellow line with your back to the door and put your hands on your head."
Melissa complied swiftly on both tasks and shortly the guard was inside her cell and a rattle of chains was heard as they dropped to the cell's concrete floor. The guard walked around to face Melissa and held up a pair of handcuffs to her eyes.
"These are your custom fitted handcuffs that you will be wearing from now on. They were made according to the measurements taken during your physical exam and the same goes for the shackles. It should make it a little more comfortable, which is important since you will be wearing them for long periods of time. You can see that your inmate number is engraved on all these."
Melissa looked at the handcuffs and indeed there was the alphanumeric combination "P5237", now a substitute for her name, etched in the shiny steel surface. The guard took of her "old" handcuffs and quickly replaced them with the custom made pair, which didn't really look different and there was maybe a slight reduction in weight to be perceived. Nothing really to write home about. Soon, Melissa was placed in leg irons and a waist chain connected to the handcuffs.
The guard led her out of the cell and they hitched an elevator ride down to level E. On the way through the corridor, they passed the suspension chambers. Melissa shuddered as they walked by the first chamber, having flashbacks of her earlier torture and punishment. The door to the second one went ajar and a sharply dressed man, most likely another behavioral psychologist, made his way down the corridor. Melissa caught a glimpse of the interior before the door was shut. It looked just like the first chamber and the elevated stage section featured two girls hanging by their wrists off of two rightmost chains. One of the girls was just receiving a lashing from a guard positioned behind her -- apparently she transgressed the impossibly strict rules of the suspension chamber.
Melissa had little to no time to dwell on the poor girl's plight as she was walking to her own uncertain fate. They passed a few shut doorways on either side until they stopped at one labeled: "Technique Enhancement Facility". The guard opened the door and led the chained girl inside. Melissa took one anxious glance at the room and gasped loudly in shock. On each side of the room there were three elaborate steel contractions. Each one started with a single sturdy pole driving out of the floor. At about a man's waist level, the pole split into two thin beams, parallel to the floor. The whole structure was augmented with a narrow, black leather, padded bench on top. The parallel beams extended in opposite directions at right angles to the bench and each ended in a sturdy shackle. There was a pivot point near the top of the main pole that obviously allowed to change the angle of the bench as well as a telescope for height adjustments.
The contraptions looked scary, but the real cause of Melissa's horror was the fact that two of them, one next to another left of the entrance, were topped off with the unmistakable curves of young female bodies. Their bellies were positioned on the leather benches while their legs were spread to the sides, bent in frog-like fashion, and their ankles enclosed in metal shackles of the extending beams. Their front-handcuffed hands were taken around and underneath the bench where they were affixed to another, smaller steel beam, perfectly positioned just for that purpose. A chain ran around each girl's waist and encircled the bench holding them firmly in place. Melissa almost immediately recognized that the two girls mounting the contraptions were Selena and Amanda whom she met just a couple of hours prior while waiting in a holding cell. Now these two beauties were lewdly exposed in a most humiliating way. The benches were adjusted in such a way that their fronts, where the girls' heads were, pointed slightly downwards and away from the viewer, which meant that the genital areas of the occupants were prominently displayed. One small difference in the girls' predicaments was the fact that Selena's head was resting on the padded bench while Amanda's was drooping loosely downwards. Apparently the front part of the bench had a hinged section so that the head support could be, and in this case it was, taken away.