The following novel is based on some characters from "The Phantom" comic by Lee Falk and Sy Barry and uses a few images from that strip in the prologue, which is mocked up to resemble a newspaper. Some details of the story's premise are not mine, although the novel storyline and what happens to the characters are of my own creation. In this way, it is an homage, as are other stories based on previously developed characters. This novel is not, and will never be, for sale or for profit of any kind. It is for entertainment purposes only.

Diana Palmer, crusading female journalist and human rights advocate, runs afoul of evil dictator General Tara, while attempting to expose his human rights violations to the world. In addition to using Diana as a PR tool to lighten his world image, however, the dictator has other plans. What follows is a battle of wills and temptations that threaten to turn Diana from a crusading do-gooder into a willing sex-toy for the use and disposal of the villainous tyrant. Will Diana be saved? Will she want to be saved? Read on, and find out.

	"Protecting the rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness to every man, woman, and child."
	The Liberty Times
	Volume 123. Issue 178		SECTION A		July 5, 1977

 

					PAGE 2
	PALMER FEARED KIDNAPPED IN TARAKIMO
			outsiders. Less than 10% of the inmates in Tarakimo prisons are believed to come out alive, and those that do usually wish they hadn't survived the ordeal." When informed of this statement, Isamu returned quickly: "We have no problem eliminating once and for all these groundless rumors as to the conditions of our prisons, which are some of the most advanced in the world. Once the blockade is lifted, we will put to rest these statements that tarnish the name of the General and his hospitable country." When Mr. Stevenson heard this statement over the wire, he said he didn't know whether to laugh or cry. "When we [Miss Palmer and I] arrived in Tarakimo on June 30, we were greeted as heroes by the people of the country. We arrived in a convertible, and there were crowds all around calling and shouting to us. Even the dozens of armed soldiers couldn't keep them back. At the time, I thought it might very well be how they welcomed all foreigners...." As he says this, his eyes acquire a hard, distant look that speaks of regret. "I guess I knew something wasn't right in the back of my mind, but  I didn't want to believe it, for my sake or for Diana's. In retrospect, the greet
				General Tara's orders are carried out in a "expeditious and cold manner" by Lt. Major Jorge Isamu, CIA officials say.

 

		PAGE 3

 

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	PALMER FEARED KIDNAPPED IN TARAKIMO

 

			PAGE  5
	PALMER FEARED KIDNAPPED IN TARAKIMO

 

PAGE  6

China to host UN torture envoy amid brutality claims

SA policeman on trial for torture

BEIJING (Reuters) - The U.N. envoy on torture is to visit China this year as Beijing grapples with a series of high-profile cases in which people have been wrongly convicted, and even put to death, after giving forced confessions. Manfred Nowak, the U.N.'s Special Reporter on Torture, would arrive on November 21 and stay for nearly two weeks, the United Nations said on Tuesday. China has condemned forced confessions and asked courts to think twice before handing down the death penalty, but it is still widely criticized for its arbitrary verdicts. In one widely publicized case in April, a man was freed after serving 11 years in jail for his wife's murder after his wife turned up not only alive but with another husband. The man said he had been tortured into admitting the crime, sparking outrage within China over police brutality. In June, the children of a Chinese butcher executed for murdering a waitress appealed against his conviction after his "victim" also turned up alive. China is home to the world's biggest prison population and has a legal system the U.S. State Department says is characterized by mistreatment of prisoners and an "egregious" lack of due process in the use of the death penalty. Apart from Beijing, Nowak's stops will include Xingjian, home to a large population of ethnic Uighur Muslims, and the capital of Tibet, Lhasa. Several of China's most high-profile political prisoners have been Tibetan or Uighur, accused of instigating separatism in the far west. The U.S. embassy in Beijing has said that as a condition for the reporter's visit, China had agreed to include unannounced visits to prisons and guarantees there would be no reprisals against anyone who spoke to him.

SOWETO (AP) - A South African policeman is on trial over the alleged torture of four detainees during the 1974 elections. The case follows the detention of activists from the Landless People's Movement, who had demonstrated on polling day, 14 April. Simangaliso Patrick Simelane, head of Crime Intelligence Services at a Soweto police station, faces assault charges. He has not yet entered a plea. Two women say they were suffocated with a rubber sheet inside a police cell. The four are among a group of 52 who still face charges in connection with the demonstration. No other charges have been laid in the case, though lawyers for the four plaintiffs say that other police officers were also present during the incident. Maureen Mnisi, chair of the Landless People's Movement in Gauteng province, was detained at the police station overnight together with activists Ann Eveleth, Samantha Hargreaves and Moses Mahlangu. This followed an election day demonstration intended to draw attention to the situation of landless people in South Africa. Eighty per cent of agricultural land is owned by white South Africans, who make up only 10% of the population. According to the LPM, Ms Mnisi was assaulted in her cell by a woman officer, who has not been charged. Ms Eveleth and Ms Hargreaves were allegedly interrogated, assaulted and tortured with a sheet of rubber, while Mr Mahlangu was allegedly interrogated and assaulted. Evidence is to be led over the next four days, after the case was postponed several times to give Mr Simelane time to prepare his defense.

South African forces utilize dogs to torture prisoners "on a more or less regular basis," according to Mnisi.

 

 

 

 

 

				PAGE  11

 

	"Protecting the rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness to every man, woman, and child."
	The Liberty Times
	Volume 123. Issue 178			July 5, 1977			Page 12
		Wake up US!: It's only the beginning of General Tara's reign….			As the world gapes incredulously at what appears to be another brutal kidnapping carried out with brazen bravado and icy precision by General Tara, it's time to assess the dangers this tyrant and his thugs present to the world community at large. Up until late 1973, no one gave Tara the time of day. He was looked upon as yet another third-world paper tiger: a mustache-twirling, cigarette-holder-chewing villain who looked to be more of

 

 

								PAGE  14
		The Wages of Fear: A dictator's decadent, blood-drenched history
		By Harvey Klingsett ©Liberty Times, 1976 -- Long before His Royal Highness Generalissimo Phillippe Francisco Tara adopted his ridiculously haughty title and plethora of surnames, he was known as Aenaes Harlaftis, the only son of an olive farmer in Greece, where he was born in 1934. Since Tara's notoriety has increased, several scholars have authored unofficial biographies of the dictator, but most contain scant information about his early years, other than that he was extremely bright and very disturbed. Much of the boy's angst seems to have stemmed from his parent's stormy relationship. His mother, of Asiatic descent, was a village prostitute, which never failed to shame young Aenaes, as well as his authoritarian father, who could be quite brutal to the boy when he misbehaved, which was often. As expected, Aenaes was extremely strong willed, and those who knew him considered him to have a vicious cruel streak. At age 7, he once set fire to a sleeping boy's hair. The boy is said to have publicly taunted him about his mother. There was little peace in the future tyrant's home. His father was given to "night rages" and would often beat him repeatedly with whips and straps. From an early age, young Aenaes was said to be fascinated by war and conflict, and by age 12 had memorized most of Homer's Iliad. By his pre-teens, Aenaes was convinced that he had charisma enough to lead an army, but others often found his arrogance and lack of humor hard to tolerate. According to a teacher, he was expert at
					Throne of blood: Tara's posh throne room -- his chair alone is estimated to have cost $300,000 to construct. It is made of solid gold and upholstered in red velvet. (AP)
					"gathering the disenfranchised, those who were outcasts, and swaying them to his way of thinking. He really analyzed a person's psyche and was very fast at sizing them up." Most often though, Aenaes used these intuitive gifts to play people against each other and to persuade them to do his "dirty work." When he was 14, Aenaes, along with his gang of partially-deranged misfits, trapped a local prostitute in a cave. It was there that he discovered the thrill of control as he randomly tormented the young woman by burning her breasts with a cigarette and loosing a live tarantula on her naked body. After the woman eventually broke free of the make-shift prison, she went to the police. Aenaes escaped, fleeing to South America
						Open sesame: A diplomatic attaché snapped this interesting picture of two laborers assembling what looks to be an spinning cage, a few miles from Tarakimo prison. A torture victim is usually locked in the "spinner" and it is hoisted off the ground, often to a dangerous height. Upon receiving an unsatisfactory answer to a question, the torturer activates the cage, causing it to spin around at up to 35 MPH, inducing vertigo, vomiting, and loss of consciousness. (UPI)
	Outside Palace Tarakimo: The dictator's palace is the largest structure in Tarakimo, including commercial transportation facilities, such as the Tarakimo airport, and industrial factories. Estimated cost of construction in 1972: $23 million

 

			All work and no play makes Tara a dull dictator: Sy Carey hastily sketched this rendition of the "playroom" where he spent approximately two hours in the early morning of June 14, 1973. From left to right: an iron maiden, whipping posts (against left wall), a torture rack, the "torture chair" where he endured almost 800 spikes baring against his body, a brazier with smoldering irons, and pillories against the far right wall. Not shown, but also present, Carey says, was a Judas Cradle to the right of the pillories. © Sy Carey, 1973
				shortly thereafter, to Uruguay, where he adopted the name Phillippe Tara. The passivity and leniency of the Uruguay government intrigued Tara. The idea of stirring up dissent excited him, and he planned his mission for years before organizing a paramilitary band of thugs, who called themselves "la orden," or "the order." In reality, they were little more than toy soldiers of a right-wing faction of the police. However, they honed their strengths into a tight cadre whose specialty was working with the authorities to resolve conflicts that couldn't otherwise be legally closed. It was during the years of 1948-1969 that Tara discovered he could make anyone do virtually anything he wanted by threatening them with physical pain. As he voraciously consumed the works of De Sade, he became fascinated with the link between other's pain and his pleasure. He designed and ordered the construction of a bevy of torture instruments, which he kept in a remote location on the outskirts of the country. Although he designed some truly repulsive new equipment, such as a machine that injected hot pepper juice up a victim's anus when the person moved their mouth, which was inevitable, due to drops of hot sauce basting their lips from an automated pump, he preferred older, more traditional instruments, particularly from the Spanish Inquisition. When this torture "factory" was discovered, his group was expelled from the country after their illicit sessions were publicly derided by the press in 1969. At age 37, Tara decided that it was time to fulfill his "true destiny." Using his men, and associations with arms dealers, Tara rallied the citizens of the island of Agios Kirikos, off of his native Greece, into an uprising against the Greek [To page 9]
		A "King's Ransom" indeed: Custom built for relaxing as well as "work," the dictator's private yacht, christened the "King's Ransom," features multiple bedrooms, a gourmet kitchen, a billiard room, a smoking lounge, a multimedia room, and a fully equipped dungeon, for entertaining "special" guests on the high seas. Estimated cost: $3.4 million. (AP)

 

				PAGE  16

 

Chapter 1 – Smoke Signals

The first time she awoke from her sleep, Diana thought she had been sealed in a tomb.

Even though she had successfully beaten an affliction of claustrophobia as a teenager, she could already feel the panic crawling steadily up her throat. After a few seconds passed, and she sensed the open air around her body, the initial fear was allayed.

She could see nothing but blackness and surmised that she was wearing some sort of mask. She strained to control her breathing, as the only ventilation she could make out with her probing tongue was an air hole, little larger than a pin prick. The mask itself seemed to be constructed of a thick rubber or perhaps plastic, as it conformed tightly to every nook and cranny of her face, resembling the thick facial masks that she received weekly at the spa.

Sleep beckoned her seductively into the darkness, a precious escape from what was happening to her. Though her brain was howling furiously at her to scream, speak, or fight back, she found she simply couldn't gather up the effort to do any of these things. She felt drugged, dazed. Her body went limp as she succumbed once more to her stifling slumber.

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

Lieutenant Major Jorge Isamu paced steadily around his large office, his boots clicking on the parquet floor, creating a hypnotic rhythm that always seemed to help him concentrate in times of stress. This time, though, it wasn't working.

If this were any other woman, any other prisoner, he would have felt differently. But Diana Palmer was unique. Since he had joined the general's staff five years ago, she had proven to be one of the most stubborn, wily opponents he had yet encountered from the UN office. After Sy Carey's arrest --- an event that he still received frequent brow beatings for “mishandling” --- the woman had been an unrelenting thorn in his side. He should have been happy to have finally attained the chance to dispose of her. Instead, he felt this was a fatal mistake for the general, and for himself.

His intercom buzzed, and his secretary informed him that Diana was waking in the playroom. He curtly dismissed the notification, and took the journalist's thick dossier from his horizontal desk file. He thumbed through it for perhaps the tenth time that day.

Health: excellent. IQ: 187. Marital status: single. Mental profile: mild claustrophobia, mild fear of insects, under medication for mild obsessive-compulsive disorder. Medications: currently none, but past prescriptions for Xanax and Luvox were indicated.

He rocked back in his tall leather desk chair and steepled his fingers. The first few interrogations would give him time to experiment with the phobias and OCD, but after that, then what? The girl showed a discouraging history of overcoming these afflictions, which confirmed his suspicion that she was extremely strong-willed.

The trick here was time. He didn't have much of it. Public outcry in the US had been fanned by several media outlets, most notably the Liberty Times . That pathetic Commie rag, he thought. Get rid of that lot and he might buy some real time.

He removed a cigar from his coat pocket and savagely guillotined the end with a custom sliding blade mechanism embedded in his desk top, imagining it to be Gerald Mbuttu's head.

As he swiveled his chair to gaze at the imposing, turreted, fortress-like stone structure of the prison, visible in the distance of the early morning light flooding into his third-floor palace office, a small smile played on Isamu's lips as he singed the Cuban stick, puffing it steadily alight.

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

“I told you, Patterson, we can't afford to wait any longer! When I think what he's probably already done to her….”

David Palmer was now shouting into his phone at the Defense Secretary. It had taken him over a week to finally talk to the man in person, and he was giving him nothing but the same tired party-line that had been printed in the Times .

“Mr. Palmer, I can assure you, we are making every effort to find your niece. But we absolutely cannot formally accuse General Tara of kidnapping. It's just not logical.”

“Logical?” Palmer sputtered, “What's logical about any of this? Look, you have sworn testimony from dozens of people about how dangerous this man is. People have seen instruments of torture being used in the same prison where Diana is being held!”

A frustrated sigh came from Palmer's speakerphone. “First of all, Mr. Palmer, no one has confirmed that these ‘instruments' exist. It's never been proven. Believe me, Amnesty's been trying for years. Secondly, again, there is no proof you daughter is in Tarakimo.”

“Can you prove she's not?”

“Well, in fact, we can.”

David Palmer's mouth gaped as he scrambled for a tumbler of water, sitting on his nearby nightstand. After taking a quick gulp to clear the choking disbelief in his throat, he let out an exasperated breath.

“You're not talking about that bogus exit visa and those passport records again, I hope?”

“Well, they are official documentation of….”

“ Tara 's documentation!”

“Yes, they are Tarakimo's,” Patterson said softly, before continuing. “What I was referring to is your daughter's recent sighting just outside of Athens . My men are looking into it.”

Palmer removed his eyeglasses and absently rubbed the lenses with a tissue, what slim hope he might be feeling already beginning to slip away. “Well, I'm skeptical,” he snapped. “You know as well as I, that monster Tara would like nothing better than to be rid of my daughter. God, I warned her to stay away from that maniac….” For the second time today, tears began to sting the corners of his eyes.

“I'm hoping to have more information by noon today. I'll call you. Again, I'm sorry.”

“I'm sorry that….” But the line was dead before Palmer could finish his sentence.

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

Diana awoke again, gagging as wisps of cigarette smoke wound their way into her mouth.

As she gulped for a breath of clean air, the mask pressing against her face seemed to tighten even further, creating an almost painful suction. She tried to speak, but could not even remotely move her lips.

A deep, mellifluous laugh reverberated in the cold air. Tara 's laugh.

“Guards…” she heard him intone with arrogant theatricality. Then, he snapped his fingers twice, crisply.

The mask was gripped by two pairs of hands and forced from her face with a sickeningly wet popping noise, similar to what a piece of moldy Tupperware might sound like, she supposed, opened after years in a deep freeze.

Nothing but bright white light filled her periphery of vision for several moments, and then very slowly, Tara 's imposing form came into focus. He was standing to her left and, for the first time, she caught a glimpse of her predicament.

She was lying on a rough, wooden frame; face up, with her arms stretched over her head. There was absolutely no feeling in them, and she wondered how long she had been in this evil place. She knew enough about this bastard to understand that this device she was bound to was a torture rack. She tried to strain her head toward her feet to see if they were similarly bound, but she didn't have the strength.

