Taken 36. Night Riding Lessons

Marcus

My reaction to your refusal to eat is . . . absolutely nothing. I just finish my snack, wipe my mouth with a tissue and now that mealtime is over, I lead you back to the dungeon.

"Whatever that was – my personal guess would be pride – it didn't do you any favors. You're only gonna be hungry for longer, kid. The dog food is no gourmet stuff, but it's perfectly healthy and nutritious. It's your belly that's gonna rumble unhappily till breakfast time, not mine, so suit yourself."

I look into your eyes, the flame, the lively spark in them, all but extinguished. You think you are exhausted. You think you've been through everything you could have been put through. You think this is the end. I take a deep breath and smile. Crack my knuckles, scratch my chin.

"You probably think that it makes no difference whether you make me happy or not now. Maybe death doesn't even sound so unappealing. That's bad, Laura. That's very bad. Ultimately, that means you failed the test. You lost. But if you think "game over" means you get to rest, you are wrong, so very, very wrong. You are not dying tonight. If ever death comes to you, it will be on my terms, and we've pretty much been through the list of things that put you at risk of being . . . executed. Failing a test wasn't on the list, was it? So you're not dying tonight. I simply won't allow it. And I will give you a taste of what it is like to lose, and to give up, and to not be trying to please me anymore, girl. Because that's not an option. That's simply not on your list of things you can do. It will be easier some days, harder on others, but you will always, always keep trying to make me happy. To be a good girl for me. If I ever see you looking like this, and acting like this . . . here's a taste of what will happen to you. This is as much a punishment for giving up on me and not trying any more as it is for failing during the water–test."

With that, I take two more bottles of the strong, sugary stuff and make you drink them up. A liter of sugar, caffeine, and other shit to keep you awake and going. And then I run off into the med ward and come back with an injection. I grab your arm and give you a shot, a brief, relatively painless shot – your fear of needles isn't the motivation here. My reasons are entirely practical. I push down and pour waking consciousness into your veins. Ephedrine, Pseudoephedrine, Mephedrone. A powerful cocktail and a dose that should keep you going for hours and hours on end. Depending on the speed of your metabolism, you'll be wide awake, buzzing and hype,r for anything between four and seven hours. I place the injection on the tray of things to take away from the dungeon with me, not that I suspect you'd self harm or try and hurt me with a needle, but still, I'm not leaving it lying around in a trash basket or a bin that you could access.

I then take you to the wooden "horse." It has a metal–coated top with a sharp triangular profile. And I lift you up onto it. It's immediately painful, the way the iron wedge cuts into your pussy and perineum simply can't not be painful. And that's before I cuff and tie your feet – which cannot reach the floor, not even the tips of your toes, no matter what you do, it's close, but measured carefully so that there's no way you could even brush over the floor – to rings at the base of the horse. I tie your hands behind your back, in a straight line, biceps to biceps, elbow to elbow (with a slight gap between to keep circulation going), forearm to forearm, wrist to wrist. I then hook your wrists up to a chain hanging from the ceiling to make sure you cannot move much and to push you forward a little, into a more painful, less comfortable position. Then I tie your collar to the front of the horse with a strong length of surgical tubing. Basically, you have to keep straining against it, at least somewhat, because otherwise it makes you lean forward and the whole of your weight then crushes your clitoris and all the sensitive bits around it directly against the sharp wedge. Of course if you pulled back too much, all the way for the gravity to be doing a part of the job for you, you would be hurting, possibly risking dislocating your arms. So you'll have to keep straining. You cannot cheat. You cannot relax. You cannot go to sleep, even if the pain somehow allowed you to drift.

I then stick electrodes on your inner thighs near your pussy, then slide a small metallic dildo direcly into your pussy. I do it by pushing you back against the strain of surgical tubing and letting the horse abuse your pucker for a moment. After that I slide another small, bullet-shaped one into your butt. It glides in with ease. If you were not in such a strained position, it would almost be at a risk of falling out of your ass given the shape of your anus just now. Two more electrodes, one on each of your nipples. Two at the soles of your feet, one near the toes, one into the arch of the instep. They are all wired into a complicated, multi–circuit TENS unit.

When I'm finished I dim the lights in the dungeon to near–darkness. I bring a laptop computer and connect it to the TENS unit, and run the pre–programmed punishment scheme. The computer controls every single one of those electrodes, and can send shocks of varying length, intensity, and frequency between any two of them –– though I have disabled the line between your nipples and between your left nipple and anywhere on the right hand side of your body, just to be super sure your heart doesn't get affected by the stimuli. The computer also is also connected to the motor in the horse, which can make the whole thing vibrate, making it dig into you from below as if intending to split you into two. Finally, the computer also controls the lights in the room and – although you don't know that just yet – it's also connected to the electrodes in your teeth.

