I grimace as the black hood comes off. For the past eight hours I had been cursing and counting the minutes until someone would finally remove it but for the split second that it's yanked off and the desert sun cooks my retinas, I cannot help but groan and wish I could go back to my stifling little cocoon. The cuffs around my wrists are popped open soon after and I'm allowed the luxury of shielding my own eyes from the sun. Stiff pain arcs down my back and across my shoulders. My legs still feel spongy, but the muscles are starting to remember their use and I just about hold myself upright.

The whole thing is ridiculous. The van, the black hood, the cuffs, I'm still not entirely convinced whose protection this is all for. I volunteered for this goddamned assignment, in the end. Whatever indignities it has yet to bear down on me, to start everything off by being carted around like a terrorist suspect headed for Gitmo feels just a tiny bit over the top. Of course, there is no assignment. And the man who's just pulled me out of the back of the van isn't with the agency. I'm a Jane Doe now as far as law enforcement is concerned, a Jane Doe who's about to step into a whole river of shit. So they're protecting themselves, because they know if I knew too many details about what they're doing out here - here being Nevada I assume while slowly peering around the desolate sun-baked plains through bleary eyes - I could come back to bite their dicks off. They're also protecting the men here. Because they're bad men and though the top brass still ardently believe they're good guys, they need bad men on their payroll sometimes.

This bad guy is six foot two. I take a disliking to the way he runs his calloused fingers through my short, blonde hair. At five-three, I'm just shy of being a foot shorter than his grizzled, muscular bulk. He's dark-haired, bearded, foreign-looking. I guess Russian, and his accent as he speaks tells me I'm better at faces than I'd thought.

"Rise and shine, Princess. You've only got two weeks before your confirmation."

He's got a pair of reflective aviators on. I look up into his eyes and only see my own blue irises staring back at me. The fish-eye effect of the lenses makes me look small and wide-eyed from his perspective, a fragile little thing with freckles across the bridge of her nose, cracked lips from the dry heat, looking like she's about to faint. I'm twenty-seven, but I look like a twenty-one year-old who's just been dragged out of her parents' home in the middle of the night.

I'm wearing little more than you'd expect of a woman that's been snatched off the street - tight jeans, sneakers, a faded old t-shirt - now drenched with sweat, a bra that's starting to dig into my ribs more than I'd care for. I dressed down for the occasion. In the end though there is only so much I could anticipate. Eight hours in a van, in the desert, even old casual street clothes start to feel suffocating. On the other hand, I also feel like I'm giving this guy far too much to look at. Had I dressed for the heat, he'd have even more to smile about. Funny that I care about something like that, even now.

"That's Special Agent Princess to you, bozo," I squint, scraping words together from the back of my throat.

My rescuer-slash-captor stiffens just a notch and slips his hand from my scalp, by way of my jawline. "Not any more, Princess," he replies distantly. "Not any more." His attention shifts away from me and he bangs closed the back of the van. I don't look, but I hear the engine spring back to life. A moment later, while clouds of dust drift past my knees in its wake; I know I've been stranded here.

Then I correct myself: I've stranded myself here. It's probably ten miles in every direction before I'd come across another living soul. So here I am with a criminal and possibly psychotic Russian, in the middle of the summer heat, in the desert, alone, for the next two weeks. That would be bad enough under normal circumstances but apparently I'm too much crazy for normal circumstances to have much to do with me. He walks up to stand beside me and I look across, my irises gradually adapting to this sunlight. I study his posture (skulking), his clothes (dusty), his boots (dustier). Behind him, a hundred feet away or so, I notice a building of some kind. It looks old, worn and dusty, much like him. Maybe once a warehouse.

"So where's your pretty accent from? Georgia? Arizona?" he wonders. His own mostly recedes away as he gets more conversational, English is comfortable on the man's tongue although the spiky consonants, flat vowels of his native speak never entirely fade.

"You know you can't know that any more than you can know my name." I'm pretty good at covering my nervousness, projecting a loud and confident me when I'm squirming anxiously on the inside. Being a short girl working with big tall and occasionally macho guys tends to help you learn how to properly bristle. I wonder if he can see through that. "So shall we get ourselves inside? Have some drinks, get know each other?" I wink at him. Acting familiar is another thing should make me seem less afraid than I really am about what's coming up. He simply plants one of his broad, firm hands across both of my buttocks and guides me ahead, my entire body tightening, my skin crawling. Familiarity seems to cut both ways, I instantly realise. Maybe I need less of that.

---

Once the door is shut, I need to readjust my eyes again. My companion simply takes off his sunglasses and wanders on ahead. My suspicion that this is an old warehouse proved right - there's a bunch of offices just as you enter the building, the wallpaper peeling off, paint cracking, dust and debris strewn across the corridors. It must have been empty since the eighties or nineties. At the far end, the hallway opens up into vast hall that would have been used for storage, but I'm led off to the side into what must have been a break room. There's two tables, four chairs and a drinks machine here. And a dim light-bulb.

"We should talk, before we start anything," he tells me. I lean back against one of the tables, arms folded. He turns to the vending machine but rather than slot a coin in, he simply pulls the front open as if it were a fridge. Inside, instead of the usual cans of Coke, various beers and bottles of spirits have been shoehorned in, hijacking the unit's refrigeration.

"Not drinking on the job, are we?"

"There is no job," comes his mirthless reply as he hands me a beer can. "There is no warehouse, there is no you or me. So I'm just doing what I feel like and, I'll be honest, I genuinely don't know why you're doing this, you're either insane or stupid or suicidal."

"Something-something duty, something-something freedom, something-something serving my country?" I bite my lip. It's difficult to come up with a convincing-sounding reason, even to myself. We're taught that to die in the line of duty is all well and good, glorious and honourable. Getting fucked in the line of duty, on the other hand, we never really talk much about. Our bodies are sacrosanct as far as genitals are concerned in a way that they are not when it comes to penetration with bullets. Say you're willing to die for your country and you're a hero, say you're willing to get fucked for your country and you're treated like a crazy person.

