03 - LISA IN SOLITARY

"I wonder why Lisa isn't back yet?" asked Samantha of nobody in particular at about this time. (Lisa's twelfth week away) She had been looking forward to having her friend back weeks ago.

"They've added some extra weeks to her punishment, Sam!" It was Sandra, that veteran of solitary, who answered her." It's so easy to slip up in your first days! And remember Lisa was new to prison life. By the time she'd learnt the ropes and come to appreciate just how strict things are here, she was bound to be looking at maybe four weeks more, just in her first day. If she'd been a bit more used to this life and then been sent down to solitary, she'd have done a whole lot better."

Sandra was going through one of her frequent guilty periods again. "Just her rotten luck to fall foul of an idiot like me on her first day. I could kick myself whenever I think about it. But she'll be out soon. I get the feeling she's no fool. She'll have taken herself in hand by now and we'll have her back in the next bed to you before too long!"

"I hope so!" said Samantha. She was a girl of  Lisa's age and most of the others here were older than she. It had been like a breath of fresh air when the fresh and fragrant Lisa had plonked herself onto the next bed and smiled that sweet smile at her! Well, she'd be a little less fragrant now!

Six more weeks went by and Samantha was getting beside herself. But Sandra was unmoved.

"She could easily have incurred twelve weeks penalties in her first month, Samantha. I was an old hand when they slung me in there but I still got five more weeks. It takes time to adjust your thinking and sharpen up. Don't fret! It shouldn't be too long now. She'll be back in a month - maybe a lot sooner!"

 Samantha nodded glumly. Sandra knew what she was talking about. Her time in solitary had indeed been lengthened and Lisa WAS very, very green and the guards would make absolutely no allowance for the girl's inexperience, coming down like a ton of bricks on the least infringement, callously adjusting the time switch whenever she did something wrong. She was just learning the hard way - like all the others. Except that the others weren't getting it anything remotely as hard as poor old Lisa!

Eight weeks after this, though, there was nobody in the dormitory who doubted that Lisa was in some kind of serious trouble. The general view was that she was ill. Sandra confirmed that prisoners in solitary received no medical treatment. They were isolated from all human contact for the duration - no matter what. Samantha plucked up the courage to ask to see the governor, since none of the regular guards seemed to have a clue. She almost wet herself as she was ushered into his office, which she had never seen before. He asked her what was her problem.

"It's a girl I made friends with, Sir. Lisa is her name and she got into trouble on her first day and is in solitary. It's just that it's been twenty six weeks and she ought to have been out after eight for a first offence. I wondered if she has been taken ill. I'm sorry to disturb you, Sir. But I really liked her and I can't sleep at nights for worrying about her."

The Governor smiled in a kindly way. He liked Samantha, who would be out in less than three years, with all the remission she had earned by her exemplary behaviour. He went to a filing cabinet and looked at his records. When he looked back at Samantha his face was grim.

"Her offence was a triple one, Samantha. I'm sure you know what that means. And I decided that she should also serve the sixteen weeks that her lie almost cost Sandra. In her first month she committed  a number of offences, each of which cost her an extra week's confinement. But she has learned to control herself by now and is becoming a model prisoner! All being well, she will be back with her comrades in ninety two weeks!"

Five minutes later, a concerned governor saw Samantha's eyes open. He looked relieved. He could be a stern man when it was called for, but it still came hard to him to have to be so strict with the fair sex!

"I am sorry to have made you faint. I had no idea that this prisoner could have had such an effect on you in so short a time. I am sorry you miss her, but the rules are the rules. If it makes it any easier for you, I will break a rule and show you your friend and you can see that she is in good health. Come along!"

The kindly governor took Samantha, sniffing and sobbing over the other side of his office and opened a sliding door. Behind the door were three TV monitors. Each showed a confined inmate standing naked in a tiny space. She recognised Lisa straight away.

"She looks very well, Sir. I was afraid she might have been taken ill. Her hair is lovely. It had been shaved off before she first came here and was only just starting to grow again. But she looks very healthy, although it's a little difficult to see much of her features from the angle the camera is trained on her."

Samantha gasped. Lisa had just turned her head up. She would frequently vary the monotony by looking up at the ceiling, guessing correctly that by so doing she would be looking directly into someone's eye! She was always careful to have no expression on her face. She feared that any sign of emotion might be interpreted as defiance and she was determined not to be defiant. She never lost sight of the fact that she was being justly punished for an act of weakness that disgusted her the more she thought about it.