And then the fun begins. I go pour myself a glass of wine and sit in a comfy chair, to sit and watch, at least until I get bored.

A soft, hypnotic female voice emanates from the speakers, echoing through the dungeon.

"I will NEVER stop trying to please my master.

I am never too tired.

The pain is never too much.

I'm never too upset.

I am not allowed to give up.

I live for my master.

There is no way out.

When I don't serve well enough, there is pain.

But there is no way out."

It's on quite loud, and it repeats in an infinite loop.

And every now and then, the TENS unit gives you an unpleasant surprise. "Bzzt!" A painful bite at the sole of your foot, a bite into your inner thigh and a slight lingering tingly sensation in your leg after. "BzzzztBzzzztBzzzzt." A painful series of bites in your pussy and in the side of your leg. "Bzt. Bzt. Bzt. Bzt. Bzt. Bzt. Bzt. Bzt. Bzt. Bzt. Bzt. Bzt." Bearable, but unpleasant and persistent little bites on your right nipple, and a the echo of the same sensation, very unpleasant in your raw, recently fucked ass. "BBZZT." A very painful bite on your inner thighs. "Bz." A light bite but inside you, between your pussy and butt, oddly deep and uncomfortable in yet a different way. Pussy to foot. Ass to foot. Pussy to nipple. Thigh to ass . . . the combinations are many. And the shocks you get are varied, too. From light to excruciating, from brief, to sets that last about fifteen seconds. From distinctive single kicks, "Bz. Bz. Bz." To such high frequencies that make your muscles clench and don't allow them to unclench until the series is over.

I'm almost through my glass of wine when you get a first taste of the advanced features. A brief zap (level one) into your teeth. And then, when the next twenty-second period passes and you're expecting more pain, all that happens is that the lights in the dungeon flicker. You have no idea what's coming next. The pattern is complex and unpredictable. Something happens every twenty seconds, but there's no idea of knowing what before it actually happens. There's no way in which you could adequately brace yourself. And through all that, you are straining against the length of surgical tubing that's pulling you forward into an excruciating position, but not too much because that would make your arms and anus hurt, and then after another light flicker, when you must think you have tasted every thing that this evil contraption does, the computer uses the iron of the horse as an electrode and your strained, bruised perineum and pussy get a zap, too, and even as you yelp out in surprise, you're in for another shock when the horse buzzes after the next twenty seconds, a completely different sort of pain against your raw flesh.

It's agony in small doses. There is no escape, no end in sight, and the position and . . . everything about it really only make it worse, more awful, more painful with each passing minute. But you have a belly full of sugar and caffeine and a cocktail of drugs floating in your veins that will keep you sensitive, lucid, wide awake, and aware of the pain for hours and hours. Passing out, dying, whatever way out you may pray for, none of it is happening.

And the voice keeps repeating the same mantra, kind of like the mantra you got, initially.

"I will NEVER stop trying to please my master.

I am never too tired.

The pain is never too much.

I'm never too upset.

I am not allowed to give up.

I live for my master.

There is no way out.

When I don't serve well enough, there is pain.

But there is no way out."

When I finish my second glass of wine, I step up towards you and ask you about your mantra. And ask you to add this bit you have just heard to it. And then I tell you that you better remember the whole thing, because I'll test you on it in the morning. And leave you, like that, walking towards the door of the dungeon.

Laura

I am sure that you can tell I am not eating. But I am facing away from you, and I can't read your expressions or see your face. Nor would it matter. As hungry as I am, there simply is no way that I could eat the greasy, gelatinous glop in that bowl. If I were to try, I surely would vomit. And beyond the fact that the sight and smell of the dog food is particularly repulsive tonight ("How did you ever eat it before, Laur'? How did you keep it down?"), there's also no point in eating because I've given up. I'm done. I'm not interested in trying any more. You win. I failed the test. You defeated me. You've proven that I am no match for you.

But you've won more than you bargained for. I'm not interested in continuing. I don't care any more. Really. I'm serious. I may be only 11, but I've thought it over. All of it. My life down here. The life I used to have before. I know that the chance of rescue or escape is zero. And the possibility of me ever learning to cope with my new life, or even tolerate my existence down here, is not much better. So . . . you win. I'm checking out. No more obeying. No more trying. You can starve and beat and punish me till I'm dead. Honestly, I won't even be that mad at you. And both of us will know that you didn't get what you wanted–an obedient little sex-slave girl. So, too bad for you. You can't be mean to somebody all of the time and expect them to like you and do stuff for you. It doesn't work that way.

