I wasn’t sure which of us would break first, the girl under torture, or me tied to a chair watching her get tortured. The Painter restrained her, strangled her with his belt. The Professor asked the questions — and caused the pain. It started with smacks and pinches. The question, “Where’s Sara?”
She held out through a lot. She held out through the smacks and the punches, through the choking and the crop. Even the pliers. She said nothing when he took pliers and pinched large chunks of flesh. She screamed in pain and terror as they tore deep, but she didn’t talk. The Painter pulled his belt tight and said he would kill her. She gurgled, hissed, and turned blue. Her legs kicked the floor. But when he loosened his belt, and after she caught her breath — long, sickening gasps — she still said nothing. She cried, but said no words.
It was the flame that finally broke her, when the Professor took a lighter and began to burn her tits. Then she told it all, The Independence, the room, even ‘Beverly Sommers’. She said it through tears and sobs, but it all came out.
The Painter released his belt and she fell to the hardwood floor. “Tie her up,” the Professor ordered, “and call the Mechanic. Have him bring us Sara. We’re going to have a party today.”
I didn’t like way he said party. I knew just what it meant. Three girls in a room, with them.
A cruel grin crossed the Painter’s face. His eyes darted about, at me, at the girl. Then, he put her in a chair and wrapped her with a rope. She looked to me with sad, wet eyes. “I’m sorry, Robin. I’m so sorry.”
So was I.
After tying her, the Painter strutted from the room and slammed the door behind him. The Professor remained. Again, he settled in his chair facing me. Madeline slumped in her chair and whimpered.
“I do hope she shuts up,” he said. “Nothing tries the nerves more than a crying girl, don’t you agree?” I said nothing. He reached and touched my face. “Oh come now. Silent pouting is hardly becoming.” After a bit, he shrugged.
Time passed. He got up, walked about the room, meandered over to a window — they were papered over — and peeked out through a tear in the corner. Then he looked at his watch and sighed. He came and sat again. Madeline began to cry.
“Do stop,” he said, looking at her askance. Her sobs only deepened. He let out another sigh. Then he rose, removed a small folding knife from his pocket, and walked over to her. His footsteps thumped in the still air of the room. Then he grabbed her hair and yanked her head back. He held the knife before her eyes, right before her eyes. “Keep crying, and I cut out your fucking eyes!”
She screamed and shook. The chair wobbled, but he caught it and righted it. He brought the knife close. “Oh fuck, don’t do it!” I shouted.
He didn’t look at me. His eyes stayed on her, and the knife over her face. But he spoke. “Ah, so you will talk, finally.”
“She’s a girl. She can’t help crying.”
“But she’s not just a girl!” he said. Then he took his knife and cut her face. Down her cheek. Blood poured out. He shoved her so she fell to the floor, chair and all, with a loud crack. She screamed. He spun to me. “She not just a girl! She’s a culture girl.” She writhed on the floor, still screaming, still bound do the chair. He turned his back to her and walked to me. “The slave of a culture girl might cry, when we carve on her. But from a culture girl herself I expect better.” He reached and touched my stitches. “I know. Until she stops crying, I’ll torture you. Do you hear that, little thing? I torture your friend until you shut up!”
Madeline stopped crying. She got very quiet and just lay there, her face a mask of hate. The Professor smiled.
When Sara arrived with the Mechanic and the Painter, she appeared to have come willingly. At least, they didn’t drag her through the door. She glanced around the room, at me, at Madeline, even the Professor. A certain sadness crossed her face, a resignation. She didn’t cry or scream — that would come later — but I could see the knowledge of death. I felt it too. Of we girls, only Madeline still showed ordinary fear, as if there were still some life to cling to, so desperately. Fear, different from despair.
After they’d tied up Sara, the Professor rose from his chair. “So, shall we begin?”
“I want the young one,” the Painter said.
“I have no objections,” the Professor said. He turned to the Engineer. “How about you?”
“I fucking want Sara,” the Engineer said.
The Professor smiled. “No, my friend. I shall take Sara.” He turned to her. “Yes, dear. I’ve decided to hold a party today, a very special party. Sorry for the last minute invitation.”
Sara didn’t respond.
The Mechanic looked my way. “I don’t want her! She’s already damaged. There’s nothing left to break in her.”
“There’s still plenty to break in her body. And don’t you love that, breaking bodies?”
The Engineer’s hard boots clomped across the floor as he came to me. He didn’t look happy, but it appeared that the Professor’s word was law. He grabbed my hair. “So, deary, what will it take to break you again?”
I didn’t answer him.
“I want to untie her,” he said.
