Chapter 14
When Beth Calhoun, more dead than alive and wishing herself the former, was dragged back to her solitary cell at the end of the tier, she believed that all hope, all pride and all decency had been torn away from her forever. Forced under the sadistic paddling of her naked behind to perform oral sex on Alma Burbage and then, as if that were not bad enough, on the head matron herself? For after Alma Burbage had experienced her own climax, she had replaced Flossie Durkin, seated herself on the couch, dragged the still bound and weeping, crushed captive over her lap and resumed with a few swats of the paddle, while Flossie Durkin hoisted up her uniform skirt and compelled the unfortunate brunette to gam her, she wept also for her own loss of courage.) Yet the terrible pain of the paddling and the cruel, relentless persecution of these two heartless women, had overcome far more courageous girls of greater physical stamina than Beth Calhoun herself.
After Flossie Durkin had led Beth back to her cell and shoved her back onto the cot, she bent over the weeping girl and murmured, "Now you just keep your mouth shut tonight. We'll find out if you blab any, and maybe all the fish in the dining room will watch your ass get it good and hard. That's what we do with squealers," and she had locked Beth in her cell for the night and gone off triumphantly to plan for a weekend of passion with some of the "trusty" girls who were her special favorites, and who would be sure to put out for both her and Alma Burbage. . .
The young lawyer, Ken Davis, had kept his word to Beth's mother. He had driven to Chicago, obtained a transfer of Beth Calhoun's trial, and made a number of notes. It was obvious that Al Barker was lying and, in his own selfish fear of getting a longer sentence, had tried to minimize his own part, giving the impression that it was a job pulled off by impulse rather than by careful planning. Though it hadn't worked, the judge had obviously been negatively impressed by Beth, believing that she was in cahoots with the wily con man who had already been a two-time loser.
His next step was to get a permit to see Al Barker in the penitentiary, and there for half an hour he appealed to Al Barker's sense of decency.
"Look, it's not going to shorten your sentence of lengthen it by a single day if you clear an innocent girl. I'm from the same home town she is, and she never had a prison record before. She trusted you, and somehow you must have got hold of that key. But you made everybody believe she made you do it. Now, won't it make your conscience feel better if you at least clear her? Do you know what sort of place that reformatory is? There have been a lot of rumors about it, and one of these days somebody might just call for a full-scale investigation. Do one decent thing in your life, Al. Help clear Beth Calhoun."
The black-haired con man had grinned crookedly at the handsome young lawyer. "I'll bet you're sort of sweet on her yourself, kid. Well, there's no reason for me to lie. like you say, it won't get me out of here any faster, even if I did. The fact, is Belle and me sort of made a play for her because she lived next door. When we found out she was working for an insurance company and then got promoted into claims, I told myself this was a chance to get hold of some checks and really spread some paper around this neck of the woods."
"And you planned it all without her knowledge?"
"Of course. That dumb little small town rube still had hayseed on her, Davis. Don't get sore now. A fact is a fact. She was cherry and she didn't know the time of day. I got the key off her key ring, had a duplicate made, and got it back without her being any the wiser. Just my dumb luck to have my car parked where it was, or I might have made it."
"If you had made it and gone off to South America, she might still have been picked up on suspicion and wound up in Keston anyway. And then you would have been in the clear. This is a much better thing, really. And I'll see if I can't get some little recognition of your being a decent guy and clearing her, and maybe it'll apply on your own record," David said as he shook hands with the con man.
But this was summer and it would take time to revive the case, even though Al Barker had agreed to make a sworn deposition before a notary or a public stenographer to clear Beth Calhoun. Ken Davis arranged the very next day to have a young woman who was a notary and an excellent court reporter to come with him the very next day and take down Al Barker's testimony just as he had given it the day before.
Armed with this, he presented himself before the Chicago judge who had sentenced Beth to the reformatory, but found the judge was on vacation and wouldn't be back for another two weeks. The wheels of justice were moving slowly, but Ken Davis was convinced that they would move, and finally in the right direction, if only it wasn't too late for poor Beth.
His next step was to go down to Keston, and he presented himself before Alma Burbage about four days after poor Beth had been forced to gam both her and the head matron. Alma Burbage received him coldly. She thought he was a pretty boy, and she hated men.
"So you want a permit to see Beth Calhoun, do you? Are you a relative?"
"No. I'm her mother's attorney and I have a perfect legal right to see her. Her mother has retained me to help Beth."
"How very noble. All right, I'll let you see her for five minutes. She's adjusting herself here, and just don't stir up any false hopes. She's got a three year term, you know, and she might be up for parole in another six months or so if she behaves herself."
"I understand, Miss Burbage. I'll tell her what I have to tell her in that time. Thanks for your courtesy."
Alma Burbage sniffed as the young attorney left her office and made a gesture to Head Matron Flossie Durkin, who had been working nearby and eavesdropping from a closet nearby which she had entered as soon as Ken Davis entered the superintendents office.
