A Message from the Cartel

Wanda Roesquez contemplated her wardrobe. A line of trim business suits hung in front of her. Next to these hung a line of blouses - mostly white. Farther along and considerably less used, there hung a few colorful skirts and dresses; and finally, protected in the dark end of the closet, there were several gowns that caught the light and shimmered. Wanda focused on the business suits.

In her profession, the way one dressed made a difference. She ticked off a mental list of all the items on her agenda that day. She had a meeting right off the bat. Ramirez and that bastard Clark would almost certainly be there.  She just had to look decent for that - buttoned down and nothing too feminine. When it came to business, most of the partners only valued male, or at best, androgynous efficiency.

Later, she had to have lunch with Mark and his prospective client. She had to look professional for that, but something more provocative might do. The clients sometimes appreciated a nice looking woman. That could sway a deal now and then.

In the afternoon, she had to go meet someone about something to do with the Cartel. She frowned. She had no idea what that was about, but when they called, she had to go. She could wear anything for that.

She considered an outfit made of straw colored gabardine. That might work, but the skirt was a little long, and she would have to wear brown stockings and the clunky brown shoes. She wouldn’t influence the lunch client much wearing those. She ran her hand along the row of clothes pausing now and then to pull on the sleeve of one suit or another.

Her red nails were cut neatly into short oval points and they were immaculately polished. Her hand paused, and she glanced out the window. The view across the city was hazy but it was just the steamy residue from a nighttime thunderstorm. The palm trees which sprouted in neat rows along a pair of converging boulevards hung limp and almost motionless. Their broad leaves glinted in the morning sun - evidence of aerial puddles which the green fronds were slowly shedding onto the pavement. It was going to be a hot day.

She selected a dark gray outfit made of linen. The skirt was short but still modest. The jacket, which was cut with a waist, had a smart abbreviated hem which flared out onto the hips a little - that should please Mark's client, and the partners shouldn’t object.

Once her mind was made up, Wanda assembled her wardrobe quickly. A white blouse; a pearl necklace with matching stud earrings; the tiny watch with the narrow platinum band. She slipped a foot tentatively into a black matte pump, but then, when she reflected that she wouldn’t be walking, she kicked it off and selected a more formal and daring pair of red patent leather heels. She arranged everything on a chair near the mirror.

She took special care again in selecting her underwear. On rare occasions, she wore plain panty hose, but generally, she preferred ensembles of brassieres, underpants, garters and hose. She liked the elegance. She enjoyed the ritual of putting them on and taking them off. She even liked the slight discomfort. The feeling reminded her that her adornment went beyond jewelry and some makeup and extended to her underwear. It made her feel sexy.

She selected a black set with lace panels, and, glancing at the clock - plenty of time - she began to dress. The hose was also topped with lace, and she stretched it out carefully enjoying the cool feel of the pattern against her skin. As the fabric warmed to her, the sensation slowly faded. The lace top band was broad, and she did a quick mental calculation to assure herself that during the physical bustle of the day - sitting, standing, and walking - the hem of her linen skirt would never ride up high enough to reveal it.

As Wanda dressed, she grew less interested in her wardrobe, and began to think more about the upcoming day at work. She began to go over briefs in her mind and started the task of composing revisions. Of course there was no opportunity to record anything on paper, and so, even though she still had plenty of time, she became impatient to be at work. She put on her makeup and did her hair with little fuss. The shoes were recalcitrant as all high heels are, and while putting them on, she hopped about first on one foot, and then the other.

Finally, when she was dressed, she smoothed and checked herself in the mirror one last time.

***

At work, Wanda, or Miss Roesquez as many of her co-workers referred to her, moved efficiently through the appointments of her day. She successfully outlined her proposal for dealing with the Agro issue to the bond partner and several others. Ramirez was smart enough to keep his mouth shut,  but that prick Clark raised the possibility of an alternate plan and attempted to spar with  her. She quickly and ruthlessly revealed his approach unworkable ab reducto absurdum

. The bond partner found her logic formidable and said so in private to another partner.

The attorneys at Wanda's firm often worked in pairs of one senior and one junior lawyer. Mark was Wanda’s senior. After some private doubts about female lawyer types, his prospective client decided that he liked Wanda immensely. This was not only because she was tall and stunning and carried an expensive leather briefcase (which certainly reassured him of her competence) but because of the insight with which she commented on several areas of interest.

At mid afternoon, Wanda’s secretary informed her that a driver and a grey Mercedes waited for her outside the building. She was annoyed at the interruption, but she abandoned her work anyway and went dutifully to the car. She often found the Cartel’s work distasteful, and she always approached it with a certain amount of disdain - perhaps a uniquely female disdain. They never fully embraced her in their nefarious club like some of the men, and yet they still required her services from time to time. About all she liked about the Cartel was the extraordinary sums of money they paid.

Like many of the Cartel’s men, her driver was an illiterate thug, and she felt no need to ask him where they were going, or why they had summoned her. Instead, she amused herself by looking out the window at the receding dock lands and a stream of warehouses which they were passing. The Cartel always seemed to conduct its business either in a warehouse or in some remote jungle fortress in the mountains.

After about half an hour, they pulled into the yard of a decrepit steel building which lay in a forest of decrepit steel buildings. The pale green siding was pocked with rust and creased where trucks had grazed the side by accident. A rusty chain link fence enclosed the yard which was mined with pot holes and large puddles of muddy looking water. The driver parked against the building near a door and several other cars. Inside, the building was filled with a forest of crates. The driver lead the way through the maze to a door, down some steps, through another door, and finally into a dingy, sparsely furnished, and windowless office.

There were six men already in the room, and one of them greeted her.

“Miss Roesquez.” He gestured for her to come over and offered her a scratched green metal office chair to sit down on.

Wanda nodded and took the chair. The man was named Sanchez, and he sat down on one of the desks. The others were sitting on whatever chair or desk was at hand. Two, however, were clearly Cartel thugs. They  remained standing and hung unobtrusively around by the door. They were obviously not part of the meeting. With the exception of the toughs, Wanda knew all of the men.

Sanchez ignored the assembly and began to fiddle with a button on his shirt. He wore no jacket, but the shirt was made of silk and was obviously an expensive one. Nevertheless, it had a broad ostentatious collar, and to Wanda's eye, represented an utterly tasteless mode of dressing. The heavy gold chain which he wore about his neck and which nestled in the thick black hair on his chest only confirmed her opinion. She could hardly see why he felt compelled, even on that hot day, to undo himself any more.

The button gave trouble. Sanchez's face grew suddenly red, and then, in unexpected fury, which seemed to erupt from the depths of his powerful and somewhat stocky body, he swore. He got up and walked over to one of the thugs and pushed the button at him. "God damn it, Roberto, see what you can do with this god damned fucking shit assed button.  Do you know how much I paid for this fucking shirt?"

"Yeah, boss. I know. I bought it for you."

Sanchez ignored him and told him any way. "One  hundred and eighty fucking American dollars. You'd think they could make the god damned buttons work."

Roberto got the button undone without the slightest trouble. Sanchez seemed mollified, and everyone in the room visibly relaxed.

With as much calm as he had expressed rage only moments before, he  flicked some minute specs off his sleeve.

"You know, Rivera," he said turning to one of the other men who sat perched on one of the desks, "You always wear nice  shirts."

"Thanks, Sanchez," replied Rivera pleased.

Sanchez felt the fabric of Rivera's shirt admiringly between his fingers. Then without warning, he suddenly grabbed Rivera with two hands by the collar, and with a violent heave, practically threw him into the one empty office chair that had remained curiously vacant in the center of the gathering. The chair skidded across the floor, and the surprised Rivera held up his hands, palm up, in a gesture of innocence.

“What? What?” he asked. “What’s wrong with you, Sanchez? What have I done?”

The man’s face was white, and there was fear in his voice. Wanda herself felt butterflies of fear in her stomach. Someone had crossed the Cartel. Somehow each of them knew something, and Sanchez had called them here to find out who and what.

Wanda knew that she herself had nothing to fear. She had always been completely loyal though perhaps not always as diligent as she might have been. She quickly thought back over everything she had done for Rivera and the Cartel for some clue as to where Sanchez was headed and how she might be involved. There was nothing she could think of. She relaxed a little.

Sanchez twisted Rivera’s chair to face him. “Do you remember a certain shipment last April to Florida?”

“Yeah. Yeah, of course,” replied Rivera. “That was the one that went bad. I swear to you, Sanchez, I had nothing to do with it…I mean…I mean…it was my shipment, but I don’t know what happened.”

Sanchez Turned to Wanda. “Miss Roesquez, the money for Rivera’s shipment was brought back clean with bearer bonds. You arranged that, right?”

Wanda, suddenly felt the butterfly return to her stomach. She had used a broker in Miami who usually laundered money for the Mexicans and that was stupid. Wanda reddened slightly, but then recovered herself. That was not the cause of the problem in April, and it was very unlikely that they would ever connect her with a Mexican broker. She looked Sanchez in the eye. “Yes, I arranged it. The bonds arrived a day late because of bad weather, and then they disappeared from the dock warehouse.”

“So they arrived safe and sound, didn’t they, Rivera? Odd that they should go missing at that point, don’t you think?”

“Well yeah,” replied Rivera. “It’s a mystery. I swear though, I don’t know what happened.”

Sanchez reached into his pocket and held up a pink scrap of paper in front of Rivera.  “Do you know what this is?”

“Sure, it’s a bill of lading.”

“Exactly. It’s a bill of lading for the crate that carried the missing bonds, and it came from a Mexican truck that was seized at the border.” Sanchez reached under his jacket and took a pistol out of his waist band. He held it to Rivera’s head.

“I thought it was one of our own people who did it, but no. Someone tipped off our competitor about the arrival of those bonds, and you are the only person it could have been!”

The room was hot, and Rivera was sweating. He took out a handkerchief and mopped his arms and his forehead.

“I don’t know how it happened, Sanchez. I swear it on my mother’s life. You’ve got to believe me.” His voice broke. He was begging - practically sobbing.

The principals except for Sanchez had managed to make a wide circle around the pathetic Rivera. The two thugs had moved silently into the general tableau which was now very tense. Nevertheless, Wanda was losing interest.  This was a typical drug screw up. Someone would probably be killed, and she would read about it in the morning paper. This was nothing to do with her. She stood up. “May I go now?”

Still holding the gun to Rivera’s head, Sanchez looked up and seemed surprised that she was still there. His hard set mouth relaxed a little. “Of course, Miss Roesquez, I had almost forgotten you. Miguel will take you, but first there is one more thing I wish to clear up.”

Sanchez cocked the pistol and put the muzzle to Rivera’s temple. “What bothers me, Rivera, is not the April bonds. We got them back after all. I am wondering about the string of bad luck we had afterward. A customs seizure in Miami in May; two fishing boats lost in rough water in August and September; an aircraft fuel tank explosion in January.

"They all looked like accidents, that is… until one of the fishing boats turned up safe and sound in Antigua. Whoever took it decided it was wasteful to sink it. No. None of those were accidents. It seems that in each case, someone knew when and where we were shipping.”

Without warning, Sanchez turned the gun away from Rivera’s head and pointed it at Wanda. “What I would like know, my dear,” he asked, “is what was the name of the broker you used in Miami?”

 Wanda grew deathly pale and took a step back. She stumbled against Miguel the driver. Nervously, she stepped forward again and glanced about the room as of to gauge the severity of her situation.

“You used a Mexican broker didn’t you?” Sanchez's voice was now soft and gentle - at once coaxing and reassuring.

Wanda swallowed. Her mouth was dry and she could hardly speak. “Yes,” she replied weakly.

“It seems they placed an electronic tracking device in the April shipment. They used it to learn who the contacts were, and where the drop offs were. When the crate arrived they had to get the device back again to keep us finding out about it. So they stole the bonds. They knew exactly where to find it. Rivera had nothing to do with it. It was only you, my dear…and your carelessness.”

He raised the gun, and held his arm out stiff and straight pointing it directly at her face. She felt a sharp pain in her side - a needle - and something injected. Sanchez smiled at her and then carefully lowered the hammer of the pistol with his thumb. Wanda sank.

***

Strong hands propelled her forward. A room white with tile replaced the dingy office. Wanda studied the tile with great interest. The grout was dirty. Someone had drawn on the cracks with a blue ball point  pen. There were some streaks of brownish yellow stain. Was this a bathroom? No. Why did she feel so wobbly? She leaned a little bit to one side experimentally. Strong hands caught her. Those nice strong hands again.

“You need to wash the tile,” she said helpfully.

“Sure, sure, sweet heart,” a man’s voice replied. Sanchez.

He kept her from falling. She clung to his broad shoulders with her hands as best she could.

"I'm a bit dizzy. I think I need to lie down," she said wondering at the slurred sound of her own voice.

"In a minute, honey."

They put her in front of a porcelain table and turned her to face it.

“That’s much too short for me to lie down on,” she observed.

“I know, sweetheart. That’s okay.”

She looked around. What a strange bathroom she thought. And what a funny place to keep pets. She abandoned the position where they had left her and stepped unsteadily over to peer through the glass of  a small aquarium that had caught her attention and which was perched at one end of a cheap folding table nearby.

She put her fingers up to the glass as if to brush aside some foggy curtain which obscured her view. She smiled in at the contents trying to focus. Then a frown gradually spread over her face and she lifted her hand away from the glass.

“Oh!” she exclaimed. “There are so many. They are slimy, and they are writhing around horribly!"

"While we are looking at animals, Miss Roesquez, perhaps you’d like to look at these?"

Sanchez lifted a wire cage onto the table.

“Oooh, how cute,” she cooed. This time, she had no reservation about putting her fingers up to the wire cage. Half a dozen dark eyed hyperactive personalities of fur inside rushed over to investigate and sniff at her. She stroked their little black noses as best she could through the wire and giggled with pleasure. “They look like little brown weasels.”

“They are ferrets,” said Sanchez.

They lead her back to the sturdy little porcelain table. As they urged her along, she stumbled sideways and stretched her arm back towards the ferret cage.

“Oh don’t take me away. I want to look at them,” she pleaded.

In front of the table, Sanchez held her up in his arms.

She laid her head down against his chest. The warmth of his body felt wonderful against her cheek, and she savored the musky smell of his skin through his shirt. She had been without a boy friend for almost a year and half. Not in a million years, would she  have conceived that it would be Sanchez to break this dry spell.

"Is this a bathroom, Sanchez?" she asked. "Have you got me in a bathroom? I don't think you're supposed to be in here."

"It won't matter, honey," he replied. He was working her skirt up her thighs.

"But what if we get caught,? she objected mildly.

"We won't."

"Okay," she replied simply. She put more of her weight against him trusting him to support her, and then dropped her right arm behind her. Without knowing quite why, or perhaps because Sanchez wanted it, she began to help pull up her skirt. As she grasped the fabric with her fingers, she shimmied a little to help the taught linen up onto her thighs. When they had got it up past a certain point, she obliged by spreading her legs a little  to keep it from slipping back down again.

They didn't bother to go all the way up with the dress. When the linen hem was high enough, one of the thugs, Roberto, crouched behind her, reached up under it, and pulled her underwear partway down. Then he put an ordinary drug store bottle enema up between her legs behind the concealing vestiges of her skirt. He spread her cheeks apart around her anus, and slipped the nipple deftly home.

"Hey," she complained petulantly. "That's no fair! I'm not that kind of girl."

She turned and looked crossly down at Roberto. She would have swatted him away with her hand, but Sanchez caught her wrist.

"You are now," he said calmly holding her.

