The clown grabbed Belinda, pulling her up by her long hair and dragging her into the middle of the floor. He had a bag in his left hand. An old doctor’s bag. Something slid about inside it as he dropped it hard on the other chair.
He threw Belinda to the ground and turned to face Agnes with the air of an old schoolmaster. He shook his head disapprovingly, making the green curls sway around his head, theatrically placing his hands on his hips, and casting her an interrogative stare from behind the mask. “Agnes Birkemose. Where have the ropes around your legs gone?”
Belinda was getting to her feet.
“Stay down!” he shouted. “Down!” He signaled her with a flat hand, like he was ordering a dog to lay down. “Down!”
She threw herself flat on her stomach, squeezing her eyes shut.
He turned to Agnes. “Has your colleague here untied the ropes around your legs?”
Agnes returned his stare, stone-like, in silence.
He shrugged and went to the old doctor’s bag to search for something.
At his feet, Belinda was whimpering unintelligible words.
Finally, the clown seemed to have found what he was looking for. “Look what I brought along!” He was holding a stapler like a trophy. It was the kind of stapler used for putting up posters. “Belinda! Would you please care to pay attention? I have something to show you.”
He curled a hand under Belinda’s chin and lifted her head, forcing her to look at his face. “Look me in the eyes,” he cooed affectionately. “Look me in the eyes. That’s it.” He placed the stapler on her cheek and triggered it.
A loud click discharged from the stapler as it fired a staple deep into the flesh of her cheek. Belinda recoiled in pain but only a tiny whimper escaped her lips.
“Keep looking me in the eyes!” The clown commanded as the cameras resumed their zooming of her cheek. “Get up!” Still gripping her chin he pulled her to her feet, not letting go before she was standing in front of him. “That’s better. Keep looking into my eyes.” His voice was mushy now, warm, praising her with excitement. He lifted the stapler to her breasts and slid the cold metal over her nipples.
Belinda convulsed; Her jaw shaking, her legs trembling, but she was not resisting him. She just stood there, her hands hanging loose, her eyes locked to his—waiting for the next lot of pain to come.
Agnes spotted blood trickling from the staple still stuck in Belinda’s cheek, and averted her eyes as the clown shot a series of three fast staples into Belinda’s breasts. But she couldn’t escape Belinda’s howling from the pain, the sound more animalistic than human.
“Tell me you like it,” the clown said as he fired two more staples into her breast.
Belinda, in an extremely faint, far away voice, said she liked it.
Tears rolled down Agnes’s face.
THE WOMAN SLID HER TONGUE SLOWLY ALONG THE ROW OF TEETH IN HER UPPER MOUTH
On the other side of the one-way mirror, the atmosphere was intense with the profound reality of what was going on out there in the torture chamber. Only a select few of the truly discerning got to experience something as bespoke and heinous as this.
There were only three people in the small room. Two of them sitting close together on a leather couch. The woman had long blonde hair, diamonds in her ears, an angular face, and was wearing a gray suit that clung to the curves of her slim body. She was somewhere around the age of forty, used to getting whatever she desired. She was leaning forward, mesmerized, her elbows were resting on her thighs, her eyes devouring Belinda’s bleeding breasts.
By her side, slouching back into the couch, sat an overweight man with a tumbler of scotch in his hand. He had a large ring with a green stone on his middle finger. His tie hung loose, shirt unbuttoned, he was sweating. He licked his lips over, and over, and caressed the woman’s lower back. This was his gift to her.
Alone, in a heavy armchair to the right of the couple, the last spectator sat in jeans, a t-shirt, and All-Stars. Seeming more relaxed in every way than the two others.
There they sat drinking it all in. The audience of tonight’s show. All three of them feeling something. Tonight, they could actually feel. Tonight, their hearts were beating faster, their bodies were electric with sheer emotion. Tonight, they were actually, properly alive; they felt it all. Tonight was intense. Tonight, was exquisite.
