The Dictator's Claw

Chapter 6 --- Blowin' Up Real Good

The general cursed loudly as he scratched his first shot.

Isamu looked up from chalking his cue and, noticing that the leader's hands were slightly trembling, blinked once, then twice, to ensure he wasn't suffering from hallucinations. His boss tossed his cue stick angrily on the red felt-covered Madagascar wood billiard table and gave the tasseled belt on his expensive velvet smoking jacket an exasperated tug.

“I really thought we'd be further along than this, major,” he huffed. “I'm getting increasing pressure from the UN, as well as Amnesty, to open the borders and submit to a full search of the country. If I'd known the media coverage would be this intense, I'd have gotten serious with that slut weeks ago.”

The major propped his stick up against the table and walked over to the wide, beveled glass window that Tara was staring intently through, studying the sparse lights of the land that spread before him, like a burnt-out Christmas tree, with obvious dissatisfaction.

“Your Excellency,” he began, “as you know, things have not exactly gone according to our original plans. We weren't prepared for Stevenson to get cold feet, and definitely were not ready for him to speak to the press as much as he did before we had the chance to enact the blockade. The Athens story had to be constructed, decoys for Palmer had to be hired, agents of the press had to be bribed….”

“I know. I know ,” the dictator snapped, removing his cigarette case and holder from his inside jacket pocket. “I just thought that we'd be able to be a bit more expeditious in backfilling those requirements.” He turned and shot Isamu a look that made the man's guts turn to jelly.

The black man quickly lit the general's cigarette and watched as his superior inhaled deeply, keeping his mouth closed and letting the smoke stream through his nose. At times like this, he thought, “the Imperial Dragon,” the moniker the tyrant had earned at the palace for his mighty rages, really did suit the fearsome man. He fumbled for a response to his boss, but only remained silent.

“Sven fucking Stevenson,” Tara brooded. “That bumpkin's been on board with our operations for over two years now. What the hell does he have to get nervous about?”

“General, with all due respect, the man's only a white slaver. Granted, he's been one of our top earners for close to a year, as well as a good mole with a very advantageous cover. He managed to get close to Diana when no one else could….”

“That's all well and good, Major,” the despot barked, shaking his holder in Isamu's face. “But lately, he's become more of a liability than an asset, hasn't he? What are we paying him again for delivering that bitch to us?”

Isamu looked away before answering: “$125,000 per month.”

“That's absurd. Just threaten to kidnap his family and be done with it. I want him at the palace. I have much more gainful uses in mind for him here,” Tara ordained, stroking his bushy goatee´ briskly.

The major began to sweat. When the general's anger was stoked, he was prone to make very hasty, often bad, decisions. And, he knew better than anyone, that it was he who would likely wind up the scapegoat if things fell apart. “Your Grace, if I may differ,” Isamu pleaded, “Stevenson knows what we're capable of. I have personally painted that threatening scenario for him a number of times. Right now, he's only one of two fronts that we have working for us….”

“Not an effective enough front, Major,” the general volleyed. “I've received word that he's becoming rather loose lipped with others at the Times , and that the public has little faith in the credibility of his assertation that Palmer has been freed. No, I've made up my mind. Tell him that his wife and daughter's collective goose will be leisurely sautéed unless he comes here next week. And if that doesn't work, just bring him.”

“Yes, General,” Isamu conceded, trying to sound as emotionless as possible.

“In the meantime, turn up the heat on Patterson. And as for that little cunt…” the dictator turned and pointed with his cigarette holder to a large monitor set into the cherry-wood paneled wall in back of him, “get her to sign that amended report tomorrow.”

He put his hands in the silk-lined pockets of his luxurious jacket and walked slowly to the televised image, smiling slightly as the cradle lowered Diana another notch. The girl was covered with sweat, and he could make out every detail of her strong sinewy leg muscles as they struggled fruitlessly to wrest the stationary dildo from her wax-caked vagina. Just one more foot and she'll be sitting really pretty, he smirked to himself.