“Do as you wish,” the Professor said. “Just don’t lose control.”
“As if!”
He began to undo my bonds. At the same time, the others started work on their respective girls. Right away, I heard Madeline began to scream as the Painter went at her with his belt and his engorged cock — he’d dropped his pants. Once his belt was secure around her neck, he loosed her from the chair, put her on the floor, yanked up the hem of her dress. He raped her right there.
The Professor instead used his knife. From the edge of my vision, as the Engineer slammed me to the floor and came down on top of me, I saw the Professor start on Sara’s face. She struggled and groaned as he cut into her. Then the Engineer struck me hard. “Look at me, bitch. Let your friend worry about herself.”
I struggled. But I was a small woman and he a large man. I thrust out my hips and tried to squirm from under him, to roll to my knees. He shifted his hips right with mine. Then he put my arm in a lock and twisted hard. I felt my shoulder separate. I didn’t scream. It hurt too much to scream, almost too much to breathe. Then he sat up and straddled me. Crushing blows rained down on me. His fists were like lumps of stone. Flesh split and bones strained. Then he stood above me and stomped on me, right in the middle of my torso. I doubled up and gasped for air. While I writhed, I heard his hard footsteps cross the room.
From Madeline, I heard sobs and grunts as the Painter still strangled and raped her. From Sara, I heard groans of pain and saw flowing blood. The Engineer returned with a hammer. “Give me your fucking hand.” I curled up and tried to hide my hands, so he started beating my back with the hammer until I rolled over the other way. He stepped aside, then thrust and grabbed an arm. He wrenched it lose, put a knee on it, and laid my hand out on the floor. Slam, slam, slam. My fingers were a ruined mess.
It didn’t hurt much anymore, being broken, being torn apart. It was just flesh and bone, weak and hollow, and soon parting. He got hold of the other hand. I didn’t resist much. Slam, slam, slam.
I didn’t really need my hands anymore. How could they help me? That was the moment I began to cry, to sob, to feel it all escaping, my sweet little life.
Slam, slam, slam. He broke more of me, this time my shoulder, the same one he had torn with the arm lock. I heard Sara start to scream, to really scream. She must have felt it too. Dying.
I heard the Painter let out several loud grunts. Then he said, “Now, this is the best part.” Moments later, Madeline began to gurgle.
My legs still worked. My hips still worked. He hadn’t broken me there yet. A small shift of my hips. A roll. Then a sharp upward kick, right there between his legs.
My heel struck something hard. A cup? He laughed and swung at me knee. A glancing blow. I rolled. “Fucking bitch!”
I rolled more, over my shoulder and onto my feet. I stood and glanced around. The Painter was done raping Madeline. He squatted — his veiny dick hung loose — with Madeline between his legs and pulled the belt tight. She was shuddering, convulsing, turning blue. With such small hands, she tried to get her fingers between the belt and her crushed throat. It was useless.
Sara wasn’t moving at all. There was a lot of blood.
“What’s happening?” I heard the Professor ask.
The Mechanic came at me. His hammer swung. I hurtled backward, right into the Painter and Madeline. The Painter fell and I felt her squirm about. Then I heard her voice, her sobs, her deep gasps. The hammer swung again and missed. I retreated more, hopping over the prone Madeline and somehow not falling. The Mechanic still came, stepping over her, his face filled with rage. Back further, right into the waiting arms of the Professor. And his knife — it went to my throat. “Control your bitch!” he shouted.
The hammer took a long arcing swing toward my head, but I dropped my weight and it missed, trading my life for a deep gash in my chin from the Professor’s knife. Next, I tried to wrench the knife away. I grabbed its blade with my ruined hands, but my broken bones were useless, and the knife slipped free.
The cuts didn’t matter. Dead girls didn’t need fingers.
“Control her!”
Another swing. Another desperate dodge. Again, it missed. The Professor wrapped my waist and lifted me. Then — then! — I saw Madeline rise from the floor behind the Mechanic. I saw the Painter rise at the same time. She darted around the Mechanic, right past him, under his arm. I struggled and squirmed, and the Professor didn’t see the girl. She grabbed at the knife. She got the knife!
“Fucking bitch!” The Professor shouted. “She has the knife.”
She turned, made a lurching thrust, and stabbed the Mechanic in the throat. A bright crimson spray. He swung at her, missed, then staggered away, blood pouring through his grasping hand.
In all the twisting and dodging, in all the squirming, the Professor slipped in a pool of Sara’s blood. He and I went down hard. Next, Madeline was on him, shrieking. She drove the knife into his belly again and again. He grunted and groaned. The Painter came at her, but I rolled into his way — the Professor had released me — and he kicked me hard. Didn’t matter. I didn’t need ribs.
