I'd spent a difficult morning preparing and supervising no fewer than 10 Statutory Consummations. For anyone unfamiliar with Andropian law, Statutory Consummation (SC) is the Ceremony that marks when a female reaches adulthood and becomes a Citizen of the State. SCs have to be performed within a sennight of her 18th birthday. Performed in public, and watched by anyone who desires, as long as they too are 18 or over.

One at a time the naked young virgins - known as Does - are led into the public arena, made to stand before a Chaise de Service (a wooden bench, about tree foot high with a padded top) and ordered to bend over it with their legs wide apart. To the audience, seated around the arena, nothing is unseen. What they cannot view directly they can see on giant wall-mounted screens.