Puffing heavily on his cigarette, he started for the double doors of his massive library. “Do your worst,” he ordered, with a dismissive flip of his hand, not bothering to look back at Isamu's withering gaze.

*************************************************************

Opening the vast cabinet that he had long ago marked TRAINING MATERIAL in large block letters, Sven ran his eyes over his many intriguing options. Unfortunately, he thought, there could be no visible damage done tonight, since the report he'd been given, just seconds before from Marnie, indicated that the twins would be shipped to a client in Israel in just two weeks. While this limited his choices somewhat, he could always find training tools that would leave no signs of physical contact, he thought deviously.

Ever since returning from Tarakimo, his lust for these illicit implements had become almost an obsession for him. He had found himself wishing lately, on numerous occasions, that he hadn't reacted so impulsively at the palace. Tara 's tools were no different from these, he thought wryly. The scale was just larger. He laughed to himself; hoping the girls in the room would hear him and deem him even more insanely dangerous than they no doubt already thought. Poor, poor Diana, Sven thought, almost wistfully. If there's anyone fit to train you, it's me. Unlike the dictator, he would temper his sadism with loving discipline. Tara 's rampant hatred for the girl would offer no such reprieve, even if the tyrant was capable of mercy, which he doubted.

He cleared his head, and finally selected four large rubber bladders and four thick rubber hoses, closed the cabinet, and motioned to Nick and Jake. They instantly spread both girls' legs and waited for his next order.

The blonde man ambled over to the two South American girls and inspected them as they lay on their backs, staring up at the large heat lamps slowly baking their relatively unblemished flesh. He noted with distaste that they already had light red marks from where the jute cord --- a strength much stronger than he'd ordered them bound with --- had cut into their hands and feet. It was tough getting good help these days, he sulked.

He delicately placed one hand each on their shins, stroking them lightly, at the same time. “ ¿cómo te llamas ?” he asked them, in a friendly tone. Sven knew it wasn't exactly right, but he had been to the continent enough in the past months to master some rough phrases, even if the dialect was off a tad.

When the girls remained silent, he repeated the question and produced a slender switchblade from his vest pocket, still attached to his double-length gold fob chain. He displayed it importantly as the six inch blade shot into the air with a loud “click.” The sadist marveled at the beauty and savage efficiency of the elegant tool for a moment, turning it in his burly hand, watching the light bounce off the diamonds that were set into the pearl handle. Then, he raised a finger and caressed the edge of the shimmering blade with malevolent excitement, finally positioning the cold, peaked tip strategically under the base of the girl on the left's breast.

“ Rosa !” her doppelgänger burst out, obviously panicked at her sister's looming fate. Sven looked pleased, and beckoned regally to the silent girl, whose eyes betrayed no such alarm, with two gold and diamond-wrapped fingers. He smiled indulgently at her gorgeous face. Ah, he thought contentedly, she's the tough one.

“Maria,” she replied sullenly, inspecting his flushed face for some sign of humanity. Her calm seemed to abate, however --- ever so slightly, Sven thought --- as his ogling eyes and moist, slightly parted, mouth communicated no such aptitude for kindness. “No haga ningún daño yo,” she said, quietly.

The opulently attired man's face brightened with delight at his unexpected understanding of his captive's words. He threw his head back and cackled stridently. “Oh, I'm gonna hurt ya, bitch! ” he roared in her face, spraying tobacco-flecked spittle over Maria's finely sculpted Amazonian-like features, secretly hoping to make her cry. Instead, she just stared back at him, obviously puzzled. He sighed disgustedly, and settled for a threatening nod, instead.

