Prisoner 4053

The internet had been light on details about what happened next. Despite political rhetoric insisting that many prisoners would enjoy themselves, the first graduates of the program had been reluctant to talk about their experiences. Four-oh-five-three, who had been just below the threshold of panic for the past ten minutes, understood why. How could someone ever talk about this without crying? How could she say, I was blindfolded and chained, naked, and left standing there...? How could she describe the casual way a handler had rubbed her clitoris?

She shifted now and then, and the chains clinked together. They weren't loud, but the noise was impossible to ignore. There was another prisoner nearby, she thought, whom she could hear moving, but they stood as still as she did, and it was difficult to tell. She wondered if anyone ever screamed or carried on, and what would be done about it.

Somewhere nearby, a door opened. There

was

another prisoner. Four-oh-five-three heard a clatter of chains and the whir of the other yoke as it was lowered on its track. Voices, then, female this time. "This is 3762? Let's get a weight first. Has he had anything to eat today?"

"No, he's been fasting since he was returned."

"Which was when?"

"Um...." Papers shuffled. The voices receded, and the door fell closed again.

Four-oh-five-three went over his number in her head. That was easy. That made sense. It ended in an even number, so he was male, or at least he was male-presenting. Like her, his number was four digits, so his intake had happened in this region and wouldn't be preceded by an extra set unless he was transferred outside the area. The three and the six were sequential, but the seven indicated his sentence type, which was labor. Four-oh-five-three had hoped for a similar designation herself, but she was a small woman and young enough that the judge had found her suited to something entirely different, though the specifics had been left up to the intake center, which allocated prisoners to positions beneath their categorical umbrellas as it saw fit. A number of things could happen to her at this point, and none were particularly pleasant.

It was impossible to tell how long the medical team spent with 3762, but they took their time. He didn't come back out when they collected her, and she supposed that there must be another exit door after the examination room, maybe into a cell block or showers. It was easier to think about the layout of the facility than what was actually happening, and she made her mind as blank as she could when she heard the door open again. The yoke lowered, and cold, thin hands frog-marched her past a door.

"Four-oh-five-three," a woman said. "Let's get a weight first. How many hours since you've eaten? Show me on your hands. It's nine o'clock now."

Four-oh-five-three made a 3 with her right hand, where it was shackled behind her back.

"Okay, three hours. I hope it was something good. Welcome to the Las Palmas Intake Center. I'm Dr. Roberts. We're going to do a number of things to you today, and I'll do my best to explain them before they happen. You are not expected to respond, nor will you be able to. Tony, put her up on the scale, please."

Someone else took her by the arm and turned her. "Step," he said, and waited while she felt with her foot and climbed onto what seemed to be a metal surface. One at a time, he unhooked her hands from where they were manacled to the belt, and attached them to something over her head.

The doctor read her weight aloud, and 4053 heard the scrawl of a pen.

"All right, now, we need some photos of you," she said. "The blindfold will come off for a moment. Some people find the appearance of the room disturbing, but we're not here to hurt you."

Tony's hands fumbled with one of the buckles at the back of 4053's head. Light and cool air spilled into her eyes. A woman -- not Dr. Roberts, but a third person she hadn't noticed -- stood in front of her with a digital camera, but it was what was behind the woman that she was interested in: a gynecological table that stood upright, and trays of instruments that her vision, blurry now, couldn't resolve fully. A sink was mounted in the far wall, and next to it was a set of two unoccupied cages with benches inside, wide enough to hold a single person sitting down.

She had seen pictures of lethal injection chambers and bondage playrooms that were less well-outfitted. It was a medical fetishist's dream. And this was the

government

. How much worse, she wondered, were the leasing companies going to be?

They had evidently gotten the photos they needed, because the goggles reappeared. Four-oh-five-three, not used yet to her lack of autonomy, moved her head to avoid them, but Tony -- who she hadn't even looked at, the glance had been so quick -- was quicker. He buckled them in place again and turned her around.

"Put her in for fasting bloodwork tomorrow morning," Dr. Roberts said to one or the other of her techs. Then, louder, "Okay. Tony is going to walk you over to the exam table and strap you in. We're going to be evaluating you to determine your first placement. There are a lot of different variables that go into this, so it's unlikely that a decision will be made today. It depends both on your physiology and the needs of the customers that we contract prisoners out to." While she spoke, Tony walked 4053 toward the table, one hand holding her hands in the air and the other on the back of her neck. He didn't squeeze hard, but she was aware that he could make her very uncomfortable if he chose. He backed her up to the padded vinyl and leaned his weight into her to keep her secure as he attached her manacles to the top of the table.

Four-oh-five-three squirmed. He was warm against her. He was huge -- or his body was, anyway. The terror had emptied her of any desire she'd felt before, but Tony's weight against her brought it roaring back. He buckled her arms to the table at multiple points, and then, taking his own weight again, adjusted the table's arms until she stood with her own arms spread wide. She stood silently as he secured her legs and slipped off her belt and chains. There was a

thunk

and the table went horizontal.

