The blood was pounding in her head. Ileana couldn’t be serious, could she? Admittedly she was curious, but this was too much.
Merritt cried out at the feel of the cold, encircling steel on her neck.
“For demonstration purposes,” Ileana informed her, snapping the metal collar in place. Ileana was behind her where Merritt couldn’t see. “There’s a stun device built-in. To avoid the shocks, the girls were required to be absolutely obedient. Observe.”
The sudden charge burned into the back of Merritt’s neck and down her spine. “Stop it!” she cried.
“Just get on your knees and it’ll stop,” Ileana offered casually, as though this were some abstract lecture.
Merritt dropped onto the cold, hard prison floor.
“Good. Now get on all fours and crawl. Go on, have a look. You can’t tell anything from out here.”
It was hot inside, cloying and uncomfortably cramped. Right above her head, pressing the knot of her pony tail she could feel the steel mesh. It was the same at her hips and under her knees. “Ileana, I’m frightened,” she called out, hating her own weakness.
Ileana closed the metal door and bolted it. The next time she heard Ileana, it was through a speaker overhead. “I want you to have the full effect. Give me a minute, I’ll turn on the lights.”
The fluorescents were blinding. Like night to day in a single flash. When she finally adjusted her eyes, she nearly died from what she saw. Merritt had been locked inside a tiny crawlspace lined with cages, each barely large enough for a full sized dog.
“Go to number six. That is how it was worked. Each girl had an assigned box.”
“I don’t want to. Let me out, Ileana.”
Merritt screamed as Ileana treated her to a second shock, larger than the first. She could almost taste the electricity now, eating at her flesh, welling up into her throat. “I’ll do as you say. Please, don’t hurt me anymore.”
“The numbers are up above. You’ll have to back into it,” said Ileana, shutting off the juice.
Merritt found the right one. But not before losing both her pumps and tearing her stockings to shreds. With shameful eagerness born of a determination to avoid any more pain, she shuffled past then reversed herself, arse first. Her nose had barely cleared the opening when the balls of her feet met the back wall.
“The girls would have to say when they were in. Repeat the words, 'Female special detention prisoner six ready for lock up.'”
“Female special detention prisoner six ready for lockup,” she managed from her dry, scratchy throat.
“Clear,” announced Ileana. There was a flash of red light from the end of the crawl way and then the cage door began to slide down from somewhere above the mesh. Its motion was smooth and rhythmic, obviously motorized.
“Prisoner six,” Ileana announced crisply. “Confirm lockup.”
“Prisoner six,” Merritt fell into the cadence, her world reduced to a small cube of interlacing metal rods, “is now locked up.”
Her own words made it real. She was confined like an animal, at Ileana’s mercy.
“Prisoners were left here days at a time. You can see it’s impossible to stand or squat or even stretch out. The best thing is to lie on one’s side. To piss, you have to just stay on all fours over the grate right in the middle.
She cringed at the thought of being reduced to such a state.
“Doctor Fisher, are you still with us?”
“Yes,” she whispered, barely able to find her voice. “I’m here.”
“There were dishes for water and food. Obviously, the actual prisoners were naked, except for their chains. I know you’re curious as a historian about punishment which is why I’m telling you all this. The place was nicknamed the kennel, and a girl would do anything to avoid it. Anything at all, Doctor Fisher. You can’t tell, but behind you there are openings for devices to be inserted. Any sort of stick or object could be shoved through the front as well. If the guards were feeling particularly cruel, they might force a prisoner to impale her mouth, cunt, or arse in order to avoid the shock of the collar. Another game was to feed them endless amounts of water through a tube, then punish them for pissing.”
“I—I’d like to get out now.” She was trying to keep her panic at bay to no effect. “Please?” Tearing at the collar, she choked back the tears. If the doors didn’t open soon, she was going to be screaming or begging.
“Belok would have appreciated our modern technology, no?”
“Enough,” Merritt whimpered, grabbing at the bars, the sounds and smells and tastes of suffering girls filling her senses. “I can’t stand it any longer.”