I'm more than a little surprised when you give me a terse "Up" command and lead me into the dungeon. You don't seem especially mad. I know that I have a punishment coming. It's probably going to be one of the last ones, maybe the last one, now that I've checked out. I listen while you talk to me about not eating, about not trying, about giving up. I'm feeling a little sad, a little sorry for myself, a little morose about my decision, so my eyes glimmer with tears. It's not because your words have any impact on me, or that I'm sorry for not trying harder during my tests. It's because I'm sorry for the future that I now know I'm not going to have.

Somehow, someway, you know what I'm thinking. I don't know how you do that. How do you know I am thinking about not continuing, about dying? I didn't say anything, but you can tell just from by expressions, and I guess my body English. As a model, I know about body English, and the messages that it can send. I must be sending a message right now about how I feel, about how you've treated me, about my decision. Fine. I don't care if you know. I want you to know.

But you don't seem that mad, at least not yet. Maybe that's because all I did that was defiant was not eat my dinner. I haven't really done anything, yet, that would really make you mad and reveal that I'm not willing to do this –– any of this –– anymore. But that's what I've decided. I'm checking out. Sorry, but I'm just not interested in playing any more.

For a brief moment, I consider not drinking the sugary drinks you give me, but I perform a quick calculus and conclude that you giving me a real drink is not the right thing to take a stand on. So I drink them down, and they actually taste good and partially offset my aching hunger. When you return with the needle my blood runs cold ("It's gonna be another needle punishment, Laur'. That's what you get for failing the water test, girlfriend."), but I don't have enough time to get too worked up about it before you inject me with something.

You lead me to the triangle thing in the dungeon. I've seen it before, of course, but I have no idea what it is for. It looks like an unpadded caning bench to me. I'm starting to feel a little jittery, and as you lift me up I still have no idea what the triangle thingy is for –– until you sit me down on it, that is.

My first reaction, my first thought, to being placed on the horse is that you're not doing it right. I mean, I can't sit on the edge of it like that because it's digging into my underneath parts. Aren't I 'sposed to be lying across it, with my butt up, for a caning? I squirm a little, but that just makes it worse. I'm still waiting for you to correct my positioning while you start to secure my feet to the rings at the bottom of the thing.

And then, rather suddenly, it dawns on me –– this is the way I'm supposed to sit on this thing. With the metal top of the triangle thing digging into my underneath parts. And it really hurts. My heart is racing and I feel jittery and edgy as I realize what you are doing. You're making me sit on the triangle part this way because it hurts. This is exactly some of the same stuff that you do to me all the time that made me decide I don't even want to live anymore. This just reinforces it. I don't want to do this. I don't care if I die. You can kill me whenever you want. And I won't even be mad. But you can't keep doing mean stuff to me all the time.

Except –– you're not killing me. And this really, really hurts. I begin to moan and gasp as the metal part of the triangle thing is really digging into me. It hurts a lot. In a kind of nasty, aching, getting–worse–by–the–minute way. My little gasps and moans are more frequent now, as you secure my arms behind my back. With them tied that way I won't be able to help lift myself off the triangle part. I'll be stuck on it.

I feel unsettled. My mind is whirring in overdrive and I feel jittery and jumpy. I want to get off this thing. I want you to start my punishment as soon as possible because sitting here, on this thing, is worse than actually being punished. It's worse than being punished. ("Maybe this is the punishment, Laur'," I caution myself. "Maybe sitting here, on this thing, is the punishment.") Yeah, but for how long? Jesus it already hurts. When you hoist my arms up behind me and push me forward, it really hurts, and I gasp and moan in pain. I am hyperventilating now. My heart is racing in my chest. I feel a desperate urge to get off the triangle, almost a claustrophobic reaction, even though I am not encased or enclosed. It's just that I feel jittery and full of energy, yet I can't move. I have to stay in place, and I'm bent over really uncomfortably. I have to pull against the rubber thing and God it hurts so bad.

Then you start putting things on me, and I realize that I was right the first time –– the triangle isn't the punishment. There's more to it. But oh god the triangle is bad enough. I don't know what the electrodes are for but I know I'm not going to like them. I moan and gasp, straining against the rubber tubing that constantly pulls me forward, forcing me to roll partially forward onto my cunny, with the triangle digging into it.