But still, my legs worked. I rolled to my feet again, slipped in the blood, but tried again. He knocked me down with a kick. Stupid man, while he was dealing with me, Madeline finished killing the Professor and went for him. She stabbed him in the back and he fell.
But she didn’t finish him. She let him fall and stood over him with the bloody knife. I made it to my feet.
“Robin,” she said.
Tears. Flowing tears.
“Madeline.”
“Hold him down.”
Even through the tears, her voice was flat, empty. When there is too much to feel, one feels nothing.
I dared to glance at Sara. I quickly looked away. There was no more Sara. Nor was there a Professor. Nor an Engineer. Their bodies were empty lumps slowly shedding their lifeless blood.
I stood over the Painter and dropped my weight on him. Sweet Madeline twisted her face into a mask of hate. She grabbed his wet, purplish dick and tugged at it. He screamed. Then she sliced it right off at the base. He shrieked and kicked the floor.
She rose, holding the knife in one hand and the bloody, severed dick in her other. He writhed and shrieked. “Fucking bitch! Fuck! Fuck! Ah!” Blood was everywhere.
She just stood and watched.
“Madeline,” I said. She didn’t respond. “Madeline, sweetie.” I rose and stepped away from his shuddering figure. “Dear, you need to finish him off.”
She held the knife out to me. I showed her my hands. “I can’t, dear. You need to do it.”
She looked down at him. “Fuck!” he shouted, squirming and holding a hand over the gruesome little stump, trying to staunch the flow of blood. “Oh my fucking god! You cut off my dick.”
“Please kill him, sweetie.”
Then his glance shot to me, and her. He sat up and thrust out one arm for balance, still holding his dick-stump with the other. He began to scurry back. I dropped to my knees behind him and wrapped my one good arm around him. He struggled.
“Don’t resist,” I said. “It’ll be so much easier to just let it end. Do you wanna be a dickless rapist in prison?” He stopped struggling. “Come Madeline, sweetie.”
She kneeled in front of him. He huffed and puffed. I felt his heart beat hard. “Don’t resist,” I whispered. Then Madeline let out a freakish cry. Then she drew the knife across his throat and blood sprayed over her face. She shrieked again. Then she began stabbing him over and over. She kept stabbing him until I stopped her. She wept in my arms.
Three months later, I met Green at Sully’s diner. This time, Detective Scott did not come along. When I entered and joined him at the isolated little table at the rear, he looked me over. “Well, you’re looking a lot better.”
I sat and smiled. I’m sure he meant it. But some wounds don’t heal, and I had all kinds of scars.
“How are the fingers?” He motioned to my left hand. The middle and index fingers were both still taped to a splint.
I shrugged. The bones in those fingers hadn’t healed right. The doctors didn’t know why.
“All in all, I’m doing okay,” I said.
“Fine. Good. The investigation is pretty much over. Other than the location of the girl, they’ve put it on a shelf.”
“That’s good,” I said.
It hadn’t been easy to explain how I ended up there. And no, Green couldn’t cover up the killings on Newbury street. The only story that made sense was that I was — secretly — into the scene, that Sara was my in-fact girlfriend. I was a bondage slut, a fuck toy, an insatiable little cum-dumpster.
In most ways, it was actually true.
The waitress came and I ordered coffee. Green stirred his.
It was over for me as a cop. The whole thing was too dark and sordid. The stories of how I’d gone “native” got too extreme. I was left swinging.
Being a pretty girl cop was hard enough. Being one with my reputation was impossible. Fortunately — perhaps — my injuries were sufficient to claim disability. There was enough to cover rent, barely, while I looked for a job I might do. I wouldn’t starve.
The waitress brought my coffee. “Wanna eat?” Green asked.
I wouldn’t turn down a free lunch. I ordered a chicken sandwich.
Then we sat quietly for a while. I played with my coffee spoon, Green fidgeted. Then we both tried to speak at the same time.
“Look — ” I began while he said, “So — ” Then he said, “You go.”
“Look, I know you stuck your neck out pretty far for me, way beyond…” I shrugged.
“It was nothing. You were out there alone, but we were in it together nonetheless. See what I mean?”
He tried to smile, but then seemed to realize that it was stupid to smile.
“Bullshit,” I said. “I mean, I know we were in it together, and if I went down you’d go down too. I don’t mean that. I mean the last part. That was above and beyond.”
I sipped my coffee. He shrugged.
“I guess. It seemed like the right thing to do at the time.”