The tyrant began laughing boisterously, rubbing his plump hands together greedily. He looked very comfortable, dressed in a flowing gold robe of thick, shiny satin, which hugged his body stylishly, though not enough to conceal his sagging, bulbous belly. In his manicured hand was, of course, a long cigarette holder.

“Ah, my dear Diana, how you disappoint me!” he purred, his deep voice dripping with saccharine sarcasm. “I was looking forward to a much more intriguing game of cat-and-mouse, but you were such a nosy parker. You couldn't resist sneaking a peek at my toys.” He puffed contentedly for a minute, blowing thick smoke rings into the air, staring past her as if in a trance. “Well, you have a chance to take a good look ‘round now. Please, indulge yourself, and me!” he laughed, sweeping his holder grandiosely around the room.

Diana turned her head miserably and took in the same horrid room she had seen only…when? She had no sense of time, and wasn't about to ask him for that information.

He took a final drag on the cigarette and extinguished it, with a swift movement of the holder's built-in ejector, into an ashtray sitting on a nearby table. The butt smoldered, foul remnants of its smoke wafting toward her.

“This has been a long time in coming, hasn't it?” he asked her, rhetorically. “You have been a formidable opponent of my regime for so many years, but you were always so well guarded by your family's bourgeois wealth and philistine show of power. Now, look at you!” He paused to remove a gold cigarette case from his breast pocket, opened it with a sharp click, and removed a cigarette, delicately inserting it into the golden tip, waiting for her to speak. After several moments of silence, he shot her an irritated glance, and continued his obsequious diatribe.

“I find it so delightfully ironic that your vanity and ego have finally been your undoing. To be so bold, so sure of your invulnerability, as to come to my palace, much less my country, with the intention of exposing me to the world….”

Finally, Diana found her voice and shot back, in a tone so level and calm that it surprised even her: “Your vanity and ego will upend you , Tara.”

She felt her head spring back as a gloved fist punched her savagely in the mouth. “Shut up, bitch, when the leader is addressing you,” a gravel-caked voice growled to her right.

“That's all right,” Tara minced, waving away the guard with an effeminate flourish of his hand. “Let her speak, it amuses me.” He placed the holder jauntily in his mouth and leaned toward Diana with mock eagerness.

Diana gathered up what she could, and spat into the dictator's face, causing him to drop the holder from his mouth as he rushed to wipe her saliva frantically away, as if it were something toxic. The guards appeared and clutched her body against the wood with two meaty hands, looking at Tara expectantly.

He swore softly and stuffed his hands in the pockets of his robe, rage simmering beneath his ruddy countenance. He hasn't gotten better looking, that's for sure, Diana thought once again. She had been shocked at how much the tyrant had aged when she had first been greeted by him in the palace throne room. His once virile, bald pate, formerly shaved and waxed daily, now sported oddly misshapen, white tufts of hair at the perimeter; wrinkles were invading the sides of his formerly buffed, pink face; and large, puffy, jaundiced bags hung under his eyes, probably a result of his constant chain-smoking.

“I see you want to test my patience,” Tara said evenly. “I will be glad to oblige you.” He motioned to his men, who wheeled over a cart supporting a gigantic ceramic contraption, ornately decorated, and sporting several large pipes that jutted into the air at all angles. Attached to the pipes were several, flexible, thick rubber hoses capped with elaborate, hand-painted ceramic mouthpieces. In the center was a large bowl topped with an ornate crown. It was obviously a hookah of some sort.

A large, tufted, leather chair was brought over and the general settled into it with a contented sigh, as the hide beneath his considerable rump creaked sumptuously. “I noticed your distaste at my smoking, the other night in the throne room. You really should be introduced sometime to the joys of tobacco. It's so relaxing,” he chuckled, as a guard lit a flame near the bowl's bottom.

“You should be introduced to the joys of chemotherapy someday, you fat pig,” Diana returned, mimicking his blasé tone. She knew she was on borrowed time, and it was obvious the guards were just waiting for a word from Tara so they could continue torturing her, but she enjoyed the tyrant's resulting scowl nonetheless.

“The mask….” Tara stated, matter-of-factly, while inhaling the first puff of smoke.

She gasped, as she realized where this was going. Trying to look away, she squirmed, pulling the ends of whatever was securing her arms and feet, fruitlessly.

Tara was looking very pleased with himself. “Oh boys, I do believe she wants to be tightened up a bit…” he snickered, as both men simultaneously wrenched the four-spoked wheels adorning each end of the torture rack in opposite directions. A deafening clatter, followed by the sound of tightening rubber, filled the room. Instantly, her once numb limbs sprung to life as pain shot through her muscles like heat lightning.

The general was laughing hysterically, holding a mouthpiece effetely in his hand, blowing smoke rings.

As the dictator's thugs descended upon her, they displayed the front of the mask --- a ghoulish replica of her face, pristinely made-up with funeral parlor precision and wearing a mouth shaped into a semi-erotic “O” --- as it stared back at her with intense, but dull eyes. It was placed over her once more.

“How do you like your death mask?” the general chortled merrily. “It took a long time to make. A very costly and elaborate construction. But I'm so pleased to see that the fit is, how shall we say…snug?”

Diana tried to retort, but again found she couldn't move her mouth.

Tara laughed. “You know, I do believe I like your mouth better sealed after all…” He again snapped his fingers, and a rubber hose was forced through the mask air hole, almost down her throat.

She was beginning to panic, and she had to steel her nerves. He's going to be putting you through terrible things, she thought to herself. But you can't let him….

The thoughts were driven from her head by a sudden, suffocating influx of rich, Turkish tobacco smoke.

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

Lieutenant Colonel George Patterson placed the phone delicately back on the cradle, wincing at the sound of Palmer's anguished voice, as it was abruptly cut off.

He leaned forward and put his face in his hands, breathing heavily. He might as well get it over with, he thought weakly.

He picked up the phone once more and dialed the number. When the call connected, he said simply, “He's been told about Athens ,” and hung up.

Picking up a fountain pen, he tried to doodle on a pad of paper in front of him, but quickly stopped, the pointlessness of the action seeming absurd.

Chapter 2 – Getting Comfy

Sven Stevenson tried once more to concentrate on the pictures he was developing, but again gave up. He was exhausted. He had spent the entire night yesterday talking with every news service in the world, following the section-length expose in the Times . Unless he began fabricating information, he was quickly going to run out of things to tell them, and that wouldn't be good.

His darkroom phone rang, and he looked at it wearily before picking up the receiver.

“Stevenson?” Isamu's husky baritone traveled over the line, hampered slightly by a thin buzzing noise.

“Yes, major,” Sven said, with a quiet obedience that made his stomach turn.

“How did the interviews go?”

“Fine, major.”

“You followed the script?”

“Yes, but….” Sven's eyes darted around, trying to find a way to break the news to Isamu.

“But what?” Isamu demanded sharply.

“I don't…think they bought it.”

“What do you mean ‘bought'?” the major asked, and Sven had to remind himself that English was not the man's native tongue.

“It's just that… it's not like her. She wouldn't run away from a situation like this. She'd be at the nearest embassy filing charges right now. And it directly contradicts my statements from last week. It just seems obvious to me.”

“Leave the thinking to me,” he barked. “As of Tuesday, you're nothing but an employee. Perhaps you aren't taking us seriously. By the way, my operatives have informed me that your daughter just completed the eleventh grade. Give her my warm congratulations. Perhaps she could teach you a thing or two.” He tittered, and cold sweat began to break out on Sven's brow.

“Please…leave them out of it….” he begged, the phone becoming slick in his hands. “I've done what you want.”

“For now,” came his silky reply. Silence assaulted Sven's ears, followed by a smooth spate of chuckling from Isamu. “You'll have to excuse me, I was just pondering the wicked dreams I have for that dear, sweet child of yours. Not to mention your beautiful wife. All the terrible things I have planned…” Isamu gloated, and Sven could imagine the big man sitting in his elegant office, smoking a cigar and crushing walnuts in his frying-pan-sized, calloused hands.

“Just, stop. OK, I get it,” Sven said, cutting him off a bit more rudely than he intended. “She's gone to Athens .”

“That's right,” the man laughed, “that's right….” The line went dead.

He was getting Shelly and Brianna out of the country tonight.

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

As the heavy smoke continued to pollute her lungs, Diana felt her stomach begin to cramp with nausea. What little clean air she could wrench through the tiny hose only provided the briefest stays of execution. If she could only shut out his infernal laughing! He's really enjoying this, the old psycho, Diana thought.

The General suddenly snapped his fingers, and the tube in her mouth cleared, though it was still resting in her mouth. She gulped the fresh air furiously.

“Shall we talk?” the tyrant queried grandly. “Guards, cut her a breathing slot near the nose,” he instructed.

As it was done, she found she could make some sounds…low guttural, humming noises. Her mind raced at what he was planning next.

“I'm going to re-insert the mouth tube and continue the smoke, but this time I will ask you some questions. If you wish to agree, signal the guards by inhaling through your nose, twice in sharp succession. This will also act as a small reward for you. If you disagree, blow out once. Do you understand me, my beauty?” he asked gently.

She instinctively tried to speak, but settled for inhaling twice through her nose. Relief washed over her as her lungs finally began to clear.

“Good. Isn't it better to cooperate?”

She heard him get up and stroll to her side. “I've custom-designed this hookah for just such purposes, and can control how much smoke you inhale with a valve. A friendly tip: the deeper you take my smoke into your strong, little lungs, the more you can hold. If you continue to cooperate, I'll leave the air hole near your nose unblocked, If not, I will seal it and increase the amount of smoke delivered to you twofold! Now, will you amend your UN report?”

Without hesitation, Diana blew once.

Silence from Tara , and then finally he said, “Very well, seal her nose.”

She began to shake as the air flowing into her nostrils was cut off, and a foul blast of smoke entered her mouth. At the same time, a slender finger, sporting a razor sharp nail, snaked into her pussy. It made slow, circular movements. He's running true to form, she thought. He loves to associate pain with pleasure --- his own sick mind-control game. She wouldn't, couldn't, let him win.

Diana reviewed her options. She could lie and agree to help him, to buy herself time or she could resist and try to outlast him. She remembered the testimonies of his past victims, whom she had personally interviewed. Suki Ingerslev had resisted, and was rendered childless for her efforts. He won't stop until he kills you , she had said.

She heard a squeak and the smoke began to billow in to her mouth in large clouds, like the wretched exhaust of a diesel bus, as the finger began to violently assault her.

“If you come, I'll stop,” Tara said, his voice tauntingly lilted with the promise of relief. She braced herself against the rack and tried to think of anything but sex. But, as successful as she was in every other arena of life, her body was one thing she had yet to achieve total control over, and this, more than anything, secretly enraged her. If only Sven were here. Her mind roamed to a pleasant thought of the big, blond, muscular photographer. She pictured him rushing into the room, taking out the two guards with swift karate kicks, and then confronting Tara --- pushing him down on his knees, dirtying that faggy dressing gown of his….

She suddenly let out a small squeak of disgust as the lips of her pussy became lightly glazed with moisture. She threw her head back as all the horrid things vanished, if for only a few brief seconds. She knew she should feel relieved, but found it only irritating.

Tara began to laugh, victorious for the moment. The mouth tube and mask were removed, and she again stared into his hateful, smirking face.

“My, my” the dictator clucked, “You are a hot little thing, aren't you? Perhaps we adjourn to my chambers and discuss what you'll write about me in further detail?”

“I'll die before you have me,” she said, her voice lifeless. So what if she sounded like a dime novel? It was the truth.

“That's always an option,” he agreed, nodding as if she had proposed something novel, plucking his holder from his breast pocket, “though one that I wish to wait a while before pursuing.”

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

Sy Carey turned the brown envelope over and over in his hands. It felt empty, light as feather. Upon taking it from the mailbox, he was instantly wary of the fact that it had only his name and address printed in large block letters.

If the circumstances of the past few days had been different, he wouldn't have thought twice about ripping it open. But talking to Gallagher and the Times had changed things. He was on his guard again. All the unease and paranoia that had followed his trip to Tarakimo five years ago was now alive and well, thanks to the freshly published interview. It had sat in his stomach, coiling and thrashing around like a snake trapped in a cardboard box. And that box was getting flimsier by the minute.

He was still staring at the envelope when his phone rang. He picked it up gingerly, half expecting to hear Isamu's gloating, musical voice on the line.

“Sy Carey, please,” the voice said, seeming to belong to a man very close to his own age.

“Speaking,” he replied, without much inflection. No doubt another reporter, he thought.

“Mr. Carey, my name is David Palmer…”

Carey's eyes widened. Besides being uncle to the now missing superstar reporter, David Palmer III was one of the richest men in America . Old, old money. Getting a direct phone call from the man was as strange as being summoned by the President.

“Yes, Mr. Palmer, I know who you are,” Sy returned, in a low voice.

“First of all, let me express my sincere regret and sorrow upon reading your account of your experiences with Tara in the Times .” Palmer's voice was as cultured and proper as Sy would expect it to be, yet he could tell from the man's tone that he was carrying an enormous sadness that threatened to crush him at any moment. “It took a lot of courage to come forth with the information you provided, and I, for one, most appreciate it.”

“I…thought I owed it not only to your niece, but to the world,” Sy found himself saying. “I've been quiet about it for too long now,”

“Yes, yes,” Palmer continued. “I thought that you, more than anyone, might be able to give me some insight into this situation, and some of my possible next moves. You obviously have a fair idea of what I'm up against on both sides of the globe.”

Sy winced and balanced himself on the back two legs of the chair on which he was sprawled, in the small kitchen of his San Diego home. He had to viciously fight the urge to slam down the phone, rip the jack from the wall, and then call a U-Haul.

“I do know that where Tara is concerned, world opinion is extremely…how shall I say….” --- Carey strove for a word that would be neutral, but finally relinquished his political correctness --- “…wishy-washy.”

“Yes,” Palmer concurred, “I'm finding that as well. Is our government afraid of the man? I don't understand their ambivalence….”

“They want him to go away,” Sy answered quickly. “They've always wanted that. To them, Tara is a tin-pot despot --- nothing but a sink-hole. Engaging him in conflict doesn't buy them anything.”

“That's my opinion, too, Mr. Carey. Unfortunately, in this case, my niece is at the center of it, and I feel I must act quickly.”

“I would recommend that, Sir,” Sy replied, stammering slightly.

“Could I get your help in the matter?” Palmer asked

Sy closed his eyes in misery.

“Sir, I'm not sure what I can do, I'm only a photographer, and my health is not what it was….”

“You know your way around this situation better than anyone. You know how that maniac thinks. You've met him, for god's sake….”

And I wish I hadn't. That is my biggest regret, Mr. Palmer, Sy thought. “What do you want to know?” he asked dismally.

“What are her chances?”

“If she appears to help him, she'll have some time….” Sy's voice trailed off as he found himself ripping open the envelope, quite as a distraction. He recoiled as a single piece of metal fell forth from it, onto the Formica table top.

It was a rusty spike.

Removing a piece of paper from the envelope, he read the block-print message:

COMFY YET, OLD MAN?

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

Diana was taken up to the top floor of the palace, a level just a fraction of the size of the rest of the building. She had noticed it in press pictures and had always wondered if it was functional or merely decorative. Accessible only from the third floor of the palace by a winding marble staircase, she now discovered that this was where Tara spent his nights, housing as it did his enormous circular bedroom and many adjoining salons.

Once inside the bedroom, she was led over to an ornate cage with golden bars that sat in the center of the room. The top of the cage was domed, resembling the top one would normally see on a bird cage.

As the mustached henchmen gripping her left arm turned to unlock the cross bar that secured the cage door, Diana seriously considered trying a judo move she had learned as a teen, then quickly dismissed it. Making a run for it, she reasoned, would only kick off a domino effect that would force her to engage in further confrontations of an increasingly intense nature. No, she would have to grab the chance when their defenses were down.

After the door slammed shut, it was only a matter of minutes before Tara entered the room and gave her a tight, little smile.

“You must know by now that I have every intention of keeping you alive, for as long as I can, my pretty bird,” he began haughtily, “seeing as you're worth little dead to me, other than for the fleeting bit of satisfaction killing you might provide.” He paused to thoughtfully light a fat, black cigar.

The apparent ease he took in tormenting her finally released the dam of frustration and anger that had been pulsing inside of the young woman since her humiliating session on the rack. Diana began to shake the cage bars violently. “I will never change that report, General Tara,” she shouted, stabbing a finger in his face through the bars, “and if you think I'll become some kind of propaganda tool….”

