by Paul Blades
When the beating finally came to an end, Deirdre’s whole body was afire. She was sobbing heavily and hung virtually lifeless in her chains. Esmeralda turned to the audience and made a little bow. There was a round of excited applause and cheers. Esmeralda waved the group to silence once more and made an announcement. As she spoke, Deirdre saw the German man who had promised to punish her step up on the platform. He was carrying one of the wooden bludgeons that seemed to be standard issue for the guards. Deirdre realized dolefully that the man had come to collect her debt. “Oh, god, please!” she cried out in her mind. “No more!”
Esmeralda turned to her. “You were a very naughty girl to give Günter such a hard time. He is going to punish you for that. I am sure you will keep in mind the pain you will suffer in the future when you are given an order.” She nodded to Günter to commence.
Günter’s hand moved like lightning. The bludgeon struck her in the side with brute force. It made a dull sound when it hit her. A wave of nausea flowed through her as the pain reverberated through her body. “Uuuuuuuuuuuugh!” she moaned dully. It hurt so much that she was virtually disabled from any other response.
He laid the next blow into the side of her right thigh. Her leg collapsed underneath her as the bruised muscle sent her an agonizing wave of pain. He struck her on the other side, high and low and then in the back, just above her kidneys on both sides. The final blows he delivered to her breasts, pounding cruelly against each one.
Deirdre was in so much pain she could barely breathe. Her whole body was enthralled with agony. A low, anguished groan emanated from her mouth. She was hanging in her chains, her legs unable to sustain her. The German was grinning at her. He lifted her chin with the club until she was looking in his eyes.
“Tomorrow,” he said. “I will come to your cell and fuck you. You better be good.”
Deirdre moaned in reply. She couldn’t bear the thought of this evil man possessing her body. Her stomach clamped into a knot at the very thought of it. She knew, nonetheless, that when it came time, she would fuck him like a demon. She never, ever wanted to experience a punishment like that again.
Günter turned and made a bow to the crowd. He received a round of applause from the impressed men. Esmeralda made a signal with her hands and four servants, peasant men dressed in white coats and black pants, moved to obey her. They brought forward two long, black divans. At the same time Deirdre felt hands undoing her chains. Determined, strong hands grabbed onto her arms, preventing her from collapsing and dragged her to one of the divans. She saw that the blond woman, Natasha, was being brought to the other. Before she could react, she was draped over it face down and she felt her wrists and ankles being affixed to rings on the sides near the floor. A strap went around her waist and back, securing her firmly down.
And then she saw it. Two men wearing large asbestos mittens were carrying a large brazier forward. They placed it in between the two divans. In the brazier were two branding irons. Their tips were red hot.
“Nooooooooooo!” Deirdre cried out. “Oh god, please don’t brand me! Oh god!”
That was all she got out. A hand came from behind her and shoved her ball gag back into her mouth. It was quickly buckled behind her head.
Esmeralda, wearing heavy leather gloves took hold of one of the irons. Its end was in the shape of a papaya, much like the designs on the walls. She stepped over to the blond who was wailing and protesting from behind her gag. She bucked and struggled in her confinements, but she wasn’t going anywhere. Esmeralda waived the branding iron at the crowd and received their vociferous encouragement. Then, without hesitation, with practiced care, she jabbed the red hot iron into the blond woman’s rear flesh.
“Ahhhhiiieeeeeeee! Ahhhhiiiiieeeeeee!” she called out. Her body stiffened as if a bolt of electricity had gone through it. Esmeralda held the brand against her flesh for several seconds and then withdrew it. The blond girl fainted.
Deirdre had watched the whole thing in misery. She saw one of the guards come forward wearing a surgical glove. He pasted a yellowish substance on the girl’s wound and then covered it with a square bandage.
Esmeralda put the spent brand back in the fire. To Deirdre’s horror, she picked up the other one.
Deirdre closed her eyes and sobbed. She knew that the moment she was branded, she would be enslaved forever. She would be marked as a chattel, a thing to be owned. Even if later she were ever freed, the mark would denote her as someone on whom anything could be imposed. She thought of the moment she had reached for Big Al’s money, how she had hesitated for a mere second. If only she had obeyed that last vestige of conscience, she wouldn’t be here right now. If only she hadn’t been a thief. If only she hadn’t been a slut and a whore she wouldn’t have been at Al’s to begin with. As she prepared herself for the fiery kiss of the branding iron she would have given anything to be able to change the events of that night.
