‘Take a shower then come down to breakfast,’ Mrs. Matlock said. ‘No clothes.’
The six girls sat naked at the breakfast table. Several of them bore marks on their bottoms; some were old, some new. There was fruit, cereal, and eggs for those who wanted them. Lucy felt quite hungry. She longed to ask the other girls if any of them had had a midnight visitor, or how many strokes they had received this morning, or just anything about their experiences here. The silence was more of a burden than the constant threat of violence and s****l aggression.
After breakfast the girls relaxed in the living room. Lucy was bored with magazines, and desperate to talk to someone. But she had a sense that boredom was part of the treatment, a kind of psychological conditioning intended to make the girls reali