My moans of pain, and little gasps, match the pained, confused, unhappy expression on my face as you work the dildos into my butt and cunny. My heart is racing so fast now. I am filled with anxiety. My underneath parts are killing me now. It hurts so bad. I just moan, over and over.

I can see you pull up the chair. Drinking wine. Watching me. I try to stifle my moans. You've dimmed the lights. I have no idea what is going to happen now, if anything is going to happen, when the first little jolt nips the sole of my foot. I clench my toes in pain and emit a little yip. That hurt! And –– oww!–– so did that, as the TENS unit's electrode fires on my inner right thigh. And so on. And again.

I emit a little squeal, and flinch, and try to brace myself. I have no idea where the next shock will go. It's horrible not knowing. And when they do come, some just feel super weird and uncomfortable, while some hurt a lot. But even worse than the shocks is the triangle itself, which is digging into my underneath parts worse than ever.

The combination is unsettling and horrible, with the pain getting worse, and my ability to withstand it diminishing. First my brow, and then my upper body moisten in a film of perspiration. I'm not doing anything, I can't do anything, and yet, it feels like I'm in the middle of a marathon. My heart is racing. I feel jittery and edgy and out of sorts. ("The drugs, Laur'. He gave you drugs to make it hurt more," I tell myself).

But as my moans and flinches and squeals continue, along with gasping, and some sobs, you can tell the cumulative effect my punishment is having on me. My senses are so acute right now. I can feel every shock with an intensity that just magnifies the experience and the pain. "Ahhh!" I gasp. "Unnnnh," I moan. "Uhh," I exhale. I don't want to make all these noises, but I can't help it. It hurts so bad. Everything hurts. I begin to shake in anticipation of where the next shock will hit. But I can't predict them.

I hear the lady's voice. It's so loud –– but yet her voice is calm, almost soothing. I know it's an effort at hypnosis or something. But I hear the words. Over and over. I can't not hear them. They are loud, and they repeat over and over. And aside from the buzzing of the TENS unit and my own gasps and howls, her voice is the only sound in the room.

I watch as you get another glass of wine, and I wonder how long my punishment is going to last. It's already gone on longer than most. My underneath parts are numb and tingly –– yet still aching and hurting with a bone–deep intensity. "Ooooh!" I moan, as my teeth suddenly and surprisingly activate. "Ahhh," I gasp, as my cunny is shocked. "Unnnnnnnn. unnnnnnnnn," I moan, as the triangle vibrates underneath me, threatening to saw me in half.

Finally, finally, you finish the second glass of wine and approach me. My face is a rictus of pain and discomfort, damp with perspiration, and when you ask me to recite the mantra, I do so, quickly, needing you to free me from the triangle. "There is nothing but –– ahhh! –– this. There is no place but here. There is no one but you," I gasp, wincing, then panting. And then you want me to repeat the words from the lady, and I do, repeating them, as she speaks them, saying the ones I know right along with her, repeating the ones I don't have memorized immediately after she says them. I won't fight you on this. I'll say the words. I'll say anything. Just please, please, please let me down!

I finish, and I am soooo ready to get down, to flex my arms and take the pressure off my underneath parts. But you don't untie me, not right away. Instead you walk away from me. Toward the door. You're going to get something –– what can it be? A third glass of wine? Something to add to my torment? I gasp in pain and misery. I can't do this through another glass of wine. I can't. It hurts so bad. I'm so uncomfortable. I'm in so much pain. I wait for you to return, pulling back against the rubber band so I can keep my eyes on the dungeon door. I need this to end soon. Please make it a small glass of wine, please, please, please, pretty please, I beg silently as I wait for you to re–enter the dungeon.

Marcus

It's amazing to see you in so much pain. It's amazing to prove to you that there indeed are things worse than death and that, since I decide about whether or not you live, just opting out and "deciding" it's okay for you to die is not an option. I can murder you, but I can also very deliberately keep you alive, when it comes to it, and while death is horrible but finite, the amount of pain and suffering I can put your body and mind through is almost infinite, especially with drugs and advanced, expensive technology on my side. Your mantra is so very right. There's nothing but this. Not even death; not without my permission. No matter how frustrated, exhausted, fed up, or broken you think you are, I'm still the god of this little world below my house and like my private little Job, I can make you suffer until I've proven my point and achieved my goal. Only there's no devil to make bets with me; I'm both. The devil and the god.