For a moment, the two of them grappled in an insistent contest. Then she acquiesced. Sanchez set her arms about his neck, and allowed her to hang on tiptoe from that mimicry of a lover's embrace. She clung to him with a feeble but urgent tenacity. He did not do this to please her, but, rather, to ease the burden of her weight upon his arms. He still held her waist for the purpose of keeping her conveniently placed for Roberto. At length, she laid her cheek back down against his chest, and allowed the procedure at her nether end to continue unopposed.

Roberto infiltrated her with two of the little bottles. The first, she hardly felt. It only made her feel vaguely taught. The slight sensation, however, did serve to put the nervous network of her lower abdomen on notice. When he was finished with it, he continued to hold the cleavage of her bottom open signaling to her the imminence of a fresh dose. This time, the first touch of the enema tip in the funnel of her anus arrested her attention as surely as if someone had rung a shocking little bell in her ear. It sent a shiver of anticipation coursing through her which came to a resonating focus at her clitoris.

The nozzle had a thin film of grease on it, and it slipped up inside  her smoothly. The feeling of it being pushed, an almost insignificant penetration, through the tightly cinched channel of her ass until it broke free into the unrestricted opening of her flooded rectum only primed her further. It made her nipples stiffen and caused a sensation in her mouth like the crushing of a little bit of lemon.

As she felt Roberto inject the saline into her, she experienced an involuntary tightening of both her anus and vagina. This curling up of nerves seemed to fan through her from her back to her front.  It felt to her as if someone had just bathed her with some astringent wash which made the lips of her vagina tingle and then contract. It made her want to spread her legs. Her toes skittered out a little on  the slick tiles of the floor as she opened slightly to receive it.

Wanda was content to rest placidly against Sanchez for some time before finally breaking away from his embrace. He passed her to Roberto and Miguel who helped her to squat over a primitive foot pad toilet. Drugged and unsteady, she found using it especially awkward in her high heels, constricting underpants and tight dress. In her desperation to evacuate, she simply pulled her skirt up around her waist, and pushed her underpants down to a point across her knees.  

When she was done, Sanchez hoisted her up, and lead her back to the little table. Somehow, she managed to get her underpants up and her skirt down, but the effort of squatting and then suddenly standing left her dizzy and swimming in a black sea punctuated by dancing lights.

"What's going to happen now?" she asked bewildered.

"Nothing, baby. Don't worry about it."

"Good, because I feel sick," she said putting her hand to her head. She was standing now facing the little porcelain table a couple of feet away.

“Step up to the edge, ” said Sanchez ignoring her. Or was it Roberto? It wasn’t Miguel, because he was in front her, and she knew that he hadn’t said anything. Besides, he didn’t talk like that. She couldn’t tell who was talking to her. Some of them were behind her. How many of them were there? Was it four or five? She couldn’t remember. Their voices were all different and mixed up. Miguel sounded like Sanchez, and Sanchez sounded like Roberto. They all sounded far away. What was the drug they had given her, she wondered? Was it some narcotic? Or maybe sodium thiopentol?

She tried to put her hand out. From a great distance, she heard someone say, "She's going to throw up..."

***

Apart from the sour taste in her mouth, Wanda felt much better. The dancing lights and the blackness had gone.

"What happened?" she asked.

"You got sick, and fainted, baby."

Someone urged her forward with his hand. It was Sanchez. “That’s right, sweetheart. Get right close up so you’re touching the edge. There was a recessed rectangular gutter, a species of drain perhaps two feet wide and six inches deep that opened in the floor in front of the table.

"I'm thirsty. Can I have a drink," asked Wanda.

"Not likely baby girl," replied Sanchez.

Someone tapped her feet apart so that as she stepped forward, she straddled the drain. The wider stance made the hem of her skirt pull taught and ride up a little. She stumbled awkwardly forward a few inches  and bumped into the edge of the table.

“Hey,” she said. “Don’t push! I already told you. I can’t lie down on that. It’s not big enough...not even for a midget. Plus it’s shaped funny.”

“That’s okay, honey,” said Sanchez. His voice was sympathetic.

 They pulled her forward so that her pelvis rested firmly against the rounded edge of the table. She looked down. The edge of the table was yoke shaped and she could see through the relieved opening to the floor. One of her stockings had a run in it. She began to grow annoyed.

They were pulling off her jacket and unfastening her pearl necklace. She suddenly felt angry. She also had the butterflies in her stomach again. She wondered what they were doing with her. She was a grown woman after all, and grown women didn’t part their legs and lean forward over porcelain tables like this one.

She tried to stand up, but her arms were tangled behind her in the remnants of her jacket. She struggled to get them free of the sleeves.  When she could not quite extricate herself, a vague sense of panic colored her annoyance.

“I don't like this!" she protested. "I don’t know what you’re doing. Let me go!”

She began to struggle, but lost her footing and stumbled into the drain trough. Someone jabbed her again with the needle. It felt hot at first, and then cool. Strong hands held her while the drug took effect.

Her head lolled. Her arms were still tangled behind her in the sleeves of her jacket. Someone, Roberto, began to unfasten the buttons of her blouse. She gathered her strength and lifted her head. She tried to study his face, but he was looking down and working on the buttons. This curious work soon arrested her attention also, and she looked down at her front with amused interest. The room was much too hot anyway.

The top of her blouse fell limply apart. Someone was trying to help her get her arms out of the sleeves of her jacket, and this made the unbuttoning more awkward. She tried to cooperate with the tugging behind her while keeping herself  reasonably still for Roberto. She turned slightly towards him so that he could work more easily. Roberto cut the front closure of her bra apart with a knife and the two halves fell away loose. With a few tugs, he pulled the blouse out from her skirt. She arched a little from side to side as he pulled to make extra space and help the fabric come untucked.

When all this was done, and her shirt pushed aside, Roberto and Miguel helped her lay forward, bare front, onto the cool porcelain. As she bent over and her bottom spread, her skirt pulled more tightly about her and worked it’s way up her legs. A gentle divot of drum taut fabric stretched across her seat and clearly outlined the border between her own feminine roundness and the intimate void which commenced in between.

One of the men was holding her wrists crossed and pinned behind her back. Her legs, which she still held where they had placed them, made an inverted vee to the ground on either side of the gutter. The edge of the table (if one could call it that for it was really more of a stand) was of such a height that she was compelled (to maintain this slightly spread position) to point the toes of her shoes down in order to  touch the floor.

Though they had done relatively little to disrobe her, pinioned as she was over the table, her body seemed ready to burst its few tenuous remaining constraints, and rush to complete her undress.

Above the waist, the transformation was almost complete. She lay totally unfastened and only just covered by the white remnants of her blouse and bra. Here and there about her shoulders and waist, the fabric lay disheveled and pushed so as to reveal her olive skin.

From the waist down, she was still fully clothed; and though the transformation to nakedness had not yet begun at all, the suggestion that it must soon take place was overwhelming. The broad floral bands of her stockings were now just beginning to show under the hem of her skirt. The sight of them accentuated the taut and confining nature of her stylishly tailored clothing. With the tops visible, her stockings seemed barely able to contain her. Her skirt seemed barely adequate to cover her.

***

 On a basic level, Wanda was acutely aware. She processed all the information that came to her methodically and accurately. She understood that she was being prepared for some terrible punishment.

She instinctively knew, however, that if she allowed herself to be overwhelmed by terror she would go insane; and more than anything, she wanted to remain sane. Her need to remain rational gave her a strong incentive to reject, or at least obscure, what she knew to be true. She felt an overwhelming desire to deny what was happening to her. The drug allowed her to accomplish this. It accounted for her good humor and apparent lack of concern, and she yielded gratefully to its influence.

A small unaltered thread of her personality did occasionally manifest itself as a slight nervousness; once or twice, perception managed to rear its head; but for the most part, she successfully refused to connect the stream of events as they unfolded into any coherent whole. Instead, she cast her attention about from one object of interest to another; she noticed unimportant things which had no relation to anything; she thought many of the things that should have frightened her were funny.

“Guess what?” she giggled. “I’m lying down on the little table after all.”

Two of the ferrets were playing and got into a rambunctious fight. One of them suddenly squeaked. She looked back over her shoulder towards the cages. Quite by chance, she managed to free one of her wrists from Roberto’s grasp. She reached over towards the cages, and called to them, “Here little weasel. Here little fishy fish fish.”

Roberto recovered her hand again, and, together, he and Miguel pulled her loosened blouse and severed bra off her shoulders and down onto her arms. Without bothering to pull them all the way off, they pushed her wrists, still caught in the entangled straps and sleeves, up; and taped over the fabric so that  her arms were folded across her back behind her.

“Oooh,” she said. “Are you tying me up? Have I been a bad girl?”

“You’ve got it, sweetheart,” replied Sanchez.

“How bad have I been?”

“Well, sweetheart, that is a very good question, and I am glad you are concerned about it. When you add it all up, I guess you’ve cost us, say, about six million dollars."

“That is

a lot of money!”

“Yes, my dear, it certainly is.”

The stand extended about three feet - just far enough so that she could put down her head if she chose. Pinned as she was with her arms behind her, she had every incentive do this, but she was too interested by what was going on around her. Instead, she strained to lift her head up off the stand and tried her best to look right or left behind her. Occasionally, when she grew tired of this, she rested her chin on the stand and looked straight ahead at the bare expanse of tile wall in front of her.

“This wall is boring. You should hang a picture for me to look at.” She contemplated the tile and then she asked, “Are you going to torture me because I’m a traitor?” she giggled again.

“We certainly are,” replied Sanchez. He began some preparation behind her.

While this was going on, Miguel made sure that Wanda did not try to get off the porcelain stand. He kept her well forward and pinned relatively immobile. Every once in awhile she lost her footing on the slick tiles of the floor, and one of her toes slipped off the edge into the void of the gutter which ran between her feet. This forced her to spread her legs apart fresh and point the toes of her shoes down with renewed effort to regain her tenuous purchase at the edges of the trough. She was hardly aware of these incidental efforts, and she engaged in them instinctively. She found that it was important to her, however, to maintain her purchase on the floor.

As she struggled to keep the tips of her shoes apart and resting on solid ground, she gradually worked her tight skirt ever higher up onto her thighs. Soon the lace top bands of her stockings were entirely revealed, and then finally, the bounding straps of her garters and her bare flesh began to show. Even in the hot room, the air fell cool and drafty on her damp and newly exposed skin. Every time she spread her legs to renew her footing, she sucked a fresh and more invasive draft of air up between them; and though she did not note this explicitly, the sensation made her ever more aware of the space between her legs.

“I think you will be very interested in this, my dear," said Sanchez.

He put a stainless steel tray out beside her where she could see it, and onto this he arranged several indescribable items. These might have been cobbled from a kitchen, or a hardware store, or a sex shop, or even possibly a hospital.

To complete the ensemble, Sanchez set out a metal box. This sat on four rubber feet and had a handle at the top. There were switches on the front along with a meter and some dials.  The metal box was made of unfinished aluminum and had the look of something homemade - a science project constructed crudely for its function rather than with any kind of refinement that might benefit its appearance. Several white porcelain insulators projected from it's side, and from these heavy binding posts, which indicated a substantial electrical capacity, there drooped long limp loops of rubber coated wire each of which ended in an alligator clip.

Wanda dutifully opened her eyes wide and made a face as if to utter the 'ooing' sound which she had already used several times to suggest her feelings. This time, however, she only mouthed the noise and preserved a reverent silence; by this significant mechanism of omission she successfully conveyed her magnified trepidation.

Sanchez paced out of Wanda’s view. His footsteps became a hollow reflection off the far wall of the room. There was a tinny sound  as a table or some piece of metal furniture was dragged across the floor. Wanda tried to look, but could see nothing. The strain of holding her head up and looking  back was tiring. Also, she thought she could hear better if she stared straight ahead at the monotonous tiles in front of her. The echo from this hard surface made the disembodied sounds of the room strangely audible as if they were impinging directly into both her ears, When she turned her head to one side, the effect vanished. This was frustrating because she wanted very much to look back over her shoulder where things were happening, but she also wanted to hear everything.

"You know this table is made of porcelain!" she observed in wonder. She had adopted on her face a worried expression as if something profound were bothering her. "It's like a dinner plate." she continued. " It's cold when you put your bare belly right down on it, but that's okay. I'm beginning to warm it up."

"Good for you, Miss Roesquez. That shiny cold surface is what makes it easy to clean - just like a dinner plate."

“I thought you were going to spank me or something; but now I think I'm on a dinner plate. I think you are going to eat me!" She giggled, and blushed red when she realized what she had said. "I meant eat me like a plate of chicken. I didn't mean eat my pussy!"

"Don't worry, Ms Roesquez. We know what you meant. You are quite entertaining. It makes me almost sorry to go ahead with this."

Sanchez snapped his fingers. Roberto worked what was left of Wanda's skirt up over her bottom, and lowered her underpants. Miguel then cut them off her with his knife.

"You are going to do something wicked to me aren't you? You're going to punish my pussy! Am I right?"

***

Someone stuck another needle into her left shoulder. After a few moments, she lay her head down. The porcelain felt cool and sweet against her cheek. She descended into her own little world.

She blinked several times, but kept her eyes open. Looking along the wall, the straight grout lines between the tiles seemed to vanish like narrowing roads over a horizon of tile. The tiles themselves no longer looked flat as they did head on. Instead, they captured the light in little shining pools of undulating imperfection.

Immediately in front of her, the wildly foreshortened corner of the porcelain stand projected out from the peripheral shadows of her lower compressed cheek. It emanated from the utter darkness at the periphery of her eye, and then gradually formed itself. It seemed to transform from a soft, indistinct, and cloud like space where her vision was still blurred to a hard white surface where her sight finally came into focus.

Under the influence of the drug, Wanda lay helplessly. Her body seemed remote, as if she were someone else looking at herself from a distance.

The two thugs, Roberto and Miguel, grasped her by the shoulders and lifted her torso off the table while Sanchez centered a pair of stippled copper plates directly under the nipples of her breasts.

They tied her taped and entangled arms up away from her back to a ring in the wall just above her head with a rope. This had the effect of wrenching her shoulders firmly down onto the stand and made lifting her head possible only with the greatest effort. The position of her arms, which were pulled sharply forward over her back, already kept the upper part of her torso firmly down, but to this, they added another almost redundant strap under her armpits which also kept her torso centered on the stand.

Someone slipped a thick and firmly rolled towel under her at the edge of the stand at the break of her hips to raise her pelvis. He then cinched a leather strap tightly down over the small of her back. This forced her to rock forward over the makeshift bolster and jut her bottom up.

They grasped her ankles and pulled them apart off the floor. They tied her legs hopelessly apart, while she, not quite understanding, pointed the tips of her shoes urgently about searching for her old familiar purchase.

While strapping her down, they pushed and pulled her about so as to find the most ideally braced and articulated position for her bottom. As if watching herself, she saw the fleeting image of a butcher trimming meat. He would flip the slab over and push it about in the worn bowl-like depression of his block. Like magic under the thick obscuring fingers of his hands, each fatty end would come to rest conveniently sprawled up and out over the rim of the bowl on the highest mound of the uneven surface. Once there, he would pull it or push it once or twice to optimize it’s position, and then reach for his cleaver. In this case, the butcher was Roberto, and his assistant was Miguel. Each time he got an arm or a thigh or an ankle in position, he reached not for his cleaver, but for a leather strap with which to buckle her down.

As they adjusted her, her chest and the two copper pads beneath them slid  around on the surface of the stand. The minute bumping vibrations kept her nipples in a state of constant sensitivity. The sharper stimulation of the points which pressed up from the pads seemed to open a kind of nervous channel between her chest and her belly. It was as if her nipples were constantly needling her uterus and the feminine paraphernalia leading into it.