“Espera…espera…” he taunted, making unhurried circling motions with the tip of his cigar, warning them that the pain would come, but only when he decreed it. He got a surprising, perverse thrill at his success in communicating so much with so little. He seemed to be becoming a master of “the gloat,” as Isamu called it, remembering how the big man had once told him that Tara 's favorite part of any torture was explaining to the victim, in excruciating detail, just how they would suffer. “Fear is one of the most potent and economical weapons in a torturer's arsenal. Don't waste it,” he had said, giving Sven a rare smile.

He waved Nick away from Maria, and with one arm, raised her up, for Rosa 's observation. Sven gripped one of her tits in his large hand and began to squeeze it tightly, leering over her, billowing clouds of cigar smoke into the helpless girl's face for several minutes, as his blade danced below her ample mammory. When Maria's face had acquired an almost green pallor, Sven dropped her head back on the pillow indifferently, retracting and pocketing his switchblade.

“Men,” he glowered with decadent ceremony, “Our two little enchiladas here are virgins, from what I've been told. Unlike most of our clients, Maria and Rosa's new master wants them to be a trifle more experienced.” The two hoods began to chuckle eagerly, understanding their boss inherently. “Yes, you guessed right. We're going to loosen them up a bit. Flip Rosa there around so her feet are near the end of the bed, put her on her stomach, and then fuck her up the ass. Take turns, but use rubbers. I want her clean.”

Jake and Nick took up position behind Rosa and dropped their drawers, donning large leather jockeys that exposed only their massive cocks, the shiny tight leather gripping their scrotums snugly, highlighting their already enormous erections. Jake took a length of thick chain from a nearby table and wrapped it around Rosa 's sweat-drenched hands, securing them with a large padlock. He pulled the girl's legs down from the bed, so they were resting on the floor, and dived eagerly on top of her. A scream ripped from her mouth as the savage brute plunged his fat shaft into her asshole and began fucking her greedily, his kinky briefs making a satisfying crunching sound with each thrust. Her face was alive with agony, and Sven laughed heartily at her apparent discomfort.

He leaned in to Maria even closer, and rasped: “Diga le gritar para mí!” --- one of the few complete phrases he frequently used, which instructed the girl to tell her sister to scream for him. Maria shook her head vigorously, outrage and disgust twisting her face. Sven slapped her viciously and repeated the order, yanking her nipple as far as he could stretch it. He nastily knocked off the ash from his cigar, took a few voracious puffs, and began moving the smoldering white tip towards the stretched, pink blossom he was grasping with his other meaty hand.

Pure terror flooded Maria's eyes as the burning bud came within inches of her nipple. She yelped: “ Rosa ! ¡grito! ¡grito para él!” Her sister obeyed and let loose with the most piercing, though sweetly musical, cry Sven had ever heard.

“Nick, take over!” Sven commanded, when sufficiently satisfied with her outburst. Almost without missing a stroke, the other hood continued the assault, thrusting his hairy hips into the girl and lightly grazing his leather, studded chest over her perspiring back with relish, careful not to leave marks.

After ten more minutes, Sven turned Maria over and began pumping wildly into her pink ass, while Jake held down her arms. He emptied himself into the furious girl a bit faster than he would have liked, encouraged by her hateful, defiant silence.

“Ahora tenemos diversión verdadera!” Sven shouted triumphantly (“Now we have the real fun!”). “Bring over the compressors,” he ordered Jake, who wheeled over two large stainless-steel tanks. “Put them on their backs again. I want them to face each other, so they can enjoy each other's pain! It'll be like looking in a mirror!” he laughed wickedly.

The girls were positioned to face each other on the bed, each lying down, heads propped up by pillows. As the four hoses were attached to each tank's set of dual valves, Sven roughly shoved two of the rubber bladders into each girl, one up the ass, and one up the pussy.

He thought seriously of taunting them in their native tongue, but decided he didn't want to waste the time. One of the few drawbacks to these foreign jobs, he thought. Besides, it would be much more terrifying to just carry out the torture, letting them come to their own horrific conclusions, so to speak.

