THE TRUSTEES' ANNUAL BANQUET

by Perre Fouettard

Pt1

“Okay, B-Block, that’s your time!” Officer Maynard blew the whistle alerting the prisoners that their allocated showering time was over. Under the watchful eye of the short but imposing female prison officer, the women wrapped their towels around their bodies, they could dry off properly when they were back in their cells, and lined up as expected against the far wall, waiting to be escorted back to the main cell block by the two male officers who they knew would be waiting for them just out of sight around the corner. The male officers were supposed to remain out of line of sight of the showers while the female prisoners were shouting but the women were under no illusion that they kept strictly to this rule. Even if they did, the CCTV cameras covering every inch of the room made it somewhat obsolete anyway. Officer Maynard consulted her clipboard.

“B-1543, B-2617 and B-1389 take a step forward.” she barked. The three confused-looking young women did as they were told. “You three wait here. The rest of you, back to your cells. Come on! Get moving!” The remaining prisoners dutifully trooped out, passing as they did so the towel-clad women of C-Block waiting awkwardly in the corridor for their turn. “You three, follow me.” Officer Maynard had the kind of natural authority which meant she had no need to raise her voice. It was simply one of those voices that was automatically obeyed.

“What do you think this is about?” B-1389, a slightly chubby twenty year old who had been in prison a shorter time than the others, having been arrested for attending an anti-government rally. In truth, she has simply been studying in the library when a group of lads had allowed their discussion to get a little too loud and had been a little too vocal about their thoughts on recent new policies but that had been enough for the Librarian to notify the Police who arrested everyone present, including all members of the library staff except for the one who had informed them. Her name was Emily, known as Em to her friends.

“No talking.” Maynard snapped as she led the three prisoners through a door marked “Staff Only” at the far end of the shower block, down a short corridor past some lockers and coat racks and into an office. On one wall was a bank of monitors showing live footage from all areas of the prison, including individual cells, the exercise yard and the shower block where the inmates from C-Block were currently enjoy their twice-weekly allocation of hot, clean water. “Stand against the wall. Do not touch anything.” Maynard instructed. The three young women obeyed. “The Governor is coming to speak to you. Be respectful.”

With that, she turned and left leaving the women, still soaking wet and dressed in nothing but their rough, beige prison-issue towels. For a while, none of them spoke but then B-1543, better known as Helen, turned to the others.

“This isn’t going to be good.” She warned them. Of the three, the red-head had spent the longest in the prison. The other girls she had been arrested with were all gone – some executed as an example to others and the rest euthanised. Somehow, however, the trim but curvy twenty-four year old had managed to survive. Up until now, that was. She had seen enough of the prison and how its systems worked to know that they were not about to be given a treat.

“Here he comes!” Charlotte hissed. She was twenty one, slim and blonde. Her prisoner number was B-2617. “Remember to cooperate and not make him angry!” The three young women stood still and demure, their arms by their sides and their heads slightly bowed, respectfully.

“Hello ladies!” The Governor, a short, balding man in his early fifties, chuckled as he walked into the room, as bundle of files under his arm. He sat down at the desk, pushed his thick-framed glasses back up his nose and set the files out in front of him. The girls could see that they were their prison files. “So,” he leaned back in the chair, his fingers interlocked, “first the good news. All your sentences are being cut short. By midnight tonight you will all have left this prison.” Emily gave a little excited gasp and raised her head but the older two, far more cynical of any such news, shot her warning looks. “The bad news, for you at least, is that you will be leaving in the stomachs of the Board of Trustees. Those parts of you that don’t end up leaving via the waste disposal, that is.” He gave a cold smirk, watching with barely concealed excitement to see how they would react.

“What?” Helen exclaimed, unable to restrain herself in time. Such an outburst might usually have earned her a beating or at least a spell in solitary confinement, without food or water, but this time the Governor simply smiled a little wider. Emily bit her lip fearfully, trying to keep from crying while Charlotte simply glared defiantly.