"You're going to electrocute my breasts and my pussy, aren't you!" she observed.

"Something like that," Sanchez confirmed.

Roberto unhooked the straps to her garter belt and left them to dangle loosely over her thighs. He tugged her stockings part way down. When he had bared the upper portion of her thighs, he buckled a narrow band about the thickest portion of each about three quarters of the way up. To a small knob on each of these, he attached a wire with an alligator clip.

While Roberto and Miguel were busy with all this, Sanchez was adding to the tray beside her. From somewhere he produced  her discarded underpants. He threaded his fingers through her hair and lifted her head.

"Open your mouth," he said.

Wanda did as she was told, and he stuffed her panties in. He did it carefully and made sure to tuck the folds out to the sides between her teeth to keep her from aspirating the cloth. As he worked, she made a muffled noise with each tamping of his finger as if to confirm each minor improvement to her gag.

Last, he put a black leather hood over her head and buckled the closure around her neck. This ominously amorphous bag was made of a heavy but supple quilted cowhide. Roberto added form to this terrifying headgear by cinching a belt across her face. This held her gag in place and granted her sightless head one grotesque and ironic feature: a slight depression, and a mute leather strap in the spot where there should have been a mouth.

***

Sanchez left her to lie like this contemplating her fate for some time. He went out into the office and smoked a cigarette. He knew the drugs would wear off again soon, and he wanted to wait.

There was always the question of whether to leave the woman drugged when you did the thing they were about to do. He wanted to think a bit about that. Roesquez hadn't exactly crossed the Cartel, but then again, she had made a very bad mistake. Six million dollars was a lot of money. She had said it herself.

He went over to one of the desks. It was bare except for Roesquez's briefcase and a lone postcard which Sanchez himself had left there. He picked up the card, and took a leisurely puff on his cigarette. It showed a painting by Paul Delaroche titled 'The Execution of Lady Jane Grey'. The original hung three thousand miles away in a gallery in London. 

Sanchez was no great connoisseur of art, but even he recognized, in the diminutive reproduction, the lavish creation of a skilled master. It depicted an event which took place in 1554:

Lady Jane Grey, a lovely young woman and momentary queen of England, was dressed in a simple flowing dress of white satin. Her lace top was unbuttoned at the neck and pushed open onto her shoulders. She was blindfolded and kneeling on a green velvet cushion. In front of her stood a crude wooden block. The artist had captured her at the moment that she was reaching out to find the block so that she could lay her neck down on it.

In groping about, she appeared to be off balance and unable to find the terrible accessory to her execution. Beside her, a high ranking royal official three times her age wearing a rich but somber robe of black velvet was leaning over her. His expression was solicitous and attentive. He was putting his arms around her and guiding her hands out to the rough hewn block.

Behind the central pair, two ladies in waiting were sprawling prostrate in grief. The scene was too painful for them to witness, and they were turning away to weep against a massive stone pillar. To the mistress's left, the executioner, a powerful, well built form, in red leggings, a red cap, and a brown leather jerkin, was leaning on the handle of  a huge axe. His expression was one of impartiality, and patience. There was a suggestion of  sympathy in his face. Nevertheless, hanging from his belt there was a tangle of braided leather straps with which he was ready to bind her wrists if necessary.

Sanchez puffed on his cigarette and ran his thumb experimentally over the glossy surface of the post card as if by savoring its sheen he might also reach back and feel the sumptuous fabric of the figures' dresses and cloaks.

The painting was striking for its contrasts. The plush cushion on which the lady knelt was set on a bedding of plain straw over a black drape as a precaution against an imminent mess.  The tender feelings of the ladies in waiting, the sympathetic assistance of the royal officer, and the gentle demeanor of the executioner all spilled like smooth calming oils over a turbulent undercurrent of violence which fairly burst from the scene. The fine clothes of the ladies and the royal official were incongruous beside the executioner's plain workmanlike outfit and the rough splintered chopping block with its black iron fittings. The lady herself, in brilliant white, stood out sharply against a background of blacks, browns and grays. Even her complexion was lighter and more translucently pure than the darker coloring of her attendants. Her trusting willingness to accommodate her own execution by searching out the block with her own hands only rendered the  braided straps in the executioner's belt the more poignantly suggestive.

Above all, the painting projected sexuality. This sprang most especially from the condemned woman's lovely figure. Her long red hair was draped over her shoulder to her front so as to bare the back of her beautiful neck. The satin of her dress, though opaque, was cinched tight and smooth at her waist. It revealed both her breasts and the youthful fecund readiness of her midriff. Her dress made clear, through the countless luxurious folds which pulled suggestively across her feminine form and then spilled with wanton casualness onto the floor, the tantalizing swell of her hips and the shape of her limbs. The position of her limbs, however, was, by far, the most damning. As she knelt and was beginning to lean forward, she had chosen to spread her legs wide; and as she did so, she appeared to straddle the thing that she leaned towards: the rough, ugly, and rigidly erect chopping block.

If Roesquez had been some barrio mule who had made a stupid mistake and accidentally flushed ten grand down a toilet, the painting would have been different - Vanderlyn's 'The Death of Jane McCrea' or Jean Gerome's 'The Slave Market' perhaps.

But Roesquez was educated and intelligent. She should have known better.

Sanchez set the card back down on the desk. It was blank and carried no written message, no address and no stamp. Nevertheless, it represented a formal order and  Sanchez understood it.

He took a puff of his cigarette and accidentally dropped an ash on his sleeve. He  tried to brush it off, but it left a smudge on the white silk. The mark was probably there to stay which amused him. He hated that shirt. It was a kind of shirt for Rivera: an expensive and tasteless uniform, a drug dealer's business suit. He only wore it because he knew it impressed them.

 

Sanchez set his cigarette down carefully on the edge of the desk so the ash would drop on the floor. He got Roesquez's briefcase and rooted around in it under a legal pad and some folders.

After a little hunting, he found her pen and grunted in satisfaction. It was a Mont Blanc, but not the usual fat extravaganza. It was rather slim and short with a screw cap and elegantly rimmed in gold with pearl accents. It was definitely a woman's pen, and it suited Roesquez. He dropped the pen into his shirt pocket, discarded the briefcase, and then finished his cigarette.

***

Roberto, Miguel and the others who had stayed to watch were lounging idly in the tiled room.  Wanda's bare fanny was prominent in air. There was a tenseness now about her spread legs that wasn't there before. She twisted her red patent leather heels about in a restless cycle as if doing so might somehow unlock the combination to the straps which held her ankles. In one of her hands, high on her back, she held a handful of her tangled blouse and bra with white fingered urgency. She had plunged her red polished nails hard into the light fabric, and if one had tried to pry it away from her, it surely would have ripped. Every once in  awhile, she lifted her bagged head up, and turned it to face in the opposite direction.

Sanchez went to the tray beside  her and rifled about among the paraphernalia there. He pushed around several syringes. These were not the ordinary variety intended for insignificant subcutaneous injections. They were heavy glass and metal devices equipped with grips, finger loops, and glistening four inch needles. They were intended to be delicately advanced through lengthy canals and intimately probed into opened orifices before being permitted to give up their delicate pin prick explorations and finally stick home into the cruelest possible sites so as to deliver their painful venom.

He abandoned his half hearted searching and looked up at Roberto.  "Needle," he said absently holding out his hand. Roberto passed him the one he had in his pocket along with a serum bottle. Sanchez expertly replenished the dose. Then he looked down at the back of Wanda's bagged head. She seemed to sense his presence and turned it in his direction. He gave her the shot.

"You're lucky," he said speaking to the back of her head. "That was a gift."

Even as he spoke, there was, once again, a noticeable change in her. She relaxed her hand a bit, and she ceased the restless twisting against the straps at her ankles. Sanchez pulled a stool up and set it in the trough between her outstretched legs. She was so well presented, he hardly needed to spread her open, but he did with two bare fingers.

She reacted by lifting up her head. He held her that way, and then finally as the drug finished working it's magic again, she put her head down and lay placidly. Her bottom was ready and open, and she allowed his fingers to spread her completely.

"The problems is," said Sanchez,  "the Cartel still has to punish you." He flattened and divided the cleavage of her bottom now with his other hand and used the opportunity to reposition his fingers at the edges of her anus in a slightly better spot.

He took Wanda's pen out of his pocket and held it up for Roberto and Miguel to look at. "It figures a lawyer would have a pen like this, don't you think?"

"Yeah, it looks expensive. Too bad." replied Roberto.

"I think you understand the dilemma," continued Sanchez speaking again to Wanda. "The Cartel has to send a message and leave its signature. It's nothing personal...Well, I mean the Cartel's business is nothing personal; but then again, it does all become rather personal don't you think?"

Sanchez held the pen in the opening of her anus. Then, almost absently, as if to do so  was the obvious and most natural thing for him to do, he put his hand over her vagina and touched her clitoris with his middle finger. Slowly and inexorably, he advanced the pen up into her bottom.

Teased by the persistent and troublesome penetration, she responded instinctively though perhaps not voluntarily. Once or twice, the Mont Blanc slipped uncharacteristically quickly into her despite its dry and therefore sticky surface. The tissue around her clitoris, and the lips of her vagina also began to grow plump and rosy. Sanchez spread her open and held a finger just inside her. It glistened distinctly wet when he withdrew it.

Roberto passed Sanchez an instantly recognizable device from the tray of tools. This was an ordinary sex toy in the shape of a pointed missile - a battery powered vibrator. Sanchez applied it to the spongy roof of her vagina at a point about two inches in. On feeling this, Wanda uttered a distinct animal like grunt through the muffle of her gag. Very shortly thereafter, The pen slipped effortlessly into her a further inch or so, and she was seen, mainly in the region of her pelvis to jerk mildly, but in a lasting spasm, against her confining straps.

"You know, sweetheart, it's not your pussy we're going to electrocute. It's your ass," said Sanchez allowing her a short respite from the vibrator. "If I were you, I should be very concerned about my ass."

The tenseness in her body was evident again; but this time, the source of it appeared to be a conflicted craving. Under the stimulus of the pen and the vibrator, she often pressed her legs so as to widen them against the straps, and then, as if remembering herself, she would relent and let them fall quite limp. She sometimes bent herself with squirming urgency over her porcelain stand before relaxing again in apparent penitence.

A slight looseness beneath the belt which ran over the small of her back pretending to cinch her firmly down betrayed her self destructive efforts. It  indicated that the cruel bolstered edge of over which she lay was no longer alone in forcing her to project her bottom up. She was also using it as an aid to accomplish that herself.

***

Wanda orgasmed twice under the influence of the vibrator. The novel sensation of coming that way with the pen in her ass stuck vividly in her head. Though it had induced in her a perverse desire which she hardly dared admit (a craving to engulf the pen entirely) she had begun to worry about taking in any more it.

The end of it now sat not quite fully buried but just protruding from the opening of her anus. The body was lodged well down and hugged tightly by her sphincter.  Though Sanchez had encountered no curve or obstacle while putting it in, she already had a strong sensation that it was  as deep as it could go. It was now stuck in her up to its hilt. Further advance seemed improbable and even alarming.

Yet the sensation of holding it so deep excited her. It induced  a fluttering of anticipation in her belly to be so perilously close to danger, and it was impossible for her to feel one sort of anticipation without feeling another sort: As the pen excited fear, her clitoris estimated pleasure. The unruly organ was by no means satisfied. This was perhaps the more so since Sanchez had stopped touching her and left a sensational void.

But Sanchez was not finished. He had only released her to retrieve several items from the terrible tray and get ready for the more invasive operation he was about to perform.

"You know, sweetheart, we play a game of a cat and mouse with the medical examiner. It's a bit like hide and seek really, but always with a little twist."

Sanchez held out a stainless steel dish. Roberto dropped Wanda's earrings into it. They made a 'clink' as they landed. Miguel added her pearl necklace.

"They are not very well equipped so we tease them. Hard things like a pen are easy to find. You can see them on a simple X-ray. Some other things - like semi gelatinous cartilage for example - are harder to spot. When they get down to business, though, they find everything. So you bury your little treasures someplace shocking. You want them to marvel and say, 'That poor girl'. You want them to be frightened. You want them to worry about getting caught on the wrong side of the Cartel."

Sanchez poked the jewelry around in the dish. He paused and regarded the spread legged girl in front of him with a serene and steady gaze. One of her unfastened garter straps had somehow got twisted under her belt. Very gently Sanchez lifted the black nylon spandex and freed the offending tab. Then he ran his finger lightly, almost apologetically, over the fading depression it had left in her skin. For a moment he seemed lost in thought. Then abandoning his reverie, he opened a package of condoms, and wadded it up. He stuck the post of an earring into the mass of rubber. Then he tied the little bundle into a second condom and made a neat bundle. He did the same for her other earring. Her pearl necklace he left naked and shimmering on its strand.

"That was another gift..." he began quietly under his breath.

There was a sudden tumultuous scurrying from the ferret cage followed by a torrent of squeaks.

"Will somebody get those ferrets out of here," he said annoyed.

One or two of the men who hung about against the back wall of the tiled room watching the spectacle uttered a murmur of disappointment. Sanchez declined to answer them, but grasped her thighs, and with an insistent pressure he induced her to turn her legs out. It was a minor adjustment, but one that lead to an even more uncompromised displaying (at least from the way it felt) of her anus. He had Roberto add a pair of  straps to hold her now in that new position. He then put his hand in the all important small of her back and made her cant her pelvis down. He insisted by a steady pressure of his hand that she hold herself that way.

It was an exercise that required her to think only of opening for him and accepting whatever was about to happen. That she might get away without doing it seemed remote, since each time she flagged, he patiently pushed her back down with his hand. It was a position which compelled her to set her belly hard down on the stand, and spill her viscera, as nearly as was possible within the confines of her body, out over the porcelain in shocking discovery of its cold surface.

As she was being made to do this, a wild fluttering commenced within her belly as she suddenly realized that Sanchez had only just begun to insert her expensive pen up into her - that he expected her to open even more for it, and let him bury it deep inside her.

***

It was one thing to be violated and humiliated with a pen, but quite another to embark on something that she knew, even in her drugged state, was no longer an adventurous novelty, but something that was physically unsafe. Wanda furiously rejected the notion of having the pen put further into her. She shook her head and objected into her gag. She tried, unsuccessfully, to rotate her legs back into a more closed position, and pull them together. With a great effort, she used  her head as a lever and tried to raise herself up off the stand.

"You're going to have to take it one way or another," said Sanchez. "You might as well let me do it and get it over with, don't you think?"

Wanda strained against her bonds.

Sanchez shrugged and said to Roberto, "Hold her head down."

"After six million dollars, you'd think she would cooperate," came the griping voice of one of the men at the back of the tiled room.

Roberto pushed her head down onto the stand. The smell of leather filled her nose.

She thought of her favorite handbag. She had once carried it by the strap in her teeth, and left permanent tooth marks. That was a careless girlish thing to do. It had ruined the bag, and she had thrown it out long ago. She had tried to get another one, but the price had doubled and the new style wasn't as nice.

A steady low voiced dialog from voices behind her filtered through the muffling barrier of her hood. This was broken by interludes of easy laughter. It was not Sanchez, Roberto or Miguel, but came from those others who were watching. The tone of their voices was mean and derisive. Occasionally there was a scraping of furniture on the floor. The smell of cigars began to filter through the little patch holes of her hood.

Wanda felt the caress of cold steel on her ass.