As the men settled in to do Sven's vile work, making the final attachment of the hoses to the bladders, the well-dressed man daintily smoothed his slightly damp suit, and reclined lazily on a nearby leather lounge chair, lighting another cigar, listening delightedly to the menacing hiss of the valves, as they were opened slowly. After this, he thought, they would be ready for anything.

*************************************************************

George Patterson was finishing up paperwork, nursing a Martini in his Pentagon office, spent from a long, tiring day of meetings, when his secretary informed him that an urgent call had come in. The caller wouldn't reveal his name, and while under normal circumstances he would have refused it, he agreed, on the off chance it was from someone related to the Palmer case. His suspicions were sadly confirmed as Jorge Isamu's voice wafted from his speakerphone.

“Ah, Mr. Secretary,” the voice crooned, “Might you have a brief moment for an old friend?”

“What do you want, Isamu?” George snapped, the liquor, combining with his intolerance for this petty thug's grating pomposity, overtaking him quickly. “I'm almost ready to leave for the day.”

“I believe you'll be most interested in what I have to say, Colonel,” Isamu returned smoothly. He continued, after a pregnant beat pierced the silence in Patterson's office. “General Tara is rather displeased at the amount of media attention being leveled against our friendly little nation, as of late. Could you possibly have a chat with some of the more zealous members of the press, particularly from the Times ? His Excellency would owe you a great debt.”

“Seems to me that you can do that yourself,” Patterson retorted. “Last I heard, you still had about thirty poor reporters under lock-down. Isn't that right?”

Isamu laughed lightly. “Colonel, Colonel,” he brazenly chided, “you know as well as I that they're communicating regularly with their family and friends and are, in most cases, enjoying accommodations that put their homes to shame.”

“Yes, in most cases except for Diana Palmer's and, most recently, Wendy Franzen's!” the Colonel said, his anger beginning to rise. “What has your depraved leader done with them, Isamu? Come on, spill it! You know as well as I that my hands are tied due to certain political ‘arrangements' that you've secured through blackmail and extortion. What have you got to lose?” He chugged the Vodka, hoping to push the glorified goon into saying something stupid.

“Well, if I may speak freely…” Isamu began, “…and we can talk officer to officer….”

“ Yes?” Patterson fairly shouted. “Except that I, unlike you, represent a global power. You're nothing but a common hoodlum paid by an overwrought third-world bully!”

“Ah, if you're going to get so personal, I believe I'd better disconnect,” Isamu said, his voice now growing closer in pitch to its usual low, menacing pitch.

George sighed. “Go ahead,” he said flatly.

“Thank you,” Isamu said with exaggerated gratitude. “We've gotten word that she's been located just outside of Istanbul . Were you aware she'd left Athens ?”

“If she was ever there,” Patterson returned snidely. “And what about Franzen?”

“Just trying to be helpful,” Isamu sang, his voice climbing an octave, ignoring the man's second question. “Maybe you can return the favor by talking to the press.”

“Or what?”

Isamu sighed smugly, and George felt that he could easily have choked the fat man if he'd been in his office. “Or…the press may learn about some of your past dealings with our office. That wouldn't bode well for your upcoming promotion to general now, would it?” He began a deep, booming laugh so obnoxious that Patterson had to lower the speaker volume just to endure it.

“I'll…take care of it,” George hissed, hanging up the speakerphone while the major was still in stitches.

*************************************************************

As Sven once again perused the twins' reports, he noticed a line at the bottom of page three, on each document, that caused him to groan inwardly:

CLIENT REQUESTS THAT ALL EMMIGRATION AND IMMIGRATION ISSUES BE HANDLED PER ADDITIONAL FEE IN SECTION 18.

 

Great, he thought. Just when he thought his porterhouse was only hours away….

After only six months in the “trade,” he had learned that there was a big difference between “trainings” and “interrogations.” In his experience, trainings were fun (for the torturer, mostly), and interrogations were work --- sometimes very hard work --- for all parties.

