F Campbell - Chain of Jedrah

Torture was always the same in its ‘if only’. The phrase was Stacie’s. Looking along the bare while columns of her arms so securely bound to the post she was impelled to think that if only she could free one hand, even one finger. If only she could so lean back and toss her head that the braid would come undone. If only she had been vouchsafed the leverage to thrust aside the chunk of wood on which her knees were punished so that she could kneel upon the flat stone instead of the cunning edge designed for the endless messages of pain that shot up her thighs and enveloped her whole being. If only . . . If only . . . !

She moaned quietly. Her pain was such a lovely thing. She needed someone to share it, to hear her scream, to reprove or to console, it mattered little which so long as they were a human presence who might eventually feel pity and set her free. Free! How distant the word seemed now! But it was always thus with torture. When she was whipped the horror of the first stroke told her she could never survive until the last, it would not come in time! Then and now she would succumb and die long before the strokes or the hours or the centuries rolled by. She thought of those who had held their secrets no matter what the torturer did to them, but deemed herself not of these. She felt certain she would blurt out what was required of her at the first shock of awfulness. More probably, now she knew the limitless nature of pain she would tell all when they stripped her and bound her at the start.

This was the real thing. There would be no visitors to distract her from her pain. The pain was an end in itself, so none need witness it. The hidden cameras would record it with fidelity for her father’s eyes. How incredible that he should see her thus! Perhaps at this moment she had moved enough to find favour on the film. Would the pictures show her as grotesque or beautiful! It still mattered, she was female.

For a little while she moaned and screamed. She did it with conscious intent as though the sound placed a barrier between herself and agony. It tired her so that she moved closer to the dazed acceptance as the pain burrowed and fought its way into her, the acceptance of something that could not be escaped. You moaned constantly to placate that which could not be assuaged, perhaps you sobbed. If you were a girl you cried.

While she wept she forced her mind to dwell on things she had read of horrors beyond her present affliction. There had been a tale of a girl taken by an Indian tribe, stripped and tied by her wrists to two trees so that she stood between them with arms stretched taut. Her torture had been a gala event. Men and women had been given the privilege of doing their own single evil with her flesh. Stacie remembered the pine splinters thrust into the soft skin and set afire, the stab of slender skewers into the naked breasts, the heated tomahawk pressed home upon the tenderness beneath the pinioned arm . . . And the screams, always the screams.

Did it lessen her own pain? She had no proof of it, so thrust the morbid pictures from her mind. Perhaps she had gained a small thankfulness that her own flesh was kept intact. But she was a treasure that must be slowly spent. Yasin wanted her alive and in good health. She wondered cynically if indeed his motives were twofold. Certainly Rannah would deal her no greater injury than pain. But there were so many ways . . .

Was this worse than hanging by the rod beneath her armpits? She could not judge. Her present plight was intensified by her need to stay erect, to make the small motions she desired was to punish her scalp or her wrists. But it was so cruel! To kneel as though in prayer, to keep still when every nerve fought for motion, to sanction the ceaseless attrition of the narrow strip of wood against her knees, to know it would continue on and on.

The punished girl longed for the option of surrender. How fortunate those other tortured girls who need say only a few words or affirm an act to gain release. Stacie made no pretense of heroics, she would yield her body willingly to anyone who would end her misery. She thought bitterly of Salim and wondered if he would succumb to such bribe.

After a long, long time and when the tortured girl had immured herself deeply into the awful half world that only the tortured know, Rannah slipped quietly back into the stone place of suffering. She sat and stared pensively at the loveliness of her slave, waiting in curiosity for whatever pleading the sad soft lips might make.

“I will do anything, my lady, anything . . .”

“What can you do, slave girl?”

“If you were a man I would offer you my body.”

“I am not a man, but you can still make the offer.”

“It would mean nothing, my lady. You have me now, all of me.”

“I think it would be the same with me,” Rannah mused. “I would not endure torture I would end by laying on my back.”

“Please free me, my lady. Surely by now there are enough pictures?”

“I am cruel, slave girl. You delight me as you are. In this suffering you are quite exquisite.”

“Why cannot I hate you?”

“I have asked that too, slave girl. I think it is that we are female. In us is something wanton, a need to hurt or to be hurt. I think we seek an endless orgasm. Would you like me to give you one now? I could.”

How great the longing! But Stacie moaned. “Oh please! Not now, it would be all wrong. I am tied so strangely.”

“I have come by a quite wicked thought, slave girl. If you would earn release by bartering yourself, would it not be kind if I gave you the possibility?”

“Please, my lady, I hurt too much to tease.”

“Yes, I tease. But it is for real,” the Arab girl laughed. “My thought is quite delicious. I will send Salim. He will know he will be punished if he consummates his greatest wish. It will be a punishment he can bear: I must not deter him totally. But it will give him pause. To end your suffering see if you can tempt him.”

Did hope kindle? Stacie knew it did. But it was a strangely mixed emotion. “Please, my lady, free me yourself. You can. Free me and love me.” Her heart was in the words.

“But my plan, slave girl! Is it not delightfully droll?”

“I cannot tell how I will behave when the moment comes.”

“That is its piquancy. Salim’s grin and his fine erection may make your torture preferable. Then you must persuade him not to do the thing you most want. There are yet many hours for you to kneel, so I will hasten that you may make your choice. Are you not grateful?”

“Yes, my lady. Thank you.”

But Stacie was not certain of her gratitude.

“Nice girl is most pretty like that,” Salim opened affably.

“Thank you, Salim.”

Stacie was annoyed with herself. Here was deliverance and all she had the wit to do with it was be little girl polite.

“Would you like me to fuck you?” Salim was not bothered by inhibitions.

“I’m tied up so much it’s not possible.”

“Salim set pretty girl free if promise to show how best to fuck.”

So it was the boy’s first time. Stacie felt a guilty annoyance as eroticism flared. There were those who would be amusedly envious of her privilege. Despite her longing for release, she found herself temporizing. “Would you trust me? If I was free I might not keep my word.”

It stayed him for but a moment. “You nice girl, you keep promise. Besides, you are very much hurting.”

“Won’t you be terribly punished?”

“Salim is not much caring. You are too nice.”

“It’s the thing between my legs you like, Salim, not me.” The boy gave this much thought. “Have nice mouth too,” he pointed out brightly. Stacie had the feeling he was hopeful of other discoveries as well.

“Wouldn’t you prefer me to use my mouth? I told you it was best.” She felt it worth a try.