When she was little, she had once visited her uncle's farm. The men had built a fire and when dusk came, they sat upwind in lawn chairs to watch the blaze. The women brought beer and tidbits to eat. After dark the fire settled to a heap of burning embers. The sparks drifted up to dance about among the stars like  cavorting red devils darting around under the glittering silver eyes of their staid angelic superiors. The men began to smoke and leaned their heads together to talk. Their base and baritone voices drifted softly out over the landscape, unintelligible but comforting, along with the smell of cigars.

Some of the women took turns keeping the men supplied. This was hazardous duty. The women's faces glowed in ruddy unblemished perfection in the fire light.  It didn't matter her shape or age. She looked just fine in the dark. She would offer some refreshment to one or another of the men. He would politely nod his thanks, but some grinning half toothless man nearby would spank or pinch her hard on the ass. This would make her jump and look crossly behind her. The men would laugh at this in gravelly low tones. A few would venture lascivious comments followed by more laughter. The forgiving red light would mercifully spare her the humiliation of her angry blush.

The easy confidence and arrogant derisive demeanor of the men fascinated Wanda. She watched them inflict their abuse from the shadows. Then one of them spotted her and invited her forward with a kindly gesture . Soon four of five of the men were cajoling her to come over.

"Pretty girl," they said. "Come out. Don't be shy. Show us your nice dress. Give us a dance."

A few of them put their heads together and laughed. The fire did it's part to hide her own fantastic blush. She wanted to run away, but the attention of the men, even though it seemed dangerous - like the sugary encouragement a dog catcher lavishes on a wary stray - compelled her to advance. 

One of the men made a twirling motion with his finger, and she, heart pounding with excitement spun around until her dress flew out like a twirling parasol. Very soon, however, her aunt saw what was up and hustled her out of the firelight.

"But they said I was pretty," Wanda protested. "They wanted me to dance!"

"Of course they did, and a lot more besides!"

"What do you mean?" Wanda asked both frightened and curious.

"Never you mind."

A few of the men stared after her with piercing fire lit eyes. They bent to their neighbors and whispered behind cupped hands so that neither she nor her aunt could hear, and then snickered in that cold knowing way.

Wanda had enjoyed standing in front of the men. When her aunt had pulled her away, however, she had felt ashamed. She felt that way now. She recognized her own failure, and knew that she deserved to be punished.

When she had accepted that first fateful envelope of cash three years ago, she had accepted this as a possibility.  With the cartel, there was never an extenuating circumstance, no second chance, and never a shred of leniency. These were the terms of her employment. She had screwed up, and though fear gripped her, she admitted that she must now pay the price just as Sanchez said.

Sanchez had given her an extra dose of drug. That was kind of him.  There were other things as well. He had given her an enema and allowed her to evacuate herself. He had insisted Miguel fix the bolster to eliminate an uncomfortable crease. He had carefully arranged her gag to keep it from completely choking her. He had never once forced the pen into her, but allowed it to descend of it own accord.

She did not feel that he was being nice to her or lenient. In fact, she was sure that he intended to hurt her. He proceeded, however, with a thoroughness which impressed her. There was skill in his approach - a meticulous  patience - which suggested both competence and zeal.

With a tumultuous twisting in the depths of her belly which forcefully marked her anticipation, she decided that if she were going to be tortured, she would just as soon have Sanchez do it as anyone. Through the confusing fog of the drug, she realized that she trusted Sanchez, and by extension she also trusted the two thugs Roberto and Miguel. That they should be in charge of her instead of the likes of Rivera and the others  made her feel, in a perverse way, secure. What Sanchez had said was true. She wanted to get it over with. Intent on going forward, she willed herself, in spite of her fear, to lay relaxed over the bolster.

Sanchez rewarded her by freshly spreading her anus. He pushed on the pen with his finger, and Wanda felt it pass with cool and thrilling finality completely through her sphincter.

The tool was constructed from stainless steel. Sanchez coated it with a liberal amount of grease. He penetrated her with this ersatz medical instrument, and pushed the pen up inside her. As he advanced it into her, a growing globul of excess lubricant accumulated around her anus.

 Though she sensed the rigid stick like presence of the pen in her rectum for a short time, she mostly felt the invasion of the steel tool as Sanchez inched it methodically through the opening of her anus. There was a moment of tenseness when the hard length of the pen threatened at the first flexure. Sanchez insinuated his hand between her legs and under her tummy. "Suck in your stomach," he said. Wanda obeyed. He pressed up on her belly with his hand, and then angled the invading shaft forward. The pen found its passage with sudden  unexpected ease.

Wanda felt compelled by the unaccustomed extent of this deep penetration to desperately relax onto Sanchez's hand in order to receive it. She bent herself over the bolster, and twisted her legs open with an urgency that was dictated by the depth at which he had stabbed her: It was a delicate process to be invaded so completely, and the extraordinary feeling of vulnerability which it produced compelled her to spread herself open and remain perfectly still simply to avoid any inadvertent harming movement.

Sanchez advanced the tool easily for an extraordinary distance. The pen itself had vanished entirely from her feeling. Nevertheless, the several internal and external pressures on her body, and most particularly the endless penetration through her anus set off a tantalizing combination of nerves. The smooth steady progress of the shaft seemed like the endless puncture of an inflating needle which imperceptibly introduced its air and gradually made her clitoris stiffen.

"Good girl," he complimented her.

Wanda whined plaintively into her gag in answer. Gone were all thoughts of the smell of leather, handbags, bonfires, and dancing as she poured her concentration onto the thing in her ass. He impaled her almost painlessly. Inevitably, however, a tight curve of her passage, the left colic flexure, halted any further penetration, and Wanda squealed though her gag in piteous complaint.

***

In her desperation, and under the influence of the drugs, Wanda had given up all trace of lawyerly decorum. The remnants of her stylish clothes lay on the floor or bunched about her in slatternly disarray.  She lay with her legs spread wide and her bottom splayed in broad and humiliating expanse.  Her anus, nestled softly at the pillowed epicenter of her helpless ass, seemed, in its runnelled, puckered, and imperfect brown colored irregularity,  a sharp contrast to the only parts of her that remained perfection. These last vestiges of her dignity were her red polished finger nails, and her shiny red high heels. 

She had been compelled to luxuriously swallow her pen, her necklace, and her earrings though her most soiling opening. It seemed cruel to ask her to accept anything more through that soft compliant aperture, but Sanchez did.

Roberto wrapped a leather strap around her neck and snugged it tight, but Sanchez shook his head. He preferred to let her last as long as possible.

"Leave it there. Make sure it's not choking her."

Sanchez put one of the cruel looking steel and glass hypodermics down on the porcelain stand on each side of her. Then he explored each of her squashed breasts from the side to be sure he could lift enough of her flesh up from the copper plates to expose a portion of areole and nipple. It was an awkward access for the needles, but worth the convenience of having her bound face down.  There was no practical reason to inject her tits, but the medical examiner would probably discover it and know that she had suffered.

He placed his hand up into the thick dark mat of her pubic hair and allowed his fingers to sink into the springy coils. He held them there for a short time to feel the delicate coils envelope his fingers. It was a pensive caress. As he withdrew his hand, he brushed the smooth skin between her thighs. It was virgin skin there, still white and not yet corrupted to the rich olive color which covered the rest of her. Fine dark hair grew there as well. It reached up into the crack of her bottom. He traced this hair up around her anus and slicked it out from the opening. As he did so, he made combed perfection out of the disordered black tangle and mess of lubricant which had  accumulated there.

Addressing himself partly to her and partly to Roberto and Miguel he said. "You know, it's never quite as terrible as they imagine. They see the conclusion and their imaginations get the better of them. If they are new, they rush out of the room and get sick."

Then to her alone, he lied, "It's not so very bad - a little bit like getting an enema - a feeling of fullness - a few pricks like bee stings. Very soon it's over."

The hypodermics were filled with a suspension of pure capsaicin. They were likely to feel like very much more than bee stings. He might better have likened each injection to being impaled by a red hot poker or being sliced by a white hot knife.

Lower vertebrates hated it as much as people. If they touched the colloidal venom, it burned them just as cruelly. You could pour it into water in a ring to create an invisible barrier. Semi aquatic creatures would never cross its boundary no matter how uncomfortable or threatened. They would just as soon swim voluntarily into boiling water.

Injected directly into the area surrounding the passage through an anus, or a rectum or  a urethra, it leached slowly into the opening and rendered those thoroughfare utterly impassable to any nervously endowed creature. Even a person would find an exploration with an ungloved finger as intolerable as plunging the digit into a fire.

Sanchez took a metal catheter from the tray and greased it. He spread her labia open with two fingers and then insinuating the tip into the opening of her urethra, he slipped the shaft home. As soon as the little tube breached the void of her bladder, a gush of urine flooded out of her. It splashed into the trough in the floor like some sloppy bovine release.  When she had finished this helpless evacuation, he pushed the catheter in a little further to set the slightly bulged end trapped inside her. Then he attached an alligator clip and wire.

Sanchez flipped a switch. A crackling sound cut the air. Wanda's thighs and pee hole began to tingle. She felt a cold metal object inserted up her ass. A rod? A forceps? A tube? It was larger than what she had accepted before. It threatened and seemed to expand as it entered, but its Vaselined bulk parted her easily. As it divided her, she experienced a sensation of luxurious spreading along with a feeling of cool penetration. Accepting it was not a matter of willingness, but a matter of fact. He simply made it go slowly and delicately into her whether she wished it or not.

There was an incongruity in what he was doing to her. The electric shocks, the tools, the method of her torture were brutal. Yet Sanchez had made sure that her jewelry did not prick her; that the tools he inserted into her were well greased; that he touched her gently; and even, at times, compelled her to experience pleasure. Sanchez was well aware of the inconsistency. He was merely painting with the same schizophrenic brush that Delarouche had used on 'The Execution of Lady Jane Grey'.

Sanchez and Roesquez were merely traversing their way down a similar canvas. The soft rolled towel over which she lay; her shoes; her nails; her stockings; even her satin underpants which now gagged her; the smoothly polished instruments; and the comfortable grease - these were her luxurious velvet cushion; her sumptuous clothes; her distraught ladies in waiting; her caring executioner. Like lady Jane Grey, she herself furnished the erotic spark to the tableau by reveling in terrifying sensation: The vibrator was a pleasure she had been unable to deny. She herself understood the urge to spread her legs out wide on the figurative cushion so as to better accommodate a rough impregnation. Doing so both terrified and excited her, It thrilled and humiliated her.

So far, only the luxurious and the pleasantly sensuous had defined her experience. Sanchez had studiously refrained from hurting her; but they were moving inexorably, now, to the more brutal portions of the canvass. They had come to the coarse straw, the splintered chopping block, the rough forged iron, and the frightening axe. Wanda knew it. With dreadful anticipation, she leaned forward and figuratively groped about blindly for the block but, like lady Jane, she could not quite find it.  

The cold metal object in her ass began to leak stray unintended current into her. The errant voltage strayed up to her breasts and tweaked her nipples ferociously once or twice. Her clitoris responded violently to these accidental jolts. Sanchez turned the dial up a little. The herding electrical prod could be turned up much higher, and soon it would be, but it was not only intended for her. Sanchez saw no point in overwhelming her with it just yet.

He set a trio of the hypodermics conveniently beside him. Two of these were to set a ring of capsaicin around the entrance to her rectum; the third was to set a similar ring around the passage into her bladder and for the gratuitous purpose of exploring the mouth of her vagina, her labia, and the region around her clitoris.

Inevitably, a drop of the serum always gathered at the tip of the needle and as it   pierced and smeared this minuscule droplet along it path, it felt like the point was hot. If the site was three inches into a girl's rectum, she had to endure this stabbing pain in foreshadowing expectation of the injection proper. Sanchez knew very well how painful it was. When the injections were finally given, he had seen more than a few girls break the straps which held their legs. Roberto pushed Wanda's head down on the stand and held it there. Sanchez spread the taught rim of her anus away from the metal object which impaled her. He widened the funnel on one side with his finger, and then introduced the needle beside the metal. He had no intention, yet, of piercing her. He turned the sharp beveled tip to plane smoothly and uncutting against the larger metal impalement. Then he slowly pushed the needle in.

Wanda felt all this and urgently tried to relax her bottom. At first she did not understand what was happening. She only knew that he was prying her open to insert something beside the thing that was already in her. Then she felt the slender needle. A residue of  venom was already on its surface. The needle began to burn like a hot wire being put slowly up her ass.  

This minute invasion was not so severe as to throw her into a panic, but the capsaicin residue rendered it intense enough to be uncomfortable. When she felt what was happening, she began to squeal in a long escalating protest into her gag.

To add a perverse dimension to this first painful operation, Sanchez stuck the vibrator into her vagina and pressed it up against the roof of her passage as he had done before, and tormented her with methodical and diabolical skill. When he had finally buried the needle, he allowed her taught anus to hold the syringe pinned against the larger impalement, and left it sticking there ready.

In a delicate reversion to the luxurious, Sanchez wiped a spot on the opposite side of her anus with a cotton ball. This bone to hygiene was ludicrous under the circumstances, but when he had finished, the soft cotton showed a faint brown stain. It was soiled lubricant which had been pulled from her rectum after one of the several insertions that he had already made.

Sanchez pulled her anus open at the prepared spot for the second hypodermic. This time, however, he declined to benignly slide it in alongside. Instead, he pierced her muscled flesh. From there, he might have proceeded humanely by quickly burying the requisite length of needle into her in one smooth and easy shot; but this was to be the first of several such breaches, and it was as proper a commencement of her corporeal punishment as any. The tiny droplet at the tip was still several times the volume that a typical bee could manage, and once pushed hard up against raw nerve it had its effect.

Wanda was hardly prepared for it, and, like all stings, it sparked a thoughtless rage at the site at which the needle stabbed her. It was the kind of pain which instantly forces one to jump and swat violently, with tears in one's eyes, at the infuriating prick.

Wanda's body went rigid against her straps. She squealed into her gag,  and twisted the fabric which she clutched in her hands up into a knot. She tried desperately to close her legs, but Sanchez only worked the teasing sex toy more insistently inside her while slowly piercing her.

If she could have bitten or clawed at the vibrator with her vagina she would have. As it was, she had to content herself with rhythmic fighting squeezes. Each time she pressed herself on the white hot wire, it  infuriated her afresh and showed her how helpless she was. She was unable to withdraw, extricate herself from, or otherwise avoid the slow methodical searing advance of the thin merciless fire which he inflicted upon her. 

She had seen the syringes on the tray, and she thought that Sanchez must be cruelly injecting the toxin into her,  but then she realized that he had injected nothing. He was merely preparing her.

While he was still inserting the second needle, Wanda finally lost her composure and let go of the last threads of her dignity. She burst into tears and began to cry. Her body fell limp, and she accepted the remainder of the burning needle with no discernable complaint. If they were going to do this to her, then she wanted to get it over with quickly. In an act of bravery and despair much akin to the act of a soldier leaping from his trench to rush forward into battle, she lay her head down in placid resignation, and spread her legs as wide, relaxed, and obediently as she could against the straps.

The electrical box crackled and discharged. A delicious agonizing torture simultaneously seized her nipples, her anus, and her thighs, and jolted her punished clitoris to the very edge of an orgasmic cliff. The current teased, but never quite satisfied.  It promised, but never quite delivered.

"Does this take long?" asked Miguel.

"Yeah, awhile," Sanchez answered.

***

<DIV ALIGN=CENTER><B>A Message from the Cartel</B></DIV>

Wanda Roesquez contemplated her wardrobe. A line of trim business suits hung in front of her. Next to these hung a line of blouses - mostly white. Farther along and considerably less used, there hung a few colorful skirts and dresses; and finally, protected in the dark end of the closet, there were several gowns that caught the light and shimmered. Wanda focused on the business suits.

