Condemned to Slavery (5 page)

Chapter Two

Tense hours passed and as she hovered in a light snooze, the sound of the door being unlocked and opened brought her round to total and stark awareness.

Two soldiers entered, carrying a metal box between them. They set down the weighty cube with a glad sigh and stepped back to permit respectful passage for a gaunt man, dressed in a dark uniform with unfamiliar insignia set across it. The peaked hat, jacket, trousers and tall boots had a rigid appearance and a distinct fascist quality. Could this be one of the secret police that the news so often mentioned as being responsible for disappearances and atrocities?

Such a possibility suddenly caused her to be riven with fresh fear, for they were accorded with many of the same monstrous tactics as all who had gained this nefarious title, and the crimes for which they were accused were numerous and terrible.

Without a word the soldiers moved towards her, making her quail in terror and clutch at her corner as though it were her sole refuge and defense.

As their hands snatched her she jolted and wriggled in their grasp, shrieking in abject despair. The officer lifted the dense lid of the box and waited. Realizing that this tiny chest was to be her prison, Lydia’s body responded all the more ferociously to the soldier’s designs, causing them to steer her with all the greater strength.

Howling in dismay, her feet were forced in and before she could step out they dropped their weight onto her, forcing her to kneel down within and then fold at the middle, her joints staunchly protesting at their enforced twisting. She clawed wildly but her escaping arms were merely tucked in, the lid dropped, and the lock sealed.

Confined within the close fitting tomb, claustrophobia gnawed upon her with rabid verve. Her screams and panting breath heated the air, making it stuffy, stifling, choking inky blackness that promised slow asphyxiation. The meager air holes were woefully inadequate to support distraught struggles and cries, and as the construction intended she started to regulate her respiration, subduing her voice, straining to breath slowly.

Trembling with fright she waited as the box was taken up and carried out, the wheeze of her breath drowning out most of the external sounds while the thick metal walls muffled the rest.

A jarring impact dropped her and the growl of an engine preceded uncomfortable lurching and jarring as she was ferried out and across the uneven roads of the city.

Possibilities as to destination ran unchecked through her mind, the only sure thing being that her freedom was not going to be won easily or quickly.

After an encyclopedia of varied city songs the noises gave way to a similar menagerie of country sounds. Her body ached terribly, the pose in which she had been forced made her muscles, joints, and ligaments creep with internal stress. Desperate to ease the frustration of being held in a tight ball, she flexed herself against the walls, trying to break free. The box remained secure, driving her to cries of panic, tears flowing freely as she clawed weakly at the impenetrable steel interior.

When the vehicle ground to a halt with the protesting squeal of parched brakes, the sudden deceleration banged her crown against the metal.

Without any care, her cell was taken up and she was borne away again, the journey lasting long minutes with only the metronome stomp of her courier’s timed march as a rival to her trembling breath. With a deafening clang she was set down and the lid opened. Unable to react due to the petrifying stiffness now ruling in her joints, the soldiers had no trouble in hoisting her nude form out and dumping her in a sturdy wooden chair.

In the classic tradition a bright light was shining directly in her face and her sight, having grown used to the blackness, pained her immensely. Even her eyelids gave little refuge from the harsh glare, forcing her into rolling her head left and right, trying to avoid the impossibly brilliant beams.

Squinting, she felt her ankles being tied to the front legs, while her hands were drawn behind the back of the chair and shackled, the interlocking chain wound thrice about the central strut. The procedure was completed before she could even respond and as she sat restrained and helpless, utterly vulnerable, she tugged and hauled at her bonds, trying halfheartedly to get free, the use of such a well-versed and even cliché scenario leaving her even more disbelieving of the entire event. It felt like a nightmare, something out of scary story or urban legend. Such things didn’t occur in reality, they stayed in films where they belonged.

The soldiers departed without saying a word to her or even acknowledging her in any real capacity, closing a heavy door behind them and leaving her surrendered to whatever fate was planned for her.