Nothing but this. Nowhere but here, and of course, no one but me to get you of off the horse from which you cannot climb, cannot fall, cannot . . . anything. The way your arms are tied allows you a very limited angle; even if you somehow managed to ignore the pain in your pussy being cut open, and leaned forward the way the rubber strap is pulling you, you couldn't lean far enough forward to rest your torso on the edge and get some rest, because your arms won't let you, and if you tried really really hard to relax them at that angle, you would dislocate your shoulders, likely as not. All of this would cause yourself too much pain to get anything even remotely resembling a rest, anyway. And the shocks. Of course. Every twenty seconds, a shock comes. Different intensity. Different places. "Bzzzzt. – Bzt. Bzt. Bzt. – Bzzt. Bzzt, – Bzzzzzzzzzz zzt." Teeth. Pussy. Feet. Cunny from the horse itself. It just goes on and on. And you're too doped up on sugar and stimulants for your body to shut down and pass out.

This right here is a perfect example of human genius being used in the most evil and messed up ways, kind of like Dr. Mengele's experiments. This is a perfect system, with no escape, no release, and insured even against body's natural defenses such as passing out. This thing will force you to stay awake and suffer pretty much as long as I leave you on it. Apart from the tiniest, extreme chances that you will just physically collapse and die, your heart giving in or something, this is an infinite torture.

Every cent spent on this contraption, every hour of coding and programming work spent on it, totally was worth it. This here is the pinnacle of my mastery, my evil side incarnated into machinery. Truth be told, I was waiting for you to give me the opportunity to use it, and your defiant little antics at supper provided me with just the opening that I was looking for. Not that I actually need an excuse down here to hurt or punish you, but it makes it a bit more enjoyable when I have one.

After I finish the second glass of wine, I simply leave. I'm really gone. Not just for a moment, to fetch something else in or near the dungeon, but gone. The door chimes behind me with a metallic click and that's that. The voice keeps repeating it's little mantra, but I am gone. And the pain goes on. The torture goes on. And it seems to be getting worse, of course. Fuck, I'm almost tempted to jack off, or sneak into the dungeon quietly and have Robbie suck me off while I watch, because it's seriously a hell of a show. I drink some water, set up alerts; should you somehow pass out or manage to partially topple off of the horse –– even a small change of position or balance –– it's gonna beep. But that's really extremely unlikely. We're talking fully dislocated or torn-off limbs here for that to happen. And then, warm and deeply sadistically satiated, I set a normal alarm, too, and go to sleep. It takes me a while to get over the excitement, but it's quite late in the evening and it's been a long, exhausting day, so I eventually do fall asleep while the machinery keeps up the punishment for me.

In a steady and yet distressingly unpredictable rhythm the machine zaps you, flashes the lights, and vibrates. Once or twice it actually does nothing, nothing at all, the anticipation almost as painful as another shock. And it just goes on and on, for a length of time that makes my wine–drinking period earlier in the evening laughable. That was nothing but a mild, light introduction. A taster. Now is the actual punishment time. Minutes blend into hours. Pain turns into agony. There is no boundary to the suffering, it turns into sheer, never-ending madness. Hours pass.

One.

Two.

Three.

Four.

Five of the longest fucking hours of your entire, eleven-year-old life.

My alarm goes off and wakes me up in five hours, by which time the drugs in your system would be wearing out. You must be mortally exhausted. I splash some water on my face, have a glass of water, and make you a mild, sugary tea with a little bit of re–hydrating mineral solution in it. I go down to the dungeon and approach you, grab your hair and force you to look directly into my eyes, no matter how foggy, fucked up, dazed and confused yours might be at this point. I turn the lady's voice down. By now, you have heard her more than a thousand times.

"Tell me your lesson tonight. Tell me. Spell it out for me, promise that you will remember and this is over –– bedtime," I say.

And indeed, I'm ready to untie you, lift you off, pour the tepid tea down your throat and carry you to bed and leave you in your cell and let you sleep. But you have to find your voice. You have to find your wits. I'm not in a hurry, and while I'm willing to give you a good while to compose yourself and force your brain and mouth to function, but this is not over unless you speak now. If I should have to collect you a brainless, wordless mess, I'll do that in the morning when the drugs fully have worn off and the sugar in your system has run out. So it's all or nothing. Bedtime now, or good bye, and see you in four more hours, in the morning.

I can tell just by looking at your haggard, bedraggled face that you're alive and wishing you weren't. I've broken you to a whole another level. And I've proven my divine status down here; I've beaten death. I've shown you who gets to decide about that.

I stand and I wait for the words. Willing to accept them muddled and mumbled and hoarse, but they must come.