They’d all been there before. It was addictive, like coke. They each got a copy of the video recordings on a hard disk as a souvenir. However, they rarely looked at the recordings. The thought of owing a copy was rewarding enough. And sometimes all they needed to do was touch the hard disk to get a rush of power.
This was the ultimate pleasure. The most intense night money could buy. To have someone suffer a slow and painful death merely for the purpose of your unbridled pleasure.
And this time, it was even better. It was Danes. Spoiled welfare Danes. Not some Thai-girls bought out of a Bangkok slum, or illegal Russian hookers, but real, regular, Danes. The kind you could meet on the street. It was incredible.
The couple on the couch had five children. Three girls and two boys. The children were spending the night watching the final on TV with their Polish nannies. The couple loved their children of course, as parents should. Their children were born to a life of meaning. They were planned, wanted, and received nothing but the best. The couple loved them dearly, just as they loved their life of luxury, and themselves, as they loved each other. It was a real love.
The man in the chair had no children. He had chosen not to. Children didn’t interest him. However, that might change later on in life, who’s to tell? He was getting to an age where people would start wondering if there was something wrong with him, since he hadn’t started a family already. So the thought of having a child had crossed his mind, he did care about appearances. You had to look a success to be one.
The woman slid her tongue slowly along the row of teeth in her upper mouth. Then she suggested, “Wouldn’t it be more intense if we got the two girls to torture each other?”
Her man lifted a lazy eyebrow and glanced at the other man. “Okay by you?”
The other man nodded, not making any effort of hiding the bulge in his trousers.
“Maybe we could even get one of the girls to kill the other honey,” the fat man added, sliding his hand over his wife’s back. “Would you want that?”
“Yes!” The word nothing but a coarse whisper. Still, he heard it and sensed her excitement under his touch. Placing the tumbler on the wide armrest of the couch, he leaned forward to pick up a microphone lying on the table, giving the clown their wishes for the finalé of tonight’s show.
THIS IS A BOX CUTTER, BELINDA
“The audience of tonight’s show has made a special request,” the clown announced in a friendly voice as he grabbed Belinda by the arm. “We all seem to have forgotten about Agnes. We can’t do that. It’s no use the two of us having a party, leaving the star of the show sitting there watching, is it?” He led her to Agnes, who suddenly got very busy squirming in her chair, desperately trying to break free.
“You are the star of tonight. We can’t have the star sitting there all forgotten as the supporting cast gets all the attention. That wouldn’t be fair on you.” He stepped back to make room to shove Belinda in front of her. “So, Belinda, now you’re going to play the role of the executioner. The audience wants you to use the stapler on Agnes.”
“No.” Belinda shook her head. “No!”
“It’s not that hard to do,” the clown said, forcing the stapler into her hand.
Belinda resisted fiercely and after a while the clown relented and let go of her hand. She sank to the floor, crying, as the clown showed Agnes a narrow box cutter that suddenly appeared in his hand like a magic trick. He slid out the blade one notch and took a firm grip around the back of Belinda’s neck and squeezed hard.
Belinda squealed loudly as he shoved the knife into the side of her body, just above the hip.
“This is a
box cutter, Belinda,” he sneered in her ear. “You know, the kind of knife you use in the petrol station to cut open cardboard boxes when you fill the shelves with potato chips and candy. I grabbed this one from the shop when I came by to pick you up. You know the kind of knife I’m talking about?”
“Y…Yes.”
“The blade is only one notch out right now.” He turned the knife slightly inside her flesh. “I’m leaving it like this as long as you do what you’re told. If you choose not to do as I tell you, I will slide the blade forward a notch each time I have to repeat myself. That’s about five millimeters more blade inside your body each time. Agnes, wouldn’t you say one notch on this knife is about five millimeters long?”
Agnes just stared at him, wide-eyed, incapable of forming any words, unable to even think.
“Use the stapler,” he said.
Crying, Belinda lifted a shaking hand that was now holding the stapler, to Agnes’s upper arm and squeezed the trigger.