I can tell that being vague and funny doesn't really fly with this guy. "Fucking for national security sounds like no worse a deal to me than getting shot for national security," I explain tersely, shrugging while feeling I don't owe much more of an explanation than that. The truth being I've always felt some decisions are not meant for reflecting upon. You make them and you stick with them. Making those calls when you're doing field work and calling the shots is an asset, just like soldiers in the military, we're trained for that. Sometimes coming back to those decisions is hard though.

He pauses, tapping the side of his drink. The man stares into my eyes for a long minute or so, before pointing out quite flatly: "You've done it before, haven't you. This won't be your first time having sex undercover at least?"

Have to give it to him, that's a good guess. I mean, it's not a far-fetched conclusion to arrive at, but as far as I know not even my superiors ever figured out that it happened. "Yeah. You're maybe the only other person that knows about it now... I was posing as an escort with a drug habit. It wasn't meant to be a cover that involved anything more than showing some skin, maybe flashing my tits at some guys once in a while. But it was an operation that went off in an unexpected direction. I improvised, seduced one of the pushers. We had something like an affair over the course of two weeks while I collected information from him."

I speak about everything that happened with a sense of detachment. It was so easy to slip into another persona, become a different girl to whom it was all happening. Only sometimes did it hit me that it was my vagina and my lips I let that man release himself into... not someone else's. Mine. Whenever that happened I would want to curl up, feeling disgusted with myself, even nauseous. But it passed. With time it became easier and easier to put a barrier between myself and 'Mindy'. She was just a tool I used in the line of duty, but she wasn't me.

The Russian clears his throat. "So you've sucked off a dealer a few times..."

Shaking my head I object, "It was a little more involved than that." My cheeks flush - normally I would be denying it, trying to downplay what I had to do. It's already bizarre and perverse that I have to do the opposite for the first time. My heart beats faster as I try to prove to this thug that I'm not the innocent little blonde spook I probably look like. "Two weeks. Every day I would come and visit him. We had sex at least two or three times a day. My handler had no idea I was doing it, my superiors had no idea I was doing it. He could have held me down and raped me, tortured me, done anything he wanted to me. I realised I had to do it though. He had information that would lead to dozens of arrests, save untold numbers of lives from misery."

"Except this isn't some low-life drug dealer. You want to get close to someone who is probably the most dangerous man in this country. Maybe this entire hemisphere and maybe, just maybe, the world. Neither you nor anyone else even knows much about him, except that he is a grade A sadist. So obviously, you volunteer to become his bitch."

"We know he's looking for a new favourite. We know he likes blondes..."

"You know he likes to play very, very rough with his blondes..."

I sigh and nod, "Yes, yes we do know that. It stands to reason someone could get close to him with very little suspicion if she passed muster."

"As a depraved, masochistic bitch."

"Depraved, masochistic bitch seems like a rather unlikely contender for secretly being a spook."

"Most undercover operatives go in knowing there's a risk they'll get exposed, tortured, raped if they're pretty, and then killed. You want to go in knowing for a fact that you're going to get tortured and raped. And maybe killed. I'm not sure I see the logic here."

"If we thought a normal undercover agent would work in this case, I'm pretty sure we'd have already tried to pull that off. Fuck that, maybe we already did and it failed. You don't know anything about this case. The point is, not only is it the safest 'in' we have with this organisation, if it works it gives us a very intimate spot from which to gather data about this guy. And we do need data about him, he's a scary individual to know almost nothing about." I'm not sure how confident I sound about any of what I say any more. At least I'm not fidgeting, just swinging my legs over the edge of the table.

"It's not my job to talk you out of that. I just wish to understand where you're coming from. And if you're really prepared to go as far as you need to go," the broad, dark-haired man relents. "The reason I'm here, as you know, is that... I know how women like that are made. I know what men like him want and I know what kind of woman might - just might - win him over and make him drop his guard. Two weeks is just barely enough to turn you into someone who can be that kind of woman. And mind that we're talking about you being that woman, not just being able to pass convincingly for one. Anyone who's been beaten enough can be taught to tolerate sexual abuse. But it's a very different matter for someone to thrive on it. To demand it and to crave it.

"That is how you will make yourself stand out to him," he continues and I feel my knuckles whiten while gripping tight on the corners of the table. These are things I know, I've known since before I accepted this role. Hearing him say it still makes my stomach churn. "A beautiful, educated woman who not only submits to his whims, but encourages them and welcomes his darkest desires is one in a million. Perhaps even one in ten million. That is what he wants to get his hands on."

I quietly nod, my breathing quickening. "You're the so-called expert. I'm in your hands now, until we make the handover. If I recall correctly, you're giving me over to your old friends in the Bratva, once the two weeks are up?"

"That's right. They introduce you to the man himself. If he likes you, he takes you off their hands and then you're sailing off into territories unknown."

"And if he doesn't?"

"I imagine you will endure a few very unpleasant weeks in St. Petersburg until your agency arranges an extraction for you. I assume they will arrange an extraction, that is. I can't promise they will. You're with the agency, I'm not. Or were, anyway," I cross my legs and flash the man a stern look, one that he casually deflects. "But. I still haven't gotten a..." he mulls over, looking in his mind for the right word, "a satisfactory answer for why you are doing this. I mean, maybe I'm just an idiot. Perhaps you're an honest-to-goodness Captain America kind of patriotic idiot, who'd walk into this guy's mansion with a suicide vest strapped to her tits if she thought that would help." He really likes making me sneer.

"But I don't buy that," the Russian continues. "I think you've got a personal reason for volunteering to do this and I want to know what it is. You're right, you're in my hands now. I could just start getting you used to the physical side of the job straight away. In the short term, that'll be easier. You'll try and block out what's happening, endure it, maybe you'll even make it through the two weeks like that. But you'll never fool him. I really hope you're not just thinking that because you fucked a guy for information that one time, that's like your special secret power now. It's a completely different game. An entirely different situation."

I shake my head, "What you want to hear is that I want to do it, right? That there's some part of me that's a real, sick little masochist yearning to come out and indulge in her fantasies, find an excuse, is that it? You think that's why I'm doing this?"