She continued to look at the ceiling and Samantha continued to look down at her.

"Is she naked all the time, Sir? And she's having her period. It's awfully gruesome, leaving her like that at such a time. Couldn't you slip something through to her?"

The governor shook his head. Total nudity meant just that as far as he was concerned. But it was certainly a mess and he made a mental note to ask once of the women staff what she thought.

"I suppose it's quite warm in her cell, Sir" asked Samantha, getting braver all the time.

"Ten degrees. It's been that for twenty weeks and she looks fine on it, doesn't she. You said how healthy she looked."

"Yes, Sir. She is surviving. She must be really special. She looks so calm and serene. And more lovely than ever. I don't think any one has ever been in there as long as she has. I really admire her. I haven't any courage, Sir, and she has enough for an entire army!"

The governor indicated that the interview was over.

"So what did you learn Sam?" asked Sandra after work that evening. "You look pretty cut up! Bad news?"

"Just about as bad as it gets! She got the book thrown at her, Sandra. Nobody in the whole history of this prison has ever been awarded as long in the cooler as Lisa. You were right about her getting extra weeks. Every time she has her period they give her a week for messing up the marble floor of her nice clean little cell. I'd no idea those punishment cells were so tiny. It's inhuman! I don't blame you for not wanting to go back. I would kill myself sooner than go there!  I got to see her on the monitor. She looks fine - more sweet than ever!  And she is naked the whole time in that freezing cold!"

"How cold, Sam?"

"Ten degrees. How can she take that? But she seems to, all the same!"

Sandra looked grave.

"They're treating her a lot worse than they did me. Maybe the rules have been tightened up. Mind you,  I was nude the whole time - that's the rule. But they kept the cell warm enough - say fifteen degrees. It wasn't exactly boiling in there, but you could take it! And I got issued tampons when I was there.  Tell me everything, Sam!"

Samantha suppressed a sob and went on. "He said she will be back in ninety two weeks time. He said she's a model prisoner now after a difficult time to start with. She was given twelve extra weeks in her first nine weeks. But apart from the curse, she never gets awarded more weeks any more. It's so unfair, Sandra! She did a despicable thing blaming you for starting the fight, but she pretty soon made up for it! Maybe it was just to get the other women off her back, but I think it was more a matter of honour with her. She knew right away she'd done wrong. If only she'd discussed it with me first, I'm sure we could have worked out a better way of putting things right."

Sandra agreed. It was putrid that Lisa should be kept in that awful confinement for so long a time. She had been happy to hear that they had  put her away for eight weeks and not in any way sympathetic when she had, as she thought, got about twelve extra weeks on top - that was par for the course and a snitch did have a debt to pay. But she would have been there for  two years and four months by the time they let her out. Almost certainly more. So she would only have a few months to get to know this girl well and she admired her more and more and wanted to enjoy her company for longer than a couple of all too short months.

"I'll go to the governor!" she said. "After all, I did provoke her and strike the first blow and Lisa was bloody courageous hitting me back and keeping on coming even though I was half killing her! I'll tell him the truth and maybe he'll relent and agree to let her out sooner - a lot sooner!"

Samantha sniffed again and looked a bit happier. So the governor had a second visitor in as many days!

He listened to Sandra carefully. Then he froze her blood with his precision.

"I agree that it seems likely that you started the first fight, but she did offer to take the blame and she could have turned the other cheek and averted this whole tragedy. If she had, then the whole incident would have blown over and nobody would have been harmed. Her reasons for taking the responsibility sound quite strong to me and are her own affair. If she had kept quiet I should have had no alternative other than to hold you both responsible and have you caned or given extra work. I gave her a punishment for lying. But what you say makes no difference to that. Either way she is a liar, either by accusing you or by taking the blame herself. As for the second fight, I am sure you know as well as I that those two women have been released. Why did you not come to me earlier when they were still on the premises and could be questioned? I fear that her punishment must stand. However, in view of your admission I award you sixteen weeks. Never mind! As an experienced inmate you will survive without extra penalty and be back in circulation many weeks before Lisa! You may return to your comrades as for now, but will report to the solitary block at seven in the morning."

"What will the conditions of my confinement be, Sir?"

"You will be told in detail, but I think the temperature will be appreciably lower than in your last stretch. We are having to economise!"

"As long as I suffer what Lisa does, I am happy!"

The governor laughed dryly.

" Maybe you would like to choose a cell! Come and look!"