The pain felt like a bee sting. Agnes moaned.
“Again. On her neck.”
Belinda’s hand was shaking so badly. However, she succeeded in lifting the stapler to Agnes’s neck and shooting a staple into her flesh.
“The chin.”
Belinda moved the stapler.
“No, wait a minute,” the clown said. “I’ve got an idea!” He removed the knife from Belinda’s side and took the stapler out of her hands. “I just got the best idea ever. I am sure you girls are going to love it!”
Agnes ripped and tore to free her tied hands.
The clown moved over to the doctor’s bag.
Agnes knew for certain that neither she nor Belinda were going to love his new idea.
YOUR NAME IS YOUR BRAND, YOUR TRADEMARK
“Do you recognize this?” The clown returned behind Belinda and was talking to Agnes. In his right hand, he held Agnes’s name tag from the petrol station. “Why aren’t you wearing your name tag, Agnes?”
Agnes opened her mouth but no sounds came. She goggled at the little metal tag. It was like seeing something from your past life, stumbling over a forgotten toy in the attic. She couldn’t take her eyes off the name tag.
He flicked the lock on the back side of the name tag, making the long needle spring open. “The most important thing in showbiz, Agnes Birkemose, is to get your name out there. Your name is your brand, your trademark. It’s all about imprinting your name on the minds of your audience. Nothing’s more important than that. You know that, don’t you?”
Paralyzed, Agnes had stopped struggling to free herself from the ropes. She hardly breathed.
“Your brand,” the clown said tenderly. “I’m holding your brand in my hand, Agnes. However, in this show, nobody’s watching me.” He laughed. “Not with two beautiful topless girls in the same room. Not a chance. Belinda?”
“…yes.”
“Would you be so kind as to place Agnes’s brand where everybody will notice it?” He held the name tag before Belinda’s face, waiting, until she reluctantly retrieved it. Then he stepped back. “Place it.”
“Wh…where?”
Agnes began to convulse again, staring at the needle between Belinda’s bloody fingers. “No!” she gasped.
“Where do you think it should go?”
“I…I don’t know.”
“Where does everybody look at a beautiful topless woman?”
Agnes’s heart stopped beating as Belinda whimpered, “The breasts?”
“Then put the name tag there.”
“But…” Belinda stared at Agnes’s small breasts and swallowed as Agnes started thrashing about in the chair, wrenching at her tied hands.
“Now! Do it!”
Sobbing, Belinda reached for the soft skin in the upper part of Agnes’s left breast. She pinched the skin, forming a bulge into which the needle had to go.
Agnes couldn’t breathe, her whole torso contracted in terror.
Belinda hesitated briefly to steady her hands before pushing the needle all the way through the sensitive tissue.
Agnes unleashed a blood curdling scream, she wailed, she roared, she wept. Sweat and mucus flying from her face. She threw herself sideways but couldn’t escape the excruciating pain. It felt like an eternity before Belinda finally stopped pushing the needle into her breast.
“The needle’s bent,” Belinda whined, “I can’t…”
“Then straighten it out and try again.”
Agnes slumped in the chair. Belinda struggled to straighten the needle, her hand shaking like crazy. Agnes’s heart beat hard and fast as she gasped for air.
Then she felt Belinda’s fingers returning to her breast. A few seconds later the needle also returned, and with it the pain.
Eventually the needle exited her flesh on the other side of the bulge between Belinda’s fingers.
“Close the lock,” the clown commanded. “Make sure she doesn’t lose her name tag.”
Agnes raised her feet to Belinda’s chest and shoved her away from her.
The next second, the clown launched himself forward, grasping the name tag embedded in the flesh of Agnes’s bleeding breast. He twisted the tag around, making time disappear into an eternity of pain like nothing Agnes’s had ever known before.
Pain.
Nothing existed but the pain.
And then, the sound of his greedy laugher against her cheek.
