CAUTION
This chapter deals quite diirectly with sexual abuse of a child. It is brutal, in my opinion. It was hard to write. Chapter 15 will be worse. As stated before I will send a summary to anyone whowishes to avoid the section.

CHAPTER 14
I stood in the doorway of what looked like a rather large suburban house with a car park and a walled garden. There was a small sign on the wall proclaiming it to be Castle Keep Residential Facility, and run by the Council, but that was all the information given apart from the pleasant advice that parking was private and unauthorised vehicles would be removed.

The social worker handed me over to a smiling woman in jeans and a cardigan, who signed a number of documents as I stood with my small bag at my feet and waited silently. She was about fifty, I guessed, greying hair in a bun and absolutely no make up that I could spot. The social worker addressed her as Mrs Cunningham. I noticed a man, standing just round the corner, with a rather large belly pushing against a sort of tunic thing like the one that male nurses wore in the hospital, and after the social worker had wished me good luck, she called him over.

“Alf, put this one in Eden, get its bits of stuff stowed, then get it back to me for the orientation talk”

Alf led me up two flights of stairs, wheezing as he went, until we arrived at a solid-looking door, which he unlocked with a key from a large ring. There were other, similar, doors around us, with names like “Derwent” and “Esk”, and when Eden’s door opened I saw two sets of bunk beds, a table with four chairs around it, two sinks against the wall and what was obviously a toilet behind another door. There were four small wardrobe type things, and without any preamble Alf grabbed my bag, opened one of them and stuffed my possessions into it.

“Stowed, as ordered. Out, you”

I followed him back downstairs and into what was clearly Miss Cunningham’s office, where she sat at a desk with some sort of file before her. Alf left, and I realised there were no other chairs.

“I’ve been reading your file, Jones. Apparently you have no other next of kin apart from your mother, and she may well end up sectioned. Either way, as you are at risk you will be staying here”

“But I do have kin, I have my Nana at Boot, Miss”

She didn’t change expression, she didn’t raise her voice or even alter the tone of it. Flat and calm, no passion showing in any way apart from two little red spots on her cheeks.

“Not according to your doctor’s records, Jones. Don’t ever contradict me again, and do not speak until I tell you to, or you won’t eat for a week, you dirty little shirtlifting cunt. Your records don’t mention it, so she does not exist. We will be your new family here, and we will look after you properly. You will not ply your perverted little trade here, you will not corrupt the other boys and we will assist you to learn to become a normal member of society. If you persist in being a bum boy I will personally inflict a very large amount of pain on you. Now, have we reached an agreement?”

“When can I speak to my Nana, Miss?”

“You do not have a Nana, Jones. You persist in contradicting me.”

She pressed a button on some sort of desk intercom. “Alf? Can you come here, please?”

The florid-faced man came back into the office, and once again without any stress she simply said “Insolence, Alf” and suddenly I was held down over the desk. Cunningham came round from behind it, and I saw she held a cane. Six times she lashed me across my upper thighs until I screamed, and then, her breathing slightly quicker, she just said “Thirlmere, two days, then bring it back here”

He dragged me sobbing out of the room and down a corridor until we reached another locked door, and a flight of steps that led down.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I suppose it was two days later that I was back in her office, and she was still utterly calm, as I stood there blinking in the daylight. Thirlmere was a cell; the only word that fits better would be dungeon, or perhaps oubliette, that place where prisoners are thrown to rot, forgotten.

Eight feet by four feet. No light at all, not even around the door. A potty for waste, that wasn’t collected until I was let out. No food. No water. No bedding. No bed. I was desperate for a drink, and my stomach ached with hunger, but I realised that I was walking a knife edge, and one wrong word to this bitch would be a seriously bad idea.

“Is it contrite?”

Alf muttered “Dunno, Miss C. You, you contrite? Tell the nice lady”

“Yes, Miss, I am”

I shut my mouth hard, not wanting to risk anything more in case she went lunatic on me again. This woman was dangerous.

“Alf, it’s contrite. Get it changed and show it where things are.”

