The Fine Art of Torture (Slave of the Aristocracy Book 3)

by Ashley Zacharias

  Her lungs were empty.

  He grabbed her ankles and pulled her legs apart. When he fell between them, he didn’t penetrate her immediately, but stared for a long time into her wide eyes, filmed by the plastic.

  He was more interested in watching her suffocate than in raping her.

  She closed her mouth, trapping the plastic between her teeth and tried to bite a hole in it, but it was too tough.

  He watched her ineffectual strategy, fascinated by her struggle to survive.

  He wanted to see her die. He would rape her when she was in her death throes. Come into her cunt as it was relaxing into lifelessness.

  He had promised to remove the bag after he had come. She tried to slide down under him, impale him on her cunt so that she could squeeze him into a fast orgasm, whether he wanted it or not.

  That didn’t work, either. He simply slid down with her so that the tip of his cock remained an inch away from the opening of her cunt.

  He watched while she was dying.

  A finger reached around the professor’s head and poked a hole in the plastic where it was stretched taut over her gaping mouth.

  “I think the lady wants some air,” Betsy said.

  The doctor jerked his head around in shock to see people walking into the bedroom.

  “I want the lady to have air,” Mr. B said, “and I want you to get off her, Dr. Goldman.”

  Irene gasped great gulps of sweet air through the finger-sized hole in the bag.

  “Who the hell are you?” the doctor asked.

  “I’m Betsy,” Betsy said. “You forced your way into my house and raped me two weeks ago.”

  “I did no such thing,” the doctor said.

  “You must have,” Mr. B said. “Because I was there and saw you.”

  “Me, too,” another young man said.

  There were a number of young men and women in the bedroom that Irene didn’t recognize.

  Moe stared at his accusers.

  “I’m the girl that you raped in Wickley Alley two days ago,” another young woman said.

  “I saw that one, too,” Mr. B said.

  “I don’t even know where Wickley Alley is,” Moe replied.

  “Sure you do,” another stranger said. “That’s where you hide your car when you’re watching the building to see this here slave come and go. We’ve all seen you lurking around in there.”

  “Yeah,” the third girl, another stranger to Irene, said. “You raped me there, too. Right in the middle of the day.”

  “That’s right,” another strange boy said. “I saw that with my own eyes. You shouldn’t have done it in the daytime. You should have waited until after dark.”

  Yet another boy nodded in agreement. “Yeah. That’s what I thought when I saw you.”

  Moe rolled off of Irene. His cock was limp and shriveled almost out of sight below his belly.

  Betsy helped Irene sit up and unwrapped the cord about her neck so that she could pull the bag off her head.

  “You’re all nuts,” the doctor said. “You’re lying. Fantasizing. Hallucinating.”

  “That’s for the police to decide,” Mr. B said. “We might be nuts but you’re a rapist. I’d rather be nuts than a rapist. People have more sympathy for nuts.”

  “I’m not a rapist. I never raped any of you.”

  “You are a rapist,” Mr. B said. “You were raping Irene right now.”

  “No, I wasn’t. She’s a slave. It’s impossible to rape a slave. A man is allowed to do anything he wants to a slave. So I didn’t rape her.”

  “Let’s find out.” Mr. B raked Irene’s sweat-soaked hair away from her face. “Do you feel like you’ve been raped?”

  “Yes. I’ve had sex with a lot of men. Sometimes it was rough. But only this bastard made me feel like I was being raped.”

  “There you go, Dr. Goldman. If she feels like she was raped then you were raping her. That’s logical.”

  “That’s not logical at all,” he replied.

  “I feel like you raped me, too,” Betsy said. “Especially when I saw you raping her.”

  “Me, too,” one of the other girls said.

  The third one nodded in agreement.

  “So there you have it,” Mr. B said. “These three girls aren’t slaves and they’re willing to go to the police and say how your raped them. And the four of us guys are all going to go along and swear on a stack of Bibles that we saw you do it. We’ve seen you hanging around here for weeks and we know the times when you don’t have an alibi and we’ve all got our stories straight. You might be an important doctor and you might even hire a lawyer who can convince a judge that you didn’t do it, but you’re going to see your name in all the newspapers every day for months.”

  “Not many fine ladies are going to be coming to you to let you peer into their intimate places any more. I’m pretty sure about that,” Betsy said.

  “You can’t do this to me,” the doctor said. “Everybody will know that you’re all liars.”

  “Funny thing,” one of the strange girls said. “We can do it. We all have bad reputations. Nothing that we say to the police is going to make us look any worse than we already are. You, though? You have a fine reputation to protect and an accusation of rape sticks like glue, even if it’s false. I suggest you think about that.”

  “Irene is our friend,” Mr. B said. “Don’t hurt her any more. Don’t come around here any more. Don’t see her any more. Even if she dies in a traffic accident or falls down a flight of stairs when she’s all alone, we’re going straight to the police and tell our stories. You’ve had your fun but it’s over. Accept that and move on or you’re going to regret it every day for the rest of your life.”