"It might be. When you fucked your drug dealer, did you really do it without ever getting aroused? That combination of shame, excitement, risk... it's a potent one. People will go after it. Or, hell, maybe you're that particular brand of crazy who literally orgasms from pain. I've met a girl like that once. Was quite the surprise. I thought she was having... a seizure or something, when I was cutting her. But she wasn't, she was fingering herself and having the wildest fucking orgasm I've seen a woman have. Pretty crazy, but I think that's something..." he twirls his calloused fingertip around his temple, "...some wires crossed. In there." He finally cracks open the beer he's been holding and that reminds me I have my own drink sat next to me on the table. Somehow I'm not tempted. "Doing it for the thrill though, that's more common. The adrenaline of doing something crazy and stupid. Like those guys who jump out of planes with wingsuits. It's pretty common among soldiers. Bullets, combat, all of that is a rush. From what you said, I think you might maybe like the idea of surrendering control just for the excitement of it. See if you can make it to the other side. It's a rush and in this case you're doing it for a good cause. Like jumping out of a plane for charity."

Now this, this is an accusation I can't really say anything about. It's preposterous, but it does make more sense than the loops I've been doing in my head to justify why I decided to suggest me doing this, why I slept with that guy to begin with. I wasn't attracted to him, I didn't want to fuck him, I didn't want to have to do... that. But I did do it. Or at least Mindy did. And distasteful though I find it to admit what happened... Mindy did cum while she was doing it. Is that what it's about? Am I that much of a thrill junkie? On the one hand, I would never deny I have some degree of adrenaline addiction. I mean, I have literally jumped out of a plane for charity before. I can't say I've ever thought to connect the two. Jesus, that kind of makes it sound pathetic.

"Yeah, I agree, that sounds kind of extreme," my Rusky psychotherapist takes my silence as an answer. "Usually it takes people a lot to... risk as much as you're risking. Personal tragedy, trauma... they feel numb, so they want something intense and a little bit brutal to feel anything again. But maybe it's some kind of twisted search for meaning on your part. You see where I'm coming from? But maybe you're like a soldier, wanting to go back to Afghanistan because that's the only time you felt like you were someone, someone important, making a difference, living at the very edge, at your fullest."

"You're the weirdest psychologist I've ever been to," I tell the man. "What's the point of all this questioning, anyway?"

Suddenly, the Russian straightens up and takes a long, deep gulp from his beer can. His facial expression changes. It doesn't become harder, or more evil or anything, just... different. "Stand up," he gestures to me. "I want you to take off everything you're wearing below the waist. Now."

Shit, okay, so this is happening. I knew it would and some part of me wished he'd just get it over with, but it's still weird. Immediately I can feel the beating of my heart against my ribcage, my pulse racing, that sensation that sends shivers and goosebumps down my spine... is this why I'm doing all this? I can't give myself an answer. My fingers shake just a bit as I reach down and pull my sneakers off, tossing them to the side. I wasn't wearing any socks, so that leaves me pressing my bare feet to the rough, dusty concrete once I stand to remove the jeans. Somehow, that grounds me to the reality of what I'm doing - so much more than anything else has until now. The sharp grit, bits of debris of the decaying building dig into the soles of my feet, making me squirm. Vulnerable, bare... about to become a whole lot more so.

I try not to think about why I'm undressing. I just mechanically unbuckle the belt and pull my jeans down. Then, left wearing only a pair of black boyshorts, I gingerly wriggle out of those too, which I have to peel off, the fabric soggy and sticky - sweat from the ride, that is, not arousal. It would be welcome to get out of the pants if not for the fact that it means I'm now bare-bottomed in front of his unashamedly lustful gaze. He makes no secret of the fact that he's looking straight down at my sex. I can't imagine it's all that appealing, being sweaty and not terribly clean and somewhat stubbly after a few days without shaving.

Trying to cast my memories back, I bring back recollections of doing this in front of Azid, the drug pusher. It was different - I, or rather Mindy - was in control. Sure, he could in theory have overpowered me but I knew he wouldn't. He was smitten and I got to call the shots. Here, I don't get to call the shots. This is training for me to learn how to let go. How to surrender. How to demand the worst things I can imagine. The idea, truthfully, terrifies me.

"Not very presentable today, are we?" he seems to agree with my self-assessment, even though it doesn't temper his eagerness all that much. I half expect that he will walk over and grope me, already mentally preparing for what those rough fingertips would feel like against the softest, most intimate parts of my body.

He doesn't do that though. More self restrained than I would expect from a thug like him. The man reaches into his leather jacket and extracts what I at first assume to be a wallet. It's a leather pouch that he unfolds, letting me see - to my alarm - that it contains mostly medical instruments. Each is wrapped in plastic film. He picks out one of them, slides it free, every motion slow and measured, like a theatrical presentation just for my benefit. Once the film comes off, I observe that it's a surgical scalpel he's holding. My heart just about jumps up into my mouth. Still, he makes no sudden motions toward me. What he does do, is extend the utensil, handle forwards, for me to take from him.

"It's sterile, so don't touch the blade," his Russian accent explains, as though this should reassure me. The metal is warm, having been stored so close to his large body in the desert heat for however long. I stare it with apprehension for a short while, not quite sure what to say, or what to make of it.

"If you were a cheap whore," he continues, earning himself another scornful look from me, "I would take that scalpel and remove your clit myself. If you were a well-behaved whore, I would ask you to remove your own clit and give me a show to watch. Since you're going to be an exceptional whore, I expect you to convince me why you need me to let you remove your own clit."

"Jesus fucking Christ. You can't be serious?" the suggestion is preposterous, I can't even breathe. Is he being serious, or is he just trying to scare me. If it's the latter... well, it's fucking working. If it's the former, I don't even want to think about it. I don't even realise that I've pulled my knees tightly together until he gestures down at my legs.