Ileana turned on the juice, hard enough to make her scream just for a second. “It’s only a demonstration. Surely you’re not ready to quit? How else do you expect to learn about the prince’s world? This is a luxury hotel compared to Belok’s dungeon. Here there’s sanitation, good light, clean water, and not a single rat. Can you imagine what his female slaves would have done to avoid being cast into his pit of darkness?”
“Anything,” Merritt breathed, the terror blending in her mind with the profoundly helpless arousal manifest in her breasts and loins and belly.
“Touch yourself, Merritt. Tear at your panties and tell me how wet you are. And don’t lie. I’ve a camera trained on you right now.”
Merritt pulled mindlessly at the confining stockings and underwear. She was consumed with the need to plunge into herself, to feel the juices, to announce the reality to the cool, dispassionate eye of authority above her. “Oh God, I’m drenched,” she groaned, feeling the seeping moisture, the swollen lips.
Ileana activated the collar. “No masturbating, Merritt. That was not permitted the prisoners.”
Merritt writhed, the renewed pain melding in her mind with the sexual hunger. She was kicking out at the cage’s confines, her clothes stuck to her with sweat, the sex juice dribbling from her into the grate, the way her piss would have to if she were confined too long. She wanted desperately to touch herself, and tried, but each time the pain cranked higher. Spikes, up and down, slicing her open, leaving her a confused, melted down mass of flesh. And somewhere in the middle, the orgasms came, though she wasn’t sure if it was by manual stimulation, shock or both.
On and on it went, until the world dissolved and Merritt began to feel a womb-like comfort, a sense of secret self fulfillment, knowing she could feel these things safely in her very own cage and that a woman, by voice alone and electronic link could bring her to such a place of bliss, a place from which she did not wish to return. But all such experiences must come to an end and eventually the cage door whirred back open. Merritt shuffled obediently out, her keeper’s voice alone doing the trick now, the girl having been conditioned to respond to it as to the electricity.
“Excellent, you have real stamina,” Ileana praised as Merritt’s head popped out of the kennel and into the sterile, institutional cavern of the main prison.
Merritt wanted to say something nasty, but the experience had rendered her passive and despite her best intentions, she felt a sense of joy at having pleased this harsh, complicated woman. “Thank you,” she said meekly.
Ileana helped her to her feet. “Look at you, all covered in sweat. We can’t have you meet the director like this, can we?”
Merritt got a good look at her bare foot self. There was a tear in her panties, the stockings were ruined and her blouse was plastered to her bra-covered breast, the sweat thick on her skin. A wriggle of her toes reminded her the shoes were still in the crawl space. “My new pumps,” she lamented with a strange detachment, almost like being drunk “I just bought those at the mall. Do you know when the salesman put his fingers on my feet, massaging them before he put those shoes on? I got so hot I wanted him to fuck me. It was like there was this little invisible cord running up my leg from his fingers to my crotch.”
Ileana removed the collar and took her arm like they were best school chums. “Listen to you, all silly and flir
ty. Come on, dear, let’s get you something different to wear.”
Merritt’s surreal glow lasted the whole way to the director’s office. Ileana was filling her in the whole way about facets of the Institute’s varied work. Merritt tried to pay attention, at least, to the things pertaining to Belok and the priceless collection housed in the horrible old prison, but it was difficult in her current state of mind. She did notice the suits of armor in the corridor leading to the old warden’s office and some of the paintings on the wall.
The scenes were out of Belok’s life: various depictions of carnage, crucifixions, and, of course his favorite torture, impalement. There were also images of women, young and old, being stripped and beaten and tortured. In each one, despite the obvious mayhem, there was on the female’s face an expression of total bliss as if they were beholding some angelic vision instead of submitting to outrageous violation and sexual subjugation.
“Watch your step,” Ileana chimed, helping her round the last turn. It was a very long corridor, or at least it seemed that way. The red carpet and museum-like décor of this section of the interior seemed out of place for a prison, but probably it had all been remodeled. Merritt continued to engage herself in various practical thoughts of this sort all the way to the warden’s outer office.