Tara smirked, bemused. He snapped his fingers and the cage door was opened. Diana felt her fury quickly dissolve into fear as the big man moved purposefully toward her, backing her into the corner of the cage.

As he pressed his large body against hers, she got her first appreciation of how big a man Tara was. Aside from being a good five inches taller than she, he was massively wide as well: barrel-chested, with arms that resembled branches from an old oak. Up until now, she had made the mistake of assuming that he was all lard underneath his shimmering, feminine silks and satins. When he moved into her, forcing her arms above her head, she realized weakly that these luxurious fabrics were a perfect disguise. They hid the man's primordial savagery quite well.

The dictator moved closer to her face, until she could almost smell the oil radiating from his large mustache. He spoke in a calm, soft, even voice. It was the voice of a man who decreed everything, and asked nothing. “It would be unwise for you to project what you will or won't do in the future. When I am finished with you, my lovely Diana, you will be an entirely different person. The feisty little sprite before my eyes will be gone forever, and you will do whatever I ask of you, without question.” His robe parted, and his chest, as furry as an ape's, pressed into the front of her body.

Diana tried to look away, but he clenched her jaw in his muscular hand, moving it toward his mouth. The big man then engulfed her, pressing his greasy mouth over hers while gripping her ass with both of his hands, squeezing tightly. His tongue probed like a serpent and she could sense his entire foul being invading her own. From below, she felt his lumbering manhood pulsate. He seemed ready to take her, when suddenly he stepped back and re-tied his robe, puffing absently on his cigar. Diana only watched helplessly, as the situation became increasingly bizarre. He seemed to have absolutely no fear of an attack from her. With the cigar still in mouth, he gripped her arms, which were still frozen in the air, poised to attack him, and brought them to a pair of manacles that hung from the top of the cage, securing them with a swift click of the cuffs. Motioning to his henchmen, he stepped back and began to survey her body, eyes resting intently on her crotch.

A large, steel dildo was presented to the General. He took it, and, stroking it pleasantly, began to bend down to insert it. To Diana's disgust, and to Tara 's delight, it slid right in.

“I see you were ready for me,” he giggled. “A pity. Forcing this terrible tool always affords me great pleasure. But, never mind, we'll have our fun later. Besides, it's simply not possible to threaten someone with something they secretly, truly want, is it?” He laughed delightedly.

“That has nothing to do with you, you foul pig ! You're exploiting simple biological responses, nothing more,” she spat back at him.

He activated the steel rod, which trailed a long cord attached to a remote, and it began to buzz feverishly inside of her. Oh my god, she thought, I have to…. Diana stopped cold as she watched him remove a small, bulbous, steel device from a velvet box that was held open for him by a thug. He turned around and displayed it to her smugly.

“This…is an oral pear, my sweet. You like fruit, don't you?” He laughed sadistically as her mouth dropped open, then immediately snapped shut. “It was a torture device used extensively during what I consider to be the greatest renaissance period of the interrogatory arts --- the Spanish Inquisition!” Tara stroked the metal object like one would a woman's breast, regarding it lustfully. The body of the device looked like a pear, but Diana noticed with distaste that there were long spikes jutting outward from the bottom. The handle was long and ornate, and appeared to sit atop a pivoting head. “It's a bit of an irony that this device was used to make people talk,” Tara continued, “since it is capable of virtually shredding one's tongue, mouth, and lips. I've heard it also causes great dental discomfort, too. You see, my lovely,” he purred, stepping out of the cage and handing the object to one of his thugs, “I don't wish you to say anything for a while. I only want you to watch.”

He walked slowly away from her, puffing grandly on his stogie, and picked up the receiver of a large Princess telephone that sat by his huge, silk-tapestry covered bed. “Major, bring in Mrs. Franzen, if you please,” he said, with an evil smile.

Chapter 3 --- A Prickly Pair

“Stevenson, you fucking coward!”

Sven first heard the catcall two days ago, as he was trudging into the Liberty Times offices, late as usual, through the mob of activists that had grown in significant numbers in the two weeks following Diana Palmer's kidnapping. The protests, which had started out as peaceful shows of solidarity for the reporter, had now turned ugly, as faith was lagging in both the Times and the US government to rectify the situation.

Today, the single voice was joined by at least five more.

“Traitor!”

“Why don't you go back to Tarakimo and sit on Tara 's cock again, you fuckin' pussy?”

“Who you gonna sell out now, Stevenson?”

“Your Athens line is bullshit, man!”

“Death to all tyrants and their lackeys!”

Sven tossed his Styrofoam coffee cup to the ground and raced at the man who had first spoken. He was young, maybe 21, and had the long hair and bell-bottoms worn by most of his fellow protesters.

“What the fuck do you know, man ? Try talking about something you know. Were you over there, asshole? Do you know what went down? No, didn't think so!”

“All I know is you don't leave your friends to horny old fascists,” the man retorted, brushing himself off. “For all we know, you set her up.”

“Fuck you ….” Sven punched the young man and he went down. He had to be pulled off by the office security guards.

Once inside, he raced to the bathroom and inspected his face more closely for bruises. Stevenson, you fucking coward... Yes. He was a coward, he thought. His new six-figure bank account in Zurich was proof of that, as was his new Cadillac that he kept hidden, even from Shelley, in a rented storage unit downtown.

And of course, there were the threats to his wife and child which Isamu made at regular intervals if he suspected any sort of resistance on their weekly “status” calls. What would any of them have done? Fucking hypocrites, he fumed.

Naturally, it didn't hurt that the pending confrontation between Shelley and Diana had been cut short, perhaps indefinitely. Diana had been insistent on her claims of love for him, and had made it known in no uncertain terms that if he didn't ask his wife for a trial separation, she would “have a talk with her, woman to woman.” But it wasn't like that, not really. It's not like he paid to have her kidnapped.

But when he had been approached by Isamu's men, back in May, things had been definitely tempting. The money they had dangled in front of his face was enough to afford him an early retirement if the situation played out for even six months. “The General believes it could take up to one year to break her,” Isamu had told him, when he first spoke with the big man via scrambled telephone lines. “That could net you over $1.5 million,” he sang, “You can buy plenty of stuff with that.”

He had asked over and over for confirmation that they would not kill her, and Isamu seemed very confident and even straight-forward when he answered him. “She means a great deal to him. He can have any number of girls, on any day, to torture and kill,” he had said blithely. “No, the General has big plans for her.”

It hadn't been easy. After leaving the palace, he had gotten cold feet. The elaborate torture chamber, Tara 's bowing minions, Diana's screams as she was led away…it had all freaked him out. He had gone on record with his back-up version of the story, even breaking his own arm after he had gotten home, to make his valiant “escape attempt” credible. But, shortly after the Times articles appeared, Isamu's men had confronted him in a parking lot near his home and, as icily as Vito Corleone, they had made him the proverbial “offer he couldn't refuse”: change the story or change your life. “You pick,” Isamu had later gloated to him on the phone, his voice oozing smugness.

It was really nothing more than a business transaction, he reassured himself, as he straightened his tie and jacket. Like an arranged marriage. He splashed water onto his face, grabbed a used paper towel from the trash (out again), and rushed to his office desk.

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

Wendy Franzen had never known when to let sleeping dogs lie. It was a characteristic that had made her an unbeatable corporate attorney, revered by enemies and colleagues alike. She could not resist the invitation by the woman, who said she was a diplomatic attaché, and now she was paying for it. After claiming to be spearheading the investigation into the kidnapping of Diana Palmer, the woman had requested that they meet in a restaurant near the embassy.

Wendy had an uneasy feeling about the whole scenario from the beginning, but quickly found herself being inexplicably seduced by the blonde, whose austerely beautiful face imparted icy confidence that Debbie's torturer would finally be brought to justice if she could confirm a bit more information. After refusing to drink during the meeting, she began to be alarmed by the drowsiness that had washed suddenly over her. She remembered calling for help, but after that, nothing.

As she lay face down, bound and gagged, in the baggage compartment of what she was sure was Tara 's private jet, she decided that, even if he killed her, she would at least get the chance to face the monster who had ordered her daughter's torture and death exclusively for his sick amusement.

She bared her teeth against the wet silk handkerchief that filled her mouth and listened with dread fascination as the landing gear rumbled to life, below her.

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

“What's the matter, old girl, cat got your tongue?” Tara beamed as he towered over Wendy's prone form, which was tied in an “X” to the four large posts framing his bed. He laughed derisively as the woman squirmed beneath him, looking, he thought contentedly, like an insect trapped underneath an entomologist's pin.

“You want to know more about how your daughter died, don't you, Wendy? Admit it! You've spent sleepless nights pondering just how much pain she endured…how many tears that she shed…how long it took her to expire. Haven't you?” the tyrant crooned lubriciously. He puffed pleasantly on his cigar, awaiting her answer. When she said nothing, he murmured: “Now, I will show you.”

Wendy let out a frustrated scream, straining at her bonds, rattling the plastic that had been laid over the bedspread. “I only want to know why you did it, you sick pig! Why Debbie? A college student? What kind of threat was she to you?” It suddenly seemed vitally important that she receive an answer to what she knew were ultimately pointless questions. This animal was going to kill her slowly, and she knew it.

Tara merely smirked and opened a fancy walnut box that had been presented ceremoniously to him by his henchmen. Wendy stared as it was lifted and displayed to her. Inside was the fiendish device that had mutilated her daughter's insides, snugly swaddled in expensive red silk. She gaped at the size of it. The pictures had not done it justice, she realized sickly.

“Your daughter was no threat,” Tara continued imperiously. “She was garbage; trash to be thrown away. You see, Mrs. Franzen, she didn't meet my standards. Actually, you should be grateful to me. Killing her was an act of mercy. I could have made her life far more miserable. Though, you will come to that conclusion soon enough.” He lifted the piece slowly and, after fondling it admiringly, rotated its top. The steel “skin” of the pear, which sported long, outwardly-curled spikes at the end of the elaborately engraved metal segments, suddenly expanded, revealing a fat, sharply-barbed rod hiding inside. He moved it threateningly toward the woman.

Before Wendy could respond, another voice was heard from behind Tara , and she gave a small gasp of relief.

“Leave her alone, General! I'll help you. I'll change the report.”

Diana was clutching the cage bars. She looked into Wendy Franzen's terrified face, propped up by a pair of large, velvet pillows. She had not anticipated her own submission, at least not this soon, but there was no way she would tolerate watching the dictator perpetrate one of his crimes with no intervention.

Tara turned to Diana and his fat lips parted lasciviously, a gesture of obscene expectation. “Oh, you want to help, do you?” he clucked, amused. “And help you will! But not in the way you expect.” He strolled over to Diana's cage. “No, no, I've got other foul treats in store for you, my pigeon. Oh, don't worry, you'll change that UN report for me. But in the meantime, I will take you up on your offer of assistance, my pretty co-conspirator!”

“NO! I didn't mean….” But before Diana could say anything more, Tara 's thugs were inside the cage, holding her steady as the oral pear was forced into her screaming mouth.

The general picked up a short riding crop from a nearby table and stood watch, calmly smoking, as his men lodged the demonic instrument inside Diana's head, securing it tightly with leather straps. When finished, they brought out a large spool of industrial twine and, using a steel hook, attached the wire to the handle of the oral pear.

“Raise her feet off the ground,” Tara instructed cavalierly, gesturing at Diana with his stogie. Diana felt her stomach bloat with misery as the slack on her manacles was tightened, and she was propelled aloft. The steel in her mouth was heavy and cold. She tried fruitlessly to expel it, but only tasted blood. She concentrated on being as still as possible, though it was difficult with the dildo still pounding away at her insides.

The twine was unspooled to what looked to Diana to be thirty feet, directly over to the bed. The opposite end of the cable was then tied to the handle of the vaginal pear in a manner similar to that which secured its glittering, smaller cousin.

Tara paraded over to the bed and, picking up the vaginal pear, began to wave the tip of his crop at various parts of the foul “fruit,” as if he were a headmaster explaining an algebra equation to a room full of captive students.

“What we have here, old girl, is a delectably precarious peril. It's so juicy that I'm having a hard time containing myself, but I'll try to stave off my appetite in order to explain it to you. Talking about this evil deed is almost as much fun as carrying it out, but not quite. It's very similar, in that regard, to rape!” Tara laughed loudly at his little joke, as did his henchmen.

When his men had calmed down, he continued to torment the older woman. “These two pears, though modeled quite faithfully on the original Spanish Inquisition design, have been updated.” His eyes twinkled mischievously as Wendy gaped, open-mouthed. “They can operate entirely of their own accord. You see, their construction is based upon a timed spring mechanism that enables them to expand slowly or quickly, according to the amount of tension they encounter, and, my wishes, of course.”

He stopped and stared into Wendy's face, smiling villainously, absorbing the dread and fear pooling up in her like a ravenous leech. “Should I go on? I would think that the more one understands about one's opponent, the better equipped one is to fight. Wouldn't a big shot woman lawyer know that?” he teased. After she said nothing for a minute, he asked the question again.

“Y-y-yes, go on,” Wendy sputtered impatiently. She didn't want to hear this, but she felt compelled to understand the evil her daughter had faced head-on.

Tara smiled approvingly. “Both you and Miss Palmer face abominable ordeals. However, there's one small difference between your situations. Can you guess what that might be?” He paused to lazily blow several luxurious smoke rings into the air as she glared hatefully at him. Tara guessed that Wendy's tolerance to his ridicule was quickly dissipating, and answered for her. “Diana has the ability to bite down on her device in order to keep it from completely aerating her oral cavity; unfortunately for you, you will have no such capability, given where your succulent morsel will be wedged.” He licked his lips sadistically and playfully fingered Wendy's vagina before continuing. “If Diana chooses to play the good girl, and doesn't bite down, I'm afraid she will have quite a bit of plastic surgery and dental work in her future. But when she does, and I believe she will, your pear will be given a sharp tug, encouraging its expansion and desecration of your hot loins. Dying in this manner can take hours….”

Tara interrupted himself by lightly smacking one of his flabby jowls, as if remembering something, and erupted into gales of sick laughter. “Silly me! I've forgotten to introduce you two properly. A victim should be well acquainted with her torturer, and vice versa! Diana, this is Wendy. Wendy, Diana,” he sang gleefully. “Diana will be navigating your long, painful journey into oblivion; a voyage from which you will never return.” He continued to cackle as the women stared miserably at one another. “I see you're a devoutly religious woman,” he jeered, pointing with his crop to the cross around Wendy's neck. “Say hello to your daughter from me---you should be seeing her very soon. Perhaps you can compare notes on your experience with the pear in the afterlife?” he laughed cruelly.

“Fuck you, you fat piece of shit! You'll rot in hell for his!” Wendy screamed at him, causing Tara to only nod his head and laugh harder. He snapped his fingers brusquely.

“Major, introduce Mrs. Franzen to my thorny little friend. But give her a whiff of the tip before you do, though, eh? Wendy, enjoy the bouquet. It may seem, how shall I say…familiar…to you, no?”

The henchman waved the pear's tip in front of Wendy's face randily. She winced and turned away. “What the matter, baby? We wash and everything for you,” the thug sneered, in broken English. Tara was laughing so hard he looked ready to soil himself. He howled with insane merriment as the gigantic pear was lubed and then shoved roughly into Wendy. She shrieked, and her eyes opened wide, as sharp, nonsensical noises squeaked from her mouth.

Tara took a deep breath, obviously satisfied, and waddled over to the stretched wire, plucking it dramatically. A low tone emerged from the taut twine, and he lowered his eyes, seeming to deeply appreciate the wretchedly ominous music that emanated from it. He plopped down on a large velvet chaise lounge which had been strategically placed between his two victims, stretching out languidly, puffing heavily on the Cuban cigar and fussing idly with his silk ascot, preparing to enjoy his exquisitely-planned torture.

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

“What the fuck are we gonna do about this , Patterson?”

George's pulse began to race as General Henry Paxton tossed him a glossy photograph across the breakfast table in the officer's club.

“Franzen, ah…” he stalled, unable to grasp, at first, what his superior was alluding to. Franzen, Franzen…yes. The mother of the girl in the Times . The nearest thing to a credible, American eye-witness since Sy Carey had been discredited back in 1973. “Yes General, it's unfortunate that she talked so heavily to the press, as it does put undue pressure on….”

“I'm aware of all that, Patterson,” Paxton said, dismissively waving his free hand, as his other was busy refilling his coffee cup. “I'm talking about her disappearance.”

Patterson put down the toast he was about to take a bite from, the only thing he had had the stomach to eat all morning since his early-morning call to Palmer. “Oh, shit….” was all he could manage.