“Your records, including the tests conducted yesterday, show a clean bill of health.” The Governor explained in a tone that was almost conversational, as if he were handing out work assignments to his team rather than informing three young women of their imminent deaths. “The evening a banquet is being held for the board of trustees and, as is traditional, we will be feeding them the finest human meat selected from among the inmates. You three have been selected for the superb quality of your meat and your suitability for the three different cooking methods we have available.” He looked at each of the girls in turn, enjoying the fear, sadness and anger in their eyes. “What do you say?”

“Thank you, Sir.” Charlotte muttered, knowing what was expected. The other two followed suite with Emily barely able to get the words out without sobbing. Having been spared execution, she had tried so hard to keep herself healthy so she would not be euthanised. Now, not only was she going to die anyway but it was that very health that had condemned her.

“Very good.” The Governor gave another cruel chuckle. He pressed a buzzer on the desk. A male guard entered, looking stony-faced and carrying a thick plastic sack that the prisoners recognised as the type used to collect the laundry. “Now, please remove your towels and place them in the sack.” None of the women had had a chance to dry their hair or even their skin properly and were shivering despite the warmth of the office. “Come along, hurry up!” snapped the Governor, impatiently. “Don’t worry about getting cold. You’ll be perfectly warm soon enough!”

“But…” Helen interjected, glancing at the guard and then back at the Governor, “We’re permitted basic dignity in the presence of male staff members. You even said so in the video we had to watch when we arrived!”

“Prisoners are allowed to remain covered in front of male staff, that is true.” The Governor conceded, “But you three are no longer prisoners. In fact, as of,” he glanced at his watch, “exactly twelve minutes ago, when I signed the relevant paperwork, you are no longer people. You are food and food has no rights. Now come along, there’s a lot to do!”

The prison guard, still showing no emotion on his face, stepped forward and held the open bag out to them. Reluctantly, the women peeled off their soggy towels, Emily being the most reluctant, and dropped them into the sack.

“Please inform the kitchen that the meat is ready for collection.” The Governor instructed the guard as he turned to leave. The guard gave a curt nod. “Splendid.” The Governor stood and walked around the desk to where the three naked young women were stood, looking each of them up and down hungrily and seeming particularly captivated by Emily’s plump bosom and thighs, before circling them and inspecting the rear view, making small, appreciative sounds as he did so.

“Well, next time I see you ladies, it will be on the table. The kitchen staff should be along soon to collect you. Kindly wait here.” And with that, he was gone, taking care to lock the door to the office behind him.

“What the fuck?” Charlotte exploded, once he was safely out of ear-shot.

“What’s the big deal?” Helen sighed in a resigned manner. “How many people actually survive their sentences anyway? We had maybe a five percent chance of ever leaving here and, I suppose if I have to get eaten, I’d rather be prepared by professionals and appreciated rather than ground up, mixed with a load of other contaminated meat and served in the prison canteen.” She let out as long exhale which made it clear that she had no fight in her.

“Yeah but still…” muttered Charlotte. “Hope they choke on us.”

“We could maybe use one of the chairs to smash a window?” Emily suggested. “Maybe the one in the door? I bet it can be unlocked from outside then we could get away before they come for us?”

“It’s reinforced glass.” Helen pointed out. “It would take a sledge-hammer to get through it. And even if we got out of this room, where would we go? We’re stark naked and in the middle of the prison! We’d get maybe ten feet before getting gunned down then they either cook us anyway or stick us in the grinder and choose three other girls for their fancy-ass banquet.”

“So we’re just going to wait for the kitchen staff to come cook us and get served up to a load of rich fuck-heads?” Helen looked at the younger women for a moment before replying. She understood the desire to seek hope in even the most hopeless situation but she also knew that it would get them nowhere and achieve absolutely nothing. Their fates were sealed.

“You got a better plan?”


