Chapter 6
"No, it wasn't," agreed Val. "Do you think you should be punished?"
Sandra opened her eyes wide with surprise.
"Yes," said Betsy firmly.
"I don't know," mused Val.
"Oh, PLEASE," roared Betsy.
Sandra gasped her amazement.
"Well, all right," said Val. "Let me und Sandra first."
He walked over to her and unlocked the iron bracelets around her wrists. She stepped back, rubbing her chaffed skin with her hands.
"Come with us," said Val.
Sandra followed them out of the room and back into the basement corridor.
"Was it all that terrible?" asked Val.
"Oh, it was awful," said Betsy with a shiver.
"Then you really should be punished, right?"
"Yes, please," said Betsy.
A thousand things to say ran through Sandra's mind. But she was afraid to speak.
She followed them into a small dark room, empty except for a rough wooden bench stretched across the room's back wall.
Betsy threw the robe off her shoulders and seated herself on the bench.
"Stand over there," said Val to Sandra, pointing to a spot near the door. Sandra walked silently over to the spot.
Val knelt down by the bench and hauled out a huge metal box. He flipped open its lid, and laid out a series of evil-looking I instruments. He laid them carefully side by side on the floor.
"Oh, no," cried Betsy. "Not those!"
"You said you wanted to be punished, right?" f "Yes,"
Betsy fell silent.
Sandra was bewildered by her change in mood. She watched, shaking, as Val walked over to Betsy clutching a thick piece of leather. He wrapped it tightly around her throat, covering her face. There was a small buckle and strap at the base of the leather. Val buckled the strap tightly.
Sandra gasped loudly as she saw what he was picking up next.
It was a wooden board, with two thick iron handles bent into U-shapes. Sticking out on either side of the board were metal spokes. Each spoke was tipped with a spike.
Val hooked the u-shaped handles over Betsy's shoulders. Sandra wailed as she saw the ball's spikes digging into Betsy's flesh, just above her hairy armpits.
She almost fainted at the sight of what Val did next.
There was an iron ring sticking out from the edge of the board facing him. Six threads dangled from the ring.
Val expertly knotted the ends of each thread to one of the small, wiry, black hairs sticking out from around Betsy's large nipples.
Sandra watched his dexterity with amazement. He worked with the tips of his fingers, tying small, vicious knots.
He stepped back, staring at his handiwork.
Betsy's breasts were bound to the board by the hairs. The spikes cut into her flesh, and two small streams of dark blood ran down over her breasts.
Sandra felt herself becoming weaker and weaker as each drop of blood hit and then bounced off of Betsy's nipples. Small pools of blood began to form on the tops of her bare thighs.
Val wasn't finished. He picked up a bar from which dangled two chains, placed at equal distances from the ends of the bar.
At the end of each chain was a metal ring, opened. He clipped each ring shut around each of Betsy's nipples. Sandra clasped her hands over her breasts and shivered with fear.
"Hmmm," said Val, turning a critical eye to Betsy's torment.
He reached down and picked up a thread, at the ends of which were two smaller rings. He looped the thread over the bar.
The metal rings hovered over Betsy's pubic hairs. He twined a tuft of the wiry black hair into a single strand, then passed it through the right ring and knotted it into a tight loop. He twined another tuft and slipped it through the other ring. This he also tied tightly around the ring's cold brass.
He stood up, and stepped back. Betsy's eyes were filled with anguish. But at the same time there was a light in them which Sandra couldn't understand.
"It's time for you to go to bed," said Val to Sandra.
He started walking out of the room, Sandra trailing behind him.
"Tonight you're going to see a part of the house we almost never show anyone," he said with a smile.
He pushed open a small door. Sandra stepped through the doorway and found herself atop a flight of rickety, wooden steps. The bottom of the staircase was flooded with darkness. A damp, musty odor arouse from the space below.
"I, I," Sandra began.
Val started walking down the stairs. Sandra clutched the railing tightly, and followed him. The rough wood of the steps grazed the soles of her bare feet
Val stopped her at the bottom of the stairs.
"Wait here," he said.
He moved cat-like through the darkness. Sandra saw a beam of light, then saw that it was a flashlight that Val had gotten from somewhere in the room.
She blinked in astonishment.
"This, this looks like its from the middle ages," she said.
She stared down a long, stone corridor.
"Come along," said Val.
She followed behind him. He stopped in front of a battered-looking wooden door. A small, barred window was atop the door! Val produced an enormous key and shoved it into the lock. He gave the key a sharp turn, and pushed the door open.
Sandra stepped inside the room. She looked around her at the filthy pile of straw stretched along one wall. She thought she could hear animal noises coming from somewhere behind the room's walls.
"I don't like this place," she said to Val.
"Oh, it's not that bad," he said. "This is where you will be spending some time."