“If you got caught…”
“If I got caught, I’d be out of a job, probably disbarred, and perhaps in jail. So would you. Speaking of all that, how is the girl?”
Heartbroken, desolate, damaged, terrified. I said, “She’s fine.”
“That’s good.”
Now he smiled, and I’m sure he knew that it wasn’t true.
Our food came. We ate quietly.
Madeline met me at the door, wearing a long, stained tee shirt and nothing else. She gave me a little half smile. That smile stretched the long scar on her cheek, one of her scars from the Professor’s knife. But if you removed that tee-shirt, you’d see more scars, where the pliers had torn flesh, where the flames had burned her little tits. Those were the visible scars. There were many more scars you would never see. She bit her lip. Then she reached, took my hand, and led me into my apartment.
“How’s the birthday going, sweetie?” I asked.
Today was her sixteenth birthday, her sweet sixteen. Such a special day. I looked into her sad blue eyes.
“Don’t you wanna wear your present?” I asked.
She shrugged. “Do you want me to?”
I’d bought her a lovely blue pleated skirt and matching blouse. I couldn’t really afford it, but I knew she would look so pretty.
“Yes.”
She went to her room. Soon, she returned in the outfit. Absolutely darling. “Turn around.” She turned and showed me her little butt. “Sit with me.”
We sat on the couch, side by side. She sat straight, resting her hands on her knees. I stretched my arm around her. Then I scrunched close and kissed her cheek, her soft, pale cheek. She didn’t seem to respond to the kiss. Instead, she reached and grasped the heart-shaped pendant still around my neck. Her sad, wet eyes. I reached and brushed away a tear.
“I love you Madeline.”
She curled up her legs on the couch and leaned to me, close and warm. Then she reached and squeezed my nipple through my blouse.
“Madeline!”
She bit her lip and gave me a shy look. “Can we play?”
“Oh, sweetie.”
Since that day, since we’d been tortured and our dear Sara killed, she hadn’t tried anything with me. She withdrew, quiet, distant, sad.
Right after it was over, after she’d killed the Painter, I held her. And I called Green. He couldn’t hide the killings. But I begged him, hide the girl! I knew little, but I knew no one could help her but me. I begged him, and he relented. Soon, cops and medics swarmed over the place and I was taken away. Weeks in the hospital, while he hid her in his house.
When I was released, he brought her to me, healed in body, but still broken in spirit. Only once since then had she even been out of the apartment, a quick walk up Savin Hill to look at the city and the autumn leaves. While returning, we stopped for ice cream. That was a mistake. While the serving guy slowly scooped up balls of ice cream, his leering eyes ran over her body. She trembled and held my hand. She wouldn’t eat, nor leave the apartment again.
Now, after so long, her familiar impish smile returned. Briefly? I didn’t know.
Her eyes got wide. Tears flowed. She cried with a smile. “Can we play?” Her hand remained on my breast.
I kissed her soft mouth, a long deep kiss. Her hands went around my neck, pulling, mouth to mouth. Crying and kissing, for a long time, until the crying stopped. But we kept kissing. She rolled back and pulled me on top of her. Our legs entwined. Our breasts pressed together. Our tongues explored. Soft and wet.
“Madeline, you’re too young.”
“Please. You’re the only one who…”
She didn’t finish her thought, but I knew. I understood. The only one. The only one who could love her scarred, broken form. And she mine. And her broken soul, all her damage. We were the same. I clung to her, our wrecked bodies locked together, touching, she so small and soft. My nipples burned like hot coals.
I knew more, looking at her sad, hungry face. Her eyes, darting, afraid. She didn’t need me strong. No. She needed me broken and weak. Just like her. She needed me yielding, desperate, failed.
“Madeline, love…”
“Yes?”
“I’m gonna give you this one thing.”
My hands reached down and explored. My thumb found a small wet spot in the soft fabric of her panties. She sighed, shivered, and gazed into my eyes.
“Do you mind being touched there?” I asked.
Nobody had touched her there since that day, I was sure of that.
“No. I don’t mind.”
But when I slid down and began to push up her skirt, to put my face there, she stopped me.
“Can you do it with my skirt pulled down?” she asked.
There was a deep scar high on her left thigh. An ugly scar made with pliers. I couldn’t get my face there without seeing that scar.
I slid back up, leaving her skirt pulled low covering the scar. I reached up with my hand. My fingers slipped past her panties and found her place. I gave her gentle touches, strokes, caresses, slow and steady with my mouth by her face. Kisses and smiles. Warm sighs and soft moans. Her fluttering eyes. Bliss.
When she finally came, she writhed and screamed like a fucking demon. She looked into my eyes and yanked my hair.