In her profession, the way one dressed made a difference. She ticked off a mental list of all the items on her agenda that day. She had a meeting right off the bat. Ramirez and that bastard Clark would almost certainly be there.  She just had to look decent for that - buttoned down and nothing too feminine. When it came to business, most of the partners only valued male, or at best, androgynous efficiency.

Later, she had to have lunch with Mark and his prospective client. She had to look professional for that, but something more provocative might do. The clients sometimes appreciated a nice looking woman. That could sway a deal now and then.

In the afternoon, she had to go meet someone about something to do with the Cartel. She frowned. She had no idea what that was about, but when they called, she had to go. She could wear anything for that.

She considered an outfit made of straw colored gabardine. That might work, but the skirt was a little long, and she would have to wear brown stockings and the clunky brown shoes. She wouldn’t influence the lunch client much wearing those. She ran her hand along the row of clothes pausing now and then to pull on the sleeve of one suit or another.

Her red nails were cut neatly into short oval points and they were immaculately polished. Her hand paused, and she glanced out the window. The view across the city was hazy, but it was just the steamy residue from a nighttime thunderstorm. The palm trees which sprouted in neat rows along a pair of converging boulevards hung limp and almost motionless. Their broad leaves glinted in the morning sun - evidence of aerial puddles which the green fronds were slowly shedding onto the pavement. It was going to be a hot day.

She selected a dark gray outfit made of linen. The skirt was short but still modest. The jacket, which was cut with a waist, had a smart abbreviated hem which flared out onto the hips a little - that should please Mark's client, and the partners shouldn’t object.

Once her mind was made up, Wanda assembled her wardrobe quickly. A white blouse; a pearl necklace with matching stud earrings; the tiny watch with the narrow platinum band. She slipped a foot tentatively into a black matte pump, but then, when she reflected that she wouldn’t be walking, she kicked it off and selected a more formal and daring pair of red patent leather heels. She arranged everything on a chair near the mirror.

She took special care again in selecting her underwear. On rare occasions, she wore plain panty hose, but generally, she preferred ensembles of brassieres, underpants, garters and hose. She liked the elegance. She enjoyed the ritual of putting them on and taking them off. She even liked the slight discomfort. The feeling reminded her that her adornment went beyond jewelry and some makeup and extended to her underwear. It made her feel sexy.

She selected a black set with lace panels, and, glancing at the clock - plenty of time - she began to dress. The hose was also topped with lace, and she stretched it out carefully enjoying the cool feel of the pattern against her skin. As the fabric warmed to her, the sensation slowly faded. The lace top band was broad, and she did a quick mental calculation to assure herself that during the physical bustle of the day - sitting, standing, and walking - the hem of her linen skirt would never ride up high enough to reveal it.

As Wanda dressed, she grew less interested in her wardrobe, and began to think more about the upcoming day at work. She began to go over briefs in her mind and started the task of composing revisions. Of course there was no opportunity to record anything on paper, and so, even though she still had plenty of time, she became impatient to be at work. She put on her makeup and did her hair with little fuss. The shoes were recalcitrant as all high heels are, and while putting them on, she hopped about first on one foot, and then the other.

Finally, when she was dressed, she smoothed and checked herself in the mirror one last time.

<DIV ALIGN=CENTER>***</DIV>

At work, Wanda, or Miss Roesquez as many of her co-workers referred to her, moved efficiently through the appointments of her day. She successfully outlined her proposal for dealing with the Agro issue to the bond partner and several others. Ramirez was smart enough to keep his mouth shut,  but that prick Clark raised the possibility of an alternate plan and attempted to spar with  her. She quickly and ruthlessly revealed his approach unworkable <I>ab reducto absurdum</I>. The bond partner found her logic formidable and said so in private to another partner.

The attorneys at Wanda's firm often worked in pairs of one senior and one junior lawyer. Mark was Wanda’s senior. After some private doubts about female lawyer types, his prospective client decided that he liked Wanda immensely. This was not only because she was tall and stunning and carried an expensive leather briefcase (which certainly reassured him of her competence) but because of the insight with which she commented on several areas of interest.

At mid afternoon, Wanda’s secretary informed her that a driver and a grey Mercedes waited for her outside the building. She was annoyed at the interruption, but she abandoned her work anyway and went dutifully to the car. She often found the Cartel’s work distasteful, and she always approached it with a certain amount of disdain - perhaps a uniquely female disdain. They never fully embraced her in their nefarious club like some of the men, and yet they still required her services from time to time. About all she liked about the Cartel was the extraordinary sums of money they paid.

Like many of the Cartel’s men, her driver was an illiterate thug, and she felt no need to ask him where they were going, or why they had summoned her. Instead, she amused herself by looking out the window at the receding dock lands and a stream of warehouses which they were passing. The Cartel always seemed to conduct its business either in a warehouse or in some remote jungle fortress in the mountains.

After about half an hour, they pulled into the yard of a decrepit steel building which lay in a forest of decrepit steel buildings. The pale green siding was pocked with rust and creased where trucks had grazed the side by accident. A rusty chain link fence enclosed the yard which was mined with pot holes and large puddles of muddy looking water. The driver parked against the building near a door and several other cars. Inside, the building was filled with a forest of crates. The driver lead the way through the maze to a door, down some steps, through another door, and finally into a dingy, sparsely furnished, and windowless office.

There were six men already in the room, and one of them greeted her.

“Miss Roesquez.” He gestured for her to come over and offered her a scratched green metal office chair to sit down on.

Wanda nodded and took the chair. The man was named Sanchez, and he sat down on one of the desks. The others were sitting on whatever chair or desk was at hand. Two, however, were clearly Cartel thugs. They  remained standing and hung unobtrusively around by the door. They were obviously not part of the meeting. With the exception of the toughs, Wanda knew all of the men.

Sanchez ignored the assembly and began to fiddle with a button on his shirt. He wore no jacket, but the shirt was made of silk and was obviously an expensive one. Nevertheless, it had a broad ostentatious collar, and to Wanda's eye, represented an utterly tasteless mode of dressing. The heavy gold chain which he wore about his neck and which nestled in the thick black hair on his chest only confirmed her opinion. She could hardly see why he felt compelled, even on that hot day, to undo himself any more.

The button gave trouble. Sanchez's face grew suddenly red, and then, in unexpected fury, which seemed to erupt from the depths of his powerful and somewhat stocky body, he swore. He got up and walked over to one of the thugs and pushed the button at him. "God damn it, Roberto, see what you can do with this god damned fucking shit assed button.  Do you know how much I paid for this fucking shirt?"

"Yeah, boss. I know. I bought it for you."

Sanchez ignored him and told him anyway. "One  hundred and eighty fucking American dollars. You'd think they could make the god damned buttons work."

Roberto got the button undone without the slightest trouble. Sanchez seemed mollified, and everyone in the room visibly relaxed.

With as much calm as he had expressed rage only moments before, he  flicked some minute specs off his sleeve.

"You know, Rivera," he said turning to one of the other men who sat perched on one of the desks, "You always wear nice  shirts."

"Thanks, Sanchez," replied Rivera pleased.

Sanchez felt the fabric of Rivera's shirt admiringly between his fingers. Then without warning, he suddenly grabbed Rivera with two hands by the collar, and with a violent heave, practically threw him into the one empty office chair that had remained curiously vacant in the center of the gathering. The chair skidded across the floor, and the surprised Rivera held up his hands, palm up, in a gesture of innocence.

“What? What?” he asked. “What’s wrong with you, Sanchez? What have I done?”

The man’s face was white, and there was fear in his voice. Wanda herself felt butterflies of fear in her stomach. Someone had crossed the Cartel. Somehow each of them knew something, and Sanchez had called them here to find out who and what.

Wanda knew that she herself had nothing to fear. She had always been completely loyal though perhaps not always as diligent as she might have been. She quickly thought back over everything she had done for Rivera and the Cartel for some clue as to where Sanchez was headed and how she might be involved. There was nothing she could think of. She relaxed a little.

Sanchez twisted Rivera’s chair to face him. “Do you remember a certain shipment last April to Florida?”

“Yeah. Yeah, of course,” replied Rivera. “That was the one that went bad. I swear to you, Sanchez, I had nothing to do with it…I mean…I mean…it was my shipment, but I don’t know what happened.”

Sanchez Turned to Wanda. “Miss Roesquez, the money for Rivera’s shipment was brought back clean with bearer bonds. You arranged that, right?”

Wanda, suddenly felt the butterfly return to her stomach. She had used a broker in Miami who usually laundered money for the Mexicans, and that was stupid. Wanda reddened slightly, but then recovered herself. That was not the cause of the problem in April, and it was very unlikely that they would ever connect her with a Mexican broker. She looked Sanchez in the eye. “Yes, I arranged it. The bonds arrived a day late because of bad weather, and then they disappeared from the dock warehouse.”

“So they arrived safe and sound, didn’t they, Rivera? Odd that they should go missing at that point, don’t you think?”

“Well yeah,” replied Rivera. “It’s a mystery. I swear though, I don’t know what happened.”

Sanchez reached into his pocket and held up a pink scrap of paper in front of Rivera.  “Do you know what this is?”

“Sure, it’s a bill of lading.”

“Exactly. It’s a bill of lading for the crate that carried the missing bonds, and it came from a Mexican truck that was seized at the border.” Sanchez produced a pistol from somewhere. He held it to Rivera’s head.

“I thought it was one of our own people who did it, but no. Someone tipped off our competitor about the arrival of those bonds, and you are the only person it could have been!”

The room was hot, and Rivera was sweating. He took out a handkerchief and mopped his arms and his forehead.

“I don’t know how it happened, Sanchez. I swear it on my mother’s life. You’ve got to believe me.” His voice broke. He was begging - practically sobbing.

The principals except for Sanchez had managed to make a wide circle around the pathetic Rivera. The two thugs had moved silently into the general tableau which was now very tense. Nevertheless, Wanda was losing interest.  This was a typical drug screw up. Someone would probably be killed, and she would read about it in the morning paper. This was nothing to do with her. She stood up. “May I go now?”

Still holding the gun to Rivera’s head, Sanchez looked up and seemed surprised that she was still there. His hard set mouth relaxed a little. “Of course, Miss Roesquez, I had almost forgotten you. Miguel will take you, but first there is one more thing I wish to clear up.”

Sanchez cocked the pistol and put the muzzle to Rivera’s temple. “What bothers me, Rivera, is not the April bonds. We got them back after all. I am wondering about the string of bad luck we had afterward. A customs seizure in Miami in May; two fishing boats lost in rough water in August and September; an aircraft fuel tank explosion in January.

"They all looked like accidents, that is… until one of the fishing boats turned up safe and sound in Antigua. Whoever took it decided it was wasteful to sink it. No. None of those were accidents. It seems that in each case, someone knew when and where we were shipping.”

Without warning, Sanchez turned the gun away from Rivera’s head and pointed it at Wanda. “What I would like know, my dear,” he asked, “is what was the name of the broker you used in Miami?”

Wanda grew deathly pale and took a step back. She stumbled against Miguel the driver. Nervously, she stepped forward again and glanced about the room as of to gauge the severity of her situation.

“You used a Mexican broker didn’t you?” Sanchez's voice was now soft and gentle - at once coaxing and reassuring.

Wanda swallowed. Her mouth was dry and she could hardly speak. “Yes,” she replied weakly.

“It seems they placed an electronic tracking device in the April shipment. They used it to learn who the contacts were, and where the drop offs were. When the crate arrived they had to get the device back again to keep us finding out about it. So they stole the bonds. They knew exactly where to find it. Rivera had nothing to do with it. It was only you, my dear…and your carelessness.”

He raised the gun, and held his arm out stiff and straight pointing it directly at her face. She felt a sharp pain in her side - a needle - and something injected. Sanchez smiled at her and then carefully lowered the hammer of the pistol with his thumb. Wanda sank.

<DIV ALIGN=CENTER>***</DIV>

Strong hands propelled her forward. A room white with tile replaced the dingy office. Wanda studied the tile with great interest. The grout was dirty. Someone had drawn on the cracks with a blue ball point  pen. There were some streaks of brownish yellow stain. Was this a bathroom? No. Why did she feel so wobbly? She leaned a little bit to one side experimentally. Strong hands caught her. Those nice strong hands again.

“You need to wash the tile,” she said helpfully.

“Sure, sure, sweet heart,” a man’s voice replied. Sanchez.

He kept her from falling. She clung to his broad shoulders with her hands as best she could.

"I'm a bit dizzy. I think I need to lie down," she said wondering at the slurred sound of her own voice.

"In a minute, honey."

They put her in front of a porcelain table and turned her to face it.

“That’s much too short for me to lie down on,” she observed.

“I know, sweetheart. That’s okay.”

She looked around. What a strange bathroom she thought. And what a funny place to keep pets. She abandoned the position where they had left her and stepped unsteadily over to peer through the glass of  a small aquarium that had caught her attention and which was perched at one end of a cheap folding table nearby.

She put her fingers up to the glass as if to brush aside some foggy curtain which obscured her view. She smiled in at the contents trying to focus. Then a frown gradually spread over her face and she lifted her hand away from the glass.

“Oh!” she exclaimed. “There are so many. They are slimy, and they are writhing around horribly!"

"While we are looking at animals, Miss Roesquez, perhaps you’d like to look at these?"

Sanchez lifted a wire cage onto the table.

“Oooh, how cute,” she cooed. This time, she had no reservation about putting her fingers up to the wire cage. Half a dozen dark eyed hyperactive personalities of fur inside rushed over to investigate and sniff at her. She stroked their little black noses as best she could through the wire and giggled with pleasure. “They look like little brown weasels.”

“They are ferrets,” said Sanchez.

They lead her back to the sturdy little porcelain table. As they urged her along, she stumbled sideways and stretched her arm back towards the ferret cage.

“Oh don’t take me away. I want to look at them,” she pleaded.

In front of the table, Sanchez held her up in his arms. She laid her head down against his chest. The warmth of his body felt wonderful against her cheek, and she savored the musky smell of his skin through his shirt. She had been without a boy friend for almost a year and half. Not in a million years, would she  have conceived that it would be Sanchez to break this dry spell.

"Is this a bathroom, Sanchez?" she asked. "Have you got me in a bathroom? I don't think you're supposed to be in here."

"It won't matter, honey," he replied. He was working her skirt up her thighs.

"But what if we get caught,? she objected mildly.

"We won't."

"Okay," she replied simply. She put more of her weight against him trusting him to support her, and then dropped her right arm behind her. Without knowing quite why, or perhaps because Sanchez wanted it, she began to help pull up her skirt. As she grasped the fabric with her fingers, she shimmied a little to help the taught linen up onto her thighs. When they had got it up past a certain point, she obliged by spreading her legs a little  to keep it from slipping back down again.

They didn't bother to go all the way up with the dress. When the linen hem was high enough, one of the thugs, Roberto, crouched behind her, reached up under it, and pulled her underwear partway down. Then he put an ordinary drug store bottle enema up between her legs behind the concealing vestiges of her skirt. He spread her cheeks apart around her anus, and slipped the nipple deftly home.

"Hey," she complained petulantly. "That's no fair! I'm not that kind of girl."

She turned and looked crossly down at Roberto. She would have swatted him away with her hand, but Sanchez caught her wrist.

"You are now," he said calmly holding her.