Esmeralda waved the new iron in the air for the benefit of the crowd. The men cheered and hollered their approval. Deirdre heard her step behind her. There was a pause. She stiffened herself in preparation. And then, she felt a pain so virulent that it seemed to take possession of her soul. She screamed louder than she had ever screamed before. And then, mercifully, she passed out.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Out of the darkness, she heard a voice. It was a woman’s voice. It sounded like her bunkmate, Sandy. “Deirdre!” it said. Then louder, “Deirdre!” And then it yelled “Deirdre!”
She opened her eyes. She saw Sandy’s face. “Oh my god, she thought, “they’ve gotten Sandy too!”
“Deirdre! What are you doing in there?” Sandy asked.
“W,what?” Deirdre replied.
“I asked you why are you in that closet. You were screaming at the top of your lungs.”
“Huh!” was all Deirdre could say. She blinked her eyes twice. It was really Sandy. She looked around. She was in the dressing room closet! She couldn’t believe it! “Oh my god!” she called out.
“What are you doing in there, Deirdre?” Sandy asked her again. “I was looking for you all night.”
“I,I fell asleep. I don’t know….I was tired and sat down….And then I was….Oh, Sandy! I had the most horrible, horrible dream!”
“What?”
“Yeah, I dreamt that I was kidnapped by Big Al and he sold me to this Mexican guy who smuggled me to Mexico and then sold me to this whorehouse way in the south. And I was whipped and they kept me in chains and they fucked me and kept me in cages! And then, then, they branded me! And then I woke up!”
Suddenly, she realized that there was a sharp pain in her buttocks, just where the branding iron had touched her. She lifted her ass and felt underneath. She pulled out a half dollar sized earring. She had been sitting on it. “Look!” she showed Sandy. “Look! It’s only an ear ring! I’ve been sitting on it all night!” Deirdre began to laugh uncontrollably.
“It was all a dream! Oh, thank god! I prayed and prayed and prayed!” she shouted. She leapt to her feet. It felt so wonderful to be free!
“What time is it?” she asked Sandy.
“It’s a little after 9:30 in the morning. I’ve got a shift at 10. You do too, so you better get cleaned up and get ready.”
“No I don’t!” Deirdre shouted. “I don’t ever have a shift again! I’m through! I’m going home to Atlanta and find Frank. I’m never gonna bare my coosh to a john again. I’m free!”
She grabbed her bag and ran past her friend. She could hear the music from the bar already blaring out. She looked and a girl was dancing desultorily on one of the platforms. Three or four trucker types were sitting at the bar nursing beers. “Goodbye!” Deirdre shouted.
As she came to the door, she bumped into a man wearing dark blue workman’s clothes and carrying a tool bag. His shirt had a white patch on it over his right breast that said, “Acme Security Company.”
“Are you here to fix the safe?” Deirdre asked him.
“Yeah,�
�� the man answered.
“Oh, thank god!” Deidre replied. She kissed him and ran out the door. Fifteen minutes later, Deirdre had all her things stuffed in her car, including the money she had saved up, and was easing the car out onto the road. She pointed the car north towards the Interstate and stepped on the gas.
She was in a state of exhilaration. She had turned over a new leaf. From now on, everything was going to be on the up and up. It had been a horrible dream. She couldn’t think of where it came from. She knew one thing, she would die if anything like that ever happened to her. It would be worse than death, a life sentence in hell.
About twenty minutes later, Deirdre’s car was heading east doing 75 on the Interstate. She had never felt better in her life. She was just getting into the rhythm of the road when she felt that burning pain she had felt in the closet where she had been sitting on the earring. “That’s funny,” she thought.
And then, all round her, she began to hear the voices of men. Excited, rambunctious voices. Something grabbed her hair and yanked her head back. An object, soft and hard at the same time was being jammed into her mouth. “What the fuck?” she tried to yell. For some reason she couldn’t move her hands. The object passed over her lips and into her throat. She started to choke. Another object was poking at her ass. She squirmed. She opened her eyes. “Oh nooooooooo!” she wailed.
The man in front of her was pumping his cock away at her frantically. The cock behind her pushed past her delicate anal ring, tearing her membranes. Her hands and wrists were confined to the divan. She could feel the burning sensation of the brand on her right rear cheek. It was a dream! All that with Sandy! When she was branded, she passed out and had a dream! “Oh my god! Oh my god! It’s real! It’s real!” she shouted inwards. “Oh, nooooooooo!”
A flood of spume filled her mouth and then, a moment later, another cock took its place.