“The director is occupied for the moment,” Ileana told her, “but the secretary will be of help.”
The door was open and when they looked in, they saw a slim young redhead with her bare feet on the reception desk, filing her nails. The first thing Merritt noted was that the girl was like a doll and that her long hair was very beautiful.
“Becca, I do hope you’re comfortable,” said Ileana, her pleasant veneer masking ominous undertones.
The girl, already pale, turned white as any ghost. Dropping the nail file, she leaped from the chair and ran around to the front of the desk, smoothing her pleated black skirt. “Ileana, I didn’t know you were coming.”
She’s acting just like Piko the driver, thought Merritt. Not that she could blame her after the little demonstration in the cellblock.
“Well now you do. Becca, have you finished watering the plants?”
“I—I didn’t know I was supposed to,” she stammered, a look of doom descending across her pretty features.
Familiar, thought Merritt. And that voice.
“We’ll deal with that later, Becca. For now, I’d like you to greet our guest. Becca, this is Merritt. Merritt, this is Dr. Karisvan's new secretary, Rebecca Gray.”
“It’s a pleasure,” beamed the lithe, very feminine woman, her voice chipper and quite British.
Merritt took the girl’s hand. “Likewise.”
“Becca, why don’t you run back to the wardrobe and look for something in Miss Fisher’s size.”
“Doctor Fisher,” Merritt corrected, the girl’s upbeat presence helping her to feel normal again.
Becca gave a quick darting glance between the two, her wide eyes obviously shocked that someone was questioning the stalwart Ileana.
“You’re making it worse on yourself,” said Ileana to Becca, “with every second you delay.”
Becca lowered her eyes. “Yes, Ileana. I’ll be right back, I swear.”
“It would be best if we keep what’s happening here to ourselves. Don’t you agree?” said Ileana while the woman was gone.
“Yes, I think so, too,” she agreed quickly, though she had to wonder, was the woman afraid of what the director might say or do if he knew about her little stunt with the collar and the cage? Did the man have some hold over this seemingly invincible woman? And for that matter, did Merritt herself now have that same hold?
Becca returned a moment later with a sleeveless blue dress. “These might do.”
“What about underwear?” She wanted to know.
“We haven’t any,” said Ileana.
“Actually, we do,” Becca countered, trying to be helpful.
Ileana snapped her fingers. “Assume the position.”
The chastised red head opened her skirt and let it fall to the floor. Merritt was treated at once to a gorgeous view of her sweetly nestled crotch, the skin smoothly shaven round her thick nether lips. She went for the blouse next, ignoring the shoes, stockings and garters. It was only when Merritt saw the creamy tits and sculpted belly that she remembered.
She had seen this girl and heard her voice, too. For this Rebecca Gray, the young 21st century woman was exactly the same, detail for detail as the English girl, the feisty prisoner tamed by Belok’s whip. Somehow she’d gotten into Merritt’s dream.
Becca bent face down over the desk hugging it. Her narrow waist pressed the edge, while the top surface was squashing her tits flat. For maximum exposure, she had her legs wide apart.
Ileana pulled the cane from a round, brass stand near the woman’s left leg. There were numerous welts and bruises on Becca's buttocks and the back of her thighs indicating she’d been punished this way before.
.“It pleases me to break you, Becca.” Ileana struck her, a horizontal blow, dead center on her arse with the thin, bamboo rod. “But not too fast. Do you think it’s any accident you can still defy me as you do?” She hit her again, much harder. “It’s intentional, I assure you. I allow you to retain little scraps of will so I can enjoy taking them from you later on. And take them, I will. Till there’s nothing left of you but a crawling, cringing little pet.”
The third blow was more savage still, inducing Becca to moan, her lips glued to the desk, her hair a corona of disarray about her head. “Mercy, mistress.”