For a moment, the two of them grappled in an insistent contest. Then she acquiesced. Sanchez set her arms about his neck, and allowed her to hang on tiptoe from that mimicry of a lover's embrace. She clung to him with a feeble but urgent tenacity. He did not do this to please her, but, rather, to ease the burden of her weight upon his arms. He still held her waist for the purpose of keeping her conveniently placed for Roberto. At length, she laid her cheek back down against his chest, and allowed the procedure at her nether end to continue unopposed.

Roberto infiltrated her with two of the little bottles. The first, she hardly felt. It only made her feel vaguely taught. The slight sensation, however, did serve to put the nervous network of her lower abdomen on notice. When he was finished with it, he continued to hold the cleavage of her bottom open signaling to her the imminence of a fresh dose. This time, the first touch of the enema tip in the funnel of her anus arrested her attention as surely as if someone had rung a shocking little bell in her ear. It sent a shiver of anticipation coursing through her which came to a resonating focus at her clitoris.

The nozzle had a thin film of grease on it, and it slipped up inside  her smoothly. The feeling of it being pushed, an almost insignificant penetration, through the tightly cinched channel of her ass until it broke free into the unrestricted opening of her flooded rectum only primed her further. It made her nipples stiffen and caused a sensation in her mouth like the crushing of a little bit of lemon.

As she felt Roberto inject the saline into her, she experienced an involuntary tightening of both her anus and vagina. This curling up of nerves seemed to fan through her from her back to her front.  It felt to her as if someone had just bathed her with some astringent wash which made the lips of her vagina tingle and then contract. It made her want to spread her legs. Her toes skittered out a little on  the slick tiles of the floor as she opened slightly to receive it.

Wanda was content to rest placidly against Sanchez for some time before finally breaking away from his embrace. He passed her to Roberto and Miguel who helped her to squat over a primitive foot pad toilet. Drugged and unsteady, she found using it especially awkward in her high heels, constricting underpants and tight dress. In her desperation to evacuate, she simply pulled her skirt up around her waist, and pushed her underpants down to a point across her knees.  

When she was done, Sanchez hoisted her up, and lead her back to the little table. Somehow, she managed to get her underpants up and her skirt down, but the effort of squatting and then suddenly standing left her dizzy and swimming in a black sea punctuated by dancing lights.

"What's going to happen now?" she asked bewildered.

"Nothing, baby. Don't worry about it."

"Good, because I feel sick," she said putting her hand to her head. She was standing now facing the little porcelain table a couple of feet away.

“Step up to the edge, ” said Sanchez ignoring her. Or was it Roberto? It wasn’t Miguel, because he was in front her, and she knew that he hadn’t said anything. Besides, he didn’t talk like that. She couldn’t tell who was talking to her. Some of them were behind her. How many of them were there? Was it four or five? She couldn’t remember. Their voices were all different and mixed up. Miguel sounded like Sanchez, and Sanchez sounded like Roberto. They all sounded far away. What was the drug they had given her, she wondered? Was it some narcotic? Or maybe sodium thiopentol?

She tried to put her hand out. From a great distance, she heard someone say, "She's going to throw up..."

<DIV ALIGN=CENTER>***</DIV>

Apart from the sour taste in her mouth, Wanda felt much better. The dancing lights and the blackness had gone.

"What happened?" she asked.

"You got sick, and fainted, baby."

Someone urged her forward with his hand. It was Sanchez. “That’s right, sweetheart. Get right close up so you’re touching the edge. There was a recessed rectangular gutter, a species of drain perhaps two feet wide and six inches deep that opened in the floor in front of the table.

"I'm thirsty. Can I have a drink," asked Wanda.

"Not likely baby girl," replied Sanchez.

Someone tapped her feet apart so that as she stepped forward, she straddled the drain. The wider stance made the hem of her skirt pull taught and ride up a little. She stumbled awkwardly forward a few inches  and bumped into the edge of the table.

“Hey,” she said. “Don’t push! I already told you. I can’t lie down on that. It’s not big enough...not even for a midget. Plus it’s shaped funny.”

“That’s okay, honey,” said Sanchez. His voice was sympathetic.

They pulled her forward so that her pelvis rested firmly against the rounded edge of the table. She looked down. The edge of the table was yoke shaped and she could see through the relieved opening to the floor. One of her stockings had a run in it. She began to grow annoyed.

They were pulling off her jacket and unfastening her pearl necklace. She suddenly felt angry. She also had the butterflies in her stomach again. She wondered what they were doing with her. She was a grown woman after all, and grown women didn’t part their legs and lean forward over porcelain tables like this one.

She tried to stand up, but her arms were tangled behind her in the remnants of her jacket. She struggled to get them free of the sleeves.  When she could not quite extricate herself, a vague sense of panic colored her annoyance.

“I don't like this!" she protested. "I don’t know what you’re doing. Let me go!”

She began to struggle, but lost her footing and stumbled into the drain trough. Someone jabbed her again with the needle. It felt hot at first, and then cool. Strong hands held her while the drug took effect.

Her head lolled. Her arms were still tangled behind her in the sleeves of her jacket. Someone, Roberto, began to unfasten the buttons of her blouse. She gathered her strength and lifted her head. She tried to study his face, but he was looking down and working on the buttons. This curious work soon arrested her attention also, and she looked down at her front with amused interest. The room was much too hot anyway.

The top of her blouse fell limply apart. Someone was trying to help her get her arms out of the sleeves of her jacket, and this made the unbuttoning more awkward. She tried to cooperate with the tugging behind her while keeping herself  reasonably still for Roberto. She turned slightly towards him so that he could work more easily. Roberto cut the front closure of her bra apart with a knife and the two halves fell away loose. With a few tugs, he pulled the blouse out from her skirt. She arched a little from side to side as he pulled to make extra space and help the fabric come untucked.

When all this was done, and her shirt pushed aside, Roberto and Miguel helped her lay forward, bare front, onto the cool porcelain. As she bent over and her bottom spread, her skirt pulled more tightly about her and worked it’s way up her legs. A gentle divot of drum taut fabric stretched across her seat and clearly outlined the border between her own feminine roundness and the intimate void which commenced in between.

One of the men was holding her wrists crossed and pinned behind her back. Her legs, which she still held where they had placed them, made an inverted vee to the ground on either side of the gutter. The edge of the table (if one could call it that for it was really more of a stand) was of such a height that she was compelled (to maintain this slightly spread position) to point the toes of her shoes down in order to  touch the floor.

Though they had done relatively little to disrobe her, pinioned as she was over the table, her body seemed ready to burst its few tenuous remaining constraints, and rush to complete her undress.

Above the waist, the transformation was almost complete. She lay totally unfastened and only just covered by the white remnants of her blouse and bra. Here and there about her shoulders and waist, the fabric lay disheveled and pushed so as to reveal her olive skin.

From the waist down, she was still fully clothed; and though the transformation to nakedness had not yet begun at all, the suggestion that it must soon take place was overwhelming. The broad floral bands of her stockings were now just beginning to show under the hem of her skirt. The sight of them accentuated the taut and confining nature of her stylishly tailored clothing. With the tops visible, her stockings seemed barely able to contain her. Her skirt seemed barely adequate to cover her.

<DIV ALIGN=CENTER>***</DIV>

On a basic level, Wanda was acutely aware. She processed all the information that came to her methodically and accurately. She understood that she was being prepared for some terrible punishment.

She instinctively knew, however, that if she allowed herself to be overwhelmed by terror she would go insane; and more than anything, she wanted to remain sane. Her need to remain rational gave her a strong incentive to reject, or at least obscure, what she knew to be true. She felt an overwhelming desire to deny what was happening to her. The drug allowed her to accomplish this. It accounted for her good humor and apparent lack of concern, and she yielded gratefully to its influence.

A small unaltered thread of her personality did occasionally manifest itself as a slight nervousness; once or twice, perception managed to rear its head; but for the most part, she successfully refused to connect the stream of events as they unfolded into any coherent whole. Instead, she cast her attention about from one object of interest to another; she noticed unimportant things which had no relation to anything; she thought many of the things that should have frightened her were funny.

“Guess what?” she giggled. “I’m lying down on the little table after all.”

Two of the ferrets were playing and got into a rambunctious fight. One of them suddenly squeaked. She looked back over her shoulder towards the cages. Quite by chance, she managed to free one of her wrists from Roberto’s grasp. She reached over towards the cages, and called to them, “Here little weasel. Here little fishy fish fish.”

Roberto recovered her hand again, and, together, he and Miguel pulled her loosened blouse and severed bra off her shoulders and down onto her arms. Without bothering to pull them all the way off, they pushed her wrists, still caught in the entangled straps and sleeves, up; and taped over the fabric so that  her arms were folded across her back behind her.

“Oooh,” she said. “Are you tying me up? Have I been a bad girl?”

“You’ve got it, sweetheart,” replied Sanchez.

“How bad have I been?”

“Well, sweetheart, that is a very good question, and I am glad you are concerned about it. When you add it all up, I guess you’ve cost us, say, about six million dollars."

“That is a lot of money!”

“Yes, my dear, it certainly is.”

The stand extended about three feet - just far enough so that she could put down her head if she chose. Pinned as she was with her arms behind her, she had every incentive do this, but she was too interested by what was going on around her. Instead, she strained to lift her head up off the stand and tried her best to look right or left behind her. Occasionally, when she grew tired of this, she rested her chin on the stand and looked straight ahead at the bare expanse of tile wall in front of her.

“This wall is boring. You should hang a picture for me to look at.” She contemplated the tile and then she asked, “Are you going to torture me because I’m a traitor?” she giggled again.

“We certainly are,” replied Sanchez. He began some preparation behind her.

While this was going on, Miguel made sure that Wanda did not try to get off the porcelain stand. He kept her well forward and pinned relatively immobile. Every once in awhile she lost her footing on the slick tiles of the floor, and one of her toes slipped off the edge into the void of the gutter which ran between her feet. This forced her to spread her legs apart fresh and point the toes of her shoes down with renewed effort to regain her tenuous purchase at the edges of the trough. She was hardly aware of these incidental efforts, and she engaged in them instinctively. She found that it was important to her, however, to maintain her purchase on the floor.

As she struggled to keep the tips of her shoes apart and resting on solid ground, she gradually worked her tight skirt ever higher up onto her thighs. Soon the lace top bands of her stockings were entirely revealed, and then finally, the bounding straps of her garters and her bare flesh began to show. Even in the hot room, the air fell cool and drafty on her damp and newly exposed skin. Every time she spread her legs to renew her footing, she sucked a fresh and more invasive draft of air up between them; and though she did not note this explicitly, the sensation made her ever more aware of the space between her legs.

“I think you will be very interested in this, my dear," said Sanchez.

He put a stainless steel tray out beside her where she could see it, and onto this he arranged several indescribable items. These might have been cobbled from a kitchen, or a hardware store, or a sex shop, or even possibly a hospital.

To complete the ensemble, Sanchez set out a metal box. This sat on four rubber feet and had a handle at the top. There were switches on the front along with a meter and some dials.  The metal box was made of unfinished aluminum and had the look of something homemade - a science project constructed crudely for its function rather than with any kind of refinement that might benefit its appearance. Several white porcelain insulators projected from it's side, and from these heavy binding posts, which indicated a substantial electrical capacity, there drooped long limp loops of rubber coated wire each of which ended in an alligator clip.

Wanda dutifully opened her eyes wide and made a face as if to utter the 'ooing' sound which she had already used several times to suggest her feelings. This time, however, she only mouthed the noise and preserved a reverent silence; by this significant mechanism of omission she successfully conveyed her magnified trepidation.

Sanchez paced out of Wanda’s view. His footsteps became a hollow reflection off the far wall of the room. There was a tinny sound  as a table or some piece of metal furniture was dragged across the floor. Wanda tried to look, but could see nothing. The strain of holding her head up and looking  back was tiring. Also, she thought she could hear better if she stared straight ahead at the monotonous tiles in front of her. The echo from this hard surface made the disembodied sounds of the room strangely audible as if they were impinging directly into both her ears, When she turned her head to one side, the effect vanished. This was frustrating because she wanted very much to look back over her shoulder where things were happening, but she also wanted to hear everything.

"You know this table is made of porcelain!" she observed in wonder. She had adopted on her face a worried expression as if something profound were bothering her. "It's like a dinner plate." she continued. " It's cold when you put your bare belly right down on it, but that's okay. I'm beginning to warm it up."

"Good for you, Miss Roesquez. That shiny cold surface is what makes it easy to clean - just like a dinner plate."

“I thought you were going to spank me or something; but now I think I'm on a dinner plate. I think you are going to eat me!" She giggled, and blushed red when she realized what she had said. "I meant eat me like a plate of chicken. I didn't mean eat my pussy!"

"Don't worry, Ms Roesquez. We know what you meant. You are quite entertaining. It makes me almost sorry to go ahead with this."

Sanchez snapped his fingers. Roberto worked what was left of Wanda's skirt up over her bottom, and lowered her underpants. Miguel then cut them off her with his knife.

"You are going to do something wicked to me aren't you? You're going to punish my pussy! Am I right?"

<DIV ALIGN=CENTER>***</DIV>

Someone stuck another needle into her left shoulder. After a few moments, she lay her head down. The porcelain felt cool and sweet against her cheek. She descended into her own little world.

She blinked several times, but kept her eyes open. Looking along the wall, the straight grout lines between the tiles seemed to vanish like narrowing roads over a horizon of tile. The tiles themselves no longer looked flat as they did head on. Instead, they captured the light in little shining pools of undulating imperfection.

Immediately in front of her, the wildly foreshortened corner of the porcelain stand projected out from the peripheral shadows of her lower compressed cheek. It emanated from the utter darkness at the periphery of her eye, and then gradually formed itself. It seemed to transform from a soft, indistinct, and cloud like space where her vision was still blurred to a hard white surface where her sight finally came into focus.

Under the influence of the drug, Wanda lay helplessly. Her body seemed remote, as if she were someone else looking at herself from a distance.

The two thugs, Roberto and Miguel, grasped her by the shoulders and lifted her torso off the table while Sanchez centered a pair of stippled copper plates directly under the nipples of her breasts.

They tied her taped and entangled arms up away from her back to a ring in the wall just above her head with a rope. This had the effect of wrenching her shoulders firmly down onto the stand and made lifting her head possible only with the greatest effort. The position of her arms, which were pulled sharply forward over her back, already kept the upper part of her torso firmly down, but to this, they added another almost redundant strap under her armpits which also kept her torso centered on the stand.

Someone slipped a thick and firmly rolled towel under her at the edge of the stand at the break of her hips to raise her pelvis. He then cinched a leather strap tightly down over the small of her back. This forced her to rock forward over the makeshift bolster and jut her bottom up.

They grasped her ankles and pulled them apart off the floor. They tied her legs hopelessly apart, while she, not quite understanding, pointed the tips of her shoes urgently about searching for her old familiar purchase.

While strapping her down, they pushed and pulled her about so as to find the most ideally braced and articulated position for her bottom. As if watching herself, she saw the fleeting image of a butcher trimming meat. He would flip the slab over and push it about in the worn bowl-like depression of his block. Like magic under the thick obscuring fingers of his hands, each fatty end would come to rest conveniently sprawled up and out over the rim of the bowl on the highest mound of the uneven surface. Once there, he would pull it or push it once or twice to optimize it’s position, and then reach for his cleaver. In this case, the butcher was Roberto, and his assistant was Miguel. Each time he got an arm or a thigh or an ankle in position, he reached not for his cleaver, but for a leather strap with which to buckle her down.

As they adjusted her, her chest and the two copper pads beneath them slid  around on the surface of the stand. The minute bumping vibrations kept her nipples in a state of constant sensitivity. The sharper stimulation of the points which pressed up from the pads seemed to open a kind of nervous channel between her chest and her belly. It was as if her nipples were constantly needling her uterus and the feminine paraphernalia leading into it.