Pt2

They did not have too long to wait. Unlike the areas where the inmates were contained, the staff areas of the prison were very comfortably heated and in almost no time at all, the women had air-dried apart from their hair. Official prison rules stated that all inmates could be compelled to have their heads shaved but, in practice, all but the most troublesome were allowed to keep their hair at a length they preferred. This was motivated less by kindness on the part of the prison guards but by pragmatism – prisoners with a small amount of morale left were far easier to manage day-to-day and by not making the shaving automatic, it could be kept as a threat. The rule about removal of body-hair was, however, strictly enforced.
As much to pass the time as anything else, Charlotte began to twist her hair, wringing out the last of the water.
“Careful.” Emily cautioned, conscious of how mercilessly perceived acts of vandalism again prison property were punished, “You’re soaking the carpet!”
“So?” Charlotte shrugged, using both hands to push her thick blonde hair back out of her face. “What are they going to do to me? We’ve got probably less than an hour to live and they’re going to want our meat in good condition.”
“True.” conceded Emily, wringing out her own hair which was a darker shade of blonde than Charlotte’s but even thicker with loose curls. Helen simply stood still, staring at the door. Whatever was about to happen to her, she simply wanted it over with. Ideas such a making the most of your last minutes of relative freedom seemed foolish when she was stood naked and exposed in a small office with nothing but a bank of CCTV monitors for entertainment. A life-long fan of reading, she rather wished that she had a book to hand but the only thing even slightly resembling a book in the room was a ring-binder containing the latest update of the prison regulations and having nothing to read felt better than reading that. She tried to remember scenes from her favourite novels but the fear was getting the better of her and the memories formed an incoherent jumble.
Less than two minutes had passed since the Governor left when the door opened again and three people came in. One was a tall, attractive woman with short, black hair who the soon-to-be-meatgirls recognised as working in the kitchen. The other two were prisoners like themselves wearing light blue jumpsuits which denoted they had been assigned a work-placement. Clearly they were currently on kitchen duty. One was a tired-looking woman in her late thirties who had been a teacher before her arrest on the charge of disseminating subversive content. In truth, she had simply been teaching a history lesson about the lead-up to the British Civil War but, thanks to reports from some worried parents, she now found herself serving a minimum of twenty years in prison and knew she was unlikely to ever leave alive. Every day she survived was a bonus. The other conscripted prisoner was younger even than Emily, only just old enough to have been sent to the adult prison rather than a Juvenile Detention Centre. Her crime had simply been to be in the wrong place at the wrong time – she had been out shopping and happened to cross paths with a protest which had been deemed illegal. When the riot police had swept in she had got caught up with the protestors and, since she was unable to offer proof that she was not a part of their group, had been sentenced alongside them. The girl, a pretty brunette by the name of Samantha, still held out hope of regaining her freedom one day but each and every experience since she had been imprisoned was diminishing that hope.
“Hello!” The one employee among them greeted the three naked women cheerfully while the fellow prisoners kept their faces tilted towards the ground, ready to follow orders but not wishing to look the women they were about to help kill in the eye until they absolutely had to. “Well it looks like the Governor supported my recommendations.” She said this with such bubbly enthusiasm that it genuinely sounded as if she expected the condemned women to be grateful or honoured for what was about to happen to them.
“Wait, you picked up?” Helen asked, narrowing her eyes a little. “I thought we just got picked because of our clean health records?” The woman laughed but it was not a cruel laugh like the Governor’s had been but rather the happy chuckle of someone who’s friend has not yet realised that the party is in their honour.
“They checked your health records once I put in my request!” she explained. “But I’ve never had meat rejected yet. I have a pretty good eye, you know!” Helen could feel herself blushing angrily. This wasn’t some random, arbitrary thing that had happened to her. This woman had looked at her, probably via the cameras in the shower, and chosen her and her her two hapless companions to be cooked! What was worse, she seemed to expect them to be happy about it! “Once I heard what they wanted on the menu for tonight dinner,” the woman continued brightly, “I made it my business to find the perfect girls to provide the three different types of meat needed.” The women glanced at each other, unsure of how to respond. “Now, if you’d like to follow me,” she suggested in the type of voice a mother might use when proposing a trip to the swimming pool or park, “let’s get to the kitchen and get started!”