Laura

I'm desperate for you to come back, absolutely desperate. I don't know what hurts more. My underneath parts are aching and numb; the metal top part of the triangle is unrelenting as it carves into my sensitive flesh. At the same time, my shoulders hurt, and my lower back is killing me from the strange, hunched–over, leaning–forward position I am forced into. The rubber tubing pulls me inexorably forward, but I don't want to be pulled that way. It hurts my cunny and little clit more, as well as my shoulders, and makes me more hunched over, hurting my lower back.

I try to shift, but I barely can move. And shifting sends a jolt of pain from my underneath parts all through my body. If I could only move a little, so all my sensitive parts are not perfectly, exactly centered on the very top of the metallic ridge, I'd feel much better. But I can't move. I can't shift. Any effort to do so just seems to grind the metal ridge deeper into my underneath parts, and that hurts with an unimaginable ferocity.

And then there are the shocks. Worse than the shocks themselves is the dreaded anticipation of the next one. Not only where on my straining young body the shock will be administered, but how sharp it will be, and whether it will be more than one. The combination shocks are the worst of all –– I'm already anticipating a new shock, dreading it, and then it comes; sometimes that's all I get, but sometimes it's two, three, four or more shocks firing in rapid succession, like a machine gun.

The constant, aching, agony of my position leaves me moaning in pain with every inhale and exhale. "Unnnnnhhhh . . .. unnnhhhh . . . uunnnhhh," I moan as I breathe, over and over, terrified at the anticipation of the next shock. And when it comes, I yelp, or squeal, or gasp, depending where on my body on how intense the shocks are, and how many I receive. On and on it goes, endlessly, continuously.

"Unhhhh . . . unnnnhhhh . . . unnnhhhhhh– BZZT! ayii! BZT BZT BZT eeee! . . .uhhhh . . . unnhhhh . . . unnnhhhhh . . . .unnnhhhh."

"Unnnhhhh . . . unnnhhhhhh– BZT! ooooo! BZT BZT BZZT ahhhhhh! . . .uhhhh . . . unnhhhh . . . unnnhhhhh . . . .unnnhhhh

Unhhhh . . . unnnhhhhhh– Bzt! Bzt! Bzt! ahh! ow! . . . .unnnnnhhhh . . . unnhhhh . . . unnnhhhhh."

I am perspiring profusely. My forehead is beaded with sweat, and my hair is damp. Much of my body glistens with moisture. My ordeal is very much more than passive. I am actively involved in the process – twitching and anticipating, pulling back, repositioning, groaning, moaning, lifting up, curling my toes, my fingers – my nude little body is a cacophony of tiny little movements, little anticipatory flinches, as the TENS unit does its thing, and the seconds and minutes tick away.

My heart is racing. I am completely and utterly alert. ("Oh where can He beeeeeeeeee!," I ask myself.). You've never done this before – never left me, alone, like this. And never have you punished me for this this long. It seems like hours, but in reality it was only about 25 minutes before you finished your second glass of wine and left the dungeon, and it's only been about five minutes since you've been gone. 30 minutes total, but it seems like an eternity.

My groans and grunts, yelps and squeals continue as I wait for you to return and remove me from this horrible device. Surely you'll be back soon! Right? But you're not back. You don't return. And the horrible, bent–over achiness in my body, the numb, knifing pain in my underneath parts, and the horrible shocks and jolts all continue. The pain worsens as the time passes. I didn't think that was possible, but it is.

After about 10 minutes of waiting for you, listening to the maddening cadence of the lady's voice, suffering, I can't take it any more. I feel very remorseful for my behavior. Actually, it wasn't my behavior so much as my thoughts and attitude that got me in trouble yet again. I know that, and I regret it. I regret it a lot. I'm sorry. I'm truly sorry, and I've learned my lesson, and I want you to return. I want to tell you what I've learned. I want to apologize. I want another opportunity to try. I'll even do Test Day all over again, with a better attitude –– if only you'll take me down from this thing.

But you don't return. You don't return, and my anxiety grows. My unease increases along with the pain, which is quickly approaching the level of absolutely unbearable. I simply have to get off this thing. It's killing me. But for that, I need you. I need you to return, and untie me, and save me. So I call out to you, my little voice sad and warbled and pain–filled. "Please . . . OK . . . please," I gasp. "Please come back! Please come baaacccckkk!."