In Sven's mind, training was a highly skilled and detailed endeavor. The goal was not wanton cruelty. Instead, its purpose was to desensitize and prepare prospective slaves for the lifestyles they would assume once they were acquired by their demanding, and usually extremely wealthy, masters. In the twins' case, tonight was merely the first step in a detailed four-phased process that normally took months to complete, though in this case, it would be only weeks, meaning much overtime for his men and a higher fee for himself. Once finished with the program, a Master could very well expect to keep a slave for life --- and at between $350,000 to well over a million dollars it was important to emphasize to the clients that if they wanted to avoid another costly expenditure, they had to let Sven's people perform their jobs. Sven truly believed this, and had even gone to the lengths of refusing a few lucrative deals that had the vibe of a “rush.” It was just good business.

Interrogations, on the other hand, were regimens of torture for the pure purpose of intimidation and, most often, information extraction. The goal was to get the victim to do a specific thing, or to give specific information. As a general rule, the HenHouse didn't do interrogations, simply because the payoff was not 100% guaranteed. In other words, there was no way to ensure the client would get what they paid for, all of the time. And, in the trade, the type of clients you were dealing with could make things either very sweet or very unpleasant for you, if disappointed. No, interrogations were jobs best suited for monsters like Tara, who had endless time, money, and thugs to throw at them.

While this request for needed immigration/emigration paperwork was technically interrogatory in nature --- the girls had to be forced to sign several documents reinforcing their consent to enter a foreign land and to apply for citizenship --- it was fairly straightforward. They either signed, or they were persuaded to sign. Very seldom was there any other outcome. It was different from the “tell us what we want to know” school of “straight” interrogation, which often produced information that had to be painstakingly validated, thus wasting a lot of time with, what Sven believed was, redundancy. Still, it was one extra thing he had to accomplish tonight, and it was rapidly killing some of the immediate pleasure he had gotten from the training session so far.

Sven deposited the butt of his cigar in an ashtray and looked over at the two prone girls on the bed. He checked his diamond-studded Rolex President, and found they had been under his henchmen's care for about a half-hour. Jake had interrupted him a while back, informing him that Rosa had passed out several times from the pain induced by the expanding bladders that relentlessly filled her bowels and vagina with air. She was his, he had told him, and would do whatever he wished. Maria was a different story. The cloaked, but vicious, torture had only seemed to steel her resolve, although the fact that she had a front row seat to her sister's excruciating ordeal may have only added to her feistiness. She obviously felt protective of Rosa , Sven realized, but he might still be able to use that to his advantage.

While Rosa lay perfectly still, breathing heavily, Maria was fighting off another tidal wave of pain that was rolling through her guts, fueled by the fresh air tank that Nick had just exchanged and which he was now ruthlessly unloading into the girl.

Sven approached the stubborn young woman and began to stroke her face, getting close to her. He told her: “ Soy el jefe. Usted es el mío. No hay manera de resistir” --- basically telling her that he was the boss and she'd be in deep shit if she resisted. She came back with only: “Usted es un cerdo americano gordo,” telling him he was a “fat American pig.” He stared into her tear-streaked face without smiling, and then roughly snapped his fingers. Both men were instantly by his side.

He produced one of the papers that the girls were to sign, along with a pen, and presented them first to Maria, then to Rosa . As predicted, only Rosa agreed to sign. Sven ordered Rosa to be unbound and taken out, as he pulled up his soft leather chair next to the bed and leisurely flipped through an English-to-Spanish translation guide, formulating his next question to Maria, as the pressurized air continued to gush into the poor girl. She began to scream fiercely, straining at her bonds, and Sven almost started to find it relaxing, after a while.

He reached into his vest once more and brought out the switchblade, opened it, and began to carefully remove the dirt he had spotted earlier from a few fingernails. He told her in her native tongue, using a low, firm voice, that she would sign the papers, or he would take the matter up with her beautiful sister. When he finally glanced up at Maria, smiling with satisfaction, he could tell he had gotten to her. But again, she shook her head.