  The doctor stared into the seven hard young faces and didn’t doubt for a minute that they would follow through on their threat.

  “You heard my friends. Now, get the hell out of here!” Irene said.

  Moe scooped his clothes and shoes off the floor and ran, bare-assed out the door.

  The people in the room grinned at each other.

  “He won’t be raping you any more,” Mr. B said.

  “I don’t know how to thank you.”

  Mr. B raised an eyebrow.

  Irene laughed. “I guess I do know how to thank you. At least the boys. And any girls who want what I can give.”

  The boys grinned. The three girls shook their heads and left quietly. Betsy kissed her on the cheek on her way out.

  “Now, if one of you would mind getting the handcuff key out of the tall cabinet downstairs. It’s on the shelf right next to the other handcuffs. Unless you’d rather keep me handcuffed. I don’t mind being restrained when it’s in fun.”

  “I know what you can do with your hands,” Mr. B said. “I want those cuffs off. Roy, go get the key.”

  “Let me show you to my bedroom,” Irene said. “We’ve got an hour and a half for me to show you what a pleasure slave can do for four good men.”

  * * *

  The torture devices had been moved to a gallery at the university. It was a big space with tall ceilings, ecru walls, and recessed spotlights.

  Irene had to admire the aesthetics. The devices looked good in the studio but in the gallery, with proper lighting and lots of room to move around and view them from all sides, they were spectacular. Brass and steel had been polished until it gleamed like gold and silver. Maple and mahogany and walnut and cherry and rosewood glowed as though illuminated by dark inner lights.

  Her two torture devices were featured prominently. The professor was more interested in curating the best possible exhibition than in highlighting his own craftsmanship. It wasn’t that he didn’t have his ego invested in his art, it was that his ego with invested in the show as a whole, not in specific pieces. And both of her pieces were astounding additions.

  The exhibition had been advertised heavily and a line had begun forming at the door a half hour before it would open.

  Irene could see the art enthusiasts throug
h the glass. Mostly they were the aristocrats and academics who had been the target market for the advertising.

  The professor had borrowed six other slaves, all strangers to Irene. They were terrified of the torture devices and stared at them like rats staring at cobras.

  Irene couldn’t blame them. She was terrified, too, and she knew far more about what would happen than the strange slaves. Though the professor had promised her that no slave would be tortured for more than two hours a day, and she had conveyed that promise to the other slaves, that was still a lot of torture. Basically, at least one slave would be mounted in one of the torture devices at all times during the seventy hours that the exhibition was to be open.

  Tonight, opening night, would be different. All of the slaves would be mounted at the same time to create a spectacle and generate buzz for the exhibition.

  Irene could not deny that a lot of pain was coming to all of them. Especially as the professor didn’t have to limit the torture to only two hours per day per slave. A promise made to a slave meant nothing. If he decided that he needed to torture more slaves for longer periods for the sake of the show, he would.

  At least Irene could tell the others that she had experienced every torture in the room herself, most more than once, and that nothing in here would cause permanent injury or disfigurement. At worse, they would have a few days of sore muscles and stiff joints.

  She did note that the borrowed slaves had little visible scarring, even from caning, which was common with pleasure slaves. The professor had carefully chosen slaves who were as innocent about torture as possible.

  Chatting with the other slaves, trying to reassure them as much as possible, Irene had learned that the professor had won their service in various games of chance with their owners. She was amused to hear that the professor had staked her own service against theirs. She had a reputation among some of the aristocracy and was considered desirable, not for either torture or sex, but because she was an accomplished entertainment director. She knew how to organize terrific orgies and that was a highly-valued service.

  The professor had never lost a hand when he was wagering her service against a slave that he wanted to feature in his art exhibition.

  He was an incorrigible cheat.

  She wasn’t surprised to find that she didn’t know any of the other slaves. He had won her in a game with Lord Snow so he wasn’t about to dip back into that well yet. A cheat dares not fleece the same chump too often lest the chump get suspicious.

  All the slaves were nude. That was unusual. Though pleasure slaves were normally kept nude in private, they wore housedresses in public for the sake of decency. Or at least, for as much decency at the flimsy fabric could provide when it was worn without underwear. Which, when the rain wet the fabric and made it cling, was little decency, indeed.

  Few of the ladies waiting to see the exhibition had ever seen a naked slave. Probably most of the male academics had never had occasion to use a pleasure slave and were equally unfamiliar with the sight of nude female beauty. It was only the male aristocrats who were accustomed to the sight of naked pleasure slaves.

  The slaves didn’t like being nude in public, but no one cared what slaves liked or disliked. And the slaves knew that public nudity wasn’t the worst thing that was going to happen to them in the coming week. Not by a far sight.

  As they stared fixedly at the torture devices, Irene could hear them moaning softly in fear.

  That would be music to the professor’s ears.

  The exhibition was to be opened at seven o’clock and remain open until ten.

  None of the slaves would be mounted in the devices until the doors were opened. The process of mounting a woman into a device was more dramatic than simply coming upon her when she was already there. And the professor wanted as much drama that he could create.