But you don't come. My anxiety increases. The pan increases. I can't do it. I can't take it anymore! "Please come baaaaa–– eeee! Please come baaacccck! Please come baaaaack!" I call into the empty, dimly–lit dungeon. There is no answer. "Pleaase! Pleeeeeaaaase come baaaacccck!" I sob. "Pleeeeaase come baaaack! Please come baaaack! Please come baaaack! Pl– owww! owww! aiyeee! . . . please come baaaaaaack! Please come baaaaack!"

Through an endless haze of pain I call for you, scream for you, beg for you to return. For 40 minutes I wail and weep and call to you, begging, pleading, imploring you to return. "I'm sorrrreeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee! I'm sorrrrreeeeeeeeeeee! I'm sorr– ow! ow! eeeeeee!"

At the 75 minute mark, I am terribly upset, and in horrible pain. I stop calling to you. I try to concentrate on the pain, manage it, compartmentalize it, control it. I try every trick I know. But I can't do it. The pain is there. Constant. Endless.

Throughout it all, I am alert. Jittery, edgy, and exhausted, but alert. Sharply focused. My heart races, and my mind spins out of control. I want to die. I'd give anything to die. ("That's what got you in trouble in the first place, 'Laur," I remind myself.). But then I start thinking about the mechanics of acually dying. And I realize –– my earlier analysis was simplistic, and flawed. I can't just up and die. It's not like flipping a switch. The fact that you could kill me doesn't mean you actually are going to kill me. In fact, you promised you wouldn't kill me –– which at the time, was comforting to hear, but now . . . now it leads me to another discovery.

What I've discovered, as I suffer in abject misery on the wooden horse, is that if you don't want to kill me, or won't kill me, I'm not going to die. It's not like I can kill myself –– that would be icky and hard in the best of circumstances, and the dungeon is not exactly set up for me to end my own life. I can't lie on railroad tracks, or jump off a tall building, or jump in front of a tractor–trailer rig. My mind races as I try to think of other ways to kill myself. But there aren't any poisons in the dungeon. I have no access to electricity. I can't drown myself (I shudder as I think about the water torture I endured earlier today, and decide that I wouldn't want to even try to kill myself by drowning, anyway).

As I review the possibilities and permutations, I gradually come to a few stark realizations. The first is that even if I have decided that I want to die, that doesn't make the slightest little bit of difference down here, where you get to make all of the decisions. My little dog–food-inspired checking-out decision from earlier today doesn't change a thing. It never could have changed anything. It was all just silly little–girl thinking that wasn't even close to fully thought through.

The second realization causes me even more despair. It is that not only do I have absolutely no control over whether I live or die, it is that you can make me suffer in ways that are way worse than dying, without me actually ever dying. Like right now. On this thing. Hurting. Being shocked. You could . . . you could leave me up here. For hours. For days. You could put me up on it any day you want. Every day, if you want. And as long as you make me eat and drink, I won't die. I'll just . . . hurt, and suffer. Like now. Only . . . endlessly.

These twin realizations, coupled with my agony, take me to the lowest point of my existence. I can't stop you. I can't even check out on you. All I can do is . . . exist. I can't stop feeling pain and as long as I do, you can make me do anything you want, behave in any way you want me to behave. It's not fair! It's not fair! My despair is total.

And yet, despite my realizations, despite my suffering, despite my calling for you, my desire to apologize, my remorse –– the punishment goes on and on. As time passes it atually intensifies. My entire body is in agony. Shaking. Perspiring. I moan in pain. I squeal, I yelp, I gasp, I cry. The minutes stretch on. The shocks continue. The computer and the TENS unit never tire, never stop. During the second hour, I need to urinate, and my bladder empties, my pee dribbling down the triangle sides to my bound and cuffed ankles and the floor below. My mind is alert, still, and focused. ("You'll be punished for that, Laur'," I remind myself idly). I find this thought amusing, actually. I am in the middle of a punishment, suffering in endless agony, and now I'm going to be punished for being bad while being punished. The craziness of it makes me laugh aloud, and I do, laughing for a full five minutes –– in between yelps and squeals as the shocks continue unabated –– sounding quite insane. A cackling, laughing, nude little girl bound painfully to a wooden punishment horse suffering in unimaginable agony.

But my laughter can't last, and it gives way to huge, body–quaking, very sad little sobs. I cry and cry. Yelping and squealing and groaning.