"You're going to electrocute my breasts and my pussy, aren't you!" she observed.

"Something like that," Sanchez confirmed.

Roberto unhooked the straps to her garter belt and left them to dangle loosely over her thighs. He tugged her stockings part way down. When he had bared the upper portion of her thighs, he buckled a narrow band about the thickest portion of each about three quarters of the way up. To a small knob on each of these, he attached a wire with an alligator clip.

While Roberto and Miguel were busy with all this, Sanchez was adding to the tray beside her. From somewhere he produced  her discarded underpants. He threaded his fingers through her hair and lifted her head.

"Open your mouth," he said.

Wanda did as she was told, and he stuffed her panties in. He did it carefully and made sure to tuck the folds out to the sides between her teeth to keep her from aspirating the cloth. As he worked, she made a muffled noise with each tamping of his finger as if to confirm each minor improvement to her gag.

Last, he put a black leather hood over her head and buckled the closure around her neck. This ominously amorphous bag was made of a heavy but supple quilted cowhide. Roberto added form to this terrifying headgear by cinching a belt across her face. This held her gag in place and granted her sightless head one grotesque and ironic feature: a slight depression, and a mute leather strap in the spot where there should have been a mouth.

<DIV ALIGN=CENTER>***</DIV>

Sanchez left her to lie like this contemplating her fate for some time. He went out into the office and smoked a cigarette. He knew the drugs would wear off again soon, and he wanted to wait.

There was always the question of whether to leave the woman drugged when you did the thing they were about to do. He wanted to think a bit about that. Roesquez hadn't exactly crossed the Cartel, but then again, she had made a very bad mistake. Six million dollars was a lot of money. She had said it herself.

He went over to one of the desks. It was bare except for Roesquez's briefcase and a lone postcard which Sanchez himself had left there. He picked up the card, and took a leisurely puff on his cigarette. It showed a painting by Paul Delaroche titled 'The Execution of Lady Jane Grey'. The original hung three thousand miles away in a gallery in London. 

Sanchez was no great connoisseur of art, but even he recognized, in the diminutive reproduction, the lavish creation of a skilled master. It depicted an event which took place in 1554:

Lady Jane Grey, a lovely young woman and momentary queen of England, was dressed in a simple flowing dress of white satin. Her lace top was unbuttoned at the neck and pushed open onto her shoulders. She was blindfolded and kneeling on a green velvet cushion. In front of her stood a crude wooden block. The artist had captured her at the moment that she was reaching out to find the block so that she could lay her neck down on it.

In groping about, she appeared to be off balance and unable to find the terrible accessory to her execution. Beside her, a high ranking royal official three times her age wearing a rich but somber robe of black velvet was leaning over her. His expression was solicitous and attentive. He was putting his arms around her and guiding her hands out to the rough hewn block.

Behind the central pair, two ladies in waiting were sprawling prostrate in grief. The scene was too painful for them to witness, and they were turning away to weep against a massive stone pillar. To the mistress's left, the executioner, a powerful, well built form, in red leggings, a red cap, and a brown leather jerkin, was leaning on the handle of  a huge axe. His expression was one of impartiality, and patience. There was a suggestion of  sympathy in his face. Nevertheless, hanging from his belt there was a tangle of braided leather straps with which he was ready to bind her wrists if necessary.

Sanchez puffed on his cigarette and ran his thumb experimentally over the glossy surface of the post card as if by savoring its sheen he might also reach back and feel the sumptuous fabric of the figures' dresses and cloaks.

The painting was striking for its contrasts. The plush cushion on which the lady knelt was set on a bedding of plain straw over a black drape as a precaution against an imminent mess.  The tender feelings of the ladies in waiting, the sympathetic assistance of the royal officer, and the gentle demeanor of the executioner all spilled like smooth calming oils over a turbulent undercurrent of violence which fairly burst from the scene. The fine clothes of the ladies and the royal official were incongruous beside the executioner's plain workmanlike outfit and the rough splintered chopping block with its black iron fittings. The lady herself, in brilliant white, stood out sharply against a background of blacks, browns and grays. Even her complexion was lighter and more translucently pure than the darker coloring of her attendants. Her trusting willingness to accommodate her own execution by searching out the block with her own hands only rendered the  braided straps in the executioner's belt the more poignantly suggestive.

Above all, the painting projected sexuality. This sprang most especially from the condemned woman's lovely figure. Her long red hair was draped over her shoulder to her front so as to bare the back of her beautiful neck. The satin of her dress, though opaque, was cinched tight and smooth at her waist. It revealed both her breasts and the youthful fecund readiness of her midriff. Her dress made clear, through the countless luxurious folds which pulled suggestively across her feminine form and then spilled with wanton casualness onto the floor, the tantalizing swell of her hips and the shape of her limbs. The position of her limbs, however, was, by far, the most damning. As she knelt and was beginning to lean forward, she had chosen to spread her legs wide; and as she did so, she appeared to straddle the thing that she leaned towards: the rough, ugly, and rigidly erect chopping block.

If Roesquez had been some barrio mule who had made a stupid mistake and accidentally flushed ten grand down a toilet, the painting would have been different - Vanderlyn's 'The Death of Jane McCrea' or Jean Gerome's 'The Slave Market' perhaps.

But Roesquez was educated and intelligent. She should have known better.

Sanchez set the card back down on the desk. It was blank and carried no written message, no address and no stamp. Nevertheless, it represented a formal order and  Sanchez understood it.

He took a puff of his cigarette and accidentally dropped an ash on his sleeve. He  tried to brush it off, but it left a smudge on the white silk. The mark was probably there to stay which amused him. He hated that shirt. It was a kind of shirt for Rivera: an expensive and tasteless uniform, a drug dealer's business suit. He only wore it because he knew it impressed them.

Sanchez set his cigarette down carefully on the edge of the desk so the ash would drop on the floor. He got Roesquez's briefcase and rooted around in it under a legal pad and some folders.

After a little hunting, he found her pen and grunted in satisfaction. It was a Mont Blanc, but not the usual fat extravaganza. It was rather slim and short with a screw cap and elegantly rimmed in gold with pearl accents. It was definitely a woman's pen, and it suited Roesquez. He dropped the pen into his shirt pocket, discarded the briefcase, and then finished his cigarette.

<DIV ALIGN=CENTER>***</DIV>

Roberto, Miguel and the others who had stayed to watch were lounging idly in the tiled room.  Wanda's bare fanny was prominent in air. There was a tenseness now about her spread legs that wasn't there before. She twisted her red patent leather heels about in a restless cycle as if doing so might somehow unlock the combination to the straps which held her ankles. In one of her hands, high on her back, she held a handful of her tangled blouse and bra with white fingered urgency. She had plunged her red polished nails hard into the light fabric, and if one had tried to pry it away from her, it surely would have ripped. Every once in  awhile, she lifted her bagged head up, and turned it to face in the opposite direction.

Sanchez went to the tray beside  her and rifled about among the paraphernalia there. He pushed around several syringes. These were not the ordinary variety intended for insignificant subcutaneous injections. They were heavy glass and metal devices equipped with grips, finger loops, and glistening four inch needles. They were intended to be delicately advanced through lengthy canals and intimately probed into opened orifices before being permitted to give up their delicate pin prick explorations and finally stick home into the cruelest possible sites so as to deliver their painful venom.

He abandoned his half hearted searching and looked up at Roberto.  "Needle," he said absently holding out his hand. Roberto passed him the one he had in his pocket along with a serum bottle. Sanchez expertly replenished the dose. Then he looked down at the back of Wanda's bagged head. She seemed to sense his presence and turned it in his direction. He gave her the shot.

"You're lucky," he said speaking to the back of her head. "That was a gift."

Even as he spoke, there was, once again, a noticeable change in her. She relaxed her hand a bit, and she ceased the restless twisting against the straps at her ankles. Sanchez pulled a stool up and set it in the trough between her outstretched legs. She was so well presented, he hardly needed to spread her open, but he did with two bare fingers.

She reacted by lifting up her head. He held her that way, and then finally as the drug finished working it's magic again, she put her head down and lay placidly. Her bottom was ready and open, and she allowed his fingers to spread her completely.

"The problems is," said Sanchez,  "the Cartel still has to punish you." He flattened and divided the cleavage of her bottom now with his other hand and used the opportunity to reposition his fingers at the edges of her anus in a slightly better spot.

He took Wanda's pen out of his pocket and held it up for Roberto and Miguel to look at. "It figures a lawyer would have a pen like this, don't you think?"

"Yeah, it looks expensive. Too bad." replied Roberto.

"I think you understand the dilemma," continued Sanchez speaking again to Wanda. "The Cartel has to send a message and leave its signature. It's nothing personal...Well, I mean the Cartel's business is nothing personal; but then again, it does all become rather personal don't you think?"

Sanchez held the pen in the opening of her anus. Then, almost absently, as if to do so  was the obvious and most natural thing for him to do, he put his hand over her vagina and touched her clitoris with his middle finger. Slowly and inexorably, he advanced the pen up into her bottom.

Teased by the persistent and troublesome penetration, she responded instinctively though perhaps not voluntarily. Once or twice, the Mont Blanc slipped uncharacteristically quickly into her despite its dry and therefore sticky surface. The tissue around her clitoris, and the lips of her vagina also began to grow plump and rosy. Sanchez spread her open and held a finger just inside her. It glistened distinctly wet when he withdrew it.

Roberto passed Sanchez an instantly recognizable device from the tray of tools. This was an ordinary sex toy in the shape of a pointed missile - a battery powered vibrator. Sanchez applied it to the spongy roof of her vagina at a point about two inches in. On feeling this, Wanda uttered a distinct animal like grunt through the muffle of her gag. Very shortly thereafter, The pen slipped effortlessly into her a further inch or so, and she was seen, mainly in the region of her pelvis to jerk mildly, but in a lasting spasm, against her confining straps.

"You know, sweetheart, it's not your pussy we're going to electrocute. It's your ass," said Sanchez allowing her a short respite from the vibrator. "If I were you, I should be very concerned about my ass."

The tenseness in her body was evident again; but this time, the source of it appeared to be a conflicted craving. Under the stimulus of the pen and the vibrator, she often pressed her legs so as to widen them against the straps, and then, as if remembering herself, she would relent and let them fall quite limp. She sometimes bent herself with squirming urgency over her porcelain stand before relaxing again in apparent penitence.

A slight looseness beneath the belt which ran over the small of her back pretending to cinch her firmly down betrayed her self destructive efforts. It  indicated that the cruel bolstered edge of over which she lay was no longer alone in forcing her to project her bottom up. She was also using it as an aid to accomplish that herself.

<DIV ALIGN=CENTER>***</DIV>

Wanda orgasmed twice under the influence of the vibrator. The novel sensation of coming that way with the pen in her ass stuck vividly in her head. Though it had induced in her a perverse desire which she hardly dared admit (a craving to engulf the pen entirely) she had begun to worry about taking in any more it.

The end of it now sat not quite fully buried but just protruding from the opening of her anus. The body was lodged well down and hugged tightly by her sphincter.  Though Sanchez had encountered no curve or obstacle while putting it in, she already had a strong sensation that it was  as deep as it could go. It was now stuck in her up to its hilt. Further advance seemed improbable and even alarming.

Yet the sensation of holding it so deep excited her. It induced  a fluttering of anticipation in her belly to be so perilously close to danger, and it was impossible for her to feel one sort of anticipation without feeling another sort: As the pen excited fear, her clitoris estimated pleasure. The unruly organ was by no means satisfied. This was perhaps the more so since Sanchez had stopped touching her and left a sensational void.

But Sanchez was not finished. He had only released her to retrieve several items from the terrible tray and get ready for the more invasive operation he was about to perform.

"You know, sweetheart, we play a game of a cat and mouse with the medical examiner. It's a bit like hide and seek really, but always with a little twist."

Sanchez held out a stainless steel dish. Roberto dropped Wanda's earrings into it. They made a 'clink' as they landed. Miguel added her pearl necklace.

"They are not very well equipped so we tease them. Hard things like a pen are easy to find. You can see them on a simple X-ray. Some other things - like semi gelatinous cartilage for example - are harder to spot. When they get down to business, though, they find everything. So you bury your little treasures someplace shocking. You want them to marvel and say, 'That poor girl'. You want them to be frightened. You want them to worry about getting caught on the wrong side of the Cartel."

Sanchez poked the jewelry around in the dish. He paused and regarded the spread legged girl in front of him with a serene and steady gaze. One of her unfastened garter straps had somehow got twisted under her belt. Very gently Sanchez lifted the black nylon spandex and freed the offending tab. Then he ran his finger lightly, almost apologetically, over the fading depression it had left in her skin. For a moment he seemed lost in thought. Then abandoning his reverie, he opened a package of condoms, and wadded it up. He stuck the post of an earring into the mass of rubber. Then he tied the little bundle into a second condom and made a neat bundle. He did the same for her other earring. Her pearl necklace he left naked and shimmering on its strand.

"That was another gift..." he began quietly under his breath.

There was a sudden tumultuous scurrying from the ferret cage followed by a torrent of squeaks.

"Will somebody get those ferrets out of here," he said annoyed.

One or two of the men who hung about against the back wall of the tiled room watching the spectacle uttered a murmur of disappointment. Sanchez declined to answer them, but grasped her thighs, and with an insistent pressure he induced her to turn her legs out. It was a minor adjustment, but one that lead to an even more uncompromised displaying (at least from the way it felt) of her anus. He had Roberto add a pair of  straps to hold her now in that new position. He then put his hand in the all important small of her back and made her cant her pelvis down. He insisted by a steady pressure of his hand that she hold herself that way.

It was an exercise that required her to think only of opening for him and accepting whatever was about to happen. That she might get away without doing it seemed remote, since each time she flagged, he patiently pushed her back down with his hand. It was a position which compelled her to set her belly hard down on the stand, and spill her viscera, as nearly as was possible within the confines of her body, out over the porcelain in shocking discovery of its cold surface.

As she was being made to do this, a wild fluttering commenced within her belly as she suddenly realized that Sanchez had only just begun to insert her expensive pen up into her - that he expected her to open even more for it, and let him bury it deep inside her.

<DIV ALIGN=CENTER>***</DIV>

It was one thing to be violated and humiliated with a pen, but quite another to embark on something that she knew, even in her drugged state, was no longer an adventurous novelty, but something that was physically unsafe. Wanda furiously rejected the notion of having the pen put further into her. She shook her head and objected into her gag. She tried, unsuccessfully, to rotate her legs back into a more closed position, and pull them together. With a great effort, she used  her head as a lever and tried to raise herself up off the stand.

"You're going to have to take it one way or another," said Sanchez. "You might as well let me do it and get it over with, don't you think?"

Wanda strained against her bonds.

Sanchez shrugged and said to Roberto, "Hold her head down."

"After six million dollars, you'd think she would cooperate," came the griping voice of one of the men at the back of the tiled room.

Roberto pushed her head down onto the stand. The smell of leather filled her nose.

She thought of her favorite handbag. She had once carried it by the strap in her teeth, and left permanent tooth marks. That was a careless girlish thing to do. It had ruined the bag, and she had thrown it out long ago. She had tried to get another one, but the price had doubled and the new style wasn't as nice.

A steady low voiced dialog from voices behind her filtered through the muffling barrier of her hood. This was broken by interludes of easy laughter. It was not Sanchez, Roberto or Miguel, but came from those others who were watching. The tone of their voices was mean and derisive. Occasionally there was a scraping of furniture on the floor. The smell of cigars began to filter through the little patch holes of her hood.