He motioned Sandra to a plan of the isolation unit. There were six cells, only one of which was usually in use at any one time. Because of Lisa's long sentence, there were three in at present.

"Those other two will be out in five weeks. They were fighting, in another wing - the one for our own girls where English is not spoken. They were both keen to claim responsibility for starting it so they both get four weeks (we let them share the eight weeks). With a few penalties, they will be out before too long and then you and Miss Griffiths will have the suite to yourselves.  But even if you are neighbours you will not be able to talk. If you even try to it will mean more time and the walls are VERY thick and soundproof! Come and see Lisa. I will not be showing her to any others of the prisoners, but you and Samantha are special friends!"

And Sandra became the second prisoner to have an unauthorised view of the unfortunate Lisa. Like Samantha before her, she was amazed to see how fit she looked. She mentioned this to Governor Menendes.

"Yes. She exercises herself each day. And we cannot keep such a long-term prisoner on reduced rations as you will be. It would permanently damage her health. She usually walks up and down a lot but this week she is standing over the floor level toilet all day. But at night the floor becomes smeared and she will be punished for that, even though it is hardly her fault. I don't make the rules."

"What punishment, Sir?"

"Only a week extra for every period. I agree it seems unfair. Your friend Samantha was upset about it and I am looking into the matter. I think you will approve of my decision when I reach it!"

Sandra went back to the dormitory and told Samantha she was about to lose another friend for a while.

"It's only twenty four weeks, Sandra. You must be brave and think how glad Lisa would be to have such a short time!"

Sandra tried to look convinced. She was quite petrified. The sole day of her second period in solitary had been sheer horror, but Lisa was coping and so must she.
At a quarter to seven, she went across the prison yard to the low-lying building whose unimpressive exterior held in its depths so much human misery. She was in good time and had a five minute wait before hatchet-face and an assistant, a Chinese lady, came to open up. Sandra wondered if Lisa realised that she was left alone all night down there in that suite far below the ground. Not that it made any difference as she could not be reached by the two guards and was being watched twenty four hours a day on a monitor in the guardroom. In effect the internees here were buried alive and she, Sandra, was about to undergo the same fate, thanks to her vain attempt to get a reduced sentence for Lisa, who seemed to be coping fine from what she had seen, certainly better that she would in the next twenty four weeks.

As soon as she had been taken to the reception hall she was ordered to strip. It had been warm up on top in the outside world and as she stood naked to have her orifices inspected, she shivered, breaking out in a rash of gooseflesh. The two staff took much more trouble over probing Sandra's anus and vagina than they had with the virginally innocent Lisa. Even this hardened thirty year old was sick with disgust when they had finished with her. Hatchet Face removed her latex glove and took out the list of rules. Sandra was read out the familiar spiel. They had not changed much in the last three years, except for the lower temperature. It would be an uncomfortable twenty four weeks and the weather would most likely be chilly when she had finished her punishment. And when she returned to normal prison life she would be bare breasted to face the elements. She wondered what clothes Lisa would be left wearing after her three separate punishments. Probably just her briefs! But since nobody had ever been down here for three sessions, Lisa would be breaking fresh ground, both after as well as during her ordeal.

Fifteen minutes after being taken down below,  Sandra was in the next cell to Lisa. She might as well have been a thousand miles away, of course, and for the first week, Lisa was not much in her thoughts as she tried to adjust herself to this most feared and hateful of situations.

She cursed herself time and time again for her utter stupidity. Fancy picking on that new girl! Once you had spent a session down here you NEVER stepped out of line again! She shivered in the sixteen degree temperature for her first three days and then found it becoming bearable. After ten days it seemed normal. By the time it had gradually dropped to ten degrees she was relieved to discover that she could still function and survive.

She tried at first to do the sort of exercises that Lisa was doing next door to her, but her reduced diet made her too weak and she found that all her strength was needed merely to remain upright for sixteen hours. Like Lisa, she overcompensated during her first couple of weeks, getting up hours earlier than necessary and spending eighteen or even nineteen hours upright instead of the still taxing sixteen and the resultant loss of badly needed sleep was wearing her out. Then one day she overslept and missed her breakfast, getting herself an extra week. Finally, after four weeks she had her routine adjusted.

For all the time she was buried alive she never lost her sense of panic-stricken despair and it was always an effort to stop herself crying and going down on her knees. Where Lisa had found it possible to invent her own inner reality, Sandra never forgot where she was. Those four walls, two of them close enough to touch at once, were never out of her mind.

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