My daughter opened the door at the rear of the Ghost Train and waited for the soldiers to go in with the convicts. We followed and shut the door behind us.

I had expected it to be dark inside the Ghost Train, but the work lights were on, so we could easily see as we walked along the narrow corridors behind the scenes until we came to the dungeon scene.

As we entered we saw a middle-aged man with a ragged beard and moustache straining as he moved a heavy wooden table into position so that it was parallel to the train track.

“Nice to meet you at last!” said the man, wiping his hands on his trousers and extending his right hand to shake mine. “I’ve seen you many times riding the train.”

“This is Fred Knowles,” said my daughter. “You’ll recognise him as the monk in this scene, but he’s actually responsible for setting up all the scenes and keeping an eye on the convicts.”

“Tonight’s display will be quite relaxed,” Fred explained to everyone. “Well, for me at least,” he qualified, looking over at the convicts. “My arm gets to have a break from whipping people.”

“Please go and bend over that table, and place your hands above you by the side of your head,” Fred instructed the young man.

We watched the man do as he was told, his neck and wrists ending up resting almost naturally over half-circle indentations at the end of the table. Fred took a wooden block with matching indentations and placed it over the man’s neck and wrists, forcing him up a few inches so that the halves mated correctly and he could secure clips at each end of the block.

With the man’s neck and wrists locked in the stocks, Fred turned his attention to his feet.

“Can you remove his shackles please?” he asked the soldiers. “They aren’t period-correct.”

One of the soldiers removed the shackles and Fred replaced them with leg irons fixed to the table, making sure that the man’s legs were well spread apart.

“Would you like to do the next part?” Fred asked my wife as he dragged another smaller, but still heavy, table in from outside the dungeon scene.

“I’d love to,” replied my wife. “What do I do?”

“We’re demonstrating sexual tortures tonight, but as these two are only sentenced to 1st degree public torture I need to establish some limits so that they are not permanently damaged.”

“I’d like you to turn this wheel until I determine that he can take no further penetration,” Fred continued, his hand resting on a large wheel fixed at one end of a horizontal wooden screwed rod which was inserted through a threaded hole in a wooden trunnion mounted on top of the small table.

My wife went over and examined the mechanism. The other end of the screwed rod was coupled to a smooth mahogany rod with a rounded end, about a foot long and an inch and a half in diameter.

It was obvious how the mechanism worked, and with Fred’s help my wife moved the small table closer to the man’s arse, adjusting its position so that the tip of the mahogany rod touched the man’s arsehole. At its touch the man squirmed uncomfortably.

My wife began turning the wheel and the rod moved forwards, pushing the man’s arsehole inwards and causing him to groan.

“It’ll go in easier if you pretend you’re taking a shit,” Fred advised the man.

The man’s sphincter opened up to accept the rod and he gasped at its girth.

My wife continued to slowly turn the wheel, enjoying her view of the rod twisting as it made its way into the man’s body. At around six inches the man let out a guttural moan and Fred motioned for my wife to stop. He took a pencil from his pocket and marked the rod around the man’s arsehole for future reference.

“You can take it out now,” Fred said to my wife, who began turning the wheel in the opposite direction. Kneeling down and smiling at the man he said, “You can rest now for an hour or so until the funfair opens.” The man just hung his head, looking at the floor and breathing heavily.

With my wife back at my side, we turned our attention to the young woman who was still being held by one of the soldiers. She had been weeping silently as she watched the treatment of her boyfriend, but now she gulped as she saw us all staring at her.

“You are going to be over there, facing the train track,” Fred said, pointing out where the woman should stand.

When she didn’t move, the soldier gave her a shove and Fred approached her with a length of rope.

“Hold out her hands,” he instructed, and the second soldier grabbed her forearms and held them together in front of Fred as he carefully wound the rope three times around each of her wrists and tied it tightly in between them. Then he threw the other end of the rope over the wooden bar running across the ceiling and pulled it so that she had to raise her arms over her head, her hands crossed at the wrists. Finally, he tied off the rope to one of several rings set into the floor.

“She will also receive leg irons,” said Fred, and the soldiers took off her shackles.

After he fitted leg irons to her ankles, Fred pulled her legs apart to fix them to the floor rings, leaving her standing lightly stretched and obscenely exposed.

“You can go and get the next convict now if you like,” Fred said to the soldiers.

Now alone, with both convicts fully restrained, Fred turned to me and said, “It’s your turn to have some fun!”

“This,” he said, producing a strange contraption from a shelf beneath the large table, “is called the Pear of Anguish. It is doubtful whether it was ever actually used as a torture instrument, but our riders enjoy seeing it demonstrated, so I let the historical inaccuracy slide.”

I took the device and studied it. It had four curved brass plates which, when placed together, did indeed look like a pear. In the centre was a screwed rod attached to a handle, and as I turned the handle the plates began to open outwards like petals.

“As before, I’d like you to turn the handle until I determine that she can take no further penetration,” Fred said as we walked around to stand in front of the woman.

I looked up at her face as I felt between her legs, grinning as I began inserting my fingers into her pussy to see how tight she was.

“Please don’t do it,” she whimpered.

“If I don’t, he will,” I replied, nodding at Fred.

Once I felt her juices start to flow, I removed my fingers and introduced the device, twisting it gently until only the handle was visible protruding from her pussy.

She looked up at the ceiling and bit her lip as I turned the handle. After five turns I could feel pressure starting to build and she was sweating and grimacing, her eyes screwed up in pain. After the tenth turn I heard a crack and she screamed in agony.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” she moaned.

“Ah, I think you’ve found her limit,” said Fred. “Ten turns wasn’t it? I’ll remember that.”

I returned the device to its closed state, but left it in her pussy.

“Right, we’re done in here,” said Fred, motioning us towards the door.

Turning back to the convicts he said, “When I return, the funfair will be open. I will visit each of you in turn every time a train comes past, administering one turn of your screw per train until your limit is reached, after which I will reset when the train has left the scene. Your job is to moan and scream as you see fit; there will be no shouting profanities, defecating or spitting.”

As he left, Fred flicked a switch outside the door and the work lights went out in the dungeon scene, leaving the convicts illuminated only by light from the slit window and silk flame sconces.