suggestion that she be viewed only as merchandise. No torture.'
'That's a lot better!' James boyish grin returned. 'Is there a deadline?'
'Not with us, Mr. Pollard. We simply sell her to the first good offer. Let us hope it is yours. We have other things to concern us than breasts and buttocks and pubic hair.' He made me sound like a soiled spot on his carpet. James's chaste kiss on my forehead helped a bit. He raised me to my feet and said: 'You'll be alright, Phemie,' Then he was gone. Ashad and Jennie and I looked at each other without much enthusiasm. 'Your champion is very young, Miss Carstairs.' Ashad's few words dismissed James utterly. Right there I knew I was lost. 'You promised no torture!' My exclamation was spontaneous.
'Did I?' He spoke as though I was reminding him of something he could not recollect. I followed Jennie from the room. I had to, she had clipped the jaws back on my vagina, this time on the opposite lip. The leash from it to her hand was not a bond of love. When we got back to the cell, I stood like a tethered puppy. Jennie held the other end of the cord and surveyed me pensively. 'Ashad won't kill you and he won't seriously injure you, love, if that's any help.'
'Can't I just be left in here with the door locked — and the handcuffs, of course?' Again I was made to feel I'd said something childish. It was hard for me to see myself as the object of interest, desire, lust or just plain pleasure that I was in the eyes of others, even Jennie.
'You're just unlucky, kid,' she told me. 'You'll have to get used to it.'
'Not those wires again!'
'A nice easy day, ducks. I'm going to hang you up by your thumbs.' She did too! She actually did. In spite of my protestations that I would not fight, I was made to stand on a box with my back to the wall. The odd tug on my cunt clip made me very anxious to please. My ankles were then wired together, tight.
'Not that again, oh please!'
'I'll take it off when you're fixed. It just makes sure you won't be silly, dear.' I was very careful not to be a bit silly. When my handcuffs were unlocked, I offered my hands limply for whatever was to be done to them. Thoughts of a struggle with that wire cutting into my ankles was out of the question. I watched with a bit of real curiosity and with my fire sort of holding its own while the soft leather bands were looped below the knuckle of each of my thumbs. It was medieval, but it was happening. It was happening to me!
'Mustn't have 'em so they cut, love. Spoils the effect.' What small consolations are meaningful to slaves! It appeared I was not to hang free.. Jennie went and got a small stepladder so she could raise my hand up and outstretched to be tied to a ring in the wall. Tied by my thumb, that is. My hand was free in an odd sort of way. She then did the same for the other side. I stood on the box with my wired feet and my arms and torso well stretched up. 'You look real sweet, love,' Jennie admired. She then took away the box. It was another first, different! I moaned with its shock and special kind of pain. It didn't just hurt my thumbs, but my shoulders and arms and wrists. I felt quite certain my thumbs could not last long, there would soon be some horrific sundering. This was not something to make me want to behave, this was torture. Jennie's face looked up at me with wry compassion.
'You'll make it, kid. I done this before.'
'I can't tell him anything. I can't! Oh Jennie!' It was the only pertinent thing I could say. Jennie mowed it down.
'I don't think he expects it, love. This is just what we do with girls.' It soaked in gradually. 'You mean… this is his way of keeping me prisoner?'
'He don't see it as torture, ducks. It's their way of keeping you docile. If you've got anything to tell 'em they take it as a bonus.' While she snipped away the wire from my ankles my moans were as sincere as any I have ever uttered. I was finding hanging by my thumbs every bit as bad as the story books lead you to believe. When the wire was gone I flexed my legs gratefully, but instantly desisted. Any motion brought an instant protest from my looped digits.
'But it's you who looks after me,' I ventured hesitantly.
'Couldn't you go a bit easy?' Jennie made a move of disparagement. 'You've got a gift, love, for making me feel like a bitch. I am one, of course, but I don't usually admit it. You see, I'm enjoying this. You've no idea how beautiful you look hanging there. I'm no lesbian, but you make me feel like one. There's something so damned erotically female about you. I suppose that's the reason all these fool men are so willing to pay.' She left me with no answers. But I hurt so much I kept trying. 'We're both English, Jennie. Doesn't that count?'