Sandra shrank back, her eyes opened wide with horror.
"Oh, no! Please! I, I'll do what you say, everything!"
Val grinned at her.
"This is what I say," he said.
Sandra dropped her gaze to the room's stone floor.
"That's your bed," said Val, pointing to the pile of straw.
Sandra felt a primal disgust welling up in her at the sight of the straw. Somehow, the thought of sleeping on it, of pressing her naked skin against its filth, seemed to her to be more horrible than anything she'd already gone through.
"I, I can't," she said. "You can't make me stay on that. Once you go away, I'll, I'll-"
"You'll go right over and sit down," said Val. "Unless you want to spend the entire night in a punishment."
Sandra stepped quickly over to the straw. She fought off a fit of nausea as she plunked her bare ass down on the filthy bedding.
She promised herself to keep as far away from it as possible as soon as Val left.
But he smiled as he walked across the room.
He knelt down in a darkened corner.
"Give me your leg, please," he murmured.
Sandra slowly stuck out her leg. Val grabbed her ankle, then snapped an iron bracelet firmly over the smooth white skin.
"There," he said, standing up, "That should hold you for a while."
Sandra jerked her leg, and found she was unable to move more than a few inches in any direction. She was effectively chained to the bed of straw.
"Think about what Betsy and I were telling you," said Val. "You'll have the whole night. And don't mind the vermin-they won't bother you if you don't bother them."
"Oh, no!" shrieked Sandra. "Don't leave me here alone with those horrible things! I, I can't stand them. I, I'll go mad, I tell you, mad!"
"You won't be alone all night," said Val. "I'll send you some company in a couple of hours."
He gazed at her silently for a moment.
"You're very beautiful," he said.
"Thank you," replied Sandra, as demurely as she could.
"Do you want to make love to me?"
Sandra didn't know what to say. So she said nothing.
"Do you?" Val's voice was soft but insistent
"I don't know."
He walked back over to her and knelt down beside her.
"Wouldn't you want to have someone to make love to tonight."
"I don't know."
"Well, you have plenty of time to think about it," he said. "I'm going to leave you now."
He turned and started to walk out of the cell. Sandra watched with horror as he vanished through the doorway.
She heard the door slam shut, then the awful sound of the key turning in the lock.
"No, no, don't leave me here," she screamed out. "I love you! I love both of you! Don't, don't leave me here!"
The only reply was the muffled sound of
Val's footsteps as he walked down the stone corridor.
She sank down in the straw, feeling that her skin was crawling. She kept brushing herself off, and kept feeling pieces of the straw digging into her flesh.
The air in the cell quickly became damp and chill. The only window was a small, barred opening atop the wall against which her bed of straw rested. A few shafts of moonlight filtered through the bars onto the cold stone floor of the room.
The scratching and squeaking noises she heard gradually grew louder. She saw a flash of something cutting across the shafts of moonlight. She drew herself up into a tight ball, heedless of the way the anklet dug its hard iron into the skin of her ankles.
She watched the floor, trembling violently. Then she leaned her head back and screamed loudly.
An enormous rat was sitting on its haunches in the center of the floor, peering curiously up at her through its beady eyes. It's whiskers twitched.
"Go, go away, please," cried Sandra.
She began to wonder if the animal was a trained pet, assigned to the task of increasing her torment.
But the rat turned its attention away from her, and darted out of sight. She leaned back against the rough stone wall, gingerly keeping the crude iron of the anklet away from her skin.
She tried to make herself fall asleep, but the chill and discomfort she was feeling effectively prevented this.
She started to scream loudly again. She felt something tickling the flesh of an upper arm, and glanced down to see a huge cockroach crawling casually up towards her shoulder.
"No, no, no," she cried, shaking herself vigorously around. She darted her other arm up and brushed the roach off, shivering with disgust at the way its chitlin-covered body felt against her fingers.
She sank down, crying softly, and wondering what other horrors lay in store for her.
And she couldn't find a position comfortable enough for her to sleep in. She finally leaned her shoulder blades against the wall.
Her eyes gradually became accustomed to the dim light. She scanned the room carefully, looking for the slightest trace of any animal life.
The stillness of the room leered back at her. She shivered. Her initial fear had faded, leaving her with a feeling of disgust. The straw dug painfully into her soft skin. She braced herself, and slowly stood up.
She was thankful that the chain was long enough to permit her to stand upright. She thought of Val and Betsy, and was surprised to find that she couldn't drum up any hatred for them at all.
She gasped as she realized that she was starting to love them.
"It doesn't make any sense," she thought to herself. "None! They, they've beat me, and raped me, and now they've locked me in this horrible room. I, I just can't understand it."
She sank down with a sigh and patted down the straw as best she could. She stretched herself out on it, and tried to lull herself to sleep.