From the darkness beyond the dazzling bulb a sinister voice emerged as one of the grim uniformed figures stepped out to tower over her side. A red light flicked on upon the table as the adjacent lens of an active video recorder refracted the powerful light, her naked skin luminescent in the glare and reflected in the tiny round mirror against a midnight backdrop.

“What is your name?”

“What?” she stammered, ceasing her futile bid to gain freedom and trying to make out the features of the face behind the voice, the glow obscuring almost every aspect. The man at her side removed his military jacket and set it aside, leaving himself in his black trousers and boots, a black shirt and tie, the sleeves rolled up. His eyes were lodged in shadow beneath the stern peak of his cap, his strong jaw clenched, his lips filled with a morose scowl.

“What is your name?” he repeated in tones so akin to the first it could have been a tape recording. The voice was dull, without emotion or inflection and testified that this was a man who was unmoved by the sight of her in nude bondage.

“I want to-”

Her words were suddenly cut off and she was looking to the extreme right, the left side of her face throbbing with the harsh slap that had spun her head around.

“What is your name?” came the even response.

Tasting the warmth of blood on her lip she lowered her head timidly and whispered her response, her tolerance for such abuse having already been exceeded.

“Lydia Brooks.”

“What is your name!” demanded the voice, an impatient tenor in his words.

Risking an irked glance to her impassive assailant, she looked back to the silhouette beyond the radiance.

“Ly—”

Her sight swiveled as she was struck again, the blow throwing her head violently aside before lolling back, dazed by the strike. Her hair was grabbed in a rigid fist and used as a reign to jerk her head from side to side, scrambling her equilibrium and making her scalp erupt with hot riots of pain.

“Lydia Brooks!” she cried, struggling against her trammels. “It’s in my passport, check it!”

The man threw her head forward and stepped back, leaving her in shock and riven with indignation at this barbaric treatment.

“A forgery to hide your true identity,” proposed the enigmatic interrogator.

“What?” she blurted without thinking, the ridiculous nature of his words inspiring further outrage. “Of course its not, why would I need a—” she began with turbulence in her voice, and as the man at her side took a step forward she wilted, cringing in anticipation of another slap and lowering her tones to a meek whisper.

“Why would I need a forgery?”

“To conceal your nature as a spy for a foreign power,” came the insipid retort, the words an imprecation that was delivered with stern earnest, a conviction that was almost laughable because of the absurd nature of the accusations.

“A spy? Me! You’re insane! This is ridiculous! I demand to see the ambassa—”

Her order became a bright crack of skin meeting skin as another truculent slap was delivered to her features.

Lydia lounged in her chair, shaking, her face bruised and battered, her senses scrambled by the physical and psychological assault. Soft sobs of misery escaped her quaking lips and she trembled with fright.

“If you are not such an agent, then explain these pictures,” he offered, and her attacker presented glossy portraits for her perusal after retrieving them from behind the blazing light source. They were hers, the pictures still with the pungent scent of developing fluids about them.

The man ran through the selection, showing her the snapshots of military might. Awareness of just how damning these pictures could seem dawned quickly, and suddenly Lydia knew the true gravity of her predicament. With quaking fear starting to blossom throughout her heart and soul, she stammered and urgently offered her excuses.

“They aren’t what they seem. I was just taking a few photos to prove I was here, to impress my friends.”

“A convincing enough lie, but one we have seen through,” answered the hidden officer.

“Its not a lie!” she yelled.

A pause followed as the man at her side took a long cylinder from the darkness. He held it as a club, ready to beat her, but instead he merely moved the tip inward towards her shoulder. It was then that she spied the two tiny prongs at the end, the nodules humming with power. Before she could object, they touched her skin and a keening yowl exploded from her throat as she jerked against her bonds, the voltage making her entire body burn.

The shock passed, leaving her to slouch back down, loose and drained by the mordant session.

“What is your name?”

“Please, stop,” she croaked weakly, barely able to lift her head.

Rigid life returned to her body as the prod was applied again, sending agony thundering out through her entire system before leaving her an indolent wreck.