“Muy bien,” he laughed, and went to the telephone, punching in a few numbers and relaying what he wanted Jake and Nick to do, in English.

A few minutes passed, and finally the door to the salon opened. Jake led Rosa , still nude, over to a wall opposite Maria, and secured her hands and feet with steel cuffs jutting out from the cold plaster. Nick followed, pulled by two very large Great Danes, who snapped and barked, straining at their leashes so hard that even Sven wondered if they could be contained. Sven had used them only one other time, and remembered they were difficult to control, but very effective. He had gotten the idea from Rosa 's medical dossier (a skilled torturer always has a back-up plan, Isamu had often said), noting that she had been bitten by a rabid dog when she was seven.

Rosa began to wail madly upon seeing the animals, and when Jake unwrapped a raw sirloin and began ripping off large slices, shoving them mercilessly up her distended vagina, she looked ready to have a heart attack. Sven just leaned back in his chair and lit yet another overpowering stogie, taking great pleasure in the girl's terror, as Maria stared unbelievingly at what was happening to her twin.

Maria's eyes darted back and forth between Nick, who was being led closer and closer by the maddened dogs toward the hysterical Rosa , and Sven, who was chuckling sadistically and letting large rings of smoke drift mellowly from his pursed lips. “¿Como mis perritos?” (“Like my puppies?”) he asked her smugly, sweeping his cigar in her sister's general direction and laughing loudly. He placed the documents in a small pile on Maria's tummy, along with the pen, and leaned back in his chair, though he was secretly very nervous that something would go wrong. Using animals was never fool-proof, he knew, but he also wanted to get some food in his belly tonight, as well.

Maria unleashed a fierce earth-shaking scream, so loud and long that Sven had to slap her face several times to get her to calm down. He gestured to the papers, and she nodded miserably. He laughed viciously, called off the dogs, and gave Maria a patronizing pat on the head, before starting for the door.

*************************************************************

Diana could not even hope to guess how long she had been hanging in the cradle, but it seemed like years. Tara had left her quite some time ago, along with his soldiers, and she was now completely alone in this awful place, with no one to ask for help, and no one to respond. The bucket of wax had been changed out only once by the small man, mostly kept warm by a heating device in the container, he had told her, that kept the awful substance fluid for as long as it remained above her, and not in her. It would be a long time before anyone came close to her again, he assured her happily.

She hated to admit it, but after Tara had left her, and before her ass had made contact with the spiked penile sculpture below her, she had almost felt relaxed for a short time. The room was completely dark except for the dim lights burning at sparse intervals in the stone capsule. It was cool, almost pleasant in temperature, almost romantic , she thought sickly, though she couldn't think of any other word for it. Plus, the more she relaxed, the easier it was to move the rod, further delaying the insurmountable pain promised by the wax and the anal probe. The whole thing was almost tolerable until the wax had hit her, following her first unscheduled “break.”

The beautiful young reporter began to cry as the pain in her ass once again began to increase. She had first hit the tip a short while ago, and now her insides were beginning to be rubbed raw by the golden cock pushing insistently into her. Of course, it might be bearable if she didn't have to fight to work her hips. But, this was yet another fiendish side-effect of the dictator's foul, double-edged deed. She had to move to keep from being further pushed down on the anal dildo, but when she did, it only served to aide in the demolition of her asshole. And this didn't even begin to cover her fervent need to eliminate waste, not that she had much of anything to expel anymore.

Maybe he really just wants to kill me, she thought. And the idea --- being the first time she'd really, truly considered it --- terrified her. She'd never see anyone she loved ever again.

Lights were suddenly snapped on and the chamber was once again as it had looked earlier in the evening. She heard the sharp clicking of boot heels on the stone beneath her, and gazed down at Isamu's uniformed figure.