“'Oh shit' is right,” Paxton concurred, gravely. “Mr. Secretary, how could you let this happen?”

“General, with all due respect, we don't even know for sure if Tara 's got her yet. Let me make some calls this afternoon and by end of day….”

“By end of day, she'll be dead! Torn from limb to limb or hollowed out like a Thanksgiving turkey by that depraved pseudo-military psycho. I told you when that article came out: we have to make protecting….”

“…any witness a priority. I know that, General,” George finished wearily. “I had no idea this whole thing was going to blow up like it did. We've turned a blind eye to Tara for a long time now, and I guess we're paying the price,” he said evenly.

Paxton smashed his fist down on the table, causing several of the nearby officers to turn their heads. He reached out and grabbed George's cuff, jerked it toward him, and whispered portentously: “This country's been making deals with this twisted tyrant for five years now, long before I came into the picture. You've been making deals, sonny! And I'm not about to take the fall for ‘em, y'hear?”

George slumped in his seat and dejectedly stared out the window. He tried to sit up, but couldn't make the effort. He turned instead to twisting the napkin in his lap. “I'll take care of it, sir,” he said in his most formal, submissive tone.

“Good,” Paxton shot back gruffly. “And do what you have to, in order to ensure we don't read about another ‘testimonial of terror.'”

“Yes, Sir,” Patterson said, saluting and leaving the table.

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

Diana dangled like an inanimate marionette in the dictator's warped puppet show, not moving a muscle, even though her wrists were on fire and her bladder was filled to the breaking point. Tara had been staring at her for what seemed like an hour. He had long finished his cigar and was now elegantly chain-smoking cigarettes in his foot-long holder, with a seeming unending fascination for watching the smoke trail from his mouth over to the cage, where it hung in the air like rancid smog over the LA skyline. Every so often, he would slide his manicured fingers over to the remote on his side table, shut off the dildo, and then activate it suddenly, usually at a speed much faster than the last, in order to give her body a significant jolt. But she was fighting him, and becoming quite good at it.

Wendy Franzen was not holding out as well. An increasingly large pool of blood was expanding beneath her hips, and Diana began to wonder if she, herself, was not the cruel one, keeping this poor woman alive when there was clearly no hope for her. The thought terrified and overwhelmed her: I am controlling this woman's life and death.

 

It's exactly what the monster wants me to think, Diana brooded. But, she had not kidnapped her and put her in this mess…she was not responsible…. Or was she? If she hadn't been so stupid as to allow herself to be led here in the first place, there would have been no public outcry, no editorials, no press…. Damn! Think clearly, Diana, she told herself.

“Your callous disregard for both your fellow prisoner and yourself is impressive, Miss Palmer,” Tara suddenly piped, as if he were privy to her very thoughts. “Biting down would end things quickly for her, but you seem content to string out her suffering for as long as possible. Of course, I don't have to mention that the pain and bleeding in your mouth will escalate when you do that, but everything has its price, eh? In just minutes, the top left prong of the pear will completely pierce your gums. Mmmm, that will be painful, won't it?” the tyrant smiled, French-inhaling the smoke from his cigarette suavely.

Diana concentrated on her bleeding, manacled wrists, praying for him to shut the fuck up, but he only droned on.

“Such a bent personality you have! Refusing to dispense or accept mercy of any kind. Seems to me that you're both a sadist and a masochist. The combination is not quite as common as the conventional wisdom would have one believe. Most people are either one or the other, like me, or Wendy, for that matter!” he chuckled. “Doctor,” he commanded, wagging his cigarette holder in Wendy's direction, “please take her vitals again.”

The diminutive, Asian gentleman in the white coat stepped forth once more with his blood-pressure cuff. “It's 91/75. Dangerously low. She'll be in shock in under a half-hour, your Excellency,” he announced, with bowed head. Wendy was now making insistent grunting noises that were getting louder by the minute.

“Listen!” Tara said, his whispery voice cutting through the air like a laser, “she's trying to tell you something, Diana!” He placed his holder in the side of his mouth and chewed on it viciously. “What is it? Sounds to me like ‘finish…me…off!'” he chuckled.

Diana grimaced as she heard another sharp “click” from the vaginal pear, indicating that the tightly-loaded spring had slipped yet another notch. As it did, Wendy's lower abdomen began to expand before Diana's eyes. Soon the evil pear would be open completely, all four razor-sharp prongs totally puncturing….

She couldn't take it any more, and bit down hard, the prong that was nibbling into her gum stabbing her even harder. A gut-wrenching scream pierced the room, and Tara started his foul laugh. When Diana finally found the nerve to look over at Wendy, she found the woman had been twisted to one side, her body seeming to have lashed out in one final spasm that had been squelched by her bindings. Her face was already turning blue, and her lifeless eyes were that of a doll's.

Diana turned her head involuntarily at the sound of a sharp “crack,” and immediately felt the pain in her mouth increase. She let out a short sob, as it was revealed to only be the sound of Tara's lighter snapping shut, finished with the task of igniting his fresh cigarette.

“Now that we're finished with that little chore, let's turn again to the matter of that pesky report you were going to change for me…” he said, with a fatly decadent chortle.

Chapter 4 --- Cherry Popping

“One more time, cunt, what did you tell that reporter?” Isamu growled, his low voice sifting through the interrogation cell from the speakers, toward the handcuffed girl: a suffocating, torpid wind.

The big man's cock was fully sheathed in the velvety mouth of a young, dark-haired servant girl. Her tongue rotated lithely around the shaft, lapping lightly at the head of his penis, teasing him, almost daring him to come. Isamu braced himself against the plush velvet cushions of the ornate armchair that the General favored when supervising interrogations from his large, climate-controlled office. The power he felt, when using the General's shadowy lair, surpassed anything that he had come to know when working in other parts of the palace. To bask in coddled luxury, while those he tormented writhed in the most squalid conditions, gave him indescribable pleasure. It was almost as if the evil, diseased soul of his superior entered him during these times, overtaking him and obliterating everything he had experienced in his life up to this point. He often imagined himself wearing the General's elaborate uniform, sucking hungrily on his cigarette holder, watching victims dance fruitlessly at his whim, futilely beseeching mercy which would never be felt or granted.

“I know nothing! I never spoke to…” the girl in the cell shrieked, eyes bugging out of her head wildly. She shook her arms violently, but the tightly wrenched manacles above her head offered no relief.

Isamu reached over and, with his gloved hand, casually raised the setting on the dial in the golden console, to the right of his chair. The temperature meter at the top of the panel, which constantly monitored the heat in the onscreen torture cell, smoothly climbed another ten degrees. 180° F. Just lovely, he thought. He adjusted the focus on the monitor with yet another dial, zooming in on his victim's tear-drenched face. He had to admit that this one, with her flowing blonde tresses, firm tits, and hourglass waist, was a rarity for these parts. But since the lock-down on the borders, there had been a few odds and ends that weren't normally found in Tarakimo.

He smiled smugly as he observed the sweat beads popping to life on the girl's contorted brow. “I'm going to wring it out of you, bitch. I hope you remembered your extra-dry anti-perspirant…” he laughed sarcastically, watching the girl's cringing face as she observed the change in the five-foot tall thermometer mounted to the cell's side wall. A strangled, crazy cry escaped the captive girl's full, pouting lips while his manhood expanded even further into the petite servant girl's jaws, virtually choking her. She backed off of him, struggling to regain her breathing.

Isamu's anger flared, and he smacked the kneeling girl in the face with one of Tara 's shorter riding crops. The unexpected distraction instantly caused him to go soft, and he glanced with irritation at his watch. Almost two in the afternoon. The general would be finishing up with the two in his bedroom very shortly. The idea of the old man finding him here, utilizing his personal effects, would normally have just excited him further. Isamu liked a touch of danger. Today, though, the thought unnerved him. His boss had been, by turns, the happiest and the most crazed he had witnessed in five years, ever since Palmer's capture. He did not want to be on the wrong side of the tyrant's emotional spectrum right now.

The tortured girl's sweat began to hit the metal plate on which she was standing in streams, in the narrow enclosure where she was bound. Instantly, voltage crackled through her, sending her lovely body into convulsions, her blonde hair jerking spasmodically over her creamy white shoulders.

Isamu bent forward and gripped the servant girl by the back of the head, forcing her to continue stroking his cock. He increased the temperature in the cell by another twenty degrees. He wanted this to end with a bang.

He shut his eyes for a second, indulging in the sweet contralto screams pulsing from the audiophile-grade speakers that surrounded his comfy chair from all angles of the office. The tightness around his penis grew immeasurably as the image of the girl began to plead with him: “Please, please…General…I'll do anything you want! Just….. st-o-o-oooop!” Isamu smiled widely at her use of his phony title, leaned back, and shot his load into the girl at his feet. He let out a satanic, bellowing laugh as ropey, white jets bubbled from her mouth, drenching her shaking, chestnut-brown body.

Listening with delight at the small sizzling sounds in his speakers, as the plate began to fry the onscreen girl's delicate, small feet, he thought nastily that a fair-haired beauty such as this could go a long way toward pleasuring him in the future. He almost felt regret.

Almost.

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

Colin Gallagher sat, sipping lukewarm, stale coffee in the lounge area of the Liberty Times . Checking the large clock on the wall, he thought grimly that he would be here for another four hours, at least, while the fact checkers verified his latest story. NBC, the only channel available on the ancient television bolted to the corner of the break room wall, streamed an endless parade of talking heads that was only tolerable due to the lowered sound.

He turned and looked over his shoulder as Sven Stevenson shuffled in, heading toward the sink.

“Hey, make a fresh pot as long as you're up there, OK?” he called to him.

“Like you'd know the difference….” Stevenson retorted, smiling slightly.

“Aw, fuck you….” Colin batted back. After Sven put on a fresh pot, the large, shaggy-maned blonde man ambled over to join his colleague on the old, lime-green sofa.

“Whatcha watching?” Sven asked, robotically removing a cigarette from a pack in his front pants pocket and taking out a Bic lighter.

“Just more of the same,” Colin returned, “these mainstream news networks are still barely refusing to acknowledge Palmer's even missing,” he said disgustedly. “How's your arm?”

Sven glared at the wretched cast that had weighted down his arm for close to three weeks now. “Son-of-a-bitch comes off Saturday,” he fumed. “Hey, you wanna shoot nine holes this weekend?” he added, brightening considerably.

Colin gave the big Swede a bemused look. It had remained a mystery to him how Sven Stevenson even kept his job at the Times . Most of his work was sloppy, if not late. He had already been suspended twice in the past year, once for a scuffle with a cop. If he hadn't hooked up with Diana Palmer (another inexplicable puzzle), whose uncle owned a large share of a number of news networks, including the one which owned the Times , Colin was sure he'd have been fired long ago.

“Don't you have a deadline on Monday, man?” he asked, attempting to sound casual.

Sven shot him a look. “All my shit's done, turned in,” he said, almost boastfully.

“Lucky you,” Colin stated flatly. “I'm gonna be in all weekend writing that follow-on piece to Carey's interview.”

Sven shifted uncomfortably in his chair and lit his cigarette. “You ask me, you just go looking for more work for yourself, my man,” he said soberly, giving Colin's knee a friendly punch.

“Yeah, that's me. The muckraker,” he rejoined, invoking the nickname that Gerald Mbuttu, their publisher, had bestowed on him long ago.

“Personally, I'm a little leery of that guy's story, myself,” Sven said, taking a drag from his cigarette.

“You can't be serious, Sven.” Colin set his coffee cup down on the battered faux-wood table in front of them and examined the large man's face for signs of humor, which would have been twisted, even coming from him.

“ What? ” Sven protested. “Oh, come on, Colin! The guy was strapped to a chair with a billion nails sticking out of it for what….two hours? And he comes away with nary a scratch on his little grey head? Fuckin' ridiculous, if you ask me!”

“So, you're saying he just made the whole thing up. Why the hell would he do that? You saw this sick torture equipment with your own eyes!”

“Uh, maybe to revive his flagging career so he can go on drawing his funny little cartoons? To get publicity? How the fuck would I know? Besides, I never saw any ‘torture chair.'”

Colin had seen Sven like this before. He had made the mistake of going drinking with the man only once, but had witnessed a very belligerent, very mean drunk. Only Sven couldn't be drinking in the middle of the day, could he? He leaned a little closer to the photographer, searching for a whiff of something alcoholic. He wasn't trying to get the man fired, but he was hoping it could explain his glibness.

“Sy Carey is one of the most respected, most honored reporters we have among us today,” Colin stated, as if reading from a press bio. He hated to take this high-handed approach, but felt it was justified. “You know, Sven, I've been wanting to ask you some questions about what happened over there. Seems you went through some serious shit, and now….”

Sven leaped up from the couch and jammed his cigarette butt into an ashtray. “This is fuckin' bullshit! I get this crap day-in, day-out from everyone from the New York fuckin' Times to the San Francisco Chronicle . I don't need to hear it from you! No one cares more about Diana than I do, man, no one!

Colin jumped to his feet and grabbed the big man's arm. “Hey! Look, I'm not saying shit, OK? You were scared, we all realize that. Fortunately, the true version of your story got out before Tara 's thugs could bully you into changing it. No one believes that Athens cover story! I'm just…concerned about you, alright? Are you being threatened?”

“No, no,” Sven said, brushing away the arm and sitting down again. “Well…yeah, kind of,” he admitted. He tilted his head back on the couch, looking like he was ready to collapse with exhaustion.

“Let me get you some coffee,” Colin said, in as soft a voice as he could muster. When he returned with the cup, he put it gently in his shaking hand. “Listen…nobody blames you. I wanted to ask, for my own curiosity, mostly: what was it like to be that close to Tara ? I mean, you had cigars and Brandy with the man, right?”

“Off the record,” Sven said suspiciously, “and I mean off-off the record…”

“Yes, most definitely,” Colin said, with his straightest poker face.

“It was a fuckin' trip,” Sven murmured, in almost an awestruck tone. He put his hands over his face, and for a minute it looked to Colin as if he were sobbing. But, to his horror, when the ruddy blonde man unshielded himself, he looked tickled, almost giddy . Colin's stomach began to turn uneasily.

“I gotta tell you, man, it was an experience that I'm sure will go right along side those guys who interviewed Castro and shit. Y'know what I'm sayin'?”

Colin nodded, entranced.

“That fuckin' guy is like a king around that place: a god, man. Un-fucking-believable! Anything he wants, right at his feet! Money, women, cars, boats….”

“Yeah, Sy told me. People, too.” Colin said, his voice as dead as a phone wire.

Sven snatched another look at his co-worker, and again got up. “It was a trip,” he said, yet again. “Look, I've gotta go. I've got some stuff to develop for…” he trailed off, looking pissed.

“So, what did you talk about? Who's threatening you?” Colin pressed, secretly knowing this was the last time he'd probably ever get another answer from the man.

“Just shit, no one,” Sven popped off. “Gotta run.”

Colin just stared at the man as he watched him leave the room.

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

As the sun slowly sank in the Western sky outside Sy's bedroom window, beaming oblique shafts of light toward his eyes in dusty streams, the aging reporter knew that he had to get his ass out of bed, at some point. For the past weeks, and since the phone call from Palmer, especially, all he had wanted to do was curl up in his big bed, throw the tattered duvet over his frail body, and think of nothing. He had even taken sleeping pills in the middle of the day today, even though he had slept for over ten hours the night before.

You're a goddamn wreck Carey, admit it, he told himself.

His wife's sudden death, two years before, had thrown him into a comatose reverie of work and sleep, and lately it was getting hard to do little, if any, of the former. He was committing to an increasing number of deadlines and missing an alarming amount of them; the quality of his work becoming a fraction of what it once was. Diana Palmer's kidnapping had been the nail in his coffin. A part of him secretly despised the girl for that.

But why? The last series of drawings he had submitted to the Times , to run with the post-kidnapping expose´ section, had earned him great accolades from Gerald. “This is just what we need to show the world, Sy,” the large Nigerian editor had said, patting him on the back admiringly. “People need to see Tara for what he is; they need a visual, since there are barely any photographs of the beast in existence. And they particularly need to see what Diana is no doubt being put through, at his hands.”

Maybe, Sy thought, but this latest round of drawings had also earned him the ghoulish care package that he'd opened today, as well. He knew better than anyone that Tara's goons were everywhere. A man with his wealth and power had very long arms and, even though Sy rarely left his small bungalow, except to walk on the nearby beach, he was always looking for the odd stranger who seemed particularly interested in him.

