*** CHAPTER ONE

At Ten A.M. sharp this morning, I learned my fate. Judge Larissa McReynolds of
the Royal Bench Sentencing Court peered over her brown plastic half-glasses at
me from where she sat high up on her huge and ornately-carved mahogany judicial
bench. Her somewhat slight frame and white, short-cut hair were small compared
the hugeness of the black leather chair that she sat in. The chair was twice
her size. I almost got a stiff neck from peering upwards to stay focused on her
as she pronounced my sentence:


" You, Mr. West, are one of the more despicable criminals to populate the
courts. We have rehashed your offenses, and you have been justly convicted. The
law, as your Counsel might have explained to you, leaves me some leeway in
arriving at your sentence. I decided not to exercise any of it. For were it
within my power, I would go harsher on you than the statute allows. It is the
considered sentence of this Court that you shall serve Twenty One years
imprisonment at Her Majesty’s Prison at Railford, and shall also receive the
following regime of authorized corporal punishment: Immediately upon arrival at
prison, which is today, John, you will be administered ten lashes with the State
Punishment Strap. Let me lay it out for you, John, in case your Counsel spared
the details lest you panic. Panic is now in order. The State Strap measures
twenty four inches in length, and is three and a half inches wide. It is black
and it has 40 small holes pierced into it running in even, parallel vertical
lines down the entire leather surface of the Strap. The Strap is attached to a
one-foot-long solid mahogany handle measuring two inches in diameter with inlaid
hand grips. Every six months of your sentence, you shall receive three lashes.
Annually, you will receive one session, like you will today, consisting of ten
lashes. In order to assure continuity of the sentence as staff will come and go
over the twenty one years that you will be imprisoned, you will be inscribed
with skin-compatible inking on your right upper buttock with your issued
Inmate Number and the letters CP21 to indicate your corporal punishment
sentence. Getting one"s posterior tattooed in society may be a thrill, but I can
assure you that when it is done in a prison setting without Lidocaine spray, you
will rue the day you ever offended, John. Your imprisonment shall be harsh. I at
least hope that it shall be so. Your sessions with the Strap shall be even
harsher. We shall all benefit from and enjoy watching these punishments, as they
will, in accordance with current law, be televised and streamed online. Sentence
has been pronounced. Bailiffs, remove him”.


At Railford, I was stripped, showered, but not issued the usual prison jumpsuit
and any other clothing. Instead I was taken into a white-tiled bathroom-like
room with a blue leatherette table built in the middle of the room with the same
tile. A moat encircled the entire rectangular table. Devices for holding
handcuffs and leg irons were inserted at the feet and top of the table. Stark
naked, I was shoved and rudely pushed face down on the table. For each leg and
ankle, one guard shackled me with steel cuffs to the table. Then a massive
leather belt—really like a blanket—was placed immediately over my lower back
right above my fanny and extended all the way above my kidneys. I heard water
running, and felt warm water running all over my buttocks. Someone rudely pulled
my cheeks apart back there, and I felt extremely rough sandpaper-like scrapings
along the rim---the pain was pretty intense. The men doing and watching this to
me were laughing and making comments about the crying games to begin, how the
boys upstairs will at least have a clean “rack” to play with, etc., and other
truly obscene, frightening and loathsome comments about my anatomy, what will be
done to it, and even about my excretory functions.

I then heard the unmistakable sound of a razor being stropped on a leather razor
strop. I felt a moist, gooey substance being applied---hard and rudely, I might
add---to my entire backside and the crack. They were laying this on thick. More
stropping noises of the razor getting worked up sharp---- and then I heard the
crackle noises of shaving---and felt it. These guys were not gentle. The shaving
lasted a half an hour. Then, they worked closely up and down my ass rim, and I
have to say, they were as gentle and smooth as can be. One guy got a little
fresh---which, I was told, I had better get used to in here.

The shaving done, they rinsed me down, and I heard some unknown popping and
water running. I felt a finger swabbed with gook go up my rectum and then as
soon as it was withdrawn, a foreign, hard surface went in. “Let’er rip!” one man
said, the rest laughed, and it was obvious to me within a second that they were
talking about an enema.


My insides filled quickly—painfully---very, very painfully. I struggled to hold
it. “You release when we tell you”, one called out. “I can’t !...I can…!” and as
soon as I said this, the tube was pulled out and another went in within one
millisecond of each other. The fluid was coming out. “I guess this is why they
passed The Clean Water Act”, one of the guards said, and the others laughed for
about two minutes. The outflow was swirling around in the moat surrounding the
table that I was strapped to. New, clean fresh water cleaned out the moat, and
then I was dried by a massive swirl of hot air from a hand-held hair dryer. “Oh
it burns”, I said.

“Oh, really? Really?” one guard said. “Tell me about how bad it burns after you
punishment”, and the laughter began and lasted for another two or three straight
minutes.

“ He here yet?”, one guard said.

“On his way”, another answered.

“He’s in a nasty, nasty mood today, I hear”, another said.


“You got that right, pal”, said another.

Within ten minutes, I heard the doors opening and heavy, masculine
foot-clopping. The room was silent.

“He’s ready for you”, a guard said. As he said this, I felt a blood pressure
cuff go on my right arm, pump up, then deflate, and come off, and a stethoscope
being shoved under my chest. I could not see who was at the other end of it.

“He’s good”, someone said. I guess that was the doctor.

I then heard a rapid series of Swooshes and CRACKS of something harshly hitting
the wall. Swoosh! CrACK! Swoosh! CrACK!. This was obviously a warm-up with that,
that, that Strap that the judge spoke of…..END OF PART ONE