"Okay, first of all, none of that. Sit down on the table, spread your legs all the way apart. Show me your cunt." His voice is calm, slow, unpleasantly dominant. It makes me want to spit in his face, but I have to remind myself that being here was, in the end, my idea. I want to do this. That means putting myself in his hands, letting him... do what he needs to do.

Shit. I try to remove myself from the situation, pretend I'm a soldier, a machine. I try on Mindy for size, but she's too simple a whore for this, she would never go as far as I need her to go. So instead I just act cool, detached. Focusing on one thing at a time, I feel my bare buttocks touch the warm wooden table I had been leaning on. He gestures for me to sit further back on the table, so I do. His eyes never leave my loins, so I slowly pull my legs apart, further and further. I realise I can't get them as wide as he wants without bringing my feet up onto the table. Taking slow breaths, I do just that, exposing myself completely obscenely to this amoral, sadistic thug. With my feet at the edge of the wooden surface, my knees just about all the way up to my chest, I can simply pull them apart and show him my unwashed vagina in all of its unkempt glory.

I try not to think about the scalpel in my hand. As soon as I do, I instantly want to clamp my legs shut again, a visceral feeling of disgust and panic in my stomach.

"Okay Princess, relax. Don't think about doing it. Keep your legs spread open, you're good so far. Messy. A bit smelly, but that's a pretty little cunt you have there. Guys will like it. I know I do." The way he can talk about these things in a normal, almost entirely casual voice is creepy. Really creepy. I bet I look like such a deer in the headlights, staring up at him angrily the way I do. This time he does walk over and I clench my jaw while forcing myself not to pull away from his touch, his fingers as they run through my short hair.

"It's a very pretty clit, I'm sure it has brought you lots of pleasure over the years. I'm not asking you to cut it off. Not right now," he explains, leaning over, almost whispering, intruding on my personal space in a way that makes me anything but calm or comfortable. "But I want you to understand the mindset involved. So we're going to do a role playing game. All right?" When he pats my cheek I really can't do anything except turn away, so I wouldn't have to stare at him. If I did, I might lose my composure... unfortunately he grabs my chin and pulls me right back to look into his eyes.

I slap him. Hard. Though even if his cheek grows pink, maybe even as pink as my face is at the moment, the Russian doesn't seem fazed. He smiles and steps back. "It's all right," he tells me. "We're going to play two roles. I am your master, you are my faithful, loving servant. You adore me, you adore what you are. You adore what you have become. One sunny, warm summer's morning you come to me with a scalpel and a crazy idea."

At least with the man further away, I feel calmer now. I really want to throw this damned little metal blade away, to not think about what sorts of things he might want me to do to my body, or the things he might just decide to go ahead and do anyway. Somehow this sort of shit was never part of the stakes I considered myself to be risking. "I can't do this," I murmur, trying not to look at him, setting the scalpel down next to me.

"I'm not asking you to do anything. Just talk. Play a role. Play pretend."

"I can't. I don't have it in me. I'd rather you just... I don't know."

"You were thinking I would just pin you to a wall and fuck you while you tried to pretend to like it?"

"I don't know what I was thinking. Maybe. Maybe that, yeah." I've given up spreading my legs open for him, pressing my knees awkwardly back together. Jesus, I would just run for the door, get the hell out of here if I could. Why did it not occur to me until now how insane this was? How insane even contemplating doing anything like this was? But I know there's nothing out there. If I want out I'd need a proper escape plan. I need a car at least, which might not come for another two weeks. I can't just throw a tantrum and put and end to it.

Incapable of rational, calm thought, I just shake my head, "I can't do this..."

"I haven't even done anything, Princess." His hands come up, showing he's unarmed, he's innocent. Like fuck he is. "We're just having a chat. I haven't hurt you, I haven't raped you. Come on, you're stronger than that. What happened to that patriotism, all that 'for a good cause' stuff? It's barely been five minutes."

"I'm not giving up my goddamned clitoris for my country."

"Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't realise you and Mister Big Bad over there agreed on a list of limits to adhere to. What else can we rule out? Fucking dogs? Eating shit? Being whipped, maybe? Needles? Maybe you're afraid of needles? What about spiders?" The more he talks, the more I curl up, arms around my knees, feeling like I want to cry. Fuck. Fuck how could I have been so stupid. Why did I think I could do this? His voice isn't even angry. He's not upset or annoyed, he just keeps talking and talking at me, berating me, casually, effortlessly winding a tirade around me, like it's rehearsed, like it's just what he expected he would have to do.

That's when I start to feel something else. I begin to get angry. Not even at him, but at myself. I'm giving up and he's scarcely so much as touched me. He's right and I fucking hate the idea of him being right. Maybe he understands me better than I'd want to give him credit, because the indignation, that desire to push myself, to overcome my limits is very easily sparked by my anger. As it swells, all I can think about is how I want to prove him wrong. No, I'm not an idiot. I'm not going to admit this was a bad idea, I'm not going to back down. I'm going to show him that I'm more resilient than that. I'm not so easily frightened. Shocked, maybe, yes, but I can readjust my expectations, pick myself back up again. That's not who I am. The real me sticks to her decisions, she makes sacrifices and does the impossible. That's why I said I could do this, isn't it?

My heart is pounding in my chest again. I feel a kick of adrenaline. Is the real me an adrenaline junkie? I don't know. Not yet, but I guess it does help. It makes it easier to think about this as something exciting, something thrilling. It's not crazy: I'm the one who decided to do this. I knew what might happen. I knew I might die, or worse... the things that happen to undercover operatives tend to be creative, slow and unpleasant. Being cut up a bit... that's not such a big deal.

I remember with sudden clarity how my two-week affair with Azid started. He too goaded me. He made me angry, said things that... that shouldn't even have made me angry. Said things about Mindy that made Mindy angry rather. Said she was a worthless, drug-addicted whore, that she was wasting her life away, that she was useless and ugly. I knew none of those things were true about me, but something flared in my chest back then too. At first I sorely tempted to drag him to the precinct, show him who I really was, get him locked up. But I overcame that pride and instead came up with another plan. We had sex. Angry, passionate sex. I decided I would use him, let him call me his filthy little whore and get enough out of the man to incriminate both him and all of his associates.