It wasn't difficult to spot Tara 's thugs. Always big bruisers, his heavies stuck out like dried shit in a swimming pool. The last one, a hulking black man dressed in an unseasonably heavy three-piece suit, had followed him intermittently through the San Diego zoo, when he had made a visit last Tuesday with his granddaughter, Kaylie. But he was simply the latest in a series. He suspected they'd been watching him for years now. The thought of being in the maniac's clutches once more caused his guts to heave. He closed his eyes tightly as the dictator's foul, laughing visage floated before him, toasting his imminent delivery to the palace with a glass of chilled Dom Perignon.

His phone rang sharply, scaring the bejesus out of him. He turned to the bedside table and lifted it onto his bed gingerly, then picked up the receiver. His mouth was frozen. He said nothing.

“H-hello? Mr. Carey?” a young, graceful voice streamed over the line.

“Yes?”

“This is Diana Palmer.”

Sy instantly sprang up, almost knocking his head on the wall behind him.

“Miss…I….” he stammered.

“Listen to me. I'm in terrible danger. I know you can help me,” the girl murmured, sounding out of breath and terrified.

This couldn't be, Sy thought. Couldn't be. But it did sound like her. Even though he'd spoken to her only briefly at a journalism convention in Paris , two years ago, her voice was familiar mostly due to her plentiful interviews and semi-celebrity status.

“I'm in Tarakimo, at the palace. I don't have much time…” she continued.

“How did you get my number?” Sy asked, unable to mask his disbelief.

“I have an old Times directory, and you're the only one I felt safe calling. I'm sorry to do this…” she said, her frightened voice drifting off. “I'm pretty sure this line is scrambled…wait…they're coming.... Please, I need you to write this inf….”

Suddenly Sy heard a scream and, for several minutes, nothing but static and heavy breathing on the line. Then, a man's gruff voice: “One word about this, and you're next, asshole.” The line went dead.

Sy ripped the phone from the wall and flung it to the floor, gulping air in tortured breaths.

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

Diana's eyelids fluttered briefly and she regained consciousness. The last thing she remembered was a horrific torrent of pain in her mouth and screaming…it must have been her own screaming, she realized weakly.

Her head was pounding and she struggled to clear it, but her vision was blurred. She needed food and water. She'd had neither since last night, in her prison cell. What could she do to earn more? she asked herself, almost by impulse. But she knew the obvious answer and her mind flared with resistance. Starvation and dehydration had never been Tara 's primary tools of choice for torture, and she didn't expect this time would be any exception. No, he would have something far more diabolic in mind.

Her eyes finally became clear and her limbs became somewhat active, as she began to shake them. But as she did, she realized there was nothing supporting her but strands of thick, rough rope. She was suspended in mid-air, at least thirty feet off the ground, in a massive peaked stone chamber, at least sixty feet in height and twenty feet in length on each of the four structural sides. She appeared to be inside a capsule of some sort. Her arms were tied behind her back, not particularly tightly, but with plenty of rope. She could feel a multitude of complex knots grazing her back. Her arms and legs were tied with long ropes to an elaborate pulley system, and under her ass, a group of ropes that connected her arms and feet were pulled together by a few sparsely tied knots. It was like sitting in a very large swing, and then the name finally came to her. The Judas Cradle: one of the absolute worst depravities from the darkest days of the Middle Ages, resurrected painstakingly by the general's torture engineers to its uncontestably offensive glory.

“Almost a piece of sculpture, isn't it, pet?” Tara chimed, his voice bouncing off the stone walls in a sinister orchestration of timbre.

Diana looked downward disgustedly and spotted her arch-nemesis, arrayed opulently in a black formal military mess uniform, sprawled casually on a large throne chair, ripping apart a roast bird with his bare hands. He wasn't even looking at her, concentrating as he was on licking the oil from his fat digits, prissily dabbing at his mouth and mustache with a large cloth napkin. Her mouth began to pool with spit at the sight of the golden-brown delicacy her tormentor was so greedily inhaling. The rich aroma it gave off was intoxicating. She could almost taste the pungent herbs and spices it was undoubtedly doused in. After he finished sucking a slender bone completely to the marrow, he tossed it carelessly on a silver tray to his side. He swirled a ruby red fluid in a massive crystal goblet, lazily resting his large beak in the nose of the glass, inhaling, before taking a noisy gulp. He set it aside, belched loudly, and began his noxious laughter.

“Such a fine Pinot!” he crowed, patting his large paunch with contentment. “I'm sure you've heard I have quite the cellar,” he bragged. “Perhaps I'll give you a look sometime. It's immediately below the bedroom. You know…where you tortured and killed your first victim this morning? First blood is always a cause for grand celebration. Consider this ritual a cherry-popping, of sorts!” he hooted.

“You bastard!” she shrieked at him, writhing around as much as she could on the small area of rope beneath her, until she threatened to spill over. After steadying herself, she instantly felt her mouth begin to throb, pain flooding her skull. Diana threw her head back and howled in an insane burst of misery. She was slowly going crazy, and fought madly to regain her quickly vanishing composure.

“Yes, the sedative would be wearing off about now, wouldn't it?” the fiend laughed, reaching into his coat pocket for a stout Cuban cigar to complete his decadent meal. “Too bad. It's going to make what I have planned even more unpleasant for you!” he chuckled, lighting the monstrous log from a soldier's outstretched match, puffing happily.

“Please stop…please….” Diana found herself begging, and the resulting grin on the tyrant's smug face made her skin crawl. This is all he ever hoped to hear…what he truly wants, she thought.

“So, the Judas Cradle is what finally brings brave little Diana Palmer to her knees…well, so to speak,” he chortled. “This was disappointingly swift , I must say. Not even one complete day in my grasp and you're already crumbling like a piece of used-up soap.” He leaned back in his chair, letting the expensive smoke swirl about him, and then nodded his head. “Good. You're beginning to realize you're nothing but a spoiled little bitch with an impertinent tongue, and too much of her daddy's money. But, I'll find good uses for both of those, in time, never fear....” he trailed off, his eyes glazing over behind a pair of rimless, tinted reading glasses that seemed to cast a hood, of sorts, over the top half of his face.

He ignored her, as she started to sob, and gestured to a group of nearby foot soldiers. The men opened a gigantic, wheezing wooden door and wheeled in a massive device, over twenty-five feet tall. Diana's eyes grew wide as a perfectly erect, golden phallus --- a depraved modern art exhibit if ever she'd seen one --- was rolled across the stone floor toward her, on a giant platform.

Chapter 5 --- The Feast of the Hog

Sven leaned back in the large rear seat of his new Cadillac Fleetwood limousine, inhaling the rich aroma of the soft maroon leather and burled walnut that engulfed him from all sides. Flipping down the vanity mirror, he inspected his fake mustache and goatee´ skeptically from behind his dark glasses, but admitted to himself that they looked fairly authentic, almost matching the tint of his thinning blonde hair.

He glanced with annoyance at a few random specks of dirt under his fingernails, remnants of the lawn he had cut just hours before. He would have to hire someone to do that from now on, he decided. After all, he could more than afford it now. He straightened his thick, black silk necktie and adjusted the gigantic ten-gallon Stetson so that it dipped stylishly below his right eye. The soft fabric of his new three-piece hung luxuriously, complimenting his muscular body in all the right places, and he brushed the tropical white wool briskly, removing tiny shreds of lint, before pouring himself his second Scotch of the evening from the built-in bar, to his right.

Sven loved this car. He had wanted a limo for a very long time, but had previously been unable to justify the expense. Sure, procuring girls for Tara had allowed him to pay off his mortgage, send Brianna to the best private schools, and had been key in funding several elaborate Caribbean vacations he had taken with Shelley over the past few years. But now, with his additional fat monthly stipend of 125 Gs, he could well afford the commercial storage shed for the car, which had not been cheap, as well as the bogus identity to which it was registered. This last part was essential, as there could be absolutely no tracing of the vehicle to him, given where it was usually driven by Randy, the chauffeur he employed part-time who worked for a local livery service.

His secret life was something he had nurtured lovingly over the years, but now it was really beginning to pay off. In just ten more months, he'd quit the boring job, sell the house, and move to the islands, where he'd build a compound that might even rival Palace Tarakimo. He chuckled. Well, maybe not in a year, but someday.

The intercom phone buzzed, and he picked it up.

“Boss, the girls are ready and waiting for you. Marnie just called, and asked if you'll be dining there tonight.”

Sven laughed lightly. “No Randy, I'll be going for a steak in Atlantic City . I wanna check out some of the new casinos. I plan to work up a big appetite,” he said smugly.

“Sure thing, Mr. Hog,” Randy returned from behind the raised glass partition, saluting him slightly with two raised fingers.

Even though he had lifted it from one of his favorite television shows, Sven had been vaguely irritated at the mention of his alter-ego's pseudonym in Wendy Franzen's letter to the editor, but had also been secretly thrilled by it. Only a select few ever used it. Besides, he thought contemptuously, those that did didn't seem of the demographic that would subscribe to the Liberty Times , even considering the rag's dwindling circulation, and Franzen wouldn't be a problem for much longer, anyway.

As his limo glided up the long circular drive of the private home of Marnie Gould, proprietress of the HenHouse, the exclusive sex club that he owned a significant share of, Sven laughed to himself at what Diana might think of his sweet little arrangement. He couldn't help but be dubious of the effectiveness of Diana's current regimen of “schooling” by Tara . That prude little twat was so tight you could cultivate diamonds from lumps of coal if you stuck them up her ass for just minutes.

His brow furrowed evilly at this idea, and he laughed again, this time louder, not caring if Randy was watching him in the rear-view, with his usual mix of puzzlement and awe.

As the neatly uniformed young man opened the rear door of the long white Caddy and helped Sven to his alligator-shod feet, Marnie walked quickly from the house to greet him.

“Boss Hog, looking very commanding this evening, as always,” she flattered; holding out one red-nailed hand as she lightly brushed the other seductively over his ass, kissing him on the cheek.

From inside the HenHouse, faint screams floated across the dewy, lush lawn.

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

“You…you can't be serious,” Diana sputtered finally, as the horrific, 8 yard penile replica was pushed into place and positioned directly below her.

“Oh yes! Sadly, for you, I am!” the tyrant sneered. “The artist was chastised severely, though. It doesn't even begin to pay tribute to the girth of my endowment, though the length itself is fairly accurate,” he snickered lewdly. “Kind of puts the ‘dick' in ‘dictator,” doesn't it?” He looked around at his men, who laughed mechanically in response. “Seriously, though, it's fairly slender for a good reason: it must be able to easily penetrate any opening that it collides with, especially since the speed of that collision will be painfully significant, though I'll explain more about that later.” He paused to admire the ghastliness of his contraption. “Of course, it's realistically rendered in that it's not perfectly straight, a feature that you will soon discover greatly accentuates the pain, when your snug little asshole lands on it!” he guffawed loudly.

Diana felt cold sweat break out all over her body as she realized just how serious the madman was. Trying to avoid the potential mutilation for as long as possible, she egged him on. “I know you want me for yourself, Tara. Destroying what you're most interested in isn't going to buy you anything in that department. I know how your sick little mind works. This is obviously the stick, so where's the carrot?”

“Very astute,” the general boomed congenially. “But you're wrong about one thing: I'm far more interested in that lovely snatch of yours. I'm not really into the anal thing, so if that area's too badly decimated, it won't be too much of a disappointment for me. As far as the proverbial ‘carrot' goes, it's advancing toward you from the wall that you're facing, at the moment,” he said, cackling softly.

She looked with terror at the opposite wall and watched, hypnotized by the sight of yet another long phallus moving slowly toward her crotch at about a 15 degree angle.

“When this second rod reaches your pert little pussy, but before it enters you,” the maniac paused, stringing out the suspense for as long as possible, puffing thickly on his fat cigar, “my engineers, who are concealed in a small room behind that wall,” he pointed proudly with his cigar to a small oblong slot in the stone, perhaps four feet higher than the jutting rod, “will make some adjustments, so that you can be adequately pleasured. It will be your task to keep those slender hips of yours moving, for if you don't, you will be motivated to do so!” He clapped his hands with glee.

Suddenly, before her eyes, a large container that looked like a paint can was lowered from the ceiling. It was no more than two feet in front of her face. When it finally stopped moving, the bottom was only inches from her tummy, and it radiated heat. Faint wisps of steam rose from the top of the container, though she couldn't see what was in it.

Diana turned her head at the sound of a sharp screech below her, as a very tall ladder was expanded, locked into place, and positioned next to the fake phallus. A small Asian man scurried nimbly up the metal steps, apparently with no fear of heights whatsoever. He reached into the pockets of his soldier's uniform, and produced two lengths of cable, which he quickly attached to metal loops on either side of the container. He tied the other ends of the wire to something below her. The whole procedure took him less than three minutes. Then, as quickly as he had arrived, he and the ladder were gone.

She looked down again at Tara with a disgusted look on her face, as he smiled up at her. “I'm sure you'll take your time explaining this as well,” she spat.

“You know me too well --- too, too, well!” the dictator beamed, huffing out a smoke ring. “Under your hips is sort of a reverse motion detector. After my men activate it, it will relentlessly monitor the movement in your hips. If you keep active, nothing too traumatic will happen --- you'll just be slowly fucked into oblivion!” he howled. “On the other hand,” he continued leisurely, “if you stop moving, that container will begin to tip, dribbling oozing hot wax all over your stomach, which, when enough of it spills at one time, will find its way into your twat, where it will gradually clog the penetration of the rod pulverizing your pretty pussy!” Tara began to pound the arm of his throne delightedly, no longer able to control his sadistic merriment.

“I…but, I….” Diana stammered out miserably.

“Yes, my dear?” the fiendish old man purred back at her, attempting to project an infinite amount of patience with the poor woman, but unable to completely hide his true intention of terrorizing her as much as possible before starting the torture.

“I…thought you said you weren't going to ruin my….” Diana fumbled weakly, not wanting to use the word, which had always disgusted her.

“Your… cunt ?” the villain bellowed harshly. “Yes, well, wax won't cause much damage, though it will suit my ultimate purposes by producing an exquisite amount of pain,” he laughed. “No, my super-cock, below you, is going to do the real damage. If --- though I believe ‘when' is more accurate --- the dildo rod stops moving completely, the cradle mechanism will slip, and you will fall one foot in that sling. If your muscles are strong enough, you can get the dildo moving again. You'll have one minute to do so, before you fall another foot. Of course, each time the dildo jams, it will be succeedingly more difficult for you to get it moving. And that can't go on forever, since, as you can see, there are only about five feet between you and that mock-up of my manhood beneath your pretty ass. And you won't be able to take much of my big boy once it begins to plow into you, I'll promise you that!”

“NO! NO! NO! ” Diana screamed crazily, finally abandoning what little remaining shreds of courage she had left.

“Now, now,” Tara chided her, as if she were six, “keep those hips moving, and you haven't a thing to worry about. Though, I must tell you, in all the years I've used this device, no one has been able to keep moving for more than six hours before collapsing with exhaustion. But, a strong woman such as yourself may very well earn a place of mention in the Tarakimo record books,” he finished, blowing a stream of smoke into the air luxuriously. “We'll see,” he said finally, lifting a crystal Brandy snifter up to toast her, watching as the light bounced off the fanciful facets in the glass, swirling the amber liquid around decadently before waving it beneath his large nostrils with pleasure.

Diana shrieked again as she heard the dildo rod stop moving, and gasped as it began to be “adjusted” to enter her loins with a series of buzzing motor sounds. She watched the hole in the stone, and could see two sets of eyes, alternately peering through large scopes and looking down to undoubtedly make changes in the calibration of the rod.

The general laughed. “They can't help you, precious. Only I can,” he smirked, sipping his nightcap and raising a hand to his chest of ornamental ribbons and medals. “Though, au contraire, that's not entirely true! You can help yourself. That UN report…let's discuss it, shall we?”

“ GO TO HELL, YOU MISERABLE FUCK! ” Diana wailed, breaking into choking tears.

“Tisk, tisk, I wouldn't expect such boorish language from you, my high-and-mighty Oxford graduate. I'm disappointed…even offended …and I'm only a crude street thug, at heart,” he chuckled. “Isn't that what you've called me in your report?” he demanded sternly.

When she didn't answer him, the dictator picked up a riding crop and waved it in the air grandly. “Major Sang,” he trumpeted ominously, “begin with her!”

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

As Sven strutted through the door of the HenHouse, he removed a leather cigar case from his breast pocket, plucked out an 8 ½ inch Punch President, and tore the end off of the cap viciously with his teeth. He thoughtlessly spat the crumbs on the red carpet beneath him, as a Korean house boy scurried to brush up the debris. Marnie, expert at not betraying the disgust she felt for this oafish brute, held out a flame from a gold lighter. In this henhouse, she thought grimly, Stevenson was the rooster to whom she had to cater most, especially given his recent elevation in position from the powers-that-be.