“What is your name!”

“What do you want me to say?” she wheezed slowly, wishing only to escape the torture, her physique shaking from the scrambling of her nervous system.

The twin prongs jammed against her breast, sending lightning ripping back through her body, returning her to unendurable plateaus of searing torment where she launched herself against her restraints, jiggling and jolting as her features remained locked in a twisted howl. Her shriek filled the room almost as a physical force, the rigid face of her torturer unmoved and unaffected by her travail.

“Who sent you?”

They wanted answers and she had none. The only way out was to invent what they wanted to hear. Sagging against her bonds, breathing via deep sobbing gasps, her body pounding with residual mayhem, she swallowed for strength and formulated a hasty response.

“The…the…CIA?” she uttered, the words having a distinct lack of conviction.

“What?” growled the voice, clearly skeptical as to the declaration of allegiance.

“KGB?” she wept, hoping to be believed, lines of salty sorrow running down her cheeks.

“Do not toy with us, woman. We want the name and location of your contact. Where is he!”

“I…I…” she blubbed, trying to shy away as the prod was swayed before her petrified gaze, promising that she would be feeling it again unless she satisfied their answers in full.

“Ple…please…no!” she whimpered, the head working its way in slow waves towards her body, making her wrench at her restraints and try and evade it.

The tip ducked in and touched her stomach, making her stiffen with a savage jump and wail, the cry riding onward until she had expended all her breath. The shock ended, and a slap skimmed across her cheek, flicking her head aside before reversing and throwing her features in the other direction.

“Tell us where and who he is!”

The pause as she tried to assimilate the words in her concussed and breathless state prompted renewed attention. Another smack sent her senses reeling, preceding a volley of oscillating sweeps and then the jamming of the prod into her naked loins, the touch of the prongs to her most sensitive parts bringing a pain that eclipsed all other applications. Tensing against her bonds in a full and violent throe, every muscle flexed simultaneously and remained rigid, her tendons rose like cables beneath her sweat sodden skin and she shrieked and vibrated until she was a blur of harried movement.

“Tell us!” shouted her nemesis, and the prod came away for a brief moment before stabbing back and restoring her to a shuddering, shrieking maenad of suffering.

The instrument slipped away to have its ailing battery replaced, leaving her to slouch in her confines, staring indolently at her lap as drips of blood fell from her lips onto her naked inner thighs, the disturbing vision falling in and out of focus as her sight swam. Her body trembled from the after effects of the most profound shock, a light glaze of cold sweat creeping from her pores and making her hair hang down in damp strands. As she trembled from the reverberating voltage, she could feel a bruised ache in her wrists, the pains unleashed from her fight to break the uncompromising bonds. Nausea held reign within every particle of her being, and her attacked pussy felt as though it were on fire, the numbed skin resonating with its own hideous pulse.

A hand cupped her slack chin and lifted her tear-streaked face upwards for the mysterious interrogator’s assessment.

“Wake her up,” decreed the voice and her head flopped back as the support withdrew.

A moment later a deluge of arctic water fell across her, startling her awake with a gasping inhale. The chill waters banished the hazy lethargy and numbed her punished skin. Spitting the excess from her mouth as it ran down her face she looked up, realizing once more where she was.

“Please, I don’t know anything,” she murmured with distraught pleading.

A rustle of plastic issued from behind her and a distorting translucent sheet dropped before her eyes. The plastic bag was dragged down over her head and tugged back, pressing the impermeable pane to her face and cutting of all air. The tight reign denied her breath and she fought to rip free of his hold and throw the bag away. Spasming in the chair, battling the grip that was keeping the bag in position she again heard the muffled demand for her answers, the glare of the light and the obscuring veil of plastic leaving her all but blind. Craning her mouth open as far as possible in an effort to find access, her face burned and her mind screamed from suffocation. Her lungs strained to haul in a breath but no chink existed which she might exploit. Her hampered sight began to waver and she gnashed her teeth in a bid to bite and tear the barrier that was far too taut to allow hope of purchase.