The fact that Azid had triggered this impulse in me by accident, but the Russian seems to know precisely what he's doing, pushing my buttons... frightens me. It's already had the desired effect though. As I sit up straight and slowly spread my legs for the man, I realise he's stopped talking and is just standing there, watching me expectantly with a smile.

"Good. I had hoped you'd come to your senses," he single-handedly dismisses all of my inner emotional turmoil. "Also, you're cute when you're angry."

Yeah, well, that's something. Trying to calm my breathing down, I pick up the scalpel again. I stare at it. It's rather pretty, the manufacture of it. Sleek curves, artistically designed, not the sort of thing you'd find in a hospital. It makes me think of the kind of knife you'd see at a particularly expensive steak restaurant, the kind that can afford to have their own knives made, with the name of the place engraved into each bit of cutlery. Oddly, being irate has made me more in control of myself. Even the 'cute when you're angry' comment, as much as it grates and makes me want to punch the guy in the face oddly enough steels my resolve.

"Shall we give it a try then?" the man says. I look up to see him guzzling down more beer, relaxed and aloof like I'm not just having a personal crisis here and not mentally screaming at him in fury while forcing myself to bare my cunt for his perverse gaze. Reluctantly, I nod. Increasingly sure he's not an idiot, not entirely ignorant of what he's doing to me, mentally, but rather that he's genuinely a shrewd manipulator, already sinking his teeth into me, playing me like his own personal fiddle. "Very well, let's begin with... imagine the scene. I am him. You are you. It is a lovely summer's morning. I am in my study..." he turns to face sideways, imitating typing on an invisible computer while sitting himself down on another one of the break room's tables. "I'm plotting world domination, or whatever it is I do. Suddenly, my favourite slut walks in, bare-bottomed, spreads her legs and holds up a scalpel. So far so good?" My silence is taken as a sign of consent. "She comes up to me and says, 'Master, I need your permission for something. I want to cut my clit off for you and I want you to watch me.'" His eyes only briefly swivel across to meet mine. "Go on. Say it."

It is perhaps the hardest sentence I have ever uttered. "Master..." I can't help but grimace and wrinkle my nose, my lips pulling back. I can't help but think of the act itself. Somehow I manage to keep my legs spread open, letting him see the way blood flushes to my lower pair of lips. I wonder if he would think it arousal, or recognise it as my body's reaction to a painful threat. "I would like your permission. I want to... to cut off my clitoris for you."

"You wouldn't like my permission. You need it. Say that again."

"I need your permission," at this point I manage to recite the words without thinking too much. That's a bit easier. "To cut off my clitoris for you. I need you to watch."

He shakes his head, muttering "Good enough," under his breath. Then he throws his shoulders back, clears his throat, and changes his voice. Suddenly the Russian adopts a menacing, low timbre. It catches me by surprise, making the hairs stand up on the back of my neck yet again, much as I'd like to appear impassive in the face of his theatrics. "That's certainly an interesting suggestion, slave. Do you really want to do that? Or did someone put you up to this?"

"No sir, it's... my own idea?" Not entirely sure where this is going now.

"You don't seem all that eager. Where did you get such a silly notion from? Why would you want to ruin your perfectly pretty little cunt? Why would I want to ruin your perfectly pretty little cunt?"

Well, he sure as fuck has a point there. I'm starting to see what the guy is doing. "You like to hurt me. I thought maybe you'd enjoy seeing me hurt myself?"

"I do like hurting you. Why would I want to see you hurt yourself?"

"To... um, it would be like..." this is not an easy mindset to suddenly jump into on the fly. Far from it. I stumble for words, but at least my teacher is patient. "It's like a demonstration of my faithfulness to you." I hesitate, then add, "I want you to hurt me so much that like, I want to be hurt for you even when you're not hurting me. No, wait... no, it's more like... I want to show you how much I appreciate the things you do to me. To like show you that even if you didn't hurt me, I'd still be putting myself in pain for your pleasure. Not because it's just what you want, but because that's what I want too."

He quietly nods, apparently content with that stuttered, made-up-on-the-fly explanation. "All right. Well in that case, hurt yourself for me. Grab your clit between your fingernails and squeeze it. As hard as you can. Until you draw either blood or tears, whichever comes first."

It takes me a few moments to realise that this 'role play' is going to have a rather uncomfortable physical component. That unsettles me further, but I'm still angry enough that I feel like I can cope with whatever he throws at me. So okay, fine. It's just my fingernails. It's not a scalpel. Nothing's going to come off. Oh but it's going to hurt of course. My clitoris is sensitive as all hell, so even a light pinch would usually be enough to get my toes curling. As I go straight in for the nails, I feel all the muscles in my legs tighten. The pain must show up quite genuinely on my face, because the bastard smiles the moment he sees it. Until either blood or tears, was what he said, the clever fuck. So I can't just pretend to be hurting myself either. Hopefully I can make myself cry before I make myself bleed...

And I do. It takes maybe five minutes, but it feels longer, as hurting your own self is bound to make it seem. I squeal in front of him and writhe, diligently pressing my nails against each other through the tender tissues of my clit. I started just pinching the hood at first, but he was quick to notice and calmly corrected me. By the time that I realise tears are rolling down my cheeks, all I can hear is the sound of my teeth grinding against one another, clattering from the strain of such brutal self-torture. Just to be sure, I continue on for a few seconds longer, though slowly releasing the pressure.

"Enough, that was quite a show," he states at last. I release, feeling not only a slow and piercing ache in my tender sex that I know will be throbbing for a solid few hours to come, but also cramps after the strain in other parts of my body - in my fingers, my thighs, even my jaw. Who would have thought that such a simple command would become that much of an ordeal after a few measly minutes. That's when the thought crosses my mind, that maybe cutting an actual blade into my pussy wouldn't be such a terrible thought, surely it cannot hurt that much more than this, can it? The fact I'm even thinking this makes me disgusted at myself. I grimace, feeling my stomach churn. The stern look from the Russian quickly gets me composed though, and I wipe my tears back. "How does that make you feel, pet? Hurting yourself for me?"