She waited expectantly as he collapsed into a large butterfly-wing chair near the door, tilted his head back, and took several cool drags from the big black cigar.

“Whatcha got for me, Marnie?” he grinned, chewing on the end of the rancid stick.

“Well, boss, our operatives in Bolivia were able to procure two beautiful twin girls for us,” she replied. “Given that they're twins, we expect to get close to half a million for them.” She smiled, proud of the difficult coup.

Sven pulled meditatively on the cigar, removed it from his mouth, and blew a thick cloud of noxious smoke into the entry room. “Tha's good,” he said finally, “but white girls would have netted us almost twice that.” He tapped his ash on the floor carelessly.

Marnie had to fight to control her temper. “Yes,” she said, through gritted teeth, “but you have to remember, Mr. Hog, that, given the current situation, world attention is sharply focused on these kinds of operations right now. I can assure you, once the awareness has waned, we'll be pursuing such procurements as soon as possible.”

Sven paused to consider this, slightly pissed that his employee knew so much about the business. He hooked both of his thumbs in his vest pockets and continued to smoke. “Tha's good, Miss Gould, because our superiors are expecting us to top $25 mill this year in revenues, and I'm gonna see that they get it.” He stood and buttoned his jacket importantly.

Marnie brushed the custom-tailored white coat with her hand, deciding it was best to stroke his gargantuan ego, rather than risk winding up as bait in one of Tara 's shark pools. She straightened his neck tie, holding her breath, while Sven continued to puff smoke uncouthly into her face.

“Are Jake and Nick here tonight?” he asked, walking toward the back of the reception area, sneaking a peek down the long, dark hallway.

“Yes,” Marnie said, “they're waiting for you, with the twins, in Salon K.”

“Yes, what?”

Marnie kept a straight face, though the level tone in her voice could not help but leak her exasperation. “Yes, Sir ,” she said.

The blonde pony-tailed man gave her a shit-eating grin and flung his Stetson haphazardly on a nearby chair, starting off down the hall, leaving a heady cloud of smoke in his wake.

Marnie sighed, and went to retrieve his hat, thinking wearily that she was getting way too old for this.

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

As the flight attendant announced once more that take-off would be delayed yet again due to air traffic problems, Sy removed the copy of the Times that he had taken with him, and re-read the lead story, Famed Reporter Feared Kidnapped in Tarakimo , for perhaps the tenth time.

No doubt the reporters who had compiled this story were still sequestered within the country, as the barricades to entering and exiting were still in effect, even four weeks after the incident. Were they now suffering, as he had? He fished out two Maalox and popped them in his mouth, turning the pages of the journal with clammy hands.

But no, he thought, that would run in direct contradiction to Tara 's usual pattern of operation. He wanted the world to back off just enough, due to fear of what he might do to the twenty or thirty journalists that were holed up, but he wasn't stupid enough to harm any of them, except for Diana, he thought wretchedly. They're probably all in a deluxe wing of the palace, eating caviar morning, noon , and night, he mused. And some of them are no doubt beginning to like it, and that was Tara 's real intention: corruption of the innocent. There was nothing the monster liked better, except for abject torture, he thought glumly.

“Is this seat taken?” a large black man in an elegant dove grey suit piped from Sy's left.

Sy started, as the thought immediately screamed in his head ( TARA ), but he just smiled and got up to allow the man access to his seat.

“Going to New York ?” the well-dressed man asked him jovially. He had a lilting Caribbean accent that reminded Sy uneasily of Isamu's own affected way of speaking, even though he knew Tara 's lead goon was of Nigerian origin.

“Ah, yes,” Sy returned, starting to feel an adrenaline rush of fear begin to build near the base of his spine.

“Me, too!” the man sang happily. “Ah, but it'll be blessed hot out there, this time of year, won't it?”

Sy just nodded pleasantly and instinctively placed an arm over the newspaper in front of him, failing in deterring the big man's careful gaze.

“Oh, that mess!” the suited man continued. “A true tragedy. I do hope that poor young girl is OK. There's no telling what that maniac will do to her. I've heard he's a true savage, no?”

Sy steadied his hands and looked into the man's eyes. He was no longer smiling. His pupils seemed afire with menace, as he stared down the old man, not blinking once.

“I've heard the leader is a powerful man. I sure would not want to cross him. He can make people's lives a misery, even when they're not in his country. People have told me that he's ordered kidnappings of many relatives of his enemies, even small children --- young girls for instance. He even has a special place for them. Kind of a miniature version of his playroom, I think it is. The schoolroom , that's it. Yes.”

“What do you want?” Sy whispered, face completely white now.

Suddenly, the intercom crackled to life above them, and the attendant made the final take-off announcements. Sy tried to keep his eyes on the young woman as she went through the standard demonstration of seat-belt safety and emergency exit locations.

Sy's eyes went wide as he heard a sharp “click,” inches from his left side, and then gasped as a sharp piece of metal made contact with the space just above his kidney. He closed his eyes tightly, wishing for it to be over as soon as possible.

“Feel familiar?” the black man asked, softly. “The leader has acquired so many more playthings that he's eager to show you, Mr. Carey,” he continued, in a harsh whisper. “I don't think you want to see them, though, do you?”

Sy shook his head slowly, glancing down at the pen knife which was now grazing his side. But as he did, the man jabbed it into him even harder. Sy had to bite his tongue to stop from screaming.

“If I could get this little trinket through security, imagine what I have waiting on the ground, old man…” he laughed, lowering his voice even more. “We know you've been contacted by David Palmer. I'm telling you right now, if you decide to keep that appointment with him, little Kaylie will be on a private jet, heading for a very painful lesson in the leader's schoolroom. Understand?”

Sy nodded his head violently.

“Good,” the large man said, in a slightly louder voice. “I'm going back up to first class now,” he boomed, as a chime, indicating that cabin movement was permitted, sounded crisply.

Sy raised himself on shaking legs as the man brusquely pushed past him. Once the frightened man had slumped back down in his seat, the black man clapped his large, rough hand loudly on Sy's shoulder and intoned: “Enjoy the rest of your flight. And don't worry --- we'll be in touch, old man.”

Sy put his head in his hands and began to cry softly. When he finally looked up, he noticed his tears had fallen upon a block of text that he scanned distractedly:

“My room, unlike Diana's, he explained, had a terrace…”

 

Sy found himself studying that sentence, re-reading it over and over. A terrace in Palace Tarakimo? He couldn't quite claim to be an authority on the place, but remembered inspecting it closely enough when he'd arrived with Jozef in the Rolls. Terraces were great for assassinations, weren't they? It didn't match Tara 's paranoid mindset at all.

Staring at the photograph of Sven Stevenson, just below the paragraph, Sy's head began to throb.

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

Sven burst roughly into the salon, kicking the door in theatrically with his alligator-skin cowboy boot.

Before his delighted eyes were two beautiful twin girls, with brown skin the color of milk chocolate and tits the size of baby watermelons, milky white aureoles beckoning. They were bound together at their wrists, completely naked, kneeling on the large four-poster bed in front of him. He giggled wildly as both of their faces crumpled with fear at precisely the same time, as they got their first look at the brawny cigar-smoking man whose threatening appearance promised to make the rest of their night a living hell.

Jake and Nick, the two big bikers who assisted him on many occasions, each stood and walked over to the girls. The men, greasy, long-haired types who wore black t-shirts, jeans, motorcycle boots, and leather vests caked with studs, grasped the hair of one girl each, pulling it violently back.

Sven chuckled and paced toward the girls deliberately. He got in their faces and puffed heavily on his cigar, completely shrouding the poor twins in smoke for a brief instant.

“Well, I'll be,” he crowed. “Looks like I'm gonna double my pleasure tonight, eh, boys?” He reached out and tugged on the right girl's nipple violently and leaned in close. Sven ran his hot tongue over the left girl's face, and without pause, lapped it straight onto the other's, as well. He then stepped back, and undid his large turquoise belt buckle.

“Ladies, my name is Boss Hawg, and we're gonna get to know each other real good tonight.” He doubled up the leather and cracked it hard, inches from their faces, his cock bulging with excitement as the girls jumped in unison. “Boys, untie ‘em and place ‘em end to end on the bed there. I want their feet techin'.”

He grinned with secret mirth at the cornpone Southern accent he intermittently affected, then walked over to the bar and poured himself a double Bourbon on the rocks, inhaling the intoxicating aroma of the aged liquor as the girls began to squeal with fear.

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.

Chapter 7 --- In the Claw's Clutches

Marnie gingerly replaced the phone on the hook as she heard Sven's heavy footsteps approaching from the hall.

“Goddamn, those twins are talented!” the big man crowed, hefting his belt as far as he could raise it over his humongous beer gut. He retrieved his white Stetson from a coat rack and donned it grandly, strutting over to the receptionist's desk. Marnie gave him a plastic-looking smile and went back to thumbing through an old edition of Fortune .

“You think it was really necessary to use the dogs, Boss?” she asked lightly, not looking up from her magazine.

“Fuck yes, it was, Marnie,” Sven said, a bit louder than he intended. “Man's gotta eat. I wasn't about to make another trip down here just to get ‘em to sign some lousy papers.” He put a fresh cigar in his mouth and moved his face closer to the woman.

“Light your own damn cigar, Sven,” Marnie said tiredly, finally looking into his cold blue eyes.

The blonde man did a double-take, straightened himself up to his full height, and bellowed for his henchmen. Marnie leaned back in her chair, laughing slightly.

“Do they hold your dick while you take a piss, too? I know they hold your women down,” Marnie observed, contempt dripping from her smoky voice.

“What's the matter? Big bad Boss Hog is gonna have me slapped around?”

“I don't know what the fuck's gotten into you Marnie, but I don't like it. Seems like you want to help me whet my whistle even before I get a belly full o' beef,” Sven smirked. “We can arrange that.” He'd never liked Marnie from the day he met her, and suspected she'd returned the feelings. Still, he wouldn't tolerate this sort of insubordination. He could hire any bitch off the street to do her job.

Jake and Nick appeared in the hall doorway, still sweaty from the interrogation session, looking confused.

“Boys, take our friend Miss Gould here into the playroom,” Sven commanded, jerking a thumb in the direction of the two goons. The two men just gaped, open-mouthed, as Marnie began to laugh even harder.

“Sven, I just got off the phone with Lieutenant Major Isamu. It would seem I'm not the only one who's grown tired of your histrionics,” she said smoothly.

Sven's rage-ridden puffy face began to shrivel, as if Marnie had stuck a pin into it. He removed the unlit cigar from his mouth and took off his large hat, fanning it slowly across his dampening face. Just the sound of Isamu's name had evoked more fear and hesitation in the man than Marnie could have hoped. Sven reluctantly waved the men away.

“What the fuck's going on?” he demanded.

“Sit down, Sven,” she smiled, gesturing to one of the chairs in front of her desk, “we should talk.”

Sven stuffed himself into the small, hard-backed chair and glared at her hatefully.

“I think your philosophy of ‘the more the better' is catching up with you, boss ,” she said, saying his title mockingly. “The big man wants you back in Tarakimo. I told him I hadn't seen you around recently, but that I would take a look. I'm looking,” she finished, eyeing him hungrily.

“You goddamn bitch,” Sven snarled, “what do you want? A bigger piece of the action?”

“For starters. Fifty percent of the take around here will get you out the door tonight, and to that steak you're so hungry for. But it's gonna take more if you want to buy some additional time to save your family.”

Sven narrowed his eyes. “You're a lying cunt. How do I know you even talked to Isamu?” Sven demanded.

“You don't. I could be making the whole thing up,” Marnie sneered, shrugging her shoulders casually. “What's the matter, Sven? I thought you and the general were old pals. Are you afraid you won't be coming back from this trip?”

The hulking man leaned over menacingly, pointing a finger in the face of the gloating woman. “I'll be back, an' when I finish with you, your pretty little twat will be swingin' from the rear-view of my new Caddy,” he snapped. “Count on it, sweet tits.”

Marnie said nothing, though she did feel a cool wind move through the office, even before Sven opened the front door and stalked outside.

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

“Doesn't anyone in this vile pit ever sleep?” Diana choked out, when Isamu had finally seated himself in the general's throne chair, after staring up at her for more than five minutes without speaking.

“With so many delightful ways to pass the time, it almost seems a shame to waste the minutes in unconsciousness,” the black man laughed. “Even so, as enjoyable as your distress is to me, and to the general, we must move on in the interest of time.” He clapped his hands loudly.

Diana felt herself being raised, and the horrible throbbing pain in her ass seemed to stop momentarily. The vaginal dildo was retracted with a loud popping noise, and she winced as it seemed ready to almost take her insides along for the ride. Diana felt herself move horizontally, and then downward, downward, very slowly, until she was on the ground looking straight at Isamu. The pain in her rear returned, with a force much worse than before, as the relative numbness induced by the constant violation vaporized.

She shuddered as he continued to gaze at her, knowing he was inspecting her like a scientist, looking carefully for the hidden flaw --- the crack beneath her sheen of courage.

“I take it that you're still not cooperating. Is that right?” he asked, in a bored tone of voice.

“You take right,” she dead-panned back.

“I wonder…a smart woman like yourself…you must realize by now what we wish to do with you…what we're getting at….” Isamu smoothed his elegant, medaled black uniform, as he paced toward a wall bedecked with whips, canes, and paddles. “Isn't there a part of you that finds this all…vaguely exciting? I mean, it must be exposing you to a number of previously inexperienced sensations, no?”

The man's easy self-confidence and bravado oozed over Diana, almost dissolving her avid hatred of him for the moment and replacing it with a sort of dread fascination, a feeling of involuntary hypnosis. His voice was dredged in velvet, each syllable fluid and distinct; the thick crunching sound of dirt and gravel beneath his glossy riding boots almost lulling. As he searched the wall, looking for an appropriate tool, as a student might peruse a library shelf, Diana found herself wanting this to be over as soon as possible, wanting someone to take her from this and end it. She wanted to be free, to be saved --- at any cost.

“We've only been working on you a short time, but we've been observing your reactions to various stimuli…” he continued, selecting a large bull-whip that looked like a coiled black king snake. “You definitely had no problem conjuring up a moist secretion when his Excellency was questioning you on the rack.” He drew his gloved hand back and deftly flicked his wrist with a small movement. The six-foot whip cracked sharply, sounding like a blast of buckshot. Diana quivered. Isamu repeated the action, gazing over at her intently, as she averted her eyes. He smiled slightly and returned the whip to its place on the wall.

“When you were in the bedroom, the leader observed a curiosity and eagerness that he found telling, almost voyeuristic….” He took a large, curved, rounded black paddle from the wall and fondled it in his hands, weighing its heft intently. “It feels good, doesn't it, to be a tool in someone else's hand? To bear no responsibility, no guilt? I mean, it wasn't like you had much choice in the matter. You were an extension of the Mighty One's very hand --- the dictator's claw, so to speak.”

Diana was now visibly trembling, tears pouring from her face. “No! I didn't have any part in that poor woman's death. It was him…all him!”

“Ah, yes, that's true,” Isamu went on pleasantly, giving the paddle two good swings in mid-air, savoring the rush of current that followed, like a refreshing spring breeze. “Like all of us here, you are finding that we have little or no choice in our actions. We are doing the bidding of a god among men, after all. It is our destiny, our fate.” He returned the paddle to it's hook and walked a bit further along the ghoulish wall. “You will find that things will be much easier for you to bear if you just surrender yourself to that fact.”

Isamu's hands finally rested on a medium-length dressage whip, the end of which was decorated with steel barbs. He gave it a few casual flicks, droning on. “You're being seduced by him, as we all have been. He's living inside of you now, growing stronger with every minute.” He walked toward her, stopping a few feet in front of her crotch. “It's time to free yourself...to give in to your impulses….”

Diana gasped with terror as the brutish man reared back and brought the whip down sharply on her wax-clotted pussy. Even though she felt virtually nothing, due to the thick, opaque encasement around her loins, she began to scream with abandonment. “You know you want it, Diana. Say it. Tell me that you welcome the leader.” He gave her two more swift strokes, hacking the wax off viciously in large clods.

“No…I….” she gasped, her eyes pleading with Isamu as her voice degenerated into a series of spasmodic wailing.

“Welcome him, as he welcomes you!” He brought the whip down three more times, the third time drawing blood and sending a sharp piercing sensation through Diana that shot through her spine. She screamed loudly.