Twice more the secretary was struck. The groans grew deeper. Something in her was changing. Instead of recoiling, she was lifting herself, almost dancing in her prone position, the arse twitching, rising and falling as if under its own power. From deep in her throat, the cries took on a cadence, a pattern, almost musical.
“You beat me, mistress, but you don’t command me. Another holds my soul and owns my body.”
“Silence!” shrieked Ileana. “Or I’ll flay the skin from your arse, you stupid little slut.”
Turning to Merritt, she ordered her out of the room. Merritt took a step backward, clutching the dress to her chest.
“Do it,” Ileana threatened. “Leave us alone, or else.”
Merritt backed into the door, reaching behind for the knob. Ileana had already forgotten her as she leaned over the helpless, nude girl, taunting her.
“I’ll show you who owns you, cunt. You’ll take the cane up your arse and you’ll come for me, as many times as I tell you to, understand?”
Becca laughed, the sound eerie and unearthly. “Yes, ma’am,” she mocked, speaking from some other place, faraway, yet dangerously close at the same time. Merritt could hear her crying out her strangely ironic surrender as the closed the door, the dress still in her trembling hands.
“Psst,” whispered a small voice, “would you like me to show you where to clean up and change?”
She was never so glad to see another human being as she was to see the beaming midget. “Piko. You’re a life saver.”
He flushed deeply, puffing out his chest. “For you, pretty lady. I’d do anything.”
She bent to kiss his cheek. “I may hold you to that one day.”
Chapter Six
Dr. Karisvan was a portly man, his large moon cheeks practically swallowing the wire spectacles. In all of Zuravia, he was the first man of real girth she’d seen.
“Doctor Fisher, I can scarcely believe it’s true. You are here at last,” he exuded, greeting her at the entrance to his office, the sweat drops appearing before her very eyes above his upper lip and along the line of his receding auburn hair.
Her hand was swallowed in his, balloon-like. “It is a joy for me, as well.”
Karisvan wiped the back of his neck with a cloth, dabbing at the roll of skin just above his starched white collar. Like Colonel Ladislak, he wore a suit that could easily have passed as 1960’s Politburo. “There is so much to show you and so muc
h to talk about, Dr. Fisher.”
“Ileana gave me a brief tour,” she probed to see what his response might be.
The director’s eyes flitted left, then right as if someone might be listening. “A tour, yes. So much to see.”
Merritt tried to gauge from the dilation of his pupils what sort of drug the man might be on. He hardly seemed drunk, but there was something off base about him. She couldn't put her finger on it. “I wonder if I could see a few of the prize pieces. The swords, for instance. Or the Chalice of Hrabon.”
“The Chalice.” He licked his lips, the eyes faraway as though contemplating something delicious to eat but altogether untouchable. “Certainly, we must see it first before anything else. You will follow me, then?”
She did her best to keep up. For a large man, he moved fast, though she could swear he was gliding more than actually walking. She kept her focus straight ahead, not trusting herself to look to either side. Especially when they passed the women’s cells again and the infamous door into the kennel.
“I trust you’ve been well taken care of?” he inquired, stopping at a set of thick iron doors with a keypad on the wall.
Merritt flushed red, not wanting him to know that his assistant had locked her in a punishment cage, making her come all over herself like a little bitch in heat. “Thank you, yes. Ileana explained something to me of the history of the facility. Quite unusual, wouldn’t you say. A museum and institute housed in a notorious prison?”
He looked at his oxfords, a nervous smile playing at his lips. “Notorious, yes. That it is.”
There was a beeping sound, and Merritt saw now it was an elevator they were waiting for.
“After you,” he waved her in with a puffy, pink hand, the sleeve of his jacket shrinking back half way to his elbow.
She watched him push the button marked “T”, the first initial of the Zuravian word for basement. “Ileana is more than just your assistant, isn’t she?” Merritt asked on a whim.
The doctor flashed her a pained expression, returning his gaze quickly to his shoes as though at any moment they might do something untoward. “Ileana, yes, a quite important person here,” he mumbled, sounding more like an idiot savant than the curator of the most important Belok collection in the world.
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