He led me out of the office this time, rather than dragging me as before, and I was shown a small dining room with long tables set by benches, a shower room, and the walled garden where a number of boys sat and read or played board games. I realised it must be Saturday…how long had I really been in the cell? Alf pointed through the window to the boys, all of whom were wearing similar T-shirts bearing a small picture of the castle on the left breast. They were in three or four solid colours, black, green, blue and yellow visible on the boys outside.

“Aye, you’ll meet them soon enough. Now, off to change.”

He took me back to Eden and unlocked the door. Indicating some clothes on a chair, he just pushed me towards them. They consisted of a cheap pair of jeans, and a T-shirt, the same as the other boys wore, but in lurid pink. In a tired voice, he started ticking off colours.

“Yellow–thief. Black–junky. Blue–runaway. Green---underage sex. Purple---violent. Red---cutter. Pink---arse bandit. Lets the other patients see what sort of a risk you are. Lets us see who we might have to watch in the showers”

I changed into the badly made clothes, and went to put my old things into the cupboard with mu other stuff. Of course, as I should have guessed, it was empty, everything gone, even the bag. Alf actually chuckled.

“Aye, it’s a fresh start you’ll get here. You never know, you might get a boyfriend….or six”

I was soon back down in front of that woman.

“Ah, it’s properly dressed at last. Now, listen to me, my little shitstabber, we are going to lead you out of your ways of sin. Your doctor will be here later to see to your physical welfare, but I will guide your personal development. You will not argue, you will not disrupt, you will not CORrupt. There will be no theft, because I allow no possessions here. You will worship properly on Sundays, and you will remain clean, and silent in front of staff and visitors. Any slandering of this institution will be looked on most gravely and you will by doing so be treated to another holiday below Helvellyn. Those holidays can be extended, so be judicious and respectful at all times. Alf, I do believe it is time for the evening meal, now. Take it away and let it feed”

Alf led me back to the dining room where another fourteen or so boys were waiting silently, with two other older men. I felt all eyes on me as Alf led me to a table with three boys at it already, one purple and two yellows. I went to sit down, and Alf shook his head.

“Last one sat down gets the food for the table”

He pointed to a hatch where two other boys stood with trays, and I joined them after picking up a tray of my own. My first load was soup, bread and butter, in little foil packets. My tray only held two soups, the bread and the plate with the butter, so I took that back to the table and went back to the hatch for the remaining two soups. When I got back to my table with them, all the butter was gone. I must have indicated surprise in some way, as the purple glared at me, but as nobody else was speaking I too stayed silent. I was learning.

The main course was some sort of gristle-rich stew, and sweet was semolina. Once each course was done, it was clearly my job to carry off the dirty plates. I noticed the ‘chef’ count all the cutlery as I handed it back. Once the meal was done, another man came over, sallow and balding, with a Bobby Charlton haircut that just looked stupid.

“You, Miss C, now.”

I knew better already, so just followed him back to her lair. Mitchell was there, in one of two extra chairs. Cunningham nodded to Comb-Over.

“Thank you, Donald. Jones, the good doctor here will be helping you to do what I believe our colonial cousins call ‘get with the programme’. Doctor?”

“Yes, Stevie, your Mother’s misfortune will allow us to help you escape even more quickly from your unfortunate course of perversion and unnatural behaviour. It seems, from your earlier life, that my diagnosis of you as a pederast may have been premature. It s possible that your mental problems go even deeper, but there s a solution, pioneered by an American gentleman, that will help avoid that. I will talk you through the process when you are older and able to understand, but for now, I will examine you. Get undressed”

A raised eyebrow from the hellbitch left me unwilling to risk argument, and soon I was standing naked before them. To my surprise, Mitchell took some measurements, around my hips and waist, then some photographs with a flash camera. He also spent a while squeezing my chest around my nipples, and then produced a needle. Yet again, I felt it enter my rump, but this time I began to wonder what exactly he was sticking into me.

As the needle came out, Miss C looked at me in disgust. “Why are you naked?”

I scrambled to dress, and then she rang for Donald to take me back to Eden. Behind the locked door, the other three boys were already there.

It clicked shut, and I heard the lock turn, and at that point the purple boy nodded to the other two and punched me hard in the stomach.

The first hurt more than anything I had ever suffered before, but the third…the third was the worst, because by then they had run out of butter and he went in on blood.