  “Five minutes,” the professor said, looking at his watch. “Take your places on the back wall.”

  The slaves were to stand along the back wall, waiting their turn to be brought forth and tortured.

  The atmosphere in the room was thick with their fear.

  That was an important part of the aesthetic. The professor was keenly aware that the psychological aspect of torture was as important as the physical.

  The doors were opened and people streamed in, filling the gallery. They spent the first few minutes reading the didactic plates that were mounted on the walls behind each of the devices and chatting with each other. Irene had read all the plates. Each explained how the device worked and what kind of pain it would inflict. There was no fancy artistic language, no critical analysis or historical context. Only the mechanics and physiology were explained in simple, blunt terms. The torture itself was the art and the professor thought that did not need explanation.

  Irene’s biggest surprise when she read the didactic plates was that she, Slave Irene, was credited as the artist on the two torture devices that she had designed and built.

  She found that strange in more than one way. First, there was no need. She was the professor’s property. Whatever she did, he owned outright. Crediting her as an artist was much like crediting his lathe or table saw.

  Second, a slave’s name was an ephemeral thing. Owners typically re-christened their slaves when they bought them. The only reason that she had not been given a different name was because “Slave Irene” was inscribed on the hateful collar that she was forced to wear about her neck like an animal.

  Third, she was acquiring a blush of fame as a slave that she had never known as the wife of a lord. It was odd to feel that she had contributed more to culture when she as a member of the lowest class possible than she had contributed when she was a member of the envied aristocracy.

  She didn’t know how she felt about that. It was as though she were a traitor to the social class to which she had been born and that she had rejected when she’d climbed up on the auction block.

  * * *

  Ten minutes after the professor opened the doors, he gestured to the first slave, a blond beauty who was slightly plumper than most pleasure slaves. Her owner liked a bit of heft.

  She trembled visibly as he walked her to the bed of nails.

  Irene hoped that her fear didn’t overwhelm her.

  The bed had been modified since Irene had spent a sleepless night lying on it. The sides had been removed so that the slave lying on it would be more visible. Curved oak bars would be locked over top of her. They did not press down, only imprison the slave so that she could not rise from the bed of spikes.

  The most significant modification was that every second nail had been lowered by a quarter inch so that the slave would feel the painful pressure of the fewer, longer nails more acutely.

  The previous week, Irene had spent a couple of hours lying on the modified bed and could attest to the suffering that it caused.

  The professor had the slave lie face down on the nails so that her breasts, belly, and thighs would be punished. Her face rested on an oak plank to ensure that it was not stabbed or cut. Small mercy.

  Lying on her belly, the slave could not pull on the overhead bars to lift herself from the nails.

  She could only lie there and endure.

  Irene remembered the terrible feeling of her nipples being pressed hard against the spikes when she had been forced to lie facedown. Now, looking at another slave suffering in the same way, Irene’s breasts ached in sympathy. She didn’t notice that she raised her hand to her own breast and gave it a quick massage to relieve the sympathetic pain.

  Men and women gathered about the bed to watch the blonde slave suffer.

  They were amused by her heartfelt whimpering.

  Ten minutes later, the professor led the second slave, a shapely redhead, to his crucifixion frame.

  Irene cringed. In her opinion, that was the second most terrible device in the show. Only the device that she had completed most recently was worse.

  The professor strapped the slave’s hands to bars on the sides of
the frame. Then he turned a crank to stretch them until they were taut but did not pull them hard enough to hurt. A second crank slowly drew the slave’s outstretched arms upward. When her arms had been pulled high enough to put painful stress on her shoulders, the slave naturally rose on her toes to gain a bit of relief.

  The professor continued to crank her hands up until she was forced to stand high on her toes.

  Her calves would not be able to support her body weight for long. When her legs gave out, she would slump and her arms would have to bear her weight. Shoulders were not designed to support that much weight at that angle. The pain would be severe.

  Irene could see in the slave’s face that she understood her predicament. Her shoulders were already aching fiercely. She knew that when her calves failed her, the agony would be unbearable. But she would have no choice but to bear it anyway.

  The audience found her predicament more entertaining that the slave on the bed of nails.

  Ten minutes after that, the professor gestured to the next slave, another blonde. Unlike the first who was a natural blonde, this one’s hair was the bright gold hue that came from a bottle.

  Half of the audience that was clustered around the crucifixion frame broke away to follow the latest victim. The other half remained, wanting to see what happened when the slave’s calves failed.

  It would not be long; her legs were already quivering with the effort required for her to support herself.

  The new slave was mounted on the Spanish horse. The men, in particular, were fascinated by the sight of the narrow rounded edge of the wooden wedge parting her labia and pressing hard into her shaved slit.

  Even before the professor finished locking her ankles into the shackles that would keep her from dismounting, she began wailing in pain and pulling on the handcuffs that pinned her arms behind her back.

  Irene knew how quickly the Spanish horse began biting into a cunt. Two hours of that would be an eternity.

  Everyone turned around to look when the slave in the crucifixion frame screamed. Her legs had given way and her shoulders were now taking her entire body weight.