‘Fuck you, bitch!’ he cursed and she knew he was attempting to cover real fear through his angry outburst.
Next she walked round to the front of the stocks, satisfied when she saw him squirm as she approached his feet. Again she inserted the knife and pulled, this time in the bottom of his trouser legs, each one in turn. There she saw the blade, tucked away inside one of his socks. She grabbed it then made a show of examining it before slowly crossing the room and adding it to her rack of implements.
‘Should come in handy,’ she said before selecting a bullwhip and walking back to the stocks with a fake smile plastered on her face.
His eyes became wide with alarm. ‘Steady,’ she said, putting down the whip. ‘Not yet. We’ve got something else to do first.’
She walked behind the stocks again and, without giving him chance to anticipate what she might do, she inserted the knife once more, beneath his shirt, and yanked hard, gratified when she heard him let out a terrified screech. The material gave away easily, dropping limply to each side of his bare back.
Ruby raced round to the front of the stocks again, but Kyle had lowered his gaze to the floor; denying her the pleasure of his misery. She bent down and grabbed his hair then wrenched his head back till his eyes stared up at her. ‘Pay attention!’ she mocked. ‘You don’t wanna miss the show, especially when you’re the star turn.’
Kyle spat at her venomously. ‘You’ll fuckin’ pay for this, you cunt!’
She let his head drop while she wiped the saliva from her face. ‘Oh no!’ she said, annoyed. ‘You’re the one who’ll pay.’
Ruby swapped the knife for the bullwhip, glad to see him staring up at her now with terror in his eyes. She had deliberately selected one of the most dangerous whips available and she made a show of running her hand along the sturdy handle down to the tail, which came to a menacing twin point like the tongue of a hissing snake.
Then she was behind him once more with her whip ready. Ruby brought it down swiftly across his back. She could hear him painfully sucking in his breath as the tough leather marked his back and the tail ends curled viciously around the delicate flesh on the sides of his body.
Without giving him chance to recover Ruby brought the whip down repeatedly, harder each time till the flesh pierced and Kyle’s tainted blood trailed down his back. At first all she heard was a whimper, but as the strokes became harder, he cried out, then screamed in agony. Ruby kept going till he begged her to stop.
‘Had enough?’ she asked, walking to the front of him once more. This time he didn’t curse, the fear of reprisals too painful to bear. ‘Not your scene?’ she added. ‘What a pity! Some of my clients really enjoy it.’
His face contorted with a mix of fear and anger, but still he didn’t speak.
‘OK,’ said Ruby, revelling in this level of control, despite her grief. ‘I’ll let you have a break, shall I?’ She saw the relief wash over him as his limbs became less taut and the intensity of his gaze softened. ‘I need to talk to you anyway.’
She now swapped the whip for the knife and was rewarded by a renewed look of panic in his eyes. ‘What the fuck do you want?’ he asked, desperately. ‘You’ve had your fun so why don’t you just fuckin’ let me go?’
‘Not half as much fuckin’ fun as you’ve had tonight though!’ she raged. She could see the shock in his face now. ‘Oh yeah, you didn’t think I knew, did you?’ she shouted, feeling her distress re-emerge, but channelling it into anger. ‘Did it give you a sick kind of kick knowing you were going to see me just after you’d fuckin’ annihilated my family?’ she demanded, her fury now very real.
Even though she was the one in control, Kyle couldn’t resist a smirk at the thought of what he had planned, which only intensified her anger. She jabbed the knife hard into his shoulder till the smirk turned into a grimace.
‘What were you planning to do, tell me after you’d fucked me, you sick bastard?’ she shouted.
He laughed but it was edged with desperation. It was the only way he could get at her now, and he knew it. But she would beat him with words as well as actions.
Then she dealt him a devastating verbal blow. ‘You might like to know that they’re not the only ones being annihilated tonight.’ His expression told her she had won. ‘Yes, that’s right.’ She made a show of looking at her watch. ‘It won’t be long now till all of your gang are wiped out.’
‘You fuckin’ bitch!’ he yelled, twisting and pulling at the stocks, despite his pain, in a futile attempt to escape. ‘I’ll fuckin’ kill you for this and your bastard cousins!’
‘No, you won’t. I call the shots now, and I haven’t even started with you yet!’
Ruby moved nearer to him, kneeling on the ground with the knife raised. Then she held it close to his face. She let a few seconds pass, revelling in Kyle’s terrorised expression. She was just about to take her next step when she smelt the pungent odour of urine at the same time as it crept along the ground and seeped through the material of her jeans. Kyle had pissed himself.
Ruby felt repulsed, but there was no point in dashing away; her jeans were already sodden. Besides, she was determined to finish this. ‘Dirty bastard!’ she cursed before pushing the knife further forward till it made contact with his face.
‘No!’ he yelled, pulling back. ‘No, no, please no!’
It was gratifying hearing him plead and seeing his anger and torment at not being able to do anything to save his gang or alter his own fate. But, at the same time,