Wanda felt the caress of cold steel on her ass.

When she was little, she had once visited her uncle's farm. The men had built a fire and when dusk came, they sat upwind in lawn chairs to watch the blaze. The women brought beer and tidbits to eat. After dark the fire settled to a heap of burning embers. The sparks drifted up to dance about among the stars like  cavorting red devils darting around under the glittering silver eyes of their staid angelic superiors. The men began to smoke and leaned their heads together to talk. Their base and baritone voices drifted softly out over the landscape, unintelligible but comforting, along with the smell of cigars.

Some of the women took turns keeping the men supplied. This was hazardous duty. The women's faces glowed in ruddy unblemished perfection in the fire light.  It didn't matter her shape or age. She looked just fine in the dark. She would offer some refreshment to one or another of the men. He would politely nod his thanks, but some grinning half toothless man nearby would spank or pinch her hard on the ass. This would make her jump and look crossly behind her. The men would laugh at this in gravelly low tones. A few would venture lascivious comments followed by more laughter. The forgiving red light would mercifully spare her the humiliation of her angry blush.

The easy confidence and arrogant derisive demeanor of the men fascinated Wanda. She watched them inflict their abuse from the shadows. Then one of them spotted her and invited her forward with a kindly gesture . Soon four of five of the men were cajoling her to come over.

"Pretty girl," they said. "Come out. Don't be shy. Show us your nice dress. Give us a dance."

A few of them put their heads together and laughed. The fire did it's part to hide her own fantastic blush. She wanted to run away, but the attention of the men, even though it seemed dangerous - like the sugary encouragement a dog catcher lavishes on a wary stray - compelled her to advance. 

One of the men made a twirling motion with his finger, and she, heart pounding with excitement spun around until her dress flew out like a twirling parasol. Very soon, however, her aunt saw what was up and hustled her out of the firelight.

"But they said I was pretty," Wanda protested. "They wanted me to dance!"

"Of course they did, and a lot more besides!"

"What do you mean?" Wanda asked both frightened and curious.

"Never you mind."

A few of the men stared after her with piercing fire lit eyes. They bent to their neighbors and whispered behind cupped hands so that neither she nor her aunt could hear, and then snickered in that cold knowing way.

Wanda had enjoyed standing in front of the men. When her aunt had pulled her away, however, she had felt ashamed. She felt that way now. She recognized her own failure, and knew that she deserved to be punished.

When she had accepted that first fateful envelope of cash three years ago, she had accepted this as a possibility.  With the cartel, there was never an extenuating circumstance, no second chance, and never a shred of leniency. These were the terms of her employment. She had screwed up, and though fear gripped her, she admitted that she must now pay the price just as Sanchez said.

Sanchez had given her an extra dose of drug. That was kind of him.  There were other things as well. He had given her an enema and allowed her to evacuate herself. He had insisted Miguel fix the bolster to eliminate an uncomfortable crease. He had carefully arranged her gag to keep it from completely choking her. He had never once forced the pen into her, but allowed it to descend of its own accord.

She did not feel that he was being nice to her or lenient. In fact, she was sure that he intended to hurt her. He proceeded, however, with a thoroughness which impressed her. There was skill in his approach - a meticulous  patience - which suggested both competence and zeal.

With a tumultuous twisting in the depths of her belly which forcefully marked her anticipation, she decided that if she were going to be tortured, she would just as soon have Sanchez do it as anyone. Through the confusing fog of the drug, she realized that she trusted Sanchez, and by extension she also trusted the two thugs Roberto and Miguel. That they should be in charge of her instead of the likes of Rivera and the others  made her feel, in a perverse way, secure. What Sanchez had said was true. She wanted to get it over with. Intent on going forward, she willed herself, in spite of her fear, to lay relaxed over the bolster.

Sanchez rewarded her by freshly spreading her anus. He pushed on the pen with his finger, and Wanda felt it pass with cool and thrilling finality completely through her sphincter.

The tool was constructed from stainless steel. Sanchez coated it with a liberal amount of grease. He penetrated her with this ersatz medical instrument, and pushed the pen up inside her. As he advanced it into her, a growing globul of excess lubricant accumulated around her anus.

Though she sensed the rigid stick like presence of the pen in her rectum for a short time, she mostly felt the invasion of the steel tool as Sanchez inched it methodically through the opening of her anus. There was a moment of tenseness when the hard length of the pen threatened at the first flexure. Sanchez insinuated his hand between her legs and under her tummy. "Suck in your stomach," he said. Wanda obeyed. He pressed up on her belly with his hand, and then angled the invading shaft forward. The pen found its passage with sudden  unexpected ease.

Wanda felt compelled by the unaccustomed extent of this deep penetration to desperately relax onto Sanchez's hand in order to receive it. She bent herself over the bolster, and twisted her legs open with an urgency that was dictated by the depth at which he had stabbed her: It was a delicate process to be invaded so completely, and the extraordinary feeling of vulnerability which it produced compelled her to spread herself open and remain perfectly still simply to avoid any inadvertent harming movement.

Sanchez advanced the tool easily for an extraordinary distance. The pen itself had vanished entirely from her feeling. Nevertheless, the several internal and external pressures on her body, and most particularly the endless penetration through her anus set off a tantalizing combination of nerves. The smooth steady progress of the shaft seemed like the endless puncture of an inflating needle which imperceptibly introduced its air and gradually made her clitoris stiffen.

"Good girl," he complimented her.

Wanda whined plaintively into her gag in answer. Gone were all thoughts of the smell of leather, handbags, bonfires, and dancing as she poured her concentration onto the thing in her ass. He impaled her almost painlessly. Inevitably, however, a tight curve of her passage, the left colic flexure, halted any further penetration, and Wanda squealed though her gag in piteous complaint.

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In her desperation, and under the influence of the drugs, Wanda had given up all trace of lawyerly decorum. The remnants of her stylish clothes lay on the floor or bunched about her in slatternly disarray.  She lay with her legs spread wide and her bottom splayed in broad and humiliating expanse.  Her anus, nestled softly at the pillowed epicenter of her helpless ass, seemed, in its runnelled, puckered, and imperfect brown colored irregularity,  a sharp contrast to the only parts of her that remained perfection. These last vestiges of her dignity were her red polished finger nails, and her shiny red high heels. 

She had been compelled to luxuriously swallow her pen, her necklace, and her earrings though her most soiling opening. It seemed cruel to ask her to accept anything more through that soft compliant aperture, but Sanchez did.

Roberto wrapped a leather strap around her neck and snugged it tight, but Sanchez shook his head. He preferred to let her last as long as possible.

"Leave it there. Make sure it's not choking her."

Sanchez put one of the cruel looking steel and glass hypodermics down on the porcelain stand on each side of her. Then he explored each of her squashed breasts from the side to be sure he could lift enough of her flesh up from the copper plates to expose a portion of areole and nipple. It was an awkward access for the needles, but worth the convenience of having her bound face down.  There was no practical reason to inject her tits, but the medical examiner would probably discover it and know that she had suffered.

He placed his hand up into the thick dark mat of her pubic hair and allowed his fingers to sink into the springy coils. He held them there for a short time to feel the delicate coils envelope his fingers. It was a pensive caress. As he withdrew his hand, he brushed the smooth skin between her thighs. It was virgin skin there, still white and not yet corrupted to the rich olive color which covered the rest of her. Fine dark hair grew there as well. It reached up into the crack of her bottom. He traced this hair up around her anus and slicked it out from the opening. As he did so, he made combed perfection out of the disordered black tangle and mess of lubricant which had  accumulated there.

Addressing himself partly to her and partly to Roberto and Miguel he said. "You know, it's never quite as terrible as they imagine. They see the conclusion and their imaginations get the better of them. If they are new, they rush out of the room and get sick."

Then to her alone, he lied, "It's not so very bad - a little bit like getting an enema - a feeling of fullness - a few pricks like bee stings. Very soon it's over."

The hypodermics were filled with a suspension of pure capsaicin. They were likely to feel like very much more than bee stings. He might better have likened each injection to being impaled by a red hot poker or being sliced by a white hot knife.

Lower vertebrates hated it as much as people. If they touched the colloidal venom, it burned them just as cruelly. You could pour it into water in a ring to create an invisible barrier. Semi aquatic creatures would never cross its boundary no matter how uncomfortable or threatened. They would just as soon swim voluntarily into boiling water.

Injected directly into the area surrounding the passage through an anus, or a rectum or  a urethra, it leached slowly into the opening and rendered those thoroughfare utterly impassable to any nervously endowed creature. Even a person would find an exploration with an ungloved finger as intolerable as plunging the digit into a fire.

Sanchez took a metal catheter from the tray and greased it. He spread her labia open with two fingers and then insinuating the tip into the opening of her urethra, he slipped the shaft home. As soon as the little tube breached the void of her bladder, a gush of urine flooded out of her. It splashed into the trough in the floor like some sloppy bovine release.  When she had finished this helpless evacuation, he pushed the catheter in a little further to set the slightly bulged end trapped inside her. Then he attached an alligator clip and wire.

Sanchez flipped a switch. A crackling sound cut the air. Wanda's thighs and pee hole began to tingle. She felt a cold metal object inserted up her ass. A rod? A forceps? A tube? It was larger than what she had accepted before. It threatened and seemed to expand as it entered, but its Vaselined bulk parted her easily. As it divided her, she experienced a sensation of luxurious spreading along with a feeling of cool penetration. Accepting it was not a matter of willingness, but a matter of fact. He simply made it go slowly and delicately into her whether she wished it or not.

There was an incongruity in what he was doing to her. The electric shocks, the tools, the method of her torture were brutal. Yet Sanchez had made sure that her jewelry did not prick her; that the tools he inserted into her were well greased; that he touched her gently; and even, at times, compelled her to experience pleasure. Sanchez was well aware of the inconsistency. He was merely painting with the same schizophrenic brush that Delarouche had used on 'The Execution of Lady Jane Grey'.

Sanchez and Roesquez were merely traversing their way down a similar canvas. The soft rolled towel over which she lay; her shoes; her nails; her stockings; even her satin underpants which now gagged her; the smoothly polished instruments; and the comfortable grease - these were her luxurious velvet cushion; her sumptuous clothes; her distraught ladies in waiting; her caring executioner. Like lady Jane Grey, she herself furnished the erotic spark to the tableau by reveling in terrifying sensation: The vibrator was a pleasure she had been unable to deny. She herself understood the urge to spread her legs out wide on the figurative cushion so as to better accommodate a rough impregnation. Doing so both terrified and excited her, It thrilled and humiliated her.

So far, only the luxurious and the pleasantly sensuous had defined her experience. Sanchez had studiously refrained from hurting her; but they were moving inexorably, now, to the more brutal portions of the canvass. They had come to the coarse straw, the splintered chopping block, the rough forged iron, and the frightening axe. Wanda knew it. With dreadful anticipation, she leaned forward and figuratively groped about blindly for the block but, like lady Jane, she could not quite find it.  

The cold metal object in her ass began to leak stray unintended current into her. The errant voltage strayed up to her breasts and tweaked her nipples ferociously once or twice. Her clitoris responded violently to these accidental jolts. Sanchez turned the dial up a little. The herding electrical prod could be turned up much higher, and soon it would be, but it was not only intended for her. Sanchez saw no point in overwhelming her with it just yet.

He set a trio of the hypodermics conveniently beside him. Two of these were to set a ring of capsaicin around the entrance to her rectum; the third was to set a similar ring around the passage into her bladder and for the gratuitous purpose of exploring the mouth of her vagina, her labia, and the region around her clitoris.

Inevitably, a drop of the serum always gathered at the tip of the needle and as it   pierced and smeared this minuscule droplet along it path, it felt like the point was hot. If the site was three inches into a girl's rectum, she had to endure this stabbing pain in foreshadowing expectation of the injection proper. Sanchez knew very well how painful it was. When the injections were finally given, he had seen more than a few girls break the straps which held their legs. Roberto pushed Wanda's head down on the stand and held it there. Sanchez spread the taught rim of her anus away from the metal object which impaled her. He widened the funnel on one side with his finger, and then introduced the needle beside the metal. He had no intention, yet, of piercing her. He turned the sharp beveled tip to plane smoothly and uncutting against the larger metal impalement. Then he slowly pushed the needle in.

Wanda felt all this and urgently tried to relax her bottom. At first she did not understand what was happening. She only knew that he was prying her open to insert something beside the thing that was already in her. Then she felt the slender needle. A residue of  venom was already on its surface. The needle began to burn like a hot wire being put slowly up her ass.  

This minute invasion was not so severe as to throw her into a panic, but the capsaicin residue rendered it intense enough to be uncomfortable. When she felt what was happening, she began to squeal in a long escalating protest into her gag.

To add a perverse dimension to this first painful operation, Sanchez stuck the vibrator into her vagina and pressed it up against the roof of her passage as he had done before, and tormented her with methodical and diabolical skill. When he had finally buried the needle, he allowed her taught anus to hold the syringe pinned against the larger impalement, and left it sticking there ready.

In a delicate reversion to the luxurious, Sanchez wiped a spot on the opposite side of her anus with a cotton ball. This bone to hygiene was ludicrous under the circumstances, but when he had finished, the soft cotton showed a faint brown stain. It was soiled lubricant which had been pulled from her rectum after one of the several insertions that he had already made.

Sanchez pulled her anus open at the prepared spot for the second hypodermic. This time, however, he declined to benignly slide it in alongside. Instead, he pierced her muscled flesh. From there, he might have proceeded humanely by quickly burying the requisite length of needle into her in one smooth and easy shot; but this was to be the first of several such breaches, and it was as proper a commencement of her corporeal punishment as any. The tiny droplet at the tip was still several times the volume that a typical bee could manage, and once pushed hard up against raw nerve it had its effect.

Wanda was hardly prepared for it, and, like all stings, it sparked a thoughtless rage at the site at which the needle stabbed her. It was the kind of pain which instantly forces one to jump and swat violently, with tears in one's eyes, at the infuriating prick.

Wanda's body went rigid against her straps. She squealed into her gag,  and twisted the fabric which she clutched in her hands up into a knot. She tried desperately to close her legs, but Sanchez only worked the teasing sex toy more insistently inside her while slowly piercing her.

If she could have bitten or clawed at the vibrator with her vagina she would have. As it was, she had to content herself with rhythmic fighting squeezes. Each time she pressed herself on the white hot wire, it  infuriated her afresh and showed her how helpless she was. She was unable to withdraw, extricate herself from, or otherwise avoid the slow methodical searing advance of the thin merciless fire which he inflicted upon her. 

She had seen the syringes on the tray, and she thought that Sanchez must be cruelly injecting the toxin into her,  but then she realized that he had injected nothing. He was merely preparing her.

While he was still inserting the second needle, Wanda finally lost her composure and let go of the last threads of her dignity. She burst into tears and began to cry. Her body fell limp, and she accepted the remainder of the burning needle with no discernable complaint. If they were going to do this to her, then she wanted to get it over with quickly. In an act of bravery and despair much akin to the act of a soldier leaping from his trench to rush forward into battle, she lay her head down in placid resignation, and spread her legs as wide, relaxed, and obediently as she could against the straps.

The electrical box crackled and discharged. A delicious agonizing torture simultaneously seized her nipples, her anus, and her thighs, and jolted her punished clitoris to the very edge of an orgasmic cliff. The current teased, but never quite satisfied.  It promised, but never quite delivered.

"Does this take long?" asked Miguel.

"Yeah, awhile," Sanchez answered.

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