Paper rustled; a pen scratched. Tony went around to the head of the table and pulled her backward, and then went around tightening all the straps. The head rest was complicated, too; there were two pads on either side, which held 4053's head immobile. He adjusted it so her head was leaning far back; if she'd been standing, she could have been looking up into a tree.

When the doctor spoke, she sounded distracted. "I know this seems like overkill, but it's for your protection. We don't need you fighting when we're trying to draw blood or placing your tracker."

Four-oh-five-three didn't respond. She didn't

like

being strapped down, but it was even more difficult to imagine being compliant with instructions any of these people might give her. She had heard a number of guesses as to what happened during these exams, and subsequent exams once prisoners were in the hands of private parties; she would have hated herself if she'd sat still like a coward while something sexual was done to her. If there was nothing she could do to prevent it, it removed some of her psychological culpability. It had been difficult enough presenting herself at the facility this morning.

Thinking about it in those terms didn't help nearly as much as she needed it to.

The doctor started with her head, removed the gag briefly to look in her mouth, and uncupped her eyes one by one to shine a bright light into them. She felt 4053's lymph nodes and pressed on her stomach to look for masses; she dug her fingers into her armpits and examined her hands and feet. While she did this, the other tech -- not Tony, 4053 could tell because of the woman's hands -- took blood from the inside of her elbow and collected mucus samples from 4053's mouth, nose and vulva.

A breast exam came next, hard and uncomfortable. The doctor pressed her fingers in a circular motion around the soft tissue, and then squeezed and pulled on her nipples. "No breast anomalies. Potential for lactation," she told someone, and then to 4053: "All right. The next parts are a little unpleasant."

It was such an absurd statement that 4053 was almost glad she was gagged, because otherwise she'd have laughed.

"We're going to do something to your throat that prevents you from using your voice. It's not permanent, but you'll be back in this chair when you're released to have it reversed. Your voice will be a little husky afterward, like a smoker." Dr. Roberts's voice was behind her, now. The gag was loosened, and a medical gag was fitted into place before it was withdrawn. It pulled her mouth open widely. "You'll feel some discomfort."

The procedures went on and on. They fitted her with a birth control implant, and put a tracking chip into her hip. They examined her vagina and, horrifyingly, her anus. A pap smear was performed, a urine sample taken with a catheter, and she was inspected for head and body lice. From time to time one of the technicians brought a straw to her mouth and gave her a sip of cool water. It felt sympathetic enough to 4053 that she felt the heaviness of tears in her chest and throat, and had to struggle not to cry.

Finally, with her legs strapped into stirrups and her vulva exposed, she heard the words she'd been dreading most.

"Okay," Dr. Roberts said. "This is the fun part." She slipped a lubricated wand into 4053's vagina.

It was decidedly

not

fun for 4053, who wanted no part of this. The prior procedures had been terrible and undignified, but this... this was horrible. There had been enough pain that she had lost all sexual desire again, but when the vibrator touched her clitoris, it came back all at once. She was extremely aware of how helpless she was, of all the restraints keeping her in the chair; she knew that a significant amount of sexual attention awaited her throughout her sentence. She knew that her body responding to the vibrator, and to Tony's big hands massaging her breasts, tugging at the nipples -- oh god -- didn't mean that she liked any of this, or consented. She understood that her sexual responsiveness was a metric the facility gathered to choose her placement, and that what was happening here was clinical, that the doctor and her technicians were probably bored.

It didn't matter.

Four-oh-five-three fought as long as she could, but her body was all too happy to slip her over the edge. As far as orgasms went, it was a thundering one, and the electric feeling radiated up her abdomen, into her nipples, into the tips of her fingers. She spasmed, and pulled hard against the straps, but they were secure. The wand inside her beeped, and Dr. Roberts withdrew it and then turned the vibrator off. "Good girl. You're all done."

Four-oh-five-three hated herself.

She felt her vulva pulsing lewdly in the open air of the exam room. Someone cleaned her with another wet wipe, and then the table tilted forward until she was nearly in a standing position. She wanted to die. She felt horrible and dirty, and if they'd only let her curl into a ball, cover herself, bury her face somewhere -- but it was the belt and shackles again.

Tony took her out the door. She hurt all over: a dull throb in her hip where the tracker had been implanted, throat sore from whatever they had done to it. He seemed to expect her to limp, and didn't hurry her.

Her skin still tingled pleasantly from the breast exam and Tony's massage. Four-oh-five-three hated that it felt so good. It had been so long since anyone had touched her, but to have that feeling back, in this context, only prolonged her sense of violation. The violation, of course, wasn't a violation, because prisoners with 4053's designation had no person to be violated; they were the property of the government, and any rights they had were granted at the whim of the Bureau of Corrections. Body autonomy was not one of them.

You are a thing

, she thought.

You have no feelings.

And it made her hate herself a little less.