"I like it?" I lie thinly.

"Don't be an idiot. It hurts. Of course you hate it. But why do you want to do it all the same?"

"Because... you like it."

"But you said you wanted to do it not just because I want you to. You implied you wanted pain even more than I would give you. Were you lying to me?"

"Uh, fuck, no. It's..."

"So what is it. Why do you like being hurt, and hurting yourself, if you don't like pain? Are there... maybe other feelings that come with it, that excite you so much?"

"The... thrill of it, I guess. It's intense. It makes my heart beat faster."

"Why would it be thrilling? You're completely in control. Do you get excited when you stub your little toe, too?"

"No, it's not like that."

"Well what is it like then?"

"It's... I feel... vulnerable." The questions come hard and fast. I swallow a lump in my throat, tears still running down my cheeks. I'm not sure why, they just come. Maybe it's because I came so close to crying earlier, it's just so easy now. I must look like such a pathetic mess. Dirty, sweaty, crying, my eyes and my vagina red and puffy... "I feel like you own me. Like you're toying with me. I don't know what you will do next. The anticipation, the not knowing, the knowing there aren't any limits of what you might decide to do or ask me to do of myself... that's thrilling."

"Well if that isn't a surprisingly lucid answer pet. Good. Good, I like that. You like being vulnerable. So why is it that you want to remove your clit for me?"

Even after all that, hearing him say the words still hits me like a brick wall. It's such a visceral sensation. Gut-churning. Every time he says it, it just pushes me down, further down into some kind of pit. "It makes me less of a woman?" I suggest.

"Why would I want less of a woman? I don't want a sub-human creature. I want a real woman. Strong, confident, entirely devoted to me."

"I don't... I don't want the temptation of my own pleasure to get in the way of my devotion to you?" Honestly not sure where this one comes from until I start to realise how cleverly he is leading me along with his questions. He's giving me the answers he wants me to arrive at myself. It's about strength, confidence and devotion. That's what he wants from me, so that's what I have to give him, what I need to arrive at.

"But let's say I like making you cum. It shows me how much you enjoy doing the things I make you do. I get a satisfaction from hurting you so much and then watching you get off on it, deriving pleasure from all the pain and humiliation you've endured. That's how I know you need this, that you're truly my little masochistic cunt."

"I guess so. But if I..." okay, this one's harder. I stammer and have to go quiet for a few minutes, straining to think while under his watchful gaze, feeling his growing impatience. "If I cut my clit off for you, it's like me showing you I'm your... your masochistic cunt. With my own pain and humiliation, instead of my pleasure. You want to... you want to know that I want your pain, that I want to feel vulnerable and degraded. So what better way to do that than to give up my pleasure to you entirely. Right?"

"Yes, very good." For a moment I wonder if he's actually going to stand up and clap for a job well done, a test passed or something, but he's still just as laid back as ever, taking another swig from the beer-can. "Well, go on then."

Resignation makes my shoulders heavy. I can't keep up this intensity, or this anger. My head falls forward and I shake it. "I'm sorry, I can't," I whisper back.

He waits for a long, slow minute, watching me, daring me to make another move or another attempt. "That's quite all right," he smiles at last. "You've done great for starters, actually. Maybe we can do something with you yet. You're smart and you really are more committed and dedicated to this whole crazy idea than I thought." Damn. Now he shifts his tone, catching me just as I come off my mental peak. It's odd, but as he walks back over and strokes my hair, I feel too emotionally exhausted to give a damn. For some reason, I realise, I'm also still holding my legs open for him. Mercifully, he motions for me to close my thighs again.

"Do you really want me to cut my clit off?" suddenly all the threat and confidence from my voice have sapped. I almost whimper the question at him.

"No. It would be a good test, but we're constrained by time. That's not something I would truly ask of you until we're pretty much done here. However, we are going to want to give the impression that most of your injuries are well-healed by the time you get into this guy's hands. Two weeks is barely enough time for that. So unfortunately that means I'm going to have to do some rather unpleasant things to you rather soon, before I get you into the right mind-set. I'm sorry, Princess."

My teeth clatter and I nod, though there's more questions left in my head than I had to begin with. "So you're saying that you will do it? Are you going to... to cut my clitoris off?"

"Yes. And worse. Not today though, you've had just about enough for now. It's been a long ride and I haven't even shown you your room, or the facilities. I bet your bladder's bursting."

"Fuck," his words settle like a tonne-weight on my shoulders. I might as well be facing my executioner tomorrow. It's also funny how an encounter like this can make you forget your biological needs for an hour. "Okay, let's... let's deal with that when it comes. You're right, I need to take care of some things. So uh, let's have a look around."

"That's a good way to approach it." He offers me his hand, "The name's Grigorii. Welcome to hell, Princess."

---

I don't know if I expected something more grandiose. I didn't think I had any expectations at all set for my accommodation, and yet I am still disappointed. The man who calls himself Grigorii shows me to a windowless room lit up by a single filament bulb. There's a mattress here, a large tin pan next to it, and a water spigot sticking out of the wall, with a drainage grille underneath it. This is the extent of my accommodation. There is not even a door.

My mind is still churning over the idea that after tonight, I will be losing my clitoris. A part of my body will be irrecoverably taken from me. It's barbaric and frightening and I can't even bring myself to start thinking about what he might have meant when he said 'and worse' with such an ominous tone. In the meantime, while mulling this over, I am made to strip the rest of my clothes off, then squat nude over the pan and relieve my bladder. This humiliation brings more colour to my cheeks, without a doubt, but does not manage to take my mind off more distressing concerns.

At least, until I finish urinating, at which point he calmly picks up the pan and carefully drizzles my piss all over my mattress. "I'm... supposed to sleep in that?" I can't hide my disgust, taking a step back from the soiled bed, if it can be called a bed.