“SAY IT, BITCH!” Isamu thundered, poising the whip in the air to strike her again.

“I…welcome…him!” Diana shrieked, collapsing into hysterical sobs.

Isamu removed his glove and plunged his index finger into her roughly. Diana squirmed uncomfortably, not having relieved herself in several hours and trembling at the consequences if she chose to do so now.

The big man licked his finger thoughtfully, and then motioned to his guards. One held her arm steady as the other plunged a large hypodermic needle into an exposed vein. Diana felt a large wave of grogginess hit her, almost instantly.

Isamu watched as her limp body was untied and returned to the prison cell, pleasantly humming a tune he remembered from his youth.

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

Sven looked once more at his watch and debated phoning Shelley from the casino, once he got there. It was now almost midnight, and she would no doubt be suspicious. But, he thought, tonight would be an opportune time for Tara 's thugs to make their move, if what Marnie said was true.

He tried to pacify his fear by thinking of the many ways he would make that traitorous cunt suffer once this was over. So, she wanted to run the show, did she? Just a few days dealing with Isamu, and she'll wish she was back on the phones, doing her little clerical chores. Dealing with that erratic maniac was a bitch of a way to earn a living, and she'll find that out soon enough, he thought ruefully.

Sven decided the best way around this was through a direct confrontation. He'd call Isamu tomorrow morning and find out what was what. A trip to Tarakimo might not be such a bad thing. He could give Isamu and Tara a dog and pony show, explain his plans for expanding his branch of the trade, discuss new interrogation techniques, try out some new toys, eat good food, smoke some fine Cubans, and sow a few gallons of joy juice in the process. He laughed to himself, as he poured a fresh drink.

No, this wouldn't be so bad after all. Maybe he'd even be able to eavesdrop on Diana's training. He smiled, his cock growing stiffer at the thought of his high-and-mighty ivy-league honey, as his limousine shot through the night, toward Atlantic City .

The only kink in the plan would be devising a cover for the Times . His whereabouts were even more closely monitored by everyone now, even by the media. No, he would have to go incognito, as Hog.

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

A week passed.

Diana knew it had been at least seven days, if only by the number of sparse meals she ate in her filthy prison cell. She had been allowed to shower only once during the entire time. Over the past week, between the drugs and the lack of food and water, her head constantly swam in a delirious balance between discomfort and arousal. The former was due mostly to a very large metal apparatus she had been forced to wear around her waist and crotch, which sported openings for her to relieve herself when unlocked, but which prevented her from completely touching her pussy or her asshole. It was secured with a large bolt and appeared to be a medieval chastity belt. The latter was due to the constant broadcasts of torture being streamed into her cell.

At first she was repulsed by the videos, but she gradually became intrigued by them, mostly due to the adamant, vocal responses from the female victims onscreen and the lack of anything else to pass the time. They were in pain, she didn't doubt that. But in truth, it seemed very staged, almost like a dirty movie. The girls seemed very excited, almost pleasured, by the caresses of the captor's soft gloves and the forcefulness of their persuasive tools. In particular, that of Isamu's.

The large Nigerian was quite threatening, Diana admitted, and she could understand how he might seem exotic to some. Of course, these ignorant girls had never argued with the man ad nauseum for hours in order to gain even a few civil rights for prisoners. They wouldn't understand such things. How they could endure his condescension, his intimidation, his raw… power …. She felt herself suddenly blushing as she remembered wondering as a freshman at Oxford , adrift in a sea of boring preppy WASPs, what a big black man would look like, standing over her, cock erect. Hadn't she occupied those many long nights in her apartment, after studying alone, with just such fantasies? Maybe she was no different, or better, than these girls after all.

She cursed herself. What kind of slut was she, and why would she be thinking these thoughts? They were the thoughts of an insurgent, a traitor. They're breaking you down bit by bit, she thought bitterly. And yet….

Yet, she longed to see her pussy again, to scratch it, to tend to it. She felt its insatiable craving and its welling warmth, and was continually frustrated by the cold metal when she went to relieve herself. You aren't attracted to those monsters, she reasoned. They're placeholders. Substitutes for Sven. Oh, how she wanted him!

She stretched out on the cold stone floor and threw her head back, a pathetic moan escaping her parched lips.

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

In her dream, Diana was lying on a large silk bed --- the bed of the general. A large man with a black hood stood over her, zealously lubing a huge vaginal pear. She remembered thinking: I must scream. I must cry out . But she didn't. Instead, she spread her legs even wider than they already were spread. Curiously, she wasn't tied down…no. She wanted him to violate her with the monstrous tool.

The man had hands the color of coal, and she knew it was Isamu. “Just do it! Finish me off!” she screamed at him, almost joyous. He just stood there and laughed while her pussy became wetter and wetter. He taunted her with the device, running the sharp tip over her G-spot, and then withdrawing it. Finally she reached toward him, grabbed the pear, and began thrusting it inside herself, reveling in the pain. But it wasn't enough.

She lunged for the man, lunged for the hood. She remembered pulling it off and then….

Nothing….nothing except for the large clanking sound of her cell door being opened, and a large light flooding her eyes. A tall uniformed figure stood before her, and she knew it was Tara , merely by the amount of ornamentation on his chest. It must weigh fifty pounds, she thought scornfully, probably the only hard thing on his corpulent body. Though, his arms were strong, she remembered…frighteningly strong.

The flunky at his side switched off the light and she got a better look at the dictator, who was dressed to the nines, as usual. He stepped toward her until her face was inches from the toe of his shiny jackboot.

“Lick it, cunt,” he commanded. When she refused, he swung his riding crop viciously at her mouth, slashing open her lower lip.

“You…fucking… PRICK !” she yelled, but he only laughed in response and waved his long, razor-thin cigarette holder in her direction. His thug, a large Asian with the build of a Sumo wrestler, lifted her from the ground by her hair and she shrieked with pain. Tara smiled sweetly, patting her cheek playfully with a white leather glove that extended halfway up his forearm --- more decorative than functional, but intimidating, nonetheless.

He marched ahead of her, down the long hallway, as if he were leading a parade, as the henchman propelled her forward with a chokehold on her wrists. The weight of the belt made it difficult to walk, and when she did, the steel ground into her thighs uncomfortably.

After walking for maybe five minutes, the despot stopped at a large set of double doors and rapped twice with his crop. The doors opened and Diana looked in at a large room with nothing inside but a long, black rectangular box, like a coffin.

Was this it? Was this her tomb? she thought, frantically.

Tara gave her a swift swat on the thigh with his whip, as though she were a recalcitrant mare, and the goon pushed her toward the black box. When they arrived near it, he lifted her in his arms, while Tara worked a control on the table that supported the container, and the top slid smoothly open.

Diana gasped with terror as she looked inside, and saw what appeared to be thousands upon thousands of tiny spikes embedded in the top, bottom, and sides of the coffin. “An…iron maiden...” she murmured, aghast.

“Ah, not quite, my beauty!” Tara chuckled. “Though it does resemble a horizontal version of that infernal machine, does it not? The goal of the maiden is to simply puncture your flesh. Effective, in some cases, but altogether quite boring as tortures go.” He drew on his cigarette holder, sucking the smoke up into his nose, holding it in his lungs for quite some time before it trickled slowly back out through his mouth and nose. “No. This device is much, much more insidious. It conforms more closely to my ultimate objectives, you see.”

Diana fought to escape the Asian man, but he held her tightly. “To become your sex toy? That's it, isn't it, Tara ? You don't care about that report at all!” Diana shouted. It would almost be a relief if he just stopped the charade and told her what he was really after, she thought.

“Sweet, naïve Diana. How you underestimate me,” he purred in reply. “I do want your submission, that's true. But I want so much more. And every day I have you in my clutches, the closer I get to achieving it.” He puffed thoughtfully for a few seconds and then gestured to the box. “Put her in,” he ordered blithely.

“No!” Diana cried futilely, as the goon lowered her into the box. She thrashed about, trying to strike him in the face, but he put his gloved hand on her neck and started to choke her. When she relaxed, he removed the grip and settled her into her small, dark prison. She braced herself for the piercing spikes, but was amazed when she didn't feel them. Instead, she felt as if she were lying on a very thin sheet of plastic, which, upon inspecting her surroundings, she found that she was.

Tara was standing at the foot of the coffin, busily twisting another cigarette into his holder. He lit it quickly and blew a cloud of smoke into the box, where it swirled and wafted around her. “Surprised?” he queried smugly. “Oh, I don't want to puncture your pretty body right away. That would rob me of a lot of pleasure. No, that's a very fine layer of Plexiglas that you're resting on. Never fear, it can be pierced quite easily, but I don't want you to suffer just yet. I have…so-o-o-ooo much more to tell you!” he laughed gaily.

“I just bet you do!” Diana couldn't help but retort, amazed and horrified at how twisted this evil man's mind was.

“Sang,” Tara said, turning his head toward his menial, “insert the balls.”

Diana's first instinct was to lash out, but she was terrified to move even slightly. The plastic beneath her shimmied unstably and she was very close to the spikes that surrounded her sides. Sang brought his hand down to her crotch and unlocked a door on the belt, directly in front of her pussy. As he did, Diana sighed with relief as the air made contact with her sweaty sex. This momentary respite quickly turned to terror as she felt two steel balls being rammed straight up her pussy.

Tara laughed deeply. “Ever hear of Ben-Wa balls, my dear? The Chinese used them for years to stimulate their consorts. They were frequently used with chastity belts to keep the juices…flowing, so to speak, keeping the recipient in a heightened state of ecstasy for days, sometimes weeks, while her monogamy was safely ensured!” Sang quickly locked the door and secured the belt, before she could think to answer his outrageous claim.

“These balls though…are unlike any other ever made,” he continued. “They contain sensing devices which monitor the amount of…activity you might be experiencing. When they sense your twat is relatively dry, they will produce an ultrasonic beep, which can be detected by my special equipment in there.” He pointed dramatically at a panel of glass covering one wall. It obviously must conceal a monitoring room, Diana thought miserably. Of course he's going to watch this, and quite comfortably, no doubt.

“When I feel you're getting a bit too dry for your own good, I will activate the box.” The general raked his gloved fingers over the spikes on top of the box lid, almost lovingly. “It will, in turn, begin to converge upon you, from all sides. And these little babies…” --- he touched the tip of his lit cigarette to one of the spikes. --- “will begin to brush against your flesh, moving up and down. As you can see, they're not metal at all, but a flexible sort of hardened polymer.” He demonstrated by wiggling one of the prongs.

Diana inwardly sighed with relief, just a little. This box wasn't the death trap she envisioned after all. Just something that will be extremely uncomfortable, though not unbearable. Well, that's fine. Let him have his sadistic fun. This overdressed thug wasn't going to break her this easily.

“Oh, they're still sharp, never fear!” he cackled, removing his spent cigarette butt from the holder and easily skewering it on the spike, as Diana's brief composure again vanished. “But the purpose of these is to stimulate, not mutilate,” he concluded silkily.

“What do you want, general?” Diana asked him suddenly. “If all you want is that faked report, then bring it on. I've tired of these irritating little games. The UN, Amnesty, and the government are closing in on you bit by bit. It's just a matter of time before they force a search of Tarakimo! They know I'm here and they know that report will be falsified. They're just waiting for it. I only want to be…” she trailed off, her head falling to one side, looking away from him. It enraged her how his tyrannous torture tools could sway her resolve so easily, as if she was putty in his hands.

“…Left alone?” he crooned softly. “Well, tough shit, bitch!” he shouted at her. “I'll make you sign that report soon enough, and it will be effective, just you watch. I have more tricks than you'd ever guess up my sleeve…more favors to call in than you'll ever know! As for my motives, I'll just wait, and reveal them slowly, while you suffer the agonies of a thousand tiny deaths!” He began to laugh like a lunatic. “And agonies you will know…” he said, turning and beckoning to someone that Diana could not see with a gloved finger.

A large plastic case was placed into the tyrant's hands. “Major, give me some light,” he instructed, again to someone unseen. Large fluorescents illuminated the room. The villain casually turned the box around and gave Diana a good look. She felt her adrenaline shoot through the roof of her mouth as she gaped in terror at hundreds upon hundreds of very large cockroaches, entangled together and scurrying over one another in a frenzied mass.

Diana began to scream with terror. She might have known he'd try this, she thought. He loves to prey on old fears, and he had somehow discovered that this was one of them. Fucking bugs! She despised them. Especially roaches!

Tara 's face was alive with evil as he greedily devoured the palpable fear in her eyes. He looked positively joyous, and Diana didn't doubt that he had a huge erection. He rubbed his hands together ecstatically and laughed his revolting little laugh. “They're wonderful aren't they? Imported from South America . The largest and the most vicious in the world! Oh, how they bite!” He handed the box over to Sang and started to walk away, then stopped and returned.

“Oh, one more thing. This box is equipped with four highly sensitive microphones. So, speak up. I want to make sure you're enjoying yourself! I know I will be!” He placed his cigarette holder in his mouth, tilted his head back, and chortled obnoxiously.

A small smile played on Sang's lips as he slowly opened the box containing the filthy insects, and tilted it slowly towards Diana.

Chapter 8 – Down to the Wire

Shelley Stevenson tossed the dog-eared women's magazine she had been leafing through across the marble-lined bathroom. She was so horny she could scream. She had thought the afternoon bubble bath would relax her, but it was only serving to whip the froth of her tensions up further. Goddamn Sven, that asshole, she thought uselessly. He hadn't been home now for almost a day and a half. Her mind spun with the mountain of curses she would unload upon him when he finally walked through the door.

Reaching down into the steamy bath for the handle of the rubber scrub brush, she toyed with the idea of sticking it up her snatch, but disregarded it quickly. She most certainly wasn't going to reduce herself to an afternoon of jerking herself senseless while her philandering husband was satisfying himself in more legitimate ways.

She had suspected he'd been fucking that snooty socialite, and had been secretly relieved to hear that the issue wouldn't be cropping up for a while. But still, Sven's “late nights” at the Times still seemed to continue, and she knew now that they would never end until she cut the bastard's cock clean off. She was imagining just that, and starting to get vaguely excited, when the doorbell rang.

After checking the peephole, and seeing a young man in his thirties with disheveled dark hair and a black leather jacket, she opened the door, keeping the chain attached.

“Hi, Mrs. Stevenson?” the young man asked, looking hopeful.

“Yes?” she said, guardedly, but not without a smile. He reminded her of John Cusack, the actor, with his neat, trim appearance and swimmer's build.

“I'm Colin Gallagher. I work with Sven over at the Times . He was supposed to turn in some pictures for an article of mine that was due a few hours ago. We're really in a jam over it. My editor will have my head on a platter if I don't bring him back something.” He gave her a warm smile and shrugged his shoulders. “I'm really sorry to bother you. Should I come back in a little bit?” he asked, looking at her robe and wet hair.

“No, no, don't be silly,” Shelley responded. “Sounds like it'll just take a few seconds. Please, come in.”

Colin stepped into the house and took a good look around. Just an ordinary tract home in Jersey . Not more than 1300 square feet, if that. But, as he walked through the living room, he took note of the new projection television in the corner of the room. He'd never actually seen one of these, but he'd heard about them. To the right of the TV were a large Quasar quarter-inch video tape recorder and an RCA video disc player. He'd heard both of these went for close to a grand, if you could even get a store to put you on the waiting list.

“I suppose you want to see Sven's dark room? It's this way. Care for something to drink?”

“Oh, no,” he returned politely. “You're very kind.”

He quickly followed her, noticing the large black marble countertop that enclosed the kitchen. “What a cool kitchen counter,” he remarked.

Shelley smiled. “Yes, we love it. Well, it's through that door and to your right.”

“Great. Thanks again.”

Colin walked through the doorway of a room that contained a washer and dryer and some cleaning supplies, and his eye stopped on a hunting rifle propped up in the corner. He was about to take a closer look at it, then realized Shelley was right behind him. He continued toward another door with a large red light bulb mounted at the top of the frame, turned, and waved pleasantly at the woman before entering.

Once inside, Sven silently locked the door and quickly began to search through the piles of glossy photographs to the right of the developing pans. Everything he'd seen so far was pointing him in the right direction. Now, all he needed was some hard proof. Still, after sorting through maybe fifty photographs, there was nothing in the pile that told him otherwise.

He spotted a filing cabinet in the corner and began to root around in it rapidly, but again could find nothing. Contact sheets, specs on camera equipment, business receipts…. He stopped, and began to rifle through the little bits of paper, which were organized and clipped together quite neatly. Too neatly, in fact, to make him believe that they belonged to his gregarious, carefree colleague. But, maybe he was more put together in other parts of his life, Colin thought, not believing it for a second.