…

When you finally arrive back in the dungeon, it is an absolutely exhausted, shuddering, shaking, moaning, flinching, teary–eyed, red–eyed, defeated, hunched–over, damp, bedraggled, quivering, naked, collared little 11–year–old girl who greets you from her perch on the wooden horse with a tortured, strangled, weeping cry; the cry itself so tormented, demented, and other–worldly sounding that for a split second you wonder, worriedly, whether the unrelenting psychological and physical torment that I have endured over the past five hours has deprived me of my sanity. "Aiy–haaaahhhnnn haaahhhhhhhhhhnnnn ayyyyeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee," I cry out, in a loud, hoarse, tortured shriek upon seeing you, gasping, as if you will depart like an apparition if I fail to memorialize your presence with sound. If the sounds I make mean anything it is only to me, as they otherwise are incoherent.

"Please let me down! Please let me down! Please let me down! Please let me down! I'm sorrrrreeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee! I'm so sorrrreeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee! I'm sorrrrreeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!". I shriek, hysterical, over and over, twisting and pulling at my binds with impressive vigor, despite the agony I feel as I do so, my movements causing the chain affixed to my wrists to twist and billow above me where it affixes to the ceiling.

Your calm, patient demeanor contrasts with my panicked, tormented pleas. As you grab my hair and twist my tortured little face up to look at you, I stop my wails. I am silent. I must repeat the lesson to get down. The lesson I heard a thousand times over the last five hours. If I do, I can get down. My mind races. The words come, and I recite them, quickly, verbatim, every word, desperately. And as I speak every cell in my body means those words, means them with a loyalty and a devotion and a purpose that reveals that right now, in this moment, those words, and living by them, are the most important concepts in the history of the entire world, at least to this 11–year–old girl.

Marcus

Still holding your chin, I nod as you recite, word–perfect, what you have heard over a thousand times over in the hours passed, a monotonous, torturous soundtrack to your suffering.

"Listen and don't talk now," I snap to cut off the stream of apologies and begging. "You have been through your punishment halfway through the night. Nothing . . . nothing stops me from just walking out right now to leave you to it for the rest of the night. Nothing," I say and then let go of your chin, stop the shock–program, and undo the surgical tubing. I unhook your wrists from the hook and untie your heavily rope–marked arms –– so sore and unable to move of their own volition right now –– and then I untie your feet, left ankle, then right, and lift you up off the horse. "This is over because I decided to put an end to it. We've been through being sloppy and unenthusiastic before. Even feeling furious and broken and depressed and exhausted and hurt doesn't excuse the wrong kind of attitude. And when you are given food, you will eat it. You will not be hurting yourself by starving yourself. You are my property, and only I can damage my property. You do your best and utmost to keep it in a good shape, this body that serves me, this body that I use, that I own." I could say more, lots more, but you are so exhausted your body shakes in my arms, completely out of your volition. I carry you into your cell, sit you down on your bed, force you to drink two whole cups of water, seeing that you are dehydrated, and then I fill it again and place it on your bedside table. I wipe you quickly of the worst of the mess with a small, soft towel, and tuck you in with a pillow under your head and a blanket over you. Even a kiss on your brow.

"You get a fresh, new start tomorrow. Sleep long and well. There will be a good, solid breakfast when you wake up, and a new chance to please me, to make and keep me happy. And a chance to succeed. Now, all you have to do is sleep. Sleep. Sleep, Laura. Close your eyes, relax, and sleep. Sleep tight, don't let the bed bugs bite. Sweet dreams, or better yet, no dreams. Just sleep." I turn my voice into a hypnotic, monotonous mumble as I ramble on, turn off the light, clean up the cell briefly and leave you in its warm, silent safety to sleep. I don't clean up the dungeon. The horse remains there as it is, smelling of pee, and the puddle on the floor, slowly drying out and smelling quite badly now, too. Even the dog food is still there, in the bowl. If I'm grumpy when I wake up for the second time, I can force you to eat it, stale and with a dried, yucky crust on top, half a day after it was served to you. That would teach you. But I'm feeling more than satisfied with the progress we have made tonight. I think tomorrow I'll test you a little bit, just to reinforce things, but overall, I'll show you some kindness, just to demonstrate to you that it does make a difference whether you're obeying or disobeying. Your life here never will be easy, and it is unlike to be "good" by anyone's standard. You are a fucktoy, a slave, as much as I want you to be, or when I feel like it. You're nothing but pretty packaging around three convenient, fuckable holes that I can stuff my cock in at any time, in any way, as many times as I can get it up.

I lock the cell for now, and make a note of the time. You are in for a good, solid sleep. I'm gonna be generous and will give you at least nine hours. A little more, if you don't stir one bit and remain totally passed out for longer than that. I look around at the mess we've made. You can clean all of that up tomorrow. Some of it with your mouth, methinks. To prove that you've really learned your lesson.

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