The Russian shrugs as if it has nothing to do with him. "Yes," he spreads his hands as a matter of course. "Or, you can sleep on the floor of course. Though I doubt it is much cleaner." He leans on the door-frame, tossing the empty tin back down onto the concrete with a loud clatter. "Listen Princess, you have to understand a very important fact about what this is going to be like. These next two weeks. I am going to do a lot of things to you, that are essential for you to become mentally and physically acclimatised to the ordeal you've decided to put yourself through. I am going to make you do things, voluntarily, which it is very important that you learn to do without hesitation and with either actual enjoyment or at least convincing pretence of enjoyment." His eyes wander down my nude figure, standing in front of him, all of me exposed now, even the eraser-tip-like nubs of my nipples and the large, soft areolae that cap my breasts. "But make no mistake whatsoever: I am going to enjoy this. I am going to use you to sate my urges. I am going to derive immense pleasure from tormenting you, humiliating you, breaking you and yes, especially from mutilating your beautiful body."

Somehow, though I assumed these things to be true before I ever even met the man, hearing them stated out loud breaks me once again. Tears run from my eyes and I am forced to look away, nodding despondently to indicate my understanding, too choked up to speak. To suspect that you are giving yourself up to monstrosity is one thing, but to know it and to be told it is another. Still feeling weak and shaky from my introduction to Grigorii a few minutes earlier, my mental state remains fragile. Even while I become more and more convinced that I will endure and survive these things he does to me, I also become more aware of what it will cost me. I have pledged to pay the price, whatever it is, yet I still shed tears for those parts of my humanity, my soul and my body which I am about to give away.

Most painful is that I am not even surrendering these things to the villain out there, whom I have pledged to help ensnare and bring to justice. No, that will only come later. Instead, first I must surrender so much of myself to a man who is, nominally, my ally. This is what tortures me. He will have no comeuppance for the things he does to me. At best, they will only indirectly bring me closer to my goal. At worst, by his own admission, I will give these things up purely for his own sadistic enjoyment at no benefit at all to myself.

I am still crying when I feel the Russian's calloused fingertips firmly take my shoulders and push me downwards, making me press my bared kneels into the harsh, painful concrete. I hadn't even noticed him step closer. Bewildered, I look across my shoulders. "What are you doing?"

He wipes a tear from my cheek, but only answers after first firmly bending me over forward, pushing my face and chest into the dusty, hard floor. "I am going to sodomise you," he states calmly. I see past my pendulous breasts that he already has a large, intimidating erection pressing out against his dusty old jeans, he is being completely serious.

"Why?" I croak through my tears, already afraid of what the answer will be.

"Because I am," he answers just as calmly.

The chill that runs down my spine pretty much renders me incapable of giving a coherent reply. To my embarrassment I mutter something dreadfully similar to just, "Okay..." and accept that this is happening. Not that I am given any choice in the matter, of course. I hear him unzip, I feel the warmth of his engorged manhood radiate against my bared loins. He grabs both of my wrists, wrenching my back and robbing me of any support I could have hoped for, making it impossible to keep my upper body lifted up off the ground.

I could already see from the expansive bulge of the Russian's cock that he was large in a way that I would hesitate to admit into my sex. That the experience of taking him anally would be unbearable I know for certain. Even so, I am not prepared for what comes next. It is with sheer horror that I realise he has no intention to lubricate his entrance, not even with a nominal glob of spittle. The head of his uncut prick, at the same time, is like a battering ram, hitting into my tightly-clenched anus like a fist. It does not, perhaps at first, achieve its intention of pushing my sphincter open and penetrating it, but the thrust nonetheless hurts viscerally, as if I had simply been punched in the ass. Besides my natural tightness and the clenching of my muscles in apprehension of impending trauma, the main difficulty is in the fact that the head of his cock is absurdly wide. I cannot see it, but I do feel it push apart both of my buttocks when he tries to force it in again, leading me to imagine it must be at least two inches thick but perhaps even three.

His battering ram technique is successful on the fifth try. My anus is already aching, perhaps even a little swollen from the bruising. That does not prepare me for the pain of what feels like my tight anal sphincter being wrenched and literally ripped in two by the large man's invading, gargantuan member. I instantly shriek and I feel the force of the impact drag my upper body across the floor, scraping the skin of my breasts my left cheek raw. He scarcely takes a moment to inhale again, then punches himself into my rectum a second time, getting what must be a solid three or four inches into my tight, dry anal passage in the space of one single excruciating scream. I wish I could at least endure this brutality stoically, but I cannot. My eyes water and each violation of my ass draws a new, banshee-like howl from my lips.

It is an indignity I would have tolerated more easily if he had at least had the courtesy of being brief. But he does not. The Russian pauses after what must be ten or twelve minutes. He is panting, I'm feeling nauseous and my anus is painfully swollen from the friction and stretching.

"One second," he tells me, painfully dragging the length of a solid two-thirds of his colon-destroying prick from my ass. "You're bleeding." I breathe a sigh of relief. Though I do not relish being butt-fucked to the point where blood has been drawn from my asshole, it is at least a reprieve. My ass gapes wide enough that I feel the room's cool air inside it. Again though, I overestimate Grigorii's sympathy. He fishes out some paper towels from some pocket of his clothes or something. I hear him running the tissue across the length of his cock, before it is applied with an agonising touch to my anal ring. When the warm, dry tip of his cock presses up my ass yet again, I realise what he was doing. He wasn't alarmed by the fact I was bleeding. No - he did not want my blood to act as self-lubricant. So he wiped it off and now he brusquely slides his entire member into my abdomen. Inch after inch, some eleven inches of raw, dry, thick cock impale me with agony that makes me sob into the wet concrete under my face. My mind strays into sillier territories, a part of me wondering if I will even survive this experience. Maybe that part also hopes I do not.

I do though. It lasts, I learn later, two and a half hours, with brief pauses every half hour to 'refresh' my ass and remove any trace of lubrication that might make the whole experience easier or more endurable. Even my assailant does not seem to find much pleasure or relief in this, beyond the infliction of an immense amount of pain on me. I am tight and dry and even though my muscles gradually lose their grip on his cock, it still cannot be pleasant for him to keep forcing his way into my bowels. When he is done, I see the man's member and my suspicion is confirmed - it looks raw and pink and slightly swollen from all of that friction.