A LOUD AND PRETTY SICK SOUND THAT ONLY FED BELINDA’S FURY
Belinda landed on her back and elbow on the raw concrete floor, hardly feeling the pain. It was like the pain was now disconnected from her. She glanced down at her naked torso, seeing the blood, dirt, and scratches. The staples still sticking in the flesh of her tits, blood trickling from them, especially the one Agnes hit kicking her away.
As the clown twisted the name tag, Agnes thrashed about, screaming like a maniac. Belinda realized that if they were ever going to have the slightest chance of escaping this nightmare alive, she must act now. While the clown was furiously fighting Agnes, while the cameras were zooming in on the name tag and the blood oozing down Agnes’s body.
The time was now.
But what should she do? As long as Agnes was still tied to the chair, they had no chance of overpowering the clown. She knew this from having fought him earlier on in the other cell. A fight that left her missing a tooth. There was no way of overpowering him without a weapon.
She threw a quick glance to the vacant chair. The doctor’s bag still on it. Maybe there was a weapon inside the bag?
Agnes’s screams changed pitch, as she tried to talk down the clown. Begging him to stop hurting her, of course he wasn’t listening, too busy twisting the name tag in the opposite direction now. The box cutter appeared in his other hand.
Belinda swallowed her own pain and rose to her feet. The doctor’s bag proving to be empty, nothing but an unpleasant smell of rottenness inside it. She threw it aside and grabbed the chair instead, weighing it in her hands.
A hard knock on the glass came from the other side of the one-way mirror, aiming to warn the clown, only he wasn’t hearing it, too busy tormenting Agnes. He didn’t even sense Belinda closing in with the chair, he heard nothing else but Agnes’s pleading. He was completely preoccupied by his own perversion, he didn’t sense a thing, before Belinda struck his head full force with the chair, sending him stumbling away from Agnes. The name tag still sticking in her breast, the flesh torn around the needle, blood streaming down her body, she seemed about to lose consciousness.
The clown was raging about, clutching his head. The mask pushed askew, the green wig staining red on its right side. Touching it turned his fingers red. The box cutter was gone. He must have lost it in the fray.
Belinda went at him. Swinging the chair again. He tried to ward off the attack with his left arm. But the force of the hit broke his arm with a loud and pretty sick sound that only fed Belinda’s fury. He sank to his knees as she swung the chair at him for the third time, this one a direct hit to
his face. Down he went, landing on his back. There was no way of stopping Belinda now. She swung the chair again, and again, and again. The legs of the chair breaking off, splinters and tufts of green wig flying, blood spraying everywhere. She kept on hitting him.
The cameras did not zoom in on her.
THIS AGNES WAS A COMPLETELY DIFFERENT PERSON
Agnes finally managed to free her left hand. Opening and closing it, she flicked it in the air to get her circulation going.
Her other hand, the right one, was still tied to the back of the chair. The rope was still very tight. She couldn’t untie it with her left hand, certainly not as long as it was still numb, aching, and stinging from lack of circulation. She was careful not to look down at her chest, not wanting to see the wound in her left breast. That must wait until they were out of this place.
If they could get out of this place.
She spied the clown’s box cutter lying on the floor less than half a meter from her. There was blood on it. She had no idea if it was Belinda’s or her own. She couldn’t even say if he used the knife on her or not. She honestly didn’t know. It was all a blur of pain and shock.
Breathing deeply, she got to her feet. The rope gnawed into her right wrist as she lifted the chair from the floor. Her legs were stiff and yet rubberlike at the same time. Still, she managed somehow to bend down and pick up the knife with her left hand.
She slid the blade a few notches out and moved the chair around to cut the rope. It hurt the skin on her wrist, but apart from that it proved no challenge. Soon pieces of rope fell to the floor and at last, so did the chair. Her hands were free.
Next to her, Belinda seemed to be tiring at last. She was still swinging the remains of the chair at the clown, but the strikes fell slower. Panting for air, she lifted the chair over her head. Two legs had broken off the chair and the seat was now hanging loose.
The Ringmaster Page 8
