A holiday in the Far East goes horribly wrong for the innocent and virginal Jane, supposedly caught with illegal contraband in her luggage. She is sentenced to be caned by the judiciary, and then interred in the women's prison, where anything goes. The discipline is harsh, merciless and terrifying and there is the additional deep humiliation to accompany it as Jane finds her body is no longer her own, to cover and use as she wishes. Sapphic love is strange to her but it is a release from the nightmare in which she finds herself and at the end of the sentence, Jane is no longer the virginal innocent she once was.