It's little consolation though, I'm in far worse a state. My breasts are coated in a thin layer of sweat, blood and grime after having been hammered so mercilessly into the concrete. My face too, to some extent. Most of my body aches from strain, not just of keeping the position I was forced into but also from the way my muscles tighten up and protest at my own sexual violation. Everything between my buttocks is swollen, deeply bruised, bleeding, a squishy mess of battered and abused tissues. As if I am ragdoll, Grigorii rolls me over onto the piss-stained mattress, face down, inhaling my own putrid scent. I feel his fingertips spreading my buttocks and I wonder what further anal torture he could possibly still feel like inflicting after my initial ordeal. I try to speak and protest, but my throat is too hoarse to make intelligible sounds.

"You've prolapsed," he tells me, sound rather breathless himself. As far as fucking goes, this has been a marathon sprint. It's unsurprising that we're both slimy with sweat. I try and twist away, but he holds me firm with one hand, while the other pinches and pulls on what I realise must be my inverted rectum, all those damaged, torn, delicate tissues ripped out of my body. I find more tears running from my eyes but I attempt to look down, past my shoulders and figure out what he's doing. From the same leather wallet as before, my new mentor withdraws a new tool - what seems to be simply a long, thin, silvery spike, like a hat-pin. I have no idea what he intends to do with it, and I really, really don't want to know. I've already learnt that I do not want to be anywhere near him when he's got access to sharp metal tools. Or anywhere near him in general, for that matter.

Sadly, I am bound to discover the purpose whether I want it or not. A sharp pin-prick at the base of my asshole is followed by a slow and excruciating stabbing sensation. Confusion and panic rise up in the back of my throat and I try to struggle, but find that I am held down too firmly. He shushes me, like a little girl and makes me endure the rest of the piercing. Finally, he explains, once he's done the deed and stood up, "I've pinned your prolapse to the outside," the grin that he gives me is far from his usual disaffected manner - this is definitely an invention of his purely for the hell of it. "That pin will prevent it from drawing back in, I thought it would be quite pretty to have you wear a little rose for my sake. Naturally, this is the only item of clothing you will wear for the next few days. A pin, running through your prolapsed rectum. Hope you like it."

Exhausted, I am left on the mattress without any further words, trembling and crying into the filthy fabric. I am not sure how long I stay there, I cannot see whether there is still sunlight outside when Grigorii returns - it must have been several hours and I still have not recovered from mistreatment, or the hopelessness and misery that settles over me once my anger fades. I'm still in the same position, splayed out on my stomach, when he squats next to me, putting a few items down on the floor. I spot handcuffs and a leather hood, but his first priority is to feed me. I am first shown a pair of sandwiches, each opened in turn to demonstrate that they contain lettuce, slices of ham and a big shiny dollop of semen each, then they are fed into my reluctant lips. To drink, I am given a bottle of stale water that I am relieved and somewhat surprised does not taste of piss.

I receive a similar surprise once he tells me he's putting me to sleep however. My arms are cuffed behind my back and a second pair of cuffs is brought up to chain my ankles together and up to my wrists, putting me into a painful and uncomfortable hogtie, all of the cuffs digging into my skin. I assume that the leather hood would also be put on me, yet the Russian man first removes his jeans and squats in front of me. Looking calmly into my eyes, taking great delight in seeing the shock and horror in my expression, he spends ten minutes defecating into the hood. I twist and try to pull away, but am left entirely defenceless once he forces my head down into the leather wrap, the bottom of the sack heavy with a pile of his shit.

Having found my voice again, I squeal and grimace, my face being pressed into that pile of foetid excrement. Once the hood is tightened, his shit is squeezed all the way around my head, a layer of revolting filth making my already claustrophobic constraint utterly putrid. The hood lacks eyeholes and noseholes, I cannot even breathe until my mouth is unzipped. All the while, faeces seep into my hair and into my nostrils. Like an animal, I am possessed by a raw urge to buck and twist, trying to shake the filth off my face, but I am of course unsuccessful. Instead I vomit, mostly onto the very mattress I am lying on top of.

Leaving me to marinade in his excrement, I just about hear the loudly uttered, "Good night Princess" through the layers of leather and filth packing my ears. Once left alone, with little to do but wait out the night in pain and indignity I once again begin softly sobbing, wondering what it is I have done to myself. My hatred of my current condition is only tempered by the fact that I'd sooner spend two weeks trussed up like this, eating and breathing nothing but this revolting morass than to let him take my clitoris from me the next day. Another pang of guilt and regret seizes me when I remember that it has been a week since I last touched my clit and made myself cum. Unlike some women, I am not a compulsive masturbatrix, I prefer either being with a man or otherwise I wait it out until I am relaxed and have some time to devote to myself, building up the perfect, toe-curling orgasm.

It dawns on me that I have undoubtedly had my last one, even without asking or begging him, I already know that this Russian torturer will ensure it is impossible for me to pleasure myself until then. He will deny me my wish of one last climax. He will tie me down as I am now - unfulfilled, desperate and horny. Perhaps he will tease me, edge me, once he sees how wet and needy my cunt has become, the masochistic excitement he has inspired in her. He will make me blushed and ashamed of my own body's response, humiliated to admit that it is the thought of my own degradation, my own mutilation that makes my lower lips salivate so much. And only then, he will do it, denying me one last toe-curling burst of pleasure as he separates me from my womanhood, forever.

My face sweats in the tight hood, slowly dissolving and liquefying the squishy layer of shit I'm sharing the space with. It begins to run down and leak from the collar keeping it secured around my neck, and also to drip out of my mouth-hole, running down my lips. I'm not sure why, but as the sleepless night stretches on and I finally enter a fatigued delirium on the brink of consciousness, I start to lick at my lips, trying to catch those droplets, morbidly curious to taste them. I slip under at last, wondering if in two weeks' time I will still have any desire to be anything other than what he makes me into.