If dread alone could slow time, Saturday would never have arrived. But it did. Nothing could stop the irreversible march of time. So, Saturday afternoon, I fronted up to Mr Rogers for detention. I made sure to be early. Mr Rogers stood, arms crossed, and looked me up and down. I noticed he held a large handbell in one hand.
"I see you're not late this time," He greeted me. I never HAD been late and once again I was struck by the sheer unfairness of it all.
"No Sir," I said. A week of waiting. Of anticipation. Of dread. I hadn't wanted this day to come, but now it was here I wanted it just to happen so it could be over.
He had me strip. As I expected. Next I expected him to order me to my knees before loosening his belt and unzipping his fly. But he didn't.
"You're going to the wall," he said.
The wall. I'd heard it talked about in whispers and pieced together what I could about it. From what I'd heard, I'd hoped never to go there. He ushered me out into the hallway, which was still quite crowded as most of the girls were still making their ways to where they needed to be. Mr Rogers rang his bell. The clear sound rang down the hall and most girls stopped in place and looked in our direction.
"Make way! Make way!" Me Rogers called. "Slut headed for the wall.
Oh dear God. This was a walk of shame.
I wanted to look at my feet, but Mr Rogers forced me to walk with my chin up. I tried not to make eye contact with anyone as I walked down the hall. Some girls looked away, others looked at me with pity. And Mr Rogers, the cruel little tormentor, seemed like he was enjoying every minute of my shame and discomfort. Finally, we made it out the door, the guards let us through, and we were outside.
It was my first time being on the outside of the main entrance, when I'd come here I'd came at night and entered through a side entrance. There was a wide path flanked by green lawns edged by rose gardens. These days there are benches and picnic tables there and it's a popular place for students to meet and have lunch, but in those days it was out of bounds. At the end of the path, there was, as there is today, a high brick wall with a gate. We went through the gate and about two metres out from the brick wall was a wrought-iron fence. The tall spikes split at the top and slanted both outward and inward, a deterrent against those escaping, but also those trying to climb in, and for extra good measure there was barbed wire along the top. Along the brick wall were fixed large wooden crosses. An X shape, with straps on the end of each arm. Mr Rogers led me over to one.
"Well, Kassandra," Mr Rogers said with a sneer once we'd arrived in front of one of the crosses. "You've not been on a cross, have you?"
"No Sir," I answered.
"Best place for a stupid slut like you. But it needs one last addition." He pulled out of his pocket a dildo with a screw at the base. He fitted the screw into a socket a little lower than the middle of the cross and twisted it in. At the foot of the lower two arms there were small planks of wood protruding and Mr Rogers directed me to stand on them. It would have been rather difficult to get my balance at the best of times, but being naked and nervous made it worse.
Mr Rogers strapped my hands down first, pulling my arms up and out. Then he reached into his pocket and pulled out a small bottle of lube and squeezed it onto the dildo. By now I realised what had come next. He placed his hands around my waist and lifted my body slightly before settling me slowly, but firmly, onto the dildo. I tried not to give him the satisfaction but I gasped in pain as the dildo was forced into my arse in one smooth motion. He moved swiftly onto my feet. I couldn't quite see how but the planks my feet were on were lowered, just a smidge, then strapped down. Finally, he pulled something else out of his pocket. It was a round ball with a strap on it. He inserted the ball in my mouth and the strap went around the back of my head, gagging me.
"There," Mr Rogers said, looking me over with satisfaction, "Two hours will do it, I think." Then without another word he turned and walked away.
My predicament was soon apparent to me. The dildo was quite flared at the base. Rest on my feet and the dildo was pushed more deeply into my arse. I could lift myself up, saving my arse a little, but then I was on my tippy-toes with most of my weight hanging off my arms which caused my shoulders to ache. Just a few minutes in and I was constantly switching from one painful position to another. Two hours would be torture.
Time was hard to track. I felt like crying but didn't want to make it more difficult to breathe nor give Mr Rogers the satisfaction when he returned. So I tried to occupy my mind. Opposite me was the wrought iron fence, but it wasn't that interesting to look at. Beyond that was a clearing followed by dense forest which, while beautiful, didn't take my mind off the situation.
I tried having a conversation (in my head) in Mandarin but most of the phrases I knew were rather sexual and I felt too vulnerable right now for an imaginary sexual conversation. So I tried listing words I knew in alphabetical order. My tutelage so far had included, and somewhat focused on, rather rude words. Like Cร o, which meant fuck. Provided you pronounced it correctly. Mandarin seemed full of seemingly identical words with completely different meanings. I'd think I was saying the word correctly and next thing you know David would burst out laughing and insist I was saying something totally different. "But can't you hear the difference?" he'd say. "They're two totally different words." But David wasn't here to laugh at my pronunciation right now.
I moved through the alphabet from fuck to bullshit to bastard, listing body parts, crude words and insults. Shวbฤซ was the word I chose for 'S.' I remember Daniel saying to me "Don't let anyone tell you it means 'Somebody' because it doesn't. It means 'Stupid cunt,' okay love?" It was one of the many times I'd wished for Google so I could search for myself why there was such disparity in the meaning of that particular word. I did ask David at the time, but sometimes his explanations seemed rather one-sided and very black and white. I made it to the end of the alphabet, finishing with xiลng, (even though I had already used different words for that particular body part in "n" and "m") yรญnxuรฉ (and yes, I had used that body part before too) and zรกzhวng.
What next? Same in English? Arsehole, Bastard, Cunt, Dick... nope. Too easy. I tried other languages but none had the challenge I needed. I started on complex sums.
I was mid-way through 121 multiplied by 23 when I was alerted by a noise. The noise, or rather noises, came from the forest. I heard voices, laughter and, as the voices came closer, the occasional crunch of a branch. None of us girls knew exactly where The Academy was. In those days its location was hidden, even from us, as a form of protection. Our arrivals had all been orchestrated in various ways which meant we hadn't been given the actual location ahead of time. I, for example, had visited "corporate" in London and been driven here. I'd nodded off in the car-- though looking back I don't know if that was genuine tiredness or something else. I do know other girls were drugged and transported while unconscious. But what we did know is that there was something nearby, walking distance away. We guessed it was some form of tertiary educational facility. Moore than that we did not know, but girls sent to the wall would often report well-dressed young men coming to gawk or jeer at them. And this is who was coming to visit me.