'We've both got cunts.'
'Oh Jennie, there's more to two girls than just each having a pussy. You wouldn't want to hang naked like this.'
'Kid, it's no good. If I say a wrong word to Ashad or his boys, or if he catches me doing you a favor, I'll be hanging on the opposite wall the same way you are.'
'You said I was beautiful. Jennie… if you want me! I mean… I will, y'know. I'll be ever so nice.' My shamed offer touched her more than anything I had said. 'You poor sweetheart!' She reached up and gently allowed her fingertips to hover across one of my breasts. 'If I liked eating cunts I'd be at you ravenously this minute.' Transient as her touch had been it told me my fire was still alive. How strange girls are! My hunger for Jennie flamed from nowhere. 'Please… I want to make love to you,' I gasped. She was as strange as I. For moments her fingers traced themselves across the taut skin between my breasts and the junction of my thighs. Impetuously, they went to my pussy as a homing pigeon might fly to its nest. Hotly, they clutched to send a spasm of joy through my whole being. One of them entered my wet warmth. Then, with an inarticulate cry of distress, she turned and ran from the cell. She did not even stop to close or lock the door. Punishment is timeless. It is forever. Alone with pain, a girl can not envision its termination. Even reason defeats you, it tells that the dragging hours are no more than seconds or minutes by the clock. You hang forgotten. Pain has become the purpose of your being. The heat between your legs subsides and dwindles… I would much sooner be whipped. I am an epicure of female punishment. Compared to suspension or those beastly wires the whip is kind. It places its wound upon your skin then goes away. Its agony is short and fierce, it does not nag. Beneath its cruelty a girl can writhe, she can scream. But hanging like this from pinioned thumbs I dare not move, I dare not scream, even the scream would mean extra pain. I am robbed of all the normal expressions and reliefs of punishment. I hang motionless trying to control my panting breaths. If Ashad thinks this is not torture he is crazy. One of Ashad's men comes in to gloat. He sits on the box and enjoys my nakedness and my discomfort. His lewd eyes focus constantly on my puss. I cannot move it from his sight. Within it the heat returns. Neither of us speak. What is there to say! It is he who finally breaks the silence.
'You get fucked a lot?' he enquires politely. I think it best to lie. It should make me less desirable. 'Quite a lot,' I murmur untruthfully.
'You enjoy?' A second lie seemed prudent. 'Why, of course I do!' I exclaimed warmly, on the basis that if I liked it I would not get it.
'You give it away or you charge money?' That one was easier. 'I'm a slave girl. If someone wants to use my pussy they just do.'
'I do not pay.' There was a boasting in his declaration. 'These foolish English with their charge for entry!' He chuckled obscenely. 'It is surprising their women do not carry tickets to sell.'
'If we're going to talk, how'd you like to shove that box under my feet for awhile? You can sit on the cot.'
'Why?' He seemed genuinely puzzled.
'To give me a rest. I'm hurting terribly. I could talk to you a lot better if I wasn't in such pain.'
'But you are just a girl!'
'What's being a girl got to do with it?' I had him stymied: how does a man analyze the obvious for a stupid female who does not understand her own lack of identity. He gave me an irritated stare that made me glad there wasn't a whip laying around.
'A girl is a girl…' Even to him this sounded a bit weak. He gestured with a majestic male arm. 'If a girl hangs by her thumbs it is because she is supposed to hang by her thumbs. There is no more to say or to do.' I was neatly tossed into the limbo of his faith's regard for my sex. 'Wouldn't you like to fuck me?' I flung at him with venom.
'It is not permitted. Before buying you will be tested for conception.' His male conceit in his potency was almost funny. There are many desolations for a punished naked girl. One is to be closeted with a human being with whom communion is a blank. In a foolish desperation, a resentment against his fatuity, I burst out with: 'Royden said he was going to Cairo. He also said something about taking up options there with this chap Sinclair you're so