"You hear that, Flossie? We might be in for some problems. This fellow is a young crusader. I know the type. Just make sure that Calhoun doesn't spill her gut when she talks to him. Now you be there when the two of them get togehter, and if she tries to yipe about getting her ass paddled, you just let her know she'll get a lot worse if she doesn't keep her big trap shut."
"I'm with you all the way, Alma. I'll be down there," Flossie Durkin promised, and so she was a few minutes later as Ken Davis cooled his heels in an isolation cell, waiting for Beth to be brought in to him.
Flossie had got to Beth. She had warned the girl that here was an attorney who was looking into her case. "If you want to get out of here without some real hard times, girl, you just keep you yap shut to this shyster, get me?" she had warned the dark-haired victim. "Just let me hear one peep out of you about getting your tail warmed, and boy! Will you ever get it warmed, and from me personally. I'll take a cat-o-nine-tails to you, Beth, and I'll strip the skin off your ass and make a lampshade of it, I swear it. You just tell him you're doing fine and everything's all right, and that's all you tell him. You hear me?"
Cowed and crushed by the cruel head matron, Beth Calhoun listlessly nodded. A few minutes later when she was ushered into the cell where Ken Davis was waiting for her, her eyes widened. He was a very personable young man, handsome and softspoken, and when he told her he was from her mother, she burst into tears. She hadn't dreamed her mother knew of her shocking disgrace. But Ken Davis explained that the Peoria papers had carried the story and that her mother had called him and retained him to help her.
"I've seen Al Barker. He's cleared you," he told Beth.
"He-he has? Oh, thank God! When can I get out of this horrible place?" she gasped.
Flossie Durkin was standing right outside the door, and she now put her hand to her mouth and coughed three times, glaring at the excited young woman. It was a signal for Beth Calhoun to say no more about the special initiation she had had to endure.
"Well, it's going to be two weeks before the judge who sentenced you gets back from vacation. I've got the sworn statement that I took at the penitentiary, Miss Calhoun. It proves that you didn't know anything about his taking your key and having a duplicate made. He was just playing you for a sucker to get into the company offices at night to get those checks. I've got a good chance, I think, to get you out of here and get your name cleared of any criminal record," Ken Davis said.
"All right, Mr. Davis, time's up. I'm taking Beth back. Thank him for being interested in you, girl. Tell him, too, that you're getting along fine here."
"Oh yes, Mr. Davis, I-I am-tell Mother everything's all right," Beth blurted as Flossie took her by the arm and started to leave the room with her prey.
"I will. Good to see you. Keep your chin up, Miss Calhoun, you'll be out of here soon enough." He didn't like the possessive way the head matron was holding Beth Calhoun's arm. He didn't like the shrinking look of terror he had seen shadowing those lovely eyes for just a moment when Flossie Durkin had coughed outside in the hall. It was just a little too pat. Well, first he'd get her out of here, and then maybe he'd have some political big shot who wasn't afraid of any risk, to have this place really looked over with a fine-tooth comb. Something smelled very rotten in the state of Denmark and particularly in Keston. . .
He would have been certain of that if he could have been in Alma Burbage's private quarters that very same night, because Beth Calhoun was there too, and she was stark naked except for her black cotton stockings with the elastic garters to hold them up, and that was all, and she was kneeling before Alma, who was sprawled in an armchair, also stark naked except for pumps, garter belt and black opera-length mesh hose. She was gamahuching Alma Burbage and Flossie Durkin was standing by with a heavy leather strap in her hand, ready to spank that lovely white ass if need be. But Beth Calhoun was so scared and remembered that first paddling, that she was exerting herself, even though tears ran down her cheeks, to make Alma Burbage satisfied. And she was doing a pretty fair job, judging from the superintendent's moans and sighs and wrigglings.
"She was a good little bitch this afternoon. She didn't shoot off her trap, Alma," Flossie Durkin chuckled. "She knows what she would have got.
This!" And she lifted the strap and brought it down hard across the base of both Beth Calhoun's white ass-cheeks.
"Owuuu! Oh please don't whip me-Head Matron-I'm doing what you want-please don't!" Beth wailed as she put her hand back to soothe both jouncy ass-cheeks.
"Get back to work on me, or Flossie will give you the strap," Alma panted. "I'm almost there, so use your tongue on my clit and get me there fast!"
And so Beth Calhoun obeyed, while Flossie Durkin watched, holding the strap in her hand ready for the slightest sign of revulsion or hesitation. And after Beth and sucked off Alma, Flossie Flung herself down in a nearby chair, pulled up the flamboyant green negligee she had put on, and ordered Beth to crawl over there and suck her hairy cunt until she too tasted bliss. And it was Alma Burbage who took the strap and stood over the weeping girl as she reluctantly, weepingly complied.