Later that day my wife and I walked across the common, and I could see my daughter in the distance waiting for us at the funfair entrance.

“Come in!” she said excitedly as she opened the side gate for us. “Our first stop is the circus tent.”

It felt weird walking amongst the silent attractions, devoid as they were of their usual lights, music and boisterous crowds. The only people who were here were the barkers getting their attractions ready for the evening, mechanics checking the rides, and cleaners picking litter.

As we walked past the Wheel of Pain we waved at the attraction’s barker. He was standing on the platform in front of the wheel, busy replacing last evening’s tatty, blood-stained prize decals on the segments with fresh new ones.

When we arrived at the circus tent we went around to the backstage area and found ourselves in a sectioned-off part of the tent with make-up tables, mirrors and costume racks down one side.

My daughter turned to talk to us:

“I can’t show you everything in here, as I don’t want to spoil your enjoyment of my routine tonight,” she explained, “But I thought you’d like to see our convicts arrive, and see how we prepare them.”

As she spoke she gestured to an opened-up side of the tent into which a large military prison van was slowly reversing. When it stopped, three soldiers got out and opened the rear doors.

Inside, around twenty people wearing royal blue prison uniforms were sitting on metal benches, their hands cuffed above their heads to a rail along the sides of the van. Most of them were sullen, their heads down, but a few were banging their feet and shouting.

“Good afternoon Jane!” said one of the soldiers, ignoring the sounds behind him.

“Hi Kevin! I hope you’re well,” said my daughter. “Did you get my message?”

“Yes indeed — happy wedding anniversary guys!” Kevin replied, raising his hand to acknowledge us.

He consulted his clipboard. “Can we have 846 and 269 first please? Jane would like to take them to the Ghost Train as soon as possible.”

The other two soldiers, clearly of lower rank than Kevin, climbed up into the van and released the handcuffs of a young man in his early twenties with gelled black hair and 846 written on his T-shirt. They warned him not to attempt escape and held his arms tightly as they walked him out of the van.

“This is our undressing, dressing and make-up area for the convicts,” Kevin told us. “Of course, most of them will just be undressing!”

“Remove your clothes,” said Kevin to the man.

We watched in silence as the man obediently took off his shirt and handed it to Kevin, revealing his smooth, toned chest. Then he pulled down his tracksuit bottoms and his partially erect cock sprang out — he wasn’t wearing pants.

“They don’t get issued with underwear,” said my daughter. “If they’re taking part in the circus or are going to be an exhibit in ‘Punishments Through the Ages’, they’ll be given appropriate clothing to wear, and possibly make-up to cover any cuts and bruises.”

“Stand over there,” ordered Kevin, and the other soldiers moved to fix shackles to the man’s ankles before returning to the van.

Convict 269 wasn’t as cooperative as the man. As soon as her handcuffs were removed she kicked at one of the soldiers and tried to escape. They were used to this however, and one of them quickly had her in a headlock as the other took hold of her legs.

With her arms flailing, she was unceremoniously carried from the van and dumped on the ground in front of us.

As she rubbed her neck, the man called to her gently, “Please don’t fight them my love; let’s just get this over with.”

“You coward,” she replied forcefully. “How can you stand there and let them do that to me?”

“You should heed your boyfriend’s advice, you know,” said Kevin. “You are only sentenced to 1st degree public torture; you’ll be home later tonight — if you behave. Others will suffer far worse. Now, stand up and remove your clothes, please, or the soldiers will remove them for you.”

The woman glared at us, and then, having sized up the soldiers, reluctantly stood and lifted off her shirt.

Like the man, she was also in her early twenties, with shoulder-length bleached blonde hair, chiselled facial features, sunken eyes, long neck and slim figure, with medium-sized breasts. When she took off her bottoms we admired her long legs and freshly shaved pussy, which had a small tattoo of an owl above it.

“Ah, that’ll have to go; Fred won’t like it,” said Kevin.

As the soldiers fixed shackles to the woman’s ankles, a make-up lady came over and applied concealer to the woman’s tattoo. Once that was done, Kevin instructed the soldiers to take both convicts to the Ghost Train.

I looked over and smiled at my wife as we followed them out of the tent. Both of us were looking forward to seeing what manner of punishment was in store for this young couple.