Near the back of the folder were several itineraries stapled together. A quick search of these made his hands go suddenly cold. There were quite a few mentions of South America and the far east on the trip plans. More than five in the past year. And they had all been paid for with cash, some of the trips costing more than $5,000. Even so, it wasn't enough.

Colin jumped as he heard a knock on the door.

“Mr. Gallagher, do you need some help in there?”

“Ah, no. Thanks, Mrs. Stevenson….”

“Call me Shelley,” came her light, musical voice.

“No thanks, Shelley. I've found what I'm looking for.”

Colin began to perspire as he heard the doorknob begin to turn, and then gulped quickly for air as the sound stopped, as quickly as it had begun.

“OK. Well, I'll leave you to it then,” Shelley said, sounding vaguely disappointed.

Colin rolled his eyes. The last thing he wanted to do was get involved with the wife of a potential gangster or thug, or whatever the hell Stevenson called his second “occupation.” His mind swam at the true meaning behind these sickening revelations. He stuffed a few of the receipts into his jacket pocket, wadding them up into little balls, and then closed the drawer.

The last row in the cabinet had a cheap-looking combination padlock attached to it, and his eyes focused with dread on the grey steel file it secured. Almost by instinct, he tugged the lock, not changing the numbered reels. It immediately dropped open. Now this is the Sven I know and love, he thought grimly. He delved greedily into the drawer and pulled out one of about ten plain brown envelopes. He recoiled at the first picture he pulled out.

It depicted a girl, no more than nineteen or twenty, he thought, spread-eagled and tied to a large steel table. Between her crotch was a large, rounded saw blade. If he hadn't seen the girl's eyes so clearly, he would have sworn they were just dirty pictures, delivered from the UK or the Middle East for a hefty sum, no doubt. But the terror in the girl's face was very real. He could tell she had been crying, as there were visible signs of moisture in the corners of her big, round eyes. Her teeth were barely visible behind a large handkerchief that had been stuffed into her mouth.

His heartbeat raced as he shuffled through the photographs, all of young girls arrayed and trussed up in sadistically twisted configurations. One girl was strung from a rod in a doorway with a rat dangling above her pussy by a barely-visible wire. Another woman was tied to a spit above several black kettles piled high with charcoal briquettes. Yet another was tied to a torture rack, her legs looking as though they were formed from Silly Putty, obviously no longer breathing.

Colin began panting hard, no longer caring if his tortured breathing could be heard or not. He stuffed the obscenities back in the envelope and slid it quickly under his arm, zipping up the jacket.

He looked frantically around for something to take with him, and snatched a large padded envelope from one of the counters. He took several deep breathes, then slowly opened the door to the dark room, paced through the laundry area, then started down the hall.

When he was about to step through the threshold of the kitchen doorway, he heard a sharp cracking sound and a woman's voice screaming for help. Peering around the corner, he saw two large, long-haired men in black T-shirts and leather vests; one holding a very large hunting knife to Shelley Stevenson's throat, while the other fit her wrists with a shiny set of steel handcuffs.

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

“Well, gentlemen, what can I do ya for?” Sven asked, putting down a sheaf of papers he had been leafing through at his small desk in the Times city room.

Before him were two elderly men, one dressed in a worn corduroy blazer, the other in a dapper black three-piece suit. He recognized the first man as Sy Carey, after a few moments.

“Mr. Stevenson,” the first man smiled, almost with hesitation, “I've wanted to meet you for some time now.”

“Mr. Carey!” Sven boomed, as if he were a long-lost relative. “What a pleasure! I hardly expected to find you here in this rank eastern heat. Aren't you located out in fair San Diego ?” He reached out his large paw and pumped the frail-looking man's hand wildly until it almost threatened to pop off.

Sy laughed lightly at Sven's enthusiasm and looked down. The other man continued to gaze at Sven in a detached way, almost as if he were evaluating him.

“Please guys, sit down!” Sven insisted, pulling up another small side chair from a nearby desk, to compliment his own.

“Sven, I'd like to introduce David Palmer, Diana's uncle,” Sy said, gesturing to the black-suited man. An uncertain look came over Sven, and then he pushed his hand into the elegant man's soft grip. He quickly withdrew it from Sven's touch after only seconds, and did not smile. Jesus Christ, Sven thought, Diana wasn't joking when she said her uncle was a bit unapproachable. Even though he'd dated Diana for more than half a year, he had never met either of her two guardians, but didn't find that strange. Her uncle was a notorious recluse who never ventured far outside of his palatial 100-acre estate in western Massachusetts , and his wife was usually in Europe , or at their Park Avenue apartment.

“Mr. Palmer, it's…such a pleasure,” Sven gushed. “Diana never stops talking about you and, of course, I know many things about all the good work you and your wife have done….” He trailed off, getting absolutely zero response from the man.

All three men took their seats, as Sy began to speak in a low, steady voice that commanded all the authority of someone speaking at four times the volume.

“Sven, Mr. Palmer has some questions for you regarding the trip you took with Diana, to Tarakimo. He's about to embark on hiring several international agents to engage in a world-wide manhunt for her. Before he does, he wants to clear some things up.”

“Wow! That's fantastic, Mr. Palmer,” Sven marveled. “It's about damn time, too. No one is taking this case near as serious as they should. I mean, I can't even get people to guard my own family, and I've been threatened several times.”

“Before or after you left Tarakimo, Mr. Stevenson?” Palmer asked curiously, speaking in a voice that oozed money and breeding.

“Well, both, David. Mind if I call you David? Call me Sven. Are you thinking she's still in Athens ?”

“So, your story is still that Tara 's thugs threatened you after you made your initial press statements while still in Tarakimo. Is that right, Mr. Stevenson?” Palmer asked, ignoring Sven's extraneous questions with cold neutrality.

“It was a bit more than a story, Dave….” Sven began, laughing slightly, “It sure as shit happened. I wish to god it hadn't.”

“Please. Mr. Palmer will do nicely,” came the man's stiff response, as he recoiled slightly at Sven's profanity.

Sven's cool slipped a notch. Who did this arrogant ivy-league prick think he was talking to? He suddenly had an image of the man, tied to a rope, prostrate before him, while he ripped the man's bespoke English suit from his body with his bare hands.

“Mr. Palmer,” Sven said, giving him a tight smile, before continuing. “I arrived at Tarakimo airport on July 5 to find Isamu and his henchmen there at the terminal, barring me from leaving the country. They had bayonets, for Christ's sake! They pulled no punches. Without a full retraction, my wife and daughter would have been kidnapped and tortured, and most likely I would not be here today.”

Palmer smiled slightly. “Yes, Mr. Stevenson, I'm well aware of what it's like to have family threatened,” he said, in a blasé tone that made Sven's blood boil. His family's welfare is obviously much more important than mine , simple peasant that I am, the photographer thought contemptuously. This guy is too much. “But your family is safe and sound, and mine are in danger,” Palmer concluded stonily.

“Look, pal,” Sven said, his voice lowering a register, as he shook a finger in Palmer's face. “My family is still in danger. I've gotten calls from Isamu ever since touching down….” He trailed off, feeling suddenly quite confused, as if he'd been tricked.

“Really, Mr. Stevenson?” Palmer asked, sounding very interested, almost as if he were a prosecuting attorney putting Sven through the wringer. “And why would Isamu threaten you now? What more could he want you to do for him?”

Sven tried to stifle a laugh. “This is really pathetic, you know? You rich pricks have always gotta find someone to take the rap, don't you? Maybe you should take a good hard look at this situation, Dave , and ask yourself who's really to blame for Diana's disappearance? Maybe you should have had your butler take your head outta your ass long enough to realize what your niece was up to!” Sven was now shouting at the wealthy man, but amazingly, Palmer continued to regard him with quiet contempt, as if Sven were completely fulfilling every prejudice he had arrived with.

“But you knew what Diana was up to, didn't you Sven?” Palmer pressed, looking deadly serious. “You were advocating for her to make that trip to Tarakimo long ago, weren't you? You see, sometimes I make it a point to have my head removed from my rectum long enough to have a chat with my niece. We're really quite close; more than you realize.” He gave Sven a caustic smile. “But, I must confess, after only talking to you briefly, that her involvement with the likes of you is indeed beyond my comprehension.”

“I have no idea what you're getting at,” Sven said, standing up suddenly. “And I don't wish to continue without a lawyer present!” With that, the big blonde man stalked from the room, grabbing his navy blazer from the coat rack angrily, brushing past Sy's outstretched arm.

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

General Tara playfully jiggled the large joystick on the console in front of him, staring intently at one of the large screens. Each subtle manipulation of the tool invoked a minute movement from a tiny camera mounted on a flexible metal hose in the top of Diana's small enclosure. The buttons mounted to the side of the joystick activated lights that were attached to the electronic eye, illuminating her pleading face for his perversity. He couldn't help but feel like a kid in a video arcade who had just won a free play.

Diana's deranged visage loomed large on his elegant bank of glass monitors: a dozen synchronized masks of fear, as two roaches, then five, skittered across her lips, vanishing into her dark, silky tresses. Her helpless cries echoed around the posh control center where the overfed tyrant was plushly ensconced, lounging in a large, comfortable chair. He leaned in close to the microphone and spoke with calm self-satisfaction: “You've never liked roaches, have you Diana? Such filthy little beasts, aren't they?” Her entire body shook with disgust as the legion of insects swarmed over her, but the dictator thought he detected a shake of her head. “These were specially bred for my use, in a laboratory. They don't carry disease, though. No, I most certainly don't want you to die on me. However, they are extremely aggressive. I regret there is little I can do to control them. On the other hand, there is much I can do to control your response to their tiny torments.”

With that, Tara pressed a button and the mass of tiny spikes surrounding Diana began to slowly converge upon her. Her body quaked fearfully as the plastic underneath her began to be slowly shredded. She tried in vain to brush off the probing feelers of the bugs, but could not even move enough to do so. The villain's irritating laugh engulfed her while she writhed to avoid the inevitable penetration of the needles. Deep in her pussy, the Ben-Wa balls rolled around, inducing small geysers of moisture from within.

Without warning, the needles stopped advancing, moving Diana to almost start crying with relief. He wants you to come, so come, she thought, trying to will her pussy to secrete even more fluid.

“Ah, relief!” the general gloated. “I see you've found the secret handshake!”

“I'll sign the report, general. I've done what you want, told you what you've asked…” she cringed with disgust as a roach stopped and hovered on one of her eyelashes. “Just get me out of here! I'll do whatever you want: suck your cock, lick your boots, just please….” The buxom young woman began to scream insanely.

“Yes, you've told me what I've asked so far. But, what I'm really wondering is what's going through that brainy little head of yours right now .” The dictator chuckled indulgently. “Tell me what you're thinking as you're getting yourself off. As your body is being invaded --- forcibly taken --- by both nature and machine; both slaves, I might add, of my mighty hand…. Are you really thinking of my omnipotent cock? Or, perhaps of the vast legion of men whom I control? How your life hangs oh so delicately in the balance, just beneath my glove? ”

The small needles started to again make contact with her skin, brushing against it with velvet precision, like a million tiny quills tickling every inch of her flesh. Whoever had coined the phrase “making skin crawl” had no idea of the accuracy with which that sensation could be effectively simulated by the most evil of human minds, Diana thought miserably. She could feel herself being slowly crushed under the tyrant's boot heel. He wants you wet, and you're wet. He wants you afraid, and you are. He wants you, and he has you. Pain and pleasure were gradually becoming one, as virtually indistinguishable as two shades of white.

Diana began to scream and plead with the maniac, without restraint. “Yes! Yes!” she said, no longer able to formulate any logical response; letting the words pour from her mouth. She had to end this; she was going mad. “I want to suck your cock! I want to kneel before your throne and become yours! I want to please you! I want you to be my…my….” --- she shuddered as she pictured his ecstasy at the word --- “…Master!”

Tara puffed meditatively on his cigarette holder and considered the girl's appeal, a triumphant smirk on his face. “Indeed I am…indeed,” he said, quite softly, almost with reverence.

He had won the first battle, even if she was only placating him, he thought. The rest would be far easier.

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

“Scream all you want, baby. No one's gonna save you,” one of the goons growled into Shelley's terror-stricken face, brandishing the serrated blade near the woman's rosy cheek. One man pulled her over to the massive dining table that sat just outside the kitchen and threw her roughly on the polished surface, sweeping a large vase of flowers to the floor with a crash, in the process.

Colin watched with horror as the two big goons maneuvered the nude woman's glistening body into place, securing it tightly with another pair of cuffs that they attached through an ornamental hole in the wood at the top of the table. Colin uncomfortably found himself peering into her moist, slightly reddened pussy lips as she panted with fright. He took a few steps back into the hallway, hiding himself as best as he could, while one of the men stepped into the kitchen, rummaging around in the drawers for a makeshift torture tool, before finally settling on a flat, metal cheese grater.

Colin's eyes opened wide as he inched over to the doorway once more. He studied the two men, trying to memorize any telling details, but found with frustration that there was little of significance. Neither wore tattoos on their bulging, muscular arms, which he found odd, considering their pat resemblance to Hell's Angels. Both wore aviator sunglasses that safely hid much of their faces behind ominous mirrored surfaces. One of the thugs had reddish-brown hair and the other, black. Both had pony-tails.

The black-haired man slid the grater under Shelley's ass while his partner lifted her in the air. Both secured her ankles with larger cuffs to the opposite end of the table. Sharp squeaks of panic began to peel from the woman's full lips.

“What do you want?” she wailed pathetically. “I'll give you anything…I'll tell you anything!”

The red-haired man laughed loudly and placed a large plug of chewing tobacco into his mouth from a tin in his back pocket. He stood near Shelley, fiddling with her left nipple, stroking it with a grimy hand. “Where can we find your hubby, sugar twat?” he cracked. The other echoed the statement by chuckling and shaking the handle of the grater, producing an ear-piercing scream from the woman.

“I have no idea…. No! I….” Shelley sputtered out, confused, as the black-haired man disappeared for a minute, and returned with a wire coat hanger, which he began twisting apart with his black, gloved hands. Colin gasped as the man seemed to be coming straight for him, but his eyes must have been trained on Shelley's frozen form, because he stopped in front of her and completed the disassembly, as she lie contemplating what he planned to do to her. The other man hooted wildly and began massaging her breasts with vigor, leaning over and dribbling tobacco juice on her face from his filthy mouth.

The black-haired man walked into the kitchen, and Colin's mouth went dry as the tough glanced rapidly in the direction of the hallway, perhaps having heard one of his retreating footsteps. He silently exhaled as the man approached the stove and placed the metal on one of the burners. He flicked on the gas and fired it up with a lighter. The goon watched the metal slowly begin to heat, smiling with sadistic glee.

Colin began to panic as the man walked slowly over to his prey, letting the metal wire lightly graze Shelley's nipple, making a soft, sizzling sound he could hear, even from his vantage point. The girl sputtered out wild, crazy yelps, then began to cry.

“I don't know! I don't know! He told me he was coming home last….”

The wire was bent by the black-haired goon's thickly gloved hand, into a small loop, and then placed around Shelley's trembling, red nub. “Ahhhh! Ahhh! No! NO! NO! ” she screamed, her body thrashing against the table wildly, trying pointlessly to move from her frozen state, but her yelling became even more shrill as the grater's jagged, nubbly edges grabbed and pulled ruthlessly at her firm ass cheeks, slowly beginning to tear them to ribbons. The red-haired man grabbed the wire and held his lighter to it for a few seconds more, and then advanced on the other breast. He crowed happily at the girl's excruciating agony. Colin began to back quietly down the hallway.

When he emerged a minute later, the lengthy barrel of Sven's hunting rifle protruded into the warm sun, which poured into the kitchen from a window.

“Don't you make a fucking move!” he warned, sweeping the weapon toward the two men, who both immediately turned their attention toward him. The red-haired man reached for something on his belt and Colin unloaded the gun, without hesitation, into the big man's foot. The blast was deafening, and it blew the biker back several feet, leaving him in a twisting, bloody heap on the floor, braying like a branded cow.

The other man dropped the wire hanger and held both hands in the air. “OK! OK!” he yelled, backing away from Shelley.

“Sit the fuck down on that couch and don't say a word,” Colin ordered. The man started for the couch, but, at the last second, began to run for the door. Colin fired into his back, slamming the man forward against the wooden surface.

Colin stepped back, shaking, as the front door burst open and he found himself eye to eye with Sven.