Condemned to Slavery (17 page)

The corrupt guard marched off, leaving Lydia to return to her hard floor mattress.

Chapter Eleven

Lydia was just settling down when a voice issued from the top bunk.

“So you think you can steal my position do you?”

Lydia turned her face up to regard the source of this contempt and suddenly fell back as a harsh kick descended, slamming a heel to her brow and catapulting her to the floor with a crunch.

Her senses lifted from a static haze to see the woman jumping down, her face a mask of fury and pent up rage, her anger at being replaced making her frame quiver.

Advancing with clenched fists, she sneered and addressed the kneeling prisoner.

“Well you won’t be taking any more midnight meals after I mess up those looks!”

With her moment of dominance lending her fresh energy to resist, Lydia suddenly charged forward, shoulder barging the woman and slamming her to the bars, just in time to see a guard wandering past on her rounds. The jailertopped suddenly and regarded the conflict with surprise.

An elbow dropped into Lydia’s shoulder blade, the woman slamming the joint down and causing the grappling hold to falter. Snatching Lydia’s shoulders in her stunned moments, she forced Lydia off and threw a knee up into her crouching stomach, causing her to crumple with a gasping exhale, clutching the punished area as she fell to her knees, her legs giving out beneath her.

The sound of the guard calling for assistance was drowned out as the woman approached with grim intent, only to fill the air with a cry of anguish as Lydia punched out from her felled position. The open handed strike caught a kneecap and released a moist pop that preceded the leaden collapse of her adversary.

The woman clutched the assailed joint and spat curses in her native tongue, continuing the list of obscenities while Lydia arose to continue her attack. In her passion to make this harridan suffer she forgot about her compeer and the moment solid knuckles pile drived into her side, she bitterly regretted her oversight.

Arching back, Lydia grabbed the bunk for support before she fell, her balance failing as the debilitating wash of pain from the punch spread its insidious tendrils throughout her system. She was just coming to terms with it when the burly form appeared beside her, the image of the woman’s visage being replaced by a momentary vision of speeding knuckles.

The punch jerked Lydia back and left her dizzy and helpless, but still she held to the bunk, keeping herself upright as her body started to wilt, her knees turning to jelly, her eye pounding with heat.

A stern grip locked to her throat and pinned her to the top bunk, throttling her as her sight cleared enough to reveal a clenched fist being drawn back like a coiled spring to repeat the blow.

Instinct kicked in and drew on long forgotten minutiae to have her hand snatch the loose board from the top bunk and bring it round in a bilious horizontal swing. The wood met the surprised temple of the attacker amidst a deep resonant crack and the brittle snap of parting timber. The hold at her neck came away as the woman flew aside to smack harshly against the bars with a deep tone. The ringing signal of the sundered half of the plank rattling upon the ground occupied the sudden silence that fell as the woman sank down, a single line of red dripping from her head.

With a victorious bellow, Lydia reaffirmed her grip on the broken plank and skipped forward to finish them both, every indignity and atrocity that had been visited on her in this foul place suddenly rising to the forefront of her thoughts and fueling her bestial wrath.

Suddenly the wiry form of her prime adversary filled her peripheral vision before dropping onto her, grabbing the plank while her partner rose from her concussed state to renew the attack, leaping forward to try and wrestle the weapon free. Together they collapsed back as a writhing jungle of limbs and fists, all seeking the makeshift weapon for a massive advantage over the others.

The cell door slashed aside, the steel curtain allowing a sudden wash of stark uniforms to merge with the melee, their rubber batons descending with sanguinary force. Clubbing the struggling combatants with hideous force, Lydia felt the holds upon her loosen when the women were subjected to punishing blows and dragged aside. Before she could react, a slightly pliant stave slammed to her stomach, crippling her with suffering as further impacts from rubber rods and boots fell upon her torso, slamming her to the ground and making her shout and gasp as they continued to beat her.

The attack ceased and Lydia swayed for a moment and then dropped, consciousness fading as her testy contusions started to darken.

Chapter Twelve

A dazzling burst of light struck her eyes and stirred her from the concussion, her mind swimming while she sought to regain awareness. The light poured through her eyelids, hurting the pupils as they frantically sought to adapt to the new glare. With tentative wariness she lifted her lids and squinted, regarding the courtyard.

Her dazed mind tried to discern the motives of the guards, but she was too stunned to think straight and could only hang in the hold of her pinioning oppressors and watch as she was dragged over to the gallows. The engines of punishment were wreathed in the shadows of the dawn, the sun a long forgotten force that brought startled pain to her eyes.

Several guards were taking down the stolid forms that had previously hung there, the bodies colored with a deep tan from their prolonged exposure to a hateful sun. The slack females were dragged back towards the main building as the three new specimens were presented to the vacated constructs.

Both her ankles were grabbed and a leather shackle buckled firmly to each joint. Her right ankle was bent back and a sudden fierce pinch grabbed her loins, pressing her lips together before the clamp established a compressing hold she could not break. Crying out, she found that the short chain of the vicious clamp was connected to the fetter, making any movement of the doubled up leg apply increasing havoc to the tender sex.

Her wrists were snatched before they could trouble the restraints and were locked together before being affixed to a large concrete block. The last portion of the confinement was a gag, the leather plate plunging a fat orb into her mouth that was held in stringent place by a mesh of thick buckles that traversed her head, squeezing it within their impossibly tight hold.

A harsh pull to the ropes took her ankle into the air, and another pulled her abdomen up to join it, her twisted leg swinging, increasing the bite of the clamp and making her jolt with angst. Another tug wrenched her torso up, leaving only her head and arms upon the ground. With a final volley of yanks, the slack was drawn in and she was dragged fully aloft, the final part of the ordeal being the lifting of the weight.

Lydia’s arms were towed until they were taut, and then as she wailed into the gag, her joints aflame and feeling as though they were going to spring from her sockets, the weight entered the air with her, swaying gently beneath her tear filled and chagrin stare.

Crying into her muffling gag, rivulets of saliva drooled about the thick plate as the ground continued to drop away, her body entering the weak early morning rays. The rope was securely tied off, leaving her stretched between the weight and the noose, her body aching under gnawing teeth of travail.

As she turned in the slight breeze, she could see the others in suspension, their faces contorted by their pains, each trapped in the same pose as herself, their eyes wide, regarding her with hatred while they blamed her for this duress.

Although the pose was one that had her whimpering in strain, she was at least glad to be free of her close fitting cell.

The grim form of the statuesque Warden stepped out before them, unfurling the long knotted strands of a many cat in her grasp. The weighty weapon swung its pendulous tongues with her oscillating sweeps, the leather tentacles whistling through the air when she warmed the weapon up for its coming labors. The sight of her ferocious swings struck terror into the hearts of the convicts.

Without expression the gaunt tyrant stepped up to the first target, handing the whip to a guard and unthreading herself from her military jacket. Instead of the Lycra top that Lydia had first seen her in, she wore only a black satin bra, the strapless affair holding her breasts open for easy adoration. Tensed in this underwear, her jodhpurs, boots and leather gloves, she exchanged the jacket for her whip.

The slender prisoner murmured and gurgled in fear, only to receive a brutal hack, the slash of the cords ending in a loud crack and a greatly subdued wail of agony. The strokes continued in speed and ferocity, the Warden ripping into the suspended form without any measure of clemency until several dozen blows had been applied and the sounds of distress from the prisoner had become a dazed burbling.

The burly woman was next, her strong frame responding energetically to the horrors of the cat. Because she was Lydia’s neighbor, she could see the weapon eating deep welts into the woman’s flesh, the weals installed deep into the skin and releasing thin lines of meandering red that ran her torso. The weight lifted and danced, her muscles swelling, the veins standing out as she battled to get free and escape the blizzard of terrible blows.

The Warden continued her attack evenly, applying her caresses across thighs, belly and torso, paying lingering attention to the exposed breasts and opened loins, the tug of her legs in an attempt to shield the region making the clamp chew upon the tender morsel with renewed verve.

With her victim glazed by sweat, her body stained by an intricate zebra striped mesh of weals, the Warden ceased. The prisoner went slack, wheezing slowly, her body shaking, damp strands of hair hanging before her face as she wept and clenched her hands to weather the throbbing burn of her wounds.

Lydia’s pulse quickened as the Warden moved back away from the assailed target, straightening her uniform and dragging the whips eager thongs through her gloved palm as though petting the weapon like a favored and well behaved animal.

With a flick of her wrist the long tails snaked out and laid beneath Lydia’s inverted gaze, her heart starting to pound in her chest, her limbs trembling involuntarily as she anticipated the first lash.

No matter what she envisaged, nothing compared to the full truth as it dawned upon her just how painful the lick of this pernicious weapon was. The stripes that ran her back made her jerk and wail, the fiery lines embellished with such excruciating fervor that she felt as though the tool of pain had stripped the flesh from her spine.

Barely had the wail left her lips when the scourge cut back, depositing another network of fulgent streaks across the first set. Hauling at the weight, she desperately tried to shield herself, her arms being torn by rending pain as the muscles were pulled and wrenched from her struggle. The cords descended in unceasing droves, lapping at her body, making the flesh respond with such waves of suffering that she was cavorting madly in her frenzied fits, her mind and senses scrambled. The sensation of warm perspiration and occasional stains of red running down her body filled her with a sense of mortal jeopardy, the addition of the sweat to the dampness tricking her into thinking the flow was infinitely greater than it was.

Lydia kicked to try and defend her genitals when they were scourged, and despite knowing the consequences, the pain of having such an area whipped made her suffer the increasing bite of the clamps in a bid to end it.

When the last blow came and none followed it she was turning slowly upon her heel, drips of tainted incarnadine perspiration spattering the weight and the dry dust beneath her. She could barely move, her breath laborious to draw from the sheer berserk power of her exertions.

Winding back the long leather thongs, the Warden looked over her work with an air of satisfaction and fulfillment, and with a light stride she took her jacket and sauntered back into the main building.

The ordeal was far from over, the suspension and the agonies of the whip a brief dalliance when held up in regard to the prolonged attention of the sun.

When the baleful orb rose higher into the sky it scorched them with its rays, the desiccating effects leaving them desperate and sore, their throats parched, their bodies burned. Then when the sun fell below the horizon they froze, the cold of the night seeping into their bones, making them pray for warmth. Of course, when it came, they could only wish for a return to night, the abuse of the day more than they could take.

Lost within the ravages of a tempest of insanity she burbled and muttered for deliverance, her mind filled with the struggling pressure of her inverted pose. There seemed to be no end to the grim realities of her sentence, and she knew she was to perish here, assured that there was to be surviving this horrendous maltreatment.

When the guards came to grant them water it was a chore that she could barely achieve, for her body was virtually dead, unable to swallow. Being upside down made the act of sucking in the most precious substance all the more difficult, the sight of valued drops falling from her loose lips and pattering upon the baleful weight and the dusty ground having her weeping in distress. In addition, no food was to be granted, the continuing starvation hastening her enfeeblement.

After eons of the relentless ordeal, the guards finally declined the granting of water and instead began to lower them to the dirt as the morning sun caressed the courtyard as it had done many times to signal another day of their woe upon the gallows.

Removed from the trappings of the ordeal, their listless bodies were dragged back and cast into the vacant cell, the three of them too weak to renew the feud that had brought about this ignominy. For hours they simply chose to lay still, forsaking all movement until they were touched by the faint scent of approaching food.

The food cart began its slow trek along the row of cells, the smell preceding its dithering arrival, the scent making the ravenous prisoners ache for its attendance, their mouths watering in